Showing a much better grasp of what being Commander in Chief requires than our current President:

First the Obama Administration opened up the possibility of prosecuting CIA interrogators doing their jobs seeking information from terrorists. Then they tried to go after the Bush Administration lawyers who acted in good faith to protect us in the months after 9/11. Now some of the military brass are court-martialing three brave Navy SEALs for allegedly throwing a single punch at Iraqi terrorist leader Ahmed Hashim Abed. This is wrong. The Washington Times got it right: Save the SEALs.

These brave warriors belong in combat, not in the courthouse. They captured the most wanted terrorist in Iraq. We may never know how many other heroic missions they undertook on behalf of our country. The charges should be dropped, and they should be returned to their unit – with our gratitude for their service.

Stand up for the SEALs who are standing up for us!

- Sarah Palin

Indeed, Save the SEALs – and you can go here to help out.

It just disgusts me that we’d even think of prosecuting. A punch in a war zone? Give me a break! This is war, not a playground game. If the SEALs did it – which I doubt, as I doubt any accusation made against our troops by our enemies – the terrorist should count himself lucky not to have been beaten to a bloody pulp. You go pick a fight with the United States military, you’re in for a world of hurt.

At Trenton, in 1776, some of Washington’s men marched barefoot in the snow. At Spotsylvania, in 1864, Lee and Grant’s men fought hand to hand, in the rain, for 18 hours. At Tarawa, in 1943, the Marines waded through neck-deep water in the face of Japanese machine guns in order to get to shore. In 1950, General Walker issued a “stand or die” order to his 8th Army in Korea – and plenty of them did die, but they also stood.

Why did these men do that? For more than two centuries American fighting men (and, these days, fighting women) have willingly gone in to the very worst places imaginable and won victories against all odds. Why?

Did they do it so that we could have a bloated Department of Veterans Affairs with a backlog of nearly 1,000,000 claims cases? Did they do it so that fat cat bankers could be bailed out by middle class taxpayers? Did they do it so that our factories could be shipped to China by a collusion of government and business short-sightedness and corruption?

Were they laying down their lives so that terrorists could get Miranda rights? For that matter, were they sacrificing so that criminals could get off on a technicality? Was their blood shed so that in academia, media and the political left their nation – and their sacrifice – could be slandered at will? Were the noblest sacrifices of youth given so that wastrels could sit around collecting government money?

No – they fought and they sacrificed so that their people, we Americans, could be free. Free not to debase ourselves or become the lazy, kept serfs of the super-State – but free to live our dreams, and work hard, and sacrifice in our own turn so that this last, best hope for Man on earth would be preserved. They died that we might live. And what have we done with their sacrifice? Think for a moment of some poor son of our land whose life blood pours out at Yorktown, Gettysburg, Normandy or Pleiku…his life is just slipping away, his family will never see him again; he is giving his all for you…have you lived up to that sacrifice? Have any of us?

This is the test we are given, the task we must perform. They gave their all for a vision of America – for the Founder’s vision. Those words written on paper in 1776 in our Declaration of Independence and in 1787 in our Constitution are what they were defending – and it is, then, up to us to ensure that those ideals are maintained and given their full life in our lives and in our government. If we will not fight for the America they died for, then we are cheating them, and we would be justly damned before history and all decent men and women if we failed in this trust.

We’ve been slack. We’ve let a lot of things slip. We’ve been too quiet – though we are now waking up. But, beware! The siren song of sleep is being spun out – there are those, still, who warn us not to be too ardent. After all, we might offend someone and you know how bad that would be…they want us quieted, again. And some of them claim to be on our side! The whole power structure of money and politics is dependent upon us betraying America, and betraying those patriots who gave their all.

We dare not do that – we must fight, and we must be willing to give our all in this cause of American liberty. If not now, when? If not us, who?

Cross Posted: Noonan for Nevada

Remembering the man without whom there wouldn’t be a United State of America:

Today is the anniversary of the birth of George Washington. Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington’s greatness was the rarest and the most needed. At this remove in time, it is also the hardest to comprehend.

