Black XXVIII: "Dutch's Home!!"

Ma'am, my intent was not to dilute or mitigate your message. The message is an appropriate one. I do you and other members of this forum a disservice if I allow my comments to lessen the importance of your message and undermine the gravity of your words. My concern is for those such as yourself, that we do not lose sight of the prize while we focus on the obstacles in front of us.

As long as a remnant exists in America, His protective hand will not be lifted. Those who do not believe may scoff at the notion, yet as long as we still exist He will not turn away; His patience is long-suffering beyond our ability to comprehend.

Yes, we are an ever-shrinking minority, under attack from the unlikeliest of foes. Those who would silence our message do so under the guise of promoting freedom, the very thing we hold most dear in America. A simple statue erected in a small town in Wisconsin a generation ago is virulently attacked in the highest courts in the state because a smaller minority still cannot stand to be reminded of the message of salvation, when displayed in a public place. Yet no hue and cry is heard when Rev. Moon declares himself God on earth. His punishment for the blasphemy? A crown is placed upon his head by an elected representative in a federal building!

It is not yet time. Things must be fulfilled that Christians will never allow to stand, no matter how marginalized we may become. We will have to be eliminated in order to be silenced. I will not lie down. I will not go quietly. I am not alone in this position, either.

281 posted on 06/28/2004 6:11:13 AM PDT by BraveMan

"UVA Football Preview!!"

"The season will be a success if ... Virginia wins the ACC title. Or at least a piece of it. The Cavs can probably handle one league loss, as long as it's not to Miami or Florida State, and still win the title. The lines are too good and there's too much overall talent to hope for anything less than a championship."

WahooWah...MUD

282 posted on 06/28/2004 6:15:24 AM PDT by Mudboy Slim (RE-IMPEACH Osama bil Clinton!!)

"M.Thatcher's Eulogy to Dutch!!"

"We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man, and I have lost a dear friend. In his lifetime, Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America's wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk, yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit, for Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause, what Arnold Bennett once called "the great cause of cheering us all up". His policies had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation, and ultimately, from the very heart of the "evil empire."

Yet his humour often had a purpose beyond humour. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure. And perhaps they signified grace of a deeper kind. Ronnie himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. As he told a priest after his recovery, "Whatever time I've got left now belongs to the big fella upstairs." And surely, it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan's life was providential when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed.

Others prophesied the decline of the West. He inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom. Others saw only limits to growth. He transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity.

Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with the Soviet Union. He won the Cold War, not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends. I cannot imagine how any diplomat or any dramatist could improve on his words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit. "Let me tell you why it is we distrust you." Those words are candid and tough, and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust.

We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan began to reshape with those words. It is a very different world, with different challenges and new dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the world he inherited on becoming president. As Prime Minister, I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. We talked regularly, both before and after his presidency, and I've had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president.

Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm principles and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly. He acted upon them decisively. When the world threw problems at the White House, he was not baffled or disorientated or overwhelmed. He knew almost instinctively what to do. When his aides were preparing option papers for his decision, they were able to cut out entire rafts of proposals that they knew the old man would never wear. When his allies came under Soviet or domestic pressure, they could look confidently to Washington for firm leadership, and when his enemies tested American resolve, they soon discovered that his resolve was firm and unyielding.

Yet his ideas, so clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth. Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion, but he also sensed that it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform. Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow's evil empire, but he realized that a man of good will might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors. So the president resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of those pressures and its own failures. And when a man of good will did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation.

Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than that large-hearted magnanimity, and nothing was more American. Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his achievements. Ronald Reagan carried the American people with him in his great endeavours because there was perfect sympathy between them. He and they loved America and what it stands for: freedom and opportunity for ordinary people.

As an actor in Hollywood's golden age, he helped to make the American dream live for millions all over the globe. His own life was a fulfilment of that dream. He never succumbed to the embarrassment some people feel about an honest expression of love of country. He was able to say "God bless America" with equal fervour in public and in private. And so he was able to call confidently upon his fellow countrymen to make sacrifices for America and to make sacrifices for those who look to America for hope and rescue. With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. And so today, the world - in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw and Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev, and in Moscow itself, the world mourns the passing of the great liberator and echoes his prayer: God bless America.

