First, consider this. If you or your family earn more than $92,000 per year, (and many do, but would scoff at being called affluent especially in the Northeast), then congratulations. You belong to a select group of taxpayers in the top 20% of all wage earners. You also have the blessed distinction of paying 80% of all taxes collected. The top 20% pay 80% of ALL the tax. Nice, huh? Moreover, the top 50% wage earners pay a staggering 97% of all taxes. This means that the bottom 50% of all tax filers pay only 3% of all taxes collected. Put another way, 5 of every 10 people pay only $3 out of every $100 in tax collected. Sounds like a deal to me. For them.

To make matters worse, the Tax foundation verified that 32% of all tax returns filed were from people who paid no federal income tax at all. How is this possible? This is possible because of tax exemptions and earned income tax credits which reduce some filer's tax liability to zero, so 32 % pay nothing. And now Obama wants the people who do all the heavy lifting to lift even more. The fact is the Dems essentially want to REDUCE taxes on those who already pay a disproportionately small amount and provide more handouts to those who already pay nothing or next to nothing in an effort and build support, and yes, dependency in the Democratic voting base, many of whom are here illegally. And this is being done at the expense of responsible tax payers and business owners who have been and continue to be the source of the vast majority of tax revenue and are the very people who make it possible to grow the economy through private sector investment and job creation.

Obama plans on taking more money from the heavy lifters by not extending the Bush tax cuts enacted in 2000. I’m not a Bush apologist. He abandoned core conservative principles and all fiscal responsibility early on, was a failure in many ways, and is largely responsible for Dems having so much power today. However, the Dems have repeatedly slammed the Bush Administration saying that his tax cuts were only for the corporations and the wealthy. This is simply not true. According to IRS income statistics, in 2000 before the Bush tax cuts, the top 10% wage earners paid 67% of all tax. Last year this number was close to 71%. So during a period of time when Bush was supposedly taking care of his buddies in big oil, the highest earners actually paid more tax than before. How could this be possible if the tax cuts were for the privileged few? I never saw this announced on MSNBC or Meet the Press. What Obama and the liberal Dems seem to miss is that when you lower taxes, people tend to put more effort into earning income since less of it is taxable. When you raise taxes, people tend to put less effort into earning income since more of it is taxable, and more effort into finding ways to avoid paying tax. And the latter is not good for anyone. Try explaining that to a liberal.

It’s clear how to stimulate the economy, it’s been proven. The Dems want to ignore that even Kennedy in the ‘60s achieved this by using methods unheard of by some in his party. He cut marginal tax rates, capital gains, and inheritance taxes, and by 1968 that increased our revenues by more than 60 percent.

In 1980, the last year of the Carter Administration, inflation rose to 13.5%. The top individual tax payer rate was 70%, unemployment was 7.4%, and the federal government grew while enacting huge new spending programs. We’re heading down the same path today. During that period, the US economy was the worst it has ever been since the Great Depression.

When Reagan took office, he wiped out price controls that were preventing oil companies from profitably drilling for and refining oil, drilling rigs started running and oil began to flow again. Even though there was a recession in 1982 brought on by the Fed increasing interest rates and reducing the money supply to combat the sky-high inflation in Carter’s final year in office, by the end of 1982 inflation was less than 4% and well under control. By 1986, the top marginal tax rate was down to 28% and oil was down to $20 per barrel. The economy was prospering and booming. The tax cuts combined with other initiatives created the largest sustained economic growth in our history. Our economy grew by more than a third in size and there was a $15 trillion increase in American wealth during the Reagan years. Capitalism and prosperity were forever joined.

Memo to President Obama and Congressional Democrats: We do not approve of Socialism.

We approve of the following:

• Cut individual and corporate income taxes
• Cut government spending
• Cut useless and expensive programs
• Avoid protectionist legislation
• Maintain low interest rates
• Control the money supply
• Incent businesses to expand, jobs and wealth will follow
• Crack down on employers of illegal aliens
• Protect and defend our borders
• Arrest and deport those here illegally
• Encourage people to have self-respect and be self-sufficient, instead of encouraging dependency on the government

We’ve all talked with those from prior generations who scoffed at the notion of accepting a government handout or welfare check. If welfare was used, it was temporary in nature until work could be found. There was something called pride and self-respect. Today, welfare has become a way of life. Self-respect has become self-disgrace. Pride has been overpowered by apathy. Our liberal Democratic leadership continues to promote government dependency because it serves a clear purpose: it secures a constituent base. They are metaphorical pimps feeding and controlling needy prostitutes. They are the Lords to their voting serfs.

Do liberal Dems know better, or do they have another agenda? Do Republicans have the backbone to stand on principle and fight? Is a third party needed? While the unanimous House Republican vote against the spending bill was promising, I suspect that we could take 535 average everyday citizens, replace the entire Senate and House, and do a better job than our elected 'leaders.'

But then, they have not set the bar very high. Most have forgotten why they have been elected. When Chuck Schumer made a comment about the American people not caring, it showed just how far out of touch with reality he is, and is also an indictment of those who continue to vote him and others like him into office. Maybe this will change. I sincerely hope that Congress finds the collective common sense and courage to realize that this is not about party politics or special interests; it’s not about lobbying which is nothing more than legalized bribery. They need to stop the greed and arrogance; and for a moment stop being a Democrat or Republican and start thinking like and being an American. Our children deserve it.

by Michael DiLuca
February 26, 2009

See also http://mikediluca.blogspot.com/

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Unfortunately, over the years many of Republic’s citizens became dissatisfied with freedom and began to move elsewhere. Known as idealists, they built three government roads out of the city.

The road on the left leads to Utopia, a city populated by idealists who go by the name of left-wingers. They designed Utopia to be a place where there was equality of results, meaning that everyone has about the same income. Accordingly, Utopia does not have economic freedom and property rights. It once had civil liberties, but those were taken away when some independent-minded people reverted back to Republic ways and began to work hard, trade with each other, and seek medical care and other goods and services without the approval of the authorities. Except for the oligarchy that rules the city, everyone is poor in Utopia. Food, clothing, housing, and medical care are rationed by committees of central planners, commonly known as apparatchiks. A statue of Barack Obama stands in the public square.

The road on the right leads to the City of Nationalism. It is a city of flags, pledges of allegiance, national anthems, police in black uniforms and armored personnel carriers, and a large military that threatens other cities and has hundreds of bases around the world. The city is populated by people known as right-wingers. Initially, they believed in economic freedom and property rights but were never too keen about civil liberties. Eventually, economic freedom and property rights were taken away by the ruling oligarchy when it was discovered that sustained free trade depends on civil liberties and non-belligerency towards other cities. Due to being overstretched militarily, the City of Nationalism is as poor as Utopia. A statue of George W. Bush stands in the public square.

The road in the middle twists and turns but ends up in the same place as the roads on the right and left -- namely, in a city ruled by an oligarchy. Known as the City of Progressivism, it is guided by the same principle that guides Utopia and Nationalism: that the individual should be subservient to the government, or collective, or society, or the common good, or whatever euphemism is used to mask the power of the ruling class. Its citizens have been led to believe that a few chosen leaders of intelligence and goodwill can make decisions that improve society. The city is as impoverished as Utopia and Nationalism. A statue of Woodrow Wilson stands in the public square.

What has happened to the City of Republic? Sadly, so many former citizens of the city have taken the three roads out of town and looted the city’s treasury on the way out, that the once shining city on the hill is bankrupt and in rapid decline. A remnant of industrious, frugal, and moral people remains behind, but the Utopians, Nationalists and Progressives did so much pillaging and plundering that the remnant cannot save the city from an ignoble end.

As history has shown, the founders of the city were right: All government roads lead to tyranny, except for the one that leads to a republic.

By Craig J. Cantoni
January 24, 2009

Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist, and one of the remnant. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.

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I have seen for quite some time that although we won the Cold War -- and defeated the Soviet communist empire -- America is vulnerable to varying degrees of collectivism, wealth redistribution, "creeping socialism" (Ronald Reagan's phrase), class-warfare rhetoric, and generally milder, more palatable (but still dangerous) forms of disguised Marxism. Why? How? The answer is simple: The history and truth about communism is not taught by our educators.

That total failure to remind and understand means that Americans are painfully vulnerable to repeat mistakes that should have been forever tossed onto the ash-heap of history.

Communism and the Cold War has been my area of research for years. I've written books on the subject. I lecture on the subject at Grove City College and around the country. The book I'm currently researching with Peter Schweizer is a Cold War book, which, ironically, inevitably brought us into contact with Marxist characters who allied with and even mentored Barack Obama.

Of all the lectures that I do around the country, none seem to rivet the audience as much as my discourse on the horrors of communism. In these lectures, which are usually connected to my books on Ronald Reagan, I do a 10-15 minute backgrounder on the crimes of communists-from their militant attacks on private property, on members of all religious faiths, and on basic civil liberties, to their total death toll of over 100 million bloodied, emaciated corpses in the 20th century.

As I do these presentations, the young people, especially on college campuses, are locked in, amazed at what they are hearing. I think they are especially struck that I always ground every fact and figure in reliable research and authorities -- books published by Harvard University Press and Yale University Press, quotes from the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev and Vaclav Havel and Alexander Yakovlev, anti-Soviet appraisals from certain Cold War Democrats like Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy and even early liberals like Woodrow Wilson. I rarely use right-wing sources because I don't want the professors of these students to be able to later shoot a single hole in my presentation -- a potential tactic to undermine the overall thesis.

And speaking of those professors, that gets to my point here: As the young people in my audience are fully engaged, hands in the air with question after question -- obviously hearing all of these things for the first time in their lives, from K-12 to college, as they are eager to inform me after my talk -- the professors often stare at me with contempt. In one case, a British professor, who could not stop sighing, squirming, and rolling her eyes as I quoted the most heinous assessments of religion by Marx and Lenin, got up and stormed out of the room.

These professors glare at me as if the ghost of Joe McCarthy has flown into the room and leapt inside of my body. In fact, that's the essence of their criticism: It is not so much that these professors approve of communism as much as they disapprove of -- actually, utterly despise -- anti-communism. They areanti-anti-communist more so than pro-communist. Conservatives need to understand this, so as to avoid broad-brushing and losing credibility. Sure, a lot of professors are Marxists, and many more share the utopian goals of Marxism, but the vast majority are simply leftists.

Being on the left entails many strange contradictions and political pathologies, one of which is this bizarre revulsion toward anti-communists. These leftists -- to their credit -- despise fascism, and will preach anti-fascism until they're blue in the face. They are as appalled by fascism as conservatives are by communism. But while conservatives detest bothcommunism and fascism, liberals only detest one of the two.

For instance, I recently saw that Human Events created a list of the top 10 worst books ever written, which included, as the top two, Marx's Communist Manifesto (#1), followed by Hitler's Mein Kampf (#2). That ranking is easily defended solely on numbers: Hitler killed at least 10 million; communism killed at least 100 million. Either way, kudos toHuman Events, a conservative newspaper, for putting both communism and fascism in its top two. Yet, conversely, any liberal version of such a list would not even place theCommunist Manifesto in the top 10. I guarantee that liberals who read the Human Events list will snicker at its alleged Neanderthal anti-communism.

The leftist intelligentsia that dominates higher education, and which writes the civics texts used in high schools -- I've read and studied these texts -- and which trains the teachers who teach in high schools, is not in the slightest bit notably anti-communist. These liberals do not teach the lessons of communism.

What's more, aside from failing to instruct their students in the crass facts about communism's unprecedented destruction -- its purges, mass famines, show trials, killing fields, concentration camps -- these educators are negligent in failing to teach the essential, non-emotional, but crucial Econ 101 basics that contrast capitalism and communism and, thus, that get at the heart of how and why command economies simply do not work. Each semester in my Comparative Politics course at Grove City College, it takes no more than 50 minutes to matter-of-factly lay out the rudimentary differences. Whereas capitalist systems are based on the market forces of supply and demand, which dictate prices and production levels and targets, communist systems are based on central planning, by which a government bureau attempts to manage such things. Capitalism is based on private ownership; communism on public ownership. Capitalism thrives on small government and taxes; communism on large government and taxes, typically progressive income-tax rates and estate taxes -- both advocated explicitly by Marx -- and much more.