Take, for example, Washington’s contribution to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Washington’s mere presence lent the undertaking and its handiwork the legitimacy that resulted in success. The convention’s first order of business was the election of a presiding officer. Washington was the delegates’ unanimous choice.

Read the whole thing.

Michael Yon brings to our attention this case:

TUSR has followed this case since its inception, and, based on available facts, we have openly advocated for redress for the captain. Bjork will face trial on murder charges. Bjork’s sister Erica sums the situation up: “[C]arl was sent back to the States and was told that he was under investigation for a double murder that occurred during his 2006-2007 deployment in Hit, Al Anbar Province, Iraq. His accusers, who are the only witnesses/evidence in this alleged crime, are four disgraced former Iraqi police who are imprisoned for the murder of two Iraqi civilians – believed to be Iraqi al queda.[sic]”

According to Erica, the captain was not present at the alleged murder—“He simply trained the Iraqi police as part of his duty.”

Not much is really known, apart from that. We do know those who grew up with or fought with Bjork hold him in the highest regard. A Facebook group formed to support Bjork has grown to 7, 983 members.

It is absurd the lengths the military lawyers will go to in their quest to seem so ultra-fair to the enemy. Its a war - in war, bad things happen. To take the word of a couple non-US personnel and use it to gin up a murder charge against a US soldier who was risking his life in a combat zone is just insanity. Our troops are not war criminals no matter how much the American and global left wants to pretend otherwise – massive benefit of the doubt should always be given to our men and women of the armed forces and only with the most clear and compelling evidence of wrongdoing should an investigation be launched.

As the linked article goes on to note, this case seems to revolve around an Iraqi officer who once did good things but then strayed off the path and got himself in trouble with the Iraqi government over corruption and other charges – and seems to be trying to lay blame on Bjork for some of his misdeeds. A confused situation coming out of confused military situation – not the place for cut and dried things such as murder charges, even if Bjork had been present at the murders, which appears not to be the case.

Anways, there is a defense fund set up and I hope that everyone will kick in a bit – and it is high time we started treating our soldiers as the heroes they are, and stopped giving official weight to every stupid accusation leveled against them.

From Victor Davis Hanson:

…We inherited a wonderful infrastructure from our parents. A superb system of politics and economics was likewise given to us at birth. Many of us try to copy our grandparents and parents whose values and work ethic we increasingly eulogize. But against all that is that Roman notion of luxus, untold wealth and leisure that we see juxtaposed with shrill cries and accusations that we are too poor, exploited, and in need of someone else’s income. The wealthier we become, the louder and angrier we become that we are not even more wealthy.

In short, what ruined Rome in the West? Lots of things. But clearly the pernicious effects of affluence and laxity warped Roman sensibility and created a culture of entitlement that was not justified by revenues or the creation of actual commensurate wealth — and the resulting debits, inflation, debased currency, and gradual state impoverishment gave the far more vulnerable Western Empire far less margin of error when barbarians arrived, or rival generals marched on Rome. For a while the Romanization of the wider Mediterranean subsidized this ennui, but eventually the old western and southern provinces neither could protect what they had created nor could continue to be as productive as in the past nor believed that being Roman was any better than the alternative.

The historian Will Durant, after surveying the decay of Rome in the 1st century AD, noted that “by its own exhausted will, the great race (of Romans) was beginning to die”. That is important – decline is a choice, not a fate. We are touched with decay while the rest of the western world is shot through with it. Thus far, the people of what was once called Christendom are choosing to die. Meanwhile, even those states which might want to supplant us have also started to choose to die – but being further back on the road, there is that prospect of a brief supremacy.

It was not a perversity on his part that St. Francis said, “Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty”. While we look back at the 13th century as a time of grinding poverty, the fact is that St. Francis was of a wealthy family and living in a society growing highly prosperous – perhaps as well off as anyone had been since the height of Rome. St. Francis knew, though, that wealth can be a killer – a killer of courage, mercy and love. Sublime poverty is what keeps a person – and a society – healthy.

