“I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full-bloom from my brow — they came from the heart of a great nation.”

–Ronald Wilson Reagan

Like many fans of the greatest domestic policy president of the last century, I’ve been trying to find an appropriate way to remember/honor this great man on the centennial of his birth.

Many have written eloquently about his nature, his background, his political philosophy and his accomplishments.  Others are planning magnificent celebrations.  We here at GayPatriot are putting together a small event in Los Angeles.  E-mail me for details.

Yet, as I remember this marvelous man, two things stand one, first, his love for Nancy.  He was born good, but she made him great.  And the second thing perhaps stands out because of the times we’re in and the solutions his successor (in the White House) has proposed.  In contrast to the incumbent chief executive, Ronald Reagan knew in his heart that Americans didn’t need the heavy hand of the state to get them out of an economic mess.  Indeed, he believed that it was the heavy hand of the state which got them into that mess — and which was preventing them from finding a means of egress.

“Government,” he reminded us in his first inaugural address, ” is not the solution to the problem.  Government is the problem”:

Seems that the ideals which define the Tea Party parallel nearly perfectly those put forward so eloquently by the Great Communicator.

Ronald Reagan had great faith in his fellow Americans.  He didn’t believe in seeking solutions in Washington, D.C., but in the ingenuity of the American people, in factories in Ohio, farms in Iowa, labs in North Carolina and yes, even in garages in California.

The Gipper had confidence in the American ideal, belief in American exceptionalism and was convinced that America’s best days were ahead.  Oh, and, he had a deep and enduring love for Loyal Davis‘s little girl.

It is very hard for me to believe that it was 25 years ago this morning when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff.  It was a snow day for me in my senior year of high school on January 28, 1986.  I was home and bored and flipping channels.  I had completely forgotten about the “Teacher In Space” on the Shuttle that day until I came upon the live NASA feed being simulcast on the then-called “Learning Channel”.

So I stuck with it.  One problem, there were no commentators… just the NASA flight announcer.  After the explosion, I just stared at the TV.  When the NASA guy said “Obviously a major malfunction….”, I switched to CNN.

That day is etched into my memory and was a day I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.  It was raw, visual, scary, sad and very emotional to watch the TV coverage.

But then the President addressed the nation in the early evening.

This was one of Ronald Reagan’s finest moments as our President. Remember, this was the man who had steered us out of the greatest economic downturn since WWII (until 2008), restored America’s national defenses, and was on the verge of bringing down the Soviet Union and Eastern European Communism. America was back — until the Challenger explosion rocked our world that day.

This was also probably one of Reagan’s last great moments in office. Within the year, the Iran-Contra scandal would cripple his administration up until nearly the day he left office in 1989. Only his farewell speech would bring back the vintage Reagan that we saw 25 years ago tonight.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

(h/t – Instapundit)

Just realize how much of the movement to wealth & health of the world from 1948 to 2009 is in large measure thanks to the influence of the United States of America.

Coincidence?  Hardly.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I joined the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation as a charter member of some kind a few months ago.  I wanted to be involved during the year of Reagan’s Centennial Birthday Celebration (Feb 6, 2011).

Anyway, as part of the membership I receive various publications throughout the year.  The most recent was a schedule of upcoming events at the Reagan Library related to The President’s 100th Birthday.  On the flip side of the newsletter was this quote, which I thought was appropriate to post today, given the times we live in.

Our Government has no power except that granted by the people.  It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the federal government and those reserved to the states or to the people.  All of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states.  The states created the federal government.

Reagan’s First Inaugural Address – Jan 20, 1981

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

It speaks for itself.  I’m honored that John Schwarzman, the artist, emailed me to make me aware of his work!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Un-effin-believeable.  THIS is the “most educated” President evah?

Some may say it was an accident that he left out “Creator”.  But… and this is important, people… by ignoring that our unalienable rights come from Our Creator, he completely misses the mark on what makes America great!  Before 1776, rights were seen to have been granted by Man (Kings, Queens, etc.)  Our Founding Fathers’ brilliance was that they put a new stake in the ground of mankind. 

Obama, our President, is a complete dope.  I guess they forgot to teach the Declaration of Independence to him in his prep schools in Indonesia and at Harvard.

Let’s help him out a bit. 

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Good heavens.  Can’t everyone but the utmost Bush-haters now see what a complete buffoon America has in the Oval Office? 

