How Do You Want To Be Remembered?

Retired Spook156 Comments

Back in January, 2003, The BCS National Championship college football game was played between the undefeated and number 1 ranked Miami Hurricanes, riding a 34 game winning streak, and the also undefeated and 2nd ranked Ohio State Buckeyes. In one of the most exciting games in college football history, the 2-touchdown underdog Buckeyes won 31-24 in double overtime.  On the eve of the big game, an avid Buckeye fan wrote what he thought would be representative of the pre-game speech that Ohio State coach Jim Tressel would (or should) give and posted it on an Internet message board.  It took on a life of its own, and many people to this day believe it’s Tressel’s actual pre-game speech.  Regardless of the illegitimacy of the speech, it contained a memorable line that everyone, at some point in his life should ask himself: “how do you want to be remembered?”

Does anyone think Barack Obama has ever asked himself that question?  How will he be remembered?

Will he be remembered as the president who did more to advance the cause of racial harmony than any previous president?

Will he be remembered as the president who eliminated tedious and burdensome regulations, reined in the out-of-control bureaucrats at the EPA, lowered the corporate tax rate and unleashed the American entrepreneurial spirit to create a new era of prosperity for all?

Will he be remembered as the second coming of FDR, with numerous large public works projects funded by his trillion dollar stimulus?

Will he be remembered, as so many had hoped, as the President who ushered in a new era of world peace, gaining increased respect by both our allies and adversaries alike?

Will he be remembered as the president who achieved what every president since Carter has only talked about and put America on the path to energy independence, opening up federal lands to energy exploration and approving the Keystone Pipeline?

Will he be remembered as the president who finally fulfilled the century-long progressive dream of providing comprehensive, affordable healthcare for everyone?

Will he be remembered as he promised, as the steward of the most transparent and honest administration in American history?

There are so many great things that he could be remembered for, but my guess is that, if historians are honest, the Obama era will go down as one of more missed opportunities than any president in modern times, perhaps than any president period.

 

 

Hitler and Stalin

Mark Noonan19 Comments

The History Channel is about to premier a new documentary series about the World Wars and the hook seems to be how the one effected the other, especially the leaders.  The ad campaign is starting to cause some grief in how they portray Hitler and Stalin.  For Hitler, the tag lines are “World War 1: Made him a madman; World War 2; Made him a monster”, while for Stalin it is “World War 1: Made him a man; World War 2; Made him a tyrant”. People are correctly pointing out that Hitler was a monster – and Stalin a tyrant – long before World War Two came along.

I don’t want to pre-judge the History Channel show – it might be good; I was intrigued when I saw an ad for it tonight – but it is clear that, as per usual for documentaries, it won’t get it exactly right.  This is because film documentaries can’t get it right – time constraints prevent a full airing of all relevant facts, even when the documentary maker is determined to be as truthful as possible.  To really explain Stalin and Hitler would take many hundreds of pages of closely typed information and to fully understand, the reader would already have to be familiar with a great deal of history leading up to their era.  Most people simply lack this – and always will.  Except for people with a genuine love for history, it just gets tedious (after all, who is going to want to get into the life stories of Georg Ritter von Schonerer and Victor Adler? Well, if you want to understand Hitler fully, you kinda have to – and then understand the complete intellectual collapse which was represented by Schonerer and Adler – who got together at one point to hammer out a social reform program only to go their separate ways…Schonerer to be the grandfather of Nazi Pan-Germanism and anti-Semitism, Adler to be the founder of the Austrian Social-Democrat Party…with the added kicker that Adler was Jewish). It is, in short, hard to nutshell people like Hitler and Stalin.  And just about impossible to do a proper study of the men in a television documentary.

And, so, if anyone is expecting the History Channel’s new show to really provide insight into such men, you are doing to be disappointed, even if the actual show itself is interesting and, at points, informative.  But there is a real danger in taking such people in a superficial manner as it can lead to gross misunderstanding of how they came about.  Remember, while people can look back in horror upon them, it must not be forgotten that at one point tens of millions of people followed them…and, especially in the case of Hitler, followed them with extreme devotion.  People really believed – and while we can comfort ourselves by asserting (correctly) that such people were tricked by scoundrels, we still have to think about just why they were tricked.

