February
22
2012
Let’s Turn Colorado RED in 2012!
Show everyone that you want
Colorado to be a RED state in 2012!
This article was published by Zigibniew Mazurak on February 19, 2012, and subsequently re-posted on ReaganGirl.com.
Destroying the deterrent
Congressman Ed Markey, a strident anti-defense liberal from Massachusetts, has recently introuced a bill which, if passed (God forbid), would cut the spending on US nuclear weapons by $100 bn over a decade, i.e. $10 bn per year. His bill is cosponsored by 34 other pro-disarmament Congressmen and follows Markey’s 2011 proposal to the now-defunct “Super Committee” to cut this kind of spending by a whopping $200 bn a decade, i.e. $20 bn per year.
Congressman Ed Markey’s proposal to cut spending on the US nuclear arsenal by $100 bn over a decade, i.e. $10 bn per year, is treasonous, suicidal, and wrong, and must be completely rejected. The same applies to his proposal to the now-defunct “Super Committee” from last year to cut this kind of spending by $200 bn over a decade, i.e. $20 bn per year.
The US nuclear arsenal is a needed, irreplaceable deterrent which has kept America safe and has kept the peace for the last 66 years, preventing wars between superpowers, forcing them to tolerate each other, and preventing nuclear war. It also protects over 30 allies of the United States, thus making it unnecessary to develop their own nuclear weapons or expand their stockpiles (in France’s and Britain’s case), thus dramatically limiting the proliferation problem.
Cutting it (or spending on it, or its modernization and maintenance programs) would not only discredit this nuclear umbrella and force US allies to develop their nuclear weapons (thus making the proliferation problem much worse), it would weaken the US military and, if done unilaterally, amount to unilateral disarmament, thus making America much less secure and inviting (if not guaranteeing) a nuclear first strike by Russia or perhaps even China, depending on how deep the cuts would go.
Congressman Markey’s proposals would dramatically cut (if not completely cut off) funding for the maintenance and viability of US nuclear weapons, at $10-$20 bn per year (compared to a total DOE defense-related budget of ca. $17 bn), thus totally gutting the US nuclear arsenal, which would amount to unilateral nuclear disarmament, and thus invite a nuclear first strike by Russia and China. This has been confirmed by experts such as Rep. Michael Turner and Baker Spring of the Heritage Foundation. Here’s what they say about Markey’s proposal:
“Representative Edward Markey (D–MA) has grave misconceptions regarding contributions that nuclear weapons make to the U.S. and allied national security. On Wednesday, he introduced a bill that would cut $100 billion in nuclear weapons programs. This bill is co-sponsored by 34 other Representatives.
Not only would such cuts be disastrous for the already under-funded U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure; they would also call into question U.S. commitment to extended deterrence and viability of the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation. In addition, the proposed cuts would do very little to solve the country’s fiscal problems.
Last October, Markey sent a letter to the Joint Select Committee on the Deficit in which he stated that the U.S. spends “over $50 billion a year on the U.S. nuclear arsenal” and called on “the Super Committee to cut $20 billion a year, or $200 billion over the next ten years, from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget.”
But according to Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense James Miller, the figure was close to $214 billion over 10 years (about $88 billion for the Department of Energy and more than $125 billion for the Department of Defense). Markey’s initial call of gutting $200 billion over the next 10 years would result “in the immediate and unilateral nuclear disarmament of the United States,” according to Congressman Mike Turner (R–OH). A $100 billion cut would be just as devastating.
Currently, more than 30 countries all over the world rely on U.S. nuclear weapons. These countries have not developed their own nuclear weapons or expanded their current arsenals because they have believed that the U.S. would respond with a devastating force if they are threatened. Credibility—whether an enemy actor believes the U.S. will come to the aid of its allies—is a key consideration for any opponent when deciding whether to launch an attack. The credibility of U.S. nuclear weapons will diminish if they are not properly maintained. This could cause allies to develop or expand their current nuclear weapon arsenals.”
Any proposals to cut the US nuclear arsenal or funding for it must be completely rejected. (http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/10/cutting-the-nuclear-arsenal-even-further/)
The opinions of Ziggy’s Defense Blog do not necessarily reflect those of ReaganGirl.com.
February
20
2012
Let’s Turn Colorado RED in 2012!
Show everyone that you want
Colorado to be a RED state in 2012!
February 20, 2012
It is the principled impulse of my soul to fight against tyranny over human agency and productivity, which is also tyranny over the human heart, and the ultimate enemy of human love.
The rhetoric of liberty is the rhetoric of love.
I recently infiltrated an assemblage of the “enemy.” They were gathered in a sports bar that featured unisex restrooms. There were no little geometric people icons with pants or skirts donning the restroom doors, so this traditional lady was a little bewildered. The presence of unisex restrooms was a sure sign that the establishment was owned by a Liberal; not just any Liberal, but a “sexual revolution,” undifferentiated-equality-between-the-sexes Liberal. So I, to my great umbrage, I entered the restroom after a fellow had used it. I got a corner of paper towel and used it to lower the toilet seat. And, trust me, I didn’t sit, I hovered. But, to tell the truth, the restroom debacle was the worst thing about my experience.
I went to the gathering to get some video footage and do a news piece on a Democratic candidate running for our United States Congressional district here in Western Colorado. I blended, I admit it, with the “enemy.” My hair always looks a little windblown, I usually wear jeans and a sweater, and comfy shoes, and I rarely wear Republican red because it clashes with the blue in my skin. I introduced myself to the candidate and his staffers and told them the name of the website for whom I was doing a news piece. I turned on my little video cam, got out my note pad, and went to work. I felt quite comfortable. These were ordinary people. Their perspectives were a little different than mine, but, like any other Americans on a Saturday afternoon, they were sitting in a sports bar, eating burgers, and mingling with like-minded people. The biggest difference between this “enemy” assembly and a meeting of my Conservative cohorts, was the lack of cynicism about what their candidate was telling them. The candidate fielded a total of 3 questions, one of which was mine. The “enemy,” it appears, is not terribly curious about their candidates, and tends to be trusting and compliant inasmuch as their pet issues are not challenged. Conservatives are curious, and will grill their candidates like hotdogs on a hibachi, never finding complete satisfaction. Liberals are less suspicious of one another than Conservatives. They simply play well together. However, someone must have googled my name during the meeting because afterwards, when I approached the candidate and a couple of his staffers to ask a final question, they refused to talk to me, and were, to my disappointment, cagey and cold. I politely thanked them and left to go home, upload the video and write a piece for a conservative news site.
One is left to ask, what did they discover that caused them to shut me out? Did they see the picture of me standing in front of the American flag with my six-shooter? Did the name Reagan in ReaganGirl raise their hackles? Did they see the word “Conservative” in my bio? What dynamic transformed a woman who blended, was friendly, and felt very comfortable in the meeting, into a threat to their operations? When I use the term “enemy,” it is with irony. But, unfortunately when they saw that I exercise a different point of view, they thought me the antagonist to their cause as well as to their persons.
