Bold colors

It's easy to see from the comments below why -- while the rest of the Pyrite State was voting for a muscular fraud -- I voted for McClintock.

He's one of the few people who understand what makes America great and can articulate it.

Don't abandon what is true. Fight for it. From here:

Common Sense After a Close Election
Northern Division Republican Women
Rancho Cordova, California
November 17, 2012

"Now let's pull up our socks, wipe our noses and get back in this fight."

After listening to ten days of hand wringing and doom saying from the usual suspects that Republicans must abandon our principles if we are to survive, we need a little of Mark Twain's common sense. I suggest we all take it to heart.

He said, "We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again -- and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore."

So it is in that spirit that I will begin with three incontrovertible truths about this election.

First, the same election that returned Barack Obama to the White House also returned the second largest House Republican majority since World War II - bigger than anything Newt Gingrich ever had.

Second, according to polls before, during and after this election, the American people agree with us fundamentally on issues involving the economy, Obamacare, government spending, bailouts - you name it.

Third, the American people are about to get a graduate level course in Obamanomics, and at the end of that course, they are going to be a lot sadder and a lot wiser.

That is not to say that there aren't many lessons that we need to learn and to learn well from this election, particularly here in California. But capitulation is not one of them.

Have we forgotten that just two years ago, Republicans campaigned on clear principles of individual liberty and constitutionally limited government? We took strong and united stands to oppose Obamacare, rein in out-of-control spending, roll back the regulatory burdens that are crushing our economy and yes - dare I say it - secure our borders? Have we forgotten that the result was one of the most stunning mid-term elections in American history: a net gain of 63 U.S. House seats, six U.S. Senate seats, 19 state legislatures, six governors and nearly 700 state legislative seats?

Now we're told, just two years later, after a net loss of just eight House seats, two Senate seats and a 2 1/2-percentage point loss of the White House, that we must abandon these principles or consign ourselves to the dustbin of history.

If you want to see a catastrophic election, look at 1976.

We not only lost the Presidency, but as a result of that election the Democrats held 61 U.S. Senate seats (today they have 55); and 292 House seats (today they have just 201).

Then, we heard the same chorus of impending doom that we hear today. We had to moderate our image. We had to broaden our base. In short, that we had to become more like the Democrats.

Here is what Ronald Reagan said to the naysayers of 1976:

Americans are hungry to feel once again a sense of mission and greatness.

I don 't know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, "We must broaden the base of our party"-when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents...

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?

Let us show that we stand for fiscal integrity and sound money and above all for an end to deficit spending, with ultimate retirement of the national debt.

Fortunately, we had the good sense to take that advice, and four years later Ronald Reagan became President, and shortly after that it was morning again in America. That would never have happened if we had listened to the usual suspects of their day and become a pathetic reflection of the Democrats. As Phil Gramm said, "why would anyone want to vote for a fake Democrat when they can have the real thing?"

The first of the cold stove lids we are told not to sit on is illegal immigration. Republicans, they say, must accept the notion that our nation can no longer control its borders and we should declare amnesty for the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens now in this country. We should do so, we are told, because our position on border security has hopelessly alienated Latino voters who would otherwise share our values.

It is true that Latino voters are a growing part of the American electorate - making up ten percent of the vote in 2012, of which 71 percent voted for Barack Obama, according to the CBS exit poll.

Sean Trende is the senior political analyst for Real Clear Politics. Last May, he published an article addressing this argument directly. He made three points.

First, Latino voters are not a monolithic group on this issue. Citing 2008 exit polling, he noted that a majority of Latino voters "either thought that illegal immigration was fairly unimportant or thought that it was important and voted Republican."

So why are Latinos voting for Democrats? Very simply, he said, once you adjust for socio-economic status, Latinos vote pretty much the same as the general voting population. But because they are disproportionately poor, they tend to vote disproportionately Democratic. However, as they begin to work their way up the socio-economic ladder and assimilate into American society, they become more and more Republican.

Second, citing research from the Pew Institute, he pointed out that the wave of illegal immigration has now crested, and may actually be reversing. He noted that every immigration wave has followed this pattern. Those who stay become more and more assimilated and more and more Republican as the years go by.

As recently as 20 years ago, we used to hear a lot about the Italian vote or the Irish vote. We don't hear about that anymore because they have melted into the general population. The demographic tide, he said, is not running against the Republicans, but running with them.

Third, he points out that a very sizeable part of the Republican base is firmly opposed to illegal immigration, and that abandoning that position could be politically catastrophic. He reminded us, "In a large, diverse country, every move to gain one member of a political coalition usually alienates another member."

Heather MacDonald makes the same point in the aftermath of the election. She notes that 62 percent of Latino voters support Obamacare. They overwhelmingly support higher taxes to pay for a larger government and more public services. These are not voters who will suddenly flock to the Republican banner because we have reversed our position on border security.

That's not to say Republicans should ignore the Latino vote - far from it - and I will get to that in a few minutes. But to suggest that Republicans need to reverse themselves on a fundamental issue of national sovereignty and the rule of law is unprincipled, counterproductive, self-destructive and wrong.

Ironically, the issues where most Latino and African-American voters do agree with us are the social issues, like abortion and marriage -- but of course, we're told by the same naysayers that we should repudiate our position on these messy social issues.

Let's look closer at the polling on the social issues. According to exit polling by Public Opinion Strategies, it is true that five percent of voters last week said that the most important issue in their vote for President was their pro-choice/pro-abortion position. Five percent of the entire electorate is nothing to sneeze at.

But four percent of voters said that the most important issue in casting their vote for President was their pro-life/anti-abortion position. That's a statistical tie.

I have a question for you. How many of those hard-core, single-issue abortion-on-demand Obama voters will suddenly switch their votes to Republicans once we've renounced our position on this issue?

Now, here's a bonus question: how many of that four percent of the electorate who support us solely because of our pro-life position are going to stay with us once we have repudiated them?

It is important in politics to know the difference between addition and subtraction. Addition is what creates majorities and subtraction is what destroys them. In this single exercise, we have just subtracted four percent of the entire American electorate from our vote and added little or nothing.

Now, repeat this process on every other so-called social issue, and tell me if we will be better off or worse off for taking this advice.

With all this said, there is no blinking at the fact that we just lost an election that we should have won, and to pretend there's nothing wrong meets Einstein's definition of insanity. There's a great deal wrong and a great deal that we need to address.

The voters who appeared at the polls agree with us on Obamacare. According to the CBS exit poll, by a plurality of 49 to 44 percent, they want to repeal some or all of Obamacare.

They agree with us on the size of government. By a margin of 51 to 43 percent, they believe that government is "doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals."

They agree with us on taxes. By a resounding margin of 63 to 33 percent, they disagreed with the statement that "taxes should be raised to help cut the deficit."

Perhaps most telling of all, 52 percent of voters agreed "things in this country today are seriously off on the wrong track," and yet then voted to continue down that wrong track for another four years.

As Lincoln said, "The voters are everything. If the voters get their backsides too close to the fire, they'll just have to sit on the blisters a while." It is a painful experience; but it is a learning experience. And at the end of that experience, they emerge sadder but wiser and in time for the next election.

We are winning the issues. And that means over time we will be winning the votes -- but only if we stay true to our principles and true to the millions of Americans who are already with us and many more who may not consider themselves Republicans today - but who believe as we believe.

