Category Archives: American History

Aquamarine vs. turquoise [repost from May 2015]

With too much going on in the news to keep adequate track of,  I’m waiting to filter it into a coherent blog post.  So, with all the anger and hate swirling, until I have something original composed, here’s a repost of an old LB blog post from May 15, 2015:

Aquamarine vs. turquoise

Finally, here is a post on factions, that’s so simple even a 5 year-old can understand the problem. Adults might get stuck in their rigid ideological beliefs. All beliefs are not morally equal – some when carried to extremes have horrific consequences for millions of innocent people, while others can do remarkable good for the entire world. That is the TRUTH.

Let’s say you believe very strongly that a color is aquamarine and I believe equally as strongly that that color is turquoise. Being that we both believe a different thing, many avenues are there for us to choose. We could argue and get so angry that we end up hating each other and never speak to each other again. I could feel so strongly about my belief that I kill you. We might even kill each other fighting over who is right. I could even decide that it’s not enough to just kill you, but because you’ve convinced your whole town that the color is aquamarine, it’s necessary to kill all of them too.

Of course, on the less extreme side we might agree to consult an outside expert on color to settle the matter, perhaps, we could call the Crayola Company, after all they’ve been naming colors since 1885 in Easton, PA, near where I grew up.

We might argue, passionately and often, clinging to our beliefs (as President Obama accused those rural people in PA), but in the American tradition, we could agree to disagree and at some point, shake hands and say, “Let’s go have pizza!” Presented to most 5 year-olds, the vast majority will agree that it’s stupid to kill other people just because we disagree, on the other hand most adults refuse to even listen to differing opinions. Maya Angleou, renowned poet, expressed it exactly right:

“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.” –
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/26244-hate-it-has-caused-a-lot-of-problems-in-the

So, in America, being a country forged together by a people committed to INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM, we have The Declaration of Independence to ensure our God-given, unalienable rights are not infringed upon:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Sadly, in America our political partisanship swirls dangerously to extremes – where hate has swelled to such a level that many Americans choose to receive all of their news from sources that align with their political views. The hate and extremism goes so far that even the President of the United States works to divide Americans into hostile camps. Distrust turns Americans into furtive enemies, partisans avoiding those who hold an opposing view, with ideological walls being girded to lock out all who dare to disagree. Even codes are enacted in our universities to silence opposition.

We must tear down these partisan walls!  We must work to find common ground, or we can not face the threats beyond our borders.  President George Washington warned about the dangers of extreme partisanship in his Farewell Address:

“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

So, beyond my stating it is a parental duty in a civil society to train your children to respect the rule of law.  George Washington tells you that it’s a duty to discourage extremist politics – the duties are required to be a good citizen.  I wrote a post in 2013 titled, “The duty of a wise people”. on this subject.

There was a time, not so long ago, when American school children were routinely taught about this speech and  American principles.  Sadly, today I suspect many school children don’t even know who George Washington was. And mentioning The Constitution, too often and too loudly, will get your name on a Homeland Security watch list as a right-wing extremist…

 

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Filed under American Character, American History, Culture Wars, Education, General Interest, Politics, The Constitution, The Media

It’s about FREEDOM!

Here’s another important American Minute by Bill Federer, which I have linked under American Inspirations on my home page:

    Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the exact same day, FEBRUARY 12, 1809, but their lives had opposite effects.

Lincoln is best known for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and freeing millions of slaves, claiming all men are created equal, as he stated in his Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863:

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Darwin’s theory of evolution claims men were not created, instead they evolved, and men are not equal, as some are more evolved than others.

In 1859, Darwin published “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”

Origin of Species was read and reread by Karl Marx, who used ‘survival of the fittest’ to formulate the ‘dialectical conflict’, where labor and community organizers would create social chaos enabling communist dictators to usurp power.

Karl Marx wrote to Lassalle, January 16, 1861:

“Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural selection for the class struggle in history.”

Karl Marx dedicated his book, Das Kapital, to Darwin, inscribing that he was a “sincere admirer” in Darwin’s personal copy.

Darwin also influenced Engels, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and others whose totalitarian regimes killed and enslaved millions.

Lincoln’s last act in office was to put on all National Coin the motto, “In God We Trust.”

Darwin’s theory has been used to deny a Creator God.

A year and a half into the Civil War, Lincoln told his Cabinet, September 22, 1862, as reported Treasury Secretary Salmon Portland Chase:

“The time for the annunciation of the emancipation policy can no longer be delayed. Public sentiment will sustain it, many of my warmest friends and supporters demand it, and I have promised God that I will do it.”

When asked by Secretary Chase to explain, Lincoln replied:

“I made a solemn vow before God, that if General Lee were driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves.”

Lincoln, the first Republican President, addressed the Indiana Regiment, March 17, 1865:

“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

Abraham Lincoln stated August 14, 1862:

“It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.”

Lincoln wrote to H.L. Pierce, April 6, 1859:

“This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God, cannot long retain it.”

Lincoln stated in his Second Inaugural, March 4, 1865, just 41 days before his assassination:

“If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God…He now wills to remove, and that He gives…this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came,

shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?…’the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'”

Lincoln stated in his Second Annual Message, December 1, 1862:

“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free… We shall nobly save – or meanly lose – the last, best hope of earth… The way is plain…which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.”

In contrast, Darwin published his Origin of Species, 1859, and Descent of Man, 1871, in which he wrote:

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated…

We civilized men, on the other hand…build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick…

Thus the weak members propagate their kind. No one who had attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man…

Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed…”

Darwin continued:

“Civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world…

The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

Social Darwinism was used to justify racism, such as the Supreme Court opinion in Dred Scott v Sanford, 1856, written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who was appointed by Democrat President Jackson:

“Slaves had…been regarded as beings of an inferior order…so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”

Darwin’s theory influenced Margaret Sanger, who promoted “eugenics” and “forced sterilization” to eliminate inferior races. Sanger founded a 501(c)3 called Planned Parenthood.

Margaret Sanger wrote in her autobiography of addressing a Klu Klux Klan rally in Silver Lake, New Jersey in 1938. She wrote in her book Pivot of Civilization, 1922, calling for the:

“Elimination of ‘human weeds’…overrunning the human garden; for the cessation of ‘charity’ because it prolonged the lives of the unfit; for the segregation of ‘morons, misfits, and the maladjusted’; and for the sterilization of genetically inferior races.”

Margaret Sangers’ magazine The Birth Control Review published in April 1933. an article by Nazi Party member Ernst Rüdin, one of the ‘fathers of racial hygiene.’