It is an idiom among counselors and students of human dynamics that fear and love are opposites. Hate is only an expression of fear, and fear is what occupies the vacuum where love is absent. Fear is the opposite of love, but it is also its pinch hitter. America is polarized into factions, less because of ideological differences and more due to fear. Each side has so demonized the opinions of the other, that it’s difficult for them to acknowledge that both sides are comprised of human beings. Fear has become the grammar of political language. Fear is preached from the pulpits and news desks of candidates and pundits alike. Fear is the polarizing force that drives apart ideological rivals. Fear is what extinguishes, not just the love for one another, but the love of country as well. Fear, angst, and contention are woven into almost every rhetorical theme used by people of all political stripes. But our current polarized condition is less an indictment of the use of fear to drive opinion, than it is the abrogation of love and truths that should be held in common by all Americans.
RightOnline, the Conservative web gathering, and Netroots Nation, the Liberal Internet pow wow, are the biggest blogging conventions in the country. Eric Telford, the organizer of Right Online, invariably waits until Netroots Nation has made arrangements for the coming year, and books Right Online in the same city, at the same time, and often within a few city blocks of Netroots. There are usually fireworks, especially when Andrew Breitbart manages to intermingle with Netroots activists who believe him to be the Little Satan–second only to the Great Satan–Rush Limbaugh. But my experience at Right Online 2011 was not contentious at all. My hotel was full of Netroots participants. They were mostly well behaved, and when I caught them individually or in small groups in the elevator or on the sidewalk, many were receptive to my smiles and kind words. I never confronted them about our differences, which are legion, but focused on our Americanism, our dedication to a cause that is important to us, and our humanity. It became apparent to me that fear is dispelled when love identifies the “enemy” as simply another seeking, questioning, struggling, confused, lovable, Child of God.
Liberalism, or more accurately, Progressivism, to me, is incompatible with happiness:
- Progressivism denies the immutable principles and truths related to our Divine origin and endowments which are articulated in the Founding documents.
- Progressivism negates the importance of agency and personal accountability, placing responsibility, and the blame that comes with failure to live up to responsibility, on society at large, and conditions outside the control of the individual.
- Progressivism minimizes the power and importance of the individual, and maximizes the power and importance of the government.
- Progressivism teaches its adherents that its political opponents want to do harm to them, and to destroy the government outright because they hate people. Progressive government, and those who seek power within it, will lie to the electorate and tell voters that their opposition “wants dirty water, dirty air,” and wants “old people to die.” Progressivism must lie to implant fear in people in order to garner votes, because real truth, reason and facts, when well presented, destroy arguments for progressive government.
- Progressivism convinces the electorate that the government has God-like power to grant rights outside the orbit of Natural Law, and to care and provide for virtually all human needs and desires. But since government produces nothing, and it is impossible to define which needs and desires are also rights, Progressivism enslaves the productive sectors of society, and confiscates the wealth they produce in order to fund its pipe-dream projects of perpetual security and subsidies to the “poor and disadvantaged.”
- Progressivism rejects established Biblical and religious institutions, laws, and traditions in favor of “forward thinking” doctrines of social experimentation, which place human rights over human responsibilities, and human whims over Godly directives.
- Progressivism is driven by emotion, appetite, security and simplistic populist rhetoric, and rejects reason and long term cause and effect theories of economics, law, and human behavior.
- Progressivism strives for a centrally controlled and administered state run by Utopians. In order for the state to function, uniformity, full compliance, a complete prostration of the self at the foot of the government is required. The Utopians are party elites, the political class, who have deemed themselves superior to the rest of the population, and who are arbiters of all social functions, from human relationships, to commerce, to production, to the practice of religion. The non-conformist in a progressive society is deemed dangerous and is either battered into compliance, jettisoned, or imprisoned.
- Finally, Progressivism is incompatible with love because it hates the individual and individualism. Families are subsumed to the control of the state. The culture of Progressivism incrementally destroys the key social institution of the family, and over time, redefines what family is, and the roles and responsibilities of men, women, children, and God within the society. Progressivism drives God out of the hearts of the people and corrupts churches by creating political alliances with them, and then forces them to compromise their doctrines in order to avoid persecution, or prosecution. The alliance of the individual with God is the most powerful alliance of all. The progressive government understands that its strength comes from its alliances with individuals. The more dependent the individual is upon the government, its substance–which is stolen from other individuals–and its dictates, the more powerful it becomes. Progressive government destroys morality because personal morality, honor, and confidence in God, free the individual from the need of the government subsidies. Progressivism is incompatible with love because it hates the individual and individual thought and non-conformity, and because it hates the power of God to ultimately free the individual from the chains of dependence, darkness, and sin, making man a truly liberated and self-governing creature.
When I speak of progressive government I am speaking of an idea, not necessarily of the individuals who align themselves with the ideas of Progressivism. But we are, unfortunately, at a point where many individuals have placed themselves in positions of power over the lives, wealth, and agency of the Children of God. I am a Conservative not because I hate Liberals or Progressives, but because I have no choice but to fight against a system of government whose central purpose is to eliminate individual liberty. It is the principled impulse of my soul to fight against tyranny over human agency and productivity, which is also tyranny over the human heart, and the ultimate enemy of human love.
What is the rhetoric of love? Do Conservatives, the Americans who fight for Constitutional principles and Natural Law, soften their rhetoric to make it palatable to others ideologies? NO! The rhetoric of the Founders was not soft, but it was filled with love. They loved all Americans sufficiently to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in behalf of the Loyalists as well as the Patriots. It was their love for all Americans, their love of God, and their devotion to the principles of human liberty; those which elevate individuality, self-determination, responsibility, and the pursuit of happiness, that compelled them to risk everything. Their unwavering devotion to one point of view defined their love, not as partisanship, but as truth embodied in wise and courageous leadership.
What does the rhetoric of love look like in 2012? After all, economic bon fires are torching countries across Europe. Warfare and revolutions are springing up across the Middle East. And in America, those in government with the greatest power are chopping away at the foundations of our individuality, self-reliance, morality, success, families, culture, and our understanding of God. How does someone who knows that these individuals must be stopped and removed from their powerful positions, express love? How do Americans express love to people we know want to destroy our very identities as sovereign, self-determinant, Children of God?
- We greet them with a smile and a handshake.
- We compliment them to brighten their day.
- We make them friends at home and in the community, and enemies only in debates and at the ballot box.
- We answer their questions sincerely, with thoughtful and temperate words.
- We gently agree to disagree, without anger.
- We find those things we have in common and make them the fabric of our discourse.
- We remember that the liberty to think, act, and err belongs to every one of us.
- We look at each and every individual, political enemies, allies, and those of unknown quality, as simply another seeking, questioning, struggling, confused, lovable, Child of God.
But ReaganGirl, you might ask, you have previously written about secession and separation from a “wicked, dictatorial government?” How do you reconcile “The Rhetoric of Love,” with the idea of national secession? I will address these completely compatible ideas in my next post. Happy Presidents Day, 2012.
By Marjorie Haun 2/20/12
February
19
2012
Let’s Turn Colorado RED in 2012!
