A View From the Hills

Philadelphia's Workhouse of the World and The Economy

2009-12-15T09:50:00.000-08:00

Disston Steel Works, Philadelphia, PA

The City of Philadelphia is a tale of two cities. In one tale, we find a city of large, mostly empty, corporate office buildings reaching out skyward to an uncertain, and very shaky, future while the second tale tells a story of Philadelphia's greater past.

Sometimes, one has to look into the past to see a way into the future.

At one time, Philadelphia was known as the workhouse of the world for it was a city comprised of thousands of job opportunities to be found in shops, shipyards and manufacturing centers. Take a drive through Philadelphia and you will find the remnants of seamstress factories, hat shops, textile shops, tanners, metal workers, dye makers, print shops, ice makers, refrigerator factories, locomotive factories, foundries, brickmakers, shipyards, granaries and iron works. At one time, Philadelphia boasted a workforce numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

All of that, however, is gone. Where once there was employment, jobs in Philadelphia are now hard, if not impossible, to find.

1918 Seattle General Strike

Corporate Greed

What is to blame for all of this? The times change for sure. Not many people wear hats nor is there a great need for tanners. Greed and mismanagement, however, are also partly to blame. Both labor unions and corporations must equally share the blame for American industries moving overseas where labor and material can be easily exploited. Unions demand sometimes ridiculous wages and benefits. Why does a UAW (United Auto Worker) who is making $40 an hour be paid benefits? Why pay a US worker minimum wage when you can pay a Third World worker 10 cents an hour and increase your profit margin? Instead of working together to keep the business afloat, industry leaders and unions have fought each other to the point where they are both now endanger of becoming as extinct as the dinosaurs.

American industry leaders are no longer inventive. New ideas are put into action based now, on cost and profit margins, rather than on long term gain. Because of this, we have fallen behind our European and Asian competitors who are much more patient and forward looking than we are.

U.S. Capitol Building

The U.S. Government has also played a hand in destroying American industries. They have over-regulated our industries so much that they are no longer productive. The government needs to loosen the bonds some. We need to encourage our industries, not keep them in check. We need to become competitive with our foreign competition. We should reward creativity and job creation; not stifle it.

American laborers

We need to bring our industries back home to America where they belong. We need to create jobs for Americans; not to foreigners. Does this mean we should break up the monopoly dominated by corporations? Maybe so. Of course, by doing so we would also have to curtail the power of the labor union. Worker's salaries should be fair and competitive; an honest day's wage for an honest day's work. Capitalism should always be about competition and free markets; not about market dominance.

The Government's answer to our industrial woe is to offer bailouts to poorly managed companies and to give handouts to the American people. In other words, the only solution our leaders can find to this problem is to offer both corporate and personal welfare. Americans don't want government handouts as much as they want a job. It does a man (or woman) good to see the fruits of their labors and to reap the benefits of their own work by having a little spending money in their pocket.

Henry Ford and his Model-T

Our industrial system definitely needs an overhaul but we don't need the socialism being offered by the Democrats. During the reign of communism which prevailed over Eastern Europe I can't seem to recall any Warsaw Pact nation ranking in the top ten when it came to Gross National Product. No, we don't need socialism as much as we do a return to old-school style capitalism. We need a breakup of monopolies and more competition amongst ourselves. Competition will only create more jobs. We need free markets. Unions and corporations need to be put into check and be made to work together (which is something a hero of mine, Teddy Roosevelt, tried to do in the early 20th Century).

America was a creative, industrious nation once and, with a little turning of the wrench, we can be again.

Liberals Aim Hollywood Guns at the Liebermans.

2009-12-15T06:57:00.000-08:00

Frustrated at their attempts to silence Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) over his leadership of the opposition to their National Health Care Bill, Liberals are breaking out their big Hollywood guns and are pointing them not only at the good senator from Connecticut, but, in a very low tactic, at his wife, Haddasah.