Ernst Rüdin, advocated eliminating those with hereditary defects – ‘untermensch’- from the human gene pool, which led to millions dying in the holocaust.

Darwin influenced Joseph Stalin, as recounted in the book Landmarks in the Life of Stalin:

“At a very early age, while still a pupil in the ecclesiastical school, Comrade Stalin developed a critical mind and revolutionary sentiments. He began to read Darwin and became an atheist.”

Joseph Stalin stated of the Soviet state-controlled ‘common core’ type indoctrination:

“There are three things that we do to disabuse the minds of our seminary students. We had to teach them the age of the earth, the geologic origin, and Darwin’s teachings.”

Stalin used intentional famines, forced labor and executions to eliminate over 7 million Ukrainians.

Stalin’s notorious 1937 order No. 00447 called for the mass execution and exile of “socially harmful elements” as “enemies of the people.”

Estimates of deaths during the Stalinist period range from 8 to 61 million.

Darwin influenced Mao Zedong who stated:

“Chinese socialism is founded upon Darwin and the theory of evolution.”

Mao Zedong’s atheistic Communist Party policies resulted in an estimated 80 million deaths.

Pol Pot’s communist Khmer Rouge killed 2 million Cambodians in his ‘killing fields’ between 1975 and 1979.

With Darwinist-utilitarian logic, Pol Pot stated:

‘Keeping you is no gain. Losing you is no loss.’

In the article “Nationalism in the Slave States of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and now, China” (Dec. 23, 2010), Lev Navrozov, an immigrant from the U.S.S.R. who worked with the Center for the Survival of Western Democracies, stated:

“Once upon a time it was assumed that a slave should fulfill the slave-owners’ order as efficiently as a machine. But after Stalin, Hitler, and Mao…slaves must relive the order, and hence scream in their delight to kill and be killed.”

These genocides resulted from ascribing an unequal value to human life.

The statement in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, “a new nation…dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” was echoed by other Presidents.

Franklin D. Roosevelt stated in his United Flag Day broadcast, June 14, 1942:

“The belief in man, created free, in the image of God – is the crucial difference between ourselves and the enemies we face.”

Harry S Truman stated in his Inaugural Address, January 20, 1949:

“We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God. From this faith we will not be moved.”

Ronald Reagan stated to the citizens of Hambach, Germany, May 6, 1985:

“Each of us…is made…in the image of God, the image of God the Creator.”

Woodrow Wilson stated in Denver, Colorado, on the 300th anniversary of King James Bible, May 7, 1911:

“The finger of God that moves upon the face of the nations is against every man that plots the nation’s downfall or the people’s deceit…

These men are…groping and staggering in their ignorance to a fearful day of judgment; and…the glad day…will come in which men will sing by the host of the coming of the Lord in His glory,

and all of those will be forgotten – those little, scheming, contemptible creatures that forgot the image of God and tried to frame men according to the image of the evil one.”

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Virtue is necessary in a Republic

Sometimes things seem so perfectly timed that it reaffirms my faith in God. At the top of my home page I have The American Minute linked under the heading American Inspirations.  Here is today’s:

    Society…must repose on principles that do not change.” – wrote Montesquieu in Book 24 of The Spirit of the Laws.

Montesquieu was a French political philosopher whose books were read by Catherine the Great of Russia, banned by Louis XV of France and praised in England.

He greatly influenced America’s founders.

In 1984, the American Political Review published “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late 18th-Century American Political Thought,” written by Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston, and Charles S. Hyneman.

After reviewing nearly 15,000 items written between 1760 and 1805, Lutz and Hyneman discovered that the writers of the Constitution quoted Montesquieu more than any other source except the Bible.

Montesquieu divided governments into three categories, describing what principle each rely upon:

Republics, most prevalent in northern European Protestant countries, rely on Virtue;

Monarchs, most prevalent in southern and western European countries, rely on Honor; and

Despots, most prevalent in Islamic countries, rely on Fear.

“Republic” is a “popular government” where people rule themselves, being conscious that each citizen will be held accountable to a God who wants them to be fair.

“Monarch” is a king with a conscience, being limited by laws, traditions, religion and the noblemen class.

“Despot” is defined as someone who rules according to his whims and caprices, exercising absolute and arbitrary power: absolute, meaning the moment they say something it is the law; and arbitrary, meaning no one can predict what he will say next.

Montesquieu understood that man’s nature was inherently selfish and, opportunity provided, any person could be tempted to accumulate power and ultimately become a despot.

Montesquieu explained that once virtue is gone, a republic will transition from “popular” to a despot, who usurps power and rules through fear:

“It is the nature of a Republican government that…the collective body of the People…should be…the Supreme Power…

In a Popular state, one spring more is necessary, namely, Virtue…

The politic Greeks, who lived under a Popular government, knew no other support than Virtue…

When Virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community…

When, in a Popular government, there is a suspension of the laws, as this can proceed only from the corruption of the republic, the state is certainly undone.”

Montesquieu continued:

“As Virtue is necessary in a Republic…

so Fear is necessary in a Despotic government: with regard to Virtue, there is no occasion for it…

Fear must therefore depress their spirits, and extinguish even the least sense of ambition…

Of a Despotic government, that a single person…rule according to his own will and caprice…

He who commands the execution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is less need of Virtue than in a popular government…”

Montesquieu added:

“Such are the principles…of government…

in a particular Republic they actually are…Virtuous…

in a particular Despotic government by Fear.”

In contrasting a moderate Monarch or Republic with a Despot, Montesquieu wrote in The Spirit of the Laws, 1748:

“A moderate Government is most agreeable to the Christian Religion, and a despotic Government to the Mahometan…

The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power.

The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage with which a prince punishes his subjects, and exercises himself in cruelty.

As this religion forbids the plurality of wives, its princes are less confined, less concealed from their subjects, and consequently have more humanity: they are more disposed to be directed by laws, and more capable of perceiving that they cannot do whatever they please.

While the Mahometan princes incessantly give or receive death, the religion of the Christians renders their princes…less cruel. The prince confides in his subjects, and the subjects in the prince.

How admirable the religion which, while it only seems to have in view the felicity of the other life, continues the happiness of this!…

It is the Christian religion that…has hindered despotic power.”

Montesquieu continued:

“From the characters of the Christian and Mahometan religions, we ought, without any further examination, to embrace the one and reject the other:

for it is much easier to prove that religion ought to humanize the manners of men than that any particular religion is true.

It is a misfortune to human nature when religion is given by a conqueror.

The Mahometan religion, which speaks only by the sword, acts still upon men with that destructive spirit with which it was founded.”

