It has finally happened, something that I have wanted to see come from the Iraqi government finally happened this week. In response to a serious pounding that has been handed out constantly in the American press and coming from American politicians, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki finally did what he should have done a long time ago.

He basically told our politicians to shut up, and it warmed my heart to hear it.

Responding to complaints about everything from missed benchmarks to the time off the Iraqi legislators took, Mr. al-Maliki finally told our meddlesome politicians to stick a sock in it, and it was long overdue. I was starting to wonder if al-Maliki had the “testicular fortitude” to tell our politicians to back off and let his government handle its own business, free from the constant harangues coming out of Washington, D.C.; now I know that he does, and that is encouraging to me.

I see it as encouraging because it shows me that the Iraqis are serious about governing themselves, and because it shows an independent streak that is sorely needed by the Iraqi government. While it is a given that we want a government in Baghdad that is closely allied with ours, we do not want a puppet government there to do our bidding. By showing that it would not be intimidated by woofing coming from Washington about what it should be doing, how often it should be in session, or how it should work internally, the Iraqi government has shown that it is determined to be truly sovereign and not be dominated by anyone---including us.

What has bothered me about this entire process of trying to help the Iraqis establish a functioning government is the constant criticism coming from the United States; we seem to be intent on ignoring certain realities in Iraq while we demand that they do something that they have never done before. We demand that they have a fully functioning, efficient, unified government up and running in a war zone, while bullets are still flying, in a short amount of time. These people who have never governed themselves, have never had a chance to choose their own leaders, and who have lived in constant fear of a tyrant are being castigated for not having a constitutional government humming along just a few short years after the deposing of said tyrant. That type of demand cannot be met in the time that we seem to think it should be; heck, even we didn’t get things figured out until 1789---and sometimes it looks like we still are having problems getting it all figured out.

As frustrating as it may be to some, we have to have patience in this endeavor. If we do not want Iraq to fall under the sway of Iran and/or Syria, or to become a breeding ground for new terrorists, we have to be willing to keep pressing towards the final goal of a truly free Iraq. It may not come quickly, but it will come if we are willing to finish the fight. To paraphrase the old spiritual, we need to run on to see what the end’s going to be.

 

The  net roots as a political force are officially dead on the Democratic side of the aisle. While we may continue to hear about them in the media, and the Democratic Party candidates will continue to pander to them, and attend the Yearly Kos convention to shore up their support, they are basically dead men walking. Their heyday, such as it was, is over. They are now just another special interest group for the Democrat Party to pander to in order to get their votes.

The net roots effectively killed themselves with their defeat of Joe Lieberman in the 2006 midterm primaries; while getting the nomination for Ned Lamont was a victory, it was the classic example of a Pyrrhic victory. Winning that one victory cost them any chance of being a real player in Democratic politics because it came at a heavy cost to the net roots crowd; it showed their true weakness.

The net roots went after Joe Lieberman in the primary with both guns blazing, using all sorts of incendiary and anti-Semitic language to attack him for not backing off of his vote to authorize the war in Iraq. He was painted as being some sort of lackey to the Bush administration, and of being some sort of neo-con war hawk. And many a Democrat politician abandoned Lieberman when it became clear that he would not be winning the primary, and they went hard after him when he announced that he would run in the general election regardless of whether or not he won the Democrat nomination. As we all know, Ned Lamont won the primary but was smoked like a pack of Kool and Mild's in the general election.

And that is where the net roots lost any of the real influence they had gained in the Democratic Party. The Democrats may be many things, but politically stupid is not one of them! They saw that while the net roots were able to turn out enough votes to make a splash in the primaries, they did not have the type of support it takes to win a general election. Daily Kos, Democrat Underground, and Moveon.org may be able to muster a few thousand in Connecticut to sway the results in a primary---where a very low percentage of voters even bother to turn out---but they do not have the power to impact the general elections. It takes more than a few thousand voters nation wide to affect the outcome of a Presidential election; and even if the net roots could deliver a couple of million, that wouldn’t get it done either.

What’s more, the Kos kids and others are pretty much true believers in their liberal causes, and they aren’t about to find that in the Democratic Party. Big time politics demands compromise and flexibility, and the net roots just don’t have that in them. They cannot seem to abide any politician that is not in complete lockstep with their positions and beliefs, which effectively locks them out of any real power.

So the net roots crowd now finds itself in the same boat as gays, the poor, and blacks. The Democrats will come around ever so often, pander to them, make all sorts of promises they never intend to keep, and collect their votes. Think about it: Where else are the Kos kids going to go? They hate the GOP and they don’t want to identify themselves as the socialists they truly are, so they are pretty much stuck with the Democrats.

So the members of the net roots can continue to believe that they are a real power bloc, that they are very influential, or that they are Democrat king makers. But we all know better than that, don’t we? The Democrats have the net roots right where they want them.

So please join me in welcoming the net roots into the Democratic Party.

Welcome to the Democratic Plantation; make yourselves comfortable, because you’re going to be here a long, long time!