So, are we all to burn our cash and go live as peasants in the countryside? It is a choice of “farm or die”? That depends on how one wishes to look at it – the real choice is between doing things and doing nothing. If we continue to do more and more nothing, then we’ll get progressively weaker, and eventually die. Not in a cataclysm, but in a slow drift to national senility and an eventual breakup of the nation and our replacement by anyone who wishes to do things on the land we slept upon.

One of the hardest thing for us to wrap our minds around is that, all along, sublime poverty was provided for us. Remember that our federal government is directly indebted for nearly $13 trillion dollars. The “most wealthy” nation spent $13 trillion it didn’t have – and when you tack on personal and State government debt and combine it with the unfunded mandates, we’re many tens of trillions of dollars in the hole. The harsh fact is that we weren’t as rich as we thought we were.

To be sure, we were vastly wealthy – and in very real terms, we retain such wealth. Its in our soil and in our ability to invest in sweat equity. We haven’t wanted to sweat and we’ve listened to idiots about the environment and thus closed off vast amounts of native wealth. But we never were rich enough for all those millions of people to get “free” health care. Never were rich enough for kids to get government grants to go to college. Never were rich enough to provide welfare for tens of millions of people. Our politicians talked of “how can the richest nation in the world not afford X” and we nodded our heads like morons – never fully understanding that being the richest nation in the world isn’t the same as having unlimited wealth for whatever struck our fancy.

We must get back to work. We must, in the end, have the courage to tell a high school graduate that he’s going to have to go to work and entirely pay for college on his own – or not go to college. We’re going to have to tell the shiftless poor that it is time to shift for themselves. We’re going to have to be brave enough to say to a person, “its sad you can’t afford that quadruple bypass”. We don’t have an endless supply of money – we do have an endless supply of resources and ability to work; an endless supply of love and generosity (maybe that oldster’s friends can pool their resources to pay for the bypass?), but we don’t have an endless supply of money. Sublime poverty sits at our knee, waiting for us to wake up.

And if we do wake up and get back to work and understand that all our whims will not be granted, then we will cease to die. We will become what we were – the America of our grandfathers will return. The choice is ours – live, or die. I chose to live and I’m beginning to believe that a large majority of my fellow Americans wish to live, too and understand what it will require.

Cross Posted at Noonan for Nevada

Interesting article on the real strength in our diversity:

When Americans think of our nation’s power (or our imminent lack of it) we tend to point to the national debts, GDP or military prowess. Few have focused on what may well be the country’s most historically significant and powerful weapon: its emergence as the modern world’s first multiracial superpower…

…Over the next few decades this pattern of ethnic and racial integration will separate America from its key competitors. In 2005 the U.S. swore in more new citizens than the next nine immigrant-receiving countries put together. These newcomers will reshape the very identity of the country and allow the U.S. to continue growing its labor force.

Our prime competitors of the future – India and China – are unlikely to evolve in this direction. India is a highly heterogeneous country itself and remains driven by ethnic and religious conflicts. China, like Japan and Korea, remains a profoundly homogeneous country with little appetite or capacity to accept newcomers…

While our liberals like to think in terms of racial bean counting, the reality is that race, as a thing, is becoming ever less important in our society. I mean, seriously, how many of you out there would really be disturbed if a child or grand-child married someone of a different ethnic extraction? I imagine, not too much – a few hold overs aside, its just not that important.

It never was, of course, and save for purblind idiocy, it never would have been an issue. We’re all human beings – and the genius of America is that we can take any human being, from anywhere in the world, and turn them in to Americans. I remember shortly after 9/11 I was reassured by watching news of an American soldier on patrol against further attacks – my guess was that he either was an immigrant or the son of an immigrant…looked like he, or his blood, hailed from Indo-China. But he was an American soldier, and I’d stake my life on his willingness to defend me, a fellow American.