Show everyone that you want
Colorado to be a RED state in 2012!
February 18, 2012
Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong. *Ronald Reagan*
Obama is giving Iran a naked target.
Barack Obama from all appearances is a well-dressed man, modest and neat. But he exhibits certain postures and behaviors that betray a more tawdry side. He often looks like a man willing to throw out his values, and throw off American’s security, in order to please the crowd—in this case the crowd of foreign countries with interests that run counter to ours. Considering the current state of international affairs, the emergence of nuclear regimes like North Korea, China, and Iran, and the decade’s long peeling away of America’s existing nuclear capabilities, one might regard the Obama Administration’s proposal to further cut our nuclear arsenal by another 80% to be a very dangerous striptease.
The Associated Press reported on February 15, 2012, that Barack Obama is considering a plan that would reduce the nation’s inventory of nuclear warheads to around 300, down from its present 1,790. The guidelines within the New START treaty require that number to shrink to 1,550 within 6 years of its implementation, which is still significantly more than the 300 mentioned in the AP report. These numbers may look impressive on their own, if one holds to the idea that 300 nukes are sufficient to blow up the world. But the United States’ nuclear arsenal is not designed to “blow up the world,” but rather a deterrent which would prevent madmen and rogue regimes from blowing up the world. The United States’ nuclear arsenal is a tool of peace, so why would the Administration strip away a powerful and effective safeguard against nuclear attack that we have been building and maintaining for decades?
Army General Martin Dempsey testified before the House Armed Services Committee that the president is considering a reduction of up to 80% of currently deployed nuclear weapons, but gave no reason why this proposal is coming from the Obama Administration at this time. One may speculate that this is another budget-driven cut in defense spending. And it’s true that it is very expensive to maintain the nuclear arsenal, and replace obsolete components and systems as needed. But that’s not a cut and dried argument since to remove, transport, and dispose of some 1,200 nukes would, in both the short-term and long-term, would be expensive as well. There are no pressing treaties, old or new, that require the United States at this time to further denude its nuclear capabilities and gut its arsenal. So one is left wondering, why would the president do something that reverses the country’s military readiness and leaves its people more defenseless and exposed?
The timing of this proposal, as well as the highly unpredictable and constantly shifting status of other nuclear nations are troubling as well. Since 1966 America’s nuclear arsenal has decreased from over 32,000 nuclear weapons to around 1,500(about a 95% decrease) today. Conversely the USSR had a peak number of around 45,000 in 1990 just prior to its collapse. Present-day Russia has continued to build its strategic and tactical nuclear programs. The actual numbers of weapons that currently exist in Russia’s nuclear arsenal are hard to pin down and estimates range from 2,000 to 8,000. Present-day Russia and the former Soviet Union have loomed for many years as the United States’ greatest nuclear adversaries. While the mutual, though unequal, disarmament process has gone on between the two nuclear superpowers, other nations have surfaced as nuclear powers, some presenting even greater dangers to the West than that of the Russians. France, The U.K., South Africa, and, India, Israel (though unofficially a nuclear state) are allies whose nuclear capabilities are not problematic for the United States. But North Korea, China, and Pakistan, have either governments, or governmental and/or social factions which have declared themselves enemies to the United States of America. Iran is believed to have evolving nuclear capabilities, and their ability to launch a nuke in the immediate future is a real possibility. Iran is the one regime who has openly declared their hostilities towards Israel and the West. This appears to many a clear declaration of Iran’s willingness to use nukes, once operational, in an open attack on other nations.
With no compelling rationale for the Obama Administration to announce a dramatic and unilateral cutback in America’s nuclear arsenal, it seems increasingly possible that this is another attempt by the President to win favor on the international stage through appeasement and the abatement of our military vigor. Nuclear disarmament is not new, and the United States has kept its promises by gradually dismantling and disposing of its nuclear weapons for 5 decades. But the February 15th announcement by the White House shines a light on a more disturbing aspect of the nuclear disarmament dance. Obama is doing a strip tease on the world stage, and he has very little left to peel away and throw to the audience before he leaves the country completely stripped of deterrent nuclear capabilities. Any grown-up knows what crosses the minds of those watching a dancer slowly peel their defenses down to nothing. A strip tease like this one tempts people with bad intentions to do very bad things. When those bad intentions include nukes and a naked target, it can’t end well.
By Marjorie Haun 2/18/12
February
17
2012
Let’s Turn Colorado RED in 2012!
Show everyone that you want
Colorado to be a RED state in 2012!
February 17, 2012
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Is it possible for a union to exist where there is not unity? The advance of Western Socialism; the FDR-style statist philosophy with its metastasizing bureaucracy and liberty-sucking administrators are completely incompatible with a free republic which is populated with old-style patriots, and the rugged individualists of America. But both do now exist. They may not cohabitate in a comfy compromise of self-prostitution, but patriots and statists dwell shoulder to shoulder in virtually all settings and walks of American life. There is a tenuous balance, with both sides teetering on a narrow point of self-interest; the statist with the self-interest of security, and the patriot with the self-interest of liberty. At what point will the balance shift to one side or the other? Or will it break, each side separating into states and communities and creating a sort of piebald polity of Socialist nihilist states spattered among Liberty-loving, God-fearing communities and regions throughout the United States?
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
I have often pondered the Founding Documents and their roles in our day for our time. I believe that they have the quality and power of scripture, to guide men in the wise use of free agency, and to articulate the immutable principles by which the Children of God are made free. I am more convinced now than ever that the Founding Fathers were as much inspired by the Mind of God to protect us from the present dictatorship of the Federal Government, as they were to originally form a more perfect Union. The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution may give us the apparatus with which we will dissolve The United States in order to save the Union; to restore the Union where there is no unity.
The United States is regarded by the present dictatorship to be merely numerous small arms of the central government, which minister locally the mandates of the central dictatorship. It is not a benevolent dictatorship, but a system that has fallen into wickedness. The central government is in the clutches of social revolutionaries who, decades ago, deposed God as the source of wisdom and the resource of succor. The laws of God have been subsumed to the rules of men and are used, not to encourage moral conduct, but to manipulate human conscience for the purposes of the wicked state. Not all players within the scaffolding of the state operation are personally wicked, but the philosophies of the Founding have been so perverted and reduced as to leave a dearth of godliness where once the Creator was the administrator of rights and laws.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…
We are a nation of saints and perverts, creators and users, lovers and plunderers, parents and executioners. I wonder if at the time the Founders agreed upon the creation of states within a Federation, with a specific and limited relationship to the Central Government, they understood that 225 years into the future the diversity and disparity of the states would save the people of the Union from the implementation of complete tyranny.
There will be a movement in which individual states, and in some cases, regions of states, will secede from The United States. It will be a sort of Secessionist Club, whose front of battle is one more of the ideological warfare of the pen and less the bloodletting of the sword. The secessionists will be individuals and groups of Americans who refuse to countenance the wickedness of the central government. They will be patriots who understand the roles of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution as proclamations of liberty to the world, and not just pertaining to a swath of land from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts of North America. They will be those whose allegiance is to God. They will be those who reject the erosive consequences of permissive laws that, in truth, have been designed to destroy the commandments of God and replace them with the norms of a narcissistic and childish culture. They will be those who have armed themselves in defiance of a destructive government. They will be prepared for a revolution.
