Chapter 13. Moments in American Leadership

"But as I was among the first who embarked in the cause of our common country.  As I have never left your side one moment, but when called from you, on public duty.  As I have been the constant companion and witness of your distresses, and not among the last to feel, and acknowledge your merits.  As I have ever considered my own military reputation as inseperably connected with that of the army...it can scarcely be supposed, at this late stage of the war, that I am indifferent to its interests."  George Washington  March 15, 1783

As the Treaty of Paris was nearing completion to end the Revolutionary War, General George Washington's officers were in a state of discontent at the prospects of not getting paid, for the country was broke.  Anonymous letters were circulating at the camp at Newburgh, NY urging the army, in the event of a successful treaty, to remain formed in order to pressure Congress into paying them.  This action would essentially create a military government rather than a representative democracy. 

Washington appeared before his officers at a meeting on March 15, and delivered a short prepared speech, dubbed the Newburgh Address.  In it he essentially made his case for patience with Congress and implored the officers to give it, and him, their trust.  As he had done many times before, he put his own reputation and integrity on the line to avoid disaster for the fledgling nation.  After he concluded the speech, however, he sensed that the officers were still angry.

Then, he produced a note describing Congress' monetary dilemma.  He squinted as he read and was thus forced to dig out his spectacles.  This simple action reminded the officers, many of whom didn't know that the General required glasses, of what Washington had done for the country through the war years, and that he indeed had been with them at every moment:  the night time retreat from General Howe's British troops in New York; crossing the Delaware on Christmas Day 1776 to engage the Hessians at Trenton in a surprise counterattack, then success later at Princeton; enduring the miserable winter at Valley Forge in 1777; the training of the troops by Baron Von Steuben; and Washington's inspirational rallying of the retreating American troops at Monmouth.

Having been reminded of their leader's incredible courage and leadership, many wept in shame.  When Washington had left the meeting, the officers quickly resolved to follow Washington's example and reaffirmed their loyalty to the American republic.

It would not be the first or last time that George Washington's personal integrity saved the United States of America from short sighted folly.  We Americans owe this great man our unyielding gratitude and respect.  And, if possible, our emulation of his feats of faith and his strength of character.

Quotient out.

Washington at the Battle of Monmouth

Chapter 12. Get Your Gore-tex, There's More Snow Coming...

There's an rumored phenomenon out there called the "Gore Effect." Whenever the former Vice President arrives at a venue to warn that the next 5 years will be critical to save the planet from the ravages of anthrogenic global warming, the region experiences unseasonably cool weather.

How laughingly fitting that the most visible new disciple of the hoax of the century, President Barack Obama, fresh from his jaunt to the U.N.'s Climate Change Conference, might have to land Air Force One at an alternate location due to a unseasonably strong winter storm bearing down on Washington at this very hour. D.C. has declared a snow emergency.

At tin pot dictator and limousine-rich Copenhagen, the so-called "leaders" of the world sat around eating luxurious food, being waited on and sniffing their own greenhouse gases, while decrying the unfair treatment of the United States toward Mother Gaia and demanding reparations from us.

It's the perfect curtain call for the President, who seems to never tire of striding on to the world stage to stump for yet another economically crippling Marixist program. Galling enough Hugo Chavez, but our own President?

Odd that there was no mention of the recent revelations of data-fixing from East Anglia, sensor hiding from Siberia, and the polar bear exploding Artic Circle. Just the robotic recitation of imminent danger ahead if we don't "act now."

Once he eventually lands back at the capitol Obama can at least claim to have kept the plow and salt truck drivers employed this winter. We're getting used to his snow jobs.

Quotient out.

Chapter 11. Socialism Doesn't Kill People, Socialists Do Part 3: Euthanasia's Example

"Is there any difference between watching someone drowning without doing anything and pushing them into the lake?”

So asked Dr. Eduard Verhagen of the Netherland's University Medical Centre in Groningen, when interviewed in 2006 by the Times (UK) about the impending new Dutch law which legalized "baby euthanasia," effectively expanding the 2002 legalization of euthanasia (anyone over age 12).  Infants could now be put down.  You might say that in 2006 the Dutch finally put the "Youth" in "Euth"anasia.