There are pat answers, of course – all of them sharing the basic fact that they are wrong. In the case of Stalin, the general line goes that he hijacked Leninism and fooled people into thinking he was the proper heir of the great man. For Hitler, it is asserted that he nursed German national pride which as bruised after the German defeat in World War Two – and both men selected enemies whom the people could hate with wild abandon (Hitler and the Jews, of course; but Stalin and the Kulaks, as well). There is some truth in that, but not even close to the actuality. The more important thing I’ve discovered, from my very extensive reading and long reflection, is that both men got on because the people they tricked had nothing else they actually believed in.

This, to me, is the key to understanding all the horrors we have subjected ourselves to this past 100 years.  Most of us believe nothing, and so believe anything that comes down the pike.  Solzhenitsyn put it neatly when he said the problem of the 20th century is that we had forgot about God.  Not having anything real to repose our trust in, we have given our trust to one charlatan after another.  Not all of us, of course – a few have had the saving grace of believing in something and thus keeping a clear eye.  Of course, a great deal of precisely such people were mown down in the death camps of Hitler and Stalin.

People like Hitler and Stalin, like all good con artists, insert into unbelief something to believe in.  Something which seems neat, logical and covering all bases.  These two men used terror as a means of reinforcing their deceptions, but terror wasn’t needed all the time – and in Hitler’s case, was hardly needed at all, in the sense that most Germans weren’t terrified by the Hitler regime, but delighted with it (unlike Stalin’s, Russia, in Hitler’s Germany people could come and go pretty much as they pleased – Stalin dared not let anyone out, while Hitler was certain that any Germans he allowed to travel out of Germany would come happily come back…in the end, Hitler was the more astute liar than Stalin). But Hitler and Stalin weren’t alone – and they have their legion of successors in the modern world.  People who give people lies to place where faith in God should be.

We can solemnly intone “never again” about the horrors of Stalin and Hitler, but unless we start to believe, in overwhelming majority, in something that is true, we’ll continue to be hoodwinked in large and small matters…and the rise of another megalomaniac mass-murderer is going to remain just around the corner.

 

Memorial Day

Mark Noonan12 Comments

It comes on Monday, of course.

At Nijmegen in Holland, during Operation Market-Garden in World War II, the US paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne had to take the bridge in that town – as the Germans held the bridge and capturing it was vital, the Americans were forced to cross the river so they could take it from both ends, thus preventing the Germans from blowing the bridge up. The trouble was that its not like Airborne units carry landing craft with them.  And so the men had to cross with what could be made available – collapsible canvas boats without even enough oars, so the men had to use their rifle butts to propel themselves across the river in the face of determined and well-sited enemy forces.

I’m sure all of us have heard descriptions of battle where it is said that the “fighting was fierce” or words to that effect.  That is how the fighting across the river was, once the men actually got across – made extra fierce because the paratroopers were pretty much massacred as they rowed across the river and this appeared to build a gigantic, towering rage in the men who made it across.  To put it into old, fashioned phrasing, they spared not, but slew.  Those paratroopers quite simply fell upon the German defenders like a thunderbolt and regardless of losses started to slaughter them.  At least for a while there, no prisoners were taken, even though it does appear that the apparition of these American killing machines quickly stunned and actually frightened the Germans, who were in superior numbers.

What does it all mean, this Memorial Day? That we are remembering our dead in war – but I don’t think that really does justice to what is being marked.  Men in war enter into unspeakable terrors and are cut down most horribly.  They may be good men or bad men; men who have lived lives of justice and mercy or men who lived lives of disgrace and perfidy – but when sent into battle, the men become heroes.  Something appears to click within them and all thought of self vanishes in a fierce desire to grapple with the enemy and emerge victorious.  Men who might not have been willing to lend a dollar to a friend will leap upon a live grenade, or distract and enemy machine-gunner, just so his comrades might live, even if only for a few minutes longer.

The soldiers who die in war have lives to live, just as all of us do.  The mere thought of ever being in a position where another man is around the corner, determined to kill me, strikes fear in my heart.  Some how, soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines manage to get past that, and get around the corner – to kill, before they are killed.  To fight the enemy.  To put their valiant heart between the enemies of the United States and our people.  Maybe if I had ever been in that position, I would have passed the test.  I only know for certain that the men and women in the graves of our military cemeteries did pass the test; and because they did, very few of us are ever called on to do what they did.

Go on and have the barbecue.  Enjoy the time with family and friends.  That is ok.  It is good that the living go on living – but pause just for a moment some time this Monday and spare a thought for what it means for a soldier to die in battle, and how much you owe them.

