Tattoos and Hope

I understand why some people ink tattoos into their skin.  Well, I understand many of the reasons people ink tattoos into their skin.  Most tattooees want to remember something meaningful about their life, want to give an event such significance that serves as a constant memory driven banner.  Of course tattoos bear a tougher, more gritty, more fashionable aura than say, a string tied around around a finger.

We saw an old WWII war ship retired on the Ohio River on the banks of an Illinois town.  She now serves patrons as a museum and a gift shop.  I suppose, like a tattoo that, while none of the most important technology even exists on the ship anymore, being forever classified, that the ship serves as an American tattoo of triumph and tragedy.  I'm not sure the appeal an old but furious gun ship that grips onlookers.  If you were honest, when she was in full service you would not have wanted to be close to the ship.  Some get the tattoo, others the scar of war.

I'm slightly offended that a man's work aboard that ship, any ship, can be reduced to souvies and treats.  I guess monuments such as a stripped down ship offer people hope of triumph, for what it's worth.

And so there she was, proud, strong and dormant.  I suppose she still echoes with the scars of deep waters; we all do in our own way.  I turned from the big ship and I and my friends drove away still wondering what there was to remember.  Earlier we'd taken a walk down a path along the Ohio river to a visitor center nearby.  A flag rope clanked against a flagpole near the center and hanging from it was an old, tattered, ripped up American flag--looked more like a rat hanging from a pole.  I was offended and I told someone that I was.  I tell you I'm not a people of rats.  The flag did not inspire hope.

I'm not sure the old retired ship did either. I get that people fight, but I hate that death remains the only way to save a people.

That's how it was with Christ.  I'm glad I'm safe, but I'm not glad that he had to suffer like he did.  I wish humans hadn't needed such sacrifice.  But a person willing to go out and save his people seems like something to honor, even if you're not glad about it.  Their wounds are our tattoo, our honor are theirs.

And so yesterday, the triumphant waved banners and promised balanced budgets, integrity in the office and new ways of thinking.  The last night's speeches rang triumphant, but hinted toward an uppity tremor of supremacy and leaned into disdain.  I heard the same disdain, even cruelty four years ago when the Democrats won the House, the Senate and then two years ago, the Presidency.  The winners bore their Visigothic chests.  I think people hoped that leaders lived their message, that being hope, unity and fairness, but instead gained division and more disdain.  The same has been heard all over the world for as many years as the world's existed.  But I'm here now.  This means something to me now.  Now some new folks are in D.C., and last night, more triumph with a slightly distasteful edge.  I know what I don't like.  I don't like abortion, testing from aborted children, high taxes and big government.  I have my vote, but friends, neighbors and Americans alike certainly do not have my disdain.

And I heard little last night about those of us who were on other lands striving for freedom within the longest engaged war effort in U.S. history.  They desire that their leaders ink another honored tat on their hearts, but were instead, virtually ignored.  I think we need less disdain.  A kind word turns away wrath says the Proverbs.  Civil disobedience can do as much harm as all out war.  But maybe we should be thankful for sacrifice and want less death, less suffering.  By one death, many are often saved.

Maybe one party or another can triumph with grace.

I do have hope.  I think it's worth flying a clean flag.  I'm gonna get a tattoo sometime soon.

Let Freedom Ring

Veterans Day came and went.  I remembered, certainly.  


But I got to thinking...


I'm sick of the rhetoric.  "Violence never solves anything," "Peace Matters," "Don't punish terrorists, kill Guantanamo."  There are more and I'm sick of it.  


I don't like war, I don't.  "Fighting sucks," is my understatement for the year.  I can't comprehend a fight behind the mask of an M-14.  I've been scared before but...


I'm for freedom.  I want you to have an opinion.  I want you to say you like this idea, and you don't like that idea.  I want you to believe what you believe, and I want you to like football and baseball, and I want you to not like sports at all.  I want you to worship, or I want you to choose to stay in bed.  


I want for you the freedom to support or criticize.


My classmate Anne, in high school long ago, wrote a prize winning speech called "Let Freedom Ring!"  The speech contained the mantra over and over again: "Let Freedom Ring," she said.


I believe that's who we are.


Leaders have motives and motifs behind their decisions... philosophies behind reasons.  Some reasons may be access to oil, to improve trade routes, to protect the American people from terrorism.  But in the end, the American people and their leaders wanted and want freedom for people.  


American history -- stories of wars between our own people, stories of how America was formed, massive numbers of American-Indian lives cruelly lost and changed--ugly stories.  