Dr. Verhagen claims to agonize over each of the several times he has killed an infant.  Nevertheless, he called the new law "a giant step and we are very happy about it."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article737519.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

Verhagen's absurd question about the drowning person belies the fallacy of the euthanasia mindset, in which people who are suffering are better off dead, and even better than that if someone actually intervenes to hasten their death.  But it is instructive to analyze the doctor's wordplay. 

In Verhagen's argument the act of pushing someone into a lake is no different than happening upon someone already in trouble in the water and letting them drown, presumably because the victim drowns either way.  But, the doctor is misusing the analogy, since the predicament of the victim is that he is drowning at all.  How the victim got into the water is not part of the proper argument; in the case of the infant with a disease one could refer to "the pusher" as Fate, Chance or God.  So let's discard Verhagen's comparison.

The real question is, when one encounters a drowning man (a\or infant with a terrible, painful disease) what is the response?

In most real life situations, including those Verhagen describes being a part of, doctors will try to help the victim, to cure them or to at least ease the pain.  This is compassionate and right.  But if that doesn't work, then Verhagen oversteps his moral authority and prescribes the "final solution." 

So here's the analogy:  Encounter a drowning man (infant with disease), perhaps try to help him with a outstreched hand (medicine, surgery, palliative care), but if you can't haul him out of the water (cure him), then you have a choice:  either do nothing while perhaps waiting for another person to help (for instance, a new technology or medicine); or, jump into the lake, swim over to the victim and hold his head under water until he's dead (that would be the analogy to euthanasia).  Verhagen chooses the latter course, in which he actively kills the drowning man, but attempts to make it somehow eqivalent to the passive spectator.  We know that it is not.

Furthermore, doing nothing (a misnomer really but we'll use it) allows for hope, for a cure, for a miracle.  Verhagen's approach, while many times driven by distraught parents and a misguided sense of mercy, simply abandons all hope.

In the utilitarian-socialist world developing around us, choosing to take life becomes something of a bad habit.  That is the danger to America, as we launch into our 27th year of federally approved abortion, several states have indeed approved "assisted suicide," and we wrestle mightily to understand stem cell research and to define marriage.

We've come upon that man struggling in the water.  Time to decide what to do.

Quotient out.

Chapter 10. The First Amendment vs Fascism In Our Churches & The Media

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, 1791

"Fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation... above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online

After the Revolutionary War was won, the Founding Fathers labored to create a governmental structure that both allowed the States to form up into a strong national entity, but also maintained the rights of individuals and States that had already been written into the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. The resulting Constitution and Bill of Rights, has to be counted among the top few documents of human history. The delicate balance that was debated and embodied in the Bill of Rights has enabled our freedom, our industry, and our very lives to flourish for over two centuries.

Not for the first time, however, these "first freedoms" are under attack by a growingly emboldened radical coalition: politicians seeking power, special interests and advocacy groups, and even outright enemies of the United States.

In Connecticut, a state bill (S.B. 1098) was proposed in January 2009, specifically changing the governance structure of the Catholic Church in CT. Ostensibly written to address financial mismanagement amid an embezzlement scandal in 2008, the bill would have fundamentally altered, by force of law, a church's pastor/laity relationship, which in the case of the Catholic Church has existed since the dawn of Christianity, literally since the days of the Apostles. As it turns out the language of S.B. 1098 that would reorganize the Church and emasculate the clergy, seems to be lifted from the strategic planning of an organization called Voice of the Faithful, a collection of liberal Cathlolics and ex-Catholics formed in 2002 to respond to clergy sexual abuse, but which expanded to include defiant radicals bent on "reforming" the the entire Catholic Church, such as Sister Joan Chittister. Those like Sr. Chittister want nothing less than a fundamental upheaval of the Church, goals which are predicated less on dedication to the teaching of the Church than on their own personal, misguided, arrogant, and selfish agendas.

