AMERICAN JIHAD

We used to be “…one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Thanks to the evolution and revolution of modern politics in America, we see that, part and parcel, the vestiges of our American way of life are being systematically dismantled, disfigured and denied. No longer are we one nation, thanks to liberal democrats who have so diluted our essence as to cause us to question our very existence. Those same self-proclaimed citizens are making headway in expunging any semblance of the religious foundation on which America was built. Indivisible? Hardly. If you listen to what the liberal democrats have to say, each and every one of us is either left or wrong. Liberties…why, they’re being threatened, trampled or tossed out on a daily, if not hourly, basis in our legislatures from cities all the way to Washington. Justice for all? Not likely, with judges jeopardizing our judicial system shamelessly showcasing purposeful, purely political pontifications. About the only thing left “for all” of us is doubt, despair and disillusion.

Why? The answer to that simple question is so sinister in its simplicity that it boggles the mind when you stop to think about it. In a nutshell, it’s not about what’s best for the American people. It has nothing to do with seeking the logical or ethical course to take to solve our problems. It’s all about winning, taking back control, regaining lost power and prestige. It’s all about blaming, blocking and bashing Republicans from the President on down so as to foment fractious ferver. Truth is not necessarily based on facts, but meticulously manufactured to mesmerize the masses. The American people are innocent victims in this terrible turf tug-o-war.

Once a nation of compromise, contemplation and cooperation, we’ve become a polarized population polluted by propaganda. We’re told how to live, who to believe and what to think. We’re force fed mental fast food that is rotting our brains and wasting our lives. What used to be a shared sentiment of shades of gray has become a blatantly baseless bracketing of everything from civil rights to foreign policy into either black or white, wrong or right, in or out.

I fault liberal democrats for having the unmitigated gall to engage in underhanded, street fighting tactics. And I fault the conservatives and Republicans for letting them get away with it. But even more fundamental than that, I fault myself for getting sucked in to play their foolish game in the first place. We’re not sheep anymore. We’re more educated, more informed and more aware than ever before. But we’re still at the mercy of those we elect. Those “in power” and those fighting tooth and nail to, like the jackals they personify, win for the sole purpose of winning…without a plan, without an agenda, without a clue. And then there’s the concept of fixing things that aren’t broken.

So, that exactly am I trying to say? It’s time to let common sense replace nonsense. It’s either that or we self-implode, making our nation, our people and our way of life vulnerable to those who wish to see us erased from the face of the Earth. Even sadder, if we don’t do something soon, we will eventually end up doing ourselves in and saving our enemies the trouble.

Bury the hatchet. Drop your guns. Work together. For the sake of our ancestors whose wisdom founded the fragile freedoms we enjoy. And for the sake of our future generations who deserve nothing less than the bountiful blessings we behold. And that means everybody—politicians, the media, interest groups, citizens at large. If we are indeed “…one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” let’s start acting like it!!

THINGS WE DON’T NEED TO KNOW

WAR. It’s not for everybody. If it were, everybody would be doing it. Wars are best left to those trained and equipped to fight them. And we best leave them alone to do their job, or else we all suffer exponentially greater chances of defeat. War entails national security. That means securing and preserving our freedom, our way of life, our right to walk down our neighborhood streets without fear. National security in and of itself is not a matter for public discussion, let alone exposure to the world—a world full of evildoers who wish to destroy us. Divulging secrets during time of war was once considered treason. Today’s liberals/democrats would have us all believe that public information is more important than national security. At any time previous to the present in our history, matters of national defense and national security were held close to the vest by those empowered and entrusted to protect us. The very civil liberties our government leaders and our military devote themselves and sacrifice their very lives to provide have become the cancer that, if left unchecked, will be our undoing. If we hold life to be sacred and precious, then what we do as a nation to preserve the lives of our citizens is therefore equally sacred and precious. Sensational journalism replete with graphically horrific photography designed to shock and instill fear is the cheapest form of “public information,” particularly because it demoralizes not only those of us here at home, but those engaged in mortal conflict on our behalf. How can we allow ourselves to day-after-day bite the hand that feeds us…to discourage those who stand up for us against the greatest enemy in the history of mankind?? Partisan squabbling and politically motivated leaks to rabid media have to stop if we have any hope of remaining THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Wake up, people!! The wisdom of Benjamin Franklin is brilliant in our current dilemma. “We must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

OBEDIENCE SCHOOL FOR MAD DOGS??