So is he just stupid, or is he removing God from the DofI because his political philosophy is that rights come from the State, not the Creator?  If we had a responsible media — we’d have known the answer to that question…. in 2007.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Wow…. two weeks in a row, baby!  Tonight I’ll be talking with Ben Howe — a conservative activist and host of BTR’s “Renewing America”.  Ben attended the “Restoring Honor” rally in DC on Saturday and has some on-the-scene commentary to share. 

(Photo courtesy of Jon Ward from The Daily Caller)

Oh yeah… and I’m broadcasting tonight live from our nation’s capital — Washington, DC.  I couldn’t make it for the 8/28 rally, but I’m here this week for my “real” job.

And I’m just a few blocks from The White House.  Maybe I’ll hop on over to 1600 Penn Ave and ask Michelle for a crumpet.

Tune in tonight at 8:30PM for GayPatriot’s America.  We have a great chat room too!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

My apologies for not getting this up sooner….. I slept in.  Well-needed rest after 6 weeks of constant travel.

Anyway, here is thought number one for 7/11/10:

In 1780, General Cornwallis said of Charlotte, NC that it was a “hornet’s nest” after patriots there harassed his forces during the American Revolution. As a result, Charlotte, now the seat of Mecklenburg County and the largest city in North Carolina, made the hornet its symbol.

In that spirit and given the times we live in, we purchased two new flags for our front porch this weekend.

Secondly, for those of you interested…. after the jump I have printed the FULL FOUR VERSES of our National Anthem — “The Star Spangled Banner”.  HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, y’all.

(more…)

Yesterday we saw history made as the largest take-over by the United States government of a private industry was narrowly passed by the House of Representatives and will soon be signed by the president in the face of an overwhelming opposition from the population of the Nation and zero support from the opposing party whatsoever.

I wrote in my post right after that fateful vote that it was time for America to choose which sort of moment that was to signify. As I slept on it (and wished I hadn’t given up alcohol for Lent) last night, I started thinking about what we do next. And here’s what I’ve come up with:

Last spring we told them “No” at Tea Parties. They responded by calling us all racists.

Last summer we told them “No” at town hall meetings. They responded by calling us un-American.

Last fall, we told them “No” in voting booths in New Jersey and Virginia. And in January in Massachusetts of all places. Their response was not to reconsider their positions in the face of their clear unpopularity, but rather to redouble their efforts to find a way around us and our wishes.

And now it has come to this. We can no longer say, They’re not hearing us; we’ve been loud. We can no longer say, They’re not listening to us; we’ve been clear. The only conclusion we can come to is that they knowingly defied us, and this cannot stand. They must all be removed.

The time has come for action.

It is time now to remove these people from their offices. Every Congressman and Senator who voted in support of the Stalinization of Health Care Act of 2010 MUST lose his or her seat this November 2d. It is imparative for the survival of our Nation.

This is not about malice. It’s not about vengence. It’s not about “teaching them a lesson.” It is simply about caring for our Union. It is the (metaphoric, mind you) watering of the tree of Liberty. (more…)

On June 3, 2008, history was made when the party that once defended slavery and stood in the way of equal rights for black Americans gave Barack Obama enough delegates to make him their nominee for President of the United States.

Never one to pass an opportunity to aggrandize himself, the completely unqualified, dearthly experienced Senator of all of four years from arguably the most corrupt political cesspool in our Nation’s history declared that that was, among other biblical things, “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”.

Rightly (in both senses of the word), he was castigated, but naturally and true to his form, he remained unrelenting in his own beatified view of himself.

Five months later, almost to the day, he was elected our 44th President. And we’ve had many moments since.

Just moments ago, I watched in despair on C-SPAN as the nominally representative body of our most democratic house of Congress openly and actively spited the will of the overwhelming majority of its constituents by passing a bill that will, in effect, federalize and seize control of over 15% of our economy.

Apparently on Tuesday, we can expect President Obama (likely to little fanfare, owing to his acknowledgment that what he is doing is so anathema to the will of those from whom he derives his current position, not to mention the Constitution to which he swore his defense) will sign this insult to liberty into law.

That, my friends, will be a moment to remember.

It will be the moment that our representative form of government will have ceased to exist. It will be the moment that those who deign to represent us in our Legislative and Executive Branches have chosen their own will over that which is clearly ours.

It will be the moment our Nation, whose Founders viewed legitimate government as “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” is now unquestionably ruled by a political class who exercises its power in spite of the governed.

It will be the moment we look back on, ten, twenty, forty years from now, when, in hundreds of trillions of dollars in debt, facing tens of trillions of dollars of costs due to this social experiment, we think: What the hell happened to America, anyway?

