Kill a Child, Save the Planet

May 30, 2014

Kill a Child, Save the Planet

By Jeremy Egerer


I've heard strangers say perhaps a dozen times that if the Native Americans had only kept control of the Americas, the environment would be in much better shape, but this is only half a truth.  It isn't so much that Native Americans were very good at taking care of the environment; it's more that they were very bad at taking care of their children.

There's really only one thing standing between the human race and a healthy environment, and that thing is children.  Everyone knows that the more children there are, the more animals we have to eat, the more clothing we need, the more waste we produce.  The Indians were masters at skirting all of this: they preferred to remain in the stone age in nearly every respect, which meant they had terrible medicine and limited food – or worse, shamanism and starvation, which meant they had a lot of dead children.  The Europeans had medicine, and Adam Smith said that in his day, a poor Irish woman could have twenty children in her lifetime, and only two might survive.  If this is the case, then the Indian man either lacked any sort of virility, or else they lost far more of their children because they couldn't sustain them, which I think is much more reasonable.

Tocqueville proves, in Democracy in America, that caring for the environment had far less to do with an environmental virtue, which is what liberals believe we need more of today, and much more to do with a lack of ingenuity and industriousness.  When the Indians encountered white manufactures, they began to trade what little they had to get whatever they wanted – and all they had were pelts and such.  When they had given their pelts, they went hunting for more; when they exhausted their pelt supply, they exhausted their food; when they exhausted their food, whites traded them guns and tools and booze for land; and when they left their land, they pillaged the new ones until they had to repeat everything over again.  Tocqueville pitied the Indians, but he said there had never been a more just acquisition of foreign territory: the Cherokee and perhaps a few scattered others aside, none of the Indians would farm, because they found routine labor effeminate and degrading instead of responsible.  A man who has no interest in production is entirely at the mercy of chance; a man who is entirely dependent upon chance will never be able to support a civilization.


 The only people who were perhaps worse at managing children were the major civilizations of Central and South America, who, aside from lacking medicine, deformed their children by smashing their brains – supposedly to improve their looks.  Some might also fault the Mayans and the Aztecs and the Incas for their brutality and human sacrifice, but the truth of the matter is that we kill far more babies than they ever sacrificed their neighbors, with one major difference: the Americans of today kill their own children, and the Mayans killed other people's children.

Some would mention that our reasons for killing children are very different; I say they're exactly the same.  Americans kill their children because we'd much rather go to college or have a better job; the Mayans killed their neighbors because otherwise their crops would fail.  Essentially, we both kill people to make it rain. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WomensHealth/Story?id=5293543&page=1

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=make+it+rain

I will leave it to the reader to decide whether killing to sustain everyone is more barbaric than killing to sustain only yourself.  Either way, we have already borrowed what things we could from the Native Americans, although unintentionally: we lack the willpower to reduce our pollution, so we've kept the garbage and gotten rid of our babies.

Jeremy Egerer is the editor of the philosophical websites Letters to Hannah and American Clarity. American Clarity welcomes friend requests on Facebook.

http://fatherlyepistles.blogspot.com/

http://americanclarity.com/

http://www.facebook.com/AmericanClarity

Obama and Other Dreamers

Obama and Other Dreamers

By Susan D. Harris

http://prernalal.com/2013/07/president-obama-tortures-dreamers-six-of-the-dream-9-are-now-in-solitary-confinement/

Bringing to mind the movie title, “The Uninvited,” President Obama unexpectedly inserted himself into our lives once again when he introduced the History Channel’s much hyped six-part series, “The World Wars.” http://www.history.com/shows/the-world-wars

 This is the latest production by Stephen David Entertainment, who also produced the Emmy award winning series, “The Men Who Built America.” http://www.history.com/shows/men-who-built-america (Of course, it makes you wonder if Obama would have watched, much less enjoyed, David’s documentary of our bedrock capitalism, as it explored the lives of men like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Henry Ford and J.P. Morgan.)

A commenter on Deadline Hollywood shared her feelings about Obama’s introduction to “The World Wars” saying:http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/president-obama-to-introduce-historys-the-world-wars/

Well that’s a series I won’t be watching, at least not the first night!  [Obama will] probably say he didn’t know anything about the wars until he heard about it on TV, and he is mad as hell about it and is going to look into it.

One has to wonder why David invited perhaps the most polarizing president in modern history to introduce a series documenting the greatest wars of modern times. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/01/23/obama-on-track-to-be-most-polarizing-president-ever-gallup-says

Many Americans doubt whether President Obama really understands the American perspective of the World Wars, since he hasn’t shown any understanding of the wars he has presided over as commander-in-chief.  Mark Levin best expressed this as a recent guest with Sean Hannity, saying:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RvEFS7kSpE



It has always bothered me…the way we have fought these wars.  When you look at past wars, including WWII and so forth…we send our infantry, we send our men into these hellholes; our air power is used minimally because we are trying to protect people on the other side.  You go in there, you win these battles as best you can and you get the hell out of there.  I don’t know what (Obama’s) objective has been…and that’s enormously tragic for the people and families who’ve been involved in this…

Barack Obama may have formed his Planwirtschaft ideals in Chicago or Harvard or Columbia; but one can envision him somewhere back in time in Vienna, sipping an Einspänner at the Café Central with fellow visionaries…boasting of his plans to fundamentally transform America; looking for ways to force the colonialist bastards to finally discard their moth-ridden Constitution and their false ideas of capitalism.http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionnaires/allemand-anglais/Planwirtschaft/32434

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Viennese-Coffee-House-Tradition&id=3420940

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/03/william-boyd-viennese-waltz


 We gaze into our crystal ball and see Mr. Obama seated in the café, surrounded with the intellectuals and dreamers of another time (a.k.a. “the choom gang”), honing their revolutionary ideas:  Men like Trotsky, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Freud and Jung.  Also sporting about town are one Franz Ferdinand and his would-be assassin, Gavrilo Princip…All of them passing through the Innere Stadt district; debating ideologies, testing the waters, formulating ideas that would plunge the world into confusion and chaos for decades.

Trotsky leans over to Mr. Obama and advises, (as caricatured in a 1934 Chicago Tribune political cartoon):  “Spend! Spend! Spend under the guise of recovery – Bust the government – Blame the Capitalists for the failure – Junk the Constitution and declare a dictatorship!”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sns-pod-1934-cartoon-pic,0,7114709.photo



Hitler, angrily waving his hand to sweep away the cloud from Obama’s cigarette, leans in and whispers, “If you can’t pass your legislative agendas, use executive orders instead.  You must use every ounce of your authority to unilaterally improve economic security.  You must let tell the people it is the only way to remedy the distress of the people and the state.  First though, you must create the crises that will make the people see it is the only way.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-pfeiffer/how-to-govern-when-congress_b_5355066.html

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/enabling_act_march_1933.htm


Stalin, tapping his vodka-spiked java on the table, feels a kinship with Obama.  “Mr. Obama,” he says, “We both come from a troubled childhood;http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/obama-and-stalin-how-theyre-alike/

 but turn this around and convince the people you are a man of great moral character -- so that no matter what you do, the children will write poems about you and the parents will call you a defender of the working class.”

Lenin interrupts, slamming his fist on the table:  “Socialism is the best way; pure socialism.  But if that does not work, you must control the commanding heights of the economy.  Hold your political power and retain control over banks, energy, transportation and trade -- or education and healthcare if that is more appropriate in your situation -- but allow privatization in other places to appease the people.”