Of the Christian religion, Montesquieu examined:

“When the Christian religion, two centuries ago, became unhappily divided into Catholic and Protestant, the people of the north embraced the Protestant, and those of the south adhered still to the Catholic.

The reason is plain: the people of the north have, and will forever have, a spirit of liberty and independence, which the people of the south have not; and therefore a religion which has no visible head is more agreeable to the independence of the climate than that which has one…

When a religion is introduced and fixed in a state, it is commonly such as is most suitable to the plan of government there established.”

Montesquieu compared Lutheran and Calvinist countries:

“In the countries themselves where the Protestant religion became established, the revolutions were made pursuant to the several plans of political government.

Luther having great princes on his side…an ecclesiastical authority…while Calvin, having to do with people who lived under republican governments…

Each of these two religions was believed to be perfect; the Calvinist judging his most conformable to what Christ had said, and the Lutheran to what the Apostles had practiced.”

Warning of the abuse of power when concentrated, Montesquieu introduced the revolutionary concept of separating the powers of ruling into three branches: legislative, executive and judicial.

These three branches would selfishly pull against each other to prevent one from overpowering the others – thus using power to check power.

The brilliance of this is equivalent to a Sunday school teacher giving an assignment – ‘design a system of government where sinners keep other sinners from sinning.’

Montesquieu wrote:

“Nor is there liberty if the power of Judging is not separated from Legislative power and from Executive power.

If it were joined to Legislative power, the power over life and liberty of the citizens would be arbitrary, for the Judge would be the Legislator.

If it were joined to Executive power, the Judge could have the force of an oppressor.

ALL WOULD BE LOST if the same…body of principal men…exercised these three powers.”

James Madison echoed this in The Federalist No. 51:

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place… If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal controls on government would be necessary.”

In The Spirit of the Laws, 1748, Montesquieu wrote:

“I have always respected religion; the morality of the Gospel is the noblest gift ever bestowed by God on man.

We shall see that we owe to Christianity, in government, a certain political law, and in war a certain law of nations – benefits which human nature can never sufficiently acknowledge.

The principles of Christianity, deeply engraved on the heart, would be infinitely more powerful than the false Honor of Monarchies, than the humane Virtues of Republics, or the servile Fear of Despotic states.”

In his Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans, 1734, Montesquieu wrote:

“It is not chance that rules the world. Ask the Romans… There are general causes, moral and physical… elevating it, maintaining it, or hurling it to the ground…

If the chance of one battle-that is, a particular cause-has brought a state to ruin, some general cause made it necessary for that state to perish from a single battle. In a word, the main trend draws with it all particular accidents.”

In the beginning of The Spirit of the Laws, 1748, Montesquieu wrote:

“God is related to the universe as Creator and Preserver; the laws by which He created all things are those by which He preserves them…

But the intelligent world is far from being so well governed as the physical…

Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.

As an intelligent being, he incessantly transgresses the laws established by God, and changes those of his own instituting.

He is left to his private direction, though a limited being, and subject, like all finite intelligences, to ignorance and error…hurried away by a thousand impetuous passions.

Such a being might every instant forget his Creator; God has therefore reminded him of his duty by the laws of religion.”

Baron Montesquieu died on FEBRUARY 10, 1755.

Montesquieu wrote in The Spirit of the Laws, 1748:

“The Christian religion, which orders men to love one another, no doubt wants the best political laws and the best civil laws for each people, because those laws are, after (religion), the greatest good that men can give and receive.”

And speaking of lost virtue in a republic, I am going to quote from Machiavelli’s “Discourses on Livy“:

“A republic may, likewise be brought back to its original form, without recourse to ordinances for enforcing justice, by the mere virtues of a single citizen, by reason that these virtues are of such influence and authority that good men love to imitate them, and bad men are ashamed to depart from them.”

-from Book III, Chapter 1 — For a Sect or Commonwealth to last long it must often be brought back to its Beginnings

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We still have The Constitution as our rule of law!

I thought it best to keep posting updates – I am still safe and FREE to speak my mind.

The following is what I am beginning to believe. Some of these views I feel confident are the truth, others I am strongly leaning toward. Of course, facts may emerge to prove me wrong , but here’s what America looks like from where I stand, as a law-abiding citizen attacked in my own home in 1998 by a retired general sent to silence me, over online message board postings. Take it or leave it, it’s still a free country, but I have tried since 1998 to seek justice and expose what happened to me, because the events are the truth.

Americans, deluded and led like sheep into this endless cycle of hyper-charged political partisan fighting, lost sight of the big picture enemies around the globe, who remain determined to destroy America.

A couple days ago, I wrote;

“I believe our government, all the way to the top, all of our mass media (cable networks, to include FOX), the partisan agitators (both left and right) and every institution has been carefully and systematically infiltrated,with people they put in place to foment agitprop, to fuel the partisan divide and to buy or put in place candidates, they control.”

So, let me start with a refresher of how I, a nobody homemaker, got caught up in this mess in the first place.  In 1998, when the Clinton impeachment saga began, I was fairly new to the internet, as we had purchased our first home PC in 1997, I believe.  Looking first for pen pals around the world, which had been a hobby of mine in my teens, I also came across “message boards”.  Many of those message boards were precursors to the sexting and online cyber-sex businesses today, serving as venues for people to hook-up.  While trying to figure out message boards, I came across the Excite message boards, which had some very interesting political debates, on all sorts of hot button topics.  I distinctly recall some very extreme views on both sides and I even remember a poster, nickname of Argus, whom I felt might be part of a right-wing militia.  I urged everyone, that no matter what, we must defend The Constitution and follow the rule of law.  I still believe that today.  My goal, as my situation goes public, which I feel certain it will, is to pull as many law-abiding Americans to the middle and away from extreme partisanship and urge all of you to please don’t be the mindless idiots our enemies believe we are. I urge all of you to think for yourselves!

Extreme partisanship served as a fertile field for America’s enemies to sow internal discord and divide America into hostile camps.  Let’s examine how they, being Soviet and Chinese communists in the driver’s seat of this effort, beginning with the Soviets first and later, tag-teaming us with Chinese efforts, then later others, like Iran/Sunni/Wahabbi players too, operate.  Keep in mind that the big game was always Soviet and even after the collapse of the USSR, their efforts continued and actually escalated, while America let down its guard.

