Happy Belated Independence Day America!

Independence Day in my eyes is supposed to be a day of remembering our past, honoring our fallen heroes, praying for those who protect us even now, recognizing the cumulative sacrifices of all who have gone before and appreciating the liberty and opportunity we enjoy today.

Lo, but for how far we have fallen.

On tuesday night, I had the opportunity to enjoy the Danbury fireworks with some friends.  I also found the opportunity to enlighten my friend’s teenage daughter and one of her friends.  Despite studying US History in school, both were clueless to who we even declared independence from.   Unfortunately, I think this is not uncommon.   I suggest you keep it simple.

I gave them a five minute history lesson about the Declaration of Independence in addition to the sacrifices made by others past and present so they could enjoy the liberty that they have today.  I reminded them that they could have been born anywhere else in the world into any number of societies and their lives would have been much much different.  This is true even today.  Nowhere on Earth are citizens afforded such liberty, such freedoms, such wealth nor such opportunity to achieve.  Imagine being born to work on a rice paddy somewhere in China for your entire life with no education and dying from disease and a broken back at a very early age.  Because of the fireworks, I was also able to tell them about Fort McHenry and Francis Scott Key and our national anthem.

This was a great experience for me because I felt like these two girls, likely for the first time in their lives, actually stopped just for a second to appreciate what they had and where it came from.

On the fourth, I did what a lot you probably did.  I attended a backyard barbecue and planned for some heavy eating and great conversation.   Unfortunately, we got a lot of rain so the time outside was pretty limited. Worse yet, no kickass wiffleball matches were to be had.  More unfortunate was that I kept running into conversations that were filled with hate and idiocy.  I should explain that I only knew a fraction of those in attendance and those that I did were likely relatives of my amazingly bright and beautiful girlfriend, Tammy.  Ever since we’ve met, I have struggled with keeping my extremely opionated political voice on the down low near her certain members of her family.  Many of them are old school Democrats.  Between you and me, I don’t think they even know what it means to be a Democrat, at least in 2007.  From my limited perspective, it seems to mean that bashing Bush is the only significant requirement.

Where am I going with all of this?  I guess my point is that the world is full of people who vote for Democrats but aren’t even remotely aligned with that political philosophy.  The first conversation I sat through at the barbeque was of a group of five or six folks trashing President Bush on the Scooter Libby issue.  They proudly confirmed each other’s Democrat status and laughed about how they didn’t vote for Bush so he’s not THEIR President.  One spoke at length about how Libby got a slap on the wrist and that it was a sham that Mr. War for Oil can smack lady justice around at will.  Imagine me in the corner fiddling with my blackberry reading the list of their hero, William Jefferson Clinton’s list of pardons.  Do any of these people know about this?  Take five minutes and go read this. Do they care?  Where does this hate come from?  I can’t figure it out.  These same people also talked briefly about how upset they were about tax increases.  One was apparently an avid hunter and owned several guns.  To me, they seemed like regular people that would want to preserve our American culture that is under relentless attack from the left.  Yet, they were here attacking one of the few men who is in a position to slow our tranformation into Teddy Kennedy’s America.

Those of you who know me, know that I ended my previous position as Bush’s defender when he inferred that I was a bigot because I want my border secured.  However, the man is my President and he is THEIR President too whether they like it or not and we are AT WAR people.  While Bill Clinton, a man I despise, a man with no morals, a known liar and thief, was our President, I honored his office and his position as Commander in Chief.

Later that day, one of Tammy’s relatives brought out a copy of Michael Moore’s recent movie, Sicko, which from the title, I originally thought would be autobiographical.  It turns out, however, that it refers to the feeling in my stomach when someone wants to play his movie on INDEPENDENCE DAY of all days.  Michael Moore is most famous for Fahrenheit 911, a film where he distorts the truth, edits others opinions in print and on video and flat out lies to make the greatest country on Earth, ours, look like a tyrannical despotic force from the darkside bent on killing babies and stealing oil from beautiful foreign lands where kids play with kites all day.  In my opinion, he is an enemy of our state, a lying propaganda artist and he should be tried for treason.  Anyway, I saw that and made a beeline for the door.   If you want to know about Mr. Moore’s lies, get a copy of Fahrenhype 911 and or visit www.moorewatch.com and www.mooreexposed.com.

All of this is so sad really.  I know not everyone is a conservative.  Some people are genuinely liberals.  Of course, they are misguided and ill-informed but I know from experience that even if they were informed, there would still be some liberals.  However, I dare say that very very few people align themselves with liberal Democrats based on political philosophy.  Many, it seems, are Democrats because their parents are or were, or possibly they were spoonfed liberalism in college, or even more likely, they are constantly bombarded by the newsmedia with liberal lies and distortions.

The question is what to do about all of this.  The biggest problem is that people take their own politics so seriously.  Even people who haven’t got a clue about politics still become unhinged when their understanding of political issues is in question.  I’m thinking that the answer would be a way for people to discover the truth on their own.  I’ve got an idea for a simple quiz that I’m going to work on that might do just that.  Stay tuned.