“I am bored,” Freud yawns.  “Forget the commanding heights. I have been lifted to the heights in a wonderful fashion by cocaine!  But I digress.  You are too driven by dreams from your father, Barack.  It is not healthy.  You will become one of those wrecked by success!”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/books/review/an-anatomy-of-addiction-by-howard-markel-book-review.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/is-your-brain-culture/201107/freud-obama

Carl Jung is sitting silent in introspection. “Ask yourself this, Mr. Obama: Are you the one sitting on the stone, or are you the stone upon which you are sitting?”  Everyone eyes each other suspiciously.  “Perhaps,” he continues, “you should speak with my spirit guide Philemon.  If I held conversations with him, then perhaps you can too.  He will give you superior insight and you will understand your dreams.”  He pauses then continues, “I wasn’t going to mention this, but I had a dream of you, a man named Putin, and a phallus…”http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309513-philemon-and-other-figures-of-my-fantasies-brought-home-to

Gavrilo Princip, suddenly approaches the table, breathlessly asking, “Excuse me, I am the son of peasants and should not be here, but may I know if anyone has seen Archduke Ferdinand?”

“Yes!” Obama says, happy to finally have the floor.  “According to the program, he is going to an inspection of the military barracks, and at 10 a.m. he is going to leave the barracks for the town hall by way of the Appel Quay.  He and his wife are traveling in an open car, and it’s my understanding that some of the special security officers who were supposed to accompany him got left behind…”

Susan D. Harris can be reached at susandharris.com : http://susandharris.com/

How can WE as Americans change the course of “Climate Change” on our own? Answer: we can’t

How can WE as Americans change the course of “Climate Change” on our own? Answer: we can’t

It took a long time

Author
By Sarge

“Climate Change”, formerly “Global Warming”, is regularly and seriously debated as being real or imaginary, imminently dangerous and a boondoggle in general. Such is the effect of politics trying to guide science.



Is “Climate Change” real? Yes. They call them seasons. The impact of seasons varies over time. Cyclic meanderings of globally influenced climatic shifts following recognizable changes over time and sharing one major point of thought man refuses to understand: there’s not a bloody thing man can do about it. When the overall scope and expanse of the problem is viewed as a reality we have about as much chance of changing the weather as he has of ending his desire to kill his neighbor to control the bounty his neighbor has at the moment.

We’ve gone from Native Tribesmen seeking to supplicate the Gods by dancing in the dust and praying for the Sky Father to fertilize the Earth Mother and bring forth the bounty from her loins to shooting chemicals into the air to “seed” clouds and make them drop their water when and where we want it delivered. Not much has worked and weather is created according to what we know and understand but still don’t grasp how we can change it on command.



The weather doesn’t care about Al Gore and regularly stumps and stymies his efforts to explain the unfathomable. It’s a fact man can’t change squat when it comes to meteorology. We graph and gauge rainfall in one area and accept this will have an effect at another eventually. But we can’t make it change at a totally different location either through science of faith. We can’t exert our influence over weather when and where we wish it.

The question comes to mind: how can WE as Americans change the course of “Climate Change” on our own? Answer: we can’t. As long as the two most populace nations on the planet, China and India, are the greatest pollutants both by population and carbon footprint change their ways, the United States can’t dream of having an effect on climate. As long as the Earth has tectonic plates, subterranean magma layers and explosive expulsion of carbon dioxide and other noxious gases into the atmosphere, we’ll continue to be ineffectual in our efforts to change the weather.

It’s true we should be better stewards of the planet and its wealth of nutrients we need for our survival. There’s no doubt about it. But, we need to view the problem as a world-wide issue. And there’s no way that’s going to happen because of the greed and self-service endemic in man’s egotistical nature.

WE shouldn’t pollute the waters as we do. We shouldn’t foul the air as we regularly do. We shouldn’t do a lot of things will ultimately do to endanger our safety and continuation on this world as people. But, we do them.

The big question arises in my mind and it goes along the line of the puppy watching traffic pass until decides he wants to chase the cars. He runs along beside the cars merrily barking and yowling as though his action alone will allow him to capture his prey. Finally he stops and his dad walks up behind him and asks: “whatcha doing son?” “I’m gonna get me a car daddy” he said after running himself into a sweaty lather. “So, whatcha gonna do with it when you catch it” his dad asked. And it was there that the knowledge of the enormity of the quest started sinking in.

Instead of asking greedy little gnomes like Gore how much money he needs from selling “carbon credits” to people foolish enough to believe he’s not simply pocketing the profits, we need to explore ways to change China’s and India’s perception of their impact on the problem. It’s only then we’ll start changing the situation built up over centuries of human advancement and destruction in the name of societal progress.

This took centuries to evolve. It’ll take a long time to cure. But first you have to define the problem honestly 
and not determine where the greatest profit will come from. That’s what got us here in the first place.

What really happened to boys?

From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago

What really happened to boys?

Author
By Bruce Deitrick Price

Four years ago, psychologist Leonard Sax (MD, PhD) wrote a well-received book titled “Boys Adrift.” The doctor tried to answer the question, why have so many young males fallen into passivity and indifference?



Dr. Sax had heard more and more parents complain that their boys stayed indoors most of the time, spent hours on video games, and in general seemed to lack the confidence and esprit de corps that had characterized boys throughout history.

“Something scary is happening to boys today,” Sax concluded. “From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. The gender gap in college attendance and graduation rates has widened dramatically.”

The book’s full title is, “Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men.” Sax lists the five factors right on the cover: “video games, teaching methods, prescription drugs, environmental toxins, devaluation of masculinity.”

It’s worrisome that he seems to like them all. That might be a clue that he has not solved this mystery. Indeed, let’s consider the possibility that none of these theories is the deep answer we want. Let’s start from scratch and consider the things we know for sure.

First of all, critics have often noted that schools seem organized more for girls than for boys. Most boys do not want to be confined to a desk; they would rather be outside playing and competing. Second, not only are boys kept passively inside, they are forced to deal almost the entire day with reading, writing, and arithmetic, probably not their own first choices.

But these factors are historically common. Boys have always been restless at their desks. They have often stared out the window and daydreamed. Furthermore, in many other cultures and ages, discipline was greater; serious academic work was demanded. So it’s not as if there were some golden age when boys had it better. No, they have it worse today, and for reasons that are new.

We are now arriving at the heart of darkness.

Consider that all school activity revolves around two basic skills, reading and arithmetic. Students spend a lot of each day on these and must learn them in order to advance to any other subjects. Failure in these two subjects virtually guarantees failure in all subjects, and in all of life.

Perversely, our public schools, for more than 50 years, have used dysfunctional methods that virtually guarantee failure for the ordinary boy (that is, a boy who will struggle to a degree but finally says, screw this.)

To learn to read, he is told he must memorize English words as graphic designs. He fails for all the reasons that Rudolf Flesch explained in his 1955 bestseller, “Why Johnny Can’t Read.” Almost as devastating, the boy must learn arithmetic using one of the dozen curricula collectively called Reform Math. These are exceptionally cumbersome and frustrating for children, as has been amply documented.

Now imagine a boy, restless and impatient, locked in a situation he doesn’t really like, engaged in activities he might prefer to avoid. He senses that instruction is gratuitously difficult and tedious. Increasingly, he rebels. Already he glimpses a future hopeless and horrible, where he will never be allowed to succeed.