What was the single biggest political movement in 2009 and 2010? It was the much-maligned, politically incorrect Tea Party, which energized fully one third of the American electorate across party lines. Although 60 percent were Republicans, 20 percent were Independents and 20 percent were Democrats. Long before the Tea Party, we had another name for that phenomenon. We used to call it the "Reagan Coalition." But this year, those who tell us we need a bigger tent told the Tea Party to get out. And many did.

Who brought a tidal wave of young people into the party? It was the much maligned and politically incorrect Ron Paul, whose simple message of unadulterated freedom resonated deeply on college campuses. Eight thousand UC Berkeley students turned out last year to hear that message. But this year, those who tell us we need a bigger tent told Ron Paul and his supporters to get out. And they did. In fact, many of their votes went to Obama.

A well-intentioned supporter e-mailed me last week and said, "we've got to kick the religious right out of the party." I reminded him that we did that in 1976, when the religious right voted for Jimmy Carter.

My point is, you cannot build a majority by systematically ejecting the constituent parts of that coalition. You build a majority by adding to that coalition by taking your principles to new constituencies.

Working Americans of every race know instinctively that you cannot borrow and spend your way rich. We need to appeal to them.

Immigrants came to this country to escape the stultifying central planning and corrupt bureaucracies that ravaged their economies. We need to appeal to them.

For the first time in our history, young people face a bleaker future than their parents enjoyed. We need to appeal to them.

The very groups of voters most damaged by Obama's policies are those who voted for Obama - we need to appeal to them.

Not in the closing days of a campaign poisoned with partisanship - but right now.

We need to recognize that a large portion of our population is not familiar with the self-evident truths of the American Founding and has no compass with which to follow back to the prosperity, happiness and fulfillment that is the hallmark of free societies.

Without that clarion call - without a party of freedom willing to paint our positions in bold colors - I am afraid that as the economy suffocates under the avalanche of government burdens, intrusions, restrictions, regulations and edicts, people in their growing despair, will increasingly turn to the false hope that paternalistic government offers.

The only antidote to that is the self-evident truth of the American founding: that freedom works and we need to put it back to work.

Like it or not, we are at this moment the only party equipped to revive and restore those truths and take them to the millions of Americans who are desperately searching for them.

Great parties are built upon great principles, and they are judged by their devotion to those principles. Since its inception, the central principle of the Republican Party can be summarized in a word: freedom. The closer we have hewn to this principle, the better we have done; the farther we have drifted from it, the worse that we - and the country - have done.

Dick Armey put it more simply: "When we act like us, we win, and when we act like them, we lose."

The Republican Women formed originally as the educational arm of the Republican Party. Never has that role been more important than it is today. We will not win the political battle until we win the battle over principles. We need to begin that campaign today. We can be confident that these principles resonate, but only when we are true to them with our existing constituencies while we reach out with them to new constituencies.

That is our challenge. That is our destiny. That is the salvation of our country. Now, fellow Republicans, let's pull up our socks, wipe our noses, and get back in this fight.

ABC, YouTube describe abortion as "gruesome," "shocking," and "disgusting," protest having to show its conclusion

How long until those responsible for the disclaimers are fired for telling the truth?

If abortion is a "Constitutional right," if it is something to be protected, then why would viewing its product shock or disgust? Why do even its defenders consider it "gruesome"? Why would the television station protest that they were "forced" to air the ad? Why would they be reluctant to advertise a fundamental plank in the Democratic Party's platform?

The Left forces sexual deviance down throats of the public (it seems you can't watch a major network show or relevant news report without homosexual propaganda being pushed), and now it's found a new life partner in Islam (though it'll be shocked to find that its new lover is interested not in a long-term commitment but only mut'ah). Why not be proud of what they claim is a fundamental matter of equality and women's rights?  If they're only lumps of tissue and not children, why hide anything?

Because those are babies.

Serial child butchers' work exposed; supporters can't help but tell the truth about it:

"An anti-abortion candidate running for D.C. delegate to the U.S. House is airing what is arguably one of this election cycle’s most provocative TV campaign ads, featuring extremely graphic images of aborted fetuses.

The 30-second ad for Missy Smith will air 24 times on local broadcast network affiliates across the greater Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. It is so explicit that it's preceded by a 15-second warning that was added by the stations’ administrators.

Over gruesome images of bloody and lifeless premature bodies, Smith says she had two abortions but has turned against the practice.

“I was told it’s not a baby. They lied to me. They exploited me. Then I learned the truth and I’ve suffered for years,” she says. “And believe me I am angry. My heart has been ripped out. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Norton – they all support the murder of babies and the abuse of women by abortion. It’s time to make child killing illegal again.”

YouTube has pulled the video from its site, posting a notice that it amounted to “a violation of YouTube's policy on shocking and disgusting content.”

WJLA, the local ABC affiliate to first air the ad, noted in its disclaimer that the station was required to air the ad under federal law."

One holocaust exposed (if briefly; even the UK is less fiendish in its policy); now, if only the Source and Sustenance of 1400 years of holocaust can receive the same treatment. Nine years of hiding what Islam wrought on 9/11 and in nearly 20,000 documented terrorist attacks since then, amplified now in an apparently coordinated media propaganda push in defense of Islam.

Break the dam. Release the river!

Character greater than championships

Bill Walton remembers John R. Wooden:

UCLA can easily claim an endless list of alumni who have helped make the world a better place. But of all the special spirits who have given so much, it is John Wooden, who has truly had the greatest impact on the largest number of people.

It was Coach Wooden’s heart, brain and soul that put him in a position to inspire others to reach levels of success and peace of mind that none of us could ever dream of reaching by ourselves.

All of the UCLA basketball players that John Wooden taught knew that when he retired from coaching in 1975, it did not signify an end to his life-long commitment to teaching, merely a new beginning. He was just getting started.

Coach Wooden taught by example. He never asked or expected anyone to do anything that he hadn’t already done himself. He gave us the ability to learn how to learn, and to compete. His keen knowledge and foresight to always be about what’s next, always about the future, enabled him to lead an incredibly active, constructive, positive and contributing life.

Coach Wooden never talked about winning and losing, but rather about the effort to win. He rarely talked about basketball, but generally about life. He never talked about strategy, statistics or plays, but rather about people and character. Coach Wooden never tired of telling us that once you become a good person, then you have a chance of becoming a good basketball player.

It has been 36 years since I graduated from UCLA. I have spent those years trying to duplicate that incredible period in my life. Our family home, where it all began so many years ago in San Diego, to this day is still a shrine to John Wooden, with UCLA memorabilia, the "Pyramid of Success" and pictures of The Coach everywhere.

Over the years I’ve regularly taken our children to Coach’s Mansion on Margate in Encino, to get for them the timeless lessons of life, including how to put your shoes and socks on, just like he taught us 40 years ago.

John Wooden represents the conquest of substance over hype, the triumph of achievement over erratic flailing, the conquest of discipline over gambling, and the triumph of executing an organized plan over hoping that you’ll be lucky, hot or in the zone.

John Wooden also represents the conquest of sacrifice, hard work and commitment to achievement over the pipe dream that someone will just give you something, or that you can take a pill or turn a key to get what you want.

The joy and happiness in Coach Wooden’s life came from the success and accomplishments of others. He never let us forget what he learned from his two favorite teachers, Abraham Lincoln and Mother Theresa, "that a life not lived for others is not a life."

I thank John Wooden every day for all his selfless gifts, his lessons, his time, his vision and especially his faith and patience. This is why our eternal love for him will never fade away. This is why we call him ‘Coach.’"

