My husband was 11 when Germany surrendered and American Soldiers occupied his home town, Hoff, Germany.  He loved the American occupation, first because it meant food.  He could wait outside the gate of the compound and, after breakfast, salvage piles and piles of pancakes to take home to his mother and sisters.  It also offered enterprise.  He followed the soldiers, picked up their cigarette butts, and when he had collected enough tobacco, took it to a farmer and traded it for eggs or milk. 
     But more important than anything else he was struck by the American soldiers themselves.  They walked tall.  Even the lowliest privates strode like Gods, full of a sense of self-worth, fully alive to themselves. 
     He recognized, even at that young age, the difference between and subject and a citizen.  Americans see themselves the equal of anyone, beholden to no one.  We have, over the last 40 years, allowed a group of politicians to entrench themselves into a kind of ruling class, and their rhetoric reflects that they have forgotten that truth, that citizens are beholden to no one.  So John McCain dismisses the Tea Party as Hobbits.  I campaigned for you Mr. McCain, twice, but the next time I see you I’m going to put my little hairy foot someplace where the sun don’t shine. 
     Diane Feinstein oozed disdain, huge purple globules of disdain, to think that Ted Cruz could question her knowledge of the constitution.  “I’m not a sixth grader. I’ve been on this committee for 20 years.” (As though her working for 20 to ban firearms were some kind of recommendation. As Cromwell told a member of Parliament:  "You have sat too long for any good that you have been doing lately. ... In the name of God, go!")
     Feinstein ended her tirade with, “I respect your views, Mr. Cruz.  I wish you could respect mine.”  She obviously does not respect Ted Cruz’s views.  She oozed contempt the entire hearing.  I wanted Cruz to school her once again on the meaning of “shall not be infringed,” but I’m afraid she might have come unhinged.
     President Obama stepped into that elite ruling class with ease. “I am not a dictator.  I cannot force the Republicans to do the right thing.” Do you sense the subtext?  “I, of course, know what is right.  Those stupid, unwashed masses who cling to their guns and their religion have no idea.” 
     This move from citizen to subject did not happen over night, but somewhere over the last 50 years we have lost what it means to be a citizen, fully independent, in no need of state largess.  There was a time when we felt no difference in the inherent virtue or value of the individual whether rich or poor, lawmaker or candlestick maker.   We have our Ivy League colleges to thank for that seismic cultural shift.   Progressives have worked tirelessly to increase the individual’s dependence on the government, hoping to make us forever grateful for whatever largess they might bequeath us. 
      My prayer is that we can shuffle off this coil of bondage and servitude and stand once again like my father stood, tall and straight, striding boldly into the storms that awaited him, knowing that he walked with God and needed nothing else. 

I have long pondered the attitude of atheists, thought that were I an atheist, crosses and crèches would arouse my humor, not my gall.  I would smile and shake my head in wonder that so many people can believe in such hogwash, and I would go merrily on my way, safe in the knowledge that I had not been so duped.

Why then do atheists protest so vehemently against religious symbols? 

This morning I read a meditation on Psalm 63 that served as something of an epiphany.  Perhaps the Psalm speaks more truth than I had thought.  “O God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as a dry and weary land yearns for water.”  Perhaps the core of every cell in our bodies is imprinted with a thirst for God, a hunger to know the almighty. 

Perhaps those cell walls are our intellect, our noble reason of which we are so proud.  It resists. “Silly, how could Jonah have been swallowed by a whale and lived to tell the story?  How could the blare of Joshua’s trumpet have felled the walls of Jericho?”

Perhaps the symbols of religion reawaken that longing to such an extent that they must be banned lest we fall into the humble pit of faith.

With regard to Israel, we need a little balance in reportage.  The lead story, top of the fold will tell how Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza strip killed a civilian and wounded 25 others, setting fires and causing chaos.  It leaves the reader with the impression that Israelis just bomb the Gaza strip willy-nilly, just for giggles. 

What the media will fail to mention is that the air strikes were retaliation for 4 Kassam rockets and 11 mortar shells that had been fired at southern Israel from Gaza (jpost.com). They will also fail to tell you is that the reason civilians are killed is that Hamas plants its artillery near hospitals and schools and residential areas so that if Israeli strikes take out Hamas rocket launchers they are bound to harm civilians. Hamas uses the innocent as human shields. 