He comes to school every day depressed and is told to memorize sight-words, which is very difficult to do. If he actually does master 100, the next 100 will overwhelm his brain. Simultaneously, he is made to learn arithmetic in ways that he can’t understand. Even his parents can’t explain to him the techniques he is supposed to learn.

So every day, every week, every month, the ordinary boy stares at a sign flashing in the air: ACCESS: DENIED.

Whatever it is he is supposed to do, he can’t do it. He wants to, he really, really wants to. What else does a boy have but cockiness and confidence? Boys rule! Or they once did. But their sense of being master of any situation is no match for the dark genius of our Education Establishment.

He becomes sullen, then angry. He hears his parents whispering about him. He goes to conferences where his teacher talks about remediation and dyslexia. He’s told he has ADHD. He might need Ritalin.

Imagine when he is seven and failing. Imagine when he is eight and still failing. Imagine when he is nine and more blatantly failing. Imagine how many discussions he has had with his teacher and parents about his inability to do the simplest things. Imagine the interior collapse of confidence. If his parents and all adults in his world think, to put it bluntly, that he is retarded, then he must be.

The signs flash everywhere: SUCCESS: IMPOSSIBLE. DREAMS: CRUSHED.

Dr. Sax put a lot of emphasis on video games but perhaps he has it backwards. Consider that the school world makes boys feel helpless. But the virtual world lets many boys be the smart, extremely capable people they actually are. Which world would you choose to remain in all day?

Dr. Sax puts a lot of emphasis on early literacy instruction, as if this is a strain. Why would it be a strain if boys actually did learn to read? Reading is fun. It’s the con that is the strain. It’s adults pretending to teach children to read but not letting them learn to read that is the killer.

Dr. Sax speaks of masculinity being undervalued. Maybe it’s more directly a case of masculinity hemmed in and, as the school years pass, neutralized.

Finally, one can never escape the impression that there is premeditation in all of this. Does the Education Establishment use these methods to induce a loss of confidence? Then they are evil people. If they don’t know any better, then they are incompetent people.

New World Order: “In your face, peasants!”

Education: Constructivism, Inquiry and Discovery, Look-say reading, Reform Math, Common Core

New World Order: “In your face, peasants!”

Author
By Bruce Deitrick Price

Or as Marie Antoinette said: “Let them eat cake.”

For most people, the field of education is now a big swamp of claims and counterclaims that never seem to be resolved. People give up trying to make sense of it. It’s a safe bet that the Education Establishment likes this surrender just fine.



A baffled public will be a passive public that pays taxes but otherwise shuts up. If the public is confused, they can’t possibly mount a resistance to the foolishness in public schools.

If people want reform, they have to understand the basic issues. This is not difficult to do. Here is a quick look at the grim reality suggested by the phrase “In your face, peasants.”

First of all, starting in 1931, all public schools used Look-say to teach reading. This method is also known as Whole Word, Whole Language, Balanced Literacy, and many others. No matter what the name is, it doesn’t work, not in large doses or small doses. The basic idea is that children are told to see English words as graphic designs and memorize them one by one as you might memorize astrology symbols, weather symbols, or electrical symbols. (In the traditional school children learn to read phonetically in the first year and then they use reading as a way to explore geography, history, science, etc. That’s the world we need to reclaim ASAP.)

Second, all of math education is now conducted under various curricula contained within the phrase “reform” math. We hear a lot of talk about the meaning, the theory, and the highfalutin significance of this or that numerical operation. At the end of the year, however, children know much less math than they used to. I assume this is by design. New Math and Reform Math incorporated all the least efficient ways to teach and do math.

Third, all of contemporary education is disfigured by an idea called Constructivism (a.k.a. Inquiry and Discovery). Teachers must not teach directly. Children must learn for themselves. This can happen, of course, but not at a rapid rate. Constructivism relegates the teacher to a marginal role (the so-called facilitator). The idea of giving the children a collection of knowledge is now regarded as obsolete. With this one policy (that is, promoting Constructivism), our public schools reduce all but the self-starters to dunces.

Fourth, all the bad ideas in the 20th century have been rolled into one big ball of malarkey called Common Core Curriculum. It’s a huge government takeover; it seems to be totalitarian in intent; and you know it’s completely bogus because Common Core perpetuates the terrible trio of Whole Word, Reform Math and Constructivism (along with a long miscellany of new and old gimmicks). Case closed at this point.

Fifth and last, even as public education is debased, our “free press” has ceased to function as intended by the Founding Fathers. The press doesn’t want to be free. It wants to be the life partner of the Democratic Party. If   a bit of information is not part of the official White House story, that information will rarely appear in major newspapers. In particular, the media does not explain the many flaws and fallacies seen in typical educational practice.

There is a news blackout on the insights that parents need. It is precisely this news blackout that enables the New World order to say, “In your face, peasants.”

in her new book “Credentialed to Destroy,” attorney Robin Eubanks lays out a comprehensive picture of what that phrase implies:

“What is being marketed as the Common Core national standards and accompanying ed reforms is actually a planned, centrally coordinated, interrelated, complete reorganization of American education….For now though we should best view education as a re-imagined means for an international political class and their business cronies to obtain the same type of riches and control as what the nomenklatura sought globally under Communism….We either have to confront what is really going on in American and global education directly and stop this nonsense once and for all, or it will destroy us.….An alliance of government and its bureaucracies, plus colleges and universities and big business, controlling and planning our economy for their benefit cannot deliver prosperity.”

Of course, for brevity at its most brilliant, you can’t beat Orwell’s “Ignorance is Strength.” That’s what our Education Establishment is trying to sell us now. Under-educating children will somehow make the country stronger. That is the very essence of “In your face, peasants.”

To fix the situation, we just have to reverse all the bad tendencies that have loomed up in the last 75 years. Don’t accept ignorance and illiteracy as normal. This country has hundreds of great private schools. Copy their blueprint, that’s a simple enough solution. Or look carefully at what our public schools are doing and then do the opposite. There seem to be few good ideas left in public education and that’s why the whole sad spectacle ends up
shouting at us: “In your face, peasants.”

The “You Didn’t Do That” Society

Choice: A society of individual responsibility where everyone can be trusted to own a gun and a society of collectivist irresponsibles where no one can be trusted to own a gun

The “You Didn’t Do That” Society

First Elliot Rodger murdered his three roommates with a knife, hammer and machete. Then he shot eight people, three of them fatally, and tried to run over several others in his car.







After the bodies were taken away, everyone on television agreed that it was the fault of the guns.

Rodger had been in therapy since he was eight and was seeing therapists every day in high school. He had a history of making violent threats and the police had already gotten involved. He was on multiple prescription medications and had therapists whom he alerted to his plans by sending them his manifesto.

A therapist reacted by notifying his mother who drove out personally. By then even more people were dead.

In a country where a little boy with a pop tart chewed in the shape of a gun triggers immediate action, the professionals who cashed in on the killer’s wealthy family were in no hurry to call the police. One even reassured his mother while the shootings were going on that it wasn’t him.



Somehow the parenting failure of her brother is now the fault of an entire foreign country
So it was clearly the fault of the guns. Guns that Elliot Rodger bought with $5,000 from his family. The BMW he used to commit some of the attacks was given to him by his mother.