This stuff isn't rocket science. It is easy to teach, if the professor desires. The problem is that it isn't being taught. Consequently, Americans today do not know why communism is such a devastating ideology, at both the level of plain economic theory and in actual historical practice. It is a remarkably hateful system, based on literal hatred and targeted annihilation of entire classes and groups of people. (Nazism sought genocide based on ethnicity; communism sought genocide based on class.)

Most Americans generally know that the USSR was a bad place and that it was good that the Berlin Wall fell; they lived through that. But they know little beyond that, especially young Americans in college today, born around the time the wall fell -- Obama's biggest supporters. Nowhere in America is Barack Obama worshipped as he is on college campuses, by students and professors alike.

What does it all mean for November 2008? It means that millions of modern Americans, when they hear that Barack Obama has deep roots with communist radicals like Bill Ayers and Frank Marshall Davis, don't care; they don't get it. Moreover, the leftist establishment -- from academia to media to Hollywood -- will not help them get it. To the contrary, the left responds to these accusations by not only downplaying or dismissing them but by ridiculing or even vilifying them, given the left's reflexive anti-anti-communism. The left will create bad guys out of the anti-communists who are legitimately blowing the whistle on the real bad guys.

When the leftists of the ‘60s took over higher education and the media, they really knew what they were doing. This was brilliant, masterful, a tactical slam-dunk, a tremendous coup for them and their worldview, with ripple effects we can scarcely imagine.

Does this mean that the McCain camp, talk radio and conservatives generally shouldn't bother exposing these things? Not at all. The truth is the truth, and needs to be told. Moderates especially need to be informed that Barack Obama is not your typical liberal: he is the most hard-left Democrat that his party has ever nominated for the presidency. It is absolutely not a coincidence that the man with these far-left associations just so happens to be ranked -- quantifiably, objectively, by non-partisan, respected sources like National Journal -- the most far-left member of the U.S. Senate, which is no small thing given the leftward drift of the modern Democratic Party. In other words, Obama's extremist associations matter; they are fully revealing, illustrative of the political-ideological realities that the pro-Obama media will not expose. His voting record bears this out.

That said, I warn my fellow conservatives: Be prepared to be really, really frustrated when few people seem to care.

The Santayana aphorism is correct: those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. For decades now, we haven't taught the next generation what it needs to know from its immediate past. And now, to borrow from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, America's chickens have come home to roost.

By Paul Kengor
October 10, 2008

Paul Kengor is author of The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (HarperPerennial, 2007) and professor of political science at Grove City College. His latest book is The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007).

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/why_obamas_communist_connectio.html

Hat tip: Len Salonsky

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. ~ Winston Churchill

Comments are welcome at redstatepatriot@hughes.net. Please include the title of the article as your subject line. Selected responses, in whole or part, may be published (appended to the article).

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It denies God, human exceptionalism, and the soul. We are reduced to Darwinian animals floundering in an amoral sea of meaninglessness. It is a product of the nihilistic, existentialist philosophical movement, which went hand in hand with modern art, atonal music, scientific materialism and modern physics, and the generally discordant nature of the twentieth century.

It is said that a fish is not aware of the water in which it swims since it is totally immersed in it. This is the way cultural Marxism is taking over our world in its inexorable Gramscian march. We swim in it. It enters every pore of our existence. It is everywhere. We can't escape it. Many people accept this world without even realizing it, just as the fish accepts the water in which it swims. They don't realize it as the left creates new conventional wisdom and new intuitions about truth.

The cultural Marxists convince us that the truth is that there is no truth. And even though this unresolvable paradox lies at the very center of all this, the constant drumbeat keeps the masses in line, anesthetized enough to not make an issue of it. Fed a constant diet of sex, drugs, poisonous pop culture, materialistic trinkets, and unkeepable promises of security provided by huge leftist government, ever more globalist in nature, the masses are diverted from realizing, as they are told there is no truth, that this claim itself is subject to the same test. It is logically impossible for the leftist drumbeat to be true by its own axioms.

The principles upon which Western culture rests and upon which America was built are under attack by these slow acting but deadly forces. The drumbeat is grinding down the will of the West to maintain itself. The ideas of individual sovereignty and responsibility, natural rights, and objective truth have been derided by the left to the point that many of our young people reject them, if, indeed, they are even aware of them as the basis for our culture. All that ensures that a culture will pass its ideas down from one generation to the next is its cultural memory. The drumbeat is slowly but surely replacing our cultural memory.

As each school is renamed and the name of a Founder or other great person from our history is removed from its entrance way, we lose a bit of that memory. As our great authors and works of Western culture are replaced with those in line with the message of the drumbeat, we rapidly lose our cultural memory. As each school textbook is rewritten to reflect the new ideas of family and cultural heritage, our children are lost to the forces of the drumbeat as they learn to view America and traditional Western culture as oppressive and imperialistic. And it doesn't take long for there to be only a shell left, the substance of our culture sucked out and destroyed by the cultural Marxists.

If you believe that all this is a paranoid overreaction, you have plenty of company. Those of us who can still see the water and hear the drumbeat are subject to attempts to make us sound evil and foolish. To believe in traditional Western cultural values, American Exceptionalism, God, and moral truth is to be branded as old fashioned and foolish, even by the best assessments of those who have bought into the cultural Marxist's message. And by the worst of them, we are branded as stupid and evil, and in need of being destroyed.

It may be too late to do anything about this as the world plays out its story. The power-hungry arrogance of human beings seems to be the force that underlies the events carrying us forward to the final chapter. And as this arrogance and lust for power feeds the wills of those who would gain control of the world, humankind is gaining just enough knowledge to destroy itself in that arrogance. Never before in human history has there been such a confluence of forces. Technology, globalism, and the leftist drumbeat are joining together in a way that is allowing mankind to believe, on a worldwide scale, that it can control its own destiny.

The main thing that is being ignored in all this is human nature. It is all based upon the arrogant presumptions of the elitist cultural Marxists concerning how people ought to act. It leads to totalitarianism and destruction.

In truth, and in direct opposition to the drumbeat, each human being must be accorded his or her natural rights, individual sovereignty, and self responsibility to be in harmony with human nature. Each of us must have the freedom to succeed or to fail. Western culture, culminating in the great American experiment, has been perverted. Due to these perversions, many failures have already occurred, which have then, ironically, been used to justify further perversions of the same sort as those which caused the problems to begin with.

Generally, these perversions are manifested in bigger government, more laws, more bureaucracy, more regulations, more taxes, and government controlled redistribution of wealth, more collectivism, less individualism, and less freedom. We all hear it constantly from leftist politicians as they add their part to the drumbeat: government must do more to ensure Americans avoid the consequences of their choices. We all know the song, sung to the cheers of the unthinking throngs who would give up their very humanity for the promise of a free lunch. These are the joys of cultural Marxism.

And the drumbeat goes on.

By William Staneski
September 20, 2008

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/the_drumbeat.html
--------------------------

Response by Len S.:

Joe McCarthy was so right about the left. He was the first conservative to be skewered by them. But now he has been proven correct by the release of the Venona papers (Google it). The leftist media has ignored those damning documents. The entire country is now overrun by collectivists: socialists with no clue about history or why millions died to allow them the freedom to hopefully choose to think without the thought police. Instead of a country of heroes and hard workers, they have turned it into a land of whiners and leeches, ready to exchange their votes for a demagogue who promises to deliver to them the earnings of others. Karl Marx smiles at Orwell's prescience.

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1. The War in Iraq
There are three major monotheistic religions in the world: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

In the 16th century, Judaism and Christianity reconciled with the modern world. The rabbis, priests and scholars found a way to settle up and pave the way forward. Religion remained at the center of life, church and state became separate. Rule of law, the idea of economic liberty, individual rights, human rights - all these are defining points of modern Western civilization. These concepts started with the Greeks but didn't take off until the 15th and 16th century when Judaism and Christianity found a way to reconcile with the modern world. When that happened, it unleashed the scientific revolution and the greatest outpouring of art, literature and music the world has ever known.

Islam, which developed in the 7th century, counts millions of Moslems around the world who are normal people. However, there is a radical streak within Islam. When the radicals are in charge, Islam attacks Western civilization. Islam first attacked Western civilization in the 7th century, and later in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683, the
Moslems (Turks from the Ottoman Empire) were literally at the gates of Vienna. It was in Vienna that the climatic battle between Islam and Western civilization took place. The West won and went forward. Islam lost and went backward.

Interestingly, the date of that battle was September 11. Since then, Islam has not found a way to reconcile with the modern world.

Today, terrorism is the third attack on Western civilization by radical Islam. To deal with terrorism, the U.S. is doing two things. First, units of our armed forces are in 30 countries around the world hunting down terrorist groups and dealing with them. This gets very little publicity. Second we are taking military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

These actions are covered relentlessly by the media. People can argue about whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong. However, the underlying strategy behind the war is to use our military to remove the radicals from power and give the moderates a chance. Our hope is that, over time, the moderates will find a way to bring Islam forward into the 21st century. That's what our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is all about.

The lesson of 9/11 is that we live in a world where a small number of people can kill a large number of people very quickly. They can use airplanes, bombs, anthrax, chemical weapons or dirty bombs. Even with a first-rate intelligence service (which the U.S. does not have), you can't stop every attack. That means our tolerance for political horseplay has dropped to zero. No longer will we play games with terrorists or weapons of mass destructions.

Most of the instability and horseplay is coming from the Middle East.

That's why we have thought that if we could knock out the radicals and give the moderates a chance to hold power; they might find a way to reconcile Islam with the modern world. So when looking at Afghanistan or Iraq, it's important to look for any signs that they are modernizing.

For example: women being brought into the work force and colleges in Afghanistan is good. The Iraqis stumbling toward a constitution is good.

People can argue about what the U.S. is doing and how we're doing it, but anything that suggests Islam is finding its way forward is good.

2. The Emergence of China
In the last 20 years, China has moved 250 million people from the farms and villages into the cities. Their plan is to move another 300 million in the next 20 years. When you put that many people into the cities, you have to find work for them. That's why China is addicted to manufacturing; they have to put all the relocated people to work. When we decide to manufacture something in the U.S., it's based on market needs and the opportunity to make a profit. In China, they make the decision because they want the jobs, which is a very different calculation.

While China is addicted to manufacturing, Americans are addicted to low prices. As a result, a unique kind of economic codependency has developed between the two countries. If we ever stop buying from China, they will explode politically. If China stops selling to us, our economy will take a huge hit because prices will jump. We are
subsidizing their economic development; they are subsidizing our economic growth.

Because of their huge growth in manufacturing, China is hungry for raw materials, which drives prices up worldwide. China is also thirsty for oil, which is one reason oil is now at $100 a barrel. By 2020, China will produce more cars than the U.S. China is also buying its way into the oil infrastructure around the world. They are doing it in the open market and paying fair market prices, but millions of barrels of oil that would have gone to the U.S. are now going to China. China's quest to assure it has the oil it needs to fuel its economy is a major factor in world politics and economics.

We have our Navy fleets protecting the sea lines, specifically the ability to get the tankers through. It won't be long before the Chinese have an aircraft carrier sitting in the Persian Gulf as well. The question is, will their aircraft carrier be pointing in the same direction as ours or against us?

3. Shifting Demographics of Western Civilization
Most countries in the Western world have stopped breeding. For a civilization obsessed with sex, this is remarkable. Maintaining a steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1. In Western Europe, the birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement. In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the economy. When you don't have young workers to replace the older ones, you have to import them.

The European countries are currently importing Moslems. Today, the Moslems comprise 10 percent of France and Germany, and the percentage is rising rapidly because they have higher birthrates. However, the Moslem populations are not being integra ted into the cultures of their host countries, which is a political catastrophe. One reason Germany and France don't support the Iraq war is they fear their Moslem populations will explode on them. By 2020, more than half of all births in the Netherlands will be non-European.