That's what we're dealing with right now, people. Liberals and/or democrats have "shamed" our country into assuming that our enemies, terrorists--without without national sanction, national identity or national boundaries—warrant the respect and protection of the Geneva Convention governing their treatment as prisoners of war. That’s a fool’s argument, since our enemies are neither honorable nor respectable. They use children as shields. They consider killing innocent civilians a means to their evil end, and by their cowardly nature they themselves consider the rules that bind us to be the very weakness that will help them defeat us. They certainly have no intention of honoring either the spirit or the letter of the law with regard to adversarial encounters. Their aim is to kill each and every one of us, whether onsie-twosie or by the thousands. Every leniency we afford them is nothing less than aiding and abetting their genocidal agenda.

War is not the stuff of dinner table conversations and bedtime stories. It’s nasty, it’s mean, it’s ugly (particularly as illustrated by those rabid for our annihilation). It’s the shame the media don’t have the conscience and patriotism to refuse to air our military’s dirty linens for all the world to see. If I didn’t know better (and I truly DON’T), I’d think the media, fueled by the foaming-at-the-mouth liberals, longs for our defeat for the simply stupid satisfaction of saying “I told you so.” It’s almost like for the media to win, we have to lose. And every chance they get, they show our weaknesses, our failures and our “inhumanity to man.” They glorify our enemies and paint them as unwitting victims.

If we’re to win this war, and I believe it IS a war that we deserve to win, as much for those who innocently died on 9/11 and events before and after that are symptoms of the worst disease our people and our nation have ever known as for our children and grandchildren who, God willing, will continue to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Though now, those inalienable rights are no longer guaranteed. They must be fought for and protected every second of every day.

Our military is facing the greatest challenge in our history, up against enemies that scurry like roaches in the night, whose ideology is that of madmen. And as the subject of this post illustrates, if you send a mad dog to obedience school, he might learn a few manners, but, after all is said and done, he’ll still be a mad dog. And mad dogs don’t deserve to be treated like their normal, sane counterparts. To defeat our enemy, we have to fight them on their barbaric level. We cannot deal either diplomatically nor in the traditional military manner with animals. To do so is to usher in our own peril. Either we fight fire with fire or we go down in flames. The Geneva Convention is now a part of history. Since 9/11, such doctrine can not be associated with the present and its possible reappearance in the future is doubtful at best.

SHOULD WE STAY, OR SHOULD WE GO…?

Here’s the long and the short of it: I won’t debate whether going into Iraq was (on hindsight) a miscalculation. I won’t debate the fact that we underestimated the repercussions that continue to reverberate and escalate throughout the world. I refuse to discuss whether our presence in the Middle East has anything directly to do with trying to corner the world oil market. That’s not what’s worth discussing. What liberal democrats carry as their flag of retreat/surrender in our war on terrorism is their lamentable cry for us to turn tail and skedaddle on back home, abandoning our mission to rescue the people of Iraq and nurture democracy in a region of the world strangled by theocratic tyranny. We’re in a war as uncertain as the weather. We have a commitment, whether you agree with it or not, to finish what we started. And, no, you can’t use Vietnam as an argument. We’re not in a conventional war, and our enemies don’t declare themselves openly. They’re snakes in the grass. Since we can’t predict how long it’s going to take to finish this obligation we’re taken on, dropping our forks in the middle of the meal and leaving the restaurant without paying the check is the WRONG thing to do. Look at it like this: If you cut your finger slicing a tomato, look at your finger and say, “Hey, finger, you’ve got just 24 hours to heal yourself and that’s THAT!” Does that seem feasible??!! If you think so, I’d love to hear from you. So, ‘nough said!! To take it a step further, can we mandate how long we’ve got left until we die?? Uh-uh, no sir, NOT!! So, liberals, pull your heads out and take a breath of reality. If we don’t win this war, it’ll be the liberals who bear the responsibility for the fact that we’ll have to start learning Arabic.

PURE NONCENTS...