Jenni Rodger, his British aunt, blamed America and guns for her nephew’s massacre. “What kind of a society allows this? How can this be allowed to happen? I want to appeal to Americans to do something about this horrific problem.”

Somehow the parenting failure of her brother is now the fault of an entire foreign country.

Rodger’s father issued a statement through his lawyer in support of gun control and “staunchly against guns.” It might have been a bit more useful if Peter Rodger, instead of opposing a category of manual instruments, had spent more time dealing with his son’s problems.

Guns did not kill six people. His son did.

Maybe Elliot Rodger’s family would not have been able to change anything, but it’s likely that they could have at least prevented the massacre if they had become more involved instead of delegating the problem that their son had become to therapists and medications. It’s the height of cynicism for his father and aunt to take refuge in abstractions about gun control.

When a teenager stabbed twenty people at a Pittsburgh-area high school there were no easy answers about gun control to take refuge in. If Rodger had stuck to his knife, hammer and machete, his relatives who coddled him all these years wouldn’t be able to shift the blame to an abstract policy. They wouldn’t be able to politicize the crime and snip their own involvement out of the picture.

Even mental illness reduces a specific crime to the abstraction of a social problem

Elliot Rodger’s parents, communicating through a lawyer and a talent agent, find it convenient to put up another layer of abstraction between themselves and the actions of their son. And the easiest way to do that is to transform it into a widespread social problem. The more that the smiling people on television talk about gun control, the less likely they are to talk about them.

Even mental illness reduces a specific crime to the abstraction of a social problem. Expanding an individual act into a social problem manufactures a collective responsibility. The scapegoats are people who had nothing to do with what happened. The killer’s family has successfully shifted responsibility to people who live a thousand miles away and never even knew their son existed.

Guns have become a convenient cliche. The new villain is no longer the killer, but the 5 million members of the NRA who are unwilling to give up their constitutional rights because Elliot Rodger’s family failed at their single most important job.

Why is a gun owner in North Carolina more responsible for the Isla Vista killings than Peter Rodger? Does Peter Rodger’s staunch opposition to guns free him from responsibility while dumping it on the majority of Americans who believe in the Bill of Rights?

Elliot Rodger was not a social problem. He was not a gun culture. He was not a national anything. He was an individual and individuals bear responsibility for their own actions.

The left is expert at removing responsibility from individuals and assigning it to the culture at large. Every murder is a failure of society. And society fails every murderer, they insist. We are all murderers because we own guns or didn’t vote for the right politicians who would have allocated more money to mental health treatment, school counseling or midnight basketball.

And outlawed guns.

The “You didn’t build that” society is also the “You didn’t do that” society

The “You didn’t build that” society is also the “You didn’t do that” society. The flip side of Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama’s collectivist rhetoric is that just as no one invents the airplane, creates a company or writes the Great American Novel on their own, no one kills six people on their own. If you killed six people, it’s because of the Second Amendment. If you wanted to kill sorority girls, it’s because of Seth Rogen movies. If you’re a half-Asian who beat and stabbed your Asian roommates to death, it’s because of white (or half-white) supremacism.

No one does anything good or bad on their own. The good that men do gets taxed away for the purported benefit of society and the evil that they do is blamed on society.

In a collectivist system, everyone is responsible for everything collectively and not responsible for anything individually. Everyone but the killer is responsible for his shooting spree. And that means no one is responsible. The problem is tackled with public awareness hashtags and legislation that hurts millions of people who didn’t do anything wrong.

America’s gun owners, like its machete and hammer owners, did not kill anyone. Every day the vast majority of gun owners somehow manage to get through the day without a killing spree. Their tools don’t have minds of their own. The gun culture that liberals talk about does not sneak in through their windows at night and urge them to shoot up the neighborhood.

Elliot Rodger did not kill because he had guns. He bought guns because he wanted to kill

Elliot Rodger did not kill because he had guns. He bought guns because he wanted to kill. And he wasn’t very good at it, wounding more people than he killed. Like many on the left he believed that guns would make him invincible. They didn’t. And it was the same good guys with guns the left sneers at who put a stop to his killing spree.

We aren’t rethinking the First Amendment because of Rodger’s YouTube videos and manifesto. Why are we supposed to rethink the Second Amendment every time some psycho includes guns in his killing spree? The problem was not with Rodger’s computer, his smartphone, his hammer, his machete or his handguns. They were only the tools that he used. The problem was with him.

The solution to horrifying crimes is not collective guilt, but individual responsibility. Instead of transforming individual acts into a social problem, we should instead remind ourselves that the keystone of morality is individual responsibility. Collectives are not moral. Individuals are.

People don’t kill because there is a gun shop around the corner. They kill because they make a choice.

Elliot Rodger’s family doesn’t want to deal with their own choices. Elliot Rodger certainly did not want to deal with his. However if we want a moral society, we won’t get there by pretending that choice doesn’t exist. We won’t get there by banning guns. We won’t get there through abstractions.

A moral society recognizes the power and responsibility of individual choice. A better country doesn’t begin with banning guns, but with holding accountable those who kill. Even while liberals were puffing out their chests over gun control, the Supreme Court’s liberal justices stepped in to save Freddie Hall who kidnapped, raped and murdered a pregnant woman and shot a deputy.

That was in 1978. A decade earlier, he had gone to jail for raping another woman and gouging out her eyes so she wouldn’t be able to identify him.

Like some of the other monsters on death row, Hall decided to plead retarded. His IQ scores dropped. After a long series of appeals, the Supreme Court finally decided that executing him would be unconstitutional.

“Florida’s law contravenes our Nation’s commitment to dignity and its duty to teach humandecency as the mark of a civilized world,” Justice Kennedy wrote, speaking for the majority. But America was at its best in dignity and decency when it held men, including monsters like Freddie Hall, accountable for their actions. Decency and civilization come from individual choices. Liberals like Kennedy reject individual choices and seek every possible pretext for protecting killers from their moral choices.

A society that makes excuses for monsters becomes an amoral cesspool where no one is responsible for anything because everyone is responsible for everything. Instead of offering collectivist excuses and implementing collectivist overreactions, we can restore dignity and decency by rejecting social problems and embracing individual responsibility.

Our choice is not between a safe society without guns and a dangerous society with guns. It is between a society of individual responsibility where everyone can be trusted to own a gun and a society of collectivist 
irresponsibles where no one can be trusted to own a gun.

Watch How Vastly Different West Point Cadets React Between Hearing Presidents Obama and Bush

Watch How Vastly Different West Point Cadets React Between Hearing Presidents Obama and Bush

President Obama’s reception at West Point was nothing short of “icy.” His graduation speech has been slammed as being less “Commander in Chief” and more “policy wonk playing defense.” And the way the audience reacted supports it.

He receives a standing ovation from about a fourth of the audience who has come to see the West Point class of 2014 graduate and commission as 2nd Lieutenants, and throughout his speech, he receives only mild applause from the graduates and their friends and families.
Compare that to the speech President George W. Bush gave to the corps of cadets in 2008 in his last military academy speech as President:

Do the two seem a little different to you?

President Bush says, “There are many honors that come with the Presidency, but none higher than serving as Commander in Chief in the greatest Armed Forces on Earth.” If President Obama believed and lived by that truth, he would be having a very different presidency.