Their main agents were in place before the collapse of the Soviet Union.  While the players on the left are obvious and sit ensconced in academia and Hollywood, the ones on the right have been trickier to identify.  We, being the team of old Cold Warriors, who are helping me, are all well-trained and familiar with how America’s enemies operated all along.  I feel certain that the deeply embedded Soviet infiltrators and their children and even grandchildren, still living here,  will be identified in the very near future, Prepare to be surprised, because all of them are trusted  “defenders of liberty”,  and some have held very high public offices, some still do.  Anyone, who made a career out of feeding this endless rabid partisanship between Democrats and Republicans, for decades, is likely part of a foreign infiltration effort.  In the black community fueling violence or virulent racism – like those claiming “white privilege” or the Ferguson/Baltimore agitprop – are likely dupes of foreign agitation propaganda, all part of their larger plan, in place for decades, to divide America.  Muslim infiltration since the 70s, by both Arab, MB and others made great in-roads at funding and fueling this agitprop, while criminal elements helped fund the wasteland of drugs and criminality taking down black inner-city communities.   All along the foreign infiltration enmeshed its efforts with organized crime, thus we now face this mass political corruption, that I intend to expose, with the help of many brave Americans, dedicated to, first and foremost, selfless service to defend  The Constitution!   We are not an armed militia or terrorist group.  We are people who swore the oath to defend The Constitution.

In 1998, I identified the mass media manipulation technique being used by the Carville/Begala spinmeister team  – it uses foreign mass media brainwashing techniques, with the repetition of buzz words and hollow phrases.  The next part of the equation was to condition the American people to trust polls over merits of any issue – they sell the majority polls and very quickly alter public opinion by reinforcing what the majority of Americans believe, casting outlier views as fringe kook views or people who are out to harm the world (global warming deniers or people against gay marriage being haters, being quick examples of how it works).  They sold, that because Americans don’t care about Bill Clinton’s sex life and the majority of people like him, – impeachment was just a partisan witch hunt.  Here’s the truth:

The chief law enforcement officer in America lied under oath.

Hillary’s vast, right-wing conspiracy out to get them, which she believes in whole-heartedly, is the TRUTH, although not in the way she perceives it.

That hyper-partisan right movement, decades long in creation, was carefully planned, packaged  foreign agitation propaganda and it is now coming to fruition.   I identified the Carville/Begala part of the equation and the polling dupe in 1998,  but it is only recently that I came to see the big picture – the Trump campaign exposed the right-wing agitation dupe that was played on us all along.

In the Fall of 1998, I was attacked in my home by a retired general, who had vast resources and help to silence me.  My family was played and duped, to believe I was going crazy and my husband and sister went and got a court order to have me committed to a mental health facility in early 1999- all these records we have, to prove all of these events!   I was involuntarily committed and the events in my Messages of mhere story are true.  When the legal limits on how long I could be held involuntarily in GA were approaching – an effort was undertaken to convince my husband, that I needed to be permanently committed to a state mental hospital (sounds like something out of a communist country, right?)  My oldest son, then only 15 years old, whispered to me, that the shrink treating me, had called my husband late the night before and urged my husband to sign the papers to have me committed to a state mental hospital.  (all documentation – to include phone records of this call are in our possession).

I then threw a hissy fit demanding a lawyer and I wrote a letter and handed it to a petite blond patient, who reminded me of my favorite country star, countrystar1017.   A lawyer was hastily arranged for me and I did get released at that hearing, because my rights had been violated.  We have copies of all these records and have had them for years.  Assuredly records will disappear and history will be rewritten rapidly, efforts are underway to destroy my credibility and the credibility of the team helping me, but we do not intend to shut up or be intimidated.  We are compiling documentation of their efforts to contact our families, friends, co-workers, etc. to get them to distrust us and listen to them – they are using big name people, like Petraeus and the general who attacked me in 1998, to do this.  We are watching and monitoring them, using legal law enforcement assets, who have helped me.  No laws have been broken, because I insisted from the beginning that anyone on my team must obey the law, no matter what.  All will be exposed in time.

I believe FOX News has been a huge Russian/Chinese/Murdoch agitprop front from its inception.  It really is FAUX news.  A lot of effort has gone into buying into this rabid partisanship and FOX has been central to that effort.  CNN was a communist infiltrated effort almost from its inception, due to Ted Turner’s far left political ideology.  FOX feeds the rabid right-wing political ideology.   The O’Reilly/Beck enterprise, I believe is a YUGE con to dupe good conservative Americans, all while playing that they are looking out for “the folks”.   Just look at Beck and his cast of grifters,  who played good people to join the Tea Party (another foreign agitprop effort), plus the rallies making huge profits, and the endless books they churn out effortlessly – likely some team of Soviet infiltrators who set up shop decades ago there, that’s for sure.  Look at the grifters in the Beck ads on his show.  I did subscribe to his online show – trying to figure out what his schtick was all about – those endless board connections and intonations about evil progressives, but mostly I kept looking at his commercials filled with obvious grifters.  He even hijacked George Washington to fund this subversion of America.  Here’s a priceless Beck con man – “The Citadel enterprise”, which I wrote about in 2013:

Sweet land of liberty….. (or land of the gullible)?

O’Reilly took longer for me to figure out, but this takedown of George Will, then fabricated political kabuki theater with Rich Lowry at National Review and William Kristol shed light on the big picture – they are characters in the agitprop script too.  They likely have many writers on their staffs who are loyal Americans, so if you are one of those, beware of your job security – you will be eliminated once my story goes public, if you speak up or challenge them.

They intend to shut down free speech in America, all to silence me, just a nobody homemaker, because I intend to expose the big picture foreign infiltration and the wholesale political corruption.  It is on both sides of the aisle and every candidate in this 2016, I feel, is either knowingly or duped by the corrupt organized criminals and/or foreign infiltrators.  In the GOP field, I intend to expose the many foreign infiltration forces within the GOP, both groups and individuals.  These come in the form of foreign agents who stayed in America, because they didn’t all go home when the USSR collapsed, but it also includes some Christian churches and movements that were also heavily infiltrated decades ago (hint it’s not just Rev. Jeremiah Wright – many are nice-looking white churches too), take a close look at the televangelists, Mormons and prosperity gospel, for starters.  Hard as this will come for many, I highly suspect that the NRA is part of a foreign agitprop movement since the 1930s, a decade which gave CPUSA more recruits than any other period in US history.  It was only recently, watching a Beck crossover grifter, move from Beck’s talk radio enterprise, to TV ads for beet juice, to now NRA ads, that I connected these dots, but unlike Beck, I intend to make my connections with hard facts and documentation.  Think tanks on both sides were infiltrated from their inception.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has been a huge foreign military front with their bogus maps and Elizabeth O’Bagy, check here, here, here here, here, here.

The Petraues mistress scandal smells like a set-up – he was set up by foreign intelligence agents.  I suspect that both Broadwell and that Jill Kelley woman, who exposed the scandal, were part of a hostile foreign effort.