 

Pragmatism and Principles

Cluster30 Comments

I saw Dr. Ben Carson interviewed last night regarding his new book “One Nation”, which is a book I plan to read on vacation, and with this effort, he could gain traction as a serious candidate for POTUS. His credentials speak for themselves, and his positions on politics are common sense and practical. His recent column at Townhall is an excellent read, and his sentiments are spot on:

If conservatives are going to win in 2014 and 2016 and preserve the environment of freedom to which we have grown accustomed, it will be necessary to learn how to prioritize issues. I am not saying that social issues are not important, but if the executive branch remains in the hands of those with “secular progressive” ideas in 2016, and two or three more Supreme Court justices with similar leanings are appointed, conservative social ideas will become anathema to the prevailing powers, who will use every tool available to them to silence such opposition.

The extreme intolerance of the left for opinions that vary from their own has been amply demonstrated on university campuses, in the mainstream media and in the public square in recent years. Boycotting those with whom they disagree is insufficient for them, as demonstrated by their attempts to put their political adversaries out of business or assassinate their character.

His 2012 address to the National Prayer breakfast regarding Healthcare was an excellent example of how a conservative should outline conservative principles on national issues in a rational, intelligent and positive light. The best part of that speech was that Obama was front and center, and in fact the Dr. mentioned in the interview that a member of Obama’s administration called him after that speech and said that he owed Obama an apology. An apology of which was never delivered. Keep an eye on Dr. Carson.

The Joys Of Obamacare

Cluster7 Comments

I just received the fabulous news that my premium has gone up another 31% on top of the 22% increase last year. When I called my provider, to inquire about the increase, I was told that due to mandates of the ACA this increase was necessary, and that I may actually lose my plan at the end of this year because my plan is not 100% ACA compliant. That is of course provided the President doesn’t change his mind again and make more unilateral changes as he is known to do.

Many of you may remember our President’s 2008 campaign promise:

“I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.”

Well I can tell you from a personal experience, I am paying now more than $3,000 per year for my healthcare insurance. Not surprising, a recent poll indicated that:

Almost 9 in 10 respondents said Obamacare would be “important” in determining their vote, and 60 percent said debate on the health care law should not be over.

We need to get rid of this law, we need to get rid of this President, we need to electorally wipe out progressives, and we need bring back that “shining city on the hill”! So I don’t know, or care who the GOP candidate is in your district – vote for him or her, because any Democrat in any district in any state, only becomes a tool for the progressive agenda. It’s that simple.

I will also make one more obvious observation – the VA IS single payer Government Healthcare, so the problems we are seeing with that, is what we all have in store if we don’t shed ourselves of this cancer. No pun intended – well ok pun intended.

 

More Guns, Less Boko Haram

Mark Noonan4 Comments

When the rest of the world is only offering you a Twitter hashtag in support, you some times have to take firm action to protect  yourself:

BAUCHI, Nigeria — Villagers in an area of Nigeria where Boko Haram operates have killed and detained scores of the extremist Islamic militants who were suspected of planning a fresh attack, the residents and a security official said.

Locals in Nigeria’s northern states have been forming vigilante groups in various areas to resist the militant group who have held more than 270 schoolgirls captive since last month.

In Kalabalge, a village about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Borno state capital of Maiduguri, residents said they were taking matters into their own hands because the Nigerian military is not doing enough to stem Boko Haram attacks.

On Tuesday morning, after learning about an impending attack by militants, locals ambushed two trucks with a gunmen, a security official told The Associated Press. At least 10 militants were detained, and scores were killed, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to give interviews to journalists. It was not immediately clear where the detainees were being held…

I have a friend who is from Nigeria and upon a time we were discussing his home country – which even though he has become an American, he still loves very much and he has a lot of family still living there. After a while, I asked him why the people of south Nigeria put up with it?  Why not just kick the mostly-Muslim north out of the country and have done with it? Nigeria is pretty evenly divided north and south, after all – and the guys who are causing all the ruckus are mostly from the north. Get rid of them, get rid of a large part of the problem.  My friend told me that after the Brits cleared out, the people of the south went to school and learned how to make and build – the people of the north joined the army and learned how to oppress and steal, and they won’t let the south out because the south has the oil.  If the south leaves, the north will have nothing to steal and no one to oppress.  And, so, rather stuck.