…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The new secessionists are the most sober and realistic of all Americans. They are tolerant and inclusive. They are self-reliant people of faith, who live their lives honorably. They have never before considered themselves to be revolutionaries. Their loyalty to the United States is firm. They love their flag and the republic for which it stands. The 21st Century secessionists will be pushed to the utmost extremity of toleration, having looked on while the most hallowed institutions of their society, marriage, families, life, their churches, their schools, their history, are savaged by forces within the culture and within the government. They have obeyed the laws which have been turned against them by a corrupt judicial system where impartiality has given way to advocacy, and blind justice has been replaced by activists who target the foundations of sound society for demolition. And their breaking point is nigh. They can no longer bear the blasphemies of a government gone mad with power over the lives and bodies of persons. They can no longer tolerate the injustices of a state that takes from each according to his ability and gives to each according to his need. They will no longer sit by while marriage, family, children, and religious truths are crushed by politically correct initiatives that are designed to accommodate perversions of identity and the dereliction of Godly responsibility, and which mock and reject absolute moral truths. They understand the dangers of their secession, but being Americans of austere minds and temperate actions, they will secede only as a last-ditch effort to restore the Union before it is completely and utterly lost and transformed into a fallen, amoral, autocratic, socialist state of weaklings, non-producers, and idolaters.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The power to effect peaceful secession lies in the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution. Those populations who understand that life is so dear an endowment from God that we are obligated to defend it from both personal attack and a tyrannical government, will be the strongholds where the central government will have the least power to control the people and confiscate their property. This article in the Bill of Rights , more than any other, is the guarantor of liberty.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The secession of 2012 is so unlike the secession of 1860-61, so as to be wholly opposite in character and purpose. The Southern States seceded and brought upon themselves civil warfare in an effort to forever preserve the practices of slave holding and slave trading. They abandoned the Union in order to preserve institutionalized bondage, and an unjust and wicked social system that denigrated an entire race of Americans. They fought to preserve their desecrated Christian ethics which had been used to convinced slave owners and overseers that their “racial superiority” exempted them from having to “love thy neighbor” if that neighbor had skin of a deeper hue.
The modern secession will be in the name of life and liberty. It will take place in order to preserve equal, God-given, human rights for all, from conception to the natural end of life, and the freedom to move, and act, and think, and prosper in the way each man sees fit. It will occur to preserve the ideas in the Founding Documents, and in defiance of an unconstitutional government. It will be a necessary step in preserving and perpetuating the notion that government gains its power from the governed, and that the consent of the governed is the only means by which it can function. Secession 2012 will purge wickedness and unrighteous dominion out of high government. It is drastic and it is a frightening prospect. But more frightening is the potential that wicked people who now have great power in our government and social institutions, will destroy the agency of Americans, and concurrently jettison the indispensable components of religion, godliness, and self-reliance out of our language and culture. To join the Secessionist Club may be the only way…
…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. A. Lincoln–The Gettysburg Address
By Marjorie Haun 2/17/12
February
15
2012
A C of Red 2012 Let’s turn Colorado Red promotional products, T shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers
Originally published by Zibigniew Mazurak, and reposted on February 15, 2012 on ReaganGirl.com.
On February 6th, the conservative wing of the American political spectrum celebrated Ronald Reagan’s 101st birthday. Although almost everyone who calls himself/herself conservative stated the obligatory “Happy 101st birthday, Ronald Reagan!” words and remarked how much they loved the Gipper and what a great President he was, many of them actually opposed him when he was President. And although many people now seem to understand why he was a great President, few people realize what can be learned from him.
Reagan and Thatcher
So what can we learn from him? A lot, both in terms of how to win the political discourse (and do business) and in terms of how exactly to handle issues (i.e. what policies to pursue).
Let’s start with the first subject. On this one, Tim Dunkin has written an excellent article for the Canada Free Press, whereby he identifies four key lessons he has learned from Ronald Reagan:
1) Communication matters. You need to convince the American people that you are right. Or, as Margaret Thatcher likes to say, first you win the argument, then you win the vote.
Sadly, as Dunkin rightly notes, we conservatives wrongly assume that conservative truths and principles should be self-evident to the American people and often we get angry with them when they don’t understand what they have never been told or explained before – that the facts of life are conservative and that conservative principles and policies are better than liberal ones.
2) Be consistent on your message and your policies.
Unfortunately, these days, most Americans, including many Tea Partiers, demand spending cuts and in the same breath warn politicians not to even think about touching their SS and Medicare benefits. So which is it, folks? Do we want spending to be cut or not? Do we want limited government or not?
3) Don’t try to compromise with the opposition, or at least, don’t make it an explicit goal and don’t automatically assume you’ll have to compromise with it.
4) All three legs of the conservative stool are equally important and none of them should be elevated above the two others, because that would be unfair to them and alienate them.
Ronald Reagan never pursued the policies of one wing of the conservative movement at the exclusion, or at the significant expense, of the two others. He managed to bring all three wings together and treated them as equally important, and managed to keep all three of them happy. These days, defense conservatives are being marginalzed and even excluded from the conservative movement and denounced as “Big Government liberals”, while fiscal and social conservatives pursue their respective agendas to the exclusion of everyone else’s agenda and both demand that their particular wishes come first and everything else be subordinated to them. Thus, the state of relations between those three wings of the conservative movement today is like this:
Defense Conservative: Defense spending shouldn’t be cut any further. It has already been cut too deeply.
Fiscal Conservative: You Big Government Liberal! Defense spending needs to be cut further! When are you defense hawks going to learn that everything has to be on the table?
Defense Conservative: Defense spending has been on the table the whole time, and was targeted by Obama for cuts on Day One.
Fiscal Conservative: I don’t care! Every kind of federal spending needs to be cut deeply!
Social Conservative: Hey, don’t forget about me, guys. We need to remember that strong families are the foundation of our Nation. We need to ban abortion and gay marriage completely. We need to do that first before doing anything else.
Fiscal Conservative: No! Balancing the budget must come first! And BTW, regulating abortion and marriage is a Big Government policy. We shouldn’t do that at all.
Social Conservative: No! I will not tolerate that! I will never support any candidate who does not pledge to ban abortion and gay marriage for any office, not even dog catcher, not even against Barack Hussein Obama!
The lesson is that we need to unify ALL THREE LEGS of the conservative movement. It will be difficult, but not impossible.
And what can we learn from Ronald Reagan policy-wise?
On fiscal and economic issues, we can learn that the key to prosperity is economic freedom: low taxes, minimum regulations, open energy resources, and a strong, stable dollar (“King Dollar” to borrow a term from Larry Kudlow). In other words, supply-side economics.
On social issues, we know that, as Ronald Reagan said, “If we ever forget that we are a Nation under God, we will be a Nation gone under”. We need to protect unborn children and the institution of marriage. Yet, we must not allow these issues to divide the conservative movement or the Republican Party.