I heard once that character is not what you do when everyone is looking, but what you do when no one is around. It’s like if you find a wallet full of money; it does not take great character to return the wallet if you find it with a group of people around, but it says something if you find it by yourself and return it then. When your friends are around, you do the right thing so that they think well of you; when you’re alone you do the right thing because it is the right thing.

This brings me to my major point, which is the lack of real character we see in our political leadership today. And it is not just at the national level, we see it all levels of government. Take my beloved state of North Carolina for example; we have had a well known sheriff convicted of corruption charges and the former Speaker of the House for our General Assembly, Jim Black is soon to report to prison for taking bribes. At the national level we have had a President face impeachment for lying to a court, Mark Foley caught up in a sexual scandal, and William Jefferson caught with $90K stashed in his freezer. And that doesn’t even touch on the unsavory things we see from our “leaders” that may be legal, but are totally unsavory.

It seems that our system of having professional politicians in charge of the government has bred a sense that character is not really needed, just a good grasp of how the system works. Our “leaders” care little about showing good character, especially if it stands in the way of their gaining political power and influence.

Look no further than the way the current leadership of the Democratic Party is acting in regards to the war in Iraq. These same politicians that demanded multiple debates and votes to give the President authority to remove Saddam Hussein now pretend that they were somehow bamboozled into their votes. When the outcome of the conflict was looking like it was going to be a repeat of Desert Storm, the Democrats were there with us with bells on; they planned to have a part in the glory of victory, but as the fight has gone on hey have abandoned their former positions. John Kerry ran a presidential campaign on the premise that he was mislead into his authorization vote, and Hillary Clinton is going for a reprise of that. It didn’t work in 2004 and probably won’t in 2008 either, but it is a good look into the character of the Democratic Party. Character and the Democratic Party are almost at the stage of being oxymoronic---the two just don’t go together!

And the GOP is not much better. This party, in the blind pursuit of electoral victory has abandoned the very character that set it apart from the Donkey Party. Gone are the ideals of smaller government, curbing governmental influence, and cutting spending. In their place we have seen the GOP substitute a scaled down Democratic ethic; a willingness to grow spending, grow government influence on the individual, and to create new government entitlement programs. And we have our requisite Democrat-lite candidate, Rudy Giuliani, whom the press and the GOP establishment are pushing on us at every turn as “the frontrunner”. This man has stepped on nearly every policy prescription that the GOP has held dear: he is a gun-grabber, a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual rights liberal. And this is the man the GOP would have represent it at the national level?

For me, I am looking for a candidate with character to support. I want someone that I can trust to do the right things for this country even when that may not be what is best for him politically. I want someone that I can trust to do the right things, not because everyone is watching but because it is right…period.

I hope, for all our sakes, we can find that type of candidate.

 

                                        

The Supreme Court is out of control! It has been since the ill begotten Marbury v. Madison decision handed down in 1803, where Chief Justice John Marshall and his black-robed cronies created the power of judicial review. In blatant disregard to the powers granted it by the Constitution the Court, in a purely political decision, decided that the Justices were the final arbiter of what would be regarded as constitutional.

Since that initial usurpation of power by the Olympian Court, there has been a steady stream of decisions that allowed the Justices to gather more power unto themselves, at the expense of the elected branches of the government. The Court has struck down duly instituted laws, injected itself into the war making realm of the executive, and even insinuated itself into the electoral process. The Court truly has become the “most dangerous” branch that Thomas Jefferson feared that it would after the infamous ruling in Marbury.

But in reality, as bad as the Court is the two other branches are even worse. They are worse because they have allowed the Court to intrude on their sovereign territory and have made no real efforts to put the Court back in its rightful place; as a coequal branch and not the rulers of the land.

Both of our elected branches make noise about how out of control the Court is from time to time, but they rarely make any real efforts to rein it in. The major reason for this is that the Court and its decisions give the elected branches both cover and a convenient scapegoat. By allowing the Court to make policy and legislative decisions, the elected branches are able to avoid making tough choices or unpopular decisions; they let the Court decide and take the brunt of public criticism.

Here is a case in point, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance “reform” bill. The Congress, in a huge case of bipartisan foolishness, passed a law that completely ignored the plain words and accepted meaning of the First Amendment. This “campaign finance reform” bill put draconian restrictions on what could be said, and by whom, in the 60 day period immediately before an election. The Congress knew that this was obviously counter to the Constitution, but they did it anyway. The bill goes to President Bush’s desk, where he signs it into law despite his statements that the law was a basic affront to freedom of speech as we have known it in this country from our inception. The President, instead of vetoing the bill, punted to the Supreme Court so that they would have to strike down key portions of a law that seemed to have some popular support. If the Court struck down the bill’s key provisions then the President got what he wanted without having to incur the wrath of the NYT editorial page or the Congressional Democrats; they were the perfect cover for him on the issue. The only thing is that they fooled him and let an obviously unconstitutional bill stand until recently, when the newly constituted Court struck down some the more odious provisions in the law. But all of this could have been avoided if the President had simply done his job, instead of trying to hide behind the robes of the Court.