It will be the moment when, for the first time in our Nation’s history, the knowing and purposeful execution of innocent unborn human life was bankrolled by taxpayer dollars, a move, according to a November 2008 Zogby poll, opposed by 71% of Americans.

OR

It can be the moment our so-called “representatives” in government finally begin to hear from us.

It can be the moment they look back on in less than 8 months and see as the galvanizing moment when Americans decided to take back their Nation from them.

It can be the Rick Santelli moment times 100.

It can be the moment that people who have been involved in Tea Parties and town hall meetings begin to take real action by RUNNING FOR OFFICE to replace these scoundrels who currently entrench themselves in the ivory halls of OUR government.

It can be the moment that those who were elected by We The People begin to FEAR the People and what we will do to them come November 2, 2010.

It can be the moment we look back on in ten, twenty, forty years, and reflect on a new birth of American Independence and self-reliance. A new birth of a Nation governed by people who hold true to the ideals of our Founders that our government return to “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

It can be the beginning of the end of the “long train of abuses and usurpations” of our current unrepresentative elected officials, and the day Americans once again dedicated themselves to the prospect that “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

What say you, America?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, frm TML)

I’m ticked off that we have to remember Presidents Washington & Lincoln in the same breath as Carter, Obama, Buchanan & Polk.  Let’s never forget that we are SUPPOSED to mark today as Washington’s Birthday.  And let’s learn something while we are at it, eh? (via UnionLeader.com)

Today is not Presidents’ Day. The holiday’s official title is George Washington’s Birthday. It is a day for celebrating the Father of our Country, whose greatness is often forgotten.

Few Americans know that George Washington never received more than elementary-level schooling. But he was a whiz at math, and his sharp mind and appetite for adventure led him to surveying, then to the Army.

Incredibly, in his first military adventure, the totally untrained soldier led an attack on a French force near the Ohio River, killing a French ambassador. Thus began the French and Indian War. Washington was captured and signed a statement, written in French, admitting to what were basically war crimes. In his next battle, Washington advised Gen. Edward Braddock to avoid traditional battle lines in an open field. Braddock ignored him, and the Indians slaughtered the British, killing Braddock. London blamed the colonials, including Washington.

Today, a young soldier’s career probably would be over — if he ever got into the Army with such little education to begin with. Washington soldiered on, eventually leading a small force of mostly militiamen to victory over the greatest military power the world had ever seen.

In 1788, a popular song in the new United States of America was “Great Washington shall rule the land.” But Washington wanted nothing of it. He was nearly broke and needed to restore his farm to profitability. But without campaigning for the job, he was unanimously elected President. He wrote of the results: “My movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution … .”

On his ride to New York City, then the capital, he was serenaded by citizens singing, “Welcome, mighty chief!” Had he sought them, dictatorial powers were his for the taking. But on his inauguration, he wore a plain brown suit fitting of an average American, the first step in his plan to establish that Presidents were citizen executives, nothing more.

“As the first of everything in our situation will serve to establish a precedent, it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles,” he wrote to James Madison. Following his principles, he spent the next eight years retiring the national debt, avoiding foreign entanglements and trying to ensure the stability of the young national government.

When he retired, George Washington was reviled by a large portion of the citizens who owed him their freedom. To avoid war, he had accepted a humiliating treaty with Britain. The newly formed opposition press brutally attacked and mocked him. But Washington never responded. He let the press and the people deride him as he rode home to Mount Vernon, where he died two years later.

Today, George Washington is the dour old man on the dollar bill. In his time, he was a colossus, the general who risked everything to defeat an empire, only to reject his own crown and retire to his farm after ensuring that no one would have the power he refused to take for himself. We owe him everything. Let us remember that, if not every day, at least on this one.

The American liberal wants us to forget about Washington.  He stood for individual freedom and liberty and the power of the people to overthrow tyranny.  They want to marginalize him and give him the “Alinsky Treatment.”

Not on my watch.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

If The Great American Philosopher were here, watching the State of Our Union I do believe he would reflect upon words he wrote hundreds of years ago:

1775 June 26-July 6. “Our attachment to no nation upon earth should supplant our attachment to liberty.” (Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms, B.1.215)

1787 Nov. 13. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.” (to W. S. Smith, B.12.356)

I recalled the ‘tree of liberty’ quote when I wrote the James O’Keefe piece yesterday.  While luckily no blood was shed, I would submit that O’Keefe did spare some of his individual liberty in the cause of the greater good:  protecting the rest of ours.