Back at the last census there was a bit of a debate about what a mix-race person should identify themselves as. If you’re half black and half white, should you be counted as white, or black? In my view, it was time to stop even asking such fool questions – the only question should be, “are you an American, or an alien?”.

I have in my blood Irish and German and Jewish and Scottish and Lord only knows what else. Don’t give a darn about it – what is Ireland to me? I mean, other than an excuse for beer and corned beef? And, heck, you don’t even have to have a drop of Irish blood to take advantage of that. I am native to this land; I am an American – if we are to have a race, then that is my race: American. And it is we Americans who will keep this nation strong and defy the whole world, if need be, in order to preserve the precious gift of past Americans.

I normally keep my Nevada News and Views stuff separate from Blogs for Victory as most of the NN&V articles deal with Nevada – but this one I wanted to link here, as it doesn’t deal just with Nevada, but with what sort of nation we have. Its from the heart, dear readers, and I hope you’ll have a look.

The Battle of the Bulge – here’s a recent account about a veteran of the battle:

The crisp, winter sun burned through the fog around noon in the town of Longchamps, Belgium … revealing a wall of German tanks aligned on the snow-capped hillside.

No sooner did 2nd Lt. Everett “Red” Andrews call the target back to his fellow troops in the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, than he was struck through the mouth by shell fragmentation from the ensuing German onslaught.

“I hold the record for the shortest time spent as a forward observer ever,” he joked, before calmly describing the scene in graphic detail. “I peaked my head above the fox hole to see if we hit the targets, and next thing I knew I was clutching the blood from my mouth in my hands and trying to put it back in me. I thought I was going to die. I was twenty-two years old, I didn’t know. I guess besides my bright red hair at the time, that was another reason folks call me ‘Red.’”

The fragmentation is still lodged in his lower jaw, sixty-five years after forcing his early exit from the seminal World War II Battle of the Bulge, the largest land battle in U.S. Army history.

Andrews received a Purple Heart for his injuries suffered during the battle. He is quick to defer the significance of his service and the harsh conditions he experienced, first mentioning the hardship of the infantrymen he served alongside.

Here is an excellent description of the overall battle. It is important that we remember these events, and the men and women who served in them. We are forgetting far too much of our history – we aren’t teaching our children and grand-children just what this country has done, and what it has meant to those who sacrificed the most for it.

Very understandable:

Sarah Robinson was just a teenager when World War II broke out.

She endured the Blitz, watching for fires during Luftwaffe air raids armed with a bucket of sand.

Often she would walk ten miles home from work in the blackout, with bombs falling around her.

As soon as she turned 18, she joined the Royal Navy to do her bit for the war effort.

Hers was a small part in a huge, history-making enterprise, and her contribution epitomises her generation’s sense of service and sacrifice.

Nearly 400,000 Britons died. Millions more were scarred by the experience, physically and mentally.

But was it worth it? Her answer – and the answer of many of her contemporaries, now in their 80s and 90s – is a resounding No.

The article goes on to note how these elderly Brits – by far better people than their slacker grand-children – simply don’t understand why their nation was destroyed, and why they weren’t even consulted by the political bosses who made it happen. Do read the whole thing.

My father at least got to be delighted in seeing that today’s Marines are still Marines – and had to admit that, man for man, they are probably better Marines than those of WWII. But he was also dismayed by what had been wrought in the nation he fought for in World War II. To be sure, there are the undeniable good things – most notably the end of “Jim Crow”. But the problem is that the end of official racism in America is one of the few things we can really be proud of over the last 60 years. Dad and his fellow Marines did not charge ashore on Saipan so that teen pregnancy rates could go through the roof; so that prayer would be banned in public schools; so that Christmas would become “Winter Break”; so that illegals would pour in to our nation; so that our manufacturing base would be shipped to China; so that people could choose between 100 channels of feces on the television.