More eloquence in two sentences than in all of Obama's teleprompters

More truth, too.

So am I.

A real American

A few million more like this one, and it's game over for the socialists.

And the jihadists.

Discovered at this excellent site.

Chains of Liberty

It's time for another American Revolution.

Thomas Jefferson warned:

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

Break out those chains if you want to preserve the liberties you possess still.

Socialism is slavery.  It makes dependent those who receive the fruit of their fellow citizens' labor, whose time and talent -- in the form of their treasure -- are confiscated at the point of a gun.

Humanly-speaking -- for we can merit nothing before God, Christ is our Merit -- if the State takes your wealth and uses it even accidentally for an occasional benevolent purpose, then it is no longer to your credit.

And what of when politicians hundreds and thousands of mile away use your wealth for immoral purposes?  Regarding that, Jefferson observed:

"to compel a man to furnish ... money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."

Politicians are not engaged in charity when they take your money and limit your freedom "for the public good."  They're thieves using your resources to maintain their position.  They think you exist to provide them power.

They work for you.

Government is Leviathan.  If it is not restrained, it will devour us all.

It's time to start over as our Founders intended.  Remove all the filth politicians have codified into law and begin again from just the United States Constitution.

Let's also add term limits for Congress, end their benefits, and certify place of birth for presidential candidates, while we're at it.

The great Larry Elder nails it:

Assisting the needy in health care is a "moral imperative" – not a constitutional right. The two are as different as a squirt gun and an Uzi.

If something is not permitted under our Constitution, the federal government simply cannot do it. Period. The Founding Fathers vigorously debated the role of the federal government and defined it in Article I, Section 8 – spelling out the specific duties and obligations of the federal government. Most notably, this included providing a military for national security, coining money, establishing rules for immigration and citizenship, establishing rules for bankruptcy, setting up a postal system, establishing trademark and copyright rules, and setting up a legal system to resolves disputes, in addition to a handful of other matters.

Charity is not there.

Congress began ignoring its lack of authority for charity before the ink dried on the Constitution. When Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist French refugees in 1792, James Madison – a Founding Father and principal author of the Constitution – wrote, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

But what about the Constitution's general welfare clause?

Madison said: "With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

And consider government welfare's effect on people's willingness to give. During the Great Depression – before the social programs that today we accept as givens (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) – charitable giving increased dramatically. After FDR began signing social programs into law, charitable giving continued, but not at the same rate. People felt that they had given at the office and/or that government was "handling it."

Government "charity" is simply less efficient than private charity. Every dollar extracted from taxpayers, sent to Washington, and then routed to the beneficiary "loses" about 70 cents in transfer costs – salaries, rent and other expenses. The Salvation Army, by contrast, spends 2 cents in operating costs, with the remainder going to fundraising and the beneficiary. They achieve this, among other ways, by relying on volunteers to do much of the work.

Following Hurricane Katrina, private companies, including The Home Depot and Wal-Mart, provided basic needs, such as water and shelter, faster than did government. What were their motives? Generosity? Positive public relations – a form of "selfishness"? Does it matter?

What about the issue of "moral hazard"? Does government welfare distort behavior and cause people to act irresponsibly? In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson launched a "War on Poverty." "Anti-poverty" workers literally went door to door to inform women of their "right" to money and services – provided the recipients were unmarried and had no men living in their houses. Out-of-wedlock births skyrocketed. In 1960, before the "War on Poverty," out-of-wedlock births accounted for 2 percent of white births and 22 percent of black births. By 1994 – just three decades after Johnson began his "War" – the rates had soared to 25 and 70 percent, respectively.

Numerous studies conclude that children of "broken homes" with absentee or nonexistent fathers are more likely to commit crimes, drop out of school, do drugs and produce out-of-wedlock children. In 1985, the Los Angeles Times asked both the poor and non-poor the following question: Do you think those on welfare have children to get on welfare? More poor people (64 percent) said "yes" to that proposition than did non-poor (44 percent).

If not taxation, how then?

In 1871, the city of Chicago burned to the ground. Contributions, with virtually no money from government, rebuilt the city. After 9/11, so many Americans gave money that the Red Cross used some contributions for non-9/11 purposes. Christianity Today wrote in January 2002: "Suddenly awash in a sea of money, relief agencies such as the Salvation Army need help. So much money – $1.5 billion so far – has come in that charities are having a hard time spending it." And Americans donated an even greater sum to those affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Three in four families donate to charity, averaging more than 3 percent of their income, with two-thirds going to secular charities. In total, Americans give more than $300 billion a year – more than the gross domestic product of Finland or Ireland. More than half of families also donate their time.

Absent (unconstitutional) government programs, individuals and charitable organizations can, will and – in many cases – already do provide services to the needy. A limited government – one that taxes only to fulfill its permissible duties – would allow even more disposable time and money.

People-to-people charity is more efficient, less costly, more humane and compassionate, and more likely to inspire change and self-sufficiency in the beneficiary. People can and would readily satisfy society's "moral imperative."

If you have a voice, you have a weapon in defense of Liberty. Use it!

The opposition to socialized medicine is not a "conservative, right-wing thing."

It is a "Liberty thing," which is why leftists and other cowards don't get it.

It's a matter of life-and-death:



Mike Sola is a hero.

Here's the article to which he refers.

Those on the Left care about politics, because they want to exercise power over others.

The rest of us don't want politics, we care about Right and Wrong, about Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

You'd think that at least a few of our elected officials would actually believe in that.

And this what you see in the video below: Members of AARP, older citizens who would seem most easily-tempted by collectivist promises of security, realizing the danger of encroaching government tyranny, waking up and talking back.

Notice also the speaker's condescension to her audience: The "public" has to be quiet while she tells them what they are to think.

Just like the president, "ready to rule from Day One."

We need patriots of all ages to wake up to politicians' decades-long-but-recently-exploded usurpation of our Constitution.

Don't wallow in self-pity lamenting, "What can someone like me do?"

The fight has commenced. Go to fighting or get away! (And start digging your grave.)

The unborn and the elderly are ObamaScare's first victims. Only one has the voice to engage in this fight:



If you have a voice, you have a weapon in defense of Liberty. Use it!

The concentration camps are next.

Obama's vision of America: Somewhere between Stalin and Hitler.

There's a lot we can do to stop the surging tide of Islamic oppression

A community can do a lot: Inform the public -- relatives, neighbors, co-workers, politicians, university presidents, media outlets -- about the texts and tenets of Islam. Halt and reverse where possible Muslim immigration (importing Somalian jihad into Minnesota, anyone?). Punish for treason and sedition all those committing it by working to replace our Constitution with shari'a.

Secure the borders.

Don't allow American organizations -- like the American Library Association -- to cater to Muslim sensibilities or cave in to pressure from jihad's agents (CAIR, ISNA, MPAC, MAS, etc.), as in the ALA's recent and shameful censoring of Robert Spencer.

End Obama's bankrupting and disarming the nation, apologizing to Islam, releasing terrorists, and demanding that we respect Muhammad's "sacralized" genocide, murder, pedophilia, rape, mutilation, slavery, anti-Semitism, theft, deceit, and blasphemy.

Challenge Muslims on what their god commands and what their "ideal man," the "beautiful pattern of conduct for those who want to please" Allah, Muhammad, said and did.

Exercise your God-given, unalienable Freedoms of Speech and Assembly, and the Right to Bear Arms.