A liberal Web site is trying to enlist celebrities to persuade a top breast cancer research group to dump Sen. Joe Lieberman's wife as its "global ambassador," saying Hadassah Lieberman's health care lobbying work and her husband's opposition to the so-called public option make her unfit for the role.

The site Firedoglake has started lobbying celebrities attached to the organization, Susan G. Komen for the Cure -- including daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and actor Neil Patrick Harris -- to use their star power to force out Lieberman. "People who are racing for the cure wouldn't be racing to pay Hadassah Lieberman money," the Web site said in a statement Monday.

According to a FoxNews article, Sen. Lieberman has vowed to oppose health care reform if it contains a government-run insurance plan. Over the weekend, he also said he would not back a bill if it contains a Medicare expansion that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been shopping around as a compromise.

The Connecticut independent Democrat says he's concerned about the long-term costs of the package to the federal government. His position has made him persona non grata to many liberal Democrats.

Hadassah Lieberman used to work for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and for lobbyist APCO Associates, which represented health care companies. She also worked as a senior counselor at lobbying firm Hill & Knowlton in the company's health care practice.

Other Hollyweird celebrities being lined up to attack the Liebermans include Cynthia Nixon, Trishia Yearwood and Christie Brinkley.

I wonder if we will get a duet from Yearwood spouse Garth Brooks and Brinkley's ex, Billy Joel?

You have to love the old adage, "if you can't beat them, smear them".

Right Becomes Wrong; Wrong Becomes Right

2009-11-25T07:31:00.000-08:00

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;

Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;

Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

~ Isaiah 5:20

You know that things are really wrong in our country when terrorists are looked at as victims and our men and women in uniform have become the terrorists. Such is the case in the recent news story appearing on FoxNews about 3 Navy SEALS who are facing assault charges for capturing, and punching, a wanted terrorist in Iraq.

The terrorist, in question, is one Ahmed Hashim Abed, who in 2004 masterminded the ambush and murder of 4 Blackwater agents in Fallujah. He then hung their bodies on a bridge for the entire world to see. The media, of course, salivated over the incident as they posted the bloated corpses of the men all over the Internet.

Terrorists in Fallujah cheer hanged Blackwater agents

During his capture, Ahmed was punched in the mouth by one of the SEALS. After he was turned over to the Iraqi police, Ahmed then brought up the assault to the authorities who then notified the SEALS of the alleged abuse. An officer with the SEALS questioned the men who, at first, denied hitting him but then recanted their statement. The officer then filed charges against the SEALS.

If this is the kind of war we are going to fight against terrorism under this administration then we've already lost it. Liberals want to fight wars without bloodshed; without casualty. They want our military to obey rules of good behavior while our enemy obeys none. How exactly do liberals expect us to fight terrorists who obey no rules; who know no moral standard? With kind words, tea and biscuits?

U.S. soldier cradles the body of a child killed

in a terrorist attack

As usual, liberals are hypocrites. Terrorists blow up buses, decapitate prisoners, ambush relief workers and gun down people in markets but a Navy SEAL punches one terrorist in the face and, somehow, that is an international incident worth crying over?!?! In the liberal mind, right is wrong and wrong is right (but, of course, one of their spokesmen is Rosie O'Donnell who believes that our military are terrorists themselves.) Liberals have also embraced the Ft. Hood shootist, Nidal Hasan, as a victim even though he murdered 13 men and women and injured 30 others. As the article in the Huffington Post goes on to say:

As Islamophobes and armchair analysts jump to their own simple conclusions on Hasan, his personal dislocations and fears likely played a significant mutating role in his eventual spiral toward violence. These include fear and conflict over an impending first deployment, unresolved distress over the loss of his mother, difficulties with his colleagues and in finding a mate, a cross-country move, and repeated exposure to traumatized soldiers. After two of the main support systems that he knew all his life, namely job and family failed him, religion may have taken their place. While he had served for two decades in the military, he had become increasingly alienated from its mission, and upset over a feared deployment he could not escape.

Wow. Islamophobes? I'm beginning to wonder if liberals have a problem with enemy recognition? Maybe the real enemy are the liberals in Washington?