Russian information warfare How Democracies Perish

Russian information warfare How Democracies Perish

 By Cliff Kincaid

If you thought it was strange that conservative columnist Pat Buchanan has become a passionate defender of Vladimir Putin, brace yourself for the fact that “far-right” French politician Marine Le Pen has also praised the former KGB officer. Putin’s posture as a “Christian” has made inroads in Europe, with Le Pen telling the Austrian daily Kurier that Putin defends “common values” and the “Christian heritage.”http://kurier.at/politik/eu/marine-le-pen-putin-verteidigt-die-werte-der-europaeischen-zivilisation/65.991.041



Le Pen’s National Front party (FN), once considered a refuge for neo-Nazis, was the top vote-getter in France’s European elections, with 25.41 percent.

In Britain, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) came out on top, with 27.5 percent of the vote. Party leader Nigel Farage has also expressed his admiration for Putin and, to the surprise even of the left-wing Guardian, has been showing up regularly on Moscow-funded Russia Today (RT) television. Sounding like an agent of influence for Putin himself during one appearance favorably covered by RT, Farage claimed the European Union (EU) has “blood on its hands” for supporting Ukraine.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/31/nigel-farage-relationship-russian-media-scrutiny

http://rt.com/news/eu-blood-ukraine-farage-693/

These extraordinary developments bring to mind the great book, How Democracies Perish, by French thinker Jean-Francois Revel. He participated in a 1984 U.S. Information Agency video on how the West is constantly fooled by “active measures,” including disinformation and influence operations, from Moscow.http://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Perish-Jean-Francois-Revel/dp/0060970111



A new report calls it “Russian information warfare,” as Putin confuses and misleads the West and its political leaders about his true intentions in Ukraine and elsewhere. The report, “The anatomy of Russian information warfare: The Crimean operation, a case study,” explains in detail how the disinformation campaign has been waged.http://www.osw.waw.pl/sites/default/files/the_anatomy_of_russian_information_warfare.pdf

An article in The Kyiv [Ukraine] Post by William Schreiber, entitled “European Parliament election results bring no good news for Ukraine,” demonstrates how Putin’s influence has corrupted many different European political parties, on the right and left.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/european-parliament-election-results-bring-no-good-news-of-ukraine-349512.html

In fact, describing the results of the European elections, Schreiber reports, “In Greece, the left-wing Syriza led the vote, with over 26 percent. The far-right Golden Dawn placed third, with close to 10 percent, meaning Golden Dawn will enter the parliament for the first time ever. Despite their locations on the political spectrum, both Syriza and Golden Dawn rejected the legitimacy of Kyiv’s interim government and accused the EU of provoking Russia.”

So the right and left have come together on behalf of Moscow. This is true not only in Europe but America, where Communist Parties, leftist movements, and others sympathetic to Moscow have found themselves in bed with figures such as Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul in defending Russian aggression against Ukraine.

In Austria, Schreiber reports, the Freedom Party won 20 percent of Austrian voters, a significant leap in its representation. He says its head, Heinz-Christian Sache, opposes EU and U.S. sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Putin is finding allies all across the globe.

Consider South African President Jacob Zuma, a “former” member of the Communist Party (like Vladimir Putin), whose regime is a “strategic partner” with the Russian government.
http://www.southafrica.info/news/international/russia-270313.htm#.U4TvnvldVsF

Domestically, in his own version of Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of a country, Zuma is promising “the implementation of radical socio-economic transformation policies and programs over the next five years.” These include (in his words):http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=17449

Strengthening and expanding the role of the state in the economy
Making state-owned enterprises and development finance institutions “engines of development, complementing the State in promoting inclusive economic growth”
Changing the ownership and control of the economy
Land restitution and redistribution

Ironically, South Africa is being touted as one of three vibrant democracies in a new “Democracy Works” report from the Legatum Institute and the Center for Development and Enterprise, even though Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC) just won another election on racial grounds, this time with 62.2 percent of votes. The ANC is a Communist Party front and has never lost a national election in black-ruled South Africa.http://www.li.com/programmes/democracy-works

At a National Press Club press conference, I asked Ann Bernstein of the Center for Development and Enterprise in South Africa why her country should be seen as a worthwhile model of democracy and development. “South Africa has yet to pass that test,” she said, referring to national elections for a political party other than the one that has been in power. “But democracy is about a lot more than elections.” She insists much progress is being made there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLQ8rAGPA14&list=UUukW9fbX4m5MpOmQ2M5isVg






She did claim that “The Communist Party is actually a small part of South Africa. They’ve become important because they latch on to the ANC. And then some of them get into government and become ministers who introduced the most market-friendly policies you can imagine.”

It’s true that capitalism has not been destroyed in South Africa. The ANC Marxists understand the need for capital, just as Putin opened the door to American corporations and got a Russian “re-set” and Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status from President Obama and Congress.

But it was apparent that Bernstein hadn’t read “The South African Road to Socialism,” a document on the website of the South African Communist Party, covering the period from 2012 to 2017. The document talks about the “mobilization of private capital into an NDR [National Democratic Revolution] struggle” (page 48) and how “rolling back” and “transforming” the capitalist market (page 51) is essential to progress. That is precisely what Zuma is doing.
http://www.sacp.org.za/docs/docs/2012/draftpol2012.pdf

If the South African Communist Party is so small and insignificant, then why did Nelson Mandela conceal his membership in the Party? She had no explanation.

Bernstein and Anne Applebaum, director of the Legatum Institute’s Transitions Forum, made a number of appearances in Washington, D.C., including one hosted by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a federally funded organization. The NED has done some good work, but if this report becomes the basis for even more foreign aid to South Africa, the American taxpayers—and democracy—will not be served. South Africa functions like a one-party state, even though some private enterprise and freedom of the press are currently tolerated. The communists dominate the ANC government.http://www.ned.org/events/democracy-works-launch-the-democratic-alternative-from-the-south

The list of funders for Bernstein’s group and her projects is quite impressive and includes the NED, along with some prominent U.S.-based conservative foundations. Yet, they have consistently failed to explain how a communist-ruled South Africa that is clearly on the road to socialism qualifies as a democracy in the sense that we understand the word.http://www.cde.org.za/about-us/funding

To make matters worse, the South African government is a member of the BRICS alliance of nations, standing for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Their foreign ministers issued a statement opposing sanctions against Russia over Ukraine.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/putins-brics-allies-reject-sanctions-condemn-hostile-language/article17638238/

Interestingly, India and Brazil were the other two countries included in the “Democracy Works” report. Brazil is ruled by a former communist terrorist, Dilma Rousseff. The regime tolerates some dissent but has been a solid ally over the years of dictatorships such as Castro’s Cuba.

India has been a functioning democracy, with power going back and forth between competing political parties. But the most recent winner of national elections, the “right-wing” Bharatiya Janata Party, issued a manifesto declaring it “will continue our dialogue, engagement and cooperation, with global forums like BRICS…” So its anti-American foreign policy will continue.

The two biggest members of BRICS, Russia and China, just signed a $400 billion gas deal, cementing what even the media recognize as a “strategic alliance” against the United States.

On every continent, it seems, the enemies of America are on the offensive.

But look at who the enemies are. In Afghanistan, where American troops continue to sacrifice their lives for some semblance of democracy, the Obama administration released the name of the CIA station chief in violation of the law that protects the identities of U.S. intelligence operatives. The White House called it a mistake.http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/white-house-mistakenly-identifies-cia-chief-in-afghanistan/2014/05/25/ac8e80cc-e444-11e3-8f90-73e071f3d637_story.html?hpid=z1

So-called “mistakes” like this, in the face of determined enemies, make the survival of America and the Free World a matter of urgent debate.