No, they fought for an America which doesn’t exist, any more. To be sure, they did have a hand in creating the problem – most of them voted for FDR, and thus cemented in place the New Deal provisions which entrenched the left in to American life. But they also backed McCarthy in his anti-communist investigations – and thus they wanted to get the left out. But, they failed – and as time advanced, things just went from bad to worse.

We conservatives are no longer really conservatives – to be a conservative implies trying to retain what you have. We don’t have it – we’re trying to get it back. Thus we’re actually revolutionaries – and conservatives must be such, at times. We have to recapture power and then restore the America our fathers and grandfathers knew – so that they won’t ever have to say that they wish they hadn’t fought for this nation.

As usual:

Former President George W. Bush addressed a capacity crowd Wednesday night at the Wilderness Resort and Convention Center in Sevierville.

Bush wowed a crowd of more than 9,000 that attended a three-day conference of the Phil Waldrep Ministries based in Decatur, Ala.

Bush gave the enthusiastic crowd a patriotic message of joy, hope and faith in our families…

…The former president shied away from any political stance and said each U.S. leader must surround themselves with people they can trust.

“Always surround yourself with people that you’re not afraid to listen to,” he said.

“Base your decisions on your values that are steadfast and don’t change with the times. It’s essential that when you look in the mirror you can be proud of what you see. Never compromise your values for popularity. Take a stand and defend it.”

Bush said he was proud to represent the United States during his eight-year tenure.

“The institution of president is so much more important than the person,” he said. “I tried to bring honor to the office for eight years.”

Obama and Co can’t go a day, it seems, without using President Bush as a whipping boy – President Bush simply cannot bring himself to offer criticism, even of those who hate him. A Christian and a gentleman, its just not in him to match his critics’ invective.

I said back in 2008 that we’re going to miss him – I certainly do: I’d give my right arm to have him back in the White House for just a week, in order to make the decisions necessary to carry Afghanistan through.

…Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation — the last arguments to which kings resort…

…Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.

Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament.

Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.

If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! …

They tell us, sir, that we are weak — unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed… Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. …millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard…

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, “Peace! Peace!” — but there is no peace. …What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

Patrick Henry – March 23, 1775

Don’t forget, today is the day when we start to really put the pressure on the liberals who are out to destroy our nation. If you are within 4 hours of DC, your duty is clear – get over there and do your part.

We all know it is fading from our memory – its there and it will remain with all of us, but the immediacy of the event is long gone. There is, perhaps, a thought that – just maybe – they’ll try again this September 11th, but the general conviction is that we’ve got a handle on those who would harm us at home. Meanwhile, Iraq has faded from view as victory was secured and while Afghanistan is heating up, the President isn’t calling us to support the troops and the left isn’t calling for us to surrender…so passions are stilled in the War on Terrorism.

And yet, it goes on.

Our soldiers are battling our most deadly enemies – we hope with clear direction from the White House, but we’ll only know this in the event. If our arms are continually crowned with victory as they were 2001-09, then we’ll know that Obama is providing proper leadership as Commander in Chief…if we start to falter, then we’ll know where the problem lies. It may be years before we know – unless the enemy does manage to land a big hit on us, here at home.

It could be that the enemy has learned not to overly rouse us. To be sure, Obama gives every sign of being unwilling to hit back, hard, but the enemy cannot be sure that Obama won’t find his spine if we’re heavily attacked. Given this, the enemy might be concentrating effort in other fields. In Afghanistan, of course – but more importantly in Pakistan and in other backwaters of the world where civilization penetrates feebly, if at all.

They are probably recruiting Americans, too – criminals in prison, and fools out of prison, bamboozled in to thinking that America is the problem. Jeremiah Wright was just the tip of an iceberg of idiots when he opined that our chickens are coming home to roost…as if stalwart support of freedom is a chicken we should be wary of. Given the way people like Wright end up lauding people like Castro, I guess this does make some sort of twisted sense. And for every Wright we see there are a hundred below the radar…being filled with hate, and perhaps being filled with a means of acting upon that hate. It is my view that the next major terrorist attack in America will be carried out by Americans, or at least by people long domiciled in America and indistinguishable in their daily life from the average run.

