dredhawk
Since Jul 5, 1999
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dredhawk
Since Jul 5, 1999
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Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?
The soldier squared his shoulders
And said, No Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint
I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough;
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep...
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills just got too steep,
And I never passed a cry for help;
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fear.
If you've a place for me, Lord,
It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much;
But if you don't, I'll understand.
There was silence all around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
Step forward now, you soldier,
You've borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets;
You've done your time in Hell.
I did not write this
Found it on FR
~ Posted on 06/15/2007 7:35:54 AM CDT by NCDragon (Lifted from the GOE Site) Below is the text of a letter I am sending to Sen. Reid regarding his slanderous comments about Gen. Pace and Gen Petraeus. I hate to see a bully, especially a bought-and-paid-for politician, use their office to denigrate any member of our Armed Forces without just cause, considering that by regulation, they are unable to respond to this little snivelling weasel. Perhaps the Eagles can show "Pinky" the light. Senator Harry Reid 528 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510 Senator Reid You are truly a shallow and petty human being. You have accused two honorable men of incompetence in order to pander to your voting constituents. I am not aware of any information available that would substantiate your claim to your supporters that Gen. Pace and Gen. Petraeus are “incompetent”. Instead, their records demonstrate that they are well qualified to lead our military. Unfortunately, military regulations prohibit them from publicly criticizing you. However, I am not going to stand by while you slander these honorable men. These two men have dedicated their lives to service to their country. They have spent their adult lives in uniform defending this great nation. They are not pay-for-play politicians like yourself. Nor are they armchair generals like yourself. They have actually served on the front lines, and Gen. Petraeus is there now. They have had to make the one call that is hardest for any commander, to commit troops to war to dutifully execute the orders of the Commander-in-Chief to the best of their abilities. They have dealt with losses over many years, both in combat and training, war and peace, and they know the cost of those decisions for the troops and their families. They also know the price of indecision and bloviating for which your Senate (you are the majority leader, so it falls on your head for their performance) is famous. They do not have the luxury of sitting back and throwing stones, but never offering an alternative (like you and your anti-soldier crowd do every day). You sit in the luxury of your taxpayer-provided office and throw criticisms out about honorable men, just to pander to your supporters. You declared that the war is lost which provided a great morale boost for our head-cutting enemies. I have yet to hear from you or any of the Democrats how we might do things differently to win this campaign in Iraq in the on-going War on Terror. The only thing I see daily is your attempts to politicize every action taken in support of victory. I contend that you have failed in your Constitutional duty as a legislator. Did you at any point during their confirmation hearings express any concern over their competence? Can you show me where you stood and opposed the appointment of these two honorable men? If they are incompetent, why did the Senate overwhelmingly confirm them to the positions they currently hold. Did General Petraeus suddenly become incompetent since you voted to confirm him in January of this year? Or did you just say what your political supporters wanted to hear? Your moment of silence for our troops yesterday was great political theater, but your comments about the capabilities of the Commanders demonstrate your true feelings toward our warriors. I noticed you didn’t take responsibility for any of the losses that have been caused by your defeatist remarks. You have disparaged two honorable men who have served their country honorably with devotion and passion and by association all those who serve beside them. You owe both General Pace and General Petraeus a public apology. You owe a public apology to every man and woman who is serving and who has served in this current conflict. And you owe an apology to the American people for allowing your political ambitions and disagreement with the President to cloud your judgment and denigrate the reputations of true patriots. And yes, I do question your patriotism. Joseph S. Downs, Lt Col (Ret) USAF Herndon VA 4th OF JULY 2009 TEA PARTY SPEECH By Ward Dorrity I stand here today not as a Democrat, not as a Republican, but