Congress is no better, in that they have the power to limit the purview of the Court and the types of cases that it hears. If the Congress, way back in 1973, had had the guts to do its job we would never have been saddled with the abomination that is Roe v. Wade, and we would not be facing the specter of some activist federal court attempting to foist same-sex marriage upon us. But the Congress lives in mortal fear of running afoul of their bosses at The Washington Post, the L.A. Times, and CNN; they would just about crumble if they thought that their bosses weren’t pleased with them. So they allow the federal courts, and SCOTUS, to do their legislating for them from the bench; it’s easier that way and they don’t have to answer to their constituents for bad law. By allowing the courts to make the laws they know they could never pass, the Congress gets to pass the buck to the unaccountable, unelected members of the judiciary branch who rarely have their powers checked by their fellows in the federal government.

With an Executive and Legislature that would like nothing better than to continue using the Court as cover and a de facto lawmaker, don’t look for the Court to be reined in any time soon. They are performing too large of a service to the other branches just by doing the jobs the Executive and Legislature won’t do!

I heard a funny Bush joke at my family reunion this weekend, and I’ll share it with you now. It goes like this: The Bush Cabinet is having a meeting when news comes in that 10 Brazilian troops were injured in a military mishap. President Bush immediately wants to let the Brazilian government know that the US is there to help in any way possible. He asks Sec. Rice what the Brazilians need us to do, since this is obviously a serious situation; Sec. Rice and VP Cheney try to assure the President that it’s alright. After all, there were only 10 Brazilian troops injured in the mishap! The President continues to insist that we offer all available help to Brazil in this time of great need; after repeated attempts to calm the President down he finally turns to VP Cheney and says, “This is just tragic---and how many million are in a Brazilian?”

I thought it was pretty funny, and the thing about it was these were not people that are rabid Bush haters telling and laughing at the joke. They were my brothers, and me, all of whom had voted for Bush in his electoral victories. I suppose that it is the same feeling that many conservatives have with Bush---a feeling of ambivalence.

George W. Bush is a real head scratcher for me. I supported him in two elections, and have found much to be happy with him about. But at he same time, he has done some things that have had me scream for his head on a plate.

I enthusiastically supported his efforts to get tax cuts passed, as they were long overdue. He realized that the way to stimulate the economy was to put money into the hands of the people, not pick their pockets for every dime that you can get your hands on. But then, he pushes for a Medicare prescription drug entitlement that even the AARP didn’t want. And you know that you are doing something wrong when the AARP isn’t supporting your plans to rob the young to give to the aged!

I supported then, and support now, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from the scene in Iraq. There was ample evidence that Hussein was trying to reconstitute his WMD programs, and that he was actively seeking nuclear material (uranium) from Africa. And if that was not reason enough, he had been firing on allied airmen the skies of Iraq almost from the moment the cease fire for Desert Storm went into effect. He had thumbed his nose at us, the UN, and the cease fire that he signed, giving us ample reason to get rid of him. But the same George W. Bush that launched that attack, and was so resolute in avenging 9/11 is utterly blind to the fact that 9/11 happened because of lax border security and immigration enforcement; so he actively champions the biggest amnesty for illegal aliens in the history of mankind.

I understood and supported his commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence on the trumped up process crime created by Patrick Fitzgerald. And I understood the reasoning behind not granting a pardon, on the grounds that the appeals process may still clear Libby of the charges. But this same President has seen fit to let two Border Patrol agents languish in jail for shooting a drug running illegal alien who refused to stop when they ordered him to. These agents put their lives on the line every day to defend the borders of this nation against incursions, yet they are allowed to be railroaded into prison for a non-cover up, on the word of a drug smuggler while the President studiously avoids intervention.

It is these types of dichotomies that have worn down support for President Bush among even his most loyal backers. It is hard to give support to someone that seems to be pursuing two agendas at once: on the one hand a stickler for national security, on the other an open borders advocate of the highest magnitude.

I suppose the only way to characterize the President is schizophrenic, and you can color me confused!

 

 

Hysteria is defined by Webster’s New Students Dictionary as “unmanageable fear or outburst of emotion” and right now it seems that the entire country is caught up in it. We are seeing a reaction to the alleged crimes of Mike Vick that we have rarely seen regarding any issue, save the hysterics that we witness from the global warming zealots on a daily basis. Like those that try to take a measured approach to global warming, the “Vick is guilty” zealots react angrily to anyone that dares defend Vick, who says that allegations are just those…allegations, and that even Mike Vick deserves a chance to defend himself against these charges. Just by saying those innocuous things and defending the rule of law those that advocate for Vick to be given the benefit of the doubt are called apologists, sycophants, or worse.

The problem that I have with all of this hysteria is how simply hypocritical most involved in the “Get Vick” crowd are being. As bad as the allegations against Vick are, there have been much worse crimes alleged against athletes that did not garner this type of reaction. And these crimes were against people, not dogs! Yet we are supposed to be in high dudgeon because Vick is accused of running a dog fighting ring. Do the names of Leonard Little, Ray Lewis, or Kobe Bryant ring any bells? No? Then let me refresh your memories.