The huge design flaw in the postmodern secular state is that you need a traditional religious society birth rate to sustain it. The Europeans simply don't wish to have children, so they are dying. In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2,000 schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also aging very rapidly. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be at least 70 years old. Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those
demographics.

Europe and Japan, which comprise two of the world's major economic engines, aren't merely in recession, they're shutting down. This will have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning to happen. Why are the birthrates so low? There is a direct correlation between abandonment of traditional religious society and a drop in birth rate, and Christianity in Europe is becoming irrelevant.

The second reason is economic. When the birth rate drops below replacement, the population ages. With fewer working people to support more retired people, it puts a crushing tax burden on the smaller group of working age people. As a result, young people delay marriage and having a family. Once this trend starts, the downward spiral only gets worse. These countries have abandoned all the traditions they formerly held in regard to having families and raising children.

The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the Hispanic birth rate is 2.7. In the U.S., the baby boomers are starting to retire in massive numbers. This will push the elder dependency ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is not as bad as Europe, but still represents the same kind of trend.

Western civilization seems to have forgotten what every primitive society understands - you need kids to have a healthy society. Children are huge consumers. Then they grow up to become taxpayers. That's how a society works, but the postmodern secular state seems to have forgotten that. If U.S. birth rates of the past 20 to 30 years had been the same as post-World War II, there would be no Social Security or Medicare problems.

The world's most effective birth control device is money. As society creates a middle class and women move into the workforce, birth rates drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living.

The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic development. After World War II, the U.S. instituted a $600 tax credit per child. The idea was to enable mom and dad to have four children without being troubled by taxes. This led to a baby boom of 22 million kids, which was a huge consumer market. That turned into a huge tax base. However, to match that incentive in today's dollars would cost $12,000 per child.

China and India do not have declining populations. However, in both countries, there is a preference for boys over girls, and we now have the technology to know which is which before they are born. In China and India, families are aborting the girls. As a result, in each of these countries there are 70 million boys growing up who will never find wives. When left alone, nature produces 103 boys for every 100 girls. In some provinces, however, the ratio is 128 boys to every 100 girls.

The birth rate in Russia is so low that by 2050 their population will be smaller than that of Yemen. Russia has one-sixth of the earth's land surface and much of its oil. You can't control that much area with such a small population. Immediately to the south, you have China with 70 million unmarried men who are a real potential nightmare scenario for Russia.

4. Restructuring of American Business
The fourth major transformation involves a fundamental restructuring of American business. Today's business environment is very complex and competitive. To succeed, you have to be the best, which means having the highest quality and lowest cost. Whatever your price point, you must have the best quality and lowest price. To be the best, you have to concentrate on one thing. You can't be all things to all people and be the best.

A generation ago, IBM used to make every part of their computer. Now Intel makes the chips, Microsoft makes the software, and someone else makes the modems, hard drives, monitors, etc. IBM even out-sources their call center. Because IBM has all these companies supplying goods and services cheaper and better than they could do it themselves, they can make a better computer at a lower cost. This is called a fracturing of business. When one company can make a better product by relying on others to perform functions the business it used to do itself, it creates a complex pyramid of companies that serve and support each other.

This fracturing of American business is now in its second generation.

The companies who supply IBM are now doing the same thing - outsourcing many of their core services and production process. As a result, they can make cheaper, better products. Over time, this pyramid continues to
get bigger and bigger. Just when you think it can't fracture again, it does.

Even very small businesses can have a large pyramid of corporate entities that perform many of its important functions. One aspect of this trend is s that companies end up with fewer employees and more independent contractors. This trend has also created two new words in business, integrator and complementor. At the top of the pyramid, IBM is the integrator. As you go down the pyramid, Microsoft, Intel and the other companies that support IBM are the complementors. However, each of the complementors is itself an integrator for the complementors underneath it.

This has several implications, the first of which is that we are now getting false readings on the economy. People who used to be employees are now independent contractors launching their own businesses. There are many people working whose work is not listed as a job. As a result, the economy is perking along better than the numbers are telling us.

Outsourcing also confused the numbers. Suppose a company like General Motors decides to outsource all its employee cafeteria functions to Marriott (which it did). It lays-off hundreds of cafeteria workers, who then get hired right back by Marriott. The only thing that has changed is that these people work for Marriott rather than GM. Yet, the media headlines will scream that America has lost more manufacturing jobs.

All that really happened is that these workers are now reclassified as service workers. So the old way of counting jobs contributes to false economic readings. As yet, we haven't figured out how to make the numbers catch up with the changing realities of the business world.

Another implication of this massive restructuring is that because companies are getting rid of units and people that used to work for them, the entity is smaller. As the companies get smaller and more efficient, revenues are going down but profits are going up. As a result, the old notion that revenues are up and we're doing great isn't always the case anymore. Companies are getting smaller but are becoming more efficient and profitable in the process.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE FOUR TRANSFORMATIONS

1. The War in Iraq
In some ways, the war is going very well. Afghanistan and Iraq have the beginnings of a modern government, which is a huge step forward. The Saudis are starting to talk about some good things, while Egypt and Lebanon are beginning to move in a good direction. A series of revolutions have taken place in countries like Ukraine and Georgia.

There will be more of these revolutions for an interesting reason. In every revolution, there comes a point where the dictator turns to the general and says, 'Fire into the crowd'. If the general fires into the crowd, it stops the revolution. If the general says 'No', the revolution continues. Increasingly, the generals are saying 'No' because their kids are in the crowd.

Thanks to TV and the Internet, the average 18-year old outside the U.S. is very savvy about what is going on in the world, especially in terms of popular culture. There is a huge global consciousness, and young people around the world want to be a part of it. It is increasingly apparent to them that the miserable government where they live is the only thing standing in their way. More and more, it is the well-educated kids, the children of the generals and the elite, who are leading the revolutions.

At the same time, not all is well with the war. The level of violence in Iraq is much worse and doesn't appear to be improving. It's possible that we're asking too much of Islam all at one time. We're trying to jolt them from the 7th century to the 21st century all at once, which may be further than they can go. They might make it and they might
not. Nobody knows for sure. The point is, we don't know how the war will turn out. Anyone who says they know is just guessing.

The real place to watch is Iran. If they actually obtain nuclear weapons it will be a terrible situation. There are two ways to deal with it. The first is a military strike, which will be very difficult. The Iranians have dispersed their nuclear development facilities and put them underground. The U.S. has nuclear weapons that can go under the earth and take out those facilities, but we don't want to do that.

The other way is to separate the radical mullahs from the government, which is the most likely course of action. Seventy percent of the Iranian population is under 30. They are Moslem but not Arab. They are mostly pro-Western. Many experts think the U.S. should have dealt with Iran before going to war with Iraq. The problem isn't so much the weapons, it's the people who control them. If Iran has a moderate government, the weapons become less of a concern.

We don't know if we will win the war in Iraq. We could lose or win. What we're looking for is any indicator that Islam is moving into the 21st century and stabilizing.

2. China
It may be that pushing 500 million people from farms and villages into cities is too much too soon. Although it gets almost no publicity, China is experiencing hundreds of demonstrations around the country, which is unprecedented. These are not students in Tiananmen Square. These are average citizens who are angry with the government for building chemical plants and polluting the water they drink and the air they breathe.

The Chinese are a smart and industrious people. They may be able to pull it off and become a very successful economic and military superpower. If so, we will have to learn to live with it. If they want to share the responsibility of keeping the world's oil lanes open, that's a good thing. They currently have eight new nuclear electric power generators under way and 45 on the books to build. Soon, they will leave the U.S. way behind in their ability to generate nuclear power.

What can go wrong with China? For one, you can't move 550 million people into the cities without major problems. Two, China really wants Taiwan, not so much for economic reasons, they just want it. The Chinese know that their system of communism can't survive much longer in the 21st century. The last thing they want to do before they morph into some sort of more capitalistic government is to take over Taiwan.

We may wake up one morning and find they have launched an attack on Taiwan. If so, it will be a mess, both economically and militarily. The U.S. has committed to the military defense of Taiwan. If China attacks Taiwan, will we really go to war against them? If the Chinese generals believe the answer is no, they may attack. If we don't defend Taiwan, every treaty the U.S. has will be worthless. Hopefully, China won't do anything stupid.

3. Demographics
Europe and Japan are dying because their populations are aging and shrinking. These trends can be reversed if the young people start breeding. However, the birth rates in these areas are so low it will take two generations to turn things around. No economic model exists that permits 50 years to turn things around. Some countries are beginning to offer incentives for people to have bigger families. For example, Italy is offering tax breaks for having children. However, it's a lifestyle issue versus a tiny amount of money. Europeans aren't willing to give up their comfortable lifestyles in order to have more children.

In general, everyone in Europe just wants it to last a while longer.

Europeans have a real talent for living. They don't want to work very hard. The average European worker gets 400 more hours of vacation time per year than Americans. They don't want to work and they don't want to make any of the changes needed to revive their economies.

The summer after 9/11, France lost 15,000 people in a heat wave. In August, the country basically shuts down when everyone goes on vacation.

That year, a severe heat wave struck and 15,000 elderly people living in nursing homes and hospitals died. Their children didn't even leave the beaches to come back and take care of the bodies. Institutions had to scramble to find enough refrigeration units to hold the bodies until people came to claim them. This loss of life was five times bigger than 9/11 in America, yet it didn't trigger any change in French society.

When birth rates a re so low, it creates a tremendous tax burden on the young. Under those circumstances, keeping mom and dad alive is not an attractive option. That's why euthanasia is becoming so popular in most
European countries. The only country that doesn't permit (and even encourage) euthanasia is Germany, because of all the baggage from World War II.

The European economy is beginning to fracture. Countries like Italy are starting to talk about pulling out of the European Union because it is killing them. When things get bad economically in Europe, they tend to get very nasty politically. The canary in the mine is anti-Semitism.

When it goes up, it means trouble is coming. Current levels of anti-Semitism are higher than ever.

Germany won't launch another war, but Europe will likely get shabbier, more dangerous and less pleasant to live in. Japan has a birth rate of 1.3 and has no intention of bringing in immigrants. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be 70 years old. Property values in Japan have dropped every year for the past 14 years. The country is simply shutting down. In the U.S. we also have an aging population. Boomers are starting to retire at a massive rate. These retirements will have several major impacts:

Possible massive sell off of large four-bedroom houses and a movement to condos.

An enormous drain on the treasury. Boomers vote, and they want their benefits, even if it means putting a crushing tax burden on their kids to get them. Social Security will be a huge problem. As this generation ages, it will start to drain the system. We are the only country in the world where there are no age limits on medical procedures.

An enormous drain on the health care system. This will also increase the tax burden on the young, which will cause them to delay marriage and having families, which will drive down the birth rate even further.

Although scary, these demographics also present enormous opportunities for products and services tailored to aging populations. There will be tremendous demand for caring for older people, especially those who don't need nursing homes but need some level of care. Some people will have a business w here they take care of three or four people in their homes. The demand for that type of service and for products to physically care for aging people will be huge.

Make sure the demographics of your business are attuned to where the action is. For example, you don't want to be a baby food company in Europe or Japan. Demographics are much underrated as an indicator of where the opportunities are. Businesses need customers. Go where the customers are.

4. Restructuring of American Business
The restructuring of American business means we are coming to the end of the age of the employer and employee. With all this fracturing of businesses into different and smaller units, employers can't guarantee jobs anymore because they don't know what their companies will look like next year. Everyone is on their way to becoming an independent contractor.

The new workforce contract will be: Show up at my office five days a week and do what I want you to do, but you handle your own insurance, benefits, health care and everything else. Husbands and wives are becoming economic units. They take different jobs and work different shifts depending on where they are in their careers and families. They make trade offs to put together a compensation package to take care of the family.

This used to happen only with highly educated professionals with high incomes. Now it is happening at the level of the factory floor worker.

Couples at all levels are designing their compensation packages based on their individual needs. The only way this can work is if everything is portable and flexible, which requires a huge shift in the American economy.