as an American and a patriot. And as an American, the values I hold and the faith and principles that guide me are in direct opposition to the current regime. Murder of the unborn, treason and socialism are not family values! They are not American values. They are not MY values. They are crimes against God, Man, nature, justice and reason. And so it is time - long past time - to stand up and call things by their proper names. If you believe as I do, if you want America to remain a free society governed by the rule of law and not by the whims of men, then you must stand up and make your voices heard. Ideas matter. Ideas have consequences. Our American Republic was founded on an idea – the idea of individual liberty and the personal responsibility that is part and parcel of it. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The sanctity of contracts and private property. The freedom to try. The freedom to fail. The freedom to learn from our mistakes. The freedom to prosper and to keep the fruits of our labors. The freedom to exercise our conscience when it comes to charity and our religious beliefs. We Americans were the first in all the history of the world to claim that freedom as our inalienable right, granted to us by our Creator. But it didn’t take long - less than a generation after the first American Revolution, really - for the assault on the foundations of liberty to begin. Where and from whom did that assault come from? Paul Johnson, a contemporary British historian, identified three main sources of the anti-American, anti-freedom ideas that are now written into our institutional DNA: Karl Marx, father of modern communism, writing in the mid 1800s, described a world in which the central dynamic was purely economic. For Marx – and all those who followed him - human beings were merely bricks and mortar from which a new utopia would be built. Human lives were – and still are - disposable. Conscience and the rule of law were obstacles to be overcome. Sigmund Freud was the father of modern psychiatry, notorious cocaine addict and a suicide. To Freud we were little more than primitives ruled by our sexual impulses. Our civilized personae, we were told, is little more than a thin veneer, easily discarded. Both Freud and Marx were atheists and both assumed that religion, the impulse that moved men and nations, the source of our notions of right and wrong - was a fantasy and always had been. Friedrich Nietzsche, noted German philosopher, was also an atheist. But he saw God not as an invention, but as a casualty. He wrote in 1886: "The greatest event in recent times - that 'God is Dead,' that the belief in the Christian God is no longer tenable - is beginning to cast its first shadows upon Europe." The Christian God, he wrote, would no longer stand in the way of the development of the New Man who would be ‘beyond good and evil’. In Europe, the decline of religion as a guide to conscience and morality would leave a huge vacuum. What would fill that vacuum? Nietzsche understood that the most likely candidate would be what he called the 'Will to Power,' which offered a better and more persuasive explanation of human behavior than either Marx or Freud. In place of religious belief, there would be secular ideology. A culture of life would be supplanted by a culture of death. But above all, Nietzsche believed that the Will to Power would produce a new kind of messiah, uninhibited by religious sanctions, without moral restraint of any kind, and with an unappeasable appetite for controlling mankind. Let's say that again: the Will to Power would produce a new kind of messiah, uninhibited by religious sanctions, without moral restraint of any kind, and with an unappeasable appetite for controlling mankind. We now know that over 220 million - that’s 220 MILLION - people have been killed by their own governments since the beginning of the 20th century. Not casualties of war, but a casualty of the same evil that now appears to have gotten the upper hand here today. It’s that unappeasable appetite to control - and ultimately to consume - mankind. That's who we're dealing with today and that’s the pedigree of their ideas. The Constitution and the rule of law are just so much toilet paper to those who would rule us now. Our values – honor, duty, love of family, love of country, reverence for our Creator - are punch lines to sneering jokes told by smug ‘progressive’ late night TV show hosts to applauding audiences. We’re now in the endgame of Antonio Gramsci’s and Saul Alinsky's heirs and disciples. These are the murderous great-great-great-great-grandchildren of the French Revolution, cold-eyed with contempt for you and yours; spiral-eyed crazy with hate for what you believe in and possessed of that utterly unappeasable appetite for controlling mankind. Just as Hitler was completely candid in "Mein Kampf" about what he intended to do with Germany, the Jews and the world, so the Progressive Left has been completely up front about where they intend to take America, how they've planned to do it and what they're going to do once they get there. So, when