S.B. 1098 failed, mainly due to the outrage of local and national Catholics speaking up against it. Nevertheless, forces continue to push for the dilution of the central tenets of Christianity, if necessary by the forcible takeover of the Church by the State. This will not be the last time we see our churches under attack.

As for the media: in 1949 the FCC adopted the Fairness Doctrine, which stated that due to the limited resource of radio frequencies, broadcasters were required to present controversial issues of the day and to do so in a manner which was, well, fair and balanced. In 1969 the Supreme Court (Red Lion Broadcasting, Inc v FCC) upheld the right of the FCC to enforce the Doctrine, again citing the scarity of the spectrum of broadcast frequencies. In 1987, under President Reagan, the Doctrine was abolished by the FCC; this was before the rise of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, meaning Reagan himself would be at greater risk of media attack without the Doctrine. Yet the principle was, the Doctrine impedes free speech and should therefore be abolished. Over the intervening years various legislators called for reestablishment of the Doctrine, and even a push to codify it into federal law. Curiously, these proponents were all Democrats.

The Fairness Doctrine is not needed. There is no scarcity of frequencies today, and really never was. And yet, the Democrats continue to attempt to exhume it from the deserved grave it inhabits. Clearly the success of conservative media in the last decade has whipped the left into a manic frenzy while they watch their own instruments like Air America founder from mismanagement and irrevelancy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in 2007, announced that she would like to see the Doctrine ressurected. Figures. It would allow the State to force successful broadcasters to offer material from those who- for many reasons- don't have a commercially viable messsage.

True to form, what the left cannot achieve through legitimate argument and advocacy, it seeks to gain through legislative or judicial force. And some day the means may extend to the realm of the baton and gun. It's been done before.

Quotient out.

Chapter 9. Thanksgiving Lesson from 1623: Communism Is A Loser

The 2009 Thanksgiving weekend is coming to an end.  The American tradition of reflecting on the bounty afforded us, how it came to be and how we might keep it is a laudable and useful excercise.  The sharpest lesson, it appears, comes from the very Pilgrims we often remember in between parades, football games and rounds of turkey of various moistnesses.

It turns out that the original societal plan for the Plymouth settlers was a communist system in which stronger, more able bodied men and women were expected to give their all in part to support those who couldn't contribute as much.  It was "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," nearly two centuries before Karl Heinrich Marx was a twinkle in his vater's eye. 

And (surprise) communism was a failure.  In his contemporaneously compiled history of the Plymouth Plantation, pp. 134-136, William Bradford, who was Governor of the Plymouth Plantation in various years from 1621 until his death in 1657, details how the folks of Plymouth didn't take kindly to working in the field or performing labors on behalf of others, without getting compensated.  The able began to feign weakness or illness, or to simply complain to the Governor that things had to change.  Then in 1623, they decided to divide the plantation into equal parcels of land for each family and let them get out of it what they could, meaning generally what they put into it.

And (surprise) privatization was a success.  Men, women and children worked to their potential, because they got to keep the fruit of their labors, rather than giving them over to those who didn't earn it.  Through the centuries of time, Bradford waxes pointedly to us on the communist folly:

"...that ye taking away of propertie, and bringing in coiiiunitie [community] into a coirfone wealth, would make them happy and florishing; as if they were wiser then God. For this comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed much confusion & discontent, and retard much imploymet that would have been to their benefite and comforte..God in his wisdome saw another course fiter [fitter] for them."

Indeed.  Too bad our leaders today don't see the merits of learning the hard lessons of our forefathers, but rather are inclined to believe the fanciful fairy tales of modern day radicals.

Quotient out.

Chapter 8. Another Declaration Worth Fighting For

On Friday, November 20 a group of Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical Christians published a document, the Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience, in which they proclaimed solidarity on common tenets of the Christian faith, as it applies to current modern life. The three basic principles of this Declaration are: Life, Marriage, and Religious Liberty.  We should be inspired by their steadfastness in these most basic aspects of modern Christianity, or more properly stated, classic Christianity struggling to fend off destructive modern secular influences.

Like our own American Declaration of Independence of 1776, the authors boldly put a stake in the ground on certain things. And like the original, this Declaration has heavyweight support, including 125 original signatories and over 187,000 online supporters (at the time of this posting).