And on defense and foreign policy issues, we should know, and everyone should’ve learned by now, that there is no substitute for a militarily-strong America; that the US needs a strong, generously funded defense at all times; that it needs to honor its commitments to its treaty allies and vice versa; that we need to stand strong, and be tough, with America’s adversaries and with bullies; and that the US should intervene when and where, but only when and where, its national interests are threatened, and only if non-war means of pressure have been exhausted.
Sadly, while most Republicans seem to have learned at least the basic principles of Ronald Reagan, if not specific policies from him, on fiscal and social issues, it is clear that a substantial minority (if not an outright majority of Republicans and conservatives has learned nothing from him. They still don’t understand that defense cuts weaken the military and that this reduces its ability to deter America’s enemies and defeat them if necessary; that this changes the calculus more and more in favor of America’s enemies; and that massive defense cuts always lead to war, not to peace – forcing the US to rebuild its military at a much greater cost later. They still don’t understand that cutting defense is penny-wise and pound-foolish. They still don’t understand that a strong defense safeguards peace and prevents war. They still don’t get it that without a strong defense, there won’t even be a free America to live in or a free economy to work in.
These days, we defense conservatives are being thrown out of the conservative movement and shunned out of the GOP. We are being called Big Government advocates, neocons, liberals, and other insulting terms. Our fiscal and social brethren are denying that we are conservatives at all. We are being denied a seat at the negotiating table and left out of conservative and Republican events. Our concerns, requests, and the issues we care about most deeply – defense and foreign policy affairs – are being ignored completely. Most Republican politicians these days run on platforms that don’t mention defense at all or, in the best case, barely mention it in shallow, trite, generalist statements. Most conservative manifestos, calls for action, platforms, and articles don’t mention defense at all, and don’t mention us as the part of the Republican coalition.
This was visible at CPAC, which was held this week in Washington DC. At that event, Phyllis Schaffly of the Eagle Forum debunked “the phony divide between fiscal and social conservatives”, while no one will be trying to reconcile or bridge fiscal and defense conservatives.
Even worse, CPAC featured four anti-defense events, all of which were sponsored by the paranoid, anti-military, anti-defense “Committee for the Republic”. The first event was an exercise in distorting the real meaning of President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, which the Left has been doing for decades. The second was a tirade by retired Colonel Douglas MacGregor calling for further defense cuts on top of those already implemented and scheduled. The third was a condemnation of all wars waged by the US, including the US-Mexican War, whereby Bruce Fein was impersonating John Quincy Adams. The fourth was a “Founding Father Roundtable” whereby Bruce Fein and his fellow C4TR loons, including John Henry and James Henry, were claiming that the US has gone wrong in investing in defense and that a strong, peacetime military is antithetical to the Founders’ beliefs.
The opinions expressed by Ziggy’s Defense Blog do not necessarily reflect those of ReaganGirl.com.
February
14
2012
Let’s Turn Colorado RED in 2012!
Show everyone that you want Colorado to be a RED state in 2012!
February 13, 2012
Hey kiddies, are you ready to play another round of backstabbing, son of a b****, scum sucking wretch Mad Lib-erals? Well, it’s that time of year when every freakin’ heartache, rejection, and romantic failure comes back to haunt women like me, so what the heck! Let’s make a commitment to do it right, and if we work really hard and love each other it will turn out fine.
You want my heart for Valentine's Day? Here, it's yours!
Now relax, I’m not going to hurt you with this. Take a deep breath and just put your choice of silly words into the blank to make a hysterical sentence. For example: The “Brat Pack” ______ (star, victim, sucker) from the 1980s, Demi Moore, was recently ______ (scorned, betrayed, victimized) by her ______ (low life, cheating, pig-humping) husband, Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher was apparently ______ (playing jump rope, having sex, buttering his toast) with a number of other ______ (slut dogs, hobags, women) when Moore decided to ______ (butterfly, leave, filet) him. When it was confirmed that her ______ (loser, whore monger, douchebag) was cheating on her, Demi Moore quickly served him with ______ (his testicles, his still beating heart, divorce papers) and moved to ______ (a nunnery, Rarotonga, her mother’s basement).
See there. It’s not hard at all, (that’s what she said) unless you’re a skunk sniffing, sheep greasing piece of oozing rubbish just like the last loser who just didn’t seem to have a clue! Not to worry. You’re a frickin’ genius. Now let’s play Scorned Woman Valentine Mad Lib-erals!
Right next door in ______ (Aspen, Colorado, Monkey Box, Florida, Hooker Hole, Louisiana) super ______ (bartender, model, fly), Heidi Klum had a very bad ______ (avalanche, kneecap, weekend) with her husband, pop ______ (corn, eye, singer), Seal. Apparently the two ______ (lovers, turkey basters, eyelash curlers) split up due to ______ (narwhal’s, penguin’s, Seal’s) uncontrollable _____ (organ, temper, guitar). Klum was quoted saying that “she had tolerated his ______ (toe sucking, nose hairs, temper tantrums) for a very long time and is now ready to move on with her ______ (throw rugs, life, Brazilian wax).” ______ (beluga, Seal, Anakin Skywalker) was ______ (devastated, in the bar, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last) by the announcement, and said he would spend the remainder of his ______ (vasectomy, cafe au lait, vacation) in ______ (Dickshooter, Idaho, Aspen, Colorado, Horneytown, North Carolina) licking his ______ (wounds, therapist, warm puppy) and enjoying the ______ (minors, slopes, hotel maids).
In a very sad story, master ______ (sax, poker, tiddly winks) player ______ (Katherine the Great, Kenny G., Atticus Finch) broke up with his ______ (wife, drool bucket, nail fungus) after many years of ______ (ride ‘n’ tie, marriage, directional drilling). Mrs. Kenny G. gave no reason for the _____ (fracking, hair cut, break up) other than the fact that she didn’t like her husband’s ______ (music, looks, ringlets). After many years of ______ (snake milking, defibrillation, marriage) she says she grew ______ (tulips, tired, saddle bags) of his constant ______ (practicing, hand flapping, fish mongering) and wanted someone different and ______ (human, attractive, heterosexual) in her life. Word has it that ______ (Jack Torrance, Colonel Kurtz, Kenny G.) has taken a job as a ______ (look alike, doppelganger, body double) for the ______ (Winnebago, chairman, toupee) of the ______ (Democratic, cleptomaniac, archeopteryx) National Committee, ______ (Mini Me, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jean Paul Marat). Will the world miss the ______ (tub thumping, saxophone playing, diaper changing) of Kenny G.? His former wife said she would rather be ______ (eaten by squirrels, stretched on a rack, dipped in boiling paraffin) than endure another ______ (saxophone, tax and spend, sexual) encounter with her ______ (ex, axe, tic tacs) husband.