it comes to the Constitution and rule of law, it’s only a game - they’ll not only sweep the pieces off the board, they’ll upend the table and put a bullet in you while they’re at it. As far as American Progressives are concerned, rules are for losers and history - god-awful bloody history - is my witness. You’ve got understand that the people who've now gotten their hands on the apparatus of the American State would rather rule in Hell than live in peace with the rest of us. They will happily reduce Western civilization to stinking pile of rubble and corpses as long as they believe that they will be the ones sitting on top of the ruins. Take a good long look at what’s happening now. Then turn around and take another look. You’re not going to talk or vote your way out of the tyranny that’s coming. And that’s precisely the point of tyranny, isn’t it? The reality is that we’ll never see another truly free, open and honest election in this country until after the next American Civil War – the Left, ACORN, massive vote fraud and gutless Republicans have seen to that. One of the great lessons from the history of the twentieth century that so many of us have failed to learn is that your circumstances can and will change overnight. But that’s nothing new. Sophocles wrote well over 23 centuries ago : The firm resolve falters, the sacred oath is shattered; And let none say, "It cannot happen here." Well, it CAN happen here. It IS happening here. There are those who are actually cheering for it to happen here. And then there those of us who see exactly what's going on and are preparing for that distant thunder we can hear rolling through far-off hills. We're preparing for war. Change. Change is coming, oh yes indeed - but it's not what any of that Marxist meat puppet's worshipers bargained for. Ayn Rand had it right all these many years ago when she said that there is no personal neutrality today. You can’t sit this one out. There’s no room for ‘moderation’ here – and if you’re a ‘moderate’ - how well has that worked for you so far? There’s a saying that says that the only thing things you find in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and road kill. None of us have a Get Out of History Free card, either. None. There is hope for the American Republic yet. But you must stand up and make yourself heard, as this may be your last chance to do so for a long, long time - if ever again. Silence now will prove to be deadly later. Time to start getting together with like-minded people. Time to organize your list of Things To Do, Places To Go and People To Meet. Because when your favorite websites suddenly go dark, when your cell phones and other communications nets no longer work, when the roadblocks go up, when you hear that knock on your midnight door - then it’ll be far, far too late. It will be too late unless you're willing, like Atlas, to shrug - and then defend yourself, your family and your country through every art, by every means and with all the skill you possess. Unless you're willing to take action, you aren't going to get your country back, much less preserve your own freedom and dignity – and even your life. So don't just sit there with a pile of ammunition and a gun in your closet. * Participate in the nearest Appleseed Project event and join a community of likeminded people where you’ll learn the history and tradition of the first American Revolution - and learn to shoot like a rifleman while you’re at it. * Join up with Glenn Beck's 912 Project - a latter-day network of the original Committees of Correspondence - to meet more like-minded folks. * Connect with people in your own neighborhood and build your own 'Alarm and Muster' network. In the times to come, you’re going to have to know who you can depend upon. Do it now, for it may be the last chance you're going to get. Ayn Rand once said, "The world is a beautiful place and worth fighting for. But not without Freedom." And for those who think that freedom is passé or over-rated; just wait until you see what your new masters replace it with. We ignore the lessons of history at our peril. 2000 years or so ago, Titus Livy, in the 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." The people of Rome could do neither and a thousand years of darkness followed. So, when we face the dark dawning of our own modern day of which Livy spoke so long ago, there is a history lesson that you all can and must teach. It’s the lesson that courageous American men and women taught the British 234 years ago at Lexington Green and beyond. The lesson is that the pursuit of tyranny comes with a terrible and deadly cost to its perpetrators. For you are what tyrants fear most - informed, armed and unafraid citizens. But if you choose to do nothing and surrender to the evil that has overtaken us, not only is your cause lost, but so is everyone else’s. Your surrender will only strengthen those who would perpetrate their evil on others. And that's the greatest crime of all. Thank you and may God bless and keep you all… -----------------------------------------------------------------------------