Remembering Jefferson Davis: A True American Hero

June 3rd is the 206th birthday of Jefferson Davis

Remembering Jefferson Davis: A True American Hero

Author
By Calvin E. Johnson Jr.

“Never teach your children to admit that their fathers’ were wrong in their efforts to maintain the sovereignty, freedom and independence which was their birthright”—-Jefferson Davis.

June 3, 2014, is the 206th birthday of Jefferson Davis who was born in Christian County, Kentucky, on June 3, 1808.



Memorials to Jefferson Davis include Georgia’s Stone Mountain memorial carving of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, the Davis Monument on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, the Jefferson Davis Monument State Historic Site a Kentucky State Park commemorating the birthplace of Jefferson Davis President of the Confederate States of America, and….

In 1931, a bronze statue of Jefferson Davis, sculptured by Virginia’s Augustus Lukeman, was given to the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. by the State of Virginia.

Davis served the United States as a soldier, statesmen and Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. He was also the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.

Davis’ father, Samuel Emory Davis, served in the Revolutionary War and participated in the siege of Savannah. Three of Jeff’s older brothers served in the War of 1812, two under General Andrew Jackson. His father was from Georgia and mother Jane Cook Davis, daughter of a noted Baptist Preacher, was from North Carolina.



Jefferson Davis was a strong Unionist but also a strong defender of the United States Constitution.

Davis was indicted for treason but was never tried because some felt this might have been an indictment against the United States itself. He was however unjustly imprisoned for two years in Fort Monroe, Virginia before his release in 1867.

Here are a few of his accomplishments:

He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Fought valiantly in the War with Mexico.
Served as United States Senator from Mississippi.
Served as U.S. Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce.
Was first to suggest the transcontinental railroad to link Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
First to suggest Panama Canal Zone
Suggested the purchase of Cuba
Appointed Robert E. Lee as Superintendent of United States Military Academy at West Point.
Visiting Beauvoir, the last home of Jefferson Davis and Presidential Library, is a good way to better understand this man Davis. Read more about Beauvoir here.http://www.beauvoir.org/

Jefferson Davis’ last marriage was said to be a good one to Varina, who gave him two sons and two daughters (Jefferson, Margaret, Winnie and Billy). Winnie was nicknamed (Daughter of the Confederacy) as she was born during the time of the War Between the States. Billy was killed by an accidental fall at the Confederate White House in Richmond and in 1864, an abused black child named Jim Limber was adopted by the Davis family.

Jefferson Davis died between 12:30 AM and 1:00 AM on December 6, 1889. The news of his death hit the front page of most Southern and even Northern newspapers like this:

On December 13, 1889, the New York Times reported the Davis Funeral being the grandest ever seen in the South. The Sermon at Metairie Cemetery was delivered by Bishop Thompson of Mississippi. Bishop Gallaber delivered a brief sketch of Jefferson Davis’ life…And a Church Choir sang an old time favorite “Rock of Ages” to end the service.

Lest We Forget!

I was reading my Bible

I was reading my Bible

Working smarter, not harder will allow you to take your first steps on the highway to success
The Hedge of Thorns

I was reading my Bible the other day and came across this passage in Proverbs (15:19): “The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns, but the way of the righteous is made plain”.



Now, I’m not a person who gets all evangelical at the drop of a hat but I see here, in this passage, a statement needs understanding. “The way of a slothful man is a hedge of thorns”. When you look at it you could assume man who is slothful or lazy and apathetic makes his life a really difficult endeavor. In his rejection of the industry necessary to accomplish his goals in a proper time frame he actually shows his lack of resolution to accomplish any really important goals in life. This applies for the small things and the major goals in life as well.

It’s possible to see a level of clinical depression for the individual and society as a whole when you contemplate how depression works and why it’s having the effect it has on America today. Depression can be developed through repetitive exercises done without substantive reward elevating the self-esteem of the individual. The same can be said for society. “If you always do what you always did; you’ll always get what you always got” is a statement known to be true by many people.



Today many young people appear to be suffering a form of malaise shown in the symptoms of apathy and lethargy when assigned tasks in school, early work experience and life in general. Adolescence is a time of not only physical growth, but emotional, societal and spiritual growth coup-led with new challenges formerly buffered by parental guidance and intervention.

Now that’s not happening so much. Where adolescents are intrigued and confused by hormonal changes; with hair sprouting in strange places, breasts growing for girls and voices deepening and sexual drives developing in both sexes, more and more adolescents are being left to their peers’ instructional efforts. This is in place of their parents who may NOT have had explained any real experience in explaining the issues arising. We see the blind leading the blind through a minefield.

In essence those people who may or may not be detached from their sense of industry make things really difficult for themselves. They could start finding the answers they have from their parents who should be seeking their answers from their elders. This is where most people’s eyes start glazing over because they expect (as is symptomatic of what I’m talking about) I’ll be prescribing a good old Bible study to solve the problem. I don’t intend to do that other than to say this is one way to gain answers.

It’s just one way to seek answers. You gain guidance because you believe there’s something more powerful than you. But, you can find a trusted ethicist or guide who’ll point you in the direction necessary to teach you how to approach life’s questions. Philosophers like Aristotle, Hippocrates, Solon, Buddha and Christ in antiquity down through Waterston, Richard Bach and Kahlil Gibran today offer questions allowing a person to decide what is right and proper for his or her life. From questions come answers.

“But you have to work hard at it don’t you” is the question asked much of the time. And that’s where the snare is traps the prey sought by life. You have to work hard at it. You must accept the task with all of its joys and trials and attack it knowledgeably. You must engage with the task on a realistic and well-thought out strategy to allow you to work smarter not harder. You want to accomplish more in less time or more with less effort or more with fewer difficulties because you anticipate them well in advance of their cropping up.

Working smarter, not harder will allow you to take your first steps on the highway to success. Working smarter allows you to question elders and those more accomplished in successfully accomplishing the task before being thrown into the task with no good or real experience. It gives you the benefit of their experience and learning curve. This starts you at a superior position to understand the task, approach the task, do the task and successfully exhibit your skills faster, earlier in your career and lead to greater accomplishment and belief in yourself before your bosses.

The highway can speed along beneath your feet as you learn to work smarter, faster, but not necessarily harder because you learned to anticipate and develop strategies to overcome difficulties.

For me the Bible works more now than it ever has before.
It allows me a set of parameters to guide me. It allows me to learn the questions I’ll ask of my seniors and elders and how to find greater peace in my efforts. For others it may take an ethicist to help shape the world-view they need. But, it’s not all about ME, ME, ME! It’s about our relationship with our world and our fellows sharing it with us.

We need to start helping our kids more by getting back into their lives and we should stop expecting them to be successful at living the most challenging times of their lives without guidance. We determine the quality of the mettle in their spines. We shape the character they’ll present to employers and the world. We are the leaders they need to emulate to succeed in their own lives.

Get out there and lead, and shape and guide. It’ll be the best thing you ever do in life





 

The campaign against the death penalty has all the trappings of modern gestures of misplaced moral authority: Achieving the goal comes at someone else’s expense
Hooray for the Death Penalty!

Author
By Michael R. Shannon
For a brief moment I almost believed the mainstream media when I read: ‘Oklahoma Execution of Murderer Went Horribly, Horribly Wrong.’ ‘Oklahoma Governor Calls for Independent Review of Botched Execution.’



