Blogs For Victory

Abraham Lincoln:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Douglas MacArthur:

And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? Are they reliable? Are they brave? Are they capable of victory?

Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man at arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefields many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world’s noblest figures; not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless.

His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me, or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy’s breast.

But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements.

In twenty campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people.

From one end of the world to the other, he has drained deep the chalice of courage. As I listened to those songs of the glee club, in memory’s eye I could see those staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs on many a weary march, from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle deep through mire of shell-pocked roads; to form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgment seat of God.

I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always for them: Duty, Honor, Country. Always their blood, and sweat, and tears, as they saw the way and the light.

And twenty years after, on the other side of the globe, against the filth of dirty foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts, those boiling suns of the relentless heat, those torrential rains of devastating storms, the loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails, the bitterness of long separation of those they loved and cherished, the deadly pestilence of tropic disease, the horror of stricken areas of war.

Their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive victory – always victory, always through the bloody haze of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men, reverently following your password of Duty, Honor, Country.

Ronald Reagan:

We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For 4 long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers — the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machineguns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After 2 days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem. You are men who in your “lives fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with your honor.”

Sorry, but this is rather pathetic:

In the latest round of the increasingly heated intra-GOP feud, former Secretary of State Colin Powell Sunday defended his Republican credentials and fired back at radio host Rush Limbaugh and former Vice President Dick Cheney, saying the party had to expand beyond its conservative base.

“Rush will not get his wish and Mr. Cheney was misinformed – I am still a Republican,” Powell said in a much-anticipated interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” two weeks after Cheney suggested on the same show that the retired general had left the party by endorsing Barack Obama last fall.

Powell outlined his party bona fides, noting his votes for and services under a string of Republican presidents, and said it was not up to Cheney and Limbaugh – the radio host has kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism since Powell’s cross-party endorsement last year – to determine who belonged in the GOP.

By its fruit is the tree known – and part of Powell’s fruit is President Barack Obama. And nothing wrong with that – Powell is free to endorse whom he will; but if you are to be a member of the Republican party it is expected that you won’t endorse the Democrat. Heck, all Powell would have had to do to keep in good GOP graces is not endorse anyone and then vote however he felt. But an endorsement indicates a support for not just a person – in this case, Barack Obama – but for his platform, and Obama’s platform is in opposition to the Republican platform. This isn’t a dispute about whether or not a pro-choice person can be GOP but whether or not a GOPer should, at the end of the day, be Republican.

Our liberal friends (as it were) wish very much for us to have a debate about whether or not moderates can be Republicans – they want us to have this debate, mark my words, not out of solicitude for our party’s future. No, they just want us clawing at each other – and in this desire, Colin Powell and Arlen Specter have been vastly useful to the Democrats. Arlen had to switch over to have even a ghost of a chance next year, but Powell can save his party-switch to the most opportune moment – ie, whenever the Democrats need such a splash to get subject off their idiocy and back on to anything else (who asked Powell to fire back? Why did he need to? Curious that this comes at a time when Cheney is mopping the floor with Obama on national security and Pelosi teeters on the verge of resignation). Powell can claim he’s a GOPer till the cows come home but that won’t change the fact that since last year, he has been diligently and effectively advancing the cause of the Democrat party.

The real debate for us to have is not “moderate vs conservative” in the GOP, but “people vs powerful” in the United States. Anyone who will join us in fighting the powerful should be welcomed with open arms – right now, Powell is working for the powerful; he’s not on our side, and we shouldn’t allow anyone to say he is.

A word to the wise about Obama’s desire that Israel compromise itself in the name of peace:

Peace won by compromise is usually a short-lived achievement. – Winfield Scott

Mark Steyn notes the practical application of all that money:

I was in Vermont the other day and made the mistake of picking up the local paper. Impressively, it contained a quarter-page ad, a rare sight these days. The rest of the page was made up by in-house promotions for the advertising department’s special offer on yard-sale announcements, etc. But the one real advertisement was from something called SEVCA. SEVCA is a “non-profit agency,” just like the New York Times, General Motors, and the State of California. And it stands for “South-Eastern Vermont Community Action.”

Why, they’re “community organizers,” just like the president! The designated “anti-poverty agency” is taking out quarter-page ads in every local paper is because they’re “seeking applicants for several positions funded in full or part by the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA)” — that’s the “stimulus” to you and me. Isn’t it great to see those bazillions of stimulus dollars already out there stimulating the economy? Creating lots of new jobs at SEVCA, in order to fulfill the president’s promise to “create or keep” 2.5 million jobs. At SEVCA, he’s not just keeping all the existing ones, but creating new ones, too. Of the eight new positions advertised, the first is:

“ARRA Projects Coordinator.”