You did it! You actually finished at the right time. Congratufrickinglations, you’re not as brain-dead as you look! Now go enjoy your little Valentine’s Day date with that ______ (filthy, trashy, hideous) woman you left me for, you ______ (s*** for brains, loser, dog walker). I hope you ______ (puncture a lung, sustain fatal injuries, choke on mashed potatoes) on this fun and romantic holiday. Now getoutta my face you ______ (sissy, sniveling creep, cheating animal) and don’t forget to ______ (pay me the money you owe me, join me, prepare to die) next month when we play another ______ (heart breaking, painful, miserable) game of Mad Lib-erals!
By Marjorie Haun 2/13/12
February
11
2012
Let’s Turn Colorado RED in 2012! Show everyone that you want Colorado to be a RED state in 2012!
WWW.ACOFRED2012.COM
February 11, 2012
Liberals prefer old fashioned intersections because they don’t have to think for themselves. Their movements are dictated by a set of outside controls and, like Pavlov’s drooling dogs, when the light flashes green they move, when it goes red, they stop, and when it turns yellow, they get confused and reflexively hit the gas.
You can spot the driver of one of these drooling at an intersection any day.
I log a lot of miles traversing, from West to East, North to South, the beautiful highways and byways of Colorado. A big chunk of my life is spent with a tongue of black road out in front of me. In rain, sunshine, snow, or the ice from hell, I spend a lot of time behind the wheel. It is natural for me to think about pavement, and kaleidoscopic scenery flashing in my peripheral vision, and the unencumbered movement I experience as a result of the ancient ingenuity called the road. On the way home from Denver, exhausted but in a sort of pre-hallucinatory euphoria, my mind pondered most ponderously on the old world invention that has recently immigrated to the wilds of Colorado, the roundabout.
Among Grand Junction’s most heated controversies of recent years, is whether or not the construction of roundabouts, as a measure to smooth out traffic patterns and beautify avenues, is a reasonable and effective innovation, or an evil scheme by Euro-wennie city planners to turn our humble mining/ranch/tourist town into a sick and vexing replication of Piccadilly Circus. Dreadful prognostications of mass carnage, automobile rubble, and outbreaks of violence between drivers who couldn’t decide when to enter the roundabouts, were made. Nevertheless, in my well-qualified opinion, I think the roundabouts have been a wonderful addition to the streets of my town. You don’t have to wait unless the traffic is heavy, which is rarely the case in my Western Colorado burg. A roundabout consists of circular junction which provides a bit of a thrill ride, if like me, you’re willing to drive too fast just to get a good rush of G’s in its perpetual curves. They’re pretty, with landscaping or sculptures in their hubs. And they’re efficient because less waiting means less idling, which means less gas wasted. But the most appealing thing to me about roundabouts, is that to employ them properly, you must follow a set of conservative principles:
- You must be able to think for yourself, judge with your own wisdom and experience what is the best thing to do at the right moment, and go for it.
- You must be in touch with reality, aware of your surroundings, and familiar with the laws of physics, which cannot be defied even if you are a nice person.
- Roundabouts not only allow you to move at will, according to your best interests, but necessitate the wise and bold use of free agency if you are to progress to your destination.
- You are not controlled by external forces when you use the roundabout. There is no light to tell you when to go or when to stop. The successful use of the roundabout requires independent thinking, timing, audacity, and a cool head.
Roundabouts have for nearly a decade been the defining controversy of Western Colorado. Letters to the Editor claiming that they are dangerous, European, and unnecessary have only recently taken a back seat to more pertinent issues. But for years, when the roundabouts were being constructed in all corners of town as well as highway on-ramps, the polar division in Grand Junction was almost as stark as Allies vs. Axis, Sitting Bull vs. Custer, and Brady vs. Manning. I was confounded by the frothing animosity coming from the anti-roundabout forces. Having become acquainted with roundabouts, and liking them a great deal, my conclusion was inevitable: Liberals don’t like roundabouts.
- Liberals prefer old fashioned intersections because they don’t have to think for themselves. Their movements are dictated by a set of outside controls and, like Pavlov’s drooling dogs, when the light flashes green they move, when it goes red, they stop, and when it turns yellow, they get confused and reflexively hit the gas.
- Liberals are fear-based and hate new innovations, even those patterned from European inventions. They fear change, and they fear people who speak of real change, not empty shibboleths of change, but advancement, improvement, and novel thinking.
- Liberals hate efficiency that actually benefits people. Cutting down on gas usage by ending the idling that occurs at intersections is less desirable to Liberals than just simply outlawing cars, over the road travel, and any other manifestation of human freedom which requires the use of fuel. Roundabouts are threatening to Liberals because they undermine their “ban the internal-combustion engine” propositions.
- Liberals hate any idea that beautifies and improves human communities and interactions. Theories that humanity is a blight on the planet are nullified by innovations which improve the environment and make life better and safer for people and the planet alike.
There is a big caveat in my theory about Liberals, Conservatives, and roundabouts, however. Yes, Liberals have a hard time thinking for themselves and so roundabouts aggravate them. But, if a Liberal wants something that is perhaps out of the bounds of common sense, or outside the law, they have no qualms about breaking the rules to get it. So a word of caution to the Conservatives in the audience: If you see a Subaru, Volvo, Saab, or Carman Ghia, or any vehicle with an “Obama 08,” “Coexist,” or a “Feminists against Sarah Palin,” bumper sticker, beware. There is a raging Liberal in the car, and if they decide they want something on the other side of the intersection, or the roundabout, they will T-bone you without a second thought to get it.
This is another thought I had during one of my interminable trips across the mystical hinterlands of my home state: Liberals, especially the ones destroying the country, are like toddlers in an M1 Abrams Tank. They have no judgment, they cannot think for themselves, they react in fear to everything, and they are behind the controls of something very big and powerful and dangerous, and they’re driving it through the streets of America right now. Quick, maybe you can lose them in a roundabout.
By Marjorie Haun 2/11/12
February
11
2012
Published by Zibigniew Mazurak on February 9, 2012 and subsequently posted by ReaganGirl.com on February 11.
Eisenhower knew the Military, and he understood what it takes to maintain a strong defense.
President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, delivered 51 years ago (on January 17th, 1961), has been misinterpreted, misconstrued, and manipulated more often and to a much larger extent than any speech of any other American politician. Although it was merely a warning about the potential influence of the US defense industry and of a large standing army on the federal government, and expressed a fear that was proven unfounded, it is now being manipulated and misconstrued by anti-defense groups and individuals, such as the “Committee for the Republic” and by Ron Paul and his minions, as a call for deep defense cuts and isolationism and as a warning of a supposed vast evil influence by the so-called “military industrial complex”, which is supposedly oppressing the American people and skewing the ordinary democratic political process. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In an article for the American Thinker published last year and in a separate blogpost, I’ve refuted a few myths about Eisenhower’s speech and presented its true meaning. In this blogpost, I’d like to refute what I believe to be the three most common myths about that speech.
Here’s the rebuttal:
Myth: Eisenhower, if he was alive today, would’ve supported deep defense cuts.