But... I can't help but believe that developing vast new cultures that have never been seen before, such as The United States of America beginning in the 16 and 1700's, take unimaginable sacrifice.  The sacrifice becomes even more amazing when we understand that people like you and I have been historically willing to face the sacrifice head on.  They've been willing to endure ridicule and criticism by so many of us, to protect freedom for those same people.  Rough stories can't change what good and strong people really wanted-- despite an imperfect history, we and our leaders desire and desired freedom.  And given enough time, we can now clearly see who of us desire freedom and those who mask oppression with pretty little bows--legislation that serves only to make us more dependent, to deplete our intuition, to internally defeat our own sense of freedom... and deplete the free nation's morale.  However, I believe I'm seeing a people beginning to stand against oppression again...against our own form of the Berlin Wall.  Many of us are speaking out.  You and I have witnessed our nation inspired by freedom and disgusted by oppression, and we should want that now--in some ways we should want that again.


My dad, and my dad-in-law both served in war and, while I could not comprehend their experience, I can boast in my pride of them and those who served with them.  I am grateful that they were willing to allow my freedom, the idea of freedom, and the freedom of others to land squarely on their shoulders.  They are heroes.  I'm thankful every day.  I wake up every day and breath free air because of them and people like them.  I don't want them to regret their fight, because in success, and despite failure, they fought for something--their leaders and commanders wanted freedom for a people, whether they be Americans or South Vietnamese.  In my opinion, my dad and my dad-in-law should be proud of their torrid days in dreaded jungles.  They came home to a silent, ridiculing nation, but they stood...they saluted their nation.  Only recently have some people, some journalists, regaled historical proofs that reveal their heroism, their purpose, and the mantra of leaders who desired nothing less than free people.


Even you and I have ulterior motives behind our decisions.  What I do might seem unwise to you, but be patient and I might surprise you.  That's what men did with freedom in the late 1700's.  Despite a few ulterior motives, so many of us have strived for the pursuit that freedom allows.  Leaders and their advisors decide by their presuppositions, in part for their legend, for their legacy...but also in part for the freedom of the people, by the people and for the people.  On the flip-side, when leaders seem to derail American's freedom, we are constitutionally obligated to contest them, to push them back, and to eventually push them away by our vote.  Demand your freedom...let freedom ring, people!  Because the true worth of our free America reveals a people--Americans rising to every occasion with millions of their own dollars, and pounds of muscle behind every hammer within our borders, but also in Haiti, the Dominican, in Africa, in Asia and in most places of the world.  Americans desire the best, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.


Despite some strategic mistakes, despite McNamaras and others who defined kinks in the American armor, we wanted freedom for Europe in the World Wars, we wanted a vision for Korea, wanted freedom for the Vietnamese, want freedom for Iraq and the Middle East, we want to protect the Israeli nation and we want to give a new reality to Afghanistan.  

I know what you're saying--I've heard it a million times--"Every nation has their own culture, and we can't hope to make them be 'Little Americas.'"  But look closely...we don't want them to be us...we want them to be them, but a 'free' them.  They'll suffer the change as we did, but freedom works.

History shows that when one nation attacks another, the conquering nation intends to have the conquered nation for themselves.  However, the examples I gave prove America to be different.  American people want freedom for nations.  We want a freedom for nations in which they can exist on their own.  In fact, America's actions have inspired some form of elections in several nations in the last few years.  Our leader's words inspired an oppressive Berlin Wall to fall.

We can tell some horrific stories...but Anne said, "Let Freedom Ring" and Americans have expected and have gotten nothing less--until now, I believe.

I believe the mantra is changing.  Our leaders seem to dampen our freedom bell that was, until recently, heard around the world.

I know what freedom feels like--there's no explanation--take the joy of a Budweiser on a hot day and times that feeling by millions and there-in lies a free life.  


Freedom exists for a precious few nations, and we should want freedom for them.  We should expect nothing less.

President Obama and the Grand Inauguration

An inauguration for the ages. The most security, the highest entertainment value (and celebrities for what they're worth), the greatest amount of pomp and circumstance. Gleaming, hopeful millions tread the mall that they might one say say that they were there on the day a black man became President. I'm engaged. I get it. History made.  I get it.  