Ronald Reagan's life was rich not only in public achievement, but also in private happiness. Indeed, his public achievements were rooted in his private happiness. The great turning point of his life was his meeting and marriage with Nancy. On that, we have the plain testimony of a loving and grateful husband. "Nancy came along and saved my soul."

We share her grief today, but we also share her pride and the grief and pride of Ronnie's children. For the final years of his life, Ronnie's mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again, more himself than at any time on this Earth, for we may be sure that the Big Fellow upstairs never forgets those who remember him. And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think, in the words of Bunyan, that "all the trumpets sounded on the other side."

We here still move in twilight, but we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God's children."

FReegards...MUD

283 posted on 06/28/2004 7:36:09 AM PDT by Mudboy Slim (RE-IMPEACH Osama bil Clinton!!)

To: BraveMan; joanie-f

Interesting exchange. I often wonder what it will take to wake up the "sleeple". Another attack on our nation? 9/11 only aroused them from their slumber momentarily - soon they were back shopping at Wal-Mart and watching Springer as if nothing had happened.

Give the masses Bread and Circuses and they will be compliant - it worked for the Romans. Looks like it's working here, too.

284 posted on 06/28/2004 7:52:27 AM PDT by sultan88 (I plan to win one more for the Gipper.)

Jimi Hendrix's "Red House"

Ah yeah!
There's a red house over yonder,
That's where my baby stays
Lord, there's a red house over yonder
Lord, there's where my baby stays
I ain't been home to see my baby
In ninty nine and one half days

Wait a minute, something's wrong here
The key won't unlock this door
Wait a minute, something's wrong, lord, have mercy
This key won't unlock this door
Something's goin' on here
I've a bad bad feeling
That my baby don't live here no more
Never mind i still got my guitar

Well, I might as well go back over yonder,
Way back up on the hill
That's something to do
Lord, I might as well go back over yonder
Way back yonder cross the hill
'Cus if my baby don't love me no more...
I know her sister will
Yeah.

Pre...MUD

285 posted on 06/28/2004 8:26:34 AM PDT by Mudboy Slim (RE-IMPEACH Osama bil Clinton!!)

To: sultan88; Mudboy Slim; joanie-f; BraveMan; snopercod; Minuteman23; jla; MeekOneGOP; Landru; ...

I want to compliment all of you and thank you for your excellant comments. Especially Joanie and Mudboy Slim.

Let's always take heart in remembering:

- Our country overcame British colonialism, and it's gift to us: slavery.

- Our country defeated the Nazis at a heavy cost to our brave young soldiers.

- We have saved Europe from itself; twice.

- We defeated the Japanese their suicide bombers, and their intolerant religion: Shintoism. (In the end of the war; their emporer had to admit he had not been given divine providence by God to conquer the world.)

- We overcame the Communists in the Soviet Union.

- And America can overcome Islamo-facsism as well, but it will take time. We have to drag Muslims kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and force them to confront Islamo-facsism.

That is what will win this war; confront Muslims with the REALITY of their intolerant beliefs, their murderous "Prophet" and his evil ideology, just as the Nazis, Communists, and slave owners all had to be confronted with their evil ideologies.

Ideologies that by the way:
All belong in the dust-bin of history.
http://www.prophetofdoom.net/quotes

May God Bless America and our Republic, for which she STANDS!

Regards

286 posted on 06/28/2004 10:02:00 AM PDT by FBD (...Liberalism- The Religion of Appeasement...)

To: BraveMan; joanie-f; FBD; sultan88; Landru

"...we are an ever-shrinking minority, under attack from the unlikeliest of foes. Those who would silence our message do so under the guise of promoting freedom, the very thing we hold most dear in America."

I must hereby vociferously disagree with this notion that "WE" are an ever-shrinking minority. I simply ain't so...just look how far we've come in a quarter-century. In 1979, the prime rate and inflation and unemployment were all in double-digits...the DemonRAT Socialists controlled both the Senate and the House, as well as the White House...Iranian thugs held dozens of our citizens hostage, and our POTUS was too gutless to bring an end to the stalemate...then Reagan changed the course of history despite the protestations of the nabobs of negativity, and America is in much better shape NOW than we were back then!! Sure, we've still got plenty of work ahead of us, but OUR numbers are growing and WE are impassioned to defeat the Evil of Lib'ralism!!