Yessir. The world has gone topsy turvy.

Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner?

2009-11-24T08:11:00.000-08:00

It seems that our President just doesn't play well with others.

Despite promises to run a bi-partisan administration, the President has run Washington by what appears to be a 'members only' club.

According to House Republican Leader, John Boehner, at no time has President Obama ever held a meeting with Republicans concerning a national health care bill. He won't even discuss it with them. On his website, Rep. Boehner writes that "the President has not met with House Republicans since April, and when Republican Leaders asked for a meeting to discuss health care in a May 14 letter, the President ignored the request".

So much for working together to create a better America. Oh well, it's just another broken promise.

But the insult to injury goes much further than that. For his very first State Dinner, to be held at the White House, a "very select" group of 300 people are going to be invited to attend this historic occasion.

Do you want to guess who is not invited to dinner?

Top members of the Republican Party.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner won't be there; he's on Thanksgiving break and home in Ohio. His deputy, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, also didn't get an invitation to the dinner.

The President didn't invite his 2008 rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, even though Mr. Obama the candidate pledged a post-partisan presidency.

Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell received an invitation, but he will not be attending but there were notable others who did not rate an invitation including Democrats Max Baucus, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen.

Pretty much, the President has snubbed some of the very people he swore to work with.

So who is coming for dinner?

Hollywood celebrities.

...talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, who endorsed Mr. Obama during the campaign, will be attending. Reports emerged Monday that Hollywood will be in the house: DreamWorks partners David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, along with Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman Michael Lynton and WME Entertainment Agency co-CEO Ari Emanuel, will attend, according to deadline.com.

Yes, let's not have a meaningful dinner to show bipartisanship or American unity, instead let's invite people who's opinion doesn't really matter to attend a State dinner at the White House.

Way to go Barack!

I wonder if other "very important" people such as Lady Gaga or Perez Hilton will be attending too?

Not Your Father's Molly Maguires

2009-11-23T08:37:00.000-08:00

The days of the Molly Maguire have long since left us.

I am a firm believer that we have come to the day where unions have long outlived their usefulness. I am not a fan of unions and I see no reason for their existence. Unions are no longer organizations, such as the Molly Maguires, which look out for the safe working conditions, benefits of or the jobs of the average working joe. Unions are nothing more than corporations themselves looking to turn a profit and whose activities are chasing American industries either overseas or out of business. Nowadays, when I see a union criticizing a corporation I am often reminded of the saying, "the pot calling the kettle black".

Sean Connery in the film, "The Molly Maguires"

Can someone tell me why a union auto worker makes $40.00 an hour? For what? Cars that routinely break down and pale in comparison to the efficiency of their foreign competition? Listen, if I had a choice between a Ford (aka Found On the Road Dead) or a Suzuki, I'm going to buy the car which is going to last and eventually save me money in the gas tank. Japanese car, here I come.

Unions also do not protect American jobs. In fact, they seem to do very little when it comes to job protection. Currently, I am watching my father in law struggle to keep his job because the company wants him to quit so that they do not have to pay his retirement. What is the union doing? Nothing. Why? Because the senior union rep and the company boss are best friends who go fishing on the weekends.

I've seen the same thing happen to my own father who had to accept a demotion from foreman to laborer. My Dad's choice, accept the demotion or lose your job. It wasn't as if my Dad was doing a bad job because he wasn't. He was meeting his quotas and was well liked by his subordinates yet, the 'higher ups' wanted a younger person in the job. The younger man who took his position never met his quota and his frequent breaks and absences from work only irritated his relationship with his peers. What did the union do about this? Not a damn thing. Why? Because the young man has "connections" with people high up in the union. It's cronyism pure and simple.

corrupt Teamster boss, Jimmy Hoffa

And Unions are nothing more than advents for crony-ism and nepotism. They are places where friends are placed in high places while people who actually can do the job are shunned and once these friends reach tenure, they can't be fired (such as teachers).