Fact: Nothing could be further from the truth. His remark about the “military-industrial complex” is routinely being taken out of context and misused, as is habitual for the opponents of a strong defense. Here is the full relevant quote:
“Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American
experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
If one reads the entire speech, rather than just one sentence quoted out of context, it is clear that Eisenhower did not call for any defense cuts. What he did do was to call for “the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals”, and not to allow it to subvert America’s ordinary democratic political process, “so that security and liberty may prosper together”, which he rightly believed possible, and which has been achieved in the United States. The defense establishment HAS been combined with America’s peaceful methods and goals, and has NOT skewed the democratic political process. As for the establishment of a large peacetime standing army and a large arms industry, Eisenhower said, “we recognize the imperative need for this development” and reminded the American people that “we can no longer afford improvisation” in the military and in the defense industry during wartime; hence, the US needs a large, strong peacetime military.
Morever, earlier in the speech, Eisenhower said:
“A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. “our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no aggressor will risk his self-destruction.”
So, instead of seeing the military establishment as a threat to America’s civil liberties, its economy, or its prosperity, he called it “a vital element in keeping the peace” – which it is. Without a strong defense you cannot have peace.
Moreover, Eisenhower’s presidential and post-presidential papers, available at the Eisenhower Library and on its website, have shed additional light onto the speech and President Eisenhower’s intent. They confirm what I’ve been saying all along. In a 1966 letter to a Special Committee of the American Veterans Council, President Eisenhower wrote:
“Dear Mr Karson
Thank you for your complimentary remarks on the TV address I made just as I left the Presidency. I am glad to know that your organization is devoting time and energy to studying the ramifications of what I then called the “military-industrial complex”.
The influence of tremendous munitions expenditures is felt in every phase of our national life – millions today owe their prosperity, indeed their livelihood to this kind of production. Communities, and manufacturers, compete for new munitions facilities or contracts; to obtain such favorable situations political influence is sought and often given. Manifestly all of us should be alert to the possibility that munitions production could become so imprtant that whole communities will look upon it as a way of life; we may forget that these expenditures are merely for the purpose of defending ourselves and what we now have.
Our struggle against world Communist involves military, economic, and spiritual factors. Each is equally important and it is up to us to see that we maintain the necessary strength in each and the proper balance among the three.
Sincerely,
/signature/”
As one can clearly read from this letter from the man himself – President Eisenhower – he was NOT calling for any defense cuts, nor did he label the US military or the US defense industry a grave threat to civil liberties and democracy. What he did call for was 1) making sure that munitions production does not become a way of life for the country; 2) keeping all three elements of national power – military, economic, and spiritual – equally strong, and keeping a proper balance among the three.
So, instead of wanting defense cuts, he wanted a strong, adequately funded defense – but also balance between military, economic, and spiritual power, as he considered all of them equally important for protecting America and for defeating the Communists.
Additionally, in a 1985 letter to Mark Teasley (an employee of the Eisenhower Library), Ralph E. Williams, who worked with President Eisenhower on writing speeches and participated in the writing of the speech, remarked:
“I have always been astonished at the attention that has been given to the “military-industrial complex” portion of President Eisenhower’s last speech, and agree with Pete aurand that its true significance has been distorted beyond recognition. I am sure that had it been uttered by anyone except a President who had also been the Army’s five-star Chief of Staff it would long since have been forgotten. But as things were, it became red meat for the media, who have gleefully gnawed on it for twenty five years.”
So any claim or implication that President Eisenhower called for defense cuts in his farewell address, or that the defense industry and the US military rule the country or have corrupted the democratic political process, is a blatant lie.
Moreover, the context matters. When Eisenhower took office, defense spending amounted to 14% of GDP and when he was leaving office, it still amounted to 10% of GDP and the majority of the entire federal budget. Today, total US military spending amounts to a tiny 4.51% of GDP and just 19% of the total federal budget, while the absolute majority of the TFB, 63%, is being consumed by entitlements. It was one thing for Eisenhower to express doubts about the kind of military spending he oversaw in his day. It is quite another to deliberately quote a tiny, selected part of his speech out of context more than half a century later and misportray it as something it was not.
Myth: Eisenhower would’ve supported US withdrawal from alliances.
Fact: Eisenhower would’ve never supported such a policy. Not only did he support the alliances that the US was involved in when he took office, he even formed new alliances such as SEATO (established in 1954) and mutual defense alliances with the UK (in 1958), Japan (in 1960), and South Korea. And as the first NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, he oversaw the formation of the Alliance, the establishment of its HQ, and the formulation of its first contingency plans.
Myth: Eisenhower would’ve supported the closure of all US bases abroad.
Fact: Again, this is a lie, because Eisenhower did the opposite things when he was President. He built dozens of new bases abroad, leased existing bases from allied countries, and made the decision to keep thousands of US troops permanently in Korea. As NATO’s first-ever Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, he oversaw the permanent stationing and garrisoning of massive US formations in Europe to defend Western Europe from the Soviet Union. Here is a listing of all available files on the Eisenhower’s Administration’s views on US bases abroad from the Eisenhower library. (http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/subject_guides/pdf/Military_Bases_US_Overseas.pdf)
To sum up, as I stated above, if one reads the ENTIRE speech, rather than just one short bit taken out of context, and interprets the ENTIRE speech in line with the context in which it was stated in 1961, one will understand it correctly. It was NOT a call for any defense cuts, for isolationism, for isolationism, nor for the gutting of the US defense industry. Sadly, many anti-defense groups and individuals, both liberal and libertarian (including President Eisenhower’s granddaughter Susan, who has teamed up with the “Committee for the Republic” to bash the US military and to lie about defense issues {PDF}), misconstrue and misportray that speech as something it was no to be. By doing so, they are desecrating President Eisenhower’s memory.
The opinions of Ziggy’s Defense Blog do not necessarily reflect those of ReaganGirl.com.
February
9
2012
February 9, 2012
Obama’s war on religion is meant to divide the country along an absolute line of religious liberty versus state-enforced security–or, more accurately, the illusion of security. This is a line which separates The Right from the Left, Conservatism from Liberalism, and Constitutionalism from Progressivism. Not since the Civil War has America been more polarized along political lines. But political and demographic lines are no longer purely discursive, they have become the defining differences between good and evil.
Barack Obama’s war on religion is nothing new. His every action as President has been impelled by an undercurrent of contempt for religion. Religion–true religion–the bones that give form to the most abstract and intimate knowledge of, and communion with God, poses the greatest threat to Obama’s power. The Obama presidency is incompatible with the true religion abiding in the hearts of most Americans because true religion testifies that Obama is not supreme over men or God. And those true believers who recognize that Obama, in many ways, is the antithesis of God, are the biggest threat to him of all.
Obama is not a man of extraordinary faculty. He is clever, but not remarkably intellectual. One could say he is less introspective and conscientious than most men. It’s not who he is that pits him against religion, but what he believes that causes him to regard religion and the religious as intrusions on his Utopian transformation of The United States. Obama is not dangerous because his mind is expansive and visionary. He is dangerous because his mind is petty, selfish, narrow, and driven by the need to dominate.