Leonard Little is a defensive end playing for the Saint Louis Rams who is directly responsible for the deaths of two people. Back in 1995 Little, while intoxicated, got behind the wheel of his car and caused an accident which took the lives of two people. There was some outrage at the time, but nothing like this; in fact, there were a lot of people that tried to make Little some type of a victim because he allegedly had a drinking problem. And just a few years later, Little was arrested again on DUI charges, proving that he had not learned his lesson, in spite of all of the tearful statements he had made publicly. Yet, I saw no massive demonstrations in front of the Rams complex, and I heard no calls for his permanent banishment from the NFL. Where was the anger and outrage over the deaths of two people and the devastation of their families?

A few years ago Ray Lewis was arrested and incarcerated for being complicit in the deaths of two men during Super Bowl weekend in 1998. It was alleged that members of Lewis’s entourage got into a confrontation with two men during a Super Bowl bash that ended up with two men being stabbed and left for dead in the streets of Atlanta. Lewis was charged in the crime and was locked up because he would not cooperate with police trying to investigate what happened on that fateful night. It was believed then that Lewis knew who did the stabbing and that he was actively covering up the crime for his “homies”; Lewis eventually copped a plea to a lesser charge and returned to the NFL. There was some anger and angst about the Lewis situation, but even that did not create the righteous indignation that we see in the Vick case. The NFL gave Lewis a small fine, a short suspension, and that was about it; they did not lift his merchandise from NFLShop.com, and they didn’t summarily ban him from training camp. And just a few years later Ray Lewis was playing in the Super Bowl, winning MVP honors, and was named NFL Defensive POY---quite a turnaround for someone credibly accused of covering up two deaths, eh?

And who can forget the curious case of Kobe Bryant? Kobe Bryant was credibly accused of raping a young woman in a Colorado hotel room, yet he became the victim in the eyes of the public. The media went to work digging up the history of the accuser and painted her as a schemer, a trollop, and a gold-digger while Kobe became the victim of this nefarious female. And during all of this, Nike never severed its relationship to Kobe, the NBA studiously kept its nose out of the situation, and his team made arrangements for him to be flown between game sites and Colorado. And hardly a peep was heard about it from most fans and media---Kobe stood accused of rape, yet the world was vigilant in giving him a presumption of innocence. But Mike Vick deserves to lose his freedom, his career, and his business relationships because of allegations of dog fighting?

We have our priorities seriously out of whack on this one, folks. Don’t get me wrong, it is wrong to fight dogs to the death, and it is wrong to abuse animals; I fully recognize that when we do that we are not being the good stewards that God expects us to be of His creation. But we need to recognize that animals are just that, animals. The reaction to this story points out something that I feel points to the creeping influence of far left philosophy in our culture; to wit, nothing is sacred to us.

When we react this way, with this much emotion and rage to the mistreatment and deaths of some dogs, no matter how horrific we have gotten ourselves out of balance. We see the mistreatment, torture, or murder of fellow humans and we shrug our shoulders, say how bad that is, and move on to the next thing. But we hear that Mike Vick is accused of killing dogs in a dog fighting ring, and it sets off a maelstrom of anger and recrimination. I believe that it is because we no longer hold human life to be sacred; we have embraced the idea that all lives have the same value. We react this angrily to the killings and mistreatment of these dogs, while we sit passively as millions of fetuses are aborted on a yearly basis in this country. We scream to high heaven when we hear that some of these dogs were brutally killed after losing fights, yet we do little to protest the grotesque murder of innocents in the partial birth abortion procedure.

We have bought into the notion that the lives of dogs are as valuable as the lives of humans, not realizing that doing that does not elevate the lives of the animals. It simply devalues the lives of humans: When a dog’s life is as valuable as a human’s, then a human life has no more value than that of a dog, period. So we see members of Congress speaking out about punishing Mike Vick for allegedly killing dogs, while they simultaneously fight to the death, metaphorically speaking, to keep partial birth abortion “safe, legal, and rare”!

Finally, what has happened to the rule of law in this country? What has happened to the concept of making the state prove the guilt of the people it accuses, instead of forcing to accused to prove their innocence? What has happened to viewing media reports skeptically and forcing proof to be presented before we assume the guilt of our fellow men? Has the memory of Richard Jewell, Reade Seligman, David Evans, and Colin Finnerty faded so fast that we cannot resist the urge to rush to judgment? I don’t know if Mike Vick is guilty of the crimes he is accused of, and neither does the prosecution, the media, PETA, the Humane Society, or any of us. So maybe, just maybe, we should let the case play out before we decide that Vick is so guilty that he should never see the light of day again.

But most importantly, we need to reexamine our priorities. When we start to treat the maltreatment of humans with the same, or greater passion that we do with animals we will be getting back on track. Until then, we are out of whack and need to check ourselves. We may just have our priorities bass-ackwards!

As I was logging on this morning, I saw a story on my AOL home page that caught my attention. As I read it, i began to get angry and think that this was a case of unintended consequences. But as I went through, I realized that while my initial impressions were correct, this also the logical conclusion that the knee jerk passing of laws brings us to.

