July 2009 Archives

A report from the Pentagon has just come down today and sent to Secretary of Defense Gates.  In this blue ribbon paper, it recommends that the US military ban smoking by military personnel.

Now, let me just say that I hate cigarette smoke.  I smoked for a half-dozen years and finally quit after multiple tries.  It wasn't easy, but I did it.  And I wish everyone would quit smoking.  Not only for their own health, but because I hate smelling the foul odor of stale burnt tobacco that floats through the air and somehow always manages to stick to my clothing.

I also think putting the pungent weed into your mouth and turning your teeth black and your gums into one giant tumor is not a really good idea.  

But for me to tell anyone what to put into their body goes against any and all ideas of personal liberty.  And I don't like that one bit.

For those of you who think that a health care system run by our government is a good idea, this should be a wake-up call.  

If we get the health care plan our President and his cronies want for us, we will all be TOLD what we can eat, where we can eat, when we can eat, how much we can eat, or anything else that's permissible to put into our bodies.  Tuna fish; too much mercury.  Coca-Cola; too much corn syrup.  Butter; too much fat.  Watercress and tofu;  mmmm good!

Of course, this is all in the name of good health.  Our good health.  Another benevolent dictatorship just looking out for us poor folks who aren't smart enough to think for ourselves.

But that ruse is only temporary.  Do you not believe that Big Brother will be waiting in the wings directing your every movement?  

If he's footing the bill, you can be sure he will have controlling interest in your life.  Already the government dictates what is being taught in our failing public-financed schools.  Sex education, diversity training, revisionist history, and a phony global warming agenda are being shoved down our children's throats against our wishes.  Low-income families are forced to live in crime-ridden government-subsidized housing.   How can that happen?  

Because the government is picking up the tab.  The responsible party pays, the responsible party plays.  Everyone else, that means us, just sits out.  It's just that simple.

But I want you to stop and think for just a second.  I know that might hurt a little, but do it anyway.  The government is not paying for anything.  WE ARE.  That's right, it's OUR money.  It doesn't belong to any president, congressman, senator or bureaucrat.  It belongs to us.

We only lend it to them.  It's time to call in their IOUs.

Is the obsession with Sarah Palin by her detractors ever going to be over?  Even after she resigned as governor of Alaska, David Lettermen couldn't let go.  One unfunny Sarah Palin joke after another has turned a once-funny comedian into just another hate-filled Keith Olbermann clone.  

Reporters at her press conference called her statement "rambling' and "incoherent."  Maybe she should have used a teleprompter.  Maybe our Dear Leader could have loaned her his.

Now, I don't know Governor Palin's real reason for resigning, but I'm going to take her explanation at face value.  And I'll tell you why.

She scares the hell out the loony left and the Colin Powell Republicans, that's why.  And that's enough for me.  With Sarah Palin, I believe, we are finally getting a politician who is not afraid to stand up and speak for us.  Not only speak for us, but act in our interests.  Not for the betterment of any particular political party or special interest group, but for the betterment of America.  She has already proved she has the courage to stand up to the corrupt political machine in Alaska and the oil companies that had sweetheart deals in her state.

She fought them and won.  Somehow, I don't think she would have a problem standing up to the entrenched scoundrels in Washington.  And that freaks them out.  Someone they can't control is someone  to fear.

She has been under constant attack since she was picked as John McCain's running mate.  Sick jokes have been told about her children and she has been bombarded with investigations of every aspect of her life.  And not just from the left.  Even her former running mate has thrown her under the bus; a shame coming from a real American hero.

Can anyone name me any politico that has had to undergo such an assault? Talk about "Bush Derangement Syndrome."  We now have the "Palin Dementia Disorder."  What is being reported about Governor Palin actually borders on insanity.  I guess the old axiom is true, if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.  And that's what her enemies are hoping for.

