[Dick Bachert]

Linda R. Monk, J. D., is a constitutional scholar, journalist, and nationally award-winning author. A graduate of Harvard Law School , she twice received the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award, its highest honor for law-related media. Her books include The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution, Ordinary Americans: U. S. History Through the Eyes of Everyday People, and The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide. For more than 20 years, Ms. Monk has written commentary for newspapers nationwide, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune

[massgopguy]

Another Harvard Law grad. Barney, Barack, Caroline. They seem to be a dime a dozen these days. They also seem to have avoided the courtroom.

[redhead]

It doesn’t have to be like that. A wise president will agree, and will undo the Obamanations that will be put in place. If O really wanted to be a “messiah,” he could win the title by simply announcing an across-the-board ten percent tax cut, followed every other year by another ten percent. If he can do it, so can a Republican president. The one I have in mind wears lipstick.

[JasonC]

Hatred and $2.05 will get you a venti drip coffee at Starbucks.

It solves nothing. The ones that deserve guillotines are those lightly suggesting them.

[Oldpuppymax]

A typical liberal blaming tax cuts and capitalism for the nations financial woes. Government failed! The standard battle cry of a left which believes that its precious federal “Papa Smurf” simply didn’t exercise the proper iron-fisted control over those greedy, irresponsible free marketeers. “If only government had had the necessary power!” “If only government had...” fill in your own blank. Of course it was government which caused the problems with which we are currently faced. But don’t present the left with any such bit of information. Big Brothers solves problems, it doesn’t cause them. Only when sufficient federal power and authority are lacking, only when capitalism is permitted to exist...only them do we have any real difficulties. If you don’t believe me, call any Harvard professor.

[dynachrome]

“A true conservative (Rep or Dem) cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic.”

How many Dems? 1 or 2? And why are they dem-o-rats if that is what they believe?

[griswold3]

Who’s responsible for all this?

The American Voter!
The conditions we will suffer will come from the irrational exuberant American who casts his vote to plunder and pillage the nations treasure without conscience.

Yes, sadly, the party’s over.

[BRL]

All these problems are becuase of 40 years of brain rot in the American public. The rot is our complete embacing of debt at all levels of society. I rarely see it directly addressed. As a society (including conservatives) we have decieved ourselves into thinking we can have something now, and then work to pay for it later. This model always results in defualt.

We borrow to pay for college, we borrow to build schools, we borrow to buy houses and cars and to eat out. We borrow to landscape our houses. We borrow to put granny in a nursing home. We borrow to pay pensions - government and private one.

We are mentally screwed up about how we purchase everything. It will right itself in the end, becuase this model is not naturally sustainable. This model cuase people to make bad decisions on what they buy, it cuases companies and governments to make bad decisions about allocating resources and it undermines overall trust, becuase at some point people/ institutions start putting forth energy to think about how they can get out of fulfilling their obligations. Society gets mentally messed up, they start to think they don't have to pay, and they don't pay (and quite frankly, they can't pay).

As a slight aside, Society even believes that their grandchildren are going to pay all the bills that have been incurred, even if it isn't fair to them. I have news, the grandchildren are not going to pay for all the bad debt issued so that old geezers can have a nice retirement before they were even born.

This system rewards politicians and bankers and other non-producers and takes away from the producers.

Until our minds are changed to really believe that it is wrong to buy so much stuff and fund so much stuff in debt, we are going to be in for a lot of hard times and a lot of hand wringing and troubled times

[jpl]

What the Greatest Generation handed down to us -- the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved -- the baby boomers... have frittered away.

On purpose. That's the absolute most important thing to understand about all this, and the thing so many people don't want to accept.

Great nations are never destroyed from within by accident. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to pull it off.

[tflabo]

“[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” Samuel Adams

[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.” John Adams

“[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Benjamin Franklin
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God?” Thomas Jefferson

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions..... upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” James Madison
“The proptious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” George Washington

When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect this duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted.” Noah Webster

[andy58-in-nh]

We have met the Enemy and he is Us.

After all, who keeps voting for all of the windbags, thieves, charlatans, and extortionists who largely populate Congress? Ask yourself how it is that the United States Senate, formerly known as "The World's Greatest Deliberative Body", is currently host to a collection of cretins (Barbara Boxer), moral reprobates (Ted Kennedy), camera hogs (Chuck Schumer), security risks (Pat Leahy), self-promoters (John Kerry), carpetbaggers (Hillary Clinton), backstabbers (Harry Reid), turncoats (Arlen Spector) and Communists (Bernie Sanders)?

If I forgot bushwackers, cattle rustlers and sh!tkickers, it's only because Blazing Saddles took place in 1874, and people like that used to hang from the end of a long rope. But, as if the status quo weren't bad enough, to their numbers the Senate is about to add this exemplar of refinement, taste, and intellect:

Gee, ya think we're in trouble?

[Nuc1]

What we are witnessing today is how empires end. The Last Superpower is unable unwilling to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars, or balance its budget.

There fixed it. This write up is complete drivel. Might I suggest that the period we are entering is the logical result of decades of subversion by self righteous, narcissistic, communist loving children that now run all branches of the government.

[Dionysius]

“American companies morphed into ‘Global Companies’ and moved plants and factories to Mexico , Asia, China , and India , and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.”

We can gear up to manufacture these things and maybe save our economy in the bargain, but we must ditch the anacronistic unions and let the market control. EPA regs holding back manufacturing and energy production must be suspended or seriously cuttailed as well. Sheesh, we’re in a dire emergency situation which calls for bold measures. We will not survive doing business as usual!

[lonestar]

What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government

I can remember when we had natural disasters and it wasn't government's responsibility.

[Publius6961]

since Santayana declared that "those who fail to learn from history's mistakes are condemned to repeat it them".

There
Fixed it for him.

[CottonBall]

What the Greatest Generation handed down to us -- the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved -- the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.

Sums it up perfectly.

[Paul Ross]

Yes, we did produce a near perfect Republic. But will they keep it? Or, will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path to destruction.
--Thomas Jefferson

He was right.

How many times have deleterious trade actions been taken against the best interests of the majority of citizen s in the country for any number of stupid excuses, or the benefit of the few, such as import lobbyists, the corruptocrats in Mexico and the Chinese Communist Party? Seemingly endless betrayals by the last two administrations.

And the pretext was always..."this will profit us...oops, we mean the U.S."

[RolandTignor]

This was written by Pat Buchanan not Linda Monk.
http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/09/pjb-the-partys-over/

Thanks