Consider a few excerpts to reveal the courageous leadership of the signatories:

“Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense.”

“Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben (‘life unworthy of life’) were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of ‘liberty,’ ‘autonomy,’ and ‘choice.’"

“…we are willing, lovingly, to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage.”

“We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's.”

Read the Manhattan Declaration for yourself, and consider becoming a signatory, at ManhattanDeclaration.org.

Quotient out.

Chapter 7. Socialism Doesn't Kill People, Socialists Do Part 2: Today's Newspeak

"'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently.

'How can I help it?' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.

'Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three.  Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.'"

The chilling torture scene in George Orwell's classic, 1984, offers a glimpse into a future in which the State manipulates the physical records of society, indeed the very memories of its citizens, as a means to control them.  In modern America we have seen this play out in the revisionist histories offered in our liberal universities, as studies emphasize the supposed merits of collectivist oligarchies while decrying the deficiencies and crimes of the American experience.

Another recent example is the way in which language is manipulated to promote a tepid version of our current fight against Muslim extremism so that we will find it acceptable to capitulate both our ideals and our very freedoms to the globalist (defeatist) mindset.

• According the the Washington Post, as early as February 2009, in response to a request from something called the International Commission of Jurists, Pentagon spokesmen were instructed to drop the term "global war on terror" to the broader and fuzzier, "overseas contingency operation."
• In March 2009, Security of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano changed "terrorism" to "man caused distaster."  In explaining this liguistic shift to the German news site Der Speigel, the Secretary said, "That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.”
  
  
  

Or behold the faux indignence of Barney Frank at the bankers and executives whose companies lost billions of dollars in the last 18 months, while he curtly dismisses (and in fact simply filibusters any discussion of) his direct advocacy of the very tactics used to bully financiers into making stupid mistakes, not to mention (and all but a few news outlets will not) the schemes he concocted to prop up Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  He blew the bubble all the way up to the bursting point, then walks away daintily dobbing his hands with a kerchief as if he had nothing to do with the whole affair.  This he can do in his role as Chair of the House Financial Services Committee.  But Frank, in his manic, spittle-driven zeal to avoid accountability, attempts to bully his confronters, as he did in this embarrassing exchange with a Harvard student:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgTUxCpYP2w

In similar confrontations, Frank has never admitted he's ever done anything wrong, or had the slightest culpability in the financial meltdown.

While it's true that the bloom is definitely off Obama's rose, the mainstream media continue to front for a man who clearly has a radical view of what America should be, and how we will get there.  This man has many allies in his quest to normalize Americans to the least common denominator of modern society.

But he is opposed by more, and they will get their say:  2+2=4

Quotient out.

Chapter 6. Rational, Or Just Plain Rationed? It Has Begun...

Earlier this week we learned that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a self-importantly named collection of "private-sector experts in prevention and primary care," sponsored by the HHS's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, had issued new recommendations for mammogram screening:  no screens until a woman is 50, then every two years, and no self-examinations, ever.
http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm

Apparently, the USPSTF influences the way in which insurance companies cover various medical services.  Oddly enough, nearly every oncological organization has expressed various degrees of stupification, confusion, frustration and outright anger at the "private sector experts'"new recommendation, which seems to defy common sense.  Why would one not want to screen for the second highest killer of American women (next to lung cancer)?  It seems that the logic is based part on statistics and partly on the notion that testing earlier is stressful to women.

And yet, according to the American Cancer Society:

"Death rates from breast cancer have been declining since about 1990, with larger decreases in women younger than 50. These decreases are believed to be the result of earlier detection through screening and increased awareness, as well as improved treatment."

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/cri/content/cri_2_4_1x_what_are_the_key_statistics_for_breast_cancer_5.asp

Perhaps we are to take solace in the fact that the USPSTF's recommendation would align America with much of the rest of the world, and in particular with current United Nations WHO standards.  Bitter medicine, to say the least, when one compares U.S. health care with our global brethren.

In an instructive article entitled, "10 Surprising Facts about American Health Care," Scott Atlas writes for the National Center for Policy Analysis:

"Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom...People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed."

