Posted on 08/31/2007 6:16:40 AM PDT by PlainOleAmerican
The first truth we must find is a way to swallow this - we have exactly the government we elected!
Our Republican President has a public approval rating hovering around 30% and our Democrat congress has an approval rating down around 20%. Clearly, we don’t think much of our government, but we elected them and what does that say about us?
(snip)
In my last column titled “Ron Paul—A Liberal-tarian, not a Conservative," I demonstrated how easy it is to attack any politician on his alleged voting record, demonize an entire group on the basis of a few in that group who are willing to use unethical tactics to promote their allegedly ethical candidate, and cause a firestorm of political banter, both pro and con, without ever really getting to the heart of the subject at hand.
Welcome to American politics circa 2007
(Excerpt) Read more at capitolhillcoffeehouse.com ...
Excerpt from http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000017.html
We have already deeply shocked and surprised our enemies –- those that are still alive. But from those we thought friends, we have heard a growing stream of bitter invective and shrill hysteria that has risen in pitch above the range of human hearing and is now audible only to the neighborhood dogs. We are called unsophisticated, swaggering cowboys who have somehow stumbled upon vast power, and many of our erstwhile allies have taken to talking to us as you would a four year old holding a loaded gun.
Our critics watch us with an intensity most of us cannot believe or perhaps even imagine, and they are looking carefully, waiting to see what the American behemoth will do next.
At home and abroad, there have been renewed charges of American Imperialism, of cultural and economic hegemony, and of determined efforts on our part to subjugate and dominate the people of the world through our greed, our ignorance and our cruelty.
Once again, events not of our doing have thrust the United States into a position where military engagements on the far side of the world seem inevitable, and no less inevitable are the charges of American Imperialism. If we are to be worthy of the manifest blessings and freedoms we enjoy, we must take these charges very seriously, and be as ruthless in our self-examination as we are on the battlefield.
Unlike the miserable, poorly trained, ill-fed and disgracefully led legions of conscripts we will face on that battlefield, our soldiers are citizen volunteers, and such free people need, and deserve, a cause worthy of their hardships and sacrifice.
And there is no disputing the fact that it is WE who are going over THERE. To the degree that there are civilian casualties (and there will be), it will be their civilians, not ours, that are dying. There are justifications for such a course of action, justifications that tower above the base and criminal plunder of territory and resources. So if we are about to go and inflict such violence, we had better be damn sure we check our motives before we go.
Accusations of “Imperialism” are flung at us so frequently, and met with so little defense, that it is actually shocking to see how easily such a simplisme charge can be overturned.
To be Imperial is to possess, or hope to possess, an empire, and these slanders have been made for about a century now. The Cambridge International Dictionary of English defines “empire” as “a group of countries ruled by a single person, government or country.” Oxford paperback dictionary calls it “a large group of states under single authority.” Cambridge goes on to define “imperialism” as “a system in which a country rules other countries, sometimes having used force to obtain power over them.”
ANY rational person can see that the United States does not meet these qualifications by any stretch of the imagination. What nations do we rule? Whose legislative bodies can we overturn with a wave of the hand? Where on this planet do people live under an American flag who do not wish to? And as Jonah Goldberg correctly points out, where are our governors and our tax collectors so that we can siphon off the meager wages of our Imperial Slaves? What kind of empire does not have these imperial mechanisms?
At the end of World War II, America stood astride the world as the unchallenged military and economic power. The terrible might of Germany and Japan lay crushed in smoldering ruin. Great Britain, bled white by the near-total loss of two successive generations of their best and brightest, was in barely better shape. China was a collection of pre-industrial peasants fighting a bitter civil war, and nowhere in the rest of Asia, Africa or South America did there exist anything more than local defense militias.
Only the Soviets remained as a potent military force -– and that force was essentially tactical, not strategic, in nature. While strong in tanks, artillery and men, it had no navy to speak of, and an air force consisting mostly of close support ground-attack aircraft such as the Il-2 Sturmovik. While effective against ground targets, the Soviets in 1945 had nothing resembling US heavy bombers such as the B-17, the B-24, or the magnificent B-29.