Speak Law and Gospel clearly.

There's a lot we can do.

24 TRILLION

Obama and his minions are bankrupting and disarming the nation.

The constitutional law professor and his co-conspirators are expert at violating the Document they swore to defend, pushing us hard into Socialism:

They broke the economy under Bush 43 by sabotaging home ownership.

They've taken control of financial institutions.

They've taken control of domestic auto production.

They're trying to drive us into the Stone Age with Cap-and-Trade.

They're about to take control of your medical care.

Now, we the American taxpayer -- and our descendants into perpetuity -- are responsible for (potentially) at least $24 trillion.

And he and his fellow fascists work to silence dissent in media and online.

Freedom of assembly and the Right to bear arms are also under attack.

Obama can apologize to Islam, the most malevolent, vile, and perverse ideology in human history; let him apologize to the American people.

He can bow to the Islamic tyrant of Saudi Arabia; let him bow to the American people by obeying -- not "empathizing with" (usurping) -- our Constitution.

Make the thieves in Congress and the White House pay back every cent they've stolen from the American people.

Demand their immediate resignation -- or impeach -- every greedy and incompetent politician who by commission or omission have led us to the precipice.

And while we're at it, enforce our borders, abolish the Federal Reserve, the income, death, and all other oppressive taxes, all entitlement programs, and every other anti-Liberty law, code, provision, addendum, and executive order thrust upon us over the last century.

The crisis is upon us. Restore Liberty.

What we need is another Reconquista

Of the UK, France, the Netherlands, Kosovo, Constantinople, Dearborn, the White House . . . .

Another quick one, from here:

"BTW, Muslims are seeking a right of return to Spain since they were expelled in the 1600's or thereabouts, a few hundred years after their conquest of southern Spain."

In 1492, Spain completed the Reconquista of their own lands by finally defeating the Moors at Granada.

It took them nearly eight hundred years [to free themselves from Islamic tyranny].

Most other Infidel lands were not so fortunate.

Can you name anyone else who's broken Allah's death grip?

Israel? That's going well.

Once Dar al-Islam, always Dar al-Islam.

An actual answer to the question "Can Muhammad and Jefferson Coexist?"

[This post was begun June 17, 2007.

Since America faces an existential threat at the hands of its own “president,” his co-ideologues in one of our two major political parties, and his coreligionists waging war against us within and without our borders, the points it raises about Islam and its incompatibility with the principles of the American Republic are as timely as ever, especially as our own leadership accelerates our descent into oblivion.

All citizens must find the zeal for Liberty embodied by Jefferson and his fellow Founding Fathers.]

In an article entitled, "Can Muhammad and Jefferson Coexist?" the author raises several factors that relate to the answer to that question. Perhaps it is intended to serve as a starting point for discussion, because the essay never really answers the question clearly.

The answer is: Only if Jefferson were to convert, submit, or die, for that is all Muhammad and his allah allow the “infidel.”

The comments were interesting in that though there was the usual politically-correct, multiculturalist, morally-relative nonsense, quite a few posts were very clearly on the side of reality.

Being that most of my time in the Comments at Townhall is spent at Hugh Hewitt's site pointing out to him that his Islam is a false one (or to Mormons that their christ is a false messiah), it is refreshing and encouraging to see that others recognize the nature of Qur'anic, historical, traditional Islam.

Answering the question and refuting Jihad's apologists, from here:

Terror is fundamental to Islam

“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror.’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).

and,

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them'" (Qur'an 8:12).

Be happy, free, and wrong

Steve wrote:

"Obviously, someone can be a bad Muslim as easily as someone can be a bad Christian. The issue isn't what they claim to be, but rather what they are."

But "good" and "bad" must be defined in light of each religion's authoritative texts, not human opinion.

A "good" Christian will tell the truth, love, serve, do good, and refrain from harming others because that is what Christ commands.

A "good" Muslim will fight against, subdue and humiliate, and kill non-Muslims to establish the tyranny of Allah over all mankind because that is what his god requires and his prophet practiced:

". . . the Messenger of Allah . . . would say: 'Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war . . . When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action . . . Invite them to (accept) Islam . . . If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya . . . If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them...'" (Muslim Book 019, Number 4294).

Steve continues:

"America claims to have a separation of church and state . . . ."

The separation to which Jefferson referred was a protection of religion against government, not a protection of government against religion.

"Men have used violence to serve their own glory for thousands of years, and expect obedience and honor from those they rule over. A Nazi, a communist, an Islamist and a democratic imperialist are all wired the same way, the only difference is the self-satisfying text that they reference."

How naive. The difference between all those you name and a Muslim is that the followers of Mahomet have the permanent, unalterable, and "divine" commands to: ". . . fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war) . . . " (Qur’an 9:5), and:

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).

Not only this, but the faithful Muslim also has the words and deeds of Mohammed -- described by Allah as a "beautiful pattern of conduct" -- to emulate. Mohammed said, ". . . 'I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle . . . '" (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24).

"Christ and Socrates would be crucified for their pursuit of virtue . . . ."

Christ was killed for speaking the words and doing the work of His Father.

". . . Look at the resistance to amnesty for illegal aliens, for example. The door to the inn is still closed, and a child is born in a land with little compassion but with huge warehouses and grand houses of hypocrisy."

That hypocrisy exists is true. That our nation lacks virtue is for growing numbers of our people also true.

That defending one's borders and enforcing the rule of law (we still have quite generous legal immigration rules) is immoral or cruel is suicidally false.

To justify the destruction of American sovereignty and the end of the rule of law by conflating it with the birth of the Son of God is sacrilege.

In response to JFP

JFP observed:

"Theoretically, yes
Just as there are many interpretations of the Bible, so there can be many interpretations of the Qur'an."

The many interpretations are the fault of human error, arrogance, and carelessness.

They are not indicative of any weakness or ambiguity in the Biblical texts.

The same is true of Islam's authoritative documents. Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira say what they say. It is the ignorant and the liar who claim the texts say anything other than what they clearly do.

There is no indication from these *Islamic* records that Mohammad and his followers understood these texts should be taken in any way other than with fatal literalism.

The nearly fourteen centuries of Infidel blood spilled, their women and children raped and enslaved, and the destruction of their religions, cultures, and nations in obedience to those texts also demonstrate that Muslims traditionally take Allah and his apostle at their word.

"When this point is brought up to secularists, what do they say?
1. They call us racist, as though that solves the problem.
2. They say it is too remote a possibility to worry about . . . ."

Which should cause all thinking Infidels to question whether or not these people are really "secularists" in fear of non-Muslim over-generalizations or actually apologists for jihad deceiving ignorant and gullible people of good will.

In response to Phylo

Can Phylo's arguments co-exist w/ truth? He writes:

"Can Jesus coexist with Jefferson?"

The answer is, clearly, "yes," since Jesus commanded His people to "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's."

(And in case this little fact eluded your apparently vigorous intellectual curiosity, the Founding Fathers were overwhelmingly Christians.)

Phylo continues:

"This article is pure demagoguery. It's nothing but a play on his audiences fears and prejudices. I swear the Republicans are aching to start a war with the Muslims. This is crazy."

And your argument here is an impassioned appeal to people's cowardice and ignorance.

What is truly crazy is that six years out from 9/11 (and centuries out from America's first taste of Muslim terror) so many people fail to realize that Islam is at war with us.