The “War on Religion” so loudly extolled in the news this week is another demonstration of his ongoing attempt to subject all things to the state. This is classic Marxism. Marxism idealizes the state–which is controlled by the elite political class–as the source of rights, resources, order, and knowledge. Religion is tolerated only if it does not present a threat to the state. If religion can be practiced innocuously as a system of superficial observances and practices, without any real feeling on the part of its adherents, then it will be tolerated. But if religion opposes any dictum of the state, or upsets the order of the dictatorial system, it must be crushed. In the minds of Marxists, like Barack Obama, religion is no more important than a satisfying meal, a good laugh, or music that temporarily transports one to a state of enjoyment. It is simply a form of pleasurable recreation, insofar as God does not interfere with some lofty demand.
Obama’s superficial expressions of religion betray his lack of understanding of the Judeo/Christian basis of New World Civilization. His first religious experiences were in a madrassa in Indonesia, when as a boy, he was exposed to and trained in Islam. His adult experiences with religion were those which took place in Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity Church where the gospel was perverted into a form of Black Supremacist Marxism, also known as Black Liberation Theology. These experiences color Obama’s understanding of religion and religious people. He knows that true religion is a threat to his ever-growing state, but having no true Christian conversion experience, he has no idea how deep and personal religion is to believing Americans. Religion, patriotism, and the willingness to fight to the death for the cause of Liberty are one, inseparable, and a force that cannot be stopped by the force of law, or weapons.
The War on Religion 2012 is not really designed to take down religion. Militant Feminism, abortion, the expulsion of references to God, moral instruction, and patriotism from public schools, the bequeathing of special rights to people who practice perverse lifestyles, the normalization of shacking up, children born out-of-wedlock, and the displacement of charity by socialist policies, have already removed true religion from the lives and hearts of many in the West. The Culture War has been waged for decades, and activist judges, coercive courts, and corrupt politicians have won battle after battle against everything holy and lasting, from the lives of the unborn, to the heart of the 1st Amendment. No, the war on religion does not need to destroy religion, that is already well under way. Obama’s war on religion is meant to divide the country along an absolute line of religious liberty versus state-enforced security–or, more accurately, the illusion of security. This is a line which separates The Right from the Left, Conservatism from Liberalism, and Conservatism from Progressivism. Not since the Civil War has America been more polarized along political lines. But political and demographic lines are no longer purely discursive, they have become the defining differences between good and evil.
Will Obama succeed in dividing America? Perhaps. The division may be inevitable since the extremity of current political platforms makes them impossibly incompatible. God and nihilism, morality and debauchery, virtue and corruption, life and death, the Church and the state, are by their natures separate and cannot occupy the same space simultaneously. The spaces within the heart of Patriotic Americans are filled with love. The love of God will not be displaced with the love of the state. The love of freedom will not be displaced with the love of temporal security. The Obama Administration may succeed in separating the people along ideological lines, but they will not, and cannot separate true believing, patriotic Americans, from their convictions. Barack Obama’s reprehensible decrees will drive patriots closer to their God, more deeply into their American roots, and more fiercely into their willingness to fight. It will be a cold day in hell before Obama succeeds in destroying true religion.
By Marjorie Haun 2/9/12
February
6
2012
Let’s Turn Colorado RED in 2012!
Show everyone that you want
Colorado to be a RED state in 2012!
February 6, 2012
The Tea Party owns no one, claims no voting bloc or special interest, and conversely, is owned by no one. It is simply the contraction of patriotic muscle when and where it needs to be exerted.
Where did the Tea Party go? Did boil away? Did it steep for too long in the hostile and hot water of American politics and lose its strength? The answer to these questions are as inscrutable as the Tea Party itself. The answer is as hard to quantify as the Big Ideas of American Conservatism. So, where is the Tea Party? My guess is that it is exactly where it needs to be.
The Tea Party is not definable by any demographic measure. It is a state of mind, a human condition. It has is no structure to compare to the machinations of the political parties. The Tea Party owns no one, claims no voting bloc or special interest, and conversely, is owned by no one. It is simply the contraction of patriotic muscle when and where it needs to be exerted.
I have a theory about the Tea Party, as well as some advice for those anxious to bolt into the electoral arena. First the theory: Since the Tea Party is both a populist movement and a philosophical framework, it responds to its own principled impulses and not to the directions of individuals. The timing of the 2012 elections has a palpable ebb and flow to which the Tea Party is keenly sensitive. It would be a mistake for the Tea Party to apply its strength too early, in behalf of a candidate untried by the fullness of the primary process. Like the emerging butterflies struggling from their rigid chrysalises, the GOP candidates are not fully developed, nor sufficiently strong to survive on their own. The Tea Party, by flexing its muscle and helping a particular candidate along, may weaken and kill the butterflies that needs to prove themselves through their initiatory challenges upon entering the world. The candidates must be proven, with the one most fit to weather the harsh environment of politics, emerging by his own power.
The Tea Party is about unifying Americans in the peaceful 21st Century Revolution. To use its muscle to unify one faction of the Conservative Movement against another during the presidential primaries, would lead to disunion and rancor in the general election. The Tea Party knows and understands this dynamic, and teeming with patriots who know how critical 2012 is to the survival of America as we know it, they’re not going to incite division.
Now for some advice: The Tea Party is a populist movement with a spiritual undercurrent. I’ve felt the spirit of Americanism and ardor at every Tea Party event I have ever attended. There is not a perfect consensus of political isms, or homogeneity of ideas, but there is a unity of hearts, with the one goal being to save the country beloved by every and headstrong and independent patriot in attendance. My advice is to stay unified in, above all, the love of country. It is not necessary, as yet, for the Tea Party to throw its considerable weight behind any one GOP candidate. The Tea Party is about unifying the entire Conservative universe. Stay focused on deposing Barack Hussein Obama, winning the Senate and increasing our majority in the House of Representatives. Work hard in local races to effect change at home. Bust your butts to bring a more conservative character to your states. Teach your non-affiliated and undecided friends about the Founding Documents, and about what makes The United States of America unique and indispensable to the rest of of the world. Persuade your friends to reason out our terrible predicament. We have a Socialist demagogue in the White House, and far too many people in power who reap that which the hands of the rest of us sow, to further their political power and big government ends.
Prove the pundits wrong who proclaim that the Tea Party is weakened and fading into obscurity. Awaken, and at the correct time, when a candidate is chosen and the country is prepared to decide whether it becomes a pathetic socialist shadow of its former self, or whether Socialism and corruption, and the politicians and bureaucrats who perpetuate failure, are defeated and swept out of power in a cleansing of the Republic and a restoration of our Constitutional First Principles.
The Tea Party will enter stage right with the muscle they’ve been quietly working out for the last year in their local gyms. They will maneuver a divided and wounded party into position to whoop anti-American arse. The role of the Tea Party is not to spin one galaxy of the Conservative universe, but pull the disparate bodies and systems within that universe into a smooth, harmonious orbit around the big ideas of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States. Most of all, the Tea Party is the muscle, the enforcer of Liberty, and will emerge in a big way exactly when it is most needed.
By Marjorie Haun 2/6/12