Gotcha. So the first new job created by the stimulus is a job “coordinating” other programs funded by the stimulus…

…SEVCA serves two rural counties with a combined total of a little over 40,000 households. If you wanted to stimulate the economy, you’d take every dime allocated to Windsor and Windham counties under ARRA and divide it between those households. But, if you want to stimulate bureaucracy, dependency, and the metastasization of approved quasi-governmental interest-group monopolies as the defining features of American life, then ARRA is the way to go. Oh, you scoff: ARRA, go on, you’re only joking. I wish I were. We’re spending trillions we don’t have to create government programs to coordinate the application for funds to create more programs to spend even more trillions we don’t have.

And do keep in mind that even that small part of the Spendulus which will go to people who hold real jobs – like highway construction workers – will be very inefficiently spent on things we already have (roads and bridges) which don’t generate much, if any, income. Most of the money, however, will go to things like SEVCA – groups which will “organize” and “advocate” and “coordinate”, but which won’t actually do anything other than provide well-paid, bureaucratic jobs for well-connected second raters who donated correctly at the last election (second raters? Well, yes – unless you want to say that the people staffing the DMV are more efficient than the people staffing your local Best Buy).

This sort of thing just highlights, once again, my contention that the issue is the People vs Powerful political dynamic. The Powerful want more and more people spending more and more money ripped out of the private economy – and, of course, more and more people who are dependent upon government and quasi-governmental agencies for their sustenance. The Powerful figure they won a mandate last November and they are determined that there be no more slip ups – no more Reagans, no more 1994s. The People, as evidenced by the growing “Tea Party” movement and the recent vote in California, are waking up to their predicament – the Powerful are insisting that in this economic downturn that the People pony up even more so that the Powerful can go on with business as usual…with the threat that if the People don’t pay up that fire departments and police forces will be curtailed (thus leaving us at the mercy of disasters and criminals, while the Powerful are safely tucked away in upper class, safe neighborhoods). But I don’t think we’re buying the threat.

Change? Not hardly – it is actually Revolution which is in the air. The Powerful over played their hand, and the time is fast approaching when we, the people of the United States of America, will take our country back.

Now he tells us:

In a sobering holiday interview with C-SPAN, President Obama boldly told Americans: “We are out of money.”

C-SPAN host Steve Scully broke from a meek Washington press corps with probing questions for the new president.

SCULLY: You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?

OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now.

Ok, Barry, follow through on that thought – you might figure out that its time to control spending.

From Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Investor Index dropped 15 points on Friday, the largest single day decline ever recorded in its seven-year history. The drop caps a week of extreme volatility for the Index and now shows investor confidence at the lowest level in two months.

The culprit—both for the volatility and the current low level of confidence—is shifting perceptions on where the economy is heading next. Today, just 24% of investors say the economy is getting better while 47% say it is getting worse. A couple of days ago, the outlook was much less pessimistic: 34% better and 40% worse.

It can’t get better until we start creating wealth and just as long as Obamunism is running the show, so long will our economy continue to deteriorate. Obama is just moving fiat money around – moving, that is, pretend money in the hopes that some how, some way, real money will result. Its a fool’s hope.

The reality of the situation:

If fine speechmaking, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. – Richard B. Cheney

Tip of the hat to some of my home town gun nuts:

Nevada is an “open carry” state. That is to say, while state and local governments impose certain unconstitutional restrictions on the God-given (and constitutionally guaranteed) right to carry a weapon concealed, there is no state law barring Nevadans from going about with a sidearm openly holstered on the hip.

While this right to openly carry is exercised with some regularity in Northern Nevada, Metro and other Las Vegas Valley police officers seem to be under the mistaken impression that it’s some kind of a “crime” for an adult of sound mind to go about openly armed. In fact, there have actually been cases where Metro officers have killed otherwise law-abiding citizens for this imagined “offense” — universally getting away with it when there is no contradicting testimony (the other party being conveniently dead) to the officer’s well-rehearsed tale (usually told to a carefully selected coroner’s jury), that the decedent “made a furtive movement toward his waistband,” or even simply “failed to stop and disarm when so ordered.”

Thus, it takes some courage — some would say foolhardiness — to openly exercise this constitutional right.

Now comes one Billy Logan, who signs himself “NRA Member, GONV Member, Staunch Libertarian, Proud Gun Owner and 2nd Amendment Advocate” and who has e-mailed me that “A bunch of law abiding gun owners” plan to convene at the Buffalo Wild Wings located at 190 West Craig Rd in North Las Vegas, at 11a.m., Sunday May 17th, then around 12:30 p.m. we’re going to head over to East Lake Mead Blvd and North Bruce St., right next to the NLVPD,” to pick up trash in the vacant lot there.