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649#_edn1
(and references therein)

The correlation between government-controlled health care, and poor delivery of medical services, is apparent even to those of us not on a panel of "private-sector experts."  In every example of government diddling where the free market can and has worked, costs soar and rationing takes place.

Rationing cancer screens is just the warm up.  Democrat leaders are at this very moment preparing to wrest control of health care decisions from the hands of patients and doctors.  Medical rationing will increase, and the State will have yet another way to bend the will of the people to its own.

Quotient out.

Interlude. Required Reading From IBD Editorials

The attached article from Investor's Business Daily Editorials captures some of the essense of this blog nicely.  And, it's from the horse's mouth, so to speak.  The author, Svetlana Kunin, has experienced life in a socialist country, and now lives in the U.S.  Heed her warning.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=510876

In her book, "The Forgotten Man," Amity Shlaes recounts the American economic history of the 20's and 30's and how so many influential people were initially drawn to Stalin's socialist "paradise," erroneously thinking the Soviets had miraculously solved the ills of inequality.

So much for the tattered, empty promises of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and those of his ilk.  Why are we returning to those tired and utterly dehumanizing philosophies?

Quotient out.

Chapter 5. H1N1? More Like FBC101

There may not be a conspiracy out there regarding the much-touted H1N1 influenza, as far as the actual biological phenomenon is concerned.  But the psycho-sociological exploitation of the (ahem) pandemic should chill you more than a swine-flu fever.

As has been pointed out already in this blog, control of the means of sustenance means ultimate control of the subject's (read: victim's) every action.

Imagine if there was an imminent famine, and government agencies indicated that two portions of food, determined to be the minimum nutritive support needed for survival, would be available for every citizen "shortly."  Then suddenly, the same agencies took a mulligan and announced that not to worry, only one portion would surely be enough.  And then, it turned out that only about 10% of the food necessary give out those portions was actually available.  When inevitably questioned, their rejoinder was wrapped in technical jargon about kilojoules of energy, and glycemic load, and vitamin metabolic absorption rates.

What would happen, in the midst of this looming apparent disaster?  Of course, fear and hording and clamoring for the little food that might be doled out by the state.  Natural enough, as the instinct for human survival is strong.  There could be anger, and violence, and murder, as parents fought for their own children's survival at the deadly expense of the other parents' families.  Imagine that as the government food truck showed up, how men and women would each push and jostle with one hand, while the other was outstretched toward the state-run distributors of food.  Neighbor against neighbor; brother against brother; eventually parent against child.

Now translate imminent famine to H1N1 pandemic.  Translate innoculations to portions of government-doled food.  Translate food truck to health clinics.  And translate desperate citizens to... well, desperate citizens.

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/virus/65979837.html

Now imagine that the government suddenly announced, or someone found out and publicized, that the famine was actually just a normal downturn in food surplus, just like most years.  No big cataclysm, no real need to panic.  All those ugly incidents, the pushing and shoving, the arguments and curses, the violence.  All those people suddenly realizing, in shame, that they had become what they would never want to become...

Getting back to H1N1, it's not clear yet how far the infection has spread in America.  The CDC states that up to 5.7 million people in the U.S. contracted H1N1 between April and July.  Of those, about 1,000 have died.  It is clear that doctors were quickly ordered to stop testing for H1N1 (vs the seasonal flu), making the actual tracking of H1N1 impossible.  Their reasons for doing so are:

"1. CDC believes that regular seasonal influenza viruses will co-circulate with 2009 H1N1 influenza and capturing all laboratory-confirmed influenza will provide a fuller picture of the burden of all flu during the pandemic.
2. There are too many cases of flu to test and confirm so laboratory-confirmed data is a vast underestimate of the true number of cases and this bias would be exacerbated over the course of the pandemic as more and more people become ill.