The case involves two young men, kids really, that are facing time in prison and having to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives for slapping some girls on the behind one Friday at school. The kids, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Corneilson were facing felony charges---which were later dropped---and still face multiple misdemeanor charges of sexual battery in an Oregon court for allegedly slapping girls on the behind in the hallway in what many students describe as a type of greeting they give one another. But as happens so often someone was offended, then turned into a victim, and now these two kids are facing a lifetime as registered sex offenders.

When I was a kid, we did the same type of things; maybe it was dumb, but it sure as heck wasn't criminal. If the girl didn't like it there were other options: she could humiliate you in public, tell her boyfriend, or at the worst have you dragged to the assistant principal's office for a stern talking to. If the behavior continued, you may find yourself in ISS or in extreme cases suspended for a day or two, but the cops were never involved; no one ever had to worry about going to jail over something so juvenile actually being criminalized. Sadly, that is no longer the case.

I understand that you can't let this type of behavior go unchecked, but I also realize that running to the cops isn't the way to handle it. We have choked ourselves with so many laws that nearly everything that we do runs afoul of some law. Most of these laws were passed with the best of intentions, but there are just so damned many that you can't avoid breaking some along the way. We need laws to protect society from sexual predators, but in the hands of skittish school officials and overzealous cops and prosecutors, we are creating criminals. By trying to be so hard on criminal behavior, we are making more and more behavior criminal. So you can have a couple of 13 year old boys in the dock as sex offenders for doing exactly what 13 year old boys do at that age. All in the name of "protecting the children".

To read the original story click this link.

God save us from ourselves, the laws we pass, and their unintended consequences!

I am not a Newt Gingrich fan. I can respect his intellect, his accomplishments as Speaker, and leader of the Republican resurgence in the Congressional elections of 1994. He served a valuable purpose at that time, and he is one of the most respected policy minds out there. For many, Newt Gingrich is the epitome of conservatism and they would dearly love to see him enter the current field of GOP presidential candidates.

I do not share their enthusiasm, for a few reasons.

Firstly, in my opinion Newt has some of the same problems that will dog Hillary Clinton in a general election. For all of his accomplishments, Newt Gingrich has some serious baggage to deal with; namely his previous history of marital infidelity and the fact that many find him totally unlikeable. No one is going to forget that while the GOP was trumpeting family and moral values as make or break issues; Newt was carrying on an adulterous affair of his own. That smacked of the rankest hypocrisy, especially at that time in our history---and neither the media or public is likely to forget it. And Newt is just not a likeable character; there is a sense of meanness in him--see his comments on Bob Novak--and an overwhelming sense that he is always talking down to others. He has to learn that just because you’re the smartest guy in the room doesn’t mean that others have nothing to add to the conversation.

Secondly, I don’t like people that take potshots at others while they sit on the sidelines. I heard Mr. Newt’s assessments of the GOP candidates as “pygmies”, and especially his shot about Fred Thompson leaving TV to get into TV. It is no secret that I am a supporter of Fred Thompson—if he chooses to run ;D—so it is my ox being gored, so to speak. But that’s not really the point, the thing for me is that if you want to take shots get your @ss in the race---then take your shots. By lobbing verbal grenades from the sidelines you make yourself a distraction to those that are actively campaigning, such as Mitt Romney and those that are passively campaigning as Thompson is right now. If you want to be heard, put your hat in the ring so that others can respond to you within the context of their campaigns instead of having to break stride to deal with you. Step up, or sit down---simple as that.

Thirdly, I have a problem with Mr. Newt fawning over powerful Democrats---especially powerful Democrats named Clinton---instead of taking them on. Don’t forget that it was Mr. Newt that was recently singing the praises of one Mrs. B.J. Clinton and her healthcare ideas, and it was Mr. Newt that was willing to forgive and forget Mr. B.J. Clinton’s transgressions after the latter laid the charm down on the former. If you can’t keep from getting stardust in your eyes every time you come into contact with the Clintons, how are you going to possibly defeat the little woman in a presidential race?

Also, I view Mr. Newt as bit of a fraud who is being allowed to live off his “Contract With America” days. But if you take an honest look at what Mr. Newt did then, it was one of the biggest sell-outs in American political history. Mr. Newt and the GOP swept into power by promising movement on a host of conservative issues in their first 100 Hours, which they dutifully acted on. But when the Democrat minority moved to block many of the initiatives, as everyone with a pulse knew would happen, Mr. Newt did not fight to get the initiatives a fair hearing or vote. He basically abandoned them in his pursuit of power and influence, and his answer to the people when they asked about the lack of progress was basically that he had done what he promised to do. He had addressed them in his first 100 Hours as Speaker and that was all he was obliged to do; he had made no promises to fight for the very issues he and the GOP had campaigned on addressing once in power. Is that the type of person you want leading your country and Party: a person that quickly abandons his promises for political expediency?