Unions have caused more damage to American industry than the industry has itself. Why is it that American companies are going overseas? Is it because of the high salary demands made by union employees in America? Of course it is. This is why America no longer has a manufacturing base. Americans aren't making the clothing you buy at Target or K-Mart -- the Asians are. Why? Because it's cheaper to pay them to work than it is an American. If I were a CEO, I'd do the same thing. Why should I pay some slob $40 an hour for a lousy job when I can pay someone $2 an hour who does it better?

SEIU "Boss", Andy Stern

One of the things that unions have kept from their Molly Maguire legacy is the use of violence to silence dissent. While unions have always been involved with politics, under the Obama administration, unions have become more pirate-minded using violent thug tactics and communist style politics to squelch dissent from opposition at town hall meetings --- and no union has been more guilty of this than the SEIU.

Asked about his organizing philosophy, [SEIU Boss] Andy Stern summed it up this way: “[W]e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work we use the persuasion of power.”

Stern and his shock troops have bullied companies from private equity firms to Burger King to food management company Aramark, who have resisted SEIU’s attempts to organizer their workers.

Sadly, Unions are biting the hand that feeds them. An article in today's townhall written by Peter Ferrara states

The problem with today’s labor unions is that they follow an outdated model arising from the industrialization battles at the end of the 19th century. That model is closer to piracy in aiming to take from others, rather than productive modern capitalism. Basic economics will tell you that any higher wages that unions achieve for their members come at the expense of lower wages for others excluded from the market ....

There would be a role for modern, free market labor unions that approached employers with the proposition, “How could we be more productive so that you can pay us more?” Such unions would be welcomed by employers as promoting good communication and cooperation with the company’s work force, and adding to rather than subtracting from the company’s bottom line and survival prospects.

But unions persist with their pirate model, thinking they can achieve more by taking as much as possible from the employer and the company. That is why union-dominated industries such as steel and now autos have fallen into steep decline.

Instead of meeting in the middle with employers and employees, unions are out to make as much money as they can even if it hurts the very industry which provides them with jobs. This attitude makes absolutely no sense and it is ultimately self-cannibalistic -- unions are biting the very hand that feeds them.

Forgetting God

2009-11-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

"Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened".

Quote by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn in Edward E. Ericson, Jr., "Solzhenitsyn – Voice from the Gulag," Eternity, October 1985, pp. 23, 24

"If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under." -- Ronald Reagan.

The two quotes above are very simliar but they were spoken by two people from near opposite ends of the earth. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was a Soviet author, dramatist and historian who became disenchanted with the promise of Soviet-style communism he grew up in. Ronald Reagan was a former radio commentator, actor and President of the United States who espoused, and lived from, the benefits reaped from a free, capitalist society.

America is a nation that has forgotten both God and the Christian values encased in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. We do not heed the Word of God nor do we obey His laws. Sadly, we often don't even obey the very laws we have written in our Constitution.

We have rejected God at every turn --- we have used irreverant logic and twisted reason to justify and to support abortion, same-sex marriage, drug abuse, pornography, child abuse, corruption, and war. Instead of a Christian nation, we are a nation of immorality and decayed values. We offer our children up for sale and use them as tools in immoral social experiments. Our courts have become so twisted that they lionize the criminal and crucify the victim of crime. America is a full 180 degrees out from where it once started. In our time, right has become wrong and wrong has become right.

America needs to stop, take a pause, and re-evaluate itself. Take a good, hard look at where we started and where we are now. We need to remember God and what he expects from us. We need to rebuild and re-enforce the morals he instilled in us for our morals are crumbling as quickly as the Berlin Wall and, if we are not careful, we will go the same way it did, as well as other nations who embraced immorality --- as relics of stone and dust.

If we forget God completely, then we have no right then to ask for mercy for whatever becomes of us.

Truths about Communism

2009-11-19T07:18:00.000-08:00

"LIES"

To be blunt, today's generation just doesn't have a clue. Not only are they clueless, but worse, they are ignorant. They are ignorant on many fronts but their most ignorant stand is their infatuation with socialism - also known as communism. What is the truth about communism? The truth is "Communist regimes have historically been authoritarian, repressive, and coercive governments concerned primarily with preserving their own power." The truth is that people who want a socialist/communist society in America do not want one for the 'good of the whole' but to garner power for themselves; to mold society into one that thinks and acts the same, a society with unswerving loyalty to the state and one that questions nothing.

