Posted on 09/11/2008 10:57:32 PM PDT by joanie-f
Most conservatives decry the ‘bread and circuses’ atmosphere of modern politics, principally because the consistent focus on meaningless pursuits takes the citizens’ focus away from the important issues … even crises … that must be considered, and faced, if we are to remain a free society.
Our Founders continually warned that liberty, and the republican form of government that is best suited to ensure it, can only be maintained through an informed citizenry.
Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, are necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties.
Many of us consider the ‘bread and circuses’ nature of modern American society to be most frequently exhibited in our adulation of the Hollywood crowd, professional sports figures, and reality programming, the accumulation of creature comforts, the me-oriented nature of the citizenry, the need to ‘be entertained’, etc. … with an incremental de-emphasis on genuine heroes, the importance of personal character and responsibility, and a sense of civic duty ... which includes being educated about our history, and concerned about our future as a free society.
I completely agree that all of the above trends have increased in intensity over the past fifty years, and that, if they continue to gain momentum, our very lives, liberties and sovereignty as a nation are in grave danger.
A sub-level of this toxic trend has become glaringly apparent over the past few weeks of the election campaign.
Our republic is facing potentially deadly crises the likes of which there is no historical precedent:
... and on and on, ad infinitum ...
One would think that, with one of the (if not the) most crucial presidential elections in the history of our republic approaching in fewer than eight weeks, the crises mentioned above would be foremost on the minds of every American who intends to step into the voting booth on November 4th. And, even more importantly, one would think that the American media (the self-appointed purveyors of information and education) would be hard at work seeking, and reporting, the candidates’ opinions on, and proposed solutions to, all of the above.
Yet what do we predominantly see and hear in all of our media outlets? What are we being subliminally told is of utmost importance in this crucial election?
Many of my conservative friends, all of whom are true patriots, have voiced the opinion over the past few days that they are glad Barack Obama and the left are ‘getting a taste of their own medicine’ via the production of the new RNC ad that plays off of Obama’s lipstick/pig gaffe, and they are pleased with all of the attention his gaffe, whether innocent or purposeful, is receiving.
I could not possibly disagree more vehemently.
By producing such an ad, and even debating Obama’s intent – indeed, by even giving credence to this story – conservatives are accomplishing three fatal outcomes:
(1) they are legitimizing the bread and circus atmosphere in this election process
(2) they are stealing a worthless page out of the left’s playbook
(3) they are spending major campaign funds on nonsense advertising that would be better spent educating the public about issues of critical importance to our republic
On my list of 'Things I Want the Voting Public to Know about Barack Obama That the Media Aren't Reporting', there are 8,563 items ahead of the fact that he may (or may not) have referred to his opponent as a pig.
I think the McCain campaign, and the RNC, should be telling us about those 8,563 things in their campaign ads, and leave the lipstick remark to those who believe it has some importance in the grand scheme of things. The fact that they have wasted the donations of loyal Republicans on such nonsense is infuriating to me.
The media, academia, and the political left profit from such abject stupidity. It allows them to fill the airwaves with such drivel, and to scrupulously avoid discussion of Barack Obama’s dark, longstanding connections to anti-American zealots and his agenda to impose his Marxist/black separatist ideology on a populace that has been programmed to be preoccupied with ‘looking the other way’.
Half of the American electorate is ready to put such a man in the White House. And I believe that ninety percent of that group possesses no real knowledge of his infamous background or his ultra-left-leaning agenda.
Why have so many of our countrymen fallen into such an ignorant stupor? Because, for fifty years, we have allowed the leftists in the media, our institutions of ‘higher education’, and Hollywood to incrementally turn our focus away from the enemy within ... and toward tattletale pranks and kindergarten pursuits.
I don't give a rat's patoot what derogatory label one candidate may affix to another. What I do care about is whether that candidate intends to dismantle the noble foundations upon which my country was built.
And the media be damned.
We're going to pay a terrible price for allowing ourselves to be so pliant in the hands of those who most certainly do not have our best interests at heart.
~ joanie
I suppose I will vote for McLaim even though I said I wouldn't.. My hope is that if Sara gets wind of any conniving by McLaim she will threaten to rat him out or even to RESIGN.. or BOTH.. Even though she might end up in FT Marcy Park.. with Park Rangers running the murder investigation like with Vince Foster.. you know investigating a murder on their bicycles, as they did..
True.. a Vice President can be sequestered from reality.. the reality of whats really going on.. but thats my hope.. AT least Sara Palin is for real.. I asked her if she was a RINO.. She said ... NO.. I believe her.. Especially after what she did In Juneau.. She when thru that place like a dose of Ex-Lax.. but still hasn't removed all the corrupted democrats.. Sequestering HER just might be a task the McLaim administration is not up too.. If she feels shes just window dressing she might get a bit upset.. LoL..