‘300′ The Movie

I’ve been reading a lot of reviews of this film.  If you’re anything like me, meaning “guy”, then you were waiting for this movie to come out since the day you first heard about it.  I mean it has everything that a red blooded male is after, especially if he has a couple parts per 100 of gamer and/or technogeek.  I have been reading lots of critical reviews and I have to admit I’m shocked.  I think the movie delivers everything it would be asked to.  Two thumbs up here.  Ultimately, I think that most of the criticism I have heard is that it’s too simple.  Yes, its lacking in depth but its a movie not a history lesson.  I would equate the movie to how I would describe the story to someone asking me about what happened in Thermopylae.  The point being that I haven’t really any idea except what I can remember from watching it on the history channel.  I’m someone that has a deep love and interest for these types of things and I don’t know the details off hand.  Anyway, on another note, the movie has a weird feel cinematically.  It’s kind of a cross between Sin City and some of the more beautiful modern martial arts films like Hero and The House of Flying Daggers.  Those movies are more about making every frame a beautiful piece of art to look at rather than deeply engrossing plot twists.  Overall, I loved it.  Go check it out.  Trailer and more here.

Dick Lamm speech about multiculturalism.

A friend just passed this onto me.  I thought it relevant as multiculturalism has come up repeatedly in recent days.  Just ask Dinesh D’Souza. 

We know Dick Lamm as the former Governor of Colorado. In that context his thoughts are particularly poignant. Last week there was an immigration overpopulation conference in Washington, DC, filled to capacity by many of American’s finest minds and leaders. A brilliant college professor by the name of Victor Hansen Davis talked about his latest book, Mexifornia,” explaining how immigration – both legal and illegal – was destroying the entire state of California. He said it would march across the country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American Dream

Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America. The audience sat spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the United States. He said, “If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let’s destroy America It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that “An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.’ “

Here is how they do it,” Lamm said: “First, to destroy America, turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country.” History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. The historical scholar, Seymour Lipset, put it this way: “The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy.” Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, and Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, and Corsicans.”.

Lamm went on: Second, to destroy America, “Invent ‘multiculturalism’ and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural differences. I would make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due solely to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.”

Third, “We could make the United States an ‘Hispanic Quebec’ without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: “The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentricity and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.” Lamm said, “I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have various cultural subgroups living in America enforcing their differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities.”

“Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate from high school.”

“My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of ‘Victimology.’ I would get all minorities to think that their lack of success was the fault of the majority I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population.”

“My sixth plan for America’s downfall would include dual citizenship, and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other – that is, when they are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together. Look at the ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshipped the same gods. All Greece took part the Olympic games. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their liberty. Yet all these bonds were not strong enough to overcome two factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions. Greece fell. “E. Pluribus Unum” — >From many! , one. In that historical reality, if we put the emphasis on the ‘pluribus’ instead of the ‘Unum,’ we will balkanize America as surely as Kosovo.”

“Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits; make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of ‘diversity.’ I would find a word similar to ‘heretic’ in the 16th century – that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like ‘racist’ or xenophobe’ halt discussion and debate. Having made America a bilingual/bicultural country, having established multi-culturism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of ‘Victimology,’ I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: That because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good. I would make every individual immigrant symmetric and ignore the cumulative impact of millions of them.”

In the last minute of his speech, Governor Lamm wiped his brow. Profound silence followed. Finally he said,. “Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis’s book Mexifornia. His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don’t read that book.”.

There was no applause A chilling fear quietly rose like an ominous cloud above every attendee at the conference. Every American in that room knew that everything Lamm enumerated was proceeding methodically,quietly, darkly, yet pervasively across the United States today. Discussion is being suppressed. Over 100 languages are ripping the foundation of our educational system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures that practice female genital mutilation are growing as we celebrate ‘diversity.’ American jobs are vanishing into the Third World as corporations create a Third World in America – take note of California and other states – to date, ten million illegal aliens and growing fast. It is reminiscent of George Orwell’s book “1984.” In that story, three slogans are engraved in the Ministry of Truth building: “War is peace,” “Freedom is slavery,” and “Ignorance is strength.”

Governor Lamm walked back to his seat. It dawned on everyone at the conference that our nation and the future of this great democracy is deeply in trouble and worsening fast. If we don’t get this immigration monster stopped within three years, it will rage like a California wildfire and destroy everything in its path, especially The American Dream.

Just a note, the correct name of the author of Mexifornia is Victor Davis Hanson. 

Recommended Reading…

I am often asked what books I would suggest to get the ball rolling for someone who is new to political discourse in general and/or would likely appreciate a much greater understanding of conservatism.  Here is my Top 5 list.   Remember, I am compiling this list for “entry-level” neo-con news junkies!  If you are “more advanced” than this but still haven’t read one or more of these books, you need to get right on it.  I am linking to Amazon so you can get your book and I can make a buck.

 

Stay tuned for my advanced reading list!!!