My initial response was horror, too: You mean that violent sadist is still alive?!!!

But the execution wasn’t botched. Clayton Lockett is dead, dead, dead and good riddance. The ceremony may not have been esthetically pleasing to capital punishment opponents, but any execution where the murderer winds up dead is, by definition, a successful execution.

According to hysterical coverage by USA Today (Headline: Botched execution could slam brakes on death penalty) “Clayton Lockett, 38, struggled violently, groaned and writhed after lethal drugs were administered by Oklahoma officials Tuesday night, according to eyewitness accounts. State Corrections Director Robert Patton halted the Lockett’s execution, citing vein failure that may have prevented the deadly chemicals from reaching Lockett. He eventually died of a heart attack.”

In a sane world the inefficient Oklahoma execution would slam the brakes on frivolous death penalty appeals. The goal of the left is to step–by–step end capital punishment. First the electric chair was deemed ‘inhumane.’ So government switched to lethal injection. In return the left attacked the chemicals used.



Today the proven, effective drug, thiopental, is unobtainable and states are forced to experiment
Since no subject has ever walked out of a lethal injection meeting alive, it would appear the original chemical cocktail works fine, but I’m not a judge that grants spurious legal relief. Over the years drug manufacturers have been under relentless legal assault.

Today the proven, effective drug, thiopental, is unobtainable and states are forced to experiment. This is fine with opponents, because rather than taking the blame for banning the effective and humane drug, they shift blame to the state for using a substitute.

Leading to an interesting pharmaceutical contrast. The same political class that is morally outraged by lethal injection, is equally outraged when the state of Oklahoma bans the off–label use of abortion–inducing drugs by requiring doctors only administer the drug in accordance with FDA protocols.

It’s exactly the same strategy the murderer’s lobby uses to prevent the use of thiopental. Yet regulation that saves a truly innocent baby’s life is unacceptable, because it impedes a woman’s ‘right to choose.’ While the other instance is a barbaric throwback to savagery when it restores balance and justice.

In fact Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, made an unintentionally hilarious comment in the wake of Lockett’s passing, “Somebody died because of the state’s incompetency.”

The second contrast involves medical professionals. Doctors with a sense of justice have been prevented from participating in executions by means of a leftist perversion of the Hippocratic oath. State medical societies threaten doctors with penalties and loss of medical license. Yet abortionists have no problem with ‘first do no harm’ during their procedures, even though harm is the goal. As a result executions are conducted by penal employees who may or may not have adequate training.

Which justice opponents also use to attack governments like Oklahoma.

This problem lends itself perfectly to a genuine ‘bi–partisan compromise: let late–term abortion doctors perform really late term abortions on murderers. Of course the left won’t agree.

The campaign against the death penalty has all the trappings of modern gestures of misplaced moral authority: Achieving the goal comes at someone else’s expense.

Arguments against the death penalty have three main components: The death penalty is not an effective deterrent, it is cruel and unusual punishment and life in prison is a more severe than death.

But since when did deterrence become the benchmark for a law’s utility? Prevention is an equally valid way to judge a law’s effectiveness and the death penalty has a 100 percent success rate in preventing future murders. Laws against robbery don’t always deter robbers. Laws against sawed–off shotguns didn’t deter Lockett. And, laws against speeding don’t deter the readers of this column, yet the laws remain on the book.

Death is the final earthy punishment, but that doesn’t make it cruel. Dennis Prager has made a strong case for the moral authority of the death penalty based on the Bible and the fact we are made in God’s image.

The facile counter–argument that ‘eye for an eye’ law no longer applies because of its savagery is historically ignorant. Lex talionis, outlined in Exodus 21:24, is actually a legal innovation that restored fairness in the law by holding everyone responsible regardless of his station in life. Eye–for–an–eye meant that a rich man could not buy his way out of punishment, while the poor man suffered severe consequences as happened in pagan cultures. It made the law truly impartial and just.

The final argument has always been incoherent. If the death penalty is inhumane how can these compassion tourists advocate a punishment that’s worse? Simple, they are lying. I’ve driven by Huntsville prison in Texas more than once and I have never seen inmates hanging bed sheets out of the window demanding they be put our of their misery.

If murderers were offered a chance between death and life in prison, almost every one would choose life. Then murderers would be free to endanger the guards, medical staff and other inmates in the prison, but the exhibitionist left can’t be bothered with that petty detail.

In spite of years of anti–death penalty propaganda in the mainstream media, 55 percent of the public still favors the ultimate punishment. But reporters keep trying. In January Oklahoma executed Michael Lee Wilson with another mysterious drug cocktail. In an effort to elicit sympathy for the unsympathetic reporters say his last words were, “My whole body is burning.”

But I don’t think that was in reference to the execution. I think he was referring to his destination, because not all near–death experiences are glowing lights and fluffy bunnies.

Fighting Boko Haram Does Not End With Finding the Girls

Fighting Boko Haram Does Not End With Finding the Girls

It has been more than six weeks since nearly 300 Nigerian girls were kidnapped by the terrorist group, Boko Haram. Over the weekend, some media reports indicated the Nigerian government had agreed to some sort of prisoner exchange for some of the girls that remain missing, but the deal reportedly was  called off.

Nigeria’s chief of defense staff has said the military knows where the girls are but is unwilling to use force to rescue them because it would be too dangerous. The girls are believed to be held in a remote forest near the Cameroon-Chad border.

Since the girls were kidnapped, Boko Haram has continued to victimize soldiers and civilians alike in northern Nigeria and Cameroon with additional kidnappings, car bombs and indiscriminate shootings. Last week Boko Haram attacked the Christian district in Kano, Nigeria’s second-largest city, and executed a double car-bomb attack in the city of Jos that killed 118.
The immediate task remains to rescue the girls, but leaders ultimately need a long-term strategy to suppress Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and the greater region.

Chad and Cameroon have taken a positive step by sending their own troops to the Nigerian border, where they are coordinating with Nigerian forces to counter Boko Haram. Increased regional coordination not only will help to eliminate the support system that provides Boko Haram with recruits and arms,  it also will help to create a clearer operational picture of Boko Haram’s areas of control.  The Nigerian defense forces have been limited in their ability to patrol areas in the remote border regions of northern Nigeria.

Last week the United Nations Security Council approved sanctions against Boko Haram – adding it to the U.N.’s al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee’s list. Organizations on the list are subject to asset freezes, arms embargos and travel bans, but the sanctions’ enforcement requires states to self-implement and self-report, which few in the region have the capacity to do.

Despite the efforts of the United States and our partners to help find the girls—which now includes the deployment of 80 U.S. troops to Chad to conduct surveillance flights and operate drone aircraft in northern Nigeria and the surrounding area—Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the mission to find the girls amounts to searching for “a needle in a jungle.” Yet, because the U.S. still faces certain limitations in working with the Nigerian military because of human rights abuse allegations, there are limits on how and what type of intelligence can be shared with the Nigerians.

Given the complicated nature of effectively countering Boko Haram, a long-term strategy, not a piecemeal 
one, remains essential to maintaining regional stability and protecting U.S. interests.

Obama Is Bypassing Congress Again. This Time It's Going to Cost You.

Obama Is Bypassing Congress Again. This Time It's Going to Cost You.

