Ah, the peace and love which they spread around makes the heart grow all warm and fuzzy:

Supporters of California’s Proposition 8 are reporting harassment and even violent assaults from opponents protesting the passage of the ballot proposal which rescinded a California Supreme Court decision that imposed same-sex marriage on the state. Homosexual activists have held large protests at Mormon temples and Catholic churches, deriding their opponents as hateful.

Paul Bishop, a Los Angeles Police Department supervisor reported on the election aftermath in Meridian, a magazine for members of the Latter-Day Saint Church, who are also known as Mormons.

Bishop told how he, as a private citizen, had attended rallies in support of Proposition 8. While both supporters and opponents of the measure honked their horns, he wrote, “the way to tell the difference is the No On 8 supporters usually accompanied their horn honking with an obscene gesture or a string of obscenities. They also liked to swerve their cars toward the children on the curb.”

He noted that several of his ward members had received hate mail after their names, religious affiliation, contribution amounts, and addresses were published on a web site inciting Proposition 8 opponents to target the individuals listed.

“Their houses and cars had been vandalized, their campaign support signs stolen, and opposition signs planted in their place,” Bishop wrote.

And here’s a look at the love in Michigan:

This past Sunday, during a Worship Service at the Church, a group of loud and intentionally disruptive homosexual activists stood outside of the sanctuary of Mount Hope dressed in strange pink attire. Using megaphones for amplification, they shouted epithets at those entering the service such as “Jesus is a homo”.They also mockingly carried an upside down pink cross.

Reports filed with the Eaton County Sheriff’s office indicate that other demonstrators had staged a further action intended to disrupt the Sunday Worship at Mount Hope. Dressed in clothing which would not have indicated their intention, they entered into the sanctuary and were seated with the community. Then, in an orchestrated manner, they left their seats, pulled fire alarms, distributed anti-Christian literature and stormed the Pastor’s pulpit waving a rainbow colored flag and shouting “It’s Okay To Be Gay! Bash Back”.

We’re certainly at the start of a new dawn in America where brotherhood and mutual caring will be the order of the day…

Then Baconnaise (yes, it exists) will be your sauce for life…short as it will be.

There is much Democratic angst over General Motors and the prospects of Big Auto bankruptcy. My view: allow the bankruptcy to happen. The economic model enshrined in Big Auto is a dinosaur from the 1950’s and it is unrealistic to think that such a large corporation with a huge bureaucracy and an entrenched, corrupt union can ever compete in the global market. We can subsidize, bail out and protect till the cows come home – but it is certain that the American auto makers will have to undergo massive change.

Worse than the economic illiteracy involved in a Detroit bail out is the fact that our taxpayer dollars – already strained by the clearly-failing Wall Street bail out – will merely be used to prop up Democratic donors. Democrats could give a hoot about GM, but they do care very much to keep the UAW afloat because the UAW donated nearly $1.8 million directly to Democratic candidates in 2008 while also shelling out more than $9 million on other political activities which directly or indirectly aided Democratic political efforts. That is a lot of scratch, and the Democratic party doesn’t want this cash cow slaughtered.

We GOPers in our political wilderness at least have this advantage – we can’t get government swag for anyone, and thus we are now allowed to re-establish ourselves as the anti-corruption and fiscal responsibility party. We are, once again, the taxpayer’s watchdog.

Sorry, GM, but it was your own fool decisions which got you into this mess. Everyone has to start thinking, and no better place to start than in that monument to liberal and corporate failure, Detroit

Battling it out to be head of the GOP.

My pick? Steele.

To me, its a no brainer – for all his gifts, Gingrich is yesterday’s news and too tied to the GOP which just got its rear kicked on November 4th. We need fresh faces, fresh ideas and a new enthusiasm. Steele brings this to the table, and we’ll be monumentally dumb if we don’t pick him.

So, The One announces that if you’re a lobbyists you can’t work on the transition – this is supposed to give us all a tingle up our legs as we believe that, finally!, government will be cleaned up…

But, meanwhile, we still haven’t got a valid explanation from Obama about just why the security precautions were taken of his internet donation link and just where did all that money really come from? We know some came from non-existent people and some from foreigners…anyone want to take bets on some of it coming from lobbyists via third-party cut-outs?