The U.S is in the process of building the world's first 21st century model economy. The only other countries doing this are U.K. and Australia. The model is fast, flexible, highly productive and unstable in that it is always fracturing and re-fracturing. This will increase the economic gap between the U.S. and everybody else, especially Europe and Japan.

At the same time, the military gap is increasing. Other than China, we are the only country that is continuing to put money into their military. Plus, we are the only military getting on-the-ground military experience through our war in Iraq. We know which high-tech weapons are working and which ones aren't. There is almost no one who can take us on economically or militarily.

There has never been a superpower in this position before. On the one hand, this makes the U.S. a magnet for bright and ambitious people. It also makes us a target. We are becoming one of the last holdouts of the traditional Judeo-Christian culture. There is no better place in the world to be in business and raise children. The U.S. is by far the best place to have an idea, form a business and put it into the marketplace.

We take it for granted, but it isn't as available in other countries of the world. Ultimately, it's an issue of culture. The only people who can hurt us are ourselves, by lo sing our culture. If we give up our Judeo-Christian culture, we become just like the Europeans.

The culture war is the whole ballgame. If we lose it, there isn't another America to pull us out.

By HERBERT MEYER

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Herbert Meyer may not yet be that widely known; formerly an associate editor of FORTUNE, he is an established author and historian, and served as advisor to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Reagan Administration. As such, he was responsible for the creation of the annual National Intelligence Estimate.

Meyer was also the first man in the United States Government to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union, for which he later was awarded the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, one of the intelligence community's high honors.
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Hat tip: Dave Cogburn

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Let us also not forget those politicians in the United States, Great Britain and Canada, past and present, who, with the United Nations, have never missed an opportunity to appease a potent enemy, whether the now defunct Soviet Union, or the latest incarnation of Islam (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah, Syria, and Hamas), or North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and soon Mexico.

It is remarkable how quickly politicians and media wannabes publicly criticize their own government, more often than not shifting blame to the current administration for Congress’ flawed decision making. Because of the media’s ignorance or ideology (redundant), Congress gets a “free pass.” Those who criticize the loudest are often the very people who are most unwilling to abide by the decision of the majority in a democracy, or live by existing laws. You can undoubtedly name several politicians who refuse to support the duly elected leadership, or at least acquiesce for a short period of time until the next election. Instead of carping and obstructing, they should be working industriously on various issues for the benefit of United States citizens. Instead these same politicians become obsessed with accumulating personal wealth while displaying self-righteous indignation about corruption in front of a camera at every opportunity – case in point, Senator John McCain.

What would it take for Congress to rededicate their productive efforts toward working for the best interests of the nation rather than self interest? Many have suggested that only a citizen insurrection (figuratively or literally) will restore excellence, initiative and integrity to Congress. The first reform step needed would be to deny elected public servants the opportunity to profit and accumulate personal wealth from campaign contributions at the expense of taxpayers while in office. Only then will we restore the representative republic that was once the United States of America. Only then will people undertake public service not solely motivated by becoming obscenely wealthy.

Until that day in another lifetime, unprincipled political opportunists unwilling to wait for the next opportunity to vote, will continue to undermine the will of the people and subvert their own fragile democracy in the pursuit of self interest. Without any semblance of shame, many Congressmen openly engage in undermining the domestic and foreign policies of those who occupy the highest political offices. This is no less a warfare tactic than that used by proponents of Islam. A close study of both would reveal how similar they are.

Unfortunately, lumpen are most frequently the victims of propaganda and slick political deceit. Lumpen uniformly fail to recognize that the majority of politicians really don’t care about winning any war – a mindset so callous that it winds up costing the lives of young men and women. Nor do liberals care about right or wrong or what is at stake. Theirs is an ideology. The word “team” should be an antonym of the word “liberal.” There is no “I” in the word “team.” Liberals, by their intellectual wiring, want desperately to be in charge, whether in a corporation, a small company, the homeowners association, the city government, the state government or Congress. Ballots are full of liberal candidates seeking control over the lives of others – the name of the political party is irrelevant. As an aside, conservatives typically don’t seek public office.

Liberals are uniformly confident in their belief that we would all be better off if we lived our lives and raised our children according to their standards. They are only too glad to impose rules on the rest of us – standards of egalitarian equality achieved by redistributing all income, education, medicine, transportation, and housing among the bottom 50% of wage earners who pay no taxes, plus lavish corporate benefactors with earmarks in return for campaign contributions. As for liberals, it is their pathological desire to be among the elite in a class-structured society. It is all about power, stupid – their power and our servitude! In fact, if I were to ask what best describes a conservative who works like a liberal; you would have to respond, “A lazy bastard.”

Democracy is so inconvenient to liberals who are sure, in spite of history and lack of fact-based education, that they are correct on all social issues. Just look at the courts and make a note who among our citizens advocates judicial activism. Try to appreciate how many decisions have been taken away from the American people – democracy denied – regarding religion, abortion, school choice, enforcement of immigration, voting rights, marriage, welfare, freedom of speech, private property, gun ownership, pledge of allegiance, competition for jobs or a college education, equal standards of performance by everyone in the same job regardless of race or gender, etc. None of these issues are within the jurisdiction of the courts and most of these issues are not the prerogative of the federal government. Even organizations such as the Education Department and FEMA are outside the scope of federal authority under the U.S. Constitution – as is Foreign Aid and corporate welfare. Now it has come to pass that the media, politicians and federal courts are dictating military strategy, tactics and morality to the Executive Branch – again interfering in matters outside their constitutional scope of authority.

We have watched numb in horror as the media glories in the deaths of American soldiers, displaying the numbers and changing the totals the way a gas station displays changes in prices. The media does it because they know it horrifies every real American. Congressmen engage in the same behavior, trumpeting the numbers from behind a microphone, ignoring the fact that it was Congress (not the President) who sent (authorized and funded) the U.S. Armed Forces intervention first in Viet Nam and now in the Middle East. This duplicity is an intentional liberal tactic of disunion and reveals how little value politicians place on the lives of American servicemen and women – which it turns out, is about the same as the value Hezbollah (Islam) places on the lives of civilians.

All of this carnage is intentionally “in your face.” It is cynically intended to create an alternate reality, to portray to you who should have been in charge of this over-sized homeowner’s association from the outset. It is also meant to show us that we were wrong to elect who we did. While supremely confident that everything would have been much different and much better if it wasn’t for your and my ignorant mistakes voting for the wrong people, liberals in general and the Democratic Party in particular, work diligently to undermine the current administration and democracy itself. If only there was a more eloquent word than “despicable” to convey the disdain all American’s should feel toward such people – the same people who refuse to secure our nation’s borders or protect American jobs.

Add to this inauspicious group of subversives a large number of uneducated and unelected members of the main-stream-media who live in a rabbit hole of reality, each born with various and sundry body parts but few with a brain or a spine. I am speaking specifically of the visual and print news media, and the sports and entertainment industries, whose representatives speak and behave as if they would like nothing more that to engineer an outcome in which America loses this conflict with Islam. Hollywood seems incapable of understanding that if our nation loses, we all lose, and those that have the most will lose the most. And Israel will lose it all – first. Never mind their disproportionate intellectual contributions to humanity. Unless we play to lose this event in history called “The Islamic Wars” by the rules of engagement of the Democratic Party, these wing nuts will defiantly disrupt yours and my fight for liberty, and deny our very survival. If you won’t agree to do it their way, to lose, they will see to it that you cannot win – not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in our economy, schools, and courts.

Do memories of Senators Kennedy, Kerry, Durbin, Pelosi, Rangel, Reid and Murtha come to mind – and on any given day, even John McCain? What about the Dixie Chicks, Rosie O’Donnell, Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, Barbara Streisand, Danny Glover and George Soros?

In all fairness, there are a number of legitimate questions regarding policies and actions of the CIA, Defense and State Department leading up to the Islamic Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is also current disturbing evidence of their appalling political unwillingness to decisively win at any cost, and in doing so preserve the lives of young American soldiers.

Whether emanating from Congress or the Administration, hardly a day goes by that we don’t think something was a lame-brain decision. However, to disagree with the Islamic Wars or some aspect of United States foreign policy is one thing, but such disagreement should not make any American want to become a New York Times subversive or leak classified information out of the State Department or CIA. Most citizens (those that care) recognize that intentionally revealing vital intelligence, or limiting intelligence collection, will result in the deaths of even more American soldiers and civilians.

Those unfortunate human beings who proudly undermine the elected administration mistakenly claim to be Americans. They see themselves as defenders of democracy, when in fact their actions repudiate their own American birthright and disavow democracy. One thing is certain; these people represent the finest socialist traditions and constitute the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Some have the distinction of being a growing cancer in the Republican Party. Let history record that Congressmen don’t care a hoot about our sons or daughters. In fact, their unwillingness to abide by any democratic process and the will of the people for four short years arguably demonstrates they should not be entitled to call themselves Americans.

We seriously doubt that the concept of being an “American” is understood by the majority of the Democratic Party. We doubt that there is anything in life greater than “self” to a liberal – and we repeatedly hear that nothing associated with American culture or nationalism is worth defending. To their eternal shame, Democrats fail to see any difference between Islam and Christianity. Therein is the divide. We fail to see much difference today between Democrats and radical Muslims, either in ideology or tactics. Maybe there is none and the rest of us should respond accordingly.

Red State Patriot

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July 4th itself was controversial and the subject of an ideological battle between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Adams favored the 2nd, which was the anniversary of the resolution of national independence. Jefferson favored the 4th which was the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The battle had an obvious egotistical element with each men putting forth his chief accomplishment, but it also had an ideological one, for the Declaration spelled out not just national independence, but that it was premised on the rights of the individual.

Unlike the independence movements of many other nations, American independence had always been premised on the rights of the individual. It was because of the unaddressed violations of the rights of British citizens in America, that the growing resistance, revolution and eventual self-rule took place. The fundamental reason for the existence of the United States of America was that colonial rule had violated the contract between citizen and state, therefore requiring a new form of local independent government to take its place.

American independence has therefore always been premised on the individual freedoms of its citizens. It is unsurprising therefore that as America loses its independence in an entangled maze of foreign treaties and UN agreements, Americans lose their freedom. And vice versa. American independence and the rights of Americans are bound together. When one goes, so does the other.

A governing body that bans fireworks, as is the case in a growing number of states and cities, is one that has already banned firearms on the understanding that dangerous things should not be in the hands of individuals. Britain, the mother country long parted, is still pursuing that approach to the bitter end as it conducts a campaign for "Knife Control" against a rash of stabbings, turning satire into reality. Because of course you cannot take dangerous things out of the hands of people. You can only take them out of the hands of law abiding people.

The wide range of Chinese and Japanese martial arts weapons that Western teenagers know and admire from countless martial arts epics, such as the Nunchaku, were created by people who had been barred from owning swords by authorities that practiced their own form of "Knife Control". In turn the populace and monks created lethal weapons made from sticks of wood and built entire martial arts around them. The lesson of course is that it is not weapons that are dangerous, but people who are dangerous. And people are very dangerous indeed.

The government of adults is a social contract between adults, dangerous men and women who choose to live by certain rules with one another. The government of children is a nanny state that panders to them and takes away their dangerous toys while preaching to them endlessly how to live their lives. Put on more warning labels, exercise more, eat less, don't play with guns or fireworks or lawn darts. You'll put your eye out.

We live today under a children's government. A government to whom Freedom is a word and Independence is something to be given up to an even larger global government. A government that treats its citizens as children to be talked down to when their cooperation is needed, but not partners in what needs to be done.

There are a packed mass of civil rights organizations opening up shop on every corner, but those organizations have nothing to do with individual rights which underlie the state of freedom. They represent group rights, with the mission of ironing out the inequities in the current system with special benefits and even more government oversight. If the government is the nanny state, the civil rights organizations are the toddlers demanding more cookies than the other boys and girls because the nanny likes them less.

The fireworks that shoot up over the river are a gorgeous and dazzling sight. They represent the greatness we can achieve when we work together. But the small fireworks represent the energy and force of individual initiative. Both are needed and both are vital to the health of a working democracy. Within the great blaze in the sky reminding us that we all stand beneath one greater light, there is nothing more than anarchy. But without the smaller fireworks displays, the individual is robbed of individual initiative and joy.

