Old Lessons Reapplied

My biggest sense of dread in watching the Obama administration is that we have all been there before – if you are a student of history (or if you are old enough) you have seen this show before. One of the things that bothers me the most about the actions of the left in dealing with Afghanistan is that this is how the left dealt with China.

One of the most infamous and shameful betrayals by an American government was the way we walked away from a billion Chinese and left them to suffer under the hands of Mao Zedong. The formula that the left used then is being used now to give up in Afghanistan. You might recall that Chiang Kai-shek was the Nationalist Warlord and leader of the anti-communist forces. You might not have elected Chiang to be your local Boy Scout Troop leader, but as a Chinese leader in 1940s China, he was as good a leader as we had reason to expect. Certainly Chiang established the track on which Taiwan evolved into a democracy while under Mao mainland China evolved into a communist dictatorship and Mao became the greatest mass murderer in history. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision a democratic China under Chiang had the United States continued to provide him with assistance.

I think that we are seeing the left try the same thing with President Hamid Karzai and Afghanistan. How does a country develop a George Washington? I don’t think that any one really knows. Even King George III marveled at the fact that Washington surrendered power after the Revolution and went home to Virginia. Only the legendary Cincinnatus of Rome is said to have done that before. So we need to stop worrying about Karzai and pummel our enemies while Karzai and the Afghan people get their feet on the ground and determine what kind of democracy they will be.

Leftist in the State Department were able to steer a course for our government that sentenced hundreds of millions of people to communist slavery after World War II. China was the biggest example but it was true in Yugoslavia as well. The Western Democracies nearly lost the very cradle of democracy – Greece – to communists.

Democrats (aka progressives, liberals, or leftists) never want to fight the war that we are engaged in. They never can muster the courage or fortitude to finish a fight – they don’t like “victory.” I suppose that President Obama simply wants to give us all a ribbon for participation and bring everyone home. Don’t let them get away with it.

Conservative Resistance – Day 392
Days without a Commander-in-Chief – 93

It’s about time for a test –

If the Grand Old Party has finally issued a statement of principles that it will adhere to – I say, it’s about time. If the “test” is as described below, it is hard to imagine that the Republicans couldn’t find enough candidates and incumbents who could pass such a test. One might even question whether you could get less than a 70% grade on this “test” and still call yourself an American.

It was interesting to note that on a non-scientific poll on AOL 68% of respondents agreed with the concept of having a test while 62% reported that they “passed” the test. That seems to confirm the widely reported claims that twice as many Americans self-identify themselves as “conservative” than “liberal.”

With the inmates running the asylum right now – I can think of no better time for a test. It should get rid of the scandalous outlaws like Dede Scozzafava and Arlen Specter. If this is the “test” – bring it on:

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like [President Barack] Obama's "stimulus" bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated policy position [sic] of the Republican National Committee, as identified by voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support by the Republican National Committee.

Conservative Resistance Day – 390
Days without a Commander-in-Chief – 91

Can you hear me now?

The Honorable James Webb,

I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am in your vote on Saturday night to push forward H. R. 3590 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I tried calling your various offices all day on Friday. Your Washington, DC office was unreachable as were the DC based offices o Mark Warner and several other Senators. Even when I got through to your answering machine in Fairfax, talking to a person was impossible and repeated attempts to various voice mail boxes proved that all were full and couldn’t accept messages. I would like to know what American in his right mind would have voted to move this travesty onto the floor of the United State Senate. What business does socialist trash like H.R. 3590 have on the floor of the most eminent democratic body in the world?

If I was going to fix health care the first thing I would do is take some of the Stimulus money that hasn’t been spent and commission a study. The study would determine why five to fifteen million (no one has an exact count) people who currently rate government funded health care don’t enroll and use it. Aren’t you the least bit curious about that? Solve that problem and you cut the number of uninsured by at least one third.

If we could really save tens of billions of dollars by rooting out fraud from Medicare and Medicaid – why wouldn’t you go ahead and do that anyway? You don’t have to boil the health care ocean to save money – carve that piece out and do it now.

Tort reform works. It is the only thing that we know will corral the dramatic rise of costs. It has worked every single place that they have implemented it – why don’t you take that up? On the other hand, government controlled health care has failed every place it has been tried. Check out Massachusetts, Hawaii, Tennessee, Canada, etc. - the list is endless. As Einstein said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.”

It is becoming increasingly hard to believe that all you democrats don’t have some sinister motive behind your blind rush over this health care cliff. Stop now.