Phylo reinforces the impression he has no understanding of Christianity or Islam with:

"I wonder if any of you who read this article will recognize that the exact same question could be asked of Christians and Jews."

An implied equivalence in the answers betraying either your deficient knowledge, reason, moral judgment, or some combination of the three.

Find some Methodists beheading girls on their way to school, shouting "Christ is LORD!" and citing their Biblical justification for it. Then we can talk.

Phylo:

"So how can a good Christian still honor Jefferson?"

[Considering Jefferson’s self-professed preference for the doctrines of Christ above all others, “vigorously,” I’d say.]

That is a different question. Was the switch intentional or accidental?

Of course, a "good" Christian will honor what is honorable. Much of Jefferson's contribution to America and the world is quite remarkable.

Phylo continued:

"And how does Jesus' admonition to sell everything and follow him comport with capitalism? Can Jesus and Adam Smith co-exist?"

Another false comparison. But that's easy for one with little intellectual integrity to do.

The command from Matthew 19 (and the parallel accounts in Mark 10 and Luke 18) was given to a specific person, at a specific time, and for a specific purpose.

If ownership of property were immoral, Christ would not have forbidden stealing.

More from Phylo:

"And how can a good Jew live in a country that doesn't stone gays to death?"

Another command taken out of its proper context! Your lack of truthfulness is disappointing.

Capital punishment for homosexual behavior (and many other sins) was for the nation of Israel living under the Mosaic Covenant. It was not a universal command.

A failure of Liberty or of government?

From here, in response to this:

how am I a "rupulsive piece of work"?

Is it because I dare to speak out against the great failure that is laissez-faire Capitalism. I know it's not politically correct to say that laissez-faire has failed, but reality and history have consistently shown laissez-faire to fail the people and the very system.

I don't see what either Cuba or China have to do with what I'm saying. I'm saying that a common sense system of regulation makes more sense than supply-side economics.

If you're talking about the current economic situation, the problem is the federal government's corrupt and incompetent manipulation of the free market.

This is not a failure of Capitalism, it is a failure of government (and of the people to monitor those whom we elect).

Every person has the right to use his time and talent as he sees fit and to enjoy the fruit of his labor. No politician has the right to steal from him.

Only tyrants and slaves would think otherwise.

Theology shapes ideology

For better in the case of Christianity and the American Republic.

For worse in the case of Islam and non-Muslims, apostates, women, and children everywhere.

Spurred by a patriot:

Freedom of speech is an excellent point at which to begin comparing and contrasting YHWH and His Christ -- the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the Prophets -- with Allah, Muhammad's deity.

The American conviction expressed in the Declaration of Independence -- that all rights come from YHWH and are therefore, unalienable (cannot be transferred, sold, stolen, or given away), belong to all equally, and include Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness – is derived directly from the teachings of the Bible, especially the words and work of Christ.

In the Ten Commandments we find YHWH's protection of human life (and other rights), and in the words of the Apostles we find that, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free."

We also receive from Jesus the concept of "Two Kingdoms" -- civil government versus God's rule in the Church, the invisible body of all Christians everywhere. Christ taught, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's [in context, money for taxes, and this to the Roman tyrant!], and give to God what is God's” [faith, obedience, loyalty, everything else].

Because of these doctrines, under the American Constitution all citizens are guaranteed the right to practice freely the non-genocidal, non-totalitarian religion of their choosing, without government interference.

Compare and contrast Christ's doctrines and the form of government derived from them with Allah's:

First, according to Muhammad, Allah's final revelations (these abrogate all previous statements allowing peaceful cooperation with non-Muslims) do not allow freedom of speech or religion. Muhammad slaughtered those who spoke against him (see, for example, Asma bint Marwan, whose murder at Muhammad's instigation is recorded by Ibn Ishaq in his Sirat Rasul Allah). He also commanded that if anyone changes his Islamic religion, “then kill him” (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57).

Second, according to Muhammad, he was ordered (and so are his followers) to fight against the people “until all religion is for Allah.” Muslims are to use any means necessary to establish the rule of Allah over all mankind. This means that unless a non-Muslim accepts the “invitation” to Islam – or slavery under it if they're “lucky” enough to be a Jew or Christian (or perhaps, Zoroastrian, though they've been mostly wiped out by Islam) -- he is to be slaughtered by the faithful:

"the Messenger of Allah . . . would say: 'Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war. . . . When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. . . . Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. . . . If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them . . .'" (Muslim Book 19, Number 4294).

Consider the stark contrast between any shari'a state in history and America. Even today's Islamic nations, though not fully shari'a-compliant, are prime examples of utter barbarism, discrimination, and tyranny, while the United States of America (once the most Christian nation on Earth) is still the most free, even to the point of ending slavery within its borders (something of which Muhammad and his allah approve, especially if the infidel slave woman is really “desirable”).

Clearly, when human beings obey the principles found in the religion taught by Christ, freedom results.

Allah's religion results only in slavery and death.

Support those defending Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness

Here is the site.

FDR to extend hand in friendship to world's Nazis in speech from Hitler's bunker this June 4th, 1943

The following weekend, he'll be in Japan attempting to repair relations with the island nation through a talk delivered from Emperor Hirohito's palace.

This comes on the heels of the President's comments made outside Auschwitz that Nazism deserves "respect." Mr. Roosevelt also suggested that the nations of Europe and Asia should advance the Peace Process by making sacrifices, including "Land for Peace."

"We must dialogue with the moderate elements of the Waffen-SS, kamikaze, and banzai units," he declared.

The White House has announced details of Mr. Roosevelt's charm offensive. He plans to bow deeply to both Hitler and Hirohito as a sign of mutual respect, apologize for Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the Holocaust, and reassure both empires of his continued commitment to bankrupting and disarming America in the name of "Main Street."

As a sign of the United States' good will, the President will release members of the German and Japanese militaries captured in combat into American society at taxpayers' expense.

Additionally, American successes in Doolittle's Raid, the Battle of the Coral Sea, and Midway have now been redesignated "Embarrassing Failures of Diplomacy;" the methods used to decipher Japanese communications leading to the American "victory" at Midway have been published in the New York Times, and the Cryptanalytic Unit responsible for the intelligence that gave America the advantage there has been accused of lying by one of Mr Roosevelt's closest allies in Congress.

Plans for actions at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, and Normandy have all been postponed and await Nazi and Japanese approval.

President Roosevelt also unveiled Executive Order #12071941 establishing "Overseas Contingency Operations Relocation Camps." Americans opposing the President's policies will be designated "extremists" and evaluated for the confiscation of their First through Tenth Amendment Rights.

The Order also gives the president the authority to monitor and suspend all radio, telegraph, and pen-and-paper communications.

Allied leaders could not be reached for comment.

If accurate translation is impossible, how is it that foreigners are able to speak English well enough to accommodate ignorant Americans?

Jesus read the Scripture in Hebrew in synagogue and spoke Aramaic (and must have spoken also Latin and Greek). When He was murdered, the Roman governor had placed above His head the charge against Him (and confession of Him) in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament was in common use in Jesus' day. At Pentecost, the Apostles spoke to their hearers in their own languages.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, the New in everyday -- not classical -- Greek. Was Hebrew suddenly inadequate? Or does God speak to people in a way they'll understand?

What does God think of translation?

More from You-Know-Where.

renzmqt,

“in this country we have an appalling track record of teaching our citizens to be bilingual.”

Perhaps that is because Americans have been too busy creating the most powerful nation on Earth and have not needed previously to accommodate superior foreign economies.