"It is not yet time. Things must be fulfilled that Christians will never allow to stand, no matter how marginalized we may become. We will have to be eliminated in order to be silenced. I will not lie down. I will not go quietly. I am not alone in this position, either."

The Right Shall NOT Be Defeated...MUD

287 posted on 06/28/2004 10:18:33 AM PDT by Mudboy Slim (RE-IMPEACH Osama bil Clinton!!)

To: FBD; sultan88; 88; cherry_bomb88; XXXXX88XXXXX

"We have to drag Muslims kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and force them to confront Islamo-facsism. That is what will win this war; confront Muslims with the REALITY of their intolerant beliefs, their murderous "Prophet" and his evil ideology, just as the Nazis, Communists, and slave owners all had to be confronted with their evil ideologies."

Dittoes...MUD

288 posted on 06/28/2004 10:20:55 AM PDT by Mudboy Slim (RE-IMPEACH Osama bil Clinton!!)

To: George W. Bush; Reagan Man; Constitution Day; ForGod'sSake; bigman; MeekOneGOP; dead

"White House!!"
(To be sung to Jimi Hendrix' "Red House")

Ah yeah!
There's a White House in Columb'yuh...
That's where George Dubyuh stays!!
Folks, it's THE White House fer the Country...
Lord, not a place fer semen stains!!
It shan't be the home fer John Kerry...
Reject Left's slime...yer vote could sway!!

Leftist Minions, somethin's wrong here...
Yer sleaze supercedes yer Whore'd!!
Mental midgets, Left is Wrong...lord, have mercy...
Liberate Iraq this War!!
Sosh'lists pander to FEAR!!
MUD's a mad man FReepin'...
Whup DemLib'rals 'til they are no more!!
Clinton's crimes shall be avenged, I swear!!

Well, Right's fight is against RATS in this Country...
Build our City on the Hill!!
Gip's dream shall come true!!
Lord, the Right shall swell...attack dopey Lib'rals...
Goin' back to RE-IMPEACH Bill!!
'Cuz if John Ashcroft won't pursue Justice...
I know US FReepers will...Yeah!!

Mudboy Slim

289 posted on 06/28/2004 11:03:16 AM PDT by Mudboy Slim (RE-IMPEACH Osama bil Clinton!!)

290 posted on 06/28/2004 11:26:00 AM PDT by Mudboy Slim (RE-IMPEACH Osama bil Clinton!!)

Clintoon's Leaving the White House

291 posted on 06/28/2004 12:26:27 PM PDT by MeekOneGOP (Call me the Will Rogers voter: I never met a Democrat I didn't like - to vote OUT OF POWER !)

To: Mudboy Slim; joanie-f; sultan88; jla; carton253; MeekOneGOP; Landru; Quix; SamFromSC; Mia T; ...

Excellant read:
http://www.prophetofdoom.net/

>"There are many reasons Islamic clerics are sensitive about having the Qur’an translated into a contemporary language. The most important are that they don’t want anyone to know what it actually says or how poorly it’s written, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Muslims claim that Arabic was Allah’s original tongue and that translations are simply paraphrases. But that would make Allah younger than man because Arabic is one of man’s most recent dialects. It's written form didn’t emerge until the 7th century. And most every important religious word, concept, and name used in the Qur’an was derived from Syriac, the language of Syrian Christians in the 6th century.

Muslims invest a quarter of their school day learning to recite the Qur’an —not reading it or understanding it. They simply learn to mouth its sounds in the arcane, inadequate, and odd dialect of Religious Arabic. That way they can be fooled into believing that it’s “God’s Book,” and that it’s written intelligently. Ignorant, they can be indoctrinated and thus manipulated by clerics and kings. Even turned into human bombs when it serves Islam’s interests.

If Muslims were to shed their yoke of ignorance, they would discover that the real reason those who indoctrinate them, control them, suppress them, fleece them, and abuse them want them deceived is that the actual message contained in Allah’s Book is horrendous. It is more intolerant, racist, punitive, and violent than Hitler’s Mein Kampf. There are one hundred vicious verses for every nice one. The book inspires infinitely more terror than peace.