Sincerely Yours,

STOP H.R. 3590

The Honorable James Webb and Mark Warner,
The majority of Virginians do not support the travesty that is H. R. 3590 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We do not want the government in the middle of our health care.
Has it occurred to you and your fellow democrats that the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and all the amendments fit in a pamphlet less than 40 pages long that you can stick in your shirt pocket? How does that compare to this 2,074 page monstrosity that seeks to erase our liberty, tax us to death, and saddle our children and grand children with unmanageable debt?
I hope you were paying attention to the recent Virginia elections. If you support this outrage, we will not forget, and we will defeat you. Don’t try and fix it – it can’t be fixed – bury it. As with everything that this congress has touched, doing nothing would be preferable to what you have come up with.
Sincerely Yours,

Why we need Fox News

I was stuck in the car for quite some time today. The station that I was listening to was the local ABC Talk/News station though it carried the Sean Hannity radio show. Every 30 minutes today Charlie Gibson and the ABC news came on. The principle message about Attorney General Eric Holder’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee today was that he had everything under control and America had plenty of experience prosecuting terrorists. We heard a number of articulate audio sound bites from Holder. However when Hannity came on he ran the audio of Senator Lindsey Graham questioning a stuttering and flustered Holder on the consequences and justification for bringing foreign terrorists into the United States for trial. The difference in the message and the impression it left was astounding. Holder can’t justify his actions and the way he arrived at the decision makes no sense at all.

Would we know anything at all without Fox News and Talk Radio? I think not.

Conservative Resistance Day – 380
Days without a Commander-in-Chief – 81

I watched Oprah for the first time

I used the magic of the DVR to record and then watch the Oprah Winfrey show for the first time in my life. Regular readers no doubt have guessed that I was watching to see former governor Sarah Palin. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was generally disappointed – not a serious question in the bunch. I don’t really care about the wardrobe, Bristol’s baby, or how the family dealt with a Down’s syndrome baby. I didn’t care about Oprah’s sanctimonious explanation as to why she didn’t have Palin on before, nor did I care to relive the Katie Couric interview. I really don’t care about that idiot Levi Johnson.

If I had the opportunity to ask Sarah Palin questions in front of a national audience I might have asked her something of substance:

Had you been elected Vice President how would you have tackled the rising unemployment problem in the United States?

Had you been elected Vice President how would you have recommended President McCain deal with a request for additional troops in Afghanistan?

Had you been elected Vice President how would you have dealt with the potential bankruptcies of Chrysler or General Motors?

Had you been elected Vice President how would you have addressed the rising cost and availability of Health Care in the Unites States?

Had you been elected Vice President how would you have recommended that President McCain deal with Iran and their nuclear program?

Of course I don’t think that Oprah was looking for substance, she was looking for ratings and who could deliver a larger audience than Sarah Palin? Further, Sarah would have sounded a damn sight more presidential than the current temporary occupant of the White House – and Oprah couldn’t have tolerated that. I think that is pretty unlikely that I will ever watch Oprah again.

Conservative Resistance Day – 378
Days without a Commander-in-Chief – 79

Obama discovers that being President is hard

After declaring throughout his campaign that Afghanistan is the war that we had to fight and now 76 days after receiving a plan from the general he picked – Obama declares that he wants more options. More options?

Health Care might be Obama’s Waterloo, but Afghanistan will be the greatest contrast between President Obama and President Bush. Bush didn’t have any good options either, but he made a decision and we are the better for it and so is Iraq. Obama is about to learn an important lesson – there are no perfect plans and even if there were, the enemy always has a vote.

Presidents don’t get to vote “present” and not making a decision in a way is a decision. God help us.

Conservative Resistance Day – 375
Days without a Commander-in-Chief - 76

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

Two Hundred Thirty Four years old and still kicking ass. I can’t begin to describe how proud I am of today’s Marines and their superior performance in the War on Terror.

See the Commandant’s Birthday Message at: http://www.marines.mil/usmc/Pages/2009MarineCorpsBirthdayBall.aspx

Please remember today that some Marines won’t be celebrating the Marine Corps Birthday at a fancy ball, but rather with his/her buddies in a fighting hole in a foreign country with an MRE pound cake and a swig of water from a warm canteen. God Bless them all.

Victory for Diversity

One of the more ridiculous assertions of the liberal left is that diversity is good, that somehow we become stronger through diversity. That is of course absurd. While no one can dispute the contributions of a variety of immigrants to the United States, to mindlessly assert that diversity in and of itself is good is preposterous. One has to look no further than the Fort Hood soldier and terrorist Major Nidal Malik Hasan.

This weekend General George Casey, the Nation’s top soldier said: “Speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers and what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here. It’s not just about Muslims, we have a very diverse army, we have very diverse society and that gives us all strength. But again we need to be very careful about that.”

What?!?! General Casey, diversity does not and has not made the army strong. What makes the army strong is people who subordinate themselves to the ethos, discipline, and goals of the United States and its army. To think that we can recruit people who do not love this country or who do not believe in the war we are fighting and then make excellent soldiers of them is beyond stupid.

Now the government and the army are scrambling to defend keeping an absurd figure in uniform until he lashed out and killed 12 Americans. Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano’s first response to the tragedy was to say: "We object to, and do not believe, that anti-Muslim sentiment should emanate from this," she said. "This was an individual who does not represent the Muslim faith."