Once President Hussein bankrupts the nation and surrenders to Islam, you'll have your wish of a bilingual America: We'll all be speaking Arabic.

(Some of us will learn Caribou when we go hide in the tundra.)

You know, your comments really sound like an ugly stereotype born of ignorance and hate. How many Americans do you REALLY KNOW? Doorman-Priest finds most often that people who speak of others that way have little or no experience with such individuals.

So, do YOU have any American friends? I have a co-worker who's an American. She speaks two languages. She's in tears right now, but I can't understand what she's saying because it isn't in English.

(Who says I haven't learned anything visiting here?)

"Americans" are notorious for traveling the globe and demanding that people speak English.”

Right. Americans can't even get Americans to speak English.

You should have seen me when I was in Italy, demanding English everywhere I went. Even when I yelled, people just stared.

“As such Americans are notoriously ignorant at thinking about the difficulties of translation”

Didn’t you really want to stop at “ignorant”? And aren't your comments proof of the civilizational self-loathing multiculturalist indoctrination produces?

“how often it is not possible to come up with a word that truly defines and captures the essence of a foreign expression or term.”

If it's true that it is often impossible to translate from one language to another, how is it that foreigners are able to speak English well enough to accommodate ignorant Americans?

“I believe you can see this at it's worst in the Biblical literalists who like to rattle off "sound bites" of scripture, often taken out of context”

If it's impossible to translate adequately the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek biblical texts, how can you know that anything in them is being taken "out-of-context"?

If it's impossible to translate accurately, how can anyone know that a translation is inaccurate?

“from a flawed American modernization of the King James Bible which is a flawed translation of a Latin Bible”

No translation can transfer perfectly the meaning of every word from one language to another. That doesn’t mean it is impossible to have reliable, accurate renderings or to understand to a high degree of certainty what an author intends. One of the things I like about the New International Version (though that is not my main translation) is that the translators note in the texts when the original meaning of a particular word, phrase, or number is unclear or there are discrepancies between manuscripts.

The King James Bible was not translated from a “Latin Bible." Its New Testament was based on the Textus Receptus, which was the best available Greek text at the time (Erasmus did have to resort to the Vulgate to translate from the Latin back into Greek for a few passages).

In the centuries since the first publication of the KJV, more ancient and reliable manuscripts have been discovered and our knowledge has improved, allowing much more accurate English translations than previously possible.

Just to show the competence and integrity of its translators, the original King James Version contained over six thousand marginal notes in the Old Testament alone, mostly on variant readings.

"which is a flawed translation of archaic Greek and Hebrew texts - many of which were flawed copies of copies of copies or oral traditions finally put to papyrus."

That there are flaws in the thousands of manuscripts we possess is true, but those flaws do not mean that we are unable to determine to a high degree of certainty what the documents' original authors intended.

The flaws are natural errors in copying, the accidental incorporation of a scribe's commentary into the text during copying, or occasional editing. The good news about this is that the thousands of texts belong to several different families of manuscripts from around the Mediterranean. By using the oldest and most reliable manuscripts from these different sources and comparing differences between them, it is largely possible to see what errors were introduced where.

Whether difficulties in translation or copying and editing errors, the worst that happens is that we're unsure of a particular number of soldiers in a battle, or we don't know what a musical term means. No doctrine, significant historical fact, or truth claims are compromised.

In other words, we can be confident that we have reliable renderings of the Word of God.

"Individuals who are educated enough to be multi-lingual have a much better grasp of the challenges and pitfalls of relying on literal translation. I think it would be rare to hear someone with that background, parrot snippets of a translated text as the sole basis for their argument."

Jesus quoted the Word of God as the sole basis for His arguments. The Bible in common use in His day and used by the Apostles (and it appears He quoted from it or the Hebrew text on which it was based) was the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament.

I think you'd call that "parroting snippets of a translated text."

Ode to the little green ostrich behind the curtain

What should a free people do about those whose ideology demands that they enslave or slaughter you and yours? Who believe that in imitation of their "Ideal Man," raping your nine-year-old daughter -- and your wife just after they've beheaded you -- pleases their deity? Who consider Beethoven, Shakespeare, and the Sistine Chapel examples of jahiliya? Who would replace the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution with totalitarian and discriminatory laws regulating every aspect of life? Who consider submission to edicts of hell preferable to the freedoms of speech and conscience and the equality of rights for all people?

Deportation of those who refuse to renounce in word and deed such seditious, treasonous, and murderous positions is not "mass murder," it is self-defense. It is common sense. And it is certainly much less violent than free people having to exercise their Second Amendment right in defense of hearth and home.

Would the little green ostrich behind the curtain have defended two million Nazis moving freely within America's borders during World War II? Based on the acuity of his thought on today's jihad and how to defend ourselves against it, the answer is obvious.

Islam is an ideology, not a race.

So, here is a tribute to the self-appointed arbiter of all things "American" (apologies to Emma Lazarus):

Unlike the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates did stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

was the imprisoned lightning, her name now

Mother of Infidels. From her amputated hand once

Glowed world-wide welcome; her mild eyes

above and below by black cloth framed.

"Keep ancient lands, your sympathy!" cries she

With silent lips. "Keep your tired, your poor,

I've got huddled masses drowning in shari'a;

The wretched refuse of my teeming shore

Did nothing while the mujahideen, Tempter-tost to me,

Lifted my head beside the golden door!"

What will it be now with President-elect B. Hamas Obama taking power?

It began as a battle cry.

All images property of their individual owners. The song belongs to Toby Keith.

The God-given, unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness belong to all Men.

America under an Obama Administration, and the antidote

If only the MSM had been half as honest.

Delivered 33 years ago, the speech below by Governor Ronald Reagan seems prescient. Change the names and dates, and this is what we should be hearing from now until 2012:

Since our last meeting we have been through a disastrous election. It is easy for us to be discouraged, as pundits hail that election as a repudiation of our philosophy and even as a mandate of some kind or other. But the significance of the election was not registered by those who voted, but by those who stayed home. If there was anything like a mandate it will be found among almost two-thirds of the citizens who refused to participate.

Bitter as it is to accept the results of the November election, we should have reason for some optimism. For many years now we have preached “the gospel,” in opposition to the philosophy of so-called liberalism which was, in truth, a call to collectivism.

Now, it is possible we have been persuasive to a greater degree than we had ever realized. Few, if any, Democratic party candidates in the last election ran as liberals. Listening to them I had the eerie feeling we were hearing reruns of Goldwater speeches. I even thought I heard a few of my own.

Bureaucracy was assailed and fiscal responsibility hailed. Even George McGovern donned sackcloth and ashes and did penance for the good people of South Dakota.

But let’s not be so naive as to think we are witnessing a mass conversion to the principles of conservatism. Once sworn into office, the victors reverted to type. In their view, apparently, the ends justified the means.

The “Young Turks” had campaigned against “evil politicians.” They turned against committee chairmen of their own party, displaying a taste and talent as cutthroat power politicians quite in contrast to their campaign rhetoric and idealism. Still, we must not forget that they molded their campaigning to fit what even they recognized was the mood of the majority.

And we must see to it that the people are reminded of this as they now pursue their ideological goals—and pursue them they will.