The general who attacked me in 1998, was forced to retire, because he it sure looks like he was set-up by a hostile foreign effort, a foreign reporter – he was a top military leader from Desert Storm.  I believe, he had been set up years before through a long-running foreign infiltration effort, embedded in our government’s civilian personnel services

The Soviets have targeted taking down our top military leaders, in both the NCO and officer ranks, for decades. I observed this in 1980, when I believed my husband was a target.  My husband had a best friend married to a German woman from Berlin.  She had then joined the US Army too.  She was in a personnel job in a Pershing missile brigade, when I met her.  She was involved in an affair with my husband, before I ever dated him and unbeknownst to me when I first married my husband.  She ruthlessly tried to break up my marriage and even followed my husband from Germany to Fort Bragg.  She convinced her husband, an unimpressive infantry NCO to go to jump school.  He passed, she failed, but she kept showing up trying to destroy my marriage.  Later, when my husband returned to Germany, after a stint as a drill sergeant, she made another attempt, perhaps successful.  My husband stalled for almost 6 months to get an apartment off-post, because he said the list for housing was very long.  Finally, when I said, I didn’t believe that and pressured him, he quickly found an apartment.  Within two weeks of my arrival he had to travel to southern Germany for an important field training exercise.  While he was gone, first this woman called me to tell me that my husband had come to visit them, where they were stationed in Germany.  She gloatingly told me that my husband had left his wedding band at their house, by saying, “I have his wedding ring!”.  Also during that same field training exercise, I received an envelope addressed to me, in our post mailbox at the military post office, where we received our mail. I do not know who sent this to this day, but it had a photo of a man, who may or may not have been my husband, because the face was covered.  The photo was a nude man with a nude woman straddled on his lap, facing him.  I did not know anyone there yet.  Many other events happened during that tour in Germany, enough to make me want to divorce my husband when we left Germany.  That  German woman from 1980 and her husband are now retired from the Army, living near Fort Huachuca, where she has a civilian government service job on post:

The major units are the United States Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM) and the United States Army Intelligence Center. Libby Army Airfield is on post and shares its runway with Sierra Vista Municipal Airport. It was an alternate landing location for the space shuttle.

I observed a tactic, of what I believed was Soviet infiltration into the US Armed Forces, through the civilian government service jobs in the secretarial field – setting up agents to serve as civilian secretaries at various command levels, where they latched on to selected officers and NCOs tabbed as top leaders or in critical fields, like S-2 shops.  I saw this happen several times and thought, hummm, here’s another one.  My battalion commander in that Pershing missile battalion, long ago, had a German, local hire, secretary, who was very chic and attractive and she seemed to have her claws in my battalion commander, another very good leader.  She watched me like a hawk, because my battalion commander, liked me and called me Fraulein Wünderbar, along with treating me like his daughter.  He displayed courtly manners toward me, generating a great deal of anger among many of his officers and other women in the battalion, some even calling me the “battalion princess” or one captain, one day, angrily blurting out, “are you too good for the rest of the Army?,” after I had been shown preferential treatment by my battalion commander.  When that battalion commander left with his wife and headed stateside, that German secretary latched onto the dorky S-2 officer and at the time, I thought, wow that’s an odd couple.  And so it went, I observed.

The truth will out in the end and I intend to speak the TRUTH and although it’s almost an insurmountable task to prove that I am not a terrorist or threat to America.   This still is America and I don’t have to prove that; they must prove that I am a threat or a terrorist.  We still have The Constitution as our rule of law!

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Things are not as they seem (with this wide GOP field, Trump or Hillary)

Posted a comment on Andrew McCarthy’s article,  “Hillary’s E-mail Recklessness Compromised Our National Security” at National Review.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430879/hillary-clinton-email-scandal-assume-intelligence-compromised

susanholly Sunday, February 7, 2016 2:19 PM

Mr. McCarthy, I believe that there’s much more afoot than just Clinton corruption on an epic scale or just her email server. Throughout the Cold War, America’s most ruthless enemies pursued aggressive infiltration efforts to destroy us from within. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, we walked away from aggressive counter-measures, choosing to buy into all that “end of history” nonsense in the 90s. The Carville/Begala mass media manipulation is a foreign infiltration program, I believe. Now, we have Sunni/MB infiltration in Hillary’s inner-circle, Iranian infiltration in the White House and Chinese infiltration throughout our government, business and especially in our cyber-activities – all of the social media and realityTV, and talk shows to teach Americans to betray their families on national TV were part of the effort. I feel certain that with the effort to expose the Clinton plot to sabotage the GOP primary, via the Trump effort (with Clinton political operatives working behind the scenes there), much more will come to light that will shock Americans. I believe our government, all the way to the top, all of our mass media (cable networks, to include FOX), the partisan agitators (both left and right) and every institution has been carefully and systematically infiltrated,with people they put in place to foment agitprop, to fuel the partisan divide and to buy or put in place candidates, they control.

The Soviet efforts, focused on usurping both Christian themes (world Peace) and patriotic American themes,wrapping them in the American flag and The Constitution, targeted the political right, making them harder to detect. These programs have run unabated for decades. There are church groups in America that were infiltrated, not just the Catholic church in Central and South America. The Chinese efforts focused on buying up large American companies to use as fronts, buying politicians (Clinton Chinese money ring any bells) and now cyber warfare. The Chinese now own our debt. The left was easier and they’ve succeeded there, the right now sits poised to fall too, because things are not as they seem with this wide GOP field – it’s all kabuki theater, not just Trump. That is my prediction. Screenshot this fast, because I expect this comment to be removed quickly.

My nickname on those old Excite message boards was mhere – a pun of sorts, being an old Cold Warrior myself. Kind of amazing is back then I felt like the last Cold Warrior and here we are infiltrated all the way to the top.

http://libertybellediaries.com…

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Imminent Danger Will Robinson

Update:  The link: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/02/cars-lined-up-out-of-town-as-hordes-attend-trump-rally-in-exeter-nh-fox-news-barred-by-fire-marshal/ , which I mentioned in, More alarming tidbits, seems to have been removed from that blog and I checked the The Last Refuge blog, alternately known as Trump Polling Update Central, and can’t find it there either.  The revision of “history” blitz will begin shortly, where the term “virtual reality” takes on more ominous meaning – time to start screenshoting everything.   Of course, the link may reappear shortly to make me look like a nut or liar, but as of 10:39 am EST it is gone.  I urge all of you to do the same.  There’s a much larger plot afoot in America, that goes well beyond Hillary and Bill’s desperate actions, to use any means necessary, to seize the White House.  Ruthless and determined, foreign enemies have worked their way through every corner of American society and power, through decades of concerted and relentless infiltration operations and they are ready to move.