We must, from time to time, remember That Day – the knowledge that you are to be hanged in a fortnight concentrates the mind, it is said…the thought that we might be attacked in another 9/11 should concentrate our minds equally well. They are just waiting for our guard to slip – an unguarded hour, and thousands of us will be dead.

We must, additionally, remember those who have died fighting the enemy – and who continue to fight the enemy, today. They are out there, all the time – one of them happens to be the son of a friend of mine, bravely volunteering to go in to the theater of war to do his bit. All of us are probably only separated by a degree from someone who is or has laid it on the line, if you think about it. And so, a prayer is offered:

For our Commander-In-Chief, President Barack Obama and our political and military leaders that they may tirelessly seek peaceful settlements to international disputes; we pray to the Lord:

That the Lord may preserve the members of our Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Air Force from all harm; we pray to the Lord:

That even in war, we may keep clearly before us the defense of all human rights, especially the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; we pray to the Lord:

That the families, relatives and friends of our military members may be strengthened in this time of concern and anxiety; we pray to the Lord:

That the Lord may help families with men and women in the armed forces to cope with daily challenges in the absence of their loved ones; we pray to the Lord:

That our homeland will be preserved from violence and terrorism; we pray to the Lord:

That the nations of the world will seek to work together in harmony and peace; we pray to the Lord:

That the hearts of all men and women will be moved to pursue true peace and justice; we pray to the Lord:

That violence may be overcome by peace; that weapons of destruction be transformed into tools of justice, and hate give way to true charity; we pray to the Lord:

That grateful for and inspired by those veterans who have given their lives for our country we may bravely face the challenges ahead; we pray to the Lord

Roger Kimball nails what Obama is all about:

…it would be wrong to infer that the so-called stimulus package was for naught. It really is bearing fruit. It’s just not the fruit that Obama promised. To appreciate this, you have to understand what the real — as distinct from the announced — purposed of the stimulus package was. It was not, as Sowell points out, “to get that money out into the economy as fast as possible.” On the contrary, the real purpose, Sowell explains,

was to get that money — and the power that goes with it — into the hands of the government. Power is what politics is all about.

More money and power in the hands of government officials, less money and power in the hands of individuals. That’s the real Obama ticket. Or, rather, it’s part of the real Obama ticket. For what we seeing playing out in domestic affairs is also going on in the international arena. What Obama is doing to us as individuals he is also endeavoring to do to America as a whole: to render it less powerful, less “exceptional,” more part of a housebroken collective.

For Obama and his Democrats, the whole purpose of all efforts is to secure more power over our day to day lives. They want us to lose our ability to make the major decisions of our lives – where we’ll work, what we’ll learn, how much money we’ll have, where we’ll live, what sort of transportation we’ll use…all of this, and more, Obama and his Democrats want control over. The only thing they’ll consign to our authority is the ability to get laid, as long as we have access to birth control and abortion (’cause they don’t want too many of us running around). Liberals are tired of pussy-footing around with all this American nonsense – they want us under control so that they can crush what they consider evil (ie, what we consider to be good about America) and turn us in to what we should be (ie, a carbon-copy of Europe…while, for some of them, a carbon-copy of Cuba would be better).

With victory this past November, liberalism feels it won for good and all – that there is no going back. They want to ram through as much as they can right now because they are smart enough to know that there will be a backlash in 2010 and, perhaps, 2012; but that is of small consequence…with more and more Americans dependent upon government, liberals figure they are bound to return swiftly to power…and, meanwhile, Obama will have overseen the hiring of hundreds of thousands of new government employees…people chosen for their political views and willingness to toe the liberal line. Even if a GOP Administration enters power, liberals figure they’ll control the day to day sufficient to prevent a radical, conservative overhaul.