Consider the outcome of that senario.. Sara Palin RESIGNING in disgust.. On the otherhand maybe John McLaim got conservative religion.. {pause}...
NAH!.. but dreams can happen.. even miracles with proper prayer.. I'm praying for that girl.. Joan.. Cause no doubt in my mind she needs it.. Prayer for this election is needed too.. However I don't believe in miracles, I rely on them..
A couple of questions:
1. Why are you surprised? What do you expect out of the McCain campaign? Its purveyors, while maintaining a “Republican” label, are of the same exact ilk as the James Carvilles and Paul Begalas of the Democrat Party. All they care about is power, and they will do whatever they think they need to do to obtain it.
2. If you’re infuriated now, how will you control yourself as McCain’s George Soros-funded handlers take their predictable and inevitable steps to continue the destruction of our free republic? How will you handle your share of the guilt for empowering them?
A couple of comments:
McCain has already told you exactly what he will do: “Reach across the aisle.” He won’t save a single baby. In fact, he will ever more deeply entrench the respectability and acceptability of the perpetration of the holocaust, giving credence to the very lies that protect it. He won’t protect marriage or the natural family. He won’t defend our unalienable rights, or the rights to the Blessings of Liberty of our posterity. He scoffs at such notions. John McCain is still John McCain, no matter how many good people lend their reputations to covering for him. Once he has what he wants he’ll discard you like soiled and torn clothing. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
The fairy tale wishes that conservatives are projecting on John McCain right now are shocking in their quality and scope. It’s a mass self-delusion of biblical proportions.
Sarah Palin has no conception of the true role of the executive, or the ways in which the judicial supremacist mindset is destroying the core of American principle and liberty. One of her first acts in office, which checked the legislative branch and empowered a tyrannical out-of-control judiciary which was laying claim to judicial, legislative and executive power, prove this, and her subsequent words in this regard confirm it.
This is no small thing, joanie. It's the exact same fallacy that lies at the root of the implementation of gay marriage, the stripping of the Ten Commandments from the public square, and the judicial murder of Terri Schindler Schiavo.
In the world she is helping to create, judicial oligarchs rule. Not We the People. Not God. Not the rule of law. In this world, the Constitution is a dead letter, and so is liberty.
No it isn't.. at least with many of us..
Social Security is pure socialism.. PURE.. America is already a socialist country.. The capitialization of socialism or the Socialization of Capitalism is well advanced.. like in China and India, and Europe and Canada..
The encroachments of socialism, the sapping of the foundations of liberty, the erosion of the very footings of our free republic, are all well-advanced, yes.
And conservatives have now been suckered so badly, manipulated by fear, that they are carrying the shovels for the most productive sapper of all, John McCain. It’s astounding.
Who was it who said that the tragedy of modern American education wasn't that we were turning out ignoramuses, but that were were turning out savages.
2000 years or so ago, Titus Livy, in his introduction to his monumental history of Rome remarked that his purpose in writing was "to trace the progress of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them."
We may yet have a last shot at curing ourselves of our 'vices' - the rot of MArxism and modern liberalism - and that's with a McCain/Palin win. It would at least be a start, a step in the right direction. We have no shot at all with an Obamanation win.
Bookmark for later study. Looks promising.
Barring a bloody civil war or revolution what would you do?.. Not VOTE?.. I can see making a statement.. by not voting.. But not this time.. The thought of Sara Palin resigning the Vice Presidency.. is just too possible.. An unheard of move.. Historical.. and generating conversation of historical scope.. Will John McLaim veer conservative?, maybe, but probably not.. The horns of a dilema is waiting to gore someone.. Shocking so-called "conservatives" into seeing they are in fact socialists.. Ripping naked conservatives in their ivory towers.. Change can happen.. All because of Palin-esque political moves?.. YES..
Conservatives are not as conservative as they think they are, I think.. The KING is quite naked.. and has a small member besides.. A Palin resignation could speak it..
TigersEye said, "I'm afraid that one of the most important issues, a crisis even, is the ignorance of the foundations of this nation. It is difficult to have a serious political discourse in this nation when 90% of the electorate don't really have a clue as to what the founders intended."
He didn't say that of the 10% remainder, 8% are above retirement age. Three quarters of the 2% left choose to live in the back country where they aren't bothered by fools like us. In our hearts we know we're fighting for a lost cause but it's too painful to admit it so we refuse to lay down and die quietly. That's the way some of us are, too proud to give up the fight because that would mean our entire lives were wasted. Grasp whatever satisfaction you can from knowing that you were one of the few who truly loved America and what she once stood for.