Call this wild conspiracy theory if you choose, but when you see the agitprop moves rapidly progressing  from the lame White House “narratives” to full scale mass media manipulation of our news, on a scale you never imagined, just remember that I warned you first.  On both the political left and right – groups, pundits, websites and entire news networks have been set up to play you, the American people, as mindless idiots.  YUGE foreign fronts are in place to deceive you and throw gasoline on the partisan divides, that they’ve worked for decades to put in place.  I am not alone, trust me, there are many Americans dedicated to protecting America from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, who  saw these threats years ago.  They are all law-abiding, loyal American patriots, not crazy militias and not fomenting any violence whatsoever, in fact, they intend to follow the rule of law, expose the TRUTH and make sure all of these enemies get rounded up as expeditiously as possible! That is our mission!

Update: The gateway pundit link is working at 10:27 am EST, 2/15/16 – I admit to a typing error in that link, but I had gone to the actual site that day and could not locate this story and also to The Last Refuge blog.  It’s very curious about the numbers game with these Trump rallies in the beginning and who he had organizing them, and the effort to fill these venues, plus who did the crowd estimates.  A lot of effort went into hyping his support and the YUGEly overestimated polls.  The Last Refuge blog, a site that made it’s name by dissecting the black grievance industry in America, and one that attracted a lot of overt racists and bigots, in my opinion, quickly became his online polling update center.  I visited that site often trying to understand crowdsourcing, as a possible means to use to expose my impeachment story.  Of course, the proof I need is held by the people who orchestrated the attack on me and not through crowdsourcing.  Over the years, I’ve explored trying to contact real journalists, I’ve relayed my story with names, dates and details to a few men with the connections within the Army to get at the facts, I explored politics chat rooms, comment sections on various online sites, facebook and finally I started this blog.  This blog was started at the urging of a friend, who told me that I have good ideas and should write my own blog.  A few weeks into the blog – an epiphany struck that perhaps this blog could serve as my force multiplier to tell my story.  Yes, I wrote my story in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner and used “cutesy names” (pseudonyms for my own protection), and in that annoying third person for a personal story, but hey, the truth is that third person gave me a little emotional distance, because I still wake up often with nightmares.  I just wanted to be honest and acknowledge an error on my part with the link above.

Life for me since ’99 is an effort at keeping fear at bay and trying to still live my life.  It’s a struggle not to become like Alex Jones and see a conspiracy behind every corner, but assuredly for that retired general to show up here and attack me, when the only outside activity I engaged in was that Excite message board on impeachment, left me no doubt there were other people who sent him (a conspiracy).  My husband was ready to retire from the Army and I was at home taking care of my family.  Someone sent that general and the attack used to try and silence me was not cheap. It’s a lot like the Elizabeth O’Bagy story – I stumbled upon some inconvenient facts there too and wrote about them on my blog and then posted my information at a popular blog, in their comments section.  During impeachment, I stumbled upon some foreign infiltration and wrote about it in those impeachment threads, making me wonder if thatwtich2016 and their political sideshow was only a much smaller part of  why I was attacked and a concerted effort was made to have me locked away permanently in a state mental hospital.  During those 18 days in that mental health facility,  I could bath, dress, talk coherently, take care of my own personal needs and still had time to listen to just about every other female patient in that mental health facility for 18 days – but they wanted me locked away permanently…

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MORE Chinese infiltration

“Chicago Stock Exchange Says It’s Being Sold to Chinese-Led Group

The Chinese government has spent decades buying up US real estate, our debt, influence peddling in Washington (Clinton Chinese connections ring any bells…) and buying US companies.  They have sought ways to manipulate and control all sectors of American society.   The US Panama Canal, during the Carter administration long ago, is an example, where Chinese front companies moved in to control the ship traffic in the canal – a terrible move from a military strategic perspective.

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On America’s side

“The side I’m on is that of America.  And for very, very positive reasons.”  – Minta Marie Morze

 

A couple weeks ago my 10 year old granddaughter, a very bright student enrolled in the gifted program at her public school, mentioned something she learned at school, which I told her is not correct and what she learned really plays into the problems plaguing America and it also speaks to our future.  My granddaughter said, “America is a democracy.”  Reflexively, I corrected her and said, “No, America is a republic!”  Thus began a stream of back and forth, because as of yesterday she told me that her teacher still says, “America is a democracy.”  I told her again that her teacher is mistaken, because assuredly, America is a republic, set up as a constitutional federal republic.   However, watching the demise of federalism and the reliance on pop culture and public opinion polls to silence dissenting opinion, I’m wondering if America has descended into that hellish, brutish state where on the whims of ginning up anger and use of slick mass media manipulation (propaganda) to sway the mob,  the only thing that matters is the “majority rules”.

On polar ends of the American electorate, this fraying of trust or even understanding of this basic fact crops up in ever disturbing ways.  On the political left, they’ve got  angry mobs taking to the streets to compel justice by force and college bullies silencing opposing views with rules imposed by fiat, “I disagree, so you can’t speak!”.  In the Presidential run they’re wading in a shallow geriatric pool with a dyed-in-the-wool socialist resonating with disenfranchised Democrats and a pathological liar, riding on her gender and spewing paranoid vitriol about some imaginary dangerous right-wing conspiracy out to do her in, and by extension do in the American people too.  She sees a vast right-wing conspiracy around every corner.  Her answer to every problem in America is another federal program, to encroach evermore deeply into the lives of American citizens.

Freedom for local communities and states to manage their own affairs falls to the ever-expanding beast that crushed the very breath of liberty out of not only local and state governments, but out of individual American citizens.  We’ve become a people conditioned to bow to the popular opinion poll on issues, as manipulated by mass media propaganda.  When the left wants to sway Americans to a particular view – big bucks go to various activists and groups (many Soros funded) and the propaganda blitz ensues – Hollywood makes movies and TV shows promoting that view and mainstreaming it into the culture, “experts” hit the airwaves extolling it, and then the media reinforces the idea with polling data, much of it dubious, selling this view as popular and reporters will grill the outliers, who dare speak up against that view, lecturing that the majority of Americans believe the now carefully manufactured and manipulated view.  It’s a type of insidious brainwashing and peals the death of liberty and The Constitution.