I'm handicapped which puts me in a minority. Historically people like me were disregarded, thrown away, committed into mental institutions, persecuted, experimented on, rejected, forgotten or killed. Even today--save the trees, save the whales, kill the children.  Man of every color, even the black man have historically given the "retard" and "crippled" little time and even less respect. Some spiritualists, dualists, Polytheists, magicians, sorcerers, and tribes around the world historically and currently believe that a baby born handicapped is curse, or may mean that the "gods" are unhappy.  

Today, I find a lot to like.  Organizations like the Make-A-Wish Foundation abound. People are generally better.  Sarah Palin found many citizens who don't and won't discriminate against her Downs Syndrome child. The handicapped tell inspiring stories.  I don't know everyone.  But I know plenty like me with Spina Bifida and plenty with handicaps of other kinds who don't whine, who are generally determined and whom provide greatness, love, joy and wisdom in their prospective circles.  Yet people say, "That's a great story," and yet those same people stare at me/us at the mall, on the street and wherever else. We don't dream of high position. Maybe now we can?  

So, yesterday was an historic day says my sister and she's right.  I am happy that Americans broke one ceiling yesterday and I'm elated for those who are now allowed to dream.  I truly am happy for all of us for that one reason.  America sufferes greatly under racism's tentacles. But one happy blogger ogled wistfully that yesterday's euphoric event brought transparency back to the White House and Oval Office.   I heard the same word on the news--Transparent.  Transparent.  Obama transparent?

Well.

Besides that President Obama's life, his political, business and religious relationships, his religion itself and his political career itself have been cloaked in shadow, I guess he's transparent enough. Despite the fact that he hasn't really had to answer the tough questions but blew them off instead, I guess he's open enough. Besides the fact that even cabinet members are somewhat suspect--one, for instance, being suspected of tax-evasion issues, another intertwined in the Blago scandal, another who rewards donors to her Husband's library, an Intelligence chief who's actually spent very little time on intelligence, and one former nominee who resigned his nomination because he's under federal investigation for "Pay-to-Play" schemes in New Mexico, Obama seems honest enough.  There are other cabinet issues as well.  Despite that there have been questions about Obama's trips to Kenya, about his attitude toward his brother there, about whether or not that constitutes "Foreign Relations" experience.  Transparent? An open book?  Despite his "Change" mantra he looks an awful lot like the previous administration--spender (Bush), emphasis on social programs (Bush), a "more of the same" Washington Cabinet (Bush), and a Vice President Biden who has proven ruthless, especially in light of Clarence Thomas and others--the very things they've accused Vice President Cheney of, ruthlessness I mean--true or not. Obama seems to stand on his own two feet...I guess. I don't really know...if you really look, no one truly knows who he is. He seems to have said a lot about not much. And some things toward which he has been clear, I'm not sure I'm happy about. Lastly, despite his vast executive and leadership experience (not really, I'm kidding), I guess I don't know exactly what we got ourselves into...not really. Even the best eyes can't see through fog.

But I'm loyal. I honor my leaders, as always. But I promise to be critical of them.  I'll be a faithful citizen as always. I won't treat Obama as unmercifully as so many treated President Bush. I posit that President Clinton's actions certainly did degrade and de-value the Oval Office as evidenced by how readily Americans and others heaped slander upon its trusses over the past eight years. People viciously and energetically degraded, derailed, ridiculed and mistreated a sitting President, President Bush--We then mustered enough energy to elect someone surrounded by shadow and clouds. What honor does that leave for the American people? Even the speeches before yesterday's inauguration were unkind toward the last administration, and the millions in the mall screamed joyfully at every disparaging word. I won't be that, but I will be critical. I know where my loyalty lies. I'm American to the bone. I love my freedom like I love fresh, cool air. We'll wait and see if Obama feels the same.

Did we elect Obama simply to break a ceiling? I doubt it. He's got a great smile.  He certainly carries confidence and swagger into the White House. Fact--the ceiling broke and that inspires me. He's black, I'm handicapped.  We don't have to think twice about that do we?  Will we stop clamoring about color? Maybe not. I'm still thankful. 

And I'm still suspect of the means to his end.

Why Should We Elect You?