Back in the day, when the "Cold War" between the capitalist West and the communist East raged, one would never talk favorably about communism. Yet, today, you'll find it spoken favorably of, and openly, in the lyrics of music (Offspring, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Audioslave, Rage Against the Machine et al), from actors and producers in the film industry (Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore to name but a few) and even from our leaders on Capitol Hill (Maxine Waters, Charles Rangel and, most horrifyingly, from our Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi).

Having been alive during the "Cold War", I remember the ills of communism very well. Yet, despite what history teaches us, today's youths have embraced communism as the world's savior. Kids are wearing Che Guevarra and Soviet-style, hammer and sickles on t-shirts and red stars on their caps. College aged students speak proudly of Karl Marx and Mao Tse Tsung even though they've never really read them. Despite the fact that communism dominated Eastern Europe with an iron fist for over 50 years and Russia (aka the Soviet Union) for 83yrs, today's youths believe that communism can right all the wrongs in the world - that if we take from the rich and give it all to the poor everything will be just fine. Unfortunately, while communism may look good on paper; it failed miserably in practice. The communist years were not 'golden years' whatsoever for the communist bloc was ruled by political repression and fear and it's people, unless they were Inner Party members, lived in abject poverty often standing in long lines for the most basic of necessities. Having grown up in America, though, today's kids look at my warnings of the dangers associated with communism as being 'biased'.

"Checkpoint Charlie, West Berlin, East Germany"

Well, here are some reminders:

From an article in Time Magazine dated October 8, 1956 we read of "police brutality, enforced hunger, and of officially induced lying".
An essay appearing on the Constitutional Rights Foundation website states that under communism, "shortages of goods constantly occurred. Even in stock, there was little variety of goods. Often, there was only one type of laundry soap, one flavor of ice cream, and one kind of coffee. But most families owned a television set and a washing machine. Many owned cars, but cars and appliances required long waits."
A telling testimony was told in an interview of Dr. Mircea Veleanu, an obstetrician living in the United States, who was a 12 year old boy when the communists took over in Romania.

The country's borders were sealed, ensuring citizens would remain within the "iron curtain." No one could travel other than to other communist-bloc countries (Soviet Union, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany)."

There were now only government stores with prices set by the state, eliminating competition. Food soon became scarce and meat rarely available. People lined up early morning before work to buy limited food rations. It was first come, first served and foodstuffs sold out quickly. Some returned home empty handed. Luxury items like chocolate were almost impossible to procure. Rarely, when Veleanu's mother was able to purchase candy, he would divide it to make it last a month or two. "Any small piece I would suck slowly for a long time," he says. "Eating a piece of chocolate was like the biggest thing you could have in life."

Conditions got worse from one year to the next. "The government's grip of power became stronger and stronger, and people were afraid of everything," he says. "Life was miserable." In order to impose allegiance to the government, a policy of terror was instituted, with security police arresting people in the middle of the night. Those arrested were often accused of publically criticizing the government or its leaders. Children were encouraged, as their patriotic duty, to report to teachers what parents discussed at home. All publications from Western countries were banned, isolating the populace from outside influences.

"Soviet Gulag"

Life, however, socialism's defenders claim, could only get better for Americans under communism. Really?