Now, on the political right, the use of mass media manipulation has rarely been understood, let alone used, that is until the Trump campaign, which is using the Carville/Begala playbook, as I’ve stated repeatedly.  That’s what I see – Bill Clinton’s perfect triangulation lining up, if Hillary can avoid an indictment.  This post is not going to be a regurgitation of my own conspiracy theory, but here’s the link to my thoughts on that.  Assuredly, as I’ve stated many times, I will not ever vote for Donald Trump, because his campaign highlights the capitulation on the right to accepting manufactured hype about polls over principles.  The heart of conservatism,  weak though it beats, will not survive if it succumbs to the reality TV culture and slick mass media manipulation of Donald Trump, who rambles on about his poll numbers endlessly, but does not hold to conservative principles or even basic civility.

On the right then who, well, Ted Cruz promised to be a principled conservative who would take on Washington and he has stood up against the Washington insiders, but in the process his personal style engendered absolute loathing among his fellow senators, on both sides of the aisle (read Charles Krauthammer’s very astute assessment).  Do I agree with Cruz on the issues?  Absolutely, but here again we get to reports, many which Trump helped spread, that Cruz is so despised that many GOP establishment people would rather support Trump, whom they know is not conservative,  to destroy Cruz, who is.  In a less polarized era and where pop culture celebrity didn’t carry more credence than ideas and republican principles,  most of the other GOP candidates, admittedly with both pluses and minuses in my view, would still be able to gain some traction.  Every single GOP candidate running against Trump offers more coherent policy, offers complete sentences and thoughts,  and from this Mom and grandmother, displays better manners.  Trump may be mega-rich, but he behaves like a boorish jerk!

With Trump monopolizing the media cycle, with the aid of the mainstream media selling people on polls over principles,  none of their messages even get noticed as the GOP’s Paris Hilton spews mostly incomprehensible gibberish.  In fact, Paris Hilton actually marketed a clearer campaign message in her cute video (see above) with easily understandable policy positions, but disgruntled GOP base voters project their hopes and beliefs onto the blank canvas that is Trump’s “making America great again”, because assuredly if you write out Trump’s rambling speeches and comments, there’s a lot less there than you’d imagine and a whole lot of conflicting ideas, beliefs, proposals, all overshadowed by the relentless repetition that he is winning in the polls (popular).   He’s created this aura of “inevitability”, which now is reaping a snowball effect, as more and more GOP kingmakers are weighing their options and opting to throw in with Trump, despite reservations that Trump is even loyal to the Republican party – they are willing to toss the reins of their party to a man who converted less than a year ago and has spouted conflicting gibberish, all based on he’s a winner and great at making deals.   Trump is already working out deals with those despised GOP establishment folks his supporters want destroyed.  Trump admitted he talked to Mitch McConnell last month – so yes, the backroom cronyism moves full-speed ahead.

That’s the gist of Trump’s campaign, because I dare anyone to actually make lists of Trump’s statements on various topics to include the incomplete sentences too, compare how they line up for consistency, try to discern core principles, then look at what he said with whom he was speaking (he’s a chameleon and can cozy up to Bill Clinton as easily as Rush Limbaugh on the golf course).  Finally, when you’ve done that honest assessment, devoid of how you feel, analyze how many times he repeated his poll numbers and stated he is winning and look at how many times he said that to divert attention from an issue or question he did not answer.  It’s a deliberate media manipulation tactic and it’s one perfected by the American political left, not GOP political operatives.

Here are a a few other oddities with the Trump campaign, from someone who has followed presidential campaigns since I was 8 years old in 1968.  Trump wrote about not liking to shake hands in one of his books – he has a germ thing and doesn’t want dirty people touching him.  Has he ever done the usual shaking hands that’s par for the course in politics?  From what I have seen he flies in, does his rallies and flies back out, then does his “connecting” with voters via late night Twitter attacks and the cable news circuit, not up close and personal.  His campaign started with Roger Stone as his campaign manager.  Stone quit or was fired in August, when the Trump/Megyn Kelly dust-up happened.  Oddly enough, Stone is still out there speaking for Trump and no other visible campaign advisers or spokespeople emerged until November, when this former Tea Party activist, Kat Pierson, started hitting the airwaves as the Trump spokesperson.  Stone, according to Wikipedia, has a book due out January 26, 2016 – “Jeb! And the Bush Crime Family”.  Note that since Stone quit or was fired he seems uneasy and nervous whenever he appears on TV defending Trump – something smells off to me, but hey I’m a woman and we roll with that female intuition thing.

Another thing I noticed is that the Trump camp sure compiled massive opposition research, which Trump and his campaign advisers (whomever they really are) dump these nasty stink bombs at the most strategically brilliant times.  For a novice politician, who can’t even spit out coherent political policies, the political astuteness of both content and timing of these attacks seems quite incredible.  Any GOP competitor rises in the polls – boom, the Trump campaign dumps a full payload.  The Trump campaign even seems to be feeding opposition research to The Last Refuge blog, which has become Trump Polling Update Central, and when Mark Levin came out criticizing Trump for attacking Cruz, yesterday that blog ran this hit piece of opposition research asserting the son of Levin’s fianceé works on the Cruz campaign.  For Trump, who isn’t much on the details, his campaign is more effective than the Dem operatives who launched that Bush DWI stink bomb years ago.  The irony of The Last Refuge blog is they no longer welcome opposing opinions from actual conservatives.  It’s Trump or the road, and they ran this hit piece on Levin, which appears to be opposition research (sleaze to damage Levin’s credibility) provided to them by the Trump campaign.  If Trump ends up exposed as a fraud, there will be a lot of very angry populist mobs, with so many conservatives investing so much hope and belief in Trump, so hope I am wrong about Trump being a fraud, as this could get very ugly, very quickly.

National Review orchestrated a “Stop Trump” campaign, ostensibly to save conservatism.  My friend, Minta, sent me an email last night stating:

“This new issue of National Review is a big problem, but not for the reasons someone might think. The general view around here is that instead of the authors writing a manifesto about what Conservatism is, and what it means, they look as though they are attacking one person. They could have achieved the better result by supporting someone like Cruz. I love the authors of the Nat’l Review this time, but they are risking looking like elitist snobs. Where were these manifestos when Lois Lerner wasn’t indicted, when the IRS was going after the Tea Parties, when the military was being dismantled, when the VA was shown to be anti-military?”