What!?!?! These vicious barbarians came boiling up out of the desert in the seventh century and in short order had conquered a good portion of the known world. They were stopped at the Pyrenees Mountains after capturing nearly all of Spain and turned back at Vienna after capturing a substantial part of Eastern Europe. Does anyone hear a chorus of Imams decrying the violence of Hasan and other Muslim homicidal maniacs? No you don’t, but you do hear praise for Hasan’s actions from clerics. To keep insisting that the Koran is a road map for peace and understanding by Muslims of the Christian world ignores the actual words and intent of that book.

General Casey you need to get a spine and Secretary Napolitano you need to get a brain.

Conservative Resistance – Day 371
Days without a Commander-in-Chief - 72

Health Care Abomination

The Honorable James Webb and Mark Warner,

The Health Care bill rocketing through the House of Representatives is an abomination. The Baucus bill in the Senate is equally as bad. If you have any doubts about abandoning this disastrous path, then I recommend that you look at the results of Virginia’s recent elections. There is a wave forming that will sweep away anyone on the Pelosi/Reid/Obama agenda. Candidate Obama ran as a moderate but President Obama seems bent on hard-core socialism. The American people will not stand for this and they are furious. You only had to look out of your office yesterday to know that.

You are old enough to remember the Carter Presidency (the last time democrats held the Whitehouse, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. Democrats ushered in the Reagan Revolution then and you and your colleagues are ushering the next Conservative Revolution now. Don’t be deceived that we haven’t named it yet, it might be the Palin Revolution or the Pawlenty Revolution, it doesn’t matter – it is coming. If you don’t want to get swept aside into irrelevance, you had better start working with your Republican colleagues - now. If you don’t, I pledge my very best effort to unseat you when the time comes.

Sincerely Yours,

Six hundred and twenty six

I am still basking in the positive results from Tuesday’s Virginia Statewide avalanche that buried our democrat foes. With that said, we had a local set-back in the Virginia House of Delegates race that did disappoint. After so many election cycles the failure of people to turn out to vote shouldn’t surprise me, but it still does. There are 2238 active voters on the rolls in my precinct, yet only 626 turned out to vote on Election Day. That is a hair under 28%. There were absentee ballots but they made up less than 4% of the total votes cast. That means that around 15% of the population determined the outcome of this election in Virginia. The news of the impending landslide might have suppressed voters from both sides from coming out – but it still seems unconscionable for 70% of the population to fail to come out and vote. In particular we are now saddled with a ACORN-like local movement who snuck a completely unsatisfactory candidate through to become our new delegate. These local elections are important to cull out bad politicians early. Though Republicans prevailed in Virginia by historic margins, we failed in Prince William County to keep a misfit out of the government.

Conservative Resistance – Day 366
Days without a Commander-in-Chief - 67

VOTE Virginia VOTE

Tuesday 3 November we Virginians have the opportunity to send a message throughout the Nation. I don’t think that it is empty hyperbole to say that the World is watching to see if there is a spark of common sense and courage left in the United States. Virginia is the birthplace of the United States Constitution and of many of the most influential and important Founding Fathers. Together with the voters of New Jersey and the 23rd district of New York we must stagger this socialist administration with the strength of our response. It is not enough to just win, we must bury the opposition. Don’t forget to vote whatever you do.

Conservative Resistance – Day 264

Days without a Commander-in-Chief - 65

Nothing is in the way now Mr. President

In an incredible act of incompetence and political faithlessness President Obama has failed to make a decision on General McChrystal’s request for more troops in Afghanistan for 64 days. Now the rationale for delaying such a decision has vanished with a little third world sleight of hand as Abdullah Abdullah has withdrawn from the very election that Obama wants to wait for. What the news isn’t trumpeting is that this is a typical response in infant democracies when a candidate knows he can’t win. In the twisted logic of the typical left-wing loser, refusing to run for office is supposed to delegitimize the election results. (Maybe Criegh Deeds should try this?). You see even when one million supposedly fraudulent votes were eliminated; President Hamid Karzai still beat Abdullah Abdullah 48% to 27%. Mr. Abdullah can’t win and he knows it. Of course all of this has been common knowledge in the Obama White House the entire time.

I’m no particular fan of Mr. Karzai, but he does appear to be the best of the available candidates and the Afghan people signified their agreement in the last election and would no doubt do so again in the next. Of course we know the real election that Obama is waiting for occurs this Tuesday – November 3rd.

It is yet another grand act of irony as Mr. Obama speaks about the legitimacy of an Afghan election with Al Franken sitting in a seat in the United States Senate and ACORN fraud explosions going off all around the Nation.
There is no impediment to a decision now Mr. President other than your political maneuvering to please the extreme left-wing of your party.

Conservative Resistance – Day 363
Days without a Commander-in-Chief – 64