Finally, I don’t like Mr. Newt’s attitude that he is going to somehow ride in last minute and save the day for the GOP. Mr. Newt promises that if by September or October there’s not a “strong” candidate that HE thinks can beat Hillary Clinton in a general election, he will put on his white hat, pearl handled six-guns, saddle up the white stallion, and ride in to save the day, ala Hop-A-Long Cassidy! Give me a break! My guy, Fred Thompson has been catching it—deservedly—for not being willing to commit to the race, but Mr. Newt thinks that he should be able to saddle the people with a bunch of benchmarks for his entry to the race? What manner of arrogance be this? “I will save the Party, I will be the nominee, and I will be the One.” For my money, if you think that you are the best qualified, that you are the most electable, that you are the ONLY one that can take on Hillary and defeat her then get your clown @ss in the race. Don’t sit on the sidelines and talk the talk, get your behind on the field and walk the walk. As my dear Papa Sang used to say, “You can show me better than you can tell me.” So if Mr. Newt thinks he’s the One, he needs to get in the saddle and let us see what he’s made of.

I know that there are problems with the other GOP candidates: Rudy’s a gun-grabber, Romney flip-flops like a fish out of water, Mike “Who?” Huckabee…’nuff said…, and Fred is taking his sweet time to declare. But Mr. Newt has just as much baggage as any of them and his “Look how smart I am” act wore thin with me a long time ago. But if he wants the GOP nomination, he needs to get in the race and earn it…no one is waiting with baited breath for Mr. Newt to descend on the race from on high.

Like the old saying goes, “If you’re gonna talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk.” So if Mr. Newt wants to be a player, he needs to get his walking shoes on; either that or STFU if he’s not willing to jump into the water.

Time to sh*t or get off the pot!

 

In case you didn’t know, this is my 100^th posting here at the Spade, and I felt that it deserved some recognition. So I have decided to make this a special edition---so to speak---and reflect on what it is that keeps me blogging strong.

To me, this blog---and all of the blogs at TH---are like the barbershop. When I go to the barbershop, I know that there will probably be a lively discussion about something going on there, with everyone that has an opinion weighing in. No topics are taboo, no opinions are stifled, and everyone gets his say. These blogs are the same way, everyone gets to speak, no one is silenced, and all opinions are welcomed.

Here at the Spade, I have the opportunity to discuss and debate foreign policy, elections, war, peace, immigration; you name it, we talk about it. I get new perspectives from a broad array of people from all over: I get the heartland sensibilities of Scottie and Husker Jeff, the tales of living in the People’s Republic of California from BrianR, and have had some eye opening conversations with my “neighbor” just up the road in Greensboro, Celtic Dragon. I have seen page views on my little blog from all over the globe and I wonder if they got anything from reading what I had to say. Hopefully they did, and hopefully they made their way back for my take on things.

I have enjoyed the discussions and debates that I have had on race relations with Jimmy Carter, the insightful and thought provoking questions from Philosophocon on all types of issues, and being visited by someone as thoughtful and creative as Cynewulf. It’s these interactions that make me want to keep doing this; this is building a community of people that I may never meet in person, but I feel like I know. That is the main reason I like blogging here so much.

Sure I like seeing my thoughts in print, but more than that I like seeing what my readers think of them. I like having the discussions here, I like having the debates, and I love getting the feedback on what I have written. As much as I do this to get my point of view out there, I do it almost as much to have the conversations that I get to have with all who choose to join the conversation. As I have said before---all visitors are welcome, and all comments are appreciated!

So thanks to everyone that has stopped by to read a post here, that has left a comment, or has engaged in a debate. I appreciate your time and your willingness to visit my little slice of the Net, and I hope it has been worth your time. You are the reasons that I have made it to 100, and you will be what spurs me to keep on pushing.

Thanks to all of you for your support and attention, it has meant the world to me!

Flagwaver

Official Flag of the Islamic Conference; click  for membership information

Peanut butter and jelly; sugar and spice; government and spending. Some things just go together, and no matter what you try you can’t separate them—they are forever linked.

Take communist economic theory and politics, for example. I had a professor whom I greatly admire try her best to split the two apart,  attempting to separate the one from the other. Try as she might, she was not able to convincingly isolate communist economic theory from communist political practice; she just refused to acknowledge that the one flows from the other and cannot be split. You cannot have an economy based on government domination of the means of production, the schedule and amounts of produced materials without having a government that, almost by necessity, dominates all parts of society. And this type of set up invites--- almost demands--- a government that is authoritarian at best and totalitarian at worst. But like the good liberal that she was, my professor could not let go of her delusion that a communist economy could work, if only attempted in the right place by the right people. You see, it is not the system or theory that is fatally flawed; it is the people attempting to implement it that have the problem.

We now face the same dilemma with the liberals in our midst that refuse to see that there is no distinction between ecclesiastical Islam and temporal Islam. They attempt to convince themselves and the world around them that the religion of al-Islam is different from the political aspect of the religion. Nothing could be further from the truth; like communist economic theory and communist political theory, religious and political Islam is one in the same. They are inextricably linked.

