Years ago, Richard Nixon said “We’re all Keynesians now.” Really the history of the U.S. from Teddy Roosevelt on has been the advancement of economic socialism and social egalitarianism. (Robert Bork wrote a couple of books well worth reading on this subject). Clearly this is not all bad. We’re better off in terms of less racial discrimination, public health and work safety standards et al. The problem is, it has now been long enough for it to be obvious that the arrow always moves to the left in the big picture. There have been periods of slowing it down (Coolidge and Reagan being the prime examples) but there has *never* been a major reversal. While hope does spring eternal, and I’m sure there is and will be Obama backlash, to this point there has been no evidence that Social Security and Medicare and a million other socialist programs are ever going away, nor are a core of social and moral standards ever coming back.

None of this means that we aren’t obligated to try.

Like you, I vacillate between a sense that we are doomed and the optimism that we will not let this happen. Though we had our initial beginnings from the peoples of both Eastern and Western Europe, our foundation and core development as a nation is not the same. We do not have centuries of serfdom, servitude and dependency ingrained in us. Freedom was the gift our Founding Fathers truly gave us as Americans.

“We’re closer to George W. Bush than Barack H. Obama” I love that line.

author’s opinion but this is one of them that does. Good job. If you don’t mind, I’m going to borrow a line from it to use as my sig line for awhile.

Spot on and recommended.

If government by laws, not men, is overthrown and our institutions are no longer regulated by covenants by mutual consent, but rather simply extensions of “might makes right” – then our Constitutional and liberal (in the classic, not modern sense) republic is irreversibly lost.

And given that the U.S. had a 150+ years (except for the War of 1812) where it was left alone from foreign powers to incubate our republic, this forebearance will NEVER repeat itself in the memory of our current world civilization.

I am going to keep this post. There are so many days when I question whether it’s worth it to keep fighting because the forces of evil liberalism will be too much to overcome. Then I have days where I have hope that we will return to some sense of stability without having to keep up with what latest scams our politicians are thinking up to take more of our freedoms and tax dollars away from us.

The tea parties definitely give me hope that people are willing to sacrifice their time and $$$ to stand up against what has become a tyrannical government.

I hope you are right about future change.

But have you seen, yet, thousands and thousands of Americans in every state filling up the Republican Party precinct committeeman vacancies? Have you been to a local GOP meeting? Have you calculated the average age of the attendees?

You said, “I take great comfort that President Obama is as different from Candidate Obama as North is from South.” Really. Some of us heard his rhetoric, as laid out for all to read in his two (!) autobiographies and the books of David Freddoso and Jerome Corsi. Candidate Obama told those of us who were paying attention exactly what President Obama would do.

I searched your diary entry for a plan of action. You ended with, “We are Americans. That is enough.”

My question is, “What are you planning to DO?” Crossing our fingers and hoping for change will not make it so.

Thank you.

ColdWarrior

www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com

As you have stated you haven’t been to any GOP meetings, let me fill you in on a demographic problem. This problem is endemic to other “conservative” or “traditionalist” organizations.

I go to a lot of “conservative” and “traditionalist” functions. Usually, when I stand up and make a comment, I say something along the lines of, “I don’t mean to offend anyone here, but I’d say the average age of the attendees is quite a few years north of 55.” Then I follow up with the point that the leftists really don’t need to do anything but outlive us.

Where is the new, young blood in:

The GOP?

The pro-Second Amendment groups: NRA, GOA, state affiliates?

The hunting ranks?

Etc., etc., etc.

The Boy Scouts are dying out, no?

The Girl Scouts?

All, we need to get our younger folks involved in this fight. Involved. As participants.

Thank you.

ColdWarrior
www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com

The instant someone (anyone) starts paying in to government insurance, it’s there forever. “I paid into it, I want my benefits!”

We need to fight back now, and hard.

to my Marine son who is on his 3rd deployment in Iraq, to my son who gave me my grandson and my hope for the future and to my daughter, though she has no patience for politics and to all my friends both conservative and liberal as well as those who don’t know what they believe in. This is one of the best written articles on what being an American truly means. Thank you.

I disagree with the premise that somehow as Americans we are immune to the march of history. We will never long surrender our freedoms. Really?

If we compare America of 1800 with America of 2000, do we have freedom? What do we have? What have we permanently given up?

“We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.” James Madison
Will we ever eliminate the Public Indoctrination School System (P.I.S.S.)? Can you pass the P.I.S.S. Test?
In 1800 I could legally own every weapon owned by the US military. Today? Even if we eliminate weapons of mass destruction?