Okay, I’ve got absolutely nothing against Abraham Lincoln. I never knew him. But we did study him in school. He seemed like a pretty cool guy. He did some pretty cool things, like ending slavery. Heck, he MUST have been pretty special; they put his likeness on the penny. The one cent coin endured times of tragedy and times of triumph, the great depression, the space age, two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait and Iraq/Afghanistan. But time marches on, and inflation and consequent rises in the cost of living have taken their toll on the poor penny. Efforts are underway to stop minting the little copper disk, some say, because it costs more to produce them than they’re worth. Others say it’s a nuisance, and just clutters up pockets, car ashtrays and piggy banks. Like Yogi Berra was quoted as saying, “The nickel isn’t worth a dime anymore,” the penny apparently isn’t worth a plug nickel, in the grander scheme of things.

I’m sort of ambivalent about the whole idea. Since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated by coins, particularly old coins. Some of my most prized possessions are Indian head and wheat pennies. Okay, so the Indian heads don’t include Lincoln’s face on them, but those that do still hold a certain mystique that goes beyond the noisy rattle they make in pants pockets. I must admit that having to break a dollar for an item costing $1.01 is an unsavory experience. But I can’t resist the automatic habit I’ve nurtured throughout my life to check to see if the pennies I get in change might include an oldie.

So, if we do away with the penny, how does that affect our monetary mainframe? Well, the next step up is the nickel. Without pennies, things would be priced in increments of five cents. It only follows that taxation would also default to the nickel, thereby causing revenuers to either drop or raise taxes accordingly. And if you think any city, county, state or the Fed is going to rush to reduce sales, income or capital gains taxes to the next lower level, think again. In fact, think five more times, actually. No, that ain’t gonna happen. So get ready to pay more taxes if the penny bites the dust.

I wonder if the legacy of the last red cent might represent the next domino to fall. Some countries around the world have suffered such inflationary infections that they’ve done away with coins altogether, leaving pockets devoid of metal and at the same time stuffing wallets to the brim with a plethora of paper. Physics works here, too. What you give up in metal, you gain (usually and then some) in paper. This could also have a psychological element. Folding money has a much more pleasant connotation than the mere flip of a coin. Which sounds like more, a dollar bill or a hundred pennies?

Modern vending machines now take bills. Beyond that, some of them even take credit cards. And I don’t know of a coin slot anywhere that will take a penny without instantaneously coughing up the copper. Penny candy has gone the way of the idea of “dialing” a telephone number. Who’ll suffer most? Oh, probably coin collectors who will breathe a sigh of nostalgia when there’s no copper coins to covet, collect and commercialize.

Seems like the bookends are closing in on us. I can’t remember when, but we’ve already seen the demise of the half dollar coin. That was one of my favorites as a kid. I’d sometimes get one as a birthday gift, and just holding one in your hand made you feel like you were rich. Back then I WAS rich when I had one. Is the penny an endangered species? Will the one cent coin be next, closing us in from the bottom of the heap? And will the erstwhile nickel, dime and quarter remain to rule the numismatic realm? Penny…er, make that a nickel for your thoughts!?

TO CATCH A TERRORIST...

Liberal democrats and their “destroy the Conservative Republican machine at any cost” hell-bent jihad are one of the reasons we haven’t won the war on terrorism. Wanna know why? (As it it weren’t as plain as the noses on their ugly mugs) I can sum it up in one simple word: PROFILING. That’s the term the liberals would have you think is as evil as those it’s designed to ferret out and eliminate. Here’s an analogy that should make it perfectly clear. Say I’m walking down the street, minding my own business, when all of a sudden, a large black dog runs up and bites me in the leg. After I regain my composure, seek medical attention and come to my senses, I decide to report the incident to the police. The police, naturally, will want a description of the perpetrator. I honestly and succinctly describe the derelict doggie to law enforcement officials. They, in turn, will (at least in this fictional illustration, since, Lord knows, they have bigger fish to fry than to chase after critter criminals) devise a strategy to locate, apprehend and bring the furry felon to justice. So, what do you think they’re gonna do? Do you think that, because the liberals condemn PROFILING as discriminatory, they’re NOT going to check out every large black dog they encounter?? Not if they want to catch the one that bit me!! How is harassing little white cats and poodles and Chihuahuas going to help?? It’s NOT going to help. All it would do is prolong and confuse the issue. Why is this so hard to grasp?? Oh, the pain…the agony. If we want to round up Middle Eastern terrorists, we’ve GOT to look for Middle Eastern suspects. It can’t get any plainer than that, whether you’re a liberal, a conservative, a rocket scientist or a run-of-the-mill kook. If I were of Middle Eastern descent I would find it inconvenient to be pulled aside and questioned. But, you see, I’ve got one very important thing going for me: I’ve got nothing to hide, and if it’ll protect my freedom, security and way of life, it’s a small price to pay to prove once and for all that, while I might fit a PROFILE, I do not represent a threat to our homeland.

