Wish I'd said that!

In recent decades, the ACLU has used its so-called "wall" to fight tooth and nail to prevent government sponsorship of the Pledge of Allegiance, memorial crosses, Ten Commandments displays, nativity scenes, Bible displays, and virtually every other acknowdgement of America's religious heritage.

At the same time, it is worthwhile to note that there have been some instances in which the ACLU has endorsed public displays of religion. For example, When New York City Mayor Rudi Giuliani threatened to cut taxpayer funding from the Brooklyn Museum of Art for displaying a painting of the Virgin Mary with cow dung and pictures of female sexual organs pasted all over her body, the ACLU was first in line to defend the display. U.S. District Court Judge Nina Gershon ruled that New York City's elected officials were not allowed to place conditions on the museum's funding.

In another instance, the ACLU offered its support to the taxpayer-funded National Endowment for the Arts, after the agency sponsored an art show featuring "Piss Christ" - an exhibit consisting of a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine.

In the ACLU's myopic world, it appears that the only permissible publicly-funded displays of religion are those which blatantly mock or disparage the Christian faith.

-- Indefensible: 10 Ways the ACLU is Destroying America, Sam Kastensmidt, 2006

Friday, April 17, 2009

Revolt of the Dispossessed

The real disenfranchised Americans -- the ones who believe in America and who largely finance it (against their will, mind you) spoke out loud and clear on Tax Day. The TEA Parties, or the Million Taxpayer March, as Michelle Malkin calls it, demonstrated that there is a limit to how much abuse a free people will accept. It's interesting to note how intolerant the Left can be, especially when their own tactics are used by the other side. What; they expected to have a monopoly on staging protests?

According to some sources, the actual number are likely to meet or exceed one million people. National event coordinator Amy Kremer confirmed that more than 850 separate parties of various sizes were held on the 15th, but the total 'guesstimates' of attendees is still coming in. And the madder folks get, the bigger the crowds will be for future events. Oh, yes; there will be more.

'Fair and balanced?' Not these guys. Meanwhile, the Left continues to paint these parties as gatherings of racists, idiots or "right-wing extremists." Radical libs pretending to be journalists derided the protesters with crude comments related to homosexual behavior. It seems to be a hallmark of the liberal mindset that when someone tries to make a valid point, and they can't offer any logic or reason to rebut that point, the libs revert to their standard operating procedure: insults, lies, degrading remarks, and utter nonsense, all blathered as loudly and continuously as possible to drown out the intelligent half of the debate.

If you think I'm exaggerating, try an experiment. Listen to virtually any TV debate between a liberal and a conservative and see who is the most gracious as to allowing the other to make their point without using up all the airtime with repetition or meaningless babble. Of course, you have to make sure there's a reasonable expectation of evenness. The rare "conservatives" invited to speak on mainstream news shows are generally relatively lightweight or moderate intellectually, although sometimes the libs screw up and invite someone with real moxie, such as Bill O'Reilly's lighthearted 'duel' with David Letterman (Part 1 and Part 2). Even though O'Reilly presents himself as a middle-roader, he still makes more sense in most instances.

Who's side is he on? Now that Obama is back from his "trash-talk and apologize for America tour", he's on track to buddy up to both Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and Cuban stand-in Premier Raul Castro. And the malAdministration has opened confidential files on 'enhanced' interrogation techniques, giving our enemies -- foreign and domestic -- more fodder to use against us, either in the courts or on the battlefields.

The rest of the story. Last time, I gave President Obama credit for authorizing the SEALs to rescue Captain Phillips from the pirates. Apparently, my initial doubts were not misplaced after all. New information implies that the president hampered the rescue by delaying the SEAL deployment for a day and a half , and then by emplacing severe restrictions for any actions they might take. It seems the Navy commanders on the scene "interpreted" their orders in a way that freed them to act accordingly. Thank God for men of character and moral courage.

No way to treat a man of the cloth... The woeful tale of a Baptist minister brutalized by the Border Patrol is a theme that seems to be increasing in frequency. Could he have avoided the punishment by simply answering a couple of routine questions? Probably, and that is a judgment call that more and more of us may have to make in the near future. But the TEA Parties demonstrated that a lot of Americans -- honest citizens -- feel as though they've fallen through the looking glass into a world that most people try to escape, and a world that we helped millions of people around the world to escape. Our natural resistance to authoritarianism is rising, and the government is stepping up its impatience and animosity to meet that resistance. To an outsider (and many of us feel as though we are now) America is not-so-slowly taking the form of the tyrannies we conquered; it's as though they infected us without us noticing.

...Or the uniform. The fallout from poorly-thought-out Dept. of Homeland Security report is spreading. Veterans' groups, individual soldiers and other targeted groups are concerned over the inference that just being a veteran, a Christian, a conservative or a patriot automatically makes you a potential threat. Maybe this is to be expected, however; they perceive the threat to be against the government and not the country. And maybe this is a good thing; after all, tyrants should be fearful of the people. Funny that they don't seem concerned about the groups that have worked against the United States for decades, like the ACLU, and various radical Leftist groups (like ACORN). Oh; that's right, they're all on the same side.

Let me just say this (with apologies to the Borg): resistance may at times be brutal, but it is not futile.

Who Knew? He did. Back in 1987 author Martin Gross (who wrote in the same league as Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler) wrote a cold-war thriller provocatively titled The Red President. As you might deduce, it was about a secret Communist agent who is...well, here's what the blurb on the book itself says: "The American people have cast their votes. And now, the country has a new President. Young and intelligent, charaismatic and compassionate, he is the ideal leader. But behind the smooth exterior he is the ultimate spy...the perfect pawn for the Soviets...an agent with one devastating mission." Prophetic?

Legacy; what legacy? So far, our president has continuously avoided proving his own bona fides for the job, has gone across the globe trashing this nation, has given away secret memos about interrogation techniques (which Congress knew all about years ago), is nationalizing private banks and corporations (also known as one face of fascism), is alienating one of our staunchest allies, has pandered to America-bashing dictators; and the list goes on, including other offenses and errors outlined in this miserable little blog. Allow me to ask, for rhetorical purposes only: What would it take for this nation to bring treason charges against its commander-in-chief? I mean, the Democrats talked about doing it to George Bush, and fair is fair, right? I'm just sayin'.

Barack Obama has the chance to make a real, positive impact on history; to be not only the first black president, but to be a real world leader in the best sense of the word. Instead he has accepted a dogma diametrically opposed to everything that has given him his opportunity, has bowed before demagogues, impugned our international image, weakened our national security and jeopardized our national interests, all the while more or less begging people not to blame him for America's perceived faults and grabbing personal credit for perceived successes. And he has accomplished all this in only four months.

In his short tenure so far, Barack Obama has behaved like a self-possessed minor corporate exec who suddenly marries into the top CEO slot, or a glory-hunting junior lieutenant suddenly given command of his first platoon. He's fantastically positioned to be great, but he seems more interested in merely acting great. What image will he leave black America with when he's done dismantling everything that makes this a great country? What will he do for future black Americans who want to reach for the stars?