They would also discover that the Qur’an is poorly written. There are countless meaningless words, foreign words, and missing words which is why translations differ so significantly—everyone is guessing as to what Muhammad thought Allah was trying to say. This is why Gerd Puin, the world’s leading specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Qur’anic paleography, studying the oldest manuscripts, speaks with disdain about the willingness of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to accept Islamic dogma. He says: “The Qur’an claims for itself that it is ‘mubeen,’ or clear, but if you just look at it, you will see that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn’t make sense. Many Muslims will tell you otherwise, but the fact is that a fifth of the Qur’an is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Qur’an is not comprehensible, if it can’t even be understood in Arabic, then it’s not translatable into any language. That is why Muslims are afraid.”

By reading the Qur’an in a language they actually understand, Muslims would find that there is no semblance of order in the central book of Islam either. The Qur’an is a jumbled mess without context, chronology, or rational transitions. It is only by rearranging the Qur’an in the order it was revealed and infusing it with the context of the chronological Hadith narratives, that the book begins to make sense. But by so doing, it becomes obvious that the Qur’an was simply a reflection of Muhammad’s demented character and of his misplaced ambition. The more you know, the more you will come to despise the fraud Muhammad perpetrated on his fellow Arabs and they on human kind. To know the Qur’an is to reject Islam."
~ Craig Winn, author of "Prophet Of Doom"

http://www.prophetofdoom.net/

http://www.prophetofdoom.net/quotes

292 posted on 06/28/2004 3:14:05 PM PDT by FBD (...Liberalism- The Religion of Appeasement...)

"Muslims invest a quarter of their school day learning to recite the Qur’an —not reading it or understanding it. They simply learn to mouth its sounds in the arcane, inadequate, and odd dialect of Religious Arabic. That way they can be fooled into believing that it’s “God’s Book,” and that it’s written intelligently. Ignorant, they can be indoctrinated and thus manipulated by clerics and kings. Even turned into human bombs when it serves Islam’s interests."

Theocracies are scary in the way they indoctrinate the populace, and undermine any expressions of originality...in this respect, I can agree that Radical Islam is every bit as evil as Communism.

FReegards...MUD

293 posted on 06/28/2004 6:24:39 PM PDT by Mudboy Slim (RE-IMPEACH Osama bil Clinton!!)

Give the masses Bread and Circuses and they will be compliant - it worked for the Romans. Looks like it's working here, too … sultan88

Bears repeating.

Thanks.

~ joanie

294 posted on 06/28/2004 8:39:47 PM PDT by joanie-f (The only way to ensure America's liberty and sovereignty is to cling to Reagan's vision ...)

Your Prophet of Doom link provides some of the most useful antidotes for the ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ mantra. A good FReeper friend recently provided me a glimpse into Karen Armstrong’s (c 2000) book, Islam: A Short History. Wish I could send your link to her. Her book asserts that ‘no religion in the modern world is as feared or misunderstood as Islam’ (at least she’s half right). Her book offers ‘a vital corrective to this narrow view’.

It appears that both you and I, and most others on this thread, are prone to ‘narrow-mindedness,’ according to Ms. Armstrong and her ilk. It makes one wonder how someone who purports to be one of the foremost scholars on Islam can have read the violent, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, tyrannical, oppressive, brutal dictates of the Koran and somehow still claim that Islam is tolerant, peace-loving and misunderstood.

I heard Ms. Armstrong interviewed several years ago. She left quite an impression. As a result, and in an effort to prove my own ‘narrow-mindedness’ (by her definition), I’d like to make some assumptions about this book, without even having read it (I wonder if that’s ‘narrow-minded’ enough for her).

Just from reading the introduction (on amazon.com), and from vivid memories of her previous interview, I suspect the book:

(1) is short on honest scrutiny, and long on personal bias, animus against Jews and Christians, and agenda-driven ‘research’.

(2) somehow blames the ‘vices’ of the west … or Judaism … or Christianity … or a handy combination of the three … for Islam’s (reactive, self-defensive) violence.

I’d much rather read your well-researched links, Les. Thanks for continuing to provide them.