A newspaper in the Czech Republic writes in regards to commmunism:

"After the communist takeover of February 1948, it was necessary to silence all enemies of the "working class". And if it was the youths who protested against the new order, they ended up in prison too. For instance for printing anti-state leaflets." Those who protested the government faced "social discrimination - young people were not allowed to study," and were kept from school. During their prison time, young people, "Before being sentenced, the youths were subject to investigation methods very similar to what adult political prisoners underwent. During interrogation, the investigators often beat them and threatened to also punish their family members, for instance" Afterwards, these children faced, "2.5 or three years in prison. Imprisonment longer than ten years was rare. They were re-educated in correctional facilities for the youths by working in agriculture, at construction sites, in coal mines and factories. And by means of mandatory political training,"

Imprisonment is just one form of punishment under the communist system. A more prevalent form is execution. Let us take a look, for example, of the legacy of Cambodian communist ruler, Pol Pot, who orchestrated the genocide of "an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people, approximately 21% of the Cambodian population". Or, the Great Purge of Josef Stalin in the 1930s resulting in the arrest and subsequent execution of "hundreds of thousands" of dissenters.

After the fall of South Vietnam to the communist north, "private enterprises were seized by the government and their owners were often sent to the New Economic Zone to clear land. The farmers were coerced into state-controlled cooperatives. Transportation of food and goods between provinces was deemed illegal except by the government. Within a short period of time, Vietnam was hit with severe shortage of food and basic necessities. The Mekong Delta, once a world-class rice-producing area, was threatened with famine"

Under communism, society is supposed to be 'free and equal' but that is not the case. In China, for example, the Chinese government routinely oppresses Mongols, Turkestanis, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians. So much for a free and equal society under communist rule.

And, as for Che Guevarra, he "was an extremely harsh disciplinarian who unhesitatingly shot defectors. Deserters were punished as traitors, and Guevara was known to send execution squads to hunt down those seeking to go AWOL. As a result, Guevara became feared for his brutality and ruthlessness". At the end of his life, according to historian Hugh Thomas, "he seems to have become convinced of the virtues of violence for its own sake".

So, here you have it, the ugly truths about communism and these aren't even all of them. Communism isn't 'freedom'; it's a dictatorship. If, after reading this, you still think that communism is such a great way of life then you really need to have your head examined.

Veterans Speak Out on Veterans Day

2009-11-13T07:29:00.000-08:00

Retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North recently visited a Veteran's Day celebration in Branson, MO where he had the opportunity to interview the veterans who were there. His original questions only asked "What was the last unit with which you served; where; when; and what did you do when you left the service?" What Lt. Col. North received in response, however, was an eye-opening expose on the growing discontent many veterans are having towards their leaders in Washington D.C.

Here are some of the answers he received.

"I served in the 82nd Airborne Division from 1942 to 1945. ... When I came back to the states, we got married, and I went to work for a car dealer. ... We eventually bought the dealership. Two of our sons served in Vietnam. ... What happened at Fort Hood isn't a 'tragedy'; it's a travesty. ... It should never have happened. ... The people who knew about this guy Hasan and did nothing to stop him ought to be fired. All of 'em."

"In 1950, I was six weeks out of boot camp when I landed with the 1st Marine Division at Inchon. ... We fought our way through Seoul all the way to the 'Frozen Chosin.' ... I retired in 1970 as a master gunnery sergeant after two tours in Vietnam. ... Both our sons served as officers in the Corps. ... Our daughter was a Navy nurse in Desert Storm. ... This crowd in Washington scares us. A few months ago, they were telling us that our biggest threat was disgruntled veterans and right-wing extremists. ... That's not who's killing Americans."

"I was drafted in 1969, served in Vietnam with the 1st Cav, was medically discharged from the Army in 1973 ... came home and married my high-school sweetheart. I used the GI Bill to get my degree, taught English for 20 years, and retired as the principal of our high school. ... We're Democrats. ... We're sick and tired of being told by this White House not to 'jump to conclusions or rush to judgment' about what happened at Fort Hood. ... How can the president tell us what this guy Hasan did is 'incomprehensible'? What don't they comprehend about militant Islamists?"

And from a young staff sergeant wearing a Purple Heart medal on his uniform and standing beside his pregnant wife: "I came in because of the attack on 9/11. I've done three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. We agreed I was going to stay in. But if we're not in to win, I'm getting out."