An independence day that forbids the independent spirit of Americans is not fundamentally different than the fireworks displays of any other nation, free or not. The joining together of a people means nothing if they are treated as nothing more than cogs in a great machine without free will. Such a system crushes the initiative of the individual for a collective good that is defined as his own good by the forces of authority. Such a system cannot long remain free, for freedom derives from the individual. As individuals in a government of adults we choose within a social contract to restrain ourselves from certain actions. But in a government of children, there is only the mass, a dangerous mass that must be restrained from wrong thinking and wrongdoing.

The greatest weakness of the War on Terror is that it is being conducted while disdaining the contributions of individual Americans in fighting terrorism by condescending authorities that preach to us that the path to victory is through a shopping spree at Best Buy, rather than by combating Islamism at home. The real revolution will come when the government is again prepared to treat Americans as partners rather than dependents and to unleash the power of Americans in the face of all threats, political, military and economic. For the light that millions of Americans can create easily outshines even the bright glare of any corporate spectacular.

Sultan Knish
07 Jul 2008

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2008/07/independence-vs-freedom-on-fourth-of.html

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To understand how the United States became who and what we are as a nation, realize that every government decision, both in this and past generations, has led us to this point in history. We are, as a nation, the cumulative result of decades of judicial decisions and Congressional legislation. Legislation is without exception agenda driven, politically motivated, sometimes self-serving and often ill-conceived. Yesterday's and today’s Congressional legislation eventually becomes cumulative, which when combined with judicial fiats of the Supreme Court, creates the American culture you can expect for the next decade.

The polarization of our culture is the proximate result of too many binding national decisions occurring outside a legitimate democratic process, i.e., imposed on Americans without their vote.

One has only to look closely at each “first family” to accurately assess the culture of the prevailing times during that presidency. Bill and Hillary Clinton, for example, were a frightening reflection of our national self and our decaying society, committing seeming endless felony crimes without accountability, defended by liberals who seemed themselves without faith or value systems, selling everything that wasn’t nailed down including national defense technology, running the White House Motel and looting the place upon their departure. The nation hadn’t seen an act like the Clintons since the Atlantic City Diving Horse. The same mentality pervades both political parties in today's Congress.

As you would expect, every liberal expressed pride in the Clintons and every conservative felt revulsion. In large part, American’s today have never been more polarized on the direction and destination of their bus.

We cannot always expect to agree on solutions to our problems. Some solutions are focused on more liberty (less government), and others on socialist remedies (more government). In the end we shall have to adjust our differences in a minimal spirit of goodwill and subordinate our lesser interests to the general welfare of the majority.

The important thing to do as citizens is to look at our national problems with an open mind in a spirit of fairness. Be willing and eager to listen to all sides, determined to find the truth. To do this, to the extent possible, read and listen endlessly, assemble what is learned into useful information and then make decisions. It is never possible to have all the facts or enough information to make perfect decisions, but more provides a greater opportunity to make the correct decision. "More" often begins with education and never ends in real American citizenship.

Because somebody says something, or it is published in the print media, doesn’t make it either true or a fact. That’s where individual research and “mining for facts” becomes important. It is fair to say that the facts will lead to the truth, which in turn will lead to an answer, or at least a preferred direction. The truth of a matter (as it is without makeup) is what is important. Truth is the converse of spin and obfuscation. Which you choose to believe, truth or spin, or which is truth or spin, is ideological.

Your best course is to be the slave of no man or a blind follower of any man's crusade, liberal or conservative. The better choice would be to "serve" the American people with honor and integrity rather than permitting the self-interest of those attempting to rule. In other words, we should be working for the welfare of all American citizens rather than political self-interest of only a few. Accept and follow the sovereignty of your own mind.

What is in the best interest of the majority of American citizens is most often in the best interest of America! For example, is less crime, better education and immigration control in the best interest of each American citizen? Then those issues should be a national priority and the consuming focus of Congress.

Many Americans derive their social attitudes and political perspective from one newspaper or one radio or television source. The media is well aware of the literacy limitations of many Americans, products of failed government education, who neither speak English nor read. Contemporary media admits their presentations are intentionally biased and that they are pursuing a political agenda. The media goal has become one of targeting and misinforming Americans in the pursuit of socialist ideology, i.e., more government rather than less, with media ensconced as the brain cell of the Democratic Party.

Many citizens, in what could be called "the lost generation," are legitimate victims of the public school system, and/or sadly ignorant by choice. These tragic individuals, of all heritages, have little choice but to make decisions based solely on their own prejudices and emotions, most of which are derived from the media, which has degenerated in recent years to the level of propaganda. Statesmen have become rare. As a result of the main stream media, the Ship of State is torn and threatened by conflicting gales of uninformed public prejudice.

One way we can turn it around is with the truth and a vote.

It is not easy to know the truth, especially if a person denies clear channel access to their intellect and common sense. There is always the possibility that even the most conscientious citizen will make mistakes in judgment. Truth, supported by facts and history, remains an important principle if democracy in America is to survive and adapt itself to the new and changing threats of our time, not the least of which is Islamofascism.

You should be aware that there are many among us to whom truth is irrelevant. They call themselves liberals or centrists. Expect nothing less and be surprised at nothing. Endless falsehoods are necessary to cause you to vote against your own self interest, and in effect to steal your vote.

To a liberal, the end justifies the means; the result justifies the tactics; their power justifies the lies. To a conservative, the truth simply is! Always has and always will be.

Red State Patriot
9-17-2005

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The Right Way to Greet Death

Immediately upon learning of the diagnosis, Kathryn Lopez posted a blog on National Review Online headlined “Oh No,” adding, “Our prayers obviously...” The May 19 edition of National Review Online carried an article entitled, “Praying for Senator Kennedy.” As of early yesterday morning, the post on Little Green Footballs announcing his illness had 1,036 comments. Here are a few representative samples:

“Well I wish him the best. If a cure is not possible, then as many quality months with his family as are possible.”

“I disagree with Senator Kennedy's politics, but he is a fellow American and a fellow human being so I sincerely pray for his recovery and wish his family well.”

“Prayers for the Ted and Kennedy family. Much strength and peace for them in the coming days.”

The Soros-funded Media Matters, try as it might to find evil right-wingers celebrating, found only a clip from Michael Savage. The average conservative, however much he disagreed with Ted Kennedy, wished him well.

Not "Rest In Peace": "Rot In Hell"

This could be contrasted to the hatred the Left has vented toward so many of those who opposed its agenda. One could begin with its reaction to the death of Kennedy – the Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy. The late minister of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church was one of the least political of all national Christian spokesmen, but when he passed away last September, the DailyKos announced: “Another Hate Merchant Meets His Maker.” “This won't be a long diary, but another of the first wave of Mega-church hate peddlers has died,” the diarist stated. “He and Jerry [Falwell] and Ron [Reagan] should have plenty to talk about for eternity, [sic.] comparing notes and anecdotes. I won't even get into where, since I'm basically a Humanist.” Naturally, the Left had similar thoughts about the death of Jerry Falwell almost exactly one year ago. Amanda Marcotte, a former employee of the John Edwards presidential campaign, immediately blogged: “The gates of hell swing open and Satan welcomes his beloved son. Jerry Falwell's dead. Guess god [sic] — notice the small 'g' — liked the ACLU better after all.” Ms. Marcotte was far from alone.

Hating More Than “Religious Right Pharisees”

The humanists didn’t show much humanity at the passing of Charlton Heston last month, either. The loving Left at Democratic Underground wrote such epitaphs as:

If “liberal” means giving every mean-spirited bastard in the world a break solely on the account that they are a fellow homo sapien?… feeling any sense of loss that some sorry piece of shithumanity such as C Heston has checked out? Then sign me out. I am glad that he is no longer breathing the same air that you and I share. Just tell me the address to where I need to mail my “Liberal” card.

Can’t say I feel sorry for Charlton Heston. From all I heard he was as rightwing as they come.

So glad to hear some good news for a change. - I hope that spreader of misery spends all his glory days around the eternal flames of hell with ol’ Raygun talkin’ ’bout how they really fucked this country - oh they probably won’t even remember, lol. How about we quit glorifying someone just because they had the good sense to DIE.

NOW will somebody pry his cold, dead hands from that frickin’ penis substitute?

he had it coming. - I had no empathy for the aging Nazis, either.

One did not have to actually do anything offensive to the Left to incur its wrath. After 9/11, NFL star Pat Tillman gave up his salary to defend the United States in Afghanistan – the War on Terror that leftists claim to support. He was killed there. Learning this, the Urbana, Illinois, chapter of Indymedia wrote, “Pat Tillman is gone good riddance.” The Portland Indymedia site ran the headline, “Dumb Jock Killed in Afghanistan.”

Ted Rall: The Worst of the Worst

The execrable cartoonist Ted Rall has made a career of slurring the dead. Shortly after Reagan’s death, Rall told a reporter Reagan was in Hell “turning crispy brown right about now.” Rall called Pat Tillman an “idiot.” He also berated the victims of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and their families as Nazis, and portrayed the grieving wives left behind after 9/11 as money-grubbing media hounds in his cartoon “Terror Widows.”

We, the Living

Leftists are not always content to wait for the targets of their hatred to die. Often, they wish – and occasionally, pray – for it when conservatives take ill. (Undoubtedly, one of the few times leftists glance heavenward.) When Dick Cheney’s heart began acting up in November 2006, Huffington Post columnist Tony Hendra offered “A Thanksgiving Prayer for Dick Cheney’s Heart – and a Few Other Favorite Things.” The blasphemous entry begins:

I give thanks O Lord for Dick Cheney's Heart, that brave organ which has done its darn-tootin' best on four separate occasions to do what we can only dream about. O Lord, give Dick Cheney's Heart, Our Sacred Secret Weapon, the strength to try one more time! For greater love hath no heart than that it lay down its life to rid the planet of its Number One Human Tumor.

Cheney had to have his heart electrically shocked to correct an abnormal rhythm days later.

Fun and Giggles About a Dying Pope

The New York Press published a cover story in March 2005 entitled, “The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope,” which included such knee-slappers as, “In his last days, the Pope was in tremendous pain”; “Beetles eating Pope's dead brains”; and “Pope pisses himself just before the end; gets all over nurse.”

An Avalanche of Hatred for Snow

Left-wingers are aware of their limitless ill-will for others and have sometimes attempted to cover for themselves. When former White House Spokesman Tony Snow revealed the return of his cancer in last March, one DailyKoster announced the Left’s clean hands and put the shoe on the other foot:

I know I don't have to tell you all this, but for the occassional [sic.] troller - We at Dailykos do not swim in the Rush Limbaugh pool of scum. We do not wish ill-health on our political opponents or their families. We at Dailykos give our whole-hearted best wishes and prayers to Tony Snow and his family.

His fellow bloggers quickly proved him a liar. The same day, another diarist argued that since Snow had opposed medical marijuana and euthanasia, his cancer was:

not just coincidental. IRONIC. And, frankly, maybe just a little Karmic. Because Tony Snow didn't just wish suffering on terminally ill patients, he promoted policy positions that ACTUALLY CAUSED SUFFERING for those patients. Big difference.

A year later, after another downturn, the DK klan wrote: “Fuck Tony Snow. Not to wish ill of his cancer or anything, but perhaps it is Karma.” And again, “Tony Snow is a cancer upon our culture.” And yet more:

He deserves whatever is in his future. Karma indicates that where he is going is not
good.

Perhaps as he dies he will consider the 4000 plus of our soldiers who have died needlessly in Iraq for a policy that he supported…Tony Snow is scum. It pains me and makes me feel a little guilty to say that about another being...I won't say human being...but he embodies evil as do those neocons he has supported.

Others, who could not gin up the courage to publicly wish him dead, declared their ambivalence. Another Kos diary entry asked, “Should I Care That Tony Snow Has Cancer?”

“John Hinckley Jr. – Where Are You Now That We Need You?”