Isn’t a government recipient voter a weapon of mass destruction?
Will we ever eliminate corporate welfare or farm subsidies?

Did Patrick Henry require a license to ride his horse? Did his horse have a plate stuck on his rear end? Did he not travel the public road system? Did people play foolish semantic “privilege” games with inalienable rights?

Can I still buy, sell or trade anything across state lines without my teamster being raped with taxes and regulations?
Is anyone foolish enough to think Washington or Jefferson would have created an FAA or TSA under any circumstances?

Will the FDA ever go away? The NEA?
Is Social Security still the third rail?

Now that Republicans have adopted the Democrat principle of Nation Building are we to expend treasure we don’t have to prop up governments around the world forever?

Will I ever again be free to work at whatever price I deem appropriate or will the minimum wage require me to be unemployed?
Will I be allowed to build the home of my dreams on land that I own or will I be forever beholden to zoning boards and planning councils?

Must I always expect to pay for the privilege of running a business to some local jerk mayor or county councilman?

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” James Madison

This foolishly naive notion that we as Americans will never give up freedom in the face of so many proofs that we have in fact already embraced a subtle tyranny is a little scary. Do we even know what liberty is anymore?

The people who today would never eliminate Social Security, the Income Tax, the Federal Reserve or the “privilege” of a drivers license will tomorrow defend ObamaCare as surely as they defend the other socialist constructs of the last hundred years.

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.” Thomas Jefferson
The Great Experiment can fail. America can fall. Liberty can die.

CW: We can’t get precinct committeemen to donate an hour a month to defend a nation that was founded by patriots walking on bloody bare feet though the snows of Valley Forge.

Conservative sites starve from lack of funding by either the big businesses they defend or the little guy they entertain.

The average American has paid no price for liberty, fiscally or physically.
We can understand how a “renter” who is enabled to buy a house by some government program can walk away when hardship strikes because they have no skin in the game. Liberty is no different than a house. Most Americans are “renters” of liberty and they will walk away when faced with hard times. In fact they have “walked away” by supporting government programs that promise to feed them, house them or keep them safe from terrorists if only they give up their liberty. We esteem too lightly.

I personally have no more use for an ESOL TSA agent wasting my time at the airport than I do for guvmint cheese.

I do not want to trade my liberty for safety.

Liberty is never free and sometimes downright dangerous. But I’ll take it anyway.

“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.” James Madison

We are at a breaking point for America. Assuming that somehow we will muddle through because we are Americans is synonymous with defeat.

There is a tremendous amount that would have to be done to dig us out of the current mess even if we turned on a dime today. Obama is not going to turn on a dime. Assuming the dollar lasts three more years we will be $15,000,000,000,000 in debt. Then we replace Obama. Then what? Will we have half- witted Mitt “he’s a real conservative” RomneyCare or his political twin elected to continue the road to perdition?

There is no point sticking our heads in the sand. America and liberty have likely never been more seriously threatened. For the second time (1776 being the first) in our history the outcome is not certain.

Silly platitudes about America’s infallibility can only serve to reinforce a deadly complacency that has infected the nation. We don’t need apathy either. WE CAN WIN but it will not be as easy as electing a half dozen RINO’s in hard to reach districts. Or promulgating vague proclamations like “ending statism.”

We need to look to founding principles. Back to basics. If a law can’t be justified according to what Jefferson or Washington or Franklin or Henry, et al put out there, it has no place in America. If a politician can’t be relied on to support that position; they have no place in government.

sorry…

I said, “there isn’t sufficient public will to overturn…”By that, I mean that I often take for granted that the American Revolutionary War was a foregone conclusion. Then I ask myself what it would take for me to risk what they risked for an uncertain outcome? What if they had lost? When a young soldier looked around that winter at Valley Forge, do you think he felt like a victorious American, or like a defeated subject of the crown, fighting a losing battle? Why do you think Thomas Paine and the other pamphleteers were so instrumental in the victory? Because the forces for freedom needed constant reminders that even though the cost is high, the prize is invaluable!!

So we can slough off unnecessary federal program baggage as soon as we are willing to do the work, each of us in our own way (some being General Washington, some Thomas Paine, most ordinary foot soldiers), to come up with a better solution, raise awareness of it, and refuse to stop talking about it something happens.

Then, we have to believe that we have the best system of government ever devised by man, even if it doesn’t yield the results we want. The hard part about being governed by the free will of man is that sometimes, some men’s free will is different from mine. The question, then, becomes how far we are willing to go to fight for our cause. Which hill are we wiling to die on?

No more fillibuster.