But what would you expect from the status quo?  They talk a good game.  Hope and change.  Everyone likes those words.  They make you feel warm and fuzzy all over.  Kind of like hot cocoa in mid-January in Buffalo.  You hear them every election cycle.  It was "Hope and Change" overload from our Dear Leader in his recent campaign.

But one thing remains the same:  no one ever changes the power structure.  It always expands.  Democrats and Republicans, Big Business and unions, bankers and Wall Street big shots, are all are after the same thing:  power.  And they'll do whatever they can to gain it and keep it.   

That's why they fear Sarah Palin.  She could take it all away.  And give it back to us; where it belongs.

What a concept.

Like those incapable of scholarship in Clown College, the leftists in these great United States wish to tread down a path of economic redistribution - well hewed and broad.

 

Regrettably, the "tall grass" of collectivism, socialism and communism has long since been 'pushed down' and abandoned by most - long since soured on the failed expectations of living at the expense of others!

 

Yet, while many have seen the proverbial light and realize that once "everybody is in the cart there is no one left to pull it"  (thanks Mr. Gramm) we have a new crop of ignoramuses' eager to pull apart the very economic engine of the world - the United States of America. And in its place these same 'dunce cap wearing fools' would erect a stagnate, sputtering, failing economic model proven to bring misery to millions.  

 

"Commerce is indeed the cornerstone of Civilization"! Like it or not, there are certain laws of economics that can't be ignored just because they are unfair or don't bend to a scrounger's vision of social justice. And whether you buy, barter or trade it is that buy, bardering or trading that allows each of us to "do what we do" and exchange the effort for what we do - for the something else. Absent that, we will all be back tilling, hoeing and tending the fields like serfs in some feudal fiefdom run by those who would mete out cruel punishments for capricious non-compliance.

 

Cap and Trade, Single Payer Socialized Medicine, guv'ment owning businesses like some broken vestige from the Third Reich, unabated illegal immigration (not to be confused with Legal Immigration) the tearing down of the very core values that made this country great - and the list goes on -  all changing and mutating of what was once was into to something less... And whatever manner of fresh hell that will  be visited upon us because of "change you can believe in" you will wish you had done something more for your children, for your community, for  posterity.

"THE AMERICANS WHO RISKED EVERYTHING"
From Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr. (Father of notable EIB radio host, Rush.)

"...our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor..."
It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from the southeast. Up especially early, a tall, bony, redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who was ill at home.

Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was 72.5: and the horseflies weren't nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely room, very large, with gleaming white walls. The chairs were comfortable. Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they would not be used today.

The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room became an oven. The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices could not be heard by passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed a slight stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies. Jefferson records that "the horseflies were dexterous in finding necks, and the silk of stocking was as nothing to them." All discussion was punctuated by the slap of hands on necks.

On the wall at the back, facing the President's desk, was a panoply--consisting of a drum, swords, and banners seized from Fort Ticonderoga the previous year. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had captured the place, shouting that they were taking it "in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!"

Now Congress got to work, promptly taking up an emergency measure about which there was discussion but no dissension. "Resolved: That an application be made to the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania for a supply of flints for the troops at New York."

Then Congress transformed itself into a committee of the whole, The Declaration of Independence was read aloud once more, and debate resumed. Though Jefferson was the best writer of all of them, he had been somewhat verbose. Congress hacked the excess away. They did a good job, as a side-by-side comparison of the rough draft and the final text shows. They cut the phrase "by a self-assumed power." "Climb" was replaced by "must read," then "must" was eliminated, then the whole sentence, and soon the whole paragraph was cut. Jefferson groaned as they continued what he later called "their depredations." "Inherent and inalienable rights" came out "certain unalienable rights," and to this day no one knows who suggested the elegant change.

A total of 86 alterations were made. Almost 500 words were eliminated, leaving 1,337. At last, after three days of wrangling, the document was put to a vote.