…And often the Left cannot wait even for conservatives to get ill before wishing them pain, suffering, and death.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg, who covers politics at taxpayer expense, wished Jesse Helms would contract AIDS and publicly hoped Gen. Jerry Boykin “is not long for this world.” Columnist Julianne Malveaux publicly cast a pox on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, saying, “I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter, and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease.” Air America’s Randi Rhodes has repeatedly “joked” about doing in President Bush. A foreign leftist even produced the film “Death of a President” to bring this vision to life.

In October 2004, UK Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker asked, “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. - where are you now that we need you?” While protesting the War on Terror, some leftists carried signs proclaiming, “Bush is the disease. Death is the cure.”

Anonymous Anti-American Bloodlust

As the Pat Tillman episode demonstrated, the Left need not have any personal knowledge whatever of its subjects to wish them dead. U.S. soldiers – in leftist cant an “occupational force” waging an “illegal, immoral, and unjust war” – deserve to die for their role in oppressing the world’s poor. Columbia University anthropology professor Nicholas DeGenova openly pined for “a million Mogadishus.” And before and during the war, self-proclaimed peaceniks carried signs spouting such loving slogans as “We Support Our Troops, When They Shoot their Officers.”

Why They Hate

Few know the inner psychology of the Left like FrontPage Magazine’s contributors – and they have given away the secrets of the inner temple. Former NOW activist Tammy Bruce reminisced in her book The Death of Right and Wrong (and here on FrontPageMag.com) about a friend who, upon seeing Nancy Reagan’s heartbroken interview about her husband’s deteriorating mental state, called Tammy:

cheering. “Woo hoo! It looks like we might be opening up that champagne sooner than later! I hope you were watching the Dragon Lady on ‘60 Minutes’ tonight. I suppose with Alzheimer’s, he’s not suffering anymore, but it sure looks like she is! There is a God after all.”

I had never thought of my friend as an indecent person, just as I never thought of myself as one. But he really hates those two people and wishes them awful things. He believes he’s in the right and they’re wrong. He also believes that the questions that divide them are moral issues about life and death. The difference, however, is that I think it’s safe to say neither Nancy nor Ronald Reagan ever had a bottle of champagne in the fridge waiting for a gay man or a feminist to die. The Reagans, I’ll bet, don’t hoot and holler at someone else’s pain.

Mrs. Reagan’s humanity illustrated by counterpoint the soullessness of the Left.

A Secular Demonology

Tammy’s last sentence points at the Left’s true problem: a defective cosmology. In his autobiography Radical Son, David Horowitz reproduces a letter he wrote to a one-time comrade, who took his political change-of-heart as a personal betrayal:

How could it be otherwise for people like us, for whom politics (despite our claim to be social realists) was less a matter of practical decisions than moral choices? We were partisans of a cause that confirmed our humanity, even as it denied humanity to those who opposed us. (Emphasis added.)

Although Tammy Bruce showed the Left to be soulless, in their eyes they alone possess the gift of humanity. Leftists lack the religious grounding to recognize everyone as a divine soul and a tradition that teaches them to “hate the sin but love the sinner.” The faith of the Left is a political faith, not a religious one, their politics The Politics of Bad Faith, their God The God that Failed. As they share a secular religion, they promote a secular demonology: those who fight for The Cause are not “on the side of the angels” – they are the angels. For all their charges that President Bush is a Manichean, it is they who stand at the Battle of Armageddon and fight for the Lord. Those who stand in their way are not good people misled; they are Beelzebub in gray suits. “Progressives” can no more offer quarter to such people in death than in life. Their opponents’ deaths are not a tragic diminishment of humanity; the bell only tolls to signal the end of a round. Their opponents’ deaths simply clear the battlefield of hostile infantrymen. This goes beyond a divide of “Red States” and “Blue States” but literally divides the soul from the spirit, human from inhuman or sub-human, cherub from gargoyle. Their fighting faith estranges them from that full portion of humanity (and it is not inconsequential) which does not share it as surely as Islam separates the righteous from the Dar al-Harb.

Ted Kennedy, for all his misguided beliefs and actions, will soon pass from one side of this mortal divide to another. As he goes, the prayers of those of goodwill go with him. (Emphasis added)

By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | 5/22/2008
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=B9F4C4D5-E52E-4932-9866-2EF5966294C9

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The following is a verbatim sampling of the survey questions, (with emphasis added). Read each question and contemplate the grammatical construction and precise wording of the sentence. Reflect on what was being asked. Think of the myriad aspects of each issue that were carefully not asked. Nowhere in the survey document was it explained how the information from the survey responses would be used - or if it would be used at all. Unfortunately, space does not permit reproducing all 55 questions.

Questions:
6. How concerned are you that we potentially face more terrorism within the United States and that it will directly impact your family? (There have been hundreds of terrorist incidents in the United States since 2001, all of Islamic origins, few of which have been reported by the media. What American is not concerned? Only an enemy of the United States would not be concerned. Who in the state or federal government should be on that list?)

9. Do you think our government is doing enough to secure America's borders against foreign terrorists? (Doing "enough." The RNC is kidding, right? Is the risk to the United States at the borders only from foreign terrorists? What about national sovereignty, drugs, human trafficking, disease, violent crime, etc.? The question might have been more relevant if the word "anything" been substituted for the word "enough.")

10. Do you believe that all foreigners within the United States whose visas have expired should be tracked down and deported? (And the alternate choice is what?)

16. Is President Bush right in standing up to the Democrats as they try to expand the size, scope and costs of the federal government? (Are there any indications that President Bush is "standing up," or has ever "stood up?")

20. Do you favor a major overhaul of the current Federal Tax Code that would replace today's burdensome tax collection system with one that is simpler and fairer? (Does simpler mean you can do it yourself? Will the IRS be abolished? Will more than only the top 50% of wage earners pay a fair share of taxes? Will liberal Republicans and Democrats use this as an opportunity to do what they have been promising, increase taxes under the guise of tax simplification?)

23. Do you believe that it is imperative to modernize and restore fiscal soundness to Social Security? (Assuming the political reality of a Social Security system, why do liberals believe a bankrupt system would be the preferred choice? United States citizens don't. Why do congressmen prefer that Americans should have to make do with less latter in life as a result of higher taxes, lower Social Security benefits and a devalued dollar? The inescapable reality will only exacerbate as Congress fiddles.)

29. How much of a role should the federal government have in an individual's health care? (Government already decides who lives and who dies. How much more control do liberals need?)

40. Are you in favor of establishing a guest worker program that will allow people to enter the United States temporarily to fill jobs that Americans do not take? (Are you in favor of outsourcing all of America, everything from street maintenance to airports to teachers? Whether we send the jobs overseas or bring in illegal aliens as labor, it amounts to outsourcing American jobs. Why not outsource our nation's government in hopes we can find someone who will get their job done? Arguably outsourcing would decrease corruption.)

41. Do you support increased funding for border control operations? (Why should we increase funding of border control operations, particularly when we could save money (billions of dollars) and save lives (thousands each year) by building the border fence? The border fence would cost a fraction of the annual budget of the Border Patrol. It was noteworthy that no survey question was asked about the advisability of decreasing taxpayer-funded social services extended to illegal aliens. The RNC agenda on immigration is painfully clear.)

45. Does the national news media accurately report the news without liberal bias? (While reporting accurately is only one of a host of serious issues associated with liberal media bias, who cares? Accurate information is available from alternate sources. The main-stream-media, flying in ever decreasing concentric circles, has reduced itself to being their own audience and their only audience.)

51. How do you rate President Bush's job performance? (The five survey choices ranged from excellent to poor, which arbitrarily prevented selecting a choice outside the range of positive numbers. I had in mind "i," the square root of -1, an imaginary number to represent an imaginary performance.)

55. What do you consider the most important steps the Republican Party can take in the coming months to help advance President Bush's agenda and win back a majority in Congress? (Why is the focus solely on the welfare of the Republican Party, and not on the economic and cultural vitality of the United States of America and the welfare of hard-working citizens? Even if the RNC were to change their words and the color of their stripes, pretending to be conservative just as Democrats pretend a faith, they would not be changing their compost pile of people. They remain liberals. President Bush's liberal agenda has been widely repudiated by those who vote. It is incredibly unlikely that conservative voters will knowingly advance President Bush's agenda. And yet, that is the singular premise of the RNC survey and solicitation. The Republican Party, far more liberal than conservative, is clearly in disarray having been overrun by liberal ideologues. Without conservative candidates and conservative principles, the Republican Party will fail again in 2008.)

The rest of the survey questions were equally inane.

Also relevant is that the survey was at least the sixth such survey (and possibly more than the tenth - I've lost count), all of which were the same survey sent out by the RNC in the last couple years - with exactly the same questions. How relevant can the questions be if they never change? What have liberal Republicans accomplished in all these years if the questions never change? When we stop long enough to comtemplate the real purpose of a survey, the RNC surveys begin to have a purpose. Rather than seek the opinions of survey recipients, a survey is better used - intended - to measure whether or not the propaganda is working, and to solicit donations. So much for our opinions, which should not come as a surprise.

As an aside, who do you think was going to score and correlate the hundred of thousands of responses to each of 55 questions? Processing donations in the form of personal checks or credit cards will consume most of the time of staff and volunteers. The money will make it into the RNC financial accounts, and the donor's name and address will be added to a database of easy marks for future solicitations. Apparently we can receive the results of the survey if requested, but why would you want to - ten times? My name and personal information is also in the database. However, I have a difficult time envisioning any candidate articulating their campaign position in a public policy address by actually saying, "According to the 'Ask America, 2007 Nationwide Policy Survey', Question number 50, a huge majority of the respondents believe there should be a consititutional amendment banning gay marriage, therefore if elected I will oppose gay marriage."

Reading the entire "survey" evoked a response comparable to experiencing cruel and unusual punishment. The survey was probably more unpleasant to a conservative than anything the detainees at Abu Ghraib were ever subjected to. Since I read the survey voluntarily, Senator John McCain would probably say my discomfort was self-inflicted and while painful, it was not inhumane or torture. Well, I beg to differ. The survey, as constructed, and repeatedly inflicted every month or two on an unwilling participant, was surely designed to be an instrument of slow political torture. When I had finished the survey, I was left with a mental image of being escorted by two burly political operatives into a voting booth, restrained at the hands and feet, wearing bright orange garb and provided an "opportunity" to vote on issues already decided years ago by political hacks behind closed doors - a vote limited to two choices, neither of which were in the nation's best interests.

Conservative philosophy suggests that what is in the best interests of the individual citizen and individual liberty is also, by definition, in the best interests of the United States of America. Ever-increasing socialism is not in the best interests of individual American citizens, unless one's goal is shared misery and the voter has a self-destructive desire to serve those who seek to rule rather than govern. Maybe there is some truth to the suggestion that Washington, D.C. in general, and the United States Congress in particular, have become the insane asylum of the universe.

What then is the bottom line? Conservatives will vote for their principles, but not for any candidate or politicial party that abandons their conservative principles.

It appears that the Republican National Committee (RNC) does not understand conservative philosophy or share conservative principles. The survey questions would seem to indicate that the RNC does not know, which every conservative knows either intuitively or by faith, the difference between "right and wrong."

Can you name and discuss with some reasonable semblence of insight one domestic or foreign policy decision of the current administration that disproves the assertion that, "If you don't know where you are going, any direction you take will get you there?" The RNC, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity want Republican and Independent voters to elect or re-elect the same or like-minded people as those currently in office. It will be a cold day. Our only alternative may well be an ugly choice, Comrade Clinton. Either way, historians will clinically document 2008 as the year of national suicide. In the aftermath, everybody will point fingers at their friends and neighbors attempting to shift responsibility.

Democraks are correct about at least one thing - a conservative GOP was once-upon-a-time the party of wealthy, successful, and ambitious Americans. Conservative Republicans thrived instead of survived, educated instead of failed, won instead of lost, cherished family instead of a village, achieved instead of blamed, lead and innovated instead of complained and sued, and worshiped freely. Today, liberal Republicans differ little from Democrats. They share a desire to emulate Soviet- and Cuban-style socialism and accummulate power and wealth at the expense of taxpayers, while being inappropriately subsidized by the votes of non-taxpayers, felons and illegal aliens.