Obama, if you want us to believe you’re really going to change how DC does business, then call for a special prosecutor to look into all campaign fundraising in 2008. We’ll be fair – we’ll have the GOP looked at, too.

After all, Democrats, there is nothing to fear from a full airing of just who donated to whom, right?

And we’d better listen:

Republicans once said that the opportunities this nation has to offer rest not in government but rather in the hands of individuals. Over the past decade or so, however, we Republicans lost our way. The disparity between our rhetoric and our action grew until our credibility snapped. It wasn’t the fault of our ideals. It was the failure of our leadership.

Over time, our principles morphed into baser motives. Continued political dominance grew more important to those who led us than the noble vision most of us originally signed on for. And to maintain power we turned to the controls of government — we became the party of big government. We behaved like Democrats.

True, the country has changed and our party must adapt. However, it is wrong to believe we must change our principles or become conservative-lite. After all, the voters did not suddenly become liberal; but they have lost any sense of confidence that the Republican Party holds the answers to their problems.

Most Americans today see a Republican Party that defines itself by what it is against rather than what it is for. We can tell you why public schools aren’t working, but not articulate a compelling vision for how we’ll better educate children. We’re well equipped to rail against tax increases; but can’t begin to explain how we’ll help the poor. We exclude far better than we welcome.

Lt. Governor Steele goes on to note that we shouldn’t set about beating Democrats, but instead work on winning voters. I am in whole-hearted agreement. First off, because it is the more Christian way to do things and I’m sick to death of the hatred of the past 8 years. Secondly because it is the way to win. And with rather big, if we do it right.

We have to apply the eternal verities to current conditions, not modify our verities to match whatever is fashionable at the moment. We have to explain why Truth is best and why coming along our path will help people to become freer, better educated, healthier and more prosperous. A well-ordered liberty built upon Judeo-Christian values is what we want; it is what is best; and it is what is most inclusive. There is room at our table for everyone save the incorrigible hater – and even he’ll be welcome if he ever changes his ways.

It is the left which hates and which lives on lies – we must not be like them. We must become the best of the best. Plenty of room here for repentant sinners, but no room at all for the coarse, the hypocrite, the greedy. Our Republican Party must shine with moral courage and stride forward fearlessly to proclaim the truth – and never worry about whether a particular election will be lost or won, but only be concerned with whether or not we adhered to truth, and fought for it with all our might.

Here is a history of the holiday.

And the poem I always think of on Veterans day and Memorial day:

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields. – Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

Canadian Army

Did you enjoy voting this past week? Thank a veteran.

And a timely warning, too:

A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”

Obama’s comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation’s foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps “to renew our diplomacy.”

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” Obama said in July. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

In Germany it was, of course, the Sturmabteilung, in Italy it was the Fascisti, while in Russia it was Military Revolutionary Committee and Red Guards. The commonality is a paramilitary organization outside the control of the normal authorities and owing its allegiance to a political faction. We don’t want such things in America. Ever.

What Obama proposes – civilian national service – is actually a negation of service and of volunteerism. Lured by grants and subjected to peer pressure, the kids who will be sucked into such a program will be easy pawns for whomever commands the organization – and we can just imagine what sort of kook leftists dregs of the “community organizer” world will be placed in charge of such an organization. The safety valve for America is that such a grouping will almost certainly disintegrate into a cash machine for various connected liberal and leftwing politicians and groups – but the worry is that it might be used to intimidate opponents of leftwing opinion. Just the sight of a paramilitary force cruising through a neighborhood will intimidate those who don’t agree with the commanders of the force…no one has to be locked up or even harmed, for the most part. And, of course, if anyone takes forceful exception to paramilitary goons patrolling the local neighborhood, that person will be immediately classed as a criminal.

Provide government funds for the Scouts. Shell out cash for Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Open the floodgates for money for various religious youth organizations. But don’t, even for a moment, have a youth organization directly funded and controlled by the federal government – in that direction lies tyranny, and civil war.