“Nobody is formally ‘in charge’ of the event,” my correspondent insists, “It’s just a bunch of law abiding gun owners meeting to help the public and the police become aware and possibly educated on firearms and open carrying…

It shouldn’t be a big nothing – just armed American citizens going about their business. Only in the modern world where the State has decided that guns are too tricky for the citizenry has this become an issue. But now that the US Supreme Court has ruled that the right to bear arms is, indeed, an individual right, it is time to start testing the limits and getting government – and especially law enforcement – used to honest citizens being armed in the normal course of the day.

The key to good law enforcement is not some officer driving around at night and trying to figure out if the shadowy figure down the alley is a criminal he should be stopping or just an honest citizen about his business – there should never be a need for a cop to say that he shot someone because he moved towards his waistband, furtively or otherwise. The police are not supposed to be the heroes riding to the rescue, nor are they really supposed to be an investigative agency – they are there to keep the peace, which means patrolling in such a manner that people ill disposed have as few chances as possible to carry out their nefarious plans. True, there will always be that aspect of police work – hero and investigator…but mostly the job of the police is negative: to make it so things don’t happen, thus obviating the need for heroics or investigations.

It is impossible for a cop on a motorcycle or in a car to get a genuine feel for the neighborhood he’s patrolling – only if he’s out on the street and walking around will he learn who is supposed to be there and what the likelihood is that the figure dashing through the yard is a burglar or just someone trying to find the cat. Part of the way the police can do this is by using the manpower available to them – the armed citizens who can be induced to volunteer to watch, listen and learn about their neighborhoods, and keep the police informed of anything out of the ordinary. And not by calling the cops and getting an anonymous dispatcher, but by flagging down the beat cop who also knows the area and pointing out the reason for suspicion. Meanwhile, the fact that honest citizens are openly armed will in and of itself discourage criminals. It won’t stop crime, but the more careful we have to make criminals the less crimes they’ll be able to commit.

Armed police, armed citizens – together we can return America to that time when a murder was a shocking thing, even in big cities. Let’s hope that Sunday’s experiment goes off without a hitch, and that the police draw the proper conclusions.

Its very hard not to believe this story:

Two days before President Obama’s commencement address at Notre Dame, I was at the White House for one of the meetings that he spoke about. About twenty of us with differing views on abortion were brought in to find “common ground.” But the most important point that came from the meeting was perhaps a slip from an Obama aide.

It revealed that what many people believe — including high-profile pro-life leaders who support Obama — is sorely wrong…

…I noted that there are three main ways the administration can reach its goals: by what it funds, its messages from the bully pulpit, and by what it restricts. It is universally agreed that the role of parents is crucial, so government should not deny parents the ability to be involved in vital decisions. The goals need to be clear; the amount of funding spent to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions is not a goal. The U.S. spends nearly $2 billion each year on contraception programs — programs which began in the 1970s — and they’ve clearly failed. We need to take an honest look at why they are not working.

Melody testily interrupted to state that she had to correct me. “It is not our goal to reduce the number of abortions.”

The room was silent.

The goal, she insisted, is to “reduce the need for abortions.”

Well, this raises a lot of questions.

Yeah, it does – mostly because “need” and “number” are very different things. While “number” is a concrete, measurable thing, “need” is entirely subjective. Its much like Obama’s pledge to “create or save” x millions of jobs – “save” is subjective and not measurable. Neither is “need” – abortions could skyrocket and Obama and Co. could still claim that they’ve reduced the “need”, given that their view is that the “need” is generated by lack of government spending. Obama massively increases spending and come 2012 he can tell us he made the hard choices necessary to reduce the need for abortions in America – it’ll make a great campaign commercial and, as an added benefit, it will be entirely meaningless.

I don’t believe that this correction by Melody actually comes straight from Obama – but I do believe that he’s got an Administration just shot through with pro-abortion fanatics who are determined to use Obama as cover for turning America – in their view – decisively and permanently towards the Culture of Death. As to just why they would want to do this – one may as well ask why someone wants to view pornography. There’s really no answer to such a question – they are doing something wrong, something they know is wrong and they are determined that their guilty conscience never confront these facts. As America becomes ever more pro-life in outlook, the pro-abortion people are getting desperate and realize that the sand is rapidly running out on them – make us Culture of Death now, or never.

The trick for us on the pro-life side is to use pressure on Obama, himself, to short-circuit the pro-abortion people in his Administration. Remember, for all the left’s talk about the pro-life position costing the GOP votes, the plain fact of the matter is that the defense of Roe is an albatross around the Democrats’ neck – which is why they don’t overtly defend it, in the sense of talking up the pro-abortion concept of federally funded abortion on demand. People like Obama dance around it and hope that no one notices the depth of pro-abortion support they have – our job is to scare Obama away from the pro-abortion forces and make him, by default, push for as much Culture of Life as we can get. Even the smallest pro-life victories in the Obama era will be wonderful because any time spent by Obama doing anything pro-life is that much less time spent by Obama’s Administration pushing the Culture of Death…we have to make the pro-aborts fight for Obama’s support, as it were.