It occurred to me after that conversation that the solution, if we want to help Nigeria, is to figure out a way to arm Nigerian militias for local defense in the south. Help the people there just defend themselves and maybe either the north will go away, or will at least become a bit more respectful of the people of the south and won’t steal so often, nor kidnap little girls.  This action by the “vigilantes” (as they are described in the MSM article) is the way to go – and we should offer SEALs and other expert trainers to the Nigerian communities along with sufficient arms and ammunition.  Do that, and over a rather short period of time, the problem there will be resolved, one way or the other.

Creating More Conservatives

Cluster178 Comments

John Hawkins over at Townhall wrote an excellent piece here about conservative outreach and how badly the GOP has been at it over the last decade or so. I completely agree with his game plan which includes, but are not limited to:

1) We’re not reaching out to people who disagree with us

2) We’ve gotten lazy about making people’s lives better

3) We need to focus more on entertaining than informing

4) We get too impressed by the “more conservative than you” game

5) We refuse to challenge liberal control of cultural institutions

This dove tails nicely with my opinion I expressed the other day of “dumbing down” our message and going into precincts we usually avoid. It also speaks to the strategy of incrementalism which we need to employ, and employ now. Considering the utter economic and social disaster that progressive policies have brought about, winning the short term by taking the Senate this fall should be a no brainer, but winning the long term will require a more methodical strategy, and I think Hawkins has identified 5 good starting points. I am curious as to what other conservative have to say on this, so have at it.

 

If We Win the Senate

Mark Noonan4 Comments

Then things will change – and change quite a lot. From the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. Senate failed to advance another piece of popular bipartisan legislation late Monday, and the reason tells the real story of Washington gridlock in the current Congress. To wit, Harry Reid has essentially shut down the Senate as a place to debate and vote on policy.

The Majority Leader’s strategy was once again on display as the Senate failed to get the 60 votes to move a popular energy efficiency bill co-sponsored by New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Ohio Republican Rob Portman. Mr. Reid blamed the defeat on Republican partisanship. But the impasse really came down to Mr. Reid’s blockade against amendments that might prove politically difficult for Democrats.

The Nevadan used parliamentary tricks to block energy-related amendments to an energy bill. This blockade is now standard procedure as he’s refused to allow a vote on all but nine GOP amendments since last July. Mr. Reid is worried that some of these amendments might pass with support from Democrats, thus embarrassing a White House that opposes them.

In the case of Portman-Shaheen, Republicans had prepared amendments to speed up exports of liquefied natural gas; to object to a new national carbon tax; to rein in the Environmental Protection Agency’s war on coal plants; and to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline. A majority of the public supports these positions and many Democrats from right-leaning or energy-producing states claim to do the same. The bill against the EPA’s coal-plant rules is co-sponsored by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin.

Yet the White House and Mr. Reid’s dominant liberal wing won’t take the chance that a bipartisan coalition might pass these amendments, most of which the House has passed or soon would. President Obama would thus face a veto decision that would expose internal Democratic divisions. So Mr. Reid shut down the amendment process. Republicans then responded by refusing to provide the 60 votes necessary to clear a filibuster and vote on the underlying bill…

You understand that?  As was true back when Clinton was President, the GOP has a lot of very popular proposals which would be very difficult for the President to just outright veto.  But unlike back then, we only control half of Congress – and to ensure that the President is not confronted with either vetoing popular legislation or enraging his cronies or far-left supporters, Reid has essentially crippled the Senate’s ability to move legislation.  We don’t really have partisan gridlock – we have Reid-lock.  Senate Majority Leader Reid, desperate to protect Obama, has made the legislature unworkable, thus sparing Obama difficult decisions and allowing Obama to use his pen and phone to advance policies which would be deadly politically if voted on in the Senate.

If we win this November, however, things will change – a GOP-led Senate will be able to advance legislation to the White House, which would either force Obama to sign popular bills opposed by cronies/liberals, or veto them and face the wrath of the electorate (in this case, in the form of weakening Democrat prospects for 2016 with the risk that a GOP President in combination with a GOP Congress would undo Obama’s legacy). It would be quite a pickle for Obama to be in – he’d have to either surrender, or suffer crushing defeat of his ideology in 2016.