I watched the Republican debates in New Hampshire this evening. Several questions intrigued me, but one question in particular caught my attention. The question was "Why should you, and not Barak Obama, be elected President of the United States? I heard a lot of reasons such as "He's inexperienced," or "He'll raise taxes, I won't", or "He's for abortion rights and I'm against abortion...". In my opinion these are all good reasons. But, I haven't heard the thing I'm looking to hear. If I could answer for them I would say something like this:

The reason I should be elected and the reasons Barak Obama should not be elected is because he is a Socialist. He would have us back up to the day before the Boston Tea Party. He would have us back up to the time before the Revolutionary War. He would have us back up to a time when Government Reigns. If you read between the lines and if you read the lines themselves one notices the Democrats plain principle that says I WANT TO IMPRESS YOU AND MAKE YOU TRUST ME. I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU. HOWEVER, THERE'S A TINY CONCESSION YOU HAVE TO MAKE IN ORDER FOR ME TO TEND TO YOU. IT'S A MINOR HITCH...A SMALL GLITCH IN THE SYSTEM. IN ORDER FOR ME TO TAKE CARE OF YOU, YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME MORE POWER. IN ORDER FOR ME TO TAKE CARE OF YOU, YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO RELINQUISH THE IDEA THAT YOUR MONEY YOUR BELIEFS AND YOUR BIASES ARE YOUR OWN. IN FACT, IN ORDER FOR ME TO TAKE CARE OF YOU, I HAVE TO CHANGE ONE LITTLE NOTE GIVEN IN OUR DECLARATION OF FREEDOM. I SIMPLY WANT TO CHANGE ONE SMALL PHRASE TO SAY "WE ARE A NATION THAT IS OF THE GOVERNMENT, BY THE GOVERNMENT, FOR THE PEOPLE. IT'S OBVIOUS, IN FACT, THAT A NATION OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE MAKES LITTLE SENSE AND LIMITS MY ABILITY TO GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU WANT."

We want Socialism? We love Imperialism? Why did our forefathers sound so ecstatic about being free?

The other question I noted was the question about earnings of big companies, especially the profits generated by big oil. I heard a lot about how the profits are noted and I heard a lot about how we needed to expand our energy horizons in this country. But I did not hear from them that high gas prices could be reduced if the Government itself did not claim 70% of the profit on fuel usage. You didn't know that? You would instead be the person who rages against big companies and big oil? What if I make a ton of money some day? What happens when I can fly first class, go on great vacations, buy anything I want? I'm a good guy now, but no matter how my character will have remained the same, money will unleash your wrath against me? I don't begrudge anyone their money unless it's ill-gotten, maliciously obtained, illegally attained, brutally stolen. Right now billions of our dollars are finding their way into hands of countries who own oil...some of these hand intend to hurt America at all costs. I don't like this. But I am more aggravated that we can't give a Company in the market system their due profits, but we can willingly and happily give our Government billions and billions more in oil profits than any of us in the Market System could possibly hope to see. I did not hear these things in the debate tonight. I hoped I would. I know that I will not hear principals in the Democratic debate going on as we speak. In fact, I just heard Hillary Clinton pose the idea that the Government should be trusted with your entitlements. "We are looking for a President you can count on", says Hillary...read between the lines. Socialists are quite ok with the above.

The Democrats are now talking about Socialized medicine...they're oogling and oggling about the reasons we should be like every other industrialized nation who offers socialized medicine...they may be industrialized but many of them do not have the level of care that you and I enjoy and many of them pay enormous amounts of their wages to support the system. You could prove that I pay a lot also...and the system isn't working in several key ways...but that does not automatically translate into the fact that the Government will do a much better job with my healthcare...in fact Governments across the world have proved that they act much more inefficiently, much more expensively, much more aggressively, and much more greedily than a system that is of the people, by the people and for the people. Socialized medicine is NOT THE ANSWER. To simply say your working for "change" does not say that I approve (as a citizen who's government is of me, by me and for me) of the changes.

I wish I could simply throw tea into the river as they did long ago in Boston. I can't. But I can use my words to promote the sanctity of life for the poor, the sick and for the unborn, and I can do this as a conservative. I can use my words to promote low taxes, small government, and fiscal responsibility as a conservative. I can promote legal immigration and protection from my enemies as a conservative. I can promote a strong military as a conservative. I can promote a market, capitalistic system, I can promote the pursuit of happiness, I can promote the freedom to Worship as you see fit as a conservative. I can promote peaceful foreign policy, and technology enhancements as a conservative. And I can promote generosity for all Americans by the people, of the people and for the people as a Conservative.

I am a proud citizen of these United States of America. Maybe the reason I should be elected President of these United States over Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton is that I can protect the identity of our people--the identity that builds our national pride. The other Candidates want us to lose our distinction, lessen our position, and remove the power of the people...

France gave us our lady Liberty...but when we lose ours, what country will we pass her to?

Oh yes...I almost forgot. Happy New Year! Be excited today. This is the day the Lord has made.