3. Influenza and pneumonia syndrome is a diagnostic code used by all hospitals. Capturing this number will reflect a fuller picture of influenza and influenza-related serious illness and deaths in the United States during the pandemic. Influenza and pneumonia syndrome hospitalizations and deaths may be an overestimate of actual number of flu-related hospitalizations and deaths, but CDC believes influenza and pneumonia syndromic reports are likely to be a more sensitive measure of flu-associated hospitalizations and deaths than laboratory confirmed reports during this pandemic.

However, the syndromic reports of all hospitalizations and deaths recorded as either influenza or pneumonia will mean that the case counts are less specific than before and will include cases that are not related to influenza infection."

Make sense?  Thought so.
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/update.htm

The point is not whether the outbreak of H1N1, which is demonstrable at some level, is a pandemic or not; or whether somebody botched the estimates of infection or the production of vaccine.  Many good people are trying to protect Americans.

The point is our own behavior.  Without a conscious effort to resist, we will give in to our basest urges if pushed hard enough in the right (wrong) direction.  If there is not enough food.  Or enough vaccine.  Or enough police protection.  Or enough freedom of speech or worship.  Or enough health care.

Fear-Based Control 101

Quotient out.

Chapter 4. Socialism Doesn't Kill People, Socialists Do Part 1 Introduction

Socialist!  Such has become the epithet that makes some of the recent risen stars hurumph indignently.  "Name calling and mean-spiritedness will get us nowhere."  "Those are just words someone told you to say, you're just a right-wing parrot!"  Or, in the words of the Minnesota-born comedian cum statesman:  "That's just stinkin' thinkin'."

It also happens to be the inconvenient and dangerous truth.

Messrs. Merriam and Webster tell us that socialism has the following definitions:

1. any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods;
2. a system of society or group living in which there is no private property;
3. a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state; and
4. a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.
   

The first three definitions allow us to determine whether or not certain current ideas, words and actions from certain folks today fit the definitions, or not.  They do, in fact.  Here are just a few examples:

• On the campaign trail last year, on October 12, 2008, candidate Barack Obama was recorded famously telling plumber Joe Wurzelbacher, "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
• In February 2009, during the speech in which he called Republicans "assholes," Green Jobs Czar Van Jones sarcastically asked a questioner, "how's that capitalism working for you this year?"  He also encouraged intimidation so that certain Senators begin to "act right."  Of course, Jones has since resigned in deserved disgrace.
• Rep. Barney Frank, in March 2009, regarding AIG:  "We own the company.  We are the majority owners.  I think the federal government should now step in as the owner, and say to these employees, our employees, bonus my foot!"
• March 30, 2009, President Obama announced that General Motors Chairman Rick Wagoner would "step aside," not as a condemnation of Wagoner, but rather a recognition that it will "take new vision and new direction to create the GM of the future."
• Outgoing Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis has just agreed to abide by the "request" of Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg, to take no salary or bonus for 2009 because it was "not in the best interests of Bank of America to get into a dispute with the paymaster."
• The six other major corporations that accepted bailout money face similar control under the watchful eye of the paymaster.
• Government and government-secured lender ownership in Chrysler:  10%
• Government ownership of General Motors:  70%
• Government ownership of AIG:  79%
• Government share of spending on health care in the U.S. (pre-health care bill):  56%
• President Obama has stated emphatically on more than one occasion that he wants a single-payer, government run health care system in America.  He is pleased to tell you in his own words:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk&feature=fvw
• On October 29, House Speaker Pelosi made public the 1900+ page proposed health care bill that will cost over $1,000,000,000,000; will expand the (bankrupt) Medicaid program; and includes a nonsensical provision that does not allow private insurers to deny coverage of pre-existing conditions.

Radical leaders are now instituting numerous and vast programs that insert government ownership and control over heretofore mostly private industries.  Car companies, insurance companies, banks, and even more control (complete control, ultimately) of health care.  There was even a recent balloon floated about bailing out the flagging newspaper industry; but that's probably more appropriate for the subsequent chapter on fascism (it's not your grandfather's Nazism anymore...).

The theme of this chapter is murder.  So, where's all the murder?  Patience, the stage needs to be set.  In order for murder to become legal and acceptable, one must first get power and alignment of the economy, politics and the culture.  Deaths follow socialism as day follows night.