That leads me to another important point. While the bulk of terrorism is founded, centered and mainly conducted out of the Middle Eastern region, that’s not to say that terrorism doesn’t exist elsewhere in the world. As we’ve come to learn the hard way only to have the realization reinforced too many times already since 9/11, terrorists don’t just live and ply their trade in the Middle East. We have “home-grown” terrorists among us—legitimate U.S. (and allied) citizens who have been corrupted by extremist terrorist ideology to the extent that they’re willing to destroy themselves for the sake of abject hatred with which they’ve been poisoned.

The bottom line: PROFILING works!! It is an essential, indispensable tool to bring in terrorists. But it doesn’t stop there, folks. It’s like the ad campaign question: “What does an alcoholic look like?” There’s no cut and dried, simple answer. It could be any one of us. And, if we want to preserve our free society, our way of life, we’ve got to allow ourselves to WIN the war, even if it means a little inconvenience. Liberals—and anyone—who condemn PROFILING are as evil as those such condemnation shields, protects and allows to slither in our midst.

Why don't we allow our military and law enforcement to freely PROFILE??

SEARCH ME!!

Rather than just sit around and grouse and grumble about the stupid things that make me want to scream, I've decided to let my hair down (pun intended, since my hair went south long ago) and free my mind of the clutter that makes it hard to think straight these days. So here goes!! In case it's not all that obvious, the title of my blog should let you know that, you're getting what I have to say whether you want it or not, and I wouldn't charge you even one red cent for what I think or have to say about whatever!

Blame it on the Media!!
Last time I checked, we were at war. How can you tell? Because the newspapers and radio and television bombard the senses with information better left unreported. Not only because it's stuff we don't necessarily want or need to hear, but because it obviously can and too often does put our longevity in jeopardy. How, you ask. Here's how.

1. Again, remember we ARE at war. One of the most ridiculous things I ever heard of was the concept of the "embedded reporter." That's liberal-speak for anti-administration spy. Not only do they even think once, much less twice, before they spew their sabotage to the winds, but could care less that what they "inform" might result in helping our enemies and putting our own troops at much greater risk than if they'd kept their mouths shut and their spin machines turned off. So much for the idea that what we don't know can't hurt us. What we learn from the media is rarely if ever good, helpful, or a source of truth. If ever there was a case for human shields, how about our troops on the front line with their "embedded cohorts" leading the way?!

2. Politics infects the masses. Both those inside and those on the outside intent on destroying peace, progress and prosperity, and for the sake of winning no matter the cost or the consequences. The politicians light the fires, but it's the media that throws gasoline on them! Too many times the lunatic left has been caught lying, stretching and inventing news to fit their agenda of destroying the reputation, record and respect of ourselves, our way of life and, disgracefully, our nation's leader. Bad news travels fast. Yeah, like nano-seconds fast. That's how long it takes to "enlighten" the world and make bad things worse. If it were up to me, the media would be shut down on covering the war, except to report on the surrender of the terrorists, or even better, reporting their obituaries. And as far as the politicians who leak detrimental details about our war effort and the "information" agencies that repeat them, I say they should all be given swift trials, convict them of treason and either hang them of let them stand before firing squads. Come on, people!! We're at WAR!!! Show me the media and I'll show you unchecked, unmonitored and unmitigated Weapons of Mass Destruction!!!

Okay, I'm better now. If you agree, here's a cyber high-five back atcha! If not, I'd love to hear what you've got to say. Yeah, really!