On the other hand, the United States not only had what was far and away the world’s preeminent Navy; we also had large numbers of long-range strategic bombers and swarms of highly-seasoned fighter escorts. We had a Marine Corps flush with victories: battle-hardened men who had invented through blood and horror the means to go ashore on enemy beaches and stay there. We had an Army whose courage and skill in battle was unsurpassed, and whose critical supply and ordinance staffs were, by far, the best in the world.
And, of course, we had the atomic bomb, and the will to use it.
History has never, and will never, record a time when such unchallenged power existed in the hands of a nation, nor of a time when opposing forces were so weak and in such a state of disarray and abject surrender.
And these feared and ruthless Americans, a people who had incinerated cities in Europe and Japan and whose ferocity and tenacity on island jungles and French beaches had brought fanatical warrior cultures to their knees -– what did these new conquerors of the world do?
They went home is what they did. They did pause for a few years to rebuild the nations sworn to their destruction and the murder of their people. They carbon-copied their own system of government and enforced it on their most bitterly hated enemy, a people who have since given so much back to the world as a result of this generosity. They left troops in and sent huge sums of money to Europe to rebuild what they all knew would eventually become trading partners, but also determined competitors. Then they sent huge steel blades through their hard-earned fleets of ships and airplanes and came home to get on with their lives in peace and quiet.
Oh, and some of the islands they had visited had asked to remain under the American flag as territories and protectorates, free to leave whenever they chose.
We are still too close to our actions in those critical years to fully grasp the meaning of what we did. Distant history will show it to be the most magnanimous act in human history, a test of national character passed with such glory and distinction that it baffles and amazes both our friends and enemies to this day.
Read the whole article
http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000017.html
What you posted is not an 'article' its a entry from a blog
I have some problems with Ron Paul, but “conservative” is more vague than “Constitutionalist.” If a man is a Constitutionalist he would have to be a conservative of a TRUE order. I don’t believe that the Libertarian Party people in general are really Constitutionalists; I don’t believe the framers of the Constitution would walk across the street with libertarianism. I don’t believe James Madison would have given the time of day to Neil Boortz (I’m not addressing the Fair Tax when I say that).
In federal judges, we want strict constructionists with regard to the Constitution. We want Constitutionalist. Whether Ron Paul is really a “Constitutionalist” or not, the word is less vague than the word “conservative” these days.
You are asking me to place the US Constitution above God, a God whose divine providence brought forth this great land, a God that if not for his love and mercy we would not even be here to have such a "debate"
Fact is, in very plain terms that have now become obvious to me, you and your peers worship the US Constitution.
I do not understand why I did not see it before.
The quoting like biblical scripture, the fanatic insistence, the infallibility of the document, it's all there.
I guess I can see why you would not understand the true fact that it is God, Family THEN Country.
The Constitution does not alter the fact that there is a God, and he has given to us a duty to our family and home, no matter what nation we may inhabit.
"-- The founding legal document that we revere with the same passion that they do their religion is not a secret known only to a robed cabal.
It is available for study in millions of places, quoted daily and debated in thousands of publications.
It is the key to our success, prosperity, and outlook.
But adopting it is not easy.
It means abandoning the easy satisfaction of blaming others for one's own failures. It means forgoing fatwahs and murdering people who express opinions you find abhorrent. It means enduring the stress and strain of finding a way to make compromise with people you dislike. It means treating women and homosexuals and Jews and much more that they hate with respect and dignity. --"
Excerpt from http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000017.html
But it is a very good blog written by a person that blows out of the water the idea that we are imperialists just itching to violate other countries sovereignty.
That marxist kool-aid is pretty widespread and hard to avoid.
“Do you notice that Ron Paul supporters do not have a coherent plan to deal with Islamic Fundamentalism? Oh, some will say “nuke them” and other childish things, but none offer a real alternative plan.”
Oh but they do.
Their plan is based upon the premise that Islamic Fundamentalism is an offshooot of libertarianism. If we leave them alone, then they will act just like good libertarians and leave us alone.
They also have a Plan B. If the Islamic Fundamentalists don’t leave us alone, then we will fight them on our own streets. And, as the author of this article pointed out, ‘if you really want to see martial law here in the US, then wait until Islamaic Fundamentalistic Terrorism comes to our shores’.
“You know I was thinking about the whole Marque and Reprisal thing the other day since it is so popular among the Paulettes. Seems we have a big old 50 million dollar reward on Osama’s head. That is some pretty good scratch for a small band of mercenaries or some boys from Jersey...”