This is why it is so crucial for us to win in 2014. The debate will change – it won’t be “partisan, Teabagger Republicans” causing the problem as legislation dealing with all our pressing issues (with input from Democrats – meaning we won’t be able to just get all we want) regularly arrives at Obama’s desk.  Then the ball is in his court and he’ll have to do what he hates most: make hard and fast decisions that he is clearly accountable for.

It’ll be endless fun.

Conflict of Vision – Part Deaux

Cluster26 Comments

Retired Spook wrote an excellent article about a week ago laying out the differences between the left and right in terms of the polarizing vision each side has for our country and while I agree with that premise completely as it relates to the elite of the left, I think our differences with the masses of current leftist voters is simply a conflict of intelligence. I honestly don’t think that the masses of LIV’s really understand what they are voting for, and have been propagandized to the point of being so misinformed that laying out the conservative position and actually having it penetrate their skulls will be a tall task, but an important one. The Democrats have been extremely effective in dumbing down their messaging and reaching the LIV in easy to understand albeit completely inane sound bite policies, ie; “the war on women”, “tax breaks for the rich”, “equality”, etc., etc.. It will be important for conservatives, and for this country, that we reach these LIV’s with a message that will resonate and I believe that will require not only going into precincts conservatives would usually stay away from, but also speaking in terms the LIV can understand.

How about pointing out the 50% unemployment rate amongst black males 18-25 years old and calling it the “war on Black Employment”? How about pointing out the $500 billion cut in Medicare to fund the ACA and calling it “the war on Seniors”? Or how about pointing out the low labor participation rate and the drop in average income and calling it “the war on prosperity”?

We have to reach the LIV’s in 2016, and we have to hold progressives accountable for screwing up this country. All ideas should be seriously considered, no stone should be left unturned, and the gloves need to come off. The future of our country depends on it.

#BringBackOurGirls and the Death of Heroism

Mark Noonan19 Comments

As we recently passed the 69th anniversary of the end of the Second World War (you might have heard of it; a rather significant historical event – even though it took less time for us than did building the ObamaCare website) I have been re-reading Cornelius Ryan’s excellent A Bridge Too Far, which details the “Market-Garden” campaign in Holland in late 1944. Ryan, who wrote several excellent books about major World War Two battles, has a deft way of both showing the utter horror of war as well as showing the sublime courage it took for American and allied forces to win it. One scene in the book, as American paratroopers are landing deep behind enemy lines, has a fighter plane being shot down by the Germans.  The pilot crash-lands his plane close to the American paratroopers, hops out of the wreck and immediately demands a weapon, saying, “I know just where that Kraut SOB is and I’m going to get him”, and off he charges after his enemy.  It seems to me that we, as a people, lack just a bit of that spirit.

Boko Haram has been around for a while, though for our liberals it seems that the group just sprang, fully armed, out of the ground last week – and likely is the result of racist, sexist Teabaggers in the United States.  Without a doubt, if there is something to all this, it is Bush’s fault. As I’m sure everyone is aware, the outrage which finally made even liberals notice was the kidnapping of several hundred Nigerian school girls, with the Boko Haram thugs announcing their plans to tell the girls into slavery (apparently at a bit less than $14 a head, at current exchange rates). While the MSM is careful about concealing the fact that Boko Haram is a Muslim terrorist group closely aligned with al-Qaeda (and, of course, has been massacring Christians in Nigeria for many years), even the bare-bones facts of the case are outrageous. The reaction of our liberals, from Obama on down, has been vigorous – they immediately started a Twitter hashtag, #BringBackOurGirls.  The theory is that the global shaming of Boko Haram will get them to realize the error of their ways and release the girls; but even if that doesn’t work, at least liberals who participated in the hashtag will feel that they did something to help, in much the same way that feeling sorry for a drowning man will excuse one from throwing him a rope, I guess.

Mark Steyn has nailed the whole problem we have here in his recent column, #BringBackOurBalls. Do read it; we here in the West have simply lost our spirit. Here are hundreds of sweet, innocent girls taken by beasts in human skin and our immediate reaction is not to send in military forces to kill the beasts, but to morally pose with a Twitter hashtag – and actually think we are doing something.

The West has a very large problem – we seem to lack the spirit to live. If we do die as a civilization it won’t be because someone stronger than us came along, but because we committed suicide.  When faced with clear evil, we refused to fight. 69 years ago, we charged eagerly at men who were doing evil. Now we stand shivering to one side, hoping that we’ll be left in the enjoyment of our toys at least through our own lifetime.