I know you are aware of the national polls which show that a greater (and increasing) number of Americans—Republicans, Democrats and independents—classify themselves as “conservatives” than ever before. And a poll of rank-and-file union members reveals dissatisfaction with the amount of power their own leaders have assumed, and a resentment of their use of that power for partisan politics. Would it shock you to know that in that poll 68 percent of rank-and-file union members of this country came out endorsing right-to-work legislation?

These polls give cause for some optimism, but at the same time reveal a confusion that exists and the need for a continued effort to “spread the word.”

In another recent survey, of 35,000 college and university students polled, three-fourths blame American business and industry for all of our economic and social ills. The same three-fourths think the answer is more (and virtually complete) regimentation and government control of all phases of business—including the imposition of wage and price controls. Yet, 80 percent in the same poll want less government interference in their own lives!

In 1972 the people of this country had a clear-cut choice, based on the issues—to a greater extent than any election in half a century. In overwhelming numbers they ignored party labels, not so much to vote for a man or even a policy as to repudiate a philosophy. In doing so they repudiated that final step into the welfare state—that call for the confiscation and redistribution of their earnings on a scale far greater than what we now have. They repudiated the abandonment of national honor and a weakening of this nation’s ability to protect itself.

A study has been made that is so revealing that I’m not surprised it has been ignored by a certain number of political commentators and columnists. The political science department of Georgetown University researched the mandate of the 1972 election and recently presented its findings at a seminar.

Taking several major issues which, incidentally, are still the issues of the day, they polled rank-and-file members of the Democratic party on their approach to these problems. Then they polled the delegates to the two major national conventions—the leaders of the parties.

They found the delegates to the Republican convention almost identical in their responses to those of the rank-and-file Republicans. Yet, the delegates to the Democratic convention were miles apart from the thinking of their own party members.

The mandate of 1972 still exists. The people of America have been confused and disturbed by events since that election, but they hold an unchanged philosophy.

Our task is to make them see that what we represent is identical to their own hopes and dreams of what America can and should be. If there are questions as to whether the principles of conservatism hold up in practice, we have the answers to them. Where conservative principles have been tried, they have worked. Gov. Meldrim Thomson is making them work in New Hampshire; so is Arch Moore in West Virginia and Mills Godwin in Virginia. Jack Williams made them work in Arizona and I’m sure Jim Edwards will in South Carolina.

If you will permit me, I can recount my own experience in California.

When I went to Sacramento eight years ago, I had the belief that government was no deep, dark mystery, that it could be operated efficiently by using the same common sense practiced in our everyday life, in our homes, in business and private affairs.

The “lab test” of my theory – California—was pretty messed up after eight years of a road show version of the Great Society. Our first and only briefing came from the outgoing director of finance, who said: “We’re spending $1 million more a day than we’re taking in. I have a golf date. Good luck!” That was the most cheerful news we were to hear for quite some time.

California state government was increasing by about 5,000 new employees a year. We were the welfare capital of the world with 16 percent of the nation’s caseload. Soon, California’s caseload was increasing by 40,000 a month.

We turned to the people themselves for help. Two hundred and fifty experts in the various fields volunteered to serve on task forces at no cost to the taxpayers. They went into every department of state government and came back with 1,800 recommendations on how modern business practices could be used to make government more efficient. We adopted 1,600 of them.

We instituted a policy of “cut, squeeze and trim” and froze the hiring of employees as replacements for retiring employees or others leaving state service.

After a few years of struggling with the professional welfarists, we again turned to the people. First, we obtained another task force and, when the legislature refused to help implement its recommendations, we presented the recommendations to the electorate.

It still took some doing. The legislature insisted our reforms would not work; that the needy would starve in the streets; that the workload would be dumped on the counties; that property taxes would go up and that we’d run up a deficit the first year of $750 million.

That was four years ago. Today, the needy have had an average increase of 43 percent in welfare grants in California, but the taxpayers have saved $2 billion by the caseload not increasing that 40,000 a month. Instead, there are some 400,000 fewer on welfare today than then.

Forty of the state’s 58 counties have reduced property taxes for two years in a row (some for three). That $750-million deficit turned into an $850-million surplus which we returned to the people in a one-time tax rebate. That wasn’t easy. One state senator described that rebate as “an unnecessary expenditure of public funds.”

For more than two decades governments—federal, state, local—have been increasing in size two-and-a-half times faster than the population increase. In the last 10 years they have increased the cost in payroll seven times as fast as the increase in numbers.

We have just turned over to a new administration in Sacramento a government virtually the same size it was eight years ago. With the state’s growth rate, this means that government absorbed a workload increase, in some departments as much as 66 percent.

We also turned over—for the first time in almost a quarter of a century—a balanced budget and a surplus of $500 million. In these eight years just passed, we returned to the people in rebates, tax reductions and bridge toll reductions $5.7 billion. All of this is contrary to the will of those who deplore conservatism and profess to be liberals, yet all of it is pleasing to its citizenry.

Make no mistake, the leadership of the Democratic party is still out of step with the majority of Americans.

Speaker Carl Albert recently was quoted as saying that our problem is “60 percent recession, 30 percent inflation and 10 percent energy.” That makes as much sense as saying two and two make 22.

Without inflation there would be no recession. And unless we curb inflation we can see the end of our society and economic system. The painful fact is we can only halt inflation by undergoing a period of economic dislocation—a recession, if you will.

We can take steps to ease the suffering of some who will be hurt more than others, but if we turn from fighting inflation and adopt a program only to fight recession we are on the road to disaster.

In his first address to Congress, the president asked Congress to join him in an all-out effort to balance the budget. I think all of us wish that he had re-issued that speech instead of this year’s budget message.

What side can be taken in a debate over whether the deficit should be $52 billion or $70 billion or $80 billion preferred by the profligate Congress?

Inflation has one cause and one cause only: government spending more than government takes in. And the cure to inflation is a balanced budget. We know, of course, that after 40 years of social tinkering and Keynesian experimentation that we can’t do this all at once, but it can be achieved. Balancing the budget is like protecting your virtue: you have to learn to say “no.”

This is no time to repeat the shopworn panaceas of the New Deal, the Fair Deal and the Great Society. John Kenneth Galbraith, who, in my opinion, is living proof that economics is an inexact science, has written a new book. It is called “Economics and the Public Purpose.” In it, he asserts that market arrangements in our economy have given us inadequate housing, terrible mass transit, poor health care and a host of other miseries. And then, for the first time to my knowledge, he advances socialism as the answer to our problems.

Shorn of all side issues and extraneous matter, the problem underlying all others is the worldwide contest for the hearts and minds of mankind. Do we find the answers to human misery in freedom as it is known, or do we sink into the deadly dullness of the Socialist ant heap?

Those who suggest that the latter is some kind of solution are, I think, open to challenge. Let’s have no more theorizing when actual comparison is possible. There is in the world a great nation, larger than ours in territory and populated with 250 million capable people. It is rich in resources and has had more than 50 uninterrupted years to practice socialism without opposition.

We could match them, but it would take a little doing on our part. We’d have to cut our paychecks back by 75 percent; move 60 million workers back to the farm; abandon two-thirds of our steel-making capacity; destroy 40 million television sets; tear up 14 of every 15 miles of highway; junk 19 of every 20 automobiles; tear up two-thirds of our railroad track; knock down 70 percent of our houses; and rip out nine out of every 10 telephones. Then, all we have to do is find a capitalist country to sell us wheat on credit to keep us from starving!

Our people are in a time of discontent. Our vital energy supplies are threatened by possibly the most powerful cartel in human history. Our traditional allies in Western Europe are experiencing political and economic instability bordering on chaos.