If only all of us were as brave to stand up to the tyrannical Federal Government that has taken so much of our freedoms away for the past several decades.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I’m writing this on my iPhone with a new WordPress app. If it works, I’ll be blogging more!!

Yesterday, Human Events declared Dick Cheney to be the “Conservative of the Year.” (read the whole thing!)

In Washingtonian “inside the Beltway” terms, the most amazing aspect of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s new clout is that he is achieving it the old-fashioned way: talking about public policy. He is not running for President or any other office. He has not formed a PAC or a D.C. lobbying firm. He is not dishing on former colleagues, not spreading gossip, not settling scores. He is, instead, writing a memoir about his extensive career in public service, and giving occasional speeches and interviews, mostly on national and homeland security policy, long his central focus.

How is it, therefore, that someone who has no political ambitions can cause so much angst at the White House and in the mainstream news media? The irrefutable answer is that what Cheney is saying, primarily on foreign policy, defense and anti-terrorism, makes sense to more and more American citizens growing increasingly worried by the Obama Administration’s insouciance when U.S. national interests are threatened, both at home and abroad.

I’ll go one further. Cheney is without doubt The Conservative of The Decade and perhaps the most important and influential true American Conservative since Ronald Reagan.

Cheney proves again and again that he has core values and principles that are TRULY conservative and mirror the Founding Principles of this nation.

His devotion to individual American freedom and liberty is so pure that he becomes a progressive on the issue of gay marriage.

History will judge Cheney well. He helped make decisions that needed to be made to save the Republic. And I am confident that by 2012, a majority of Americans will only wish that Dick Cheney was our President or Vice President.

- Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan):  The former Vice President is not only, as Bruce noted above, devoted to his country, but also to his family, including his lesbian daughter.  He has treated Mary as we wish all parents to treat their gay children, loving her for who she is, welcoming Heather, her partner, into the family as he has her elder sister’s husband, including that same-sex couple in official events, including three inaugurations.

It is unfortunate that more gay Americans, including the heads of various gay organizations, don’t give this good man his due.  They may not share his politics, but they should at least appreciate his example.

I did not hear the president’s speech yesterday in Oslo when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, so cannot comment on his delivery.

When I started reading snippets on conservative blogs, most singing the speech’s praises (with slight quibbles for some of the language), I thought I was reading something from a speech by John McCain or Joe Lieberman.  So, I printed it out to read at my leisure.

Now that I have read it, I agree that it is very strong speech, if a bit overlong.  My biggest quibble was that he didn’t acknowledge those great warriors throughout history who have secured the peace, whether it be generals like George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant or leaders like Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan.  When the president mentioned the Gipper, he didn’t mention his arms buildup which put the U.S. in a position to promote peace through strength, but cited instead his “efforts on arms control and embrace of perestroika“.

That said, the Gipper would have appreciated the better part of this address.

I absolutely loved his beginning when he acknowledged the “considerable controversy” of his selection.  He called “the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics . . . far more deserving of this honor than” he.

Then, he was wise to describe the war in Afghanistan as “a conflict that America did not seek”.   A great way to introduce the notion of a just war.  Then, in perhaps my favorite passage in the speech (because it relates to some of my dissertation research):

Now these questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease — the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a “just war” emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.

Well said, very, very well said.  Later, after expressing great admiration for Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., two advocates of non-violence, he reminds us that their strategy cannot always work:

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason. (more…)

It is a fitting tribute on the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall to rightly note the man who challenged the evils of Communism, rallied his nation behind him and defeated the oppressive regimes.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has history right as she told our US Congress last week. America won the Cold War through leadership, not waffling:

I think of John F. Kennedy, who won the hearts of the Berliners, when, during his visit in 1961, after the wall had been built, he reached out to the desperate citizens of Berlin by saying, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” I think of Ronald Reagan, who, far earlier than most, clearly saw the sign of the times and, standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate, already in 1987, called out, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” This appeal shall remain forever in my heart.

I thank George Herbert Walker Bush for the trust he placed in Germany and then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl, offering something of immeasurable value to us Germans already in May 1989: partnership in leadership. What a generous offer 40 years after the end of the Second World War.

God Bless Ronald Reagan. No doubt, the greatest President I will see in my lifetime. Today is one of those days when I remember what it is to be an American and the awesome responsibility we have as being freedom’s last beacon of hope.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

While Peggy Noonan is normally Dan’s territory, I hope he will indulge me on this one.  Reason being is that I’m now a self-created student of the “American Generations” after reading “The Fourth Turning“.