Time, History and Tradition

I've been thinking about T.S. Eliot’s essay entitled “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” in which tradition is represented as a constantly evolving, yet continuous thing, which is remade with every addition to it, and which adapts the past to the present and the present to the past.

The knowledge of the past makes us more acutely aware of our present. I'd say that philosophy of "living in the moment" has got us into a bit of a bind in the last generation. There are those who fret the loss of an instrument such as the organ. The statement is not to mean that newer instruments are not held in high regard. Nor are instrumentalists and musicians any less attentive to their craft. What they mean, even if they could not put it into words, is that they mourn the loss of memory and the glory that is lost with it by catering to the here and now.

Skills such as metal-works, sewing and farming continue to breed and ingenuity follows them meaning all is not lost. However, if the history of such things are forgotten, new skills take on a dangerous autonomy, replacing the democratic process of progression and invention.

Thomas Paine wrote in THE RIGHTS OF MAN in 1791

“It has been thought that government is a compact between those who govern and those who are governed; but this cannot be true because it is putting the effect before the cause. For as a man must have existed before governments existed, there necessarily was a time when governments did not exist, and consequently there could originally exist no governors to form such a compact with. The fact therefore must be, that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist."

Autonomy in Government reveals not as much a quest for power as it does a picture of historical amnesia. The erasure of the memory that their place did not arrive by their own power, but by the process of trust of other men, the process of a Christ who's words preceded Him or her and by the development of vast numbers of failed, evil, successful and good government.

Our own democratic device seems to be steeped in this quagmire. Because of the unique frailties and depths of passion and forgetfulness unique to humans, just after the United States Constitution was ratified Thomas Jefferson and James Madison began a campaign to amend it with an explicit twelve-point statement that clearly and unambiguously placed humans - the builders of government - above their entity--the structure of Government. This was the birth of what would become the Bill of Rights, and it originally had twelve - not ten - protections for citizens’ rights.

Consider the following two statements:

"The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own
generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe. . .has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. . . No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone."
(T.S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent")

"'I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting
present.'" (W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence 79)

The path we choose to follow steps underneath one or the other of these two statements, thereby leading us to somewhat predictable ends, ironically giving creedance to T.S. Eliot. One is a very humanist view, the other quite Apologetic.

I am a proponent of modernism, but only that which is influenced by tradition. The tradition of architecure, the tradition of Government or the tradition of Worship.

My set of beliefs and ideas arise from my beginnings, my experience, my own history and the history of my family. And it should be this way. Alone, my most necessary beliefs may be both unjustified and unjustifiable from my personal perspective. But my life in a macro-view shows us my want and will to justify them autonomously will lead instead to their loss. They'll be grouped with the abstract rational systems of the philosophers, enlightened "tolerants" etc. We may think ourselves more rational and better equipped for life in the modern world...in the "here and now" generation. But I believe that we are less well equipped, and our new beliefs are far less justified, for the very reason that they are justified by ourselves. The real justification for a belief and a way of being is the one which justifies it as a prejudice--historically credible and engaged in history, rather than as a rational conclusion of a modern argument. In other words it is a justification that cannot be conducted from our own perspective, but only from outside, as a gathering of precedent and experience and observance and faith. In the same way an anthropologist might justify the customs and rituals of an alien tribe or a geologist tell the story of earth and time.

For example I give the idea of sexuality. The theories of the sexes and of sex vary from society to society; but until recently they have held a consistent contempt for what most agree is the difference between seemly and unseemly conduct. We agreed to abhor explicit sexual display, and expected a character that enabled the sexes and humanity itself to flourish. Moreover the union of marriage held long-standing beliefs that stabilized many societies for many many generations. There are very good anthropological and physical reasons for this. Woman and men have physical characteristics that seem to fit the opposite perfectly...we say "like a glove." Furthermore, we encouraged long-term stability of sexual relations in marriage because we believed it necessary if children are to be inducted into society. These ideas do not stand alone, especially if they are to survive.