Here in this hall Patrick Henry had once thundered: "I am no longer a Virginian, Sir, but an American." But today the loud, sometimes bitter argument stilled, and without fanfare the vote was taken from north to south by colonies, as was the custom. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

There were no trumpets blown. No one stood on his chair and cheered. The afternoon was waning and Congress had no thought of delaying the full calendar of routine business on its hands. For several hours they worked on many other problems before adjourning for the day.

Much to Lose

What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and who, by their signing, committed an act of treason against the Crown? To each of you the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock, and Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words. Most of us, however, know nothing of the other signers. Who were they? What happened to them?

I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere.

Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were under 40; three were in their 20s. Of the 56, almost half--24--were judges and lawyers. Eleven were merchants, 9 were land-owners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians.

With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of substantial property. All but two had families. The vast majority were men of education and standing in their communities. They had economic security as few men had in the 18th century.

Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it. John Hancock, one of the richest men in America, already had a price of 500 pounds on his head. He signed in enormous letter so "that his Majesty could now read his name without glasses and could now double the reward." Ben Franklin wryly noted: "Indeed we must all hang together, otherwise we shall most assuredly hang separately." Fat Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts: "With me it will all be over in a minute, but you, you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone."

These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging. And remember: a great British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor.

They were sober men. There were no dreamy-eyed intellectuals or draft card burners here. They were far from hot-eyed fanatics, yammering for an explosion. They simply asked for the status quo. It was change they resisted. It was equality with the mother country they desired. It was taxation with representation they sought. They were all conservatives, yet they rebelled.

It was principle, not property, that had brought these men to Philadelphia. Two of them became presidents of the United States. Seven of them became state governors. One died in office as vice president of the United States. Several would go on to be U.S. Senators. One, the richest man in America, in 1828 founded the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. One, a delegate from Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and philosopher of the signers (it was he, Francis Hopkinson--not Betsy Ross--who designed the United States flag).

Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, had introduced the resolution to adopt the Declaration of Independence in June of 1776. He was prophetic is his concluding remarks:

"Why then sir, why do we longer delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic. Let her arise not to devastate and to conquer but to reestablish the reign of peace and law. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repose. If we are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of the American legislators of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of all of those whose memory has been and ever will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens."

Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was not until July 8 that two of the states authorized their delegates to sign, and it was not until August 2 that the signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names to the Declaration.

William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to see the signers' faces as they committed this supreme act of personal courage. He saw some men sign quickly, "but in no face was he able to discern real fear." Stephen Hopkins, Ellery's colleague from Rhode Island, was a man past 60. As he signed with a shaking pen, he declared: "My hand trembles, but my heart does not."

"Most Glorious Service"

Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to treason. All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had narrow escapes. All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered.

Francis Lewis, New York delegate, saw his home plundered and his estates, in what is now Harlem, completely destroyed by British soldiers. Mrs. Lewis was captured and treated with great brutality. Though she was later exchanged for two British prisoners through the efforts of Congress, she died from the effects of her abuse.

William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to escape with his wife and children across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, where they lived as refugees without income for seven years. When they came home, they found a devastated ruin.

Phillips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York confiscated and his family driven out of their home. Livingstone died in 1778 still working in Congress for the cause.

Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his timber, crops, and livestock taken. For seven years he was barred from his home and family.

John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in the woods. While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his Homestead. Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside. When at long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13 children taken away. He never saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever finding his family.

Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton. The British occupied the town of Princeton, and billeted troops in the college. They trampled and burned the finest college library in the country.

Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer, had rushed back to his estate in an effort to evacuate his wife and children. The family found refuge with friends, but a sympathizer betrayed them. Judge Stockton was pulled from bed in the night and brutally beaten by the arresting soldiers. Thrown into a common jail, he was deliberately starved. Congress finally arranged for Stockton's parole, but his health was ruined. The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer harm the British cause. He returned home to find his estate looted and did not live to see the triumph of the revolution. His family was forced to live off charity.

Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate and signer, met Washington's appeals and pleas for money year after year. He made and raised arms and provisions which made it possible for Washington to cross the Delaware at Trenton. In the process he lost 150 ships at sea, bleeding his own fortune and credit almost dry.

George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family from their home, but their property was completely destroyed by the British in the Germantown and Brandywine campaigns.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to flee to Maryland. As a heroic surgeon with the army, Rush had several narrow escapes.

John Morton, a Tory in his views previous to the debate, lived in a strongly loyalist area of Pennsylvania. When he came out for independence, most of his neighbors and even some of his relatives ostracized him. He was a sensitive and troubled man, and many believed this action killed him. When he died in 1777, his last words to his tormentors were: "Tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it [the signing] to have been the most glorious service that I rendered to my country."

William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and home burned to the ground.

Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health broken from privation and exposures while serving as a company commander in the military. His doctors ordered him to seek a cure in the West Indies and on the voyage He and his young bride were drowned at sea.

Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., the other three South Carolina signers, were taken by the British in the siege of Charleston. They were carried as prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida, where they were singled out for indignities. They were exchanged at the end of the war, the British in the meantime having completely devastated their large land holdings and estates.

Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in command of the Virginia military forces. With British General Charles Cornwallis in Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy American guns began to destroy Yorktown piece by piece. Lord Cornwallis and his staff moved their headquarters into Nelson's palatial home. While American cannonballs were making a shambles of the town, the house of Governor Nelson remained untouched. Nelson turned in rage to the American gunners and asked, "Why do you spare my home?" They replied, "Sir, out of respect to you." Nelson cried, "Give me the cannon!" and fired on his magnificent home himself, smashing it to bits. But Nelson's sacrifice was not quite over. He had raised $2 million for the Revolutionary cause by pledging his own estates. When the loans came due, a newer peacetime Congress refused to honor them, and Nelson's property was forfeited. He was never reimbursed. He died, impoverished, a few years later at the age of 50.

Lives, Fortunes, Honor

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create, is still intact.

And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham Clark. He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and sent to the infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York harbor known as the hell ship "Jersey," where 11,000 American captives were to die. The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father. One was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight, with the war almost won, no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons' lives if he would recant and come out for the King and parliament. The utter despair in this man's heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with his answer: "No."

The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence proved by their every deed that they made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent curtain line in history. "And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

As we approach another 4th of July, I can't think of a more appropriate endeavor than for each of us to read our Declaration of Independence.  It, along with our Constitution, the Magna Carta and the Bible, is one of the most important documents ever written.

If you take yourself back to the 18th century and understand the events that forced a disparate group of thirteen colonies to join together and declare their independence from a despotic and distant government, you will understand why today, more than at any time since the birth of our nation, the words of this 233 year old document still ring true.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
 
 But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Liberty is not defined by how many tv sets you have, or how much porn you can download from the Internet.  Freedom is not defined by how many tattoos or body piercings you have.  Those two words have a much deeper meaning.  For without either, our future would indeed be bleak.  History has shown the evil of unlimited power.

Imagine a government telling you where to live, what to read, where you can work, if you can go to school, what you can study, what you can eat, etc., etc., etc.

Can't imagine?  Well, you don't have to.   Just look around.  It's already happening.  Unless you're rich, you're children are forced to go to public schools to be indoctrinated instead of educated.  If you're poor, you're forced to live in crime-infested, government-subsidized housing.  In some cities, the amount of fat and sugar in foods is being regulated. 

And the thought police are not far behind.  With the passage of the Hate Crimes Bill, it will be a crime to speak negatively about homosexuals, abortion doctors or maybe politicians.

Our government has become the monster we always feared.  But as the hero of the left, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said so correctly:  "The only thing we have to fear is, fear itself."

Don't be afraid.  Instead, make them fear you.  Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of tyrants more than the truth.

On the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1926, President Calvin Coolidge said very eloquently: "If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions."

Maybe Silent Cal was onto something.