"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out where the strong man stumbled, or where a doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, and who comes up short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause. The man who at best knows the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, fails while daring greatly, so that his place will never be with those cold timid souls who never knew victory or defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt

----------------------------------------------------------

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken....There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Ch. III, "White Blackmail"

----------------------------

"By the mid-1930's, thanks to the New Deal, all that self-reliance had changed, prompting Mencken to declare: 'There is no genuine justice in any scheme of feeding and coddling the loafer whose only ponderable energies are devoted wholly to reproduction. Nine-tenths of the rights he bellows for are really privileges and he does nothing to deserve them.' Despite the billions spent on an individual, 'he can be lifted transiently but always slips back again.' Thus, the New Deal had been 'the most stupendous digenetic enterprise ever undertaken by man.... We not only acquired a vast population of morons, we have inculcated all morons, old or young, with the doctrine that the decent and industrious people of the country are bound to support them for all time. The effects of that doctrine are bound to be disastrous soon or late.'

When someone asked, "And what, Mr. Mencken, would you do about the unemployed?" He looked up with a bland expression. "We could start by taking away their vote," he said, deadpan. Mencken was not surprised when the majority disagreed. "There can be nothing even remotely approaching a rational solution of the fundamental national problems until we face them in a realistic spirit," he later reflected, and that was impossible so long as educated Americans remained responsive "to the Roosevelt buncombe."

"Buncombe," by the way, means either a county in North Carolina, a city in Illinois or another word for "nonsense."

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money- and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being- the self-made man- the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose- because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity- to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality." ~ Francisco's "Money Speech" from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

----------------------------------------------

"Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse."-~Mark Twain~

------------------------------

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds.

Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.

Fight for the underdog anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

People really need help, but may attack you if you help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you've got and you'll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you've got anyway.

------------------------------------

So they've got us surrounded. Good. That simplifies the problem! Now we can fire in any direction, those bastards won't get away this time!"

"Chesty Puller, USMC."

------------------------

"That Ragged Old Flag"

I walked through a county courthouse square

On a park bench, an old man was sittin there.

I said, "Your court house is kinda run down,

He said, "No, it will do for our little town".

I said "your old flag pole kinda leaned a little bit,

And that’s a ragged old flag you got hanging on it".

He said "have a seat", so I sat down,

He said, "is this your first visit to our little town"

I said, "I think it is"

He said "I don’t like to brag, but we’re kinda proud of

"That Ragged Old Flag"

"You see, we got a little hole in that flag there,

When Washington took it across the Delaware.

It got powder burned the night Francis Scott Key sat watching it, writing

"Oh Say Can You See"

It got a rip in New Orleans, with Packingham & Jackson

tugging at its seams.

It almost fell at the Alamo beside the Texas flag,

But she waved on tho.

It got cut with a sword in Chancellorsville,

Got cut again at Shiloh Hill.

There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg,

And the south wind blew hard on

"That Ragged Old Flag"

On Flanders Field in World War I,

She took a bad hit from a Bertha Gun,

She turned blood red in World War II

She hung limp and low by the time that one was through,

She was in Korea, Vietnam, She went where she was sent

by her Uncle Sam.

The Native Americans, The Black, Yellow and White

All shed red blood for the Stars and Stripes.

And here in her own good land,

She’s been abused, burned, dishonored, denied and refused,

And the very government for which she stands

Has been scandalized throughout out the land.

And she’s getting thread bare, and she’s wearing kinda thin,

But she’s in pretty good shape, for the shape she’s in.

Cause she’s been through the fire before

and she can take a whole lot more.

So we raise her up every morning

And we bring her down slow every night,

We don’t let her touch the ground,

And we fold her up right.

On second thought

I do like to brag

Cause I’m mighty proud of

"That Ragged Old Flag"

Written by Johnny Cash

--------------------------------------------------------------------

God bless our country, and the brave men and women defending our right to exist.

In Memorium: My grandfather and namesake Pvc.Kermit Dale Kuhn, KIA in northern Germany,2/27/45.He died giving aid to a wounded soldier.

James Ezell,WW2 vet(Europe),Neighbor,Employer,Taught me how to do trim carpentry,catch bass,smoke trout etc...

James Jacobs, neighbor and friend, March 16, 2003.

Lewis Grizzard,Dale Earnhardt#3, Adam Petty,and the 5,000 poor souls who perished 9/11. WE'LL NEVER FORGET!!