I served twenty years in the U.S. Navy, retiring as a Chief Petty Officer. I served aboard 17 ships during my time including deployments in support of the Gulf War, Kosovo and the Iraq War. A lot of my feelings towards our leadership in Washington can be echoed in the comments made by my comrades in arms. I'm very sick of what I see in Washington DC. I'm sick of the finger pointing, the corruption, the politics and the poor leadership from all sides. This administration, and this Congress, are the worst this nation has seen since just before the Civil War. For all the promise shown by President Obama, he is proving himself to be nothing more than a carbon copy of his predecessors. I agree with my fellow veterans when I say that these people are leading this nation to ruin and we are all growing very tired of all of it.

Now, if I were a smart House Representative, Senator or even the President of the United States, I'd be listening to these people.

Tyranny of the Ignorant

2009-11-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

I am reading a very good book written by conservative author, and radio show commentator, Tammy Bruce. In the book, called, ironically, The "Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values", Ms. Bruce writes about the purging of American and Western history courses from American college campuses.

There is, without doubt, an intent to re-write history by the left wing elite to fit history into the political norms of today. I'm sure that this rewriting has gone on much longer than I've been alive, but to my knowledge, the Stalinist revisionism of history began in the 1990s shortly after the election of Bill Clinton as President.

In the new version of history, America is not the land of the free nor the arsenal of democracy. No, America is a land of demons looking to enslave other cultures and using it's military to build a new Roman Empire. Unlike the America I grew up in, the America being taught today is a land of bad guys.

Although it really is a very poor source for information, take a look at this article written about the Korean War where you will find that it was America that provoked the North Koreans into invading the South, agitated the Chinese into intervening and hired right wing militia groups to hunt down and kill communists in North Korea. In this one concerning the Viet Nam War, America is accused of colonialism in Southeast Asia. Funny, I can't remember anyone going over to South Vietnam to start a colony.

History is not only being rewritten, it's often being omitted too. From Ms. Bruce's book, she writes that "the American Council of Trustees and Alumni reports that students can now graduate without taking a single course in American history."

Now, why would someone do that? Continuing in her book, Ms. Bruce quotes Glenn Ricketts, a University of Chicago almnus who works for the National Association of Scholars in New Jersey, who said, "It's this idea that Western Civilization is responsible for much of what's wrong with the world today ... Sure, Western civilization was oppressive at times, but other civilizations didn't produce a bill of rights or a constitution." Continuing in his report, he said, "As we move forward into the 21st Century, our future leaders are graduating with an alarming ignorance of their heritage - a kind of collective amnesia - and a profound historical illiteracy which bodes ill for the future of our republic."

Ms. Bruce adds to Mr. Ricketts comments by stating that, "if your goal as a leftist is to instill at the very least an ambivalent and at worst a hatred for America, you don't dare allow legitimate courses about U.S. history into your curriculum".

In other words, if you want to change the country (to socialism and communism) what better way to do it than to teach the youth of the country just how bad (democracy and capitalism) things are here.

How ignorant are our youth these days?

In a U.S. News & World Report, a survey of basic American history showed a glaring weakness among college students in American and Western history.

The results?

Scarcely more than half of the students surveyed knew general information about American democracy and the Constitution, such as the fact that it was the Constitution which established the division of power within the federal government. Over one third thought the purpose of the Federalist Papers was to win foreign approval for the Revolutionary War or to establish a free press.
Only 34 % could identify George Washington as an American general at the Battle of Yorktown, the culminating battle of the American Revolution.
Only 42 % were able to identify Washington as "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen".
Less than one quarter (23 %) correctly identified James Madison as the "father of the Constitution".

A gallup poll of college seniors showed even worse numbers:

25 % of college seniors could not place Columbus's voyage within the correct half century.
25 % could not distinguish Churchill's words from Stalin's or Karl Marx's ideas from the U.S. Constitution.
40% did not know when the American Civil War occurred.
Most could not identify certain well know works as being done by Plato (The Republic), Dante (Inferno), Shakespeare (MacBeth) or Milton (Paradise Lost). Italics are mine.

Summation: this country is in deep kimshee. If today's youth is the future of this nation, then we run the risk of living under the tyranny of the ignorant.