~ joanie

295 posted on 06/28/2004 8:45:36 PM PDT by joanie-f (The only way to ensure America's liberty and sovereignty is to cling to Reagan's vision ...)

Perry, I believe we are on the same page, and I’m proud to share it with you. Our differences in scriptural interpretation are minor, and I (and I suspect you) will not quibble about such minor differences. We appear to be in complete agreement about the heart of the message.

A song I’ve never thought much about has been literally haunting me for a few weeks now. It’s one of those songs that we’ve sung so often over the years that the lyrics somehow become lost through the continuous repetition.

I was out in the midwest visiting a friend a couple of weeks ago – and, because of my surroundings no doubt, couldn’t seem to get the beautiful spacious skies/amber waves of grain (words and melody) out of my head for days on end.

Oddly … strangely coincidentally … my youngest sister is getting married this weekend, and my daughter and I are singing and playing the piano for her wedding. My sister and her new husband-to-be are patriots (capital P), and the one and only non-classical piece they have requested is an understated, but moving arrangement of ‘America the Beautiful’. As my daughter and I were rehearsing tonight, I was struck by the words, again, more than I ever have been – perhaps because of the particular frame of mind I am in of late, or perhaps because of the current state of the world, or a combination of the two. Yet I am realizing that they seem so fitting for the remnant, of which you and I and others here on this forum will choose to be a part, during the difficult days that lie ahead. They remind us from where we came, and where our vision must lie.

(Somehow, if not sung, but simply read as prose, they become even more meaningful. Try to read the words without also hearing the melody.):

O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain. America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness. America! America! God mend thine every flaw … confirm thy soul in self control … thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life. America! America! May God thy gold refine, till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years, thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

The song asks God to mend America’s every flaw.

To confirm her soul in self control.

To confirm her liberty in law.

It describes her heroes as having been ‘proved’ in liberating strife … and loving their country more than themselves … and mercy more than life.

It asks God to refine her until all of her successes are noble, and every gain is divine.

Little did I realize, when we were singing these words ad nauseum in the second grade, that these simple ideas could serve as a heartfelt prayer, petitioning Him for help, strength and guidance in all of the areas in which they are now so desperately needed, so many decades later.

~ joanie

296 posted on 06/28/2004 8:57:26 PM PDT by joanie-f (The only way to ensure America's liberty and sovereignty is to cling to Reagan's vision ...)

As a minor character in the big picture over there, would you please convey my best wishes to li'l sis and groom.

Tx.

297 posted on 06/28/2004 9:35:26 PM PDT by First_Salute (May God save our democratic-republican government, from a government by judiciary.)

That is what will win this war; confront Muslims with the REALITY of their intolerant beliefs, their murderous "Prophet" and his evil ideology, just as the Nazis, Communists, and slave owners all had to be confronted with their evil ideologies.

Great post. Thank you.

298 posted on 06/28/2004 10:19:27 PM PDT by Minuteman23

Beautifully said, lass.

299 posted on 06/28/2004 10:21:59 PM PDT by Minuteman23

To: Minuteman23; First_Salute; FBD; BraveMan; joanie-f; Landru; ForGod'sSake

"The Pusher"
by Steppenwolf

You know I've smoked a lot of grass
O' Lord, I've popped a lot of pills
But I never touched nothin'
That my spirit could kill
You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round
With tombstones in their eyes
But the pusher don't care
Ah, if you live or if you die

God damn, The Pusher
God damn, I say The Pusher
I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man

You know the dealer, the dealer is a man
With the love grass in his hand
Oh but the pusher is a monster
Good God, he's not a natural man
The dealer for a nickel
Lord, will sell you lots of sweet dreams
Ah, but the pusher ruin your body
Lord, he'll leave your, he'll leave your mind to scream

God damn, The Pusher
God damn, God damn the Pusher
I said God damn, God, God damn The Pusher man

Well, now if I were the president of this land
You know, I'd declare total war on The Pusher man
I'd cut him if he stands, and I'd shoot him if he'd run
Yes I'd kill him with my Bible and my razor and my gun

God damn The Pusher
Gad damn The Pusher
I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man

Pre...MUD

300 posted on 06/29/2004 4:21:55 AM PDT by Mudboy Slim (RE-IMPEACH Osama bil Clinton!!)

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794