Noonan’s column today sums up exactly why, as a Gen X’er, I hold the Baby Boomers in such disdain and long for the day that they have exited our political structure.  Noonan also echoes a lot of what Strauss and Howe said about the Boomers in “The Fourth Turning”.

Her column title sums it up nicely: We’re Governed by Callous Children.

And her last paragraph fits the Boomer Class like a glove:

We are governed at all levels by America’s luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they’re not optimists—they’re unimaginative. They don’t have faith, they’ve just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don’t mind it when people become disheartened. They don’t even notice.

As Strauss and Howe noted in 1997, it is now our time.  The practical Gen Xers & The Millenials have to rescue America from the Baby Boomers who lived their entire adult lives wishing for the ideals of America to end; and are now in the middle of fulfilling those goals.

It is time to take America back from these callous children.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan):  Bruce, of course, I’ll indulge you on this one.

I agree that the column you cite was particularly insightful.  And do hope you’ll indulge me by according me the privilege of writing a followup.

So clearly I intended to write this posting a LONGGGG time ago. I’ve been saving it because both of these books are two of the best I’ve read in a long time. I strongly suggest them as immediate reading. (And in case the FTC is monitoring blogs now, I did not receive any compensation to make these recommendations!)

The first is a work of fiction (I hope) and the second is non-fiction/history.  Both are related to a potential catastrophe facing the United States of America and how its citizens do (or might) respond.

“One Second After” by William R. Forstchen tells the tale of a North Carolina mountain town that struggles to survive after a massive EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack on the USA.  The science behind the fiction is as fascinating and disturbing as the storyline.  In brief, if you explode a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere (as opposed to at ground level), the EMP will fry every type of electronic/transistor in every piece of modern machinery. I don’t want to give away much of the plot — but involves a complete breakdown of civilized society because we are so wed to modern electronics to get through each day.

How serious is the EMP threat you might ask? Chillingly real.  There has been at least one Congressional hearing on the subject each of the past several years.  Here is a link to an account of the most recent (July 2009).

If you want a great “future is now” thriller that will keep you turning pages and crapping your pants wondering when this might happen for real — definitely buy “One Second After“.

My second recommendation is a relatively “old” book (1997) that just came to my attention recently.  It is called “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe.   Here’s the Amazon.com review which sums it up nicely:

The Fourth Turning continues the project of mapping out the place of generations in history, a project begun in the authors’ earlier books Generations and 13th Gen. If millennial fever takes hold, The Fourth Turning may be only the first of an impending wave of pseudo-scholarly tracts prognosticating future (but imminent!) doom as we collectively close the books on this millennium. Those expecting a serious or dry tome might be put off by the authors’ taste for bulleted text and catchy phrasings, but can you blame these guys for wanting to make impending peril as exciting as possible? After all, they think we are headed toward “events on par with the Revolution, the Civil War, or World War II” in the next 20 years. Mixing solid understanding of present generational divisions, with some fairly broad generalizations, Strauss and Howe promise to move from history to prophecy.

Their other two books are now on my list as I’ve become fascinated with the different dynamics of generations, especially as it impacts American history and its future.  Many of their predictions from1997 are today’s headlines, so perhaps it is more impactful to read it now than when it was first published.

So there you go.  Two long overdue book recommendations from me — he who rarely has time to read a magazine!!  I read both of these quickly earlier this summer.  They are both engaging and terrifying at the same time.

My reading habits will hopefully improve since PatriotPartner got me an Amazon Kindle for my 41st birthday last week.  Yay!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Sometimes when you’re reading a speech, you miss something which strikes you only when you see it in isolation.   And so it was when, in these posts, I caught this line from the President’s speech Wednesday to the United Nations:

For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months.

Instead of referencing this nation’s achievements in the 232 1/2 years prior to his inauguration, Mr. Obama tells us what he has done since he took office.

He may talk about “responsibly ending a war” in Iraq, but he doesn’t mention the word, victory, nor the tyrant we overthrew, a tyrant who, by the way, had repeatedly snubbed his nose at the United Nations, you know, the institution he was addressing.

He does not mention how we helped liberate a continent from fascist tyranny.  And the only time he mentions the President who led us to that great victory (a word absent from his discourse) was to reference his “vision for this institution” (i.e., the United Nations).

Nor did mention how Presidents of both parties stood strong against communism and for freedom, waging and subsequently winning the Cold War, bringing down the Iron Curtain and bringing freedom and economic growth to the long-suffering peoples of central and eastern Europe.  Well, he did reference the Cold War, just once, reminding us that it was “long-gone.”  Does he even appreciate how American policies made that so? (more…)