When Muhammad founded Islam c.622 A.D., he had no illusions that political power was to be exercised apart from the religion of al-Islam. Islam was to be the religious order of the region, spread by the blade of the sword if necessary; it was also to serve as the foundation of government in the areas where it predominated. The Koran and the Sunna from the start set out the rules governing both the social and communal life of Muslims; the Shari ‘a law has been a part of Islam from its founding.

What is perplexing is that liberals of all stripes continue to attempt to separate the two; they continue to delude themselves that the religious Muslims are not the same as the practitioners of jihad and the implementers of Shari’ a. It would be easier to split an atom with a butter knife than to split political and religious Islam from one another. There can be no separation of the two as they are one and the same—and the quicker our liberal friends realize that, the better off we will all be.

Once the liberals come to grips with the fact that Islam does teach the subjugation of all nations to the house of Islam, that it does preach jihad to it’s followers, that it is backward facing, that it is hostile to all religions, and that it does preach dhimmi status for all non-Muslims we can get about the business of defeating this threat.

When the liberals realize that they would likely be the first to be taken care of by a Muslim caliphate because of their support of homosexual rights, sexual license, and all manner of immorality maybe they will get on board for the effort to defeat an enemy that has sworn our destruction.

Because the only way we will be able to fend off the increasing attacks of the practitioners of jihad, to defeat our mortal enemy, and to secure our own future is to stand together. We have to be united in common cause for this to work, and for us to ultimately prevail in this war we find ourselves in. We have to be strong, united, and resolute.

We must be one thing above all.

Indivisible.

It seems that Hugh Hewitt’s favorite GOP presidential hopeful may be hearing the footsteps of Fred Thompson. While doing my Sunday stroll around the Web, I came across a couple of interesting columns at the American Spectator concerning Romney and Thompson.

The first story is one about Mitt throwing money around and rigging a straw poll by a local Young Republicans group; read more about it here. The second story is about the Romney campaign trying to cause Fred trouble with social conservatives by distributing discredited information on his alleged lobbying for a “pro-choice” outfit. Read more about it here.

It seems that Gov. Romney senses a threat is trying to play hardball. The only thing is that if you have to rig straw polls and spread lies to stay current, you may be headed the way of John McVain---out the door!

If churches are the most segregated places in America, then the most integrated place in America has to be the local traffic court! I know, because I just left my county’s traffic court---and let me tell you, it was something to see. People that would normally not speak a word to each other engage in conversations, share frustrations, and try to give each other encouragement---all while waiting in line to see the traffic ticket judge.

I had a nice looong conversation with a young kid who got ticketed for not having proof of insurance after he had a wreck on an icy road earlier this year, and I had a nice confab with a redneck an his wife who got ticketed because the person the inspected his car punched the sticker on the wrong year. He showed the police officer his receipt for his inspection, but he still got the ticket and had to show up for a court date even though he had done nothing wrong.

The thing is if the local traffic court is any reflection of how the system generally works, there is no surprise that there is a backlog of cases on court dockets! Take me, for example:

I was ticketed for having an expired inspection sticker about a month ago during a license check. I got my ticket, went and had my car inspected and waited for my court date which was for July 13, at 9:00a.m. Being the stickler for punctuality that I am, I arrive at the county courthouse at 8:40, just to make sure that I would not be late---the last time I was late for court, I ended up getting arrested on a bench warrant! So I get there, fully expecting to go to a courtroom, as was printed on my citation, and what do I see? I am confronted with a line of about 150 people snaking through the main lobby towards the Clerk of Court office! So, silly me, I ask a deputy there on duty where I can find courtroom 000B, since I’m supposed to be there at 9:00;he tells me to just get in line and wait---they don’t use the courtrooms for traffic tickets.

So there I stand, from 8:40 to 9:50 when I finally get to the front of the line. There are 3 people in front of me; the ADA helps the woman at the table out, and then announces that he will be taking a 15 minute break! So there I stand for another 15 minutes, wasting valuable minutes that I can never get back, while he goes off to have a snack and a cold drink. After 15 minutes he comes back and I finally get to the front of the line; he looks at my ticket, asks if I have gotten the car inspected, I give him my receipt, and he says “Well, you’re free to go”! I spent 1 hour and 35 minutes in line for a transaction that took around 30 seconds!

And what is really galling is that I passed 2 empty courtrooms that could have been used, instead of making us all stand in line. One of the empty courtrooms seats around 200, the other seats a little over 100; but we had to stand in line forever because they don’t use the courtrooms for traffic violations! Un-freaking-believable!

But I did learn one thing from my wasted morning: This must be how people feel at big city DMV’s!

When Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison, John Adams and the like founded this nation and created the bicameral legislature, they could never have foreseen the situation that this government finds itself in today. The aforementioned men waged their lives, liberty, and all they had to create a nation that was not ruled by a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a political oligarchy but was governed by representatives of the people of the nation.

Look back at the history that these great men have as public servants, and you will see a group of men that were serious about their service, but were also men who did not lust after power. George Washington served as President, helped to shape the course of the country and the office for all time, and then retired to his beloved Mount Vernon; content to go back to his life as a planter. Likewise, Thomas Jefferson served the country as a Cabinet member, and later as President, but when his term was over he retired willingly to his Monticello plantation, happy to be the scholar and planter he had always been.