Just as illegal aliens flooded across America’s borders in search of opportunity without cultural allegiance, liberals have flooded across the borders of the Republican Party for more than a decade seeking "easy money," i.e., political opportunity without any commitment to conservatism, and laying waste to the U.S. Constitution in the process. The Republican Party and America have both suffered the same tragic fate – an invasion by illegal aliens (liberals politicians and Mexican nationals) who care little about anything but themselves – in both cases led by none less than Senator John McCain. Faux conservatives in the Republican Party did nothing to control their Party borders or national borders and the rest is history.

Do you remember? In 2004, the nation truly belonged to Republicans. Their leadership would have lasted for decades into the future if the GOP had remained true to principles of conservatism, national security, faith, freedom, sanctity of life and the American family. Historians will say that the ascendancy of Republicans didn’t last long, which will be the sorry legacy of President George W. Bush and an exceptionally weak Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. There were numerous advance clues to George W. Bush, beginning in Texas, with his “compassionate conservatism,” a cleverly packaged virulent strain of socialism, and his open advocacy for all forms of social services for illegal aliens.

In hindsight, “compassionate” was a code word for “liberalism,” and Americans were asked to believe that the oxymoron of liberal conservatism was somehow feasible if only administered by George W. Bush. The political dynamics in 2004 were such that a majority of American citizens were genuinely desperate not to elect as President of the United States a national traitor. If only the Republican National Committee (RNC) understood (or cared) that conservatives, registered Republicans or Independents, did not vote for Governor George W. Bush, but voted against Vice President Al Gore in 2000, voted against Senator John F. Kerry in 2004, and voted against liberal Republicans in 2006. The choice facing the electorate in recent decades, in almost every political jurisdiction, has not been one of eagerly voting for the best of two candidates, but going to the polls and voting against the worst of the two candidates. Will history repeat itself in 2008?

The choice is simple and Americans need to choose. Will it be personal freedom, education instead of indoctrination, less government, less regulation and lower taxes, ownership of private property and financial success, the by-products of a philosophy of personal excellence, integrity, initiative and patriotism? Or, will it be the liberal alternative, a life in the shackles of state-dependency and citizen subservience, without anything but temporary jobs and a dismal national future? Your children's future under the auspices of liberal democratic socialism is well documented, i.e., a state of equalized poverty, shared misery, bussed to the next election machine and told how to vote.

We can choose to work on the plantation picking cotton for those politicians who compete to live in the "big house," or we can be well-educated, prosperous, free men and women. The only limits to our success and our freedom are those we impose on ourselves by failing in our first responsibility in life, i.e., to educate ourselves. If education was what it once was, what it should be, without government interference, Americans would know that the bleached bones of millions of unfortunate people, victims of every socialist-style government in the history of the world - no exceptions - litter the roadside of human evolution.

Having failed to educate ourselves and our youth early and so completely, there are few employment opportunities remaining in life except to pick another man's cotton. The RNC survey, "Ask America, 2007 Nationwide Policy Survey," sixth iteration, goes a long way to confirm that assessment.

Red State Patriot

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This is not a speculative question either. The current situation is a carbon copy of that facing the U.S. in the spring of 1975, when this country ran out on our Southeast Asian allies in general, and South Vietnam in particular. In mid-April 1975 (I believe the date was the 15th, but I'm not absolutely certain) Sydney Schanberg, the New York Times' Cambodia correspondent, published an op-ed giving a seasoned reporter's view as to what would happen in the region now that the U.S. was out. Simply put, a blanket of peace not witnessed since Eden would descend across Southeast Asia. With the U.S. gone, all hostilities and violence would cease. The locals, peaceful folk all, would pick up the threads of their lives and, unmolested by arrogant Yankees, would create a society that would act as a shining example to the world at large, Americans in particular.

This is hegemonist doctrine in almost chemically pure form. The U.S. as a demon among nations, violence and depravity the sole results of its policies. The only such actor on the world stage, with all other nations serving as victims, with no course open to them beyond reacting to American provocations. With the U.S. removed from the equation, the world will then immediately right itself and roll on with not a single problem, conundrum, or challenge - at least not that any American need pay attention to. This was the doctrine as it stood in 1975, and if Nancy Pelosi's recent remark that, "If we leave Iraq, then the insurgents will leave Iraq, the terrorists will leave Iraq," is any indication, it has not changed in a single particular in the thirty years since. (Further exploration of the connections between Iraq and the Vietnam epoch is well detailed in this recent piece by Noel Sheppard.)

So much for the hegemonist vision. As for the real world... Even as Schanberg's words appeared, the Khmer Rouge, in the service of a vision we will never be able to grasp, were emptying out the Cambodian capitol of Phnom Penh. What followed was one of the worst massacres of the 20th century, exceeded in sheer inhumanity only by the Holocaust and the Ukrainian famine. Within three years, something on the order of one to three million people ("over one million" as Schanberg's paper helpfully puts it) had been murdered. The Khmer Rouge were enemies of technology, and most of those who didn't starve were beaten to death with bamboo staves. When the last victims in an area were dispatched and all that was left were the cadres, they turned on each other, far past the point where they were capable of understanding anything else. It was atrocity
carried to its ultimate degree, an event with the stench of damnation about it. The world has hurried on with scarcely a glance back. (To my knowledge, Schanberg has never repudiated his statement of April 1975. This too is typical of hegemonist doctrine, which is in many ways a postmodern construct: if you don't acknowledge your errors, then they
never happened.)

The Vietnamese ordeal was not as deadly. It was also slower in unfolding. Several years passed before the appearance of the Boat People, common Vietnamese who had grown so desperate as to entrust themselves to makeshift rafts and boats on the South China Sea in an effort to get anywhere - Hong Kong, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia - beyond the reach of the Party. We have no idea how many fled, and how many died on the high seas of thirst, starvation, in storms, slaughtered by pirates, drowned when their rickety craft disintegrated around them. The UN, and the world at large, ignored them, in the same fashion as we see today concerning Darfur. Since they were fleeing communism, the Boat People were not legitimate victims, in the same sense that the Christians of Sudan deserve nothing in the way of sympathy either.

And that was only the beginning. The latter part of the 1970s developed into a global Walpurgisnacht in which low-lying fruit of the international system were knocked off by Soviet-funded Marxists one after the other. Ethiopia, Nicaragua, the twin Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique (and very nearly the mother country itself, with
incalculable consequences for Europe, but for the actions of Ramalho Eanes, one of the unsung heroes of the Cold War), Grenada, Afghanistan - it was the most successful decade for the communists since the late 1940s. And with their fall, these small states were plunged into chaos, starvation, and endless warfare. As with the Boat People, the final toll is unknown. As with the Boat People, the world showed no concern whatsoever.

This record in and of itself makes it abundantly clear that the hegemonist doctrine is fantasy, and widespread as it has become, an extraordinarily dangerous fantasy. The U.S. is not, and has never been, the snake in an international Eden. Quite the contrary: when the United States retreats, the tyrants, bandits, and ideologues are unleashed. The rule of blood returns, and genocide and horror walk the streets and highways of this
civilization.

The record in recent years serves only to underline this fact. In Yugoslavia, a situation that a relatively small European expeditionary force, consisting at most of a few divisions, could have sorted out in a matter of months, was allowed to fester for the larger part of a decade. Thousands died in repeated offensives, sieges, ethnic-cleansing campaigns, and outright massacres until the U.S. broke the Serbian grip by main force.

Darfur, in which hundreds are being slaughtered at this moment, could be controlled with a few squadrons of helicopter gunships reinforced with Predator-class drones to establish a cordon across which no horsemen would be allowed to venture. But the U.S. is entangled elsewhere, and no one else is willing to step in. Not a single European state, not a single African country. Not even Kofi Annan, himself an African, was willing to bestir his underlings, instead contenting himself with tirades at the Truman Library condemning the United States for the temerity of interfering with other countries.

Rwanda we have saved for last, since it comprises a special case, the example that in and of itself exposes the bankruptcy of a self-policing international system. Rwanda was the worst massacre since the Cambodian Year Zero, and the only one to match it for sheer lunacy. (There was a kind of sanity, in a debased and repellent form, about the Holocaust and the Ukrainian Famine. If you want to destroy a domestic enemy, you wipe
them out to the last infant. So says the style of rationalism unbound embodied by Nazism and communism.) In the past few weeks, a dozen years after the slaughter, it has at last been revealed by the new Rwandan government that the massacre was planned and overseen in the chambers of the French embassy. That the militia that triggered the butchery was trained by French officers. That the mobile radio transmitter that goaded the Hutu into turning on their neighbors was maintained and operated by French engineers. All to carry out a foreign policy whose raison d'etre is that no French-speaking state can ever be allowed to fall under the control of Anglophones (the Tutsis, God help them, are English-speakers). For this, a million died under the most horrifying
circumstances conceivable. For France, the cradle of civilization. France, the exemplar of culture. France, the nation that we – vulgar Yanks in particular - should all strive to imitate.

Well, something went wrong with France somewhere along the line – the Revolution of 1789, more than likely - and they are now the exemplar of nothing. They are yet another pirate state, with a record including Algeria, Vietnam, Bokassa's cannibal empire, and Rwanda. (Their recent actions in central Africa, consisting of air strikes on the Sudanese
border that evidently killed mostly civilians, serve only to round this series out.) This is a record perhaps second only to that of the USSR itself. France is a state that, like Serbia or Libya, must be watched closely and if necessary kept in check. And what power is capable of carrying out such a policy? France has nuclear weapons. It has aircraft carriers. It has its own domestic military industry.

In all the wide world, there is only one such nation. For an international system to work, the dominant state must act the role. When it stands aside no one takes its place. The marginal states deteriorate below the medieval level, while the more "civilized" nations behave in a manner they would probably not even contemplate under other circumstances. The dominant power does not lead through strict application of force but by example and unvoiced threat as much as anything else. Its hand should be light, its intentions benevolent, as was generally (apart from Ireland) the case with Great Britain. But even a harsh overlordship, as in the case of the Ottomans and Rome, is better than the anarchy that reigns when the superpower declines its role.

If the U.S. is guilty of any crime in its international relations, it is in the repeated attempts to evade its responsibility as the world's leading power. WW I dragged on for years due to U.S. refusal to join the fight against German reaction. A similar action guaranteed a near-total Allied collapse against the most sinister and powerful enemy ever faced
by the civilized West during the first two years of WW II. We have already covered the 70s. The 90s were a similar period, when the United States decided to take the decade off under the impression that its job was done (of course, Bill Clinton has apologized for all that during one of his bongo-playing expeditions). Different names have been used for what was essentially the same policy: normalcy, isolationism, detente, the end of history. We don't yet know what the name for next hiatus will be.

We do know that the impulse behind it is the hegemonist doctrine. No other force is keeping the U.S. from playing its international role. No outside element could possibly succeed in holding the country back. Only internal pressure from the media, the educational establishment, the universities, the Democrats. They call themselves idealists, and we can give them that. But American left-wing idealism is hollow, creating not the conditions for a global utopia, but for more wars, more brutality, more genocides, more bloodshed.

It follows that the hegemonist doctrine has to go. This is a dogma that has no beneficial aspect. It presents itself as infinitely virtuous while enabling the most evil aspects of the era. (The majority of its adherents - the kind of leftists who have adopted the label of "liberal" - would no doubt be deeply offended to hear that they are supporters of the Khmer Rouge and the Rwandan murderers -- but there's no ducking this.) It is accepted without thought or consideration, as simply the way educated people think. It is a doctrine that inveigles decent individuals to turn their backs on grotesque suffering, to shut the blinds and close their ears when they hear screams of pain and terror out in the darkness, in the conviction that the police are, if anything, worse than the rapists and murderers.

It is also a doctrine held - if not very seriously or very deeply - by a vast number of people, which raises the question of how such a thing can be challenged. In past decades, the center right has all too often allowed leftist premises to stand unchallenged. The reasons are varied - concentration on easier issues, a sense of hopelessness, an inability to recognize such ideas when they appear - and are not important. What is important is realizing that this stance is always an error. It has
allowed the left to set the terms of debate, to define the issues, to prepare the ground before the fight even begins. The result has been much more effort and frustration in conservative efforts than has been strictly called for.

