Revisiting the Pledge of Allegiance
On this day in 1945, Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance. For most of us, the Pledge was part of the daily school ritual. But today, schools across the country either modify the Pledge to remove “potentially offensive” words or ban the recitation all together.
Instead of writing about the Pledge, I recently came across this article by iconic entertainer, Red Skelton, which sums it up so nicely.
Commentary on the Pledge of Allegiance
by Red Skelton
As a schoolboy, one of Red Skelton’s teachers explained the words and meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance to his class. Skelton later wrote down, and eventually recorded, his recollection of this lecture. It is followed by an observation of his own.
I - – Me; an individual; a committee of one.
Pledge - – Dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self-pity.
Allegiance - – My love and my devotion.
To the Flag - – Our standard; Old Glory ; a symbol of Freedom; wherever she waves there is respect, because your loyalty has given her a dignity that shouts, Freedom is everybody’s job.
United - – That means that we have all come together.
States - – Individual communities that have united into forty-eight great states. Forty-eight individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose. Read more
Apprentice in Chief
Presidential campaigns help indentify unelectable kooks like the screaming Howard Dean. They even help spotlight unprepared candidates like Rick Perry. They also have low job performance predictive validity. Read more
Another Day, Another Obama Plan
Op-Ed from Boston Herald 9/20/11
President Obama is ignoring the first rule of holes — when you’re in one, stop digging.
But no, after putting forth a $447 billion so-called jobs plan (which was really just a jobs plan for public employees and construction workers), he has now doubled down on tax hikes as his way of not only paying for that plan, but tackling the deficit it would increase.
So yesterday he unveiled a $1.5 trillion tax hike as the way of tackling $3 trillion of the deficit over the next 10 years. It came with the usual Obama it’s-my-way-or-the-highway threats. Read more
Lamestream Media Weenies
The mainstream media has been dishing up a bunch of contaminated wienerschnitzel.
It’s no secret the mainstream media wallows in leftist propaganda, but when confronted with the proposition that most American journalists are registered Democrats they assure us they compartmentalize their personal views form their reporting.
Even if one is gullible enough to accept this it still begs the question of their choice of stories. Consider that Brian Williams, the left-teetering anchor of NBC Nightly news, at first ignored the sordid but newsworthy fiasco surrounding Weiner’s raunchy online behavior and his disrespect towards women. He was quick, however, to pounce on N.J. Gov Christie’s use of a state helicopter. Read more
Michele Bachmann Channels Her Inner Pelosi: We have to extend the Patriot Act to Find Out What’s In It.
Michele Bachmann had quite a gig going for a while. Attractive, well spoken, sharp witted with a friendly delivery, Bachmann had been a Tea Party darling from the beginning of the movement. Less polarizing than Palin, many considered Bachmann to be the best chance for a conservative Presidential contender.
The first Republican woman elected to the US House of Representatives from Minnesota, Bachmann has spent the past decade propelling herself as a smiling, non-threatening, conservative, constitutionally based politician.
But as is so often the case in politics, especially in the age of instant messages and Face book profile updates, Bachmann let the “small government” mask drop for a second, revealing the establishment Republican juggernaut beneath.
One of the issues near and dear to the hearts of Tea Party patriots nationwide is the repelation of any act whose existence is not sanctioned by the Constitution. Top on the list after ObamaCare is the rejection of the Patriot Act.
The controversial act was rushed into existence under the threat that without it, the country would be over run with terrorist. It represented the largest rights grab in American history. An understandable knee jerk reaction to 9-11, the powers that were extended to the government seemed like Read more
The Bogus Blame Game
Shortly after a crazed gunman opened fire on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and almost two dozen others in the immediate area, the mainstream media and the professional Left began to blame conservatives for creating a climate of anger and hatred. We did not even know the gunman’s name or even if there were co-conspirators, but the Left went into full spin mode to blame, not the gunman, but conservatives. Politico reported that a “veteran Democratic operative” advised President Obama “to deftly pin this on the tea partiers.” This blame game is stunningly dishonest and shockingly opportunistic and cynical. Read more
Luckily for Giffords ObamaCare Isn’t Yet In force
I will preface the following with this statement. What happened to Gabrielle Giffords (and the others) was a tragedy. However, as with most tragedies, Giffords’ situation in particular provides us with a very succinct learning opportunity.
It’s pretty easy to pass judgment and decide what is best for everyone else when you aren’t personally affected by the result. Over reaching politicians, eager to push their own personal agendas as well as those paid for by corporations and “private interests” so often sell off the rights of the individuals they are supposed to represent. ObamaCare, wrapped up in the warm fuzzy words of “betterment of society” is set to rob people of the most basic human right, the control over their own bodies.
Gabrielle Giffords was a proponent of ObamaCare. She agreed that the rights of millions of Americans should be subjugated to the government. She agreed that the government would be a better custodian of your medical care than your own doctor. Perhaps most ironic, she supported the idea that those who would be a financial burden to the medical system, using more than their fair share of medical resources or have (what a panel deems) a low quality of life, should Read more
Opportunities in Tragedy
Within a few minutes of the Arizona shooting, politicians rushed to shove shooter Jared Loughner into the political camp of their opponents. With no motive, no warning, not even a name, the opportunity to make the murders of (at that time) an unknown number of people, political, simply couldn’t be resisted. The tragedy gave those who should have the sense to be silent and somber, a perfect opportunity to pontificate. Politicians, political pundits, and even a Sheriff pointed fingers at the right in general, and Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin specifically. “SHAME all you right wing, hate mongers!”
As is often the case, many of those who pointed fingers first and bemoaned the loudest at the “irresponsible hate speech” of those on the right, had short memories. Democrat Paul Kanjorski, the former House of Representatives member from Pennsylvania was quick to point fingers and demand that the right stop the rhetoric that he suggested led to the murders. Yet a mere nine weeks ago, Kanjorski, who lost his re-election bid, said of Rick Scott, the Republican contender for Governor of Florida, “Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Read more
Statist or Constitutionalist
Which type of government do you want? That is the question that confronts American politics today. Do we want Statist or a Constitutionalist government? What is the difference between them? A Constitutionalist wants the limited government that lives by the checks and balances in our Constitution. A Statist believes that our Constitution is a “living document” and it can be used to justify the creation of any government program imaginable. Here is an explanation of how we now have a Statist government and how we can bring back the Constitutional government we once had.
A Statist’s hero is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A Constitutionalist’s hero is James Madison. Both men were Presidents of the United States. Madison wrote most of our Constitution. FDR threw it away. How did FDR throw away our Constitution? He did so when he changed the meaning, the understanding of an important phrase in our Constitution. This phrase can be found twice in our Constitution. The first time is in the preamble but the most important time is in Article I Section 8 of our Constitution. It is in Article I Section 8 that the enumerated powers of our government are found. What are those two words?… Read more
The 2010 Election What it was, what it is & what it will be
What the election of 2010 was, was the people of this country telling our elected officials two things about their “solutions” to our problems 1) they don’t work and 2) they actually make our problems worse! Government programs in the long run do not work. They are at best a temporary fix to our problems. The primary purpose of the temporary fix is to get the politicians who created them reelected. The essence of the Tea Party Movement is the knowledge that it is not the job of Congress to solve our country’s problems!
Our Constitution was not written for our government to solve our problems!
What the election of 2010 is, is the election of those who do represent how the average American feels about our government. A feeling of being tired of high taxes, of being regulated in everything we do, and of being lied to. We are tired of the lies that a new government program, which is often the creation of another program Read more