The media would also have us believe that the Jews usurped the area from the “Palestinians.”  Actually Palestine was never a state or a country.  There were simply "Arabs" who moved into a geo-political area of the Ottoman Empire called "Palestine.”  About half of today’s Israelis are Mizrachim, descended from Jews who have been in the land since ancient times, about 3200 B.C.   

When Caliph Omar conquered Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt in 636 C.E. Jews, massacred in huge numbers, were forced to flee the inland villages towards the coast.  So it was not the Jews who usurped “Palestinian” lands; it’s Arabs that even today vow to carry out Calip Omars mission and drive the Jews into the sea. 

Let’s consider a modern day scenario.  Say the Europeans who settled in this country dispersed the native populations into Europe and other parts of the world.  Say they were persecuted everywhere, slaughtered, on the brink annihilation. Suppose the international community decided to take action and force America to provide the native populations a permanent settlement, a little piece of land half the size Washington’s Bainbridge Island, only 15 percent of which is arable.   What if the other residents of Bainbridge Island launched the 2,653 missiles and rockets at the natives supported and financed by the rest of the United states of America, all intent on pushing the natives into the sea? (That’s the number of rockets that were launched against Israel last year.)

Whom would you side with: the brutal Americans attempting to drive the natives into the sea or the persecuted peoples trying desperately to hold on to a little scrap of their homeland?

For those of you over 70, how often did you hear the “f” word before Hollywood taught us that it was cool?  For 50 years, we have allowed the media and Hollywood to subvert values and mold irresponsible behavior.  Over the last 100 years we have allowed the federal government to impose more and more of its mandates on communities, mandates that undermine the institutions that instill good character: marriage, the family, and churches. We have lost community control of our educational system.  (I admit.  I was complicit.)  Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt and we are adding 1.5 trillion in debt every year. And Obama thinks that failing to deal with climate change is the problem that will “betray our children and future generations”? Considering unfunded mandates, we are actually 70 trillion dollars in debt.  Our parents were remembered as the greatest generation.  How will we be remembered?

I was really impressed with Secretary Clinton’s opening remarks at the beginning of the senate hearing.  I thought, “I could vote for that woman.”  But then during the questioning period she said something that absolutely blew me away.  “What difference does it make if it was a riot or just a couple of guys wondering the street feeling like killing some Americans? What difference does it make?”  It makes a whole lot of difference.

She also said she knew immediately that it was a terrorist attack, so why, as the flag draped coffins were being unloaded, did she blame the video.  Why did the president blame the video?  What were they trying to hide?  

Why was the rescue mission called off?  We know a rescue mission was planned because the Ex-Navy Seal would never have endangered his life by painting the enemy compound with a laser if he didn’t think help was on the way. He gave away his position for no reason.  It was intentional suicide unless he thought help was in the air.

According to Admiral Lyons, the national security team watched and listened to the assault, but did nothing.  “We had very credible military resources within striking distance, a military base in Sicily, a C-130 gunship available, and a fully equipped special forces unit prepositioned and waiting.” They were ready to leap at the opportunity, but they were told to stand down, and after fighting for seven hours, four Americans were dead?

Who called off the rescue mission?  Admiral Lyons said, “Somebody high up in the administration made the decision that no assistance would be provided, and let our people be killed. The person who made that callous decision needs to be brought to light and held accountable.”

And then the next question:  Why?  Why did they choose to let them die?  What were they hiding? And why didn’t the Senators in that room not dare to ask the really hard questions?  Are they all complicit?

The Hillsdale College lecture on “The Roman Legacy” illustrates the extent to which our form of government was based on those features of government that made Rome great.  Our founders created a government of divided, carefully balanced powers; and they recognized the importance of personal virtue as well as the importance of religion in maintaining those virtues.

 There are basically three types of government, monarchy, the rule of one; aristocracy, the rule of few; and democracy, the rule of the many.  The government of Rome was a combination of all three, and our government was designed to reflect that balance, part aristocracy, part monarchy, and part democracy.  Their government was not the result of a constitution convention, or based on the ideas of a certain or a few men.  It was a government that resulted from political and compromise over many years,

 First were the Councils, two of them, the commanders, the administrators, in charge of law and order.  They served only one year and each of them had veto powers over the other.  Next was the senate made up of ex-councils or magistrates or retired generals.  They had the power of the purse and they served for life.  Their opinions had no legal standing.  Their edicts were phrased in the form of recommendations, but they were respected. 