Conservatives Must Return to Their Roots

2009-11-10T11:57:00.000-08:00

Despite the recent results of the November 3rd election, the Republican Party remains as fractured as it ever was. The victory of conservative candidates, and the rejection of socialist-democratic values, aren't so much the results of a change in the GOP as they are a stunning disatisfaction of President Obama's agenda and what is felt as a betrayal of moderates and old school conservatives by the Democratic Party.

If the Republican Party desires to return to it's pre-eminence, it must first return to it's foundation and rebuild itself using paleo-conservative, or Old School Right values.

Although it claims otherwise, the Republican Party is not a true conservative organization. It's embracement of right wing extremism, militarism, and disregard of the Constitution is what drove out many of the real conservatives from the party. They left because the Republican Party embraced values which did not fall in line with the old school definition of conservatism.

It is my opinion that the victories last Tuesday will only be short lived unless the GOP comes up with real alternatives to the Democratic Party's platform. They cannot rely solely on the use of rhetoric heard so often on the airwaves from Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. To truly be triumphant, the Republican Party must re-embrace paleo-conservatism.

According to Thomas Fleming, the basic position of paleo-conservatism has

has always been twofold: 1) a recognition that man is a social and political animal who cannot be treated as an "individual" without doing damage to human nature. In this sense libertarian theory is as wrong and as potentially harmful as communism. The commonwealth is therefore a natural and necessary expression of human nature that provides for the fulfillment of human needs, and 2) the modern state is a cancerous form of polity that has metastasized and poisoned the natural institutions from which the state derives all legitimacy—family, church, corporation (in the broadest sense), and neighborhood. Thus, it is almost always a mistake to try to use the modern state to accomplish moral or social ends

Russell Kirk, one of the most widely read, modern paleo-conservatives,

argued that most government tasks should be performed at the local or state level. This is intended to ward off centralization and protect community sentiment by putting the decision-making power closer to the populace. He rooted this in the Christian notion of original sin; since humanity is flawed, society should not put too much power in a few hands. Gerald J. Russello concluded that this involved “a different way of thinking about government, one based on an understanding of political society as beginning in place and sentiment, which in turn supports written laws.”

The belief that the government should not be centralized can be found in many anti-federalist writings of the 18th Century. Anti-Federalism is, of course, at the core of paleo-conservative beliefs extending from government to culture as well

In general, this means that different regional groups should be able to maintain their own distinct identity. For example, Thomas Fleming and Michael Hill argue that the American South and every other region have the right to “preserve their authentic cultural traditions and demand the same respect from others.” In their Southern context they call on citizens to “take control of their own governments, their own institutions, their own culture, their own communities and their own lives” and “wean themselves from dependence on federal largesse.” They say that a concern for states' rights, local self-government and regional identity used to be taken for granted everywhere in America. But the United States is no longer, as it once was, a federal union of diverse states and regions. National uniformity is being imposed by the political class that runs Washington, the economic class that owns Wall Street and the cultural class in charge of Hollywood and the Ivy League.

The public, with the exception of a very small, but loud and well financed, minority, doesn't want handouts given to them as much as they want opportunity. They want jobs that will help them put away money which will only aid their families. As for family, Americans don't want a radical restructuring of the family unit, as Democrats do, as much as they want economic stability to traditionally raise their family in. This is what Americans want but it's not what they are getting. Instead of opportunity they are being given given false hope and promises which will never be kept. The Democratic Party is nothing more than a snake oil salesman. As much as the election last Tuesday hinted at a growing dissatisfaction of the Democratic Party's agenda, it also showed that the GOP still has ways to go before it can truly consider itself a threat to the leftist Dems.

What the GOP is doing is just throwing kindling on an already raging fire. They aren't adding anything to the platform they had in 2000 or even 2004 and 2008. People are getting tired of hearing the same re-tread again and again. The only way the GOP can truly ressuciate itself is by returning to it's roots, otherwise, the Party is nothing more than a tree, poorly planted, which will only wither and die