Hold His hand and let Him guide you.
But this I'll remember forever:
However I don't believe in miracles, I rely on them.
Sincere thanks, hosepipe.
~ joanie
Sarah Palin is not Douglas McArthur.
But I cannot share your view of Palin. At the risk of appearing simplistic, can we not overlook what we might see as one flaw (no matter how glaring it may appear), because a myriad of positive achievements and character traits dwarf that shortcoming? I strongly suspect that the errors you perceive in her governance are not the result of any allegiance to a sinister ideology, but rather something much less wicked [I'll let others fill in the blank here, because I don't want to provide fodder for those whose wish to detract from her record or her potential].
You ask me, how will you handle your share of the guilt for empowering them?
I supported every genuine (and some not-so-genuine, but significantly moreso than McCain) Republican primary candidate we had (financially -- to varying degrees, in my writing, and in talking to as many people as I humanly could in my daily walk), until they all bit the dust, leaving only McCain standing once the dust settled.
I also spoke to everyone who would listen about Alan Keyes, and, in all but a handful of cases, there was absolutely no interest in his candidacy. I always received the same responses: (1) he has no name recognition, (2) a conservative black hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell, (3) he's too Christianity-focused, or (4) simply polite, but distrated, attention. I'm not saying their reaction was right or justified (far from it!), simply that that was the reception the mention of his candidacy engendered. That reaction, in small part, serves as a good example of the subject of the essay at the head of this thread.
No, I will not feel guilty about empowering Sarah Palin, and I cannot seek purism at this pivotal juncture in our history.
I wrote the above to hosepipe, and I'll repeat it here:
[Despite the chinks in her armor ... ] This no longer boils down to the quadrennial ‘voting for the lesser of two evils’ conundrum, which I have vowed never to be a party to again. For the first time in twenty-four years, we have a genuine conservative on the ballot. No, she is not in the top spot. But she is there. The Republican ticket contains a fighter who is willing ... in fact determined ... to reclaim America’s status as a ‘shining city on a hill’. And, no matter the odds against her succeeding, I’ll be damned if I won’t do everything within my power to provide her a chance to do so!
If she fails ... if she is prevented from making a difference ... it won’t be because I wasn’t willing to afford her the opportunity ... what I see as the last opportunity for a genuine conservative to reverse the course of our suicidal journey into oblivion.
You have a patriot's heart. I don't say that to many people, and I hold you in the highest regard, but, since two weeks ago, we do see this election from a different perspective.
~ joanie
The finest wine, used in the service of making it desirable for you to drink poison, should be avoided.
One last question: Who is using Sarah Palin, and to what purpose?
A woman who may be a VP is “a pig?” A senior senator is “an old fish” who will “stink?”
Not for one minute would I let Obama forget this one. He's a punk, and the sooner the country knows it, the better.
I was fortunate enough to have attended public school in the late fifties and sixties, long before the Marxist/socialist cancer achieved a major foothold in public school curricula. During that era, American students were primarily taught how to think rather than what to think.
I teach piano and tutor math. In doing so over the last thirty-five years, I have discovered a very disturbing trend. The large majority of the public school (as opposed to parochial school or home-schooled) students I deal with on a daily basis, no matter there innate ability to learn, have great difficult getting from Point A to Point B without a distinct road map. They have been ‘taught’ to need a hand to hold. Unless they have come across a nearly identical problem or challenge, they haven’t the vaguest idea about how to go about solving it.
Such wasn’t the case years ago. The ability to apply critical thought and individual analytical ability were considered the hallmark if a successful education. Not so anymore. Owning such a tool is a distinct threat to the powers that be.
2000 years or so ago, Titus Livy, in his introduction to his monumental history of Rome remarked that his purpose in writing was "to trace the progress of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them."
Your italics are chilling in their accurate application to modern American society.
~ joanie
“...we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them”
Rome did neither and fell.
Either was Doug.. he used the press like rented donkeys..
If she did say it, she would be cleaning out the offices of the Ron Paul campaign headquarters.. America doesnt really want a conservative.. Sara is getting the votes of many women that havn't really thought this Palin(thing) out.. They wouldnt vote for a man with the same views.. probably..
Ron Paul was the ONLY real conservative in this cycle..
America does not want him.. Ron Paul is TOO honest.. He don't know when to CAN IT.. shut up.. appear a bit moderate.. Thats why Sara Palin beat a big time republican and a sneaky corrupt socialist democrat to the be Governor.. both of them were well financed.. AND THEN she set out to upset the chess board in Juneau.. AFTER she won..
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.