 Then there were the popular assemblies, the populous, and the people.  They could declare war, ratify treaties.  They could make the councils account for their actions.  They came to the defense of the people against the power of the state.   And they had the power of veto over the council and of the senate. Only another of the three assemblies could overturn the veto of an assembly.  According to historians, they were “The fountain of honor and punishment.” The assemblies also elected the councils.

 Mixed government combined status, interest and rights, a regime that could project enormous power abroad.  Although complicated, it was a perfectly balanced constitutional order where no one had power over the other.  After their year of service, the council, the commander, would likely join the senate.   The senate was made up of the very seasoned ex-councils or military men.  The people respected the senate, but they had safeguards through the assemblies and could assert themselves when they felt there was something wrong. 

 At its height of power and influence, the whole people, both public and private, were even more heavily governed by their much lauded virtues that perhaps grew out of the ethic of farmers, working the land. First manliness: the willingness to do their duty.  A farmer would leave his plow at a moment’s notice and return to battle.  That’s what men do.  Second faithfulness: the willingness always to act in the public good.  Third “Mos Maiorum”: reverence for the custom of the ancestors.  Romans looked backwards toward the profound wisdom of the way their ancestors had done things 

 One of the most prestigious offices was that of the censor, ex-council who censored moral behavior that was so basic to the life of the republic. When the extravagances of the East began to consume the people, the censor passed laws to reign in the extravagant licentiousness that began to invade the populous.  Their aim was to keep their fellow Romans from getting soft.  Rome’s purging of all luxury and protecting manliness explains in large part their victory on the battlefield.

 Religion was also important to Romans.  Their scrupulous fear and awe of the Gods kept them in line.  They performed many rituals and ceremonies to placate Gods.  Their final virtue, Pietas, piety, was a composite virtue: devotion to duty, to god, to fathers and fatherland, love and affection mixed with reverence. 

 

Our founders, deeply schooled in the wisdom of their ancestors,  created a government of divided, carefully balanced powers; and they recognized that it would only work with a well educated, virtuous and god fearing citizenry.  Had we insisted on the office of the censor, perhaps we could have avoided the reality show trash that has inured us to evil.

Another of those "Gee, I should have posted this" finds.

 

Rush Limbaugh lambastes the left daily for what he considers disingenuously spinning his “I hope he fails” comment making it seem anti-American.  “If you hope the president fails, you’re hoping the country fails.”  According to Limbaugh, those on the left know full well that the reason he wants Obama to fail is that he wants his socialist agenda to fail.

Both our president and our vice-president scoff at the notion.  “Our policies are socialistic?  You’ve got to be kidding!” (Biden)  “When you suggested I was a socialist, I thought you were joking.” (Obama)   I responded physically to both those comments.  Something crawled up my spine.  Absolutely Orwellian.  Our country has been steadily on the path toward socialism since 1933, and the present administration has said openly that they see the present crisis as an opportunity to move their agenda forward.  Spreading the wealth?  Spending $800 billion dollars as a down payment on a federal health care system?  Incidentally, that’s more than we spent on both war Iraq wars.  Extending unemployment benefits?  Strengthening unions?

That kind of ad homien scoff  (Silly you! You’ve got to be kidding) is effective, however.   It simply avoids the argument which they both know they would lose hopelessly.  It’s a strategy concocted, I suppose, by James Carvill, the operative who has been working the back room for the Dems since before the Clinton era.  He was the one who, panicked by Bush’s popularity after 9/11, began immediately feeding politicians talking points to “destroy him at once” or they’d never reclaim the White House. You can be sure that Carville feeds talking points to every Democrat in Washington.