Even if Obama and his minions would prefer otherwise:

OSAMA bin Laden is planning an attack against the United States that will “outdo by far” September 11, an Arab newspaper in London has reported.

And according to a former senior Yemeni al-Qaeda operative, the terrorist organisation has entered a “positive phase”, reinforcing specific training camps around the world that will lead the next “wave of action” against the West.

The warning, on the front page of an Arabic newspaper published in London, Al-Quds Al-Arabi – and widely reported in the major Italian papers – quotes a person described as being “very close to al-Qaeda” in Yemen.

The paper is edited by Abdel al-Bari Atwan, who is said to be the last journalist to interview Osama bin Laden in 1996. According to the report, bin Laden is himself closely following preparations for an attack against the US and aims to “change the face of world politics and economics”. The operative is quoted as saying that “this will be shown by the fact that we now control a major part of the south of Somalia”.

Given the fact that I think bin Laden is dead – killed in the Tora Bora in December of 2001 – I take this report with a large grain of salt. On the other hand, I post it because (a) it might turn out to be true, even if we never see it due to disruption by our side and (b) because it is a dead certainty that our terrorist enemies will want to test Obama’s mettle early on to see what they can get away with from the new Administration. This would also have happened had McCain been elected – the whole world, indeed, wants to get the full measure of the new President. The problem with al Qaeda is that they usually get the full measure of something by killing lots of innocent people.

We can stick our heads in the sand and think that France and Iran will save us the trouble of fighting this war, but our enemies hate us for what we are, not what we do and they will keep coming at us until they are taken or destroyed. The central fact of our life is this: the enemy hates President Bush, but they also will hate President Obama. The only difference will be whether they’ll hold Obama in the awed and fearful respect they show to Bush, or whether they’ll run wild convinced that Obama has pulled the plug on the war and its only a matter of time before evil men take control.

From a radio interview:

Q — Why did your campaign lose?

A — I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a $10 trillion debt in a Republican administration, how have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration?

If we’re talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party had been representing. People desiring change I think went as far from the administration that is presently seated as they could. … It’s amazing that we did as well as we did.

It is a certainty that the run up of debt, the various Congressional GOP scandals and the long war with its errors (real and imagined) played a huge role in our defeat last week. McCain’s mishandling of Palin’s roll out post-convention also played a role, as did McCain’s decision to eschew attacks on Obama over his racist, anti-American pastor of 20 years standing. The final nail in the coffin was – in retrospect – McCain’s decision to get deeply involved in the bail out. All that accomplished was to remind people what they didn’t like about the GOP Congressional delegation, that McCain is part of the terribly unpopular Congress and that he’s in the same party as George Bush. Pretty much, take any of the varied factors which contributed to the defeat and turn it around, and McCain stood a good chance of winning.

On top of all of this, however, is the current institutional weakness of the GOP. The Democrats have a motivating desire – they want power; all of it, all the time, in order to enrich themselves and their cronies and remake the United States in their sophomoric image of what America should be like. They don’t care how they acquire power and will use everything short of rape and murder to obtain it. Ok, fine; they probably also wouldn’t use cannibalism. I think. Maybe…. Meanwhile, the GOP doesn’t know what it wants. Conflicts between social and fiscal conservatives, various fights over how libertarian we should be and then whether or not we should work with or fight tooth and nail against the Democratic party push and pull the party in various directions and make it nearly impossible to have a coherent message for the elections.

The first task of the GOP is to sit down quietly for a bit and think:

1. What do we want?

2. How do we want to do it?

Until we’ve got good answers to both questions, we’ll continue to flounder about and fail to create that generational majority we’ll need to really reform America and excise the left wing poison in our system. Answering those questions might not be necessary for electoral victory – Obama’s almost-certain-to-fail policies may well usher us, deserving or not, back into power – but they are necessary to make our efforts worthwhile and lasting. Governor Palin is at least understanding why we lost, and it will be up to her – and others – to figure out over the next four years what we need to win.