Hint:  read Chapter 1.

Quotient out.

Chapter 3. America's Genocide

American deaths from:

382                          Persian Gulf War

759                         Operation Enduring Freedom

2,260                      War of 1812

2,446                      Spanish-American War

4,320                      Operation Iraqi Freedom

4,435                      The American Revolution

13, 283                    Mexican-American War

36,574                     Korean War

58,220                     Vietnam War

116,516                   World War I

405,399                   World War II

620,000                   The Civil War

50,000,000             Legal Abortions since 1973

Yes, despite the horror of American lives lost in war (over 1.2 million), the number pales in comparison to the number of babies killed in the womb since the landmark misplaced Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade.

As one pro-life activist puts it: 

"I had to face up to the awful reality. Abortion wasn't about 'products of conception.' It wasn't about 'missed periods.' It was about children being killed in their mother's wombs. All those years I was wrong. Signing that affidavit, I was wrong. Working in an abortion clinic, I was wrong. No more of this first trimester, second trimester, third trimester stuff. Abortion–at any point–was wrong. It was so clear. Painfully clear."

The activist who stated this had been pregnant in 1973, but the Supreme Court decision came too late for her to obtain a legal abortion and she had her child.  She has since joined the pro-life movement and entered the Catholic Church.

The activist's name is Norma McCorvey, better known under her pseudonym "Jane Roe," the plaintiff in the 1973 tragedy.

Quotient out.

Chapter 2. American Blinkmanship in 2009

Forty seven years ago, in October 1962, the United States was in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  In 2009 we face a growingly defiant near-nuclear Iran; an uncertain strategy for victory in Afghanistan; enemy combatants sitting down in Gitmo; and the ever-apparent risk of terrorists embedded within our midst.  The difference in approach to these situations, so far at least, is striking and alarming.

The Soviets had begun putting nuclear-equipped missiles into Cuba in 1962, as a show of strength and Communist moxie.  The Cold War was on the verge of heating up, rapidly, and the crisis became the model for modern day brinkmanship.  Invoking the Monroe Doctrine in which foreign powers should be actively opposed from political influence in any part of the Americas, President Kennedy boldly declared in a public speech on October 22, 1962: 

"It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."

This was principle; motivated by American power and security, to be sure, but principal nonetheless.  Having the Soviets putting devastating armament at our doorstep was simply unacceptable, even if it dramatically increased the chances for nuclear war.  Fortunately, through tough and shrewd action, rhetoric and negotiation, war was averted.  Kennedy ordered a quarantine that directed the American Navy to detain and inspect any suspicious ship headed for Cuba.  At the same time, communications between Washington and Moscow led the way for an agreement between the leaders.  The end effect:  the Soviets packed up their missiles and went home.  Although later it was revealed that Kennedy secretly agreed to remove missiles from Turkey, the general public consensus was that America won and the Soviet Union lost.  In Dean Rusk's famous phrase, "We were eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked."

Consider now the various words, postures, and actions (or lack thereof) of the current American President in formulating our security paradigm.  Gone are the days when protection of American sovereignty (some might say hegemony) within our own hemisphere, was worth risking it all.  It must not be worth it anymore.  So, for what principal does President Obama stand?

In the midst of a two-front Middle East war, and what might be called the "state of tension" between America and Iran, not to mention South America and North Korea, President Obama wasted the first critical months of his "historic" administration by apologizing for American mistakes, and its success.

Just today we hear of yet another hatched plan to allow the defiant Iran to continue building its nuclear capability, while giving fissionable material to (sit down) the Russians to take care of for them.  There is no plan for Afghanistan, despite the request submitted by General Stanley McCrystal nearly eight weeks ago, for a counterinsurgency strategy similar to the one successfully employed in Iraq.

Other gems of policy include the pledge to empty Gitmo in the next few months (and send those enemies of the U.S. where, exactly?), and the harassment of former CIA agents for being very mean-spirited.  All of this really does, to use the hackneyed phrase, embolden our enemies.  They see the President's indecision and lack of resolve, as weakness and confusion.  And they are right.