And so, its the power, stupid – they have it and intend to use it to destroy the America we love, so that they can replace it with an America they’ll love (that it will be poor and nasty won’t matter to them – they’ll keep themselves well privileged and living the high life). Our goal then must be to wrest it from them – and I mean, all of it. We have to not just win the next election or two, but once we’ve won, we have to enact sufficient protections to prevent a future liberalism from usurping our rights.

We need to enshrine in our Constitution specific protections for what was protected in general – write in there, for instance, a securing of religious liberty in the public square. Make it so plain that only a clear overthrow of our government will permit liberalism to be imposed. We have to run through the whole bureaucracy and root out those who are determined to effect policy rather than carry out Administration orders – it is elected officials who set policy, not life-long bureaucrats, all too often hired and promoted on the basis of their subservience to liberal dogma. We have to reform the Courts – taking away from them their ability to usurp the rights of the States, or the people. We have to de-fund the left – take away all those massive taxpayer subsidies of what amounts to nothing more than leftist political propaganda (just why do we give taxpayer money to a group like Planned Parenthood? Might as well provide taxpayer funds for NARAL, while we’re at it…).

Up and down and backwards and forwards – our goal is not just to win a particular election, but to entirely break down the power of liberalism. Force them back on their heels; force them in to a rear-guard action to retain the tatters of power; force them to compromise with us just for a chance of a seat at the table. In short – remake America in to the constitutional republic our Founders intended and by so doing completely nullify the evils liberalism has imposed over the past century.

At a rather astounding rate:

Data released by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) reported 1,074,757 checks in August 2009, a 12.3 percent increase from the 956,872 reported in August 2008.

So far that is roughly 9,076,205 gun bought this year! The total is probably more as NICS background checks may cover the purchase of more than one gun at a time.

This latest jump in background checks show that Americans are solidly in-favor of keeping firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens and clearly shows that proponents claiming the USA wants more gun control are blatantly wrong.

Why are we arming? Because we note, with great care, that the “Justice” Department let thugs who intimidate voters off while setting out to investigate the men and women who have kept us safe from terrorism. Point blank: we don’t feel that our government is properly securing our rights. And so, people are taking out a bit of insurance.

This is just liberty insurance – and I like that it is happening.

If you can make it, you should be in Washington, DC with the March on Washington. It’s a Saturday, end of Summer…should be nice.

HAT TIP: An Alert Reader.

Gateway Pundit has the details including a link where you can find a rally in your area. Let’s have at it and let these liberals know that their tenure in power is limited – that we will take our country back from them and bring real reform to our nation.

Or, let the demonization begin:

Militia groups with gripes against the government are regrouping across the country and could grow rapidly, according to an organization that tracks such trends.

The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says.

I’d refer to the Southern Poverty Law Center as a bunch of blackguards, but our liberals would think I’m saying something about black people – and we don’t want to confuse them any more than necessary.

What we have here is part of a clearly orchestrated plan on the left to make all opposition to Obama odious. The left wants it to be “Opposition to Obama = racism/hate/violence”. This way, they won’t have to debate us – we’ll be beneath contempt and only those who are willing to debate within the Obama party line will be allow at the table. There is nothing we can do to stop the left from making this attempt but I will advise that attempts to slander patriotic, armed Americans who are exercising their God-given rights will not get you very far, in the long run.

This is a fight I’m willing to have – first, the stage setter, from Byron York at the Washington Examiner:

On “Meet the Press” this morning, host David Gregory played a brief clip of Limbaugh’s monologue — a sentence in which Limbaugh said, “There are far more similarities between Nancy Pelosi and Adolf Hitler than between these people showing up at town halls to protest a Hitler-like policy” — and then asked guest David Brooks to comment. “I hadn’t seen the Rush Limbaugh thing,” Brooks said. “That is insane. What he’s saying is insane.”