He is probably the one who has made certain that the liberals keeps repeating “the carnage of the last eight years,” hoping we’ll all blame Bush’s silly war for our economic problems.  They are educated people.  They know right well that our economic problems result from the fact that the chickens spawned by FDR’s new deal and LBJ’s War on poverty are coming home to roost. In 1955 entitlement spending totaled 12 per cent of the budget, in 1965, 30 percent, in 2008, 55 per cent.  As a percentage of the budget, discressionary spending, including military spending, has remained almost stable since 1965.  The per cent spent on entitlement spending has tripled.  The deficit rose sharply over the last few years largely because the boomers, that large group of wage earners who have been supporting the FDR and LBJ entitlements, are beginning to retire. You can be sure that every liberal in Washington is fully aware of this problem.

I have certainly benefited from that socialistic gamble.  Social security makes my “retirement” years quite comfortable and adequately looks after my disabled daughter.  An inexpensive supplemental insurance policy covers those Medicare gaps.   Farmers love being paid not to farm, especially those millionaire owners of American farms who live in France and Quebec and Saudi Arabia and Germany.  However, I do fear for my grandchildren, indeed, my great-grandchildren.  Mandatory government spending has increased by 769 per cent since1965, and the baby-boomers have just begun sucking at the federal teat.  We may not be as openly socialistic as Sweden or say Great Britain, but if Obama gets his way, we will be by 2012, and his recent stimulus package included every wet dream a socialist ever had.

Those rising costs would pose no problem if we could make the conservative give up their anti-government ideologies.  We can learn that much from European Socialism, countries that have achieved a kind of socialist utopia. Sweden is often seen as a model of a compassionate, healthy, caring country.  To support their socialist state they tax car purchases, for example, at 100 per cent of their cost, and that’s good, because the Swedes opt to ride bikes.  Good exercise and good for the environment. 

It is true that they have a 17 per cent unemployment rate. One has to consider how that rate is calculated.  Great Britain, for example, boasts an 8 percent unemployment rate, but according to The Mail, the officials don’t count the 8 million people classified as economically inactive, 21 per cent of the working-age population. I guess it’s great to live in a country willing to subsidize “discouraged workers,” those just not interested in finding a job.  I can’t say that I understand.  I’m 70 and I still work simply because it seems satisfying.  My siblings, all in their 70’s, also work.  I guess we’re still plagued by that silly Puritan ethic.  We simply convince ourselves that work is rewarding.  Or perhaps Phillip Hammond is right:  that that “21 per cent of the working age population in Great Britain represents a huge pool of wasted talent.”     

So why do liberals, knowing full well what our move toward socialism is costing our country, want to lead us down that path.  Power.  They learned in 1933 that if they put out a trough, we will feed at it, and the more of us they can get feeding at their troughs, the more power they have.  They keep building the troughs and pouring in the slop and we keep lapping it up.   

What puzzled me for a long time was why so many of our billionaires were supporting this madness?  Warren Buffet and George Soros are the ones most commonly linked to the radical left, but the list includes others: Hollywood producer Stephen Bing; Peter Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance Company; Herbert and Marion Sandler of Golden West Financial; Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs; Citigroup’s Robert Rubin; Edwin Janss, founder of the leftwing Janss Foundation; and Aris Anagnos, a Los Angeles real estate magnate and a rabid Marxist-Lenonist.  It’s important to note that none of these billionaires are directly involved in an enterprise that actually produces something.  Mostly they just play with money.  If they are simply committed to service to their fellow man, they certainly have the assets adequate to funding their charitable enterprises on their own.

 I have to conclude that charity is not their goal, so there must be another reason for their interest in promoting some form of a fascist-socialist-Leninist state. To Insure their power base?   

The content of this diatribe now veers toward one of those crazy conspiracy theories.  First a fact based question:  Why is it that 80 per cent of America’s very rich are self-made men and that 80 per cent of wealthy Europeans have inherited wealth?  Perhaps because socialism has managed to destroy the talent and initiative of “21 per cent of the working age population.”   Soros and his cohorts Bing,Sandler, Blankfein, Janss, and Anagnos are enjoying the power their wealth affords them and are probably  threatened by our talent and initiative, so they want to get us in the habit of feeding at federal the trough.

Now the really wild theory.  Could it be that our recent stock market collapse was created by those rich Marxists who, perhaps under cover of anonymous sources, pulled huge amounts of money out of the market to create a panic?  They have admitted openly that this decline is an opportunity to advance their agendas, that our system needs to be dismantled brick by brick, that the new order must be accomplished either by the power of persuasion or the persuasion of power.  Chilling, isn’t it?