That demonstrates the lack of thought on the part of many Pual supporters.
Had a very vocal Paulette in this forum tell me that was the way to go. Even said that if there was a $25M bounty, he’d round up his buds and capture the man himself. Pointed out the $50M bounty and offered to make plane reservations to Afghanistan. Never heard back.
“lack of thought”
That sums it up right there.
Where does Ron Paul stand in regards to Israel? I’d really like to get a clear answer.
In the meantime, I’m supporting Duncan Hunter!
“Nowhere is there an authority to declare war on an ideology, no matter how abhorrent we consider that ideology to be.”
Another demonstrate of how Paul supports claim to be ‘constitutionalists’ but lack a basic understanding of the Constitution.
There are two problems with your line of argument. First of all the Constitutional argument. The Congressional Power to declare war is a plenary power, one without limit. Congress can declare war in any way it wishes and against any one it wishes. Consequently, the argument that the actions of Congress are unconstitutional collapse.
Second, the practical argument. By treaty, the US has agreed not to issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal. Check out the Hague and Geneva Conventions of the early 1900.
BY RANDY E. BARNETT
OpinionJournal - Featured Article
Address:http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010344
Then way the quote on your home page? Is the idea that our rights are a gift of God a lie? Why the word Creator in the document that started the journey:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creatorwith certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
Is there some Creator other than God? Is it Jefferson and the men who "created" the constitution? Some magic stone? Some random happenstance?
Are you saying the Founding Fathers we not men of faith?
Did not the Founding Fathers themselves put God and family first above country in the very fact that they formed this nation?
I think you will find many around here that believe our success, prosperity, and outlook comes from a power greater than the Constitution.
I want to learn and you seem to know more than I do.
Teach me.
Congress has limitless power? BS.
The Constitution gives Congress explicitly enumerated powers, not unlimited plenary powers.
If Congress had endless power, then why would the Framers have bothered to list its powers in the Constitution, one by one?
Since the beings of the Republic, arguments have been made, and accepted, that some actions of Congress exceed their delegated powers and are unconstitutional.
When are you going to answer Besco’s qustion: “Where is it stated in the Constitution that we may wage war only on our own soil?”
“A Declaration of War. (also called a Notice of Intent) This must state the reasons for War.”
Are you saying that a “Notice of Intent” as the equivalent of a “Declaration Of War” would satisfy the Constitution? If not, why bring it up? If it does, then how does a “Notice Of Intent” differ from a “Authorization for the Use of Force” Resolution? Looks to me like you just ventured into a swamp here.
“Rational men [lots of libertarians are rational] understand that [constitutionally speaking], we can defend ourselves against enemies, both foreign and domestic, as we see fit, - as long as we do not deny persons in the USA their rights to life, liberty, or property, - in so doing.”
So which do you consider the greater threat:
Islamic Fundamentalistic Terrorism?
Your own Government?
"-- We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness --"
Great concept, -- one that still makes perfect sense if modified as below:
'-- We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are born equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness --'
Did not the Founding Fathers themselves put God and family first above country in the very fact that they formed this nation?
I think the Founding Fathers put our Constitutions principles, our rule of law, above all in the forming of this nation.
People and/or families have many different concepts of God. Much of the political strife of Europe was based on that fact. -- Our Constitution was designed, in part, to end those differences.
You yourself want to change the intent of the founders.
Interesting... I want to explore this further but must tend to my primitive worship ritual and then the family farm South of here until this evening late.
But I do want to continue....
If so, it failed. We still have differences of belief in this country. May I suggest that the Constitution wasn't designed, in part, to end the differences in concept of God, but to allow the freedom of religious expression; not the establishment of a government sponsored religion: Amendment I: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...".
Nowhere do I read in this a Constitutional role in 'end[ing] those differences'.
I’m afraid that his campaign is now based on being against the war in Iraq. That was the main point of the demonstrations and the demonstrators a the Texas Straw Poll, and the theme was stressed by Dr. Paul, himself in his speech on Saturday.
Several of his supporters that I confronted at the Texas Straw Poll got a gleam in their eyes and gleefully told me that Ron Paul’s campaign took off like crazy the same day he lost me: when he criticized the efforts in Iraq and said we should come home before victory is achieved.
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