Minta got it exactly right, the Trump supporters get angry when other conservatives disagree and conservative stalwarts like George Will end up screamed at by populist pundits like Bill O’Reilly, another speaker for the little people, who also is  a friend of Trump’s, so when Trump doesn’t articulate his positions clearly, O’Reilly helpfully fills in the blanks on what Trump meant and does character references for Trump too.   In this environment, Trump’s supporters are emotionally invested in Trump, in the same way Obama supporters became cultish in their belief that one man could singlehandedly transform America.  They want a Messiah or a strongman, not a President, with clear CONSTITUTIONAL checks on his/her power.   I want less government control and less power in Washington’s hands, especially after President Obama’s imperial presidency.   Herein is why I don’t think Cruz will ever gain much traction – his fellow GOP establishment peers in Washington want him annihilated and Cruz talks like an elitist Harvard lawyer.  Cruz has nowhere to go to attract voters, if he moves to the middle he loses the conservative base voters who stuck with him, the GOP establishment is throwing in with Trump and moderates will never gravitate to Cruz, with his hardline conservative record and on top of that he comes across as an elitist Harvard lawyer who talks down to the little people.  He is not someone your average Joe would want to have a beer with.   Rubio, Christie, Kasich all have more personal appeal frankly.  They come across as nice people.  Jeb is doomed by his last name, Carson hasn’t been able to convey he’s a viable Presidential choice and Fiorina, smart, does her homework, but she always comes across too scripted and worse than that she usually seems angry and uppity.  She does not convey much personal warmth.

Trump has severely damaged the entire GOP field with his scorched earth campaign style, so it’s hard for me to envision any of them being able to repair that damage by November, but this is the season where anything is possible.  And on the bright side, for this conservative, at least the Democrats have an even worse mess on their hands.  Whatever happens, the larger question of,  “Are we a democracy, where angry mobs silence dissent and popularity polls rule over principles or are we a republic grounded in The Constitution?” may become the defining issue of the 2016 campaign.  In the meantime I am looking for some good books or sources to explain Our Republic to my 10 year-old granddaughter, so if you have any recommendations, please let me know.

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Self-help projects: an American tradition

“I award him my ultimate insult: He is no gentleman.” – Kinnison

If you’re new to my blog, you might think the above quote comes from another century, but rest assured it’s from a true gentleman, who comments here occasionally.  Few men today in America even think or put forth the effort to develop the character of a “gentleman” and society suffers for their scarcity.  Vulgar behavior, gratuitous violence, disrespect and violence toward women and children fill that void.  Now the counterpart to gentlemen used to be “ladies”, but the desire to redesign gender, social order, the workplace and even the bedroom make even uttering the word “lady” an insult to the modern-day feminist woman.  So, here we are with the rules of civil behavior tossed to the garbage heap.

With the new year comes the usual resolutions, almost invariably focused on healthy-living and getting your life organized.  Along with the resolutions we’re inundated with self-help advice from experts on how to turn those resolutions into reality.   Well, as for me, I am going to keep working on forgiveness and I added forbearance to my list.  And I sure need to also work on the healthy-living and getting organized too.

Although ladies and gentlemen are a rarity, a few still exist in America and they’re almost exclusively found within the ranks of the US Armed Forces (both active and retired).  With the social engineering there, they’ll be extinct shortly, but let’s take a little trip back in time and look at two of America’s founding fathers and how they made character development an integral part of their daily lives and in typical American fashion, they did it as a self-help project, without any formal instruction.

First up, my favorite founding father, George Washington, America’s first President, commander of the Continental Army, that secured our liberty, farmer,  and self-taught gentleman.  Sure, he was a slave-owner and he wasn’t some perfect person, but he achieved a great deal in his life worth emulating.  Since everyone likes visuals more than reading, here’s a National Geographic documentary and as with everything in America these days, the comment section runs on and on with partisan diatribes about the video – on the right, it’s called a liberal witch hunt to denigrate the founding fathers, and on the left, you can find charges about his owning slaves disqualifying him as worthy of any place in history.  Here’s the video:

What I really wanted to focus on is how George Washington made it a point to copy and study a common guide for manners and decorum,  Rules of Civility, that Jesuit tutors had used from the late 1500s onward, to train young boys of the wealthy.  Young George got a hold of a copy and carefully copied all 110 rules and he studied them.  Americans come by their self-help penchant honestly, because it’s been a part of America from the very beginning.  This is the land of “you can become anything you want to be” and George Washington became the father of our country.  His immense popularity could have made him king, but he insisted on being a President, who served the Republic and then retired.

The “Rules of Civility” is available free online at many sites. Here are a couple links:

http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/the-rules-of-civility/

http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents_gw/civility/civility_transcript.html

If you’d like to read more about the Rules of Civility, I recommend Richard Brookhiser’s slim book, which offers an excellent introduction and interesting commentary about the various rules.

Next up Benjamin Franklin, statesman, inventor, scientist, publisher, revolutionary, and self-help guru too.

Benjamin Franklin described his self-help regimen as the 13 Virtues. He came up with his plan when he was 20 years old and he devoted a week to each of the 13 virtues, in an ongoing cycle. He described keeping a chart of his progress

For more reading on Benjamin Franklin here’s a link to his autobiography:

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/biographies/benjamin-franklin/

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The complete guide to understanding America

In today’s Washington Post a new American citizen, Carlos Lozada, offers sage advice for every American, in a piece that offers a fresh perspective on our unique political experiment, quoting a very old source – “The book every new American citizen — and every old one, too — should read: To mark my first year of U.S. citizenship, I read Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.” Turns out, it explains everything”Lozada explains:

“My first full year as a citizen of the United States was also the year Donald Trump made nativism a viable political project. It was the year college activists battled racism with their own peculiar intolerance. It was the year Rachel Dolezal was redefined, Atticus Finch rewritten, Caitlyn Jenner revealed. It was the year police shootings became viral, mass shootings became daily and same-sex marriage became law. It was a year America did little else, it seemed, than fight over values, identity, premises.

It’s exhausting, being American. Seriously, do you folks do this every year?

I’m not a recent arrival. I graduated from college here, got married here, built a family here. But only with citizenship did I grasp the distance I’d always kept. I left my native Peru behind 27 years ago, but whenever this country seemed too painful or complicated, I’d shake my head sagely. Estos gringos locos. Except now everything about the place — its virtues and excesses, its history and future — is all mine, too. For the first time, I feel the glorious burden of being American.

To carry it, I’ve realized I need help. Sure, I passed the citizenship test, even practicing the list of 100 questions with my kids. (They’ll ace elementary school civics now.) But for the advanced coursework, my instinct was to turn to a book. What could I read that would guide me through the chaos that is democracy in America?

Fortunately, there’s this little book called “Democracy in America” — written 175 years ago by, of all people, some know-it-all foreigner.”

Democracy in America is also available free online at http://www.gutenberg.org:

Vol 1 here

Vol 2 – here

 

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Filed under American Character, American History, Culture Wars, General Interest