Saturday, April 24, 2010
Why I Went To Iraq
My wife and I had a young man move into our home for a time. We had known him since his early teenage years. The young man was Matt Wallace, and he continued to live with us for many months due to family problems. He reminded myself of a younger and much dumber me. He began working, paying his bills, all the things a young man should do. He got his act together. We encouraged him to join the military for the educational benefits and opportunities that had helped both Yvette and myself. Matt joined the Army, and while on patrol in Baghdad in July of 2006, he was hit by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device), or a roadside bomb. He was burned over 99% of his body, yet was able to move the body of his Sergeant, who was driving the Bradly Fighting Vehicle, return the burned out vehicle to Camp, walk in and give his SITREP, (Situation Report). He then passed out and never recovered consciousness. Matt is now interred at Arlington National Cemetery. I went to do counter IED work so that other families don't have to visit Arlington.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Steny Hoyer Says He Regrets Un-American Slur
Yesterday The House Majority Leader finally acknowledged his slur against those who protest the health care bill. He says he, "regrets" the slur of accusing those opposed to the bill as "un-American" but he did not apologize for it.
Merriam-Webster defines regret as, "to be sorry for". If a man breaks into my house and tries to cause harm to my family I may have to shoot him. I might regret the fact. I might feel sorry that I had to take that course of action. I would certainly not apologize or in any way make amends for protecting my family. Steny says he regrets the un-American comment, but in no way does he feel he ought to apologize for smearing people opposed to his socialist-statist agenda.
When I served my country in the military I was called a patriot. When I made the choice to go to Iraq to protect our soldiers from roadside bombs I was called a patriot. But according to Steny Hoyer, when I oppose his agenda for America I'm un-American.
I swore to uphold and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. My service in the military and since was against foreign enemies. Steny Hoyer is a domestic enemy of the Constitution, and my oath to uphold it means that I must oppose him and his kind!
Merriam-Webster defines regret as, "to be sorry for". If a man breaks into my house and tries to cause harm to my family I may have to shoot him. I might regret the fact. I might feel sorry that I had to take that course of action. I would certainly not apologize or in any way make amends for protecting my family. Steny says he regrets the un-American comment, but in no way does he feel he ought to apologize for smearing people opposed to his socialist-statist agenda.
When I served my country in the military I was called a patriot. When I made the choice to go to Iraq to protect our soldiers from roadside bombs I was called a patriot. But according to Steny Hoyer, when I oppose his agenda for America I'm un-American.
I swore to uphold and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. My service in the military and since was against foreign enemies. Steny Hoyer is a domestic enemy of the Constitution, and my oath to uphold it means that I must oppose him and his kind!
Our current state of affairs was predicted in 1840, by Alexis de Toqueville.
This predicted and described the United States decent into socialism. We have failed to learn from our mistakes and others, teach our children, or know ourselves the value of liberty.
"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances - what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a net-work of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
Democracy In America, Volume 2
by Alexis de Toqueville
"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances - what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a net-work of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
Democracy In America, Volume 2
by Alexis de Toqueville
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Prescription for Disaster
On September 11, 2001 our government failed us. Despite massive budgets, impressive human and technological resources available to the government, 19 men armed with box cutters were able to turn aircraft into missiles. The only qualified success that day was aboard flight 93. The passengers ignored the rules, formed an ad hoc militia, and kept the terrorists from crashing their plane into a fourth building in Washington, D.C. With Todd Beamer's rallying cry, “Let's Roll,” they saved hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent lives on the ground while sacrificing their own on a field in Pennsylvania. These citizens responded with amazing speed to a threat America wasn't even aware of the previous day. We justifiably take pride in their actions.
Now this same government that has failed to secure our borders despite the explicit constitutional sanction to do so, has taken over our health care system in spite of the will of the people and constitutional restraints expressly put forth in the 10th Amendment.
The government’s past meddling in our health care system is what got us into our present problems. Rather than admitting their socialist mistakes of the past, liberals insist that they need to massively overhaul the existing system. Instead of instituting tort reform and other logical approaches President Obama and Democrats in Congress supply us with a 2,300 plus page law that we and they are supposed to read after they pass it. We don't need 159 new agencies and 16,000 new IRS agents. We need a functioning health care system!
The health care systems in Canada and the UK are pathetic. There are more MRI machines in Philadelphia than in all of Canada. Yet our leaders insist that somehow we are wrong because we are the only country that doesn't have socialized universal coverage. Instead of celebrating our exceptionalism, they demand we follow the rest of the lemmings over the cliff. Instead of cutting red tape and outrageous law suits Congress insists on more bureaucracy.
Doctors, patients, and the entrepreneurs in a free market can better solve our health care issues than can the government bureaucrats. Government, “solutions” invariably lead to waste, fraud, and abuse since there is no profit/loss motivation to keep things as efficient as possible. Instead government bureaucrats are rewarded for failure by ever increasing budgets.
We need a Congress that will listen to us, obey the Constitution, and unleash the entrepreneurs that have helped make this the greatest nation on earth! We need more people like Todd Beamer, and fewer like Steny Hoyer. So, “Let's Roll” to the voting booth in November and take our country back!
Now this same government that has failed to secure our borders despite the explicit constitutional sanction to do so, has taken over our health care system in spite of the will of the people and constitutional restraints expressly put forth in the 10th Amendment.
The government’s past meddling in our health care system is what got us into our present problems. Rather than admitting their socialist mistakes of the past, liberals insist that they need to massively overhaul the existing system. Instead of instituting tort reform and other logical approaches President Obama and Democrats in Congress supply us with a 2,300 plus page law that we and they are supposed to read after they pass it. We don't need 159 new agencies and 16,000 new IRS agents. We need a functioning health care system!
The health care systems in Canada and the UK are pathetic. There are more MRI machines in Philadelphia than in all of Canada. Yet our leaders insist that somehow we are wrong because we are the only country that doesn't have socialized universal coverage. Instead of celebrating our exceptionalism, they demand we follow the rest of the lemmings over the cliff. Instead of cutting red tape and outrageous law suits Congress insists on more bureaucracy.
Doctors, patients, and the entrepreneurs in a free market can better solve our health care issues than can the government bureaucrats. Government, “solutions” invariably lead to waste, fraud, and abuse since there is no profit/loss motivation to keep things as efficient as possible. Instead government bureaucrats are rewarded for failure by ever increasing budgets.
We need a Congress that will listen to us, obey the Constitution, and unleash the entrepreneurs that have helped make this the greatest nation on earth! We need more people like Todd Beamer, and fewer like Steny Hoyer. So, “Let's Roll” to the voting booth in November and take our country back!
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