This is nowhere more true than of hegemonist doctrine. In debates concerning foreign policy, it has been treated as an axiom, something inarguable and untouchable. In going along with this charade, conservatives have effectively relegated all their own arguments to the "yes, but..." category. Such a consistent and long-lived tendency to undercut their own premises would be difficult to credit if it wasn't true of many other conservative positions as well.

Three methods would prove effective in breaking the hold of hegemonist doctrine: identifying it for what it is; discrediting its contentions; and replacing it with a healthy, serious conception of national feeling.

Identification - most people have no idea anything like hegemonism exists as a distinct concept, attributing its effects to the general climate of opinion. Since the collapse of Stalinism, the radical left has been very careful not to closely associate itself with the spread of its own ideas, instead depending on sympathetic or naive outsiders (in a
previous epoch known as "transmission belts"), a tactic that has proven quite successful. Identifying hegemonism as leftist in its origins, methods, and aims would go a long way toward undermining it. Most people do not care to be intellectually manipulated, which is what this doctrine amounts to.

Identifying it as a distinct doctrine will also force the left to defend it as a doctrine, rather than simply acting as if it's what any sane person believes. (It's amazing, when you think about it, how many aspects of left-wing ideology are defended in those terms, and none
other. Amazing, and frustrating, in that they've been able to get away with it for so long.)

Disparagement - This should be easy enough. In truth, few dogmas have been more discredited in recent years than this one. As we have seen, it was discredited first by the aftermath of the Vietnam War, as the world at large careened down the road to Hell without any assistance from the United States. It was discredited once more at the end of the Cold War, when the U.S., at its peak moment of triumph, turned away from any form of imperialist design.

It was discredited again during the 90s, when many of the pathologies of the 70s reappeared in limited form due to American sloth. It needs to be pointed out - over and over again, as many times as is necessary – that the hegemonist "backstory" is pure mythology, that the U.S., far from acting as an imperial state, has walked out of the global arena time and again in the past century, on each occasion leaving abject chaos behind.

Human instinct is on our side - nobody cares to believe that they live in a psychopathic country, and the facts back us up on this. They should be reiterated constantly. At least as often as the left repeats their little yarns.

Replacement - The form of patriotism disdained by the left as "my country, right or wrong" is long gone, if it ever existed in the first place. What is needed to put up against hegemonic nihilism is a new form, in which skepticism of acting government is balanced by love of country, faith in its ideals, and both pride and understanding of its history, embracing both triumphs and errors. In other words, a style of patriotism much as it exists in the center right today. The left is commonly allowed to dismiss the patriotism of conservatives as the howling of Strangelovian maniacs. They need to be corrected, as firmly as the situation calls for.

We must keep in mind how easily Ronald Reagan overturned the doctrine when it was at its most powerful, only a few years after the collapse of Vietnam. Reagan achieved this because he believed in his vision of America, and was able to communicate that belief. As in so much else, we need to look back on how the Gipper did it. Above all, we need to keep in mind what has been done before, can be accomplished again.

There's a great irony involved in all this in that even as the hegemonist viewpoint became the consensus, the U.S. was correcting domestic faults and achieving international victories that would have been impossible if the doctrine had any basis in truth. The odious institution of legal segregation was overthrown with no serious
bloodshed, a social revolution in the role of women was encompassed in less than a generation, and new industries unimaginable in the last century transformed first the American, and then the global economy. Internationally, the U.S. brought about the collapse of communism, the most efficient system for human degradation ever devised, oversaw the rise of a new Europe that in large part left behind the abattoir politics responsible for the deaths of millions within living memory, and aided in establishing a network of young democracies across the Asian littoral.

Yet despite all this - a record unmatched by any other state in the modern era, perhaps any state in history -- we're supposed to turn our backs and instead brood over ancient wrongs and phantasms dreamed up by fearful, isolated academics ignorant of the very society that supported them.

In fact, the U.S. is pioneering a new method by which a great power relates to the world - as a combination of trading partner, lifeguard, and sheriff. There has been nothing quite like it before, although the British Empire pioneered some aspects (particularly those having to do with trade). Whether it succeeds is the core question of our era. If it does not... the example of Rome lies in reserve.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Americans - many of them - have been deprived of a vision of their country for many decades by an ideological construct designed to make patriotism and love of country appear malignant. No society can thrive, much less fight a war, under such a burden of cynicism and self-doubt.

None of these dogmas last forever, and this form of inverted patriotism, this dispensable survival of the heyday of American leftism, has lived past its time, kept alive by misfits who had nothing else to sustain them.

Dispensing with it should be at the top of our agenda. It may be more important than tactics, more important than strategy, more important than anything that happens overseas, since without it being accomplished, nothing else can possibly work.

J.R. Dunn

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/hegemonism.html
Hat tip: D.R.

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Only if you knew you had no chance to be one of the winners, or refused to try, relying instead on government for a pathetic 'mere existence,' could an American possibly prefer socialism. The losers are most often those who are uneducated, shiftless, lazy, drug and alcohol impaired, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, indolent, and inefficient, typically constituents of the Democratic Party. Those few Democrats who do not fit the above description aspire to be the elites, the ruling class who regulate the lives of all others, living off the labors of those they seek to rule, believing with arrogant certainty they know better how you as an American should live your life and raise your children.

Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to business executives and the carpenter, lawyers and the factory worker. Capitalism requires human beings to deal with one another as traders, i.e., as free agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent, because the sole criterion that determines the value of anything exchanged in a free economy is the unfettered judgment and voluntary choices of the seller and buyer.

Capitalism is superior to socialism in two critical aspects, morality and justice. If you acknowledge the concept that “envy” is both the desire to possess another’s wealth and failing that, the desire to see another’s wealth lowered to the level of one’s own, then socialism is the system which institutionalizes the morality of envy.

Residents of large “inner cities,” and New Orleans in particular, come to mind. Is that what you wish for yourself or the entire nation?

Consider for a moment professional sports, any one of them. Society too is like a team sport in that everyone must perform at very high levels for the team to be successful. A professional football team “hires” only the best athletes regardless of other social criteria. The goal is to win and that wouldn’t be possible if the team were required to employ people of my athletic skills. While I was personally recruited by Otto Graham for college football, by the time I got there, my physical stature and abilities had been far surpassed by my peers on the football field. (Otto Graham graciously suggested I try a different sport.) A professional football team has no obligation to hire and compensate a person of my comparitively minimal athletic skills.

Nor does society have an obligation to hire, compensate or carry on the national payroll in the form of welfare those who refuse to educate themselves and obtain gainful employment. You can’t run a professional sports team with socialism, where everyone claims a right to play and expects to be compensated by the team if they are incapable of performing at a productive level. And you can’t run society with socialism either. America cannot afford to keep on the team payroll non-productive Americans who contribute nothing to the team, regardless of liberal emotionalism and claims of racism and disenfranchisement. The "free ride" entitlement mentality is not compatible with Team America if America is expected to be competitive in the world arena. The team is more important than any one player (patriotism). Members of the U.S. Armed Forces understand the concept, as do most professional athletes. Liberals, by contrast, serve only their own self interests - hardly a model for team success.

Furthermore, capitalism acknowledges that the degree to which man rises or falls in society (class mobility) is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind and his work ethic. Capitalism is the only system that rewards education, merit, innate ability, achievement, excellence, initiative and integrity regardless of the location of one’s birth, racial heritage or station in life.

In addition to an endless list of otherwise questionable virtues, socialism is also the system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from its productive citizens. The confiscated income is then redistributed in exchange for votes to the parasites (those who refuse to work) and cockroaches (uneducated and ill-equipped, by choice and personal neglect), in addition to those determined by communities to be needing assistance beyond what can be provided by charitable organizations, churches and families.

Central control and shared misery, or individual freedom and responsibility, which will it be? Social mobility or class boundaries, which will it be? Income redistribution and entitlement mentality, or self-government, self-discipline, excellence, initiative and integrity, which will it be? It really is our choice - your choice. You make that choice each and every time you vote. If you think the choice should not be difficult, reflect on the relative closeness of the last two presidential elections and recognize the importance of your vote. Recognize also value systems and the motivation of those who choose socialism, i.e., to rule rather than govern, a quest in which you and I are expendable.

Red State Patriot

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Socialism is a direct and predictable result of the current system of government public education.

What else is a nation to do with a generation of unprepared youth, uneducated to the extreme, unable to compete, unable to communicate or comprehend in writing, unable to read instructions or perform the simplest vocational task, let alone make change. Underlying the ugly surface deficiencies, our youth are unable to reason, be self-reliant, display integrity when challenged, and a great preponderance are unreliable, unmotivated, and unable to speak a recognizable form of business English.

What is a good socialist to do? Add them to the welfare roles of course, or give them government or corporate jobs under the guise of equal opportunity. Call it what you want, it’s still a form of welfare and institutionalized prejudice. Clearly more qualified individuals applied for those jobs and did not get the job, or the seat in a college or university.

And by all means, we must reward the most ignorant of our youth with the right to vote. Now sit back and watch the perfect political example of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).

Our system of education is both grounded in and advocates socialism in its purest sense. How could that be?

Education in America today, little better than a human “puppy mill” and juvenile day care center, is government subsidized, regulated and void internally of meaningful competition. Rather than emphasize initiative, excellence, integrity, achievement, character and citizenship, public schools encourage conformity to substandard mediocrity. What is lacking is the societal premise that "Good enough, isn't." Our education system lacks criterion reference testing, terminal performance skill and knowledge objectives in any variation, and functions without standardized student accountability. Needs analysis are non-existent except to justify next year’s budget. Admissions are dictated by anything but merit. Centers for education are staffed by large (huge) numbers of people who have done nothing in life except read a book and express their opinions, people who never served their country, people who refuse to tolerate free speech, people unaccountable for their competence, people who refuse intellectual exchange of ideas, people who endorse secularism as the “state religion” while demonstrating no tolerance for any other, people who ostracize and demean faculty members and the public with divergent views, people who condone aberrant behavior, people who serve only their own self interests and narcissism, people who coerce their students under the veiled threat of failing grades, people who have institutionalized lifetime welfare in the guise of tenure, people who coddle terrorism, people who repudiate patriotism and demean military service, people who scorn free markets and capitalism, and people who even advocate undermining of the American democratic process. Did I leave anything out? And not a word was exaggeration.

Do you remember when teachers were underpaid? Today, the average annual teacher’s salary is $46,752, more that the average enlisted man’s salary in Iraq or the police officer on the front lines in our cities. And you thought “expected return” was based on risk analysis.

In fact, educators wrongfully refer to their occupation as a profession. At a minimum you'd think they would know the difference. If education were a profession, it would be exclusive which it is not. People routinely teach others outside a traditional school environment. Entrance to the occupation would be competitive and educators and the system of education would be self-regulating, neither of which it is the case. Laypeople in state legislatures and unions, or those on boards of education typically set the rules for and regulate teachers. Teaching is an occupation, i.e., a group of people with a vocational expertise that in many states is less difficult to obtain than a real estate license.

It is unusual to find a single person in the education industry who understands the simple postulation that we are all the end result of the sum of our economic, behavioral and political decisions, both as a nation and as individuals, each and every minute of every day. And the decisions we make are both cumulative and more often than not, irrevocable!

Meanwhile, our lack of individual education is manifested in our collective voting decisions. Whether voters are informed or not, their votes still result in choosing our elected representatives. The pathetic state of affairs in the United States Senate makes the point.

Consequently, one could cynically suggest that America deserves what Congress and State Legislatures vote for. We would argue that American citizens don’t deserve what is happening to their culture at the hands of an ignorant and self-serving Congress, anti-American media, activist Judiciary and Marxist system of youth indoctrination in government-controlled public schools.

At the end of the day, liberals won’t like it either; but true to form, it will be someone else’s fault and they will once again portray themselves to be the victims.

Red State Patriot

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