And of course, what examination of President Obama's disappointing performance concerning foreign policy would be complete without noting the very pinnacle of the airy nothingness of endless rhetoric and appeasement:  the Nobel Peace Prize.  The NPP was given to Obama apparently due to his potential to make the world more peaceful, since it was decided on just a few days after the President took office.  In reality, it was simply a meaningful gesture utilizing a meaningless prize.  The rest of the world wants the United States weak, or at least think they want us weak. 

What better way to encourage the global-socialist inclinations of a man such as Barack Obama than by putting a lightweight PARTICIPANT medal around his neck, when the official score sheet reads DNF?

Somewhere in the world, one of our many enemies just stated that, "We were eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just ran off to another Letterman appearance."

Quotient out.

Chapter 1. Welfare, Illegitimacy & Abortion: the New Slavery

Human slavery in the United States was an affront to the dignity afforded to each person by our Creator.  Then came the War Between the States to settle the matter. Then came the carpetbaggers.  Then came the Great Society.

According to a 1965 report by the Department of Labor, Black out-of-wedlock births were at about 16% in 1940, and in 1963 were up to 23%.  That was during Jim Crow, when states systematically instituted racist laws.  One concise and direct statement in the DOL report, among many, reads, "By contrast, the family structure of lower class Negroes is highly unstable, and in many urban centers is approaching complete breakdown." 
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/moynchapter2.htm

The Black community had divided into a somewhat healthy middle class and a damaged, debilitated lower class in which the family was disintegrating rapidly.  That was bad enough.

But, by 2005 the Black illegitimacy rate had risen to nearly 70%!  How and why could this be?
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_06.pdf  (page 12, paragraph 2)

In the four decades since the government began "helping" folks via a network of far-flung and expensive programs, the Black family unit has suffered apparently mortal wounds.  Under the laughable guise of equality and empowerment, politicians and societal leaders have dismantled the Black family, and given Black men the out they need to abandon their women and leave their children to the uneven surrogate fatherhood of the State. 

It's not only the oft-repeated phrase that Welfare pays women to have more babies; a new servitude has been instituted whereby Black women face the daunting prospect of raising children alone.  The children are then born into the grim reality of life without a male role model, which is demonstrably hurtful to both boys and girls of any race.  The men are reduced to caricatures of unthinking beasts, without temperance or judgment, and nearly most importantly without jobs. 

Finally, in their desperate search at some sort of dignity and acceptance, these women grasp the most ironic and evil outlet of all:  abortion.  In what other way can the majority of Black women continue to function in the State-sponsored expectation of single-mom households, but to continually service their soon-absent lovers until the only "choice" is to waddle off to the abortion clinic so that the cycle can begin all over again?

And why would any leader be part of this human gristmill?  Power.  Once an entire segment of society has had its economic freedom stripped away, and is completely beholden to the State for (literally) its food, those folks will have no other viable option but to succumb to whatever the State and its leaders beckon them to do.  In America, this means votes.

Two more points.  Obviously out-of-wedlock births are not restricted to only the Black population of America; in fact white illegitimacy has gone from 3% in 1963 to 26% in 2005.  Nevertheless, although the deleterious effects on children and families is similar and independent of race, the sheer numerical weight of having 7 of 10 Black children born out of wedlock is a devastating "force multiplier" that creates large and concentrated pockets of despair.  And finally, yes we live in a free country; yes, these women are choosing to have relations out of wedlock; and yes they could (and some do!) pull themselves up and persevere. 

Still, should our government and our society continue to support such a humiliating and dehumanizing way of life, for any American?

There will be more on this topic.

Quotient out.

Prologue: Dark Days Ahead

There are many ominous clouds gathered above us. The rumbling you hear may be thunder, or may be the hoof beats of ravenous beasts charging closer. Or, perhaps the sound of a cavalry of savior knights.

Time will tell.

In this blog we'll explore the forces drawn against us: against democracy, freedom, faith, and our families; and, some ideas for saving ourselves.

It won't be easy. There will be spilt the blood of martyrs, as there has been in every righteous defense. Very soon you will have to choose sides.

Choose well.

Quotient out.