I asked Limbaugh for a reaction, and here is his answer:

Everyone seems to ignore that Pelosi started this, saying town hall participants were showing up with swastikas, etc. That’s calling them Nazis, as Dick Durbin referred to our Gitmo interrogators from the Senate floor. I’ve been listening to the left compare George W. Bush to Hitler for eight years. I’ve been listening to Democrats and the left compare conservatism to Nazis my whole career. This time I responded. In kind, by comparing the radical left policies of the Nazis to today’s radical left leadership of the Democrat Party. I’m not surprised they don’t like it.

I, too, am sick of this ignorant accusation that conservatism comes within a country mile of Nazism. The truth is that liberalism, feminism, socialism, communism, fascism, Nazism and the like all stem from the same revolt against Christianity – from the same desire to have done with Judeo-Christian civilization because, in the views of the varied proponents of these beliefs, it has all been wrong. Some aspect or other of our civilization displeases and the baby is to be thrown out with the bath water. While there might be differences of means, the fact remains that all of them want our religious convictions ripped out by the roots so that a new humanity can be ushered in.

Here is something for all to ponder – a quote:

…these dying nationalities, the Bohemians, Carinthians, Dalmations, etc., had tried to profit by the universal confusion … in order to restore their political status quo ante of A.D. 800. The history of a thousand years ought to have shown them that such a retrogression was impossible; that if all the territory east of the Elbe and Saale had at one time been occupied by kindred Slavonians, this fact merely proved the historical tendency, and at the same time the physical and intellectual power of the German nation to subdue, absorb and assimilate its ancient eastern neighbors; that this tendency of absorption on the part of the Germans had always been, and still was, one of the mightiest means by which the civilization of Western Europe had been spread in the east of that continent; that it could only cease whenever the process of Germanization had reached the frontier of large, compact, unbroken nations, capable of an independent national life, such as the Hungarians and in some degree the Poles; and that therefore the natural and inevitable fate of these dying nations was to allow this process of dissolution and absorption by their stronger neighbors to complete itself.

Sounds a bit Hitlerian, doesn’t it? Could be right out of Mein Kampf – but, its not: its Karl Marx, writing in the wake of the abortive 1848 revolutions in Europe. He’s writing off the entirely of the slavic population of Europe outside Russia and basically saying that the Germans were a natural master race from whom these dying peoples should gratefully accept instruction and absorption. This is the Jewish founder of modern communism saying that the Germans are a master race! There is zero surprise that Hitler was able to cobble to together his program – it was a grab bag of Marxism, nationalism, fascism, Darwinism and occultism…and each and every last aspect of it was in opposition to what we conservative hold dear.

If a conservative really wishes to be an extremist, he’d start calling for the revival of the Holy Roman Empire, or some such. Conservatism may make many mistakes, but it cannot have a love of Nazism – its not possible; it is like trying mix to oil and water, or Christian humility with prideful arrogance. The thing just cannot be done.

Part of the problem is, quite simply, that the left has run the debate – and has classed religion and patriotism as aspects of fascism. It was said that fascism would come to America carrying a cross and wrapped in a flag. This is, for us patriots and believers, just an absurdly stupid statement to make. Its like saying that greed will come to America carrying a Salvation Army bucket and wrapped in clothing for the poor. The flag will always remind us of Washington and Lincoln and our glorious Founders; the cross will always remind us of our Savior who suffered so that we might live. People carrying the cross – wrapped in a flag or not – will make errors; but to imagine that a million Christians would never think for a moment about Christ’s injunction to love our neighbors as ourselves or that patriots will never remember, “give me liberty, or give me death” is, well, to be willfully blind.

Let us have this out – let us find out who is sending thugs to intimidate voters; thugs to beat up protesters; telling lies about the opposition. Let us see who is whom and then let the people judge which side is more akin to our fascist and Nazi enemies of old – with Limbaugh, I say that it is Nancy Pelosi, and those like her.

SEIU headquarters in St Louis, that is. If you’re in the area, some patriots are going to advise the “gentlemen” of SEIU that we don’t want fascism in our country. The more the merrier – and everyone bring a video camera and let everyone see you’ve got it…that might keep the union thugs from trying something.