Modern invention and technical enhancements catapult humans into believing that all of life is meant for review and change. But, in order to change well, we need our traditions....Traditions and conduct are guided by deep and immovable prejudice, in which outrage, shame, and honor are the ultimate grounds...and worthy of fighting for. In light of the above example, the sexual liberator has no difficulty in showing traditional motives are irrational, in the sense of being founded on no reasoned justification available to the person who holds a different view. And he may propose sexual liberation as a rational alternative, a code of conduct that is rational from a number of varied viewpoints, since it derives a complete code of practice from a transparently reasonable aim, a consistently moving society whose wills change, thereby allowing alternatives to reach sexual pleasure. The result of evolving rationals that are not rooted in tradition should've been anticipated. We've experienced a breakdown in trust between male and female, and have seen a faltering in the reproductive process—a failing and enfeebled commitment of parents to each other and also to their offspring. At the same time traditions and individual feelings based on and fulfilled by them, are left exposed and unprotected. Hence the extraordinary situation in America, where lawsuits have replaced common courtesy, where accusations of “date-rape” take the place of modesty and respect, and where advances made by the unattractive and "ugly" are routinely deemed and judged “sexual harrassment.” We've now seen life without regard for the real social function that prejudice, history and tradition fulfill.

That is, unless we forbid societal amnesia from setting in. History repeats itself only because it has been ignored or forgotten.

God's word tells us not to worry about tomorrow but to concentrate on today. I don't believe that the text eludes to an abolishment of the past, but the fulfillment of it.

One of my best friends thinks nothing like I do, and we’ve had a few debates. For instance, He believes religion should be enabled by Government but removed from politics. I argue that I wake up religious and cannot remove who I am from the process. I'm also a bit of a strict constitutionalist. I don't believe the tenets should be screwed with. You cannot have a constantly changing constitution that floats on the whims of the culture. What if a culture decided that murder was acceptable? Would you change the constitution to clearly define acceptable murder?

My point usually is, "What ever happened to Patriotism?" I remember the historical story about a tea party in Boston that proved we wanted to be different than the Socialist, Fascist Europeans of the time. This history forgotten leads to the repetition of all that was worst in man and in Government. Do we as Americans want nothing more than to lose our identity, one that has brought us greatness, so that we can be like everyone else!!!? Patriotism is bred from historical presuppositions. Our song, "The Star Spangled Banner" depends on them. Many in your Congress encourage the abolishment of who we were. Can you fight against it as we once did? Or are you willing to re-write the song?

Cut-N-Run Club

A little thing has me a bit burned. The left has made it a policy to be against the war. Their slogan used to be "Bush Lied, People died" as if he was the only one who knew anything about anything. Intelligence was what it was. I'm certainly for allowing people their opinion, just as I have mine. The above slogan shows a lot of disrespect for their President and for the American system. I can overlook that. Politics are what they are.

But Hillary's fundraising system is taken a lot of heat and yet she's the media's god-child. Other Dems have gotten themselves in a lot of trouble and yet can't keep their mouth shut about a man who may or may not have wanted a little "tryst" in an airport bathroom. I don't support bathroom shenanigans either, and I can understand some politician's relief to have the heat taken off of them for awhile. But now, Senators Schumer, Durban, Clinton, Obama and others have gone too far. I believe they've gone into traitorous "terror"itory. Dick Durban started the malay about a year ago by comparing U.S. military to Pol Pot and Nazi's. He should've resigned for that. Then Obama during a recent speech said the U.S. Military is killing Innocents and raping women and abusing children. Hillary and others have had the indecency to illegitimize a highly decorated General, General Petraeus, who has been trusted with a huge and very difficult job even before he gave his recent report. These people are cut-n-run artists bent on U.S. failure who have proved that they hate their Military...and I think it's unacceptable. I think it's traitorous.

One doesn't have to like everything the Military does. But there are men and women have are coming home from Iraq and Aghganistan and they have to come home to a nation who's leaders are hell-bent to make us distrust them. A few of you out there had to come home to that very same attitude a few decades back...it doesn't feel good. It's awful.

What kind of political policy allows you to say the most terrible of things for the sole purpose of getting ahead. Is that what we should expect from the leaders of one of the greatest nations in the world? To end this blog let me quote New York Senator Chuck Schumer:

"And let me be clear: the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The lack of protection for these tribes from al Qaeda made it clear to these tribes, “We have to fight al Qaeda ourselves.” It wasn’t that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords had to create a temporary peace here on their own. And that is because there was no one else there protecting them."

Chuck and all the others from the Cut-n-Run club used to rail against the time table, about the civil unrest there (middle 1800's...we sort of had our own civil unrest...it happens when you're trying to develop a country), and about faulty intelligence. Now, they've simply gone to hating the American Military and their capabilities...and have sided with the opinions of the local Iraqi warlords. One can't imagine how amazing this is to me, and it's amazing we're willing to let them get away with it.