We seem to be increasingly alone in a world grown more hostile, but we let our defenses shrink to pre-Pearl Harbor levels. And we are conscious that in Moscow the crash build-up of arms continues. The SALT II agreement in Vladivostok, if not re-negotiated, guarantees the Soviets a clear missile superiority sufficient to make a “first strike” possible, with little fear of reprisal. Yet, too many congressmen demand further cuts in our own defenses, including delay if not cancellation of the B-1 bomber.

I realize that millions of Americans are sick of hearing about Indochina, and perhaps it is politically unwise to talk of our obligation to Cambodia and South Vietnam. But we pledged—in an agreement that brought our men home and freed our prisoners—to give our allies arms and ammunition to replace on a one-for-one basis what they expend in resisting the aggression of the Communists who are violating the cease-fire and are fully aided by their Soviet and Red Chinese allies. Congress has already reduced the appropriation to half of what they need and threatens to reduce it even more.

Can we live with ourselves if we, as a nation, betray our friends and ignore our pledged word? And, if we do, who would ever trust us again? To consider committing such an act so contrary to our deepest ideals is symptomatic of the erosion of standards and values. And this adds to our discontent.

We did not seek world leadership; it was thrust upon us. It has been our destiny almost from the first moment this land was settled. If we fail to keep our rendezvous with destiny or, as John Winthrop said in 1630, “Deal falsely with our God,” we shall be made “a story and byword throughout the world.”

Americans are hungry to feel once again a sense of mission and greatness.

I don ‘t know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, “We must broaden the base of our party”—when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.

It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating?

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?

Let us show that we stand for fiscal integrity and sound money and above all for an end to deficit spending, with ultimate retirement of the national debt.

Let us also include a permanent limit on the percentage of the people’s earnings government can take without their consent.

Let our banner proclaim a genuine tax reform that will begin by simplifying the income tax so that workers can compute their obligation without having to employ legal help.

And let it provide indexing—adjusting the brackets to the cost of living—so that an increase in salary merely to keep pace with inflation does not move the taxpayer into a surtax bracket. Failure to provide this means an increase in government’s share and would make the worker worse off than he was before he got the raise.

Let our banner proclaim our belief in a free market as the greatest provider for the people.

Let us also call for an end to the nit-picking, the harassment and over-regulation of business and industry which restricts expansion and our ability to compete in world markets.

Let us explore ways to ward off socialism, not by increasing government’s coercive power, but by increasing participation by the people in the ownership of our industrial machine.

Our banner must recognize the responsibility of government to protect the law-abiding, holding those who commit misdeeds personally accountable.

And we must make it plain to international adventurers that our love of peace stops short of “peace at any price.”

We will maintain whatever level of strength is necessary to preserve our free way of life.

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

I do not believe I have proposed anything that is contrary to what has been considered Republican principle. It is at the same time the very basis of conservatism. It is time to reassert that principle and raise it to full view. And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.

Will you be slaves, or free?

Essential reflections on Liberty, and what it means to be an American from James Riley.

Every American-born, college-"educated" liberal needs to learn the same truths.

Americans Made Here

By James Riley

As I have told dozens of the teachers who visit our farm, when we first began conducting Revolutionary War field trips on Riley's Farm, I thought we would perform--if we were lucky--perhaps 10 or 20 tours a year. I thought my own passion for 18th century history, and the whole story of universal human rights on display in the story of Lexington and Concord, would have--at best--a limited audience. I thought, in other words, I would be preaching to the choir for a few kindred souls who knew Sam Adams was more than a beer label.

I could not have been more wrong.

From January to the end of June and from October to the middle of December, we are performing the Revolutionary War Adventure for hundreds of visitors a day, five days a week. I had my first inkling of the story's universal appeal one day when I was leading a group of Korean American boys through the orchard, in military formation, and I heard one of them shout it out behind me, "this is COOL!"

The simple truths are universal. They transcend all cultural, economic, and ethnic boundaries. An Italian American and an African American an Asian American a Mexican American and an Irish American and a Greek American all applaud long and loud when they hear Patrick Henry's immortal words, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!" When they stand on the battle line and I shout out the rallying cry, "will you be free or slaves?" they all respond, without hesitation, "free!" When I strike up the tune that was once "God Save the King," but that is now "My country 'tis of thee," the voices start in, and they begin to swell, and some afternoons you can hear hundreds of American voices singing, with deep conviction, "from every mountain side, let freedom ring."

Again, the simple truths are universal. No one wants to be a slave. No one wants to have their parents rounded up and put in cattle cars. No one wants to be told who or where to worship. No one wants to have their earnings, their homes, their children stolen from them, by arbitrary, arrogant, un-bridled authority.

Thomas Jefferson had it right. We are endowed by our "Creator with certain unalienable rights." This isn't just an outdated baroque English notion--it's a universal conviction--a granite pillar at the center of our souls. Tyrants can't stand the notion that we--as Americans--derive our rights not from neighborhood committees, not from academic studies, not from tepid consensus, but from God Himself--from our "Creator." Tyrants hate this conviction with a passion. That's why China rounded up another 80 Christian pastors this week. That's why Stalin and Hitler and Castro and Pol Pot had to subjugate their churches before they could subjugate and torture their own people.

Americans HATE tyranny and whether it takes the form of an English aristocrat or a Taliban zealot, they will--as Jefferson predicted--water the tree of liberty with the blood of the tyrant every time. Freedom is what we have in common as Americans, and that is what we teach here. I'm struck--over and over again--by how completely universal that notion is. Left, right, or middle of the road-- Americans lock arms on the story of liberty.

We spend a lot of time these days talking about--and even celebrating our differences, and I love some of those differences. I married a Greek girl and she feeds me well--with foods that I never grew up with as a child. I love Mariachi bands and German Oktoberfests and Irish music. I am fiercely proud of my pioneer stock--of ancestors who braved the wilderness in four different American centuries. I love New England architecture, but I also love Spanish courtyards and Swedish log cabins and Irish stone walls.

I will tell you, though, that--as Americans--there is one difference we should NOT celebrate. There is nothing particularly joyful about Castro's Cuba or the moral lethargy of modern day France. I see no real cause for celebration in pondering Saudi Arabia's total lack of religious tolerance or the brutal rape squads of the Sudanese Muslims. The canine appetite for power demonstrated by China's political leaders isn't something I quietly celebrate whenever I order--and thoroughly enjoy--Mushu Pork. America's immigrants should be taught that their cultural traditions are valuable, but their political assumptions should be left at the border. They left slaves; they arrive sons and daughters of Liberty. It isn't about the differences between the cultures and the ethnicities; it's about people who believe in freedom and those who don't.

And, perhaps just as important, they need to know that Americans fight for that liberty. A friend of mine has a ministry to recently arrived Christians from the middle east. These are folks who have endured tyrannical Muslim majorities most of their lives, and some of them don't really believe any government will ever truly honor freedom and promote justice, but immigrants from all nations need to know that Americans will gladly lock arms with people of every color to protect what their ancestors have purchased with blood. Americans don't stand quivering at the door, asking quietly for their God given rights. They demand them. As one commentator put it, liberty is not really ever given. It is taken.

Well, at Riley's Farm, we teach that story. Along with their teachers, and their parents, we are happy to be teaching a new generation of children the most vital of American truths, and in so doing, we are proud to be, literally, making new Americans every day.