These men realized that they were more than politicians, that they were first and foremost family men, scholars, or soldiers; even as they served in various capacities in our government they never forgot who, and what, they were. And it is safe to say that the vast majority of these men did not view themselves as professional politicians. So they never thought to place limits to the amount of time that people could serve as President, Senator, or Representative; they seem to have assumed that men would serve their term and go home to their real lives, just as the early leaders of the country did.

They could not have anticipated the state of the Congress today that is populated with professional politicians who have no desire to “go home” as it were, because this life is all they really know.

The rise of the professional politician has, in my opinion, been as dangerous as anything else to the proper functioning of our system. Professional politicians become involved in politics not out of a desire to bring needed change to the country, or to do the will of the people, or with the intention of representing the voice of their constituents in the halls of Congress. Professional politicians seem more interested in grasping, consolidating, and holding on to power simply for the sake of having that power. They spend more time getting themselves reelected than actually governing or legislating, because their longevity translates into power and influence.

Let’s take a look at a small sampling of the longest serving members of the Senate:

Ø  Strom Thurmond served from 1954-56 and 1956-2003 when he died in office!

Ø  Robert C. Byrd has served from 1959 to the present.

Ø  Edward Kennedy has served from 1962-present.

Ø  Daniel Inouye from 1963-present.

Ø  Ted Stevens from 1968-present.

Ø  Joe Biden from 1972-present.

Among the six men I have listed, they have served a combined 260 years in the Senate, have served an average of 43.33 years, and every one of them has been in the Senate for longer than I have been alive! Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and Daniel Inouye have been around longer than any of my siblings…and I have three older siblings!

It is this type of unchecked longevity that allows politicians to ignore their constituents and do as they please. Take the current immigration fiasco as a prime example; without the assurance that they are almost guaranteed a return to the Senate every 6 years, do you think the politicians would be so deaf to voter concerns? If they thought they were going to be turned out, or better yet, if they considered themselves to truly be servants of the public they would not ignore our voices. They would listen and see that the vast majority of the public, for whatever reasons, sees this current immigration bill as worse than no bill at all!

The Founding Fathers created a truly groundbreaking system of government and turned it over to us to keep as we could. We can find fault in their not mandating term limits for Congress or the President, but no too much. Those men, those historic titans, saw themselves as real “public servants”, elected to do the will of the people and to do whatever was in the best interests of the nation.

Too bad so many of our politicians today see “service” only as a road to power and glory for themselves. They have violated our trust on many occasions, and have ignored us when it suited their own narrow purposes, only to continue to serve. And for that, the blame lies squarely with one group.

We the people.

     

Tony Blair sure picked a fine time to leave us! We are embroiled in a war that we will be fighting for God knows how long against an enemy that is implacable, and totally bent on our destruction. We have other allies in the war against Islamic terror, but none has borne as much of the cost, or been stauncher in their support than the British.

When we decided that it was necessary to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power, even without the approval of the ever vigilant United Nations, it was the British who were with us from the start. It was Tony Blair who committed his nation to the fight, knowing that it would be as Donald Rumsfeld said: A long, hard slog. He came to the fight because he saw the enemy for what it is, and he knew that this enemy could no longer be ignored but had to be confronted and defeated. He saw evil and instead of allowing it to slowly creep over the land, joined our fight to push it back and wipe it out.

New Prime Minister Gordon Brown scares me, quite frankly. I am concerned that he is more of the politically correct European that Prime Minister Blair, and that his PC bent will affect his commitment to defeating the jihadists. And I believe that my concern is a valid one.

Take his actions in response to the terrorist attack and plot in Great Britain as an example. One of the first things Prime Minister Brown did in response to the terrorist action in Glasgow was to ban his ministers from using “Muslim” in connection to terrorism, in a sop to the self esteem of Great Britain’s burgeoning Muslim population. When your first concern is not necessarily dealing with the actual terrorist act or plot, but to tend to the tender feelings of the very community that launched the attack there is cause for concern about Brit resolve in this war.

Further, Mr. Brown has decided to drop the phrase “war on terror” from the vernacular of the British government. While “war on terror” is a phrase that could have been worked on some time ago, I doubt that Mr. Brown is doing this to come up with a better phrase. I think that this changing terminology may be a sign that he is not nearly as committed to winning the war against the jihadis as Mr. Blair was; it just seems to me that Brown is more under the sway of the European community and thought processes than Blair ever was. And if Brown is a dyed in the wool European, the question is not if he will declare victory and go home but when that time will come.

Maybe I am wrong about Mr. Brown, and for once I hope I am. For all of our sakes, I pray that I have misread the situation. Because if I’m right, we will find ourselves in a position that the Democrats and the world community have long maintained that we placed ourselves in.

Going it alone.

                                                                            
    

…he {the President} shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…” Article 2, Section 3 US Constitution

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”Article 2, Section 4 US Constitution

Make no mistakes about it, I have been a supporter of President George W. Bush through two campaigns and two elections and applaud some of the moves he has made. I applaud his tax c