Nicolas Loris and Nicole Rusenko

Next week, the Obama administration is planning to unveil a climate action plan that it intends to implement without legislative approval. It’s a creative approach to governing, not unlike other executive actions President Obama has taken to bypass Congress.http://blog.heritage.org/2013/08/13/obama-imperial-president-will-act-on-his-own/

When lawmakers refused to pass cap-and-trade legislation, Obama announced there was more than one way to skin the cat. Through climate plans, executive orders and regulatory action, he directed his agencies to find ways to curb the country’s carbon dioxide output and commit to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

>>> Help Us Rein in the Imperial Presidency: Sign Our Petition
http://www.heritage.org/petitions/imperialpresidency/

Leading the charge, unsurprisingly, is the Environmental Protection Agency, which will release its carbon-dioxide regulations for existing power plants on Monday. The plan will drive up energy prices for American families and businesses without making a dent in global temperatures.
Our infographics explain what it means for jobs, incomes and the states hurt most.

These five actions by the federal government were supposed to be environmentally friendly. All of them backfired and left us worse off.http://blog.heritage.org/2014/05/28/obama-administrations-hypocritical-environmental-policy/


Guess who gets rich off of cronyism? It’s sure not the taxpayers.
http://blog.heritage.org/2014/05/28/cronyism-increasingly-lucrative-politicians-businesses-study-reveals/

Veterans Are the Healthcare Canary in a Coal Mine

Our veterans have been the canary in the health care coalmine for decades, but Uncle Sam just keeps replacing the dead canaries with new ones

Veterans Are the Healthcare Canary in a Coal Mine

Between today and June 6th’s 70th anniversary of the D–Day landing I want you to find a veteran and talk to him. This doesn’t mean cornering some unsuspecting vet and ambushing him with the latest insipid leftist cliché: ‘Thank you for your service,’ which manages to be both pretentious and condescending.



(However, it is an improvement over the left’s former greeting for vets: ‘How many babies did you kill today?’ But it’s still rote trivialization.)

Ideally your vet should be a veteran of either the Korean Conflict or the Vietnam War. Not because the fighting was far enough in the past be non–controversial, but because this vet has had plenty of time to experience the tender mercies of the Veterans Administration health care system.

And that system should be the main topic of conversation, because if the left has its way, everyone will experience this type of health care under the coming Obamacare regime. Don’t make the mistake — encouraged by the cheerleading mainstream media — of believing the VA is a problem unto itself and has no relation to civilian health care and certainly no relevance to the future of Obamacare.

That is spin and it is completely untrue. The VA hospital system is essentially the pilot program for Obamacare. Its been a single–payer system from the beginning and single–payer is the ultimate goal for Obamacare. The VA system was designed to accommodate a smaller subset of the population and it was immune to competition from the private sector. Think of it as the United States Postal Service with syringes.

The VA is very relevant to Obamacare

The theory is after the bugs have been worked out of the pilot program, then a benevolent government can expand it to accommodate the entire country. Unfortunately with leftist big government, when a pilot program fails the verdict is always the failure was due to a lack of resources. The cure is to take the same program, bulk it up with taxpayer dollar injections and make it mandatory for the entire country.

So the VA is very relevant to Obamacare

Our veterans have been used as guinea pigs since 1930 when the VA was founded. One would think 84 years is long enough to get the kinks worked out of the program, but one would be wrong. VA hospital horror stories have been a staple of government scandal coverage for years.

If you fall for the ‘it’s just the VA and won’t affect civilians’ cover story then you are believing what the Obama administration wants you to believe. The goal of the White House is to keep the VA scandal bottled up in a silo off to one side. Obama wants you to think it’s just a rogue VA hospital in Arizona that cooked the books.

But it’s not just Arizona. It’s Florida, it’s West Virginia, it’s Missouri, it’s all over the country. And the problem can’t be solved because there is no real penalty for failure and no competitive pressure to excel. And the same government that runs the VA will soon be running Obamacare if the left can expand it into a single–payer system.

My family has its own story of an encounter with the Oklahoma – Texas VA administration. One of my uncles — a WWII veteran — fell ill and went to the VA for treatment in the 50’s. The good doctors said he had suffered a nervous breakdown and they hospitalized him in the mental wing.

Today suffering a nervous breakdown means you are forever immune to negative job performance reviews and the Angel of Downsizing will probably pass over you, too.  But in the 50’s a mental problem was the kiss of death.

My uncle lost his career, his wife and his future. He was in and out of VA hospitals for two decades trying to find a cure so he could reassemble the shards of what had been a normal life. And then one fine day he got a new VA doctor. This doctor announced that my uncle had never had any mental problems and that all his difficulties had been caused by an undiagnosed and untreated brain tumor that had been growing in his skull since the first time he saw the inside of a VA hospital.

So my uncle went home to the bedroom he’d inhabited in my grandmother’s house since he lost everything he held dear. And he thought about his life. And he thought about what he had lost. And he carefully took a blanket off his bed, went over to the gas space heater, sat down on the floor, covered his head with the blanket and turned on the gas.

So my family knows all about VA medical care and we want no part of it.

These poor vets were promised first–class health care in return for going to war. Instead they received secret waiting lists, bureaucrat cover-ups, buck passing and incompetent care.

On the other hand, the rest of us, that haven’t gone to war, have been promised we could keep our doctor and our insurance.

So find a veteran and ask him how the government keeps its promises.

The continual problems of the VA health care system are what the rest of the country will face if Obamacare isn’t stopped in its tracks. Government can’t run a smaller health care network and it certainly can’t run universal health care.

Our veterans have been the canary in the health care coalmine for decades, but Uncle Sam just keeps replacing the dead canaries with new ones.

Our mission is to empower men and women by helping them to discover their true inner and outer beauty & Strengths. When you look better, you feel better and when you feel better, you can change your life. The key to success whether it be to your career or it is self-esteem My goal is to provide anyone with a professional service that will let them achieve the goals and sophistication that

Our goal is for you to look great, feel like you're on top of the world, and be fabulous. In my  career as a soldier and a citizens I have spent years training and teaching young men and women to be the best they can be for themselves and their families, we promise to never stop learning and to do Our absolute best and put our right foot forward, Our job is never done and there is always a higher goal We can achieve. We Love every aspect in helping Our fellow veterans In prove their lives  and We our so thrilled and excited for our future with learning and passing on our own techniques.

We believe that to meet the challenges of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for oneself, one's own family or one's nation, but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace.

“We have for many years lived with the knowledge that we, the masses, the working class, the poor, the white, the black, the brown, the immigrants, the Christians, , the atheists, the soldiers/ex-soldiers, the peaceniks, , the anarchists, the students, the people, across the spectrum, we all have a common cause”

We have served in many nations my friends with a uniform and without one, we the free have many colors none of which go by a uniform when a man or a women decides to stand in defiance of tyranny and injustice.every thing you have ever been taught about the human race you have to forget everything, and use your heart to see the world has one human family with no boundaries or color just human beings who need a hand of gently kindness and understanding without any judgment only compassion and love to heals their wounds


Please forward this to as many of your contacts that you can and ask them to support this cause and to forward it to their contacts as well.

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http://veteransproject.wix.com/the-veterans-project


People who believe in the sanctity of life





ALL FUNDS GO TOWARD HELPING Veterans

We provide veteran, IN NEED WE PROVIDE FOOD ,CLOTHING,HOUSEING AND TRANSPORTATION TO AND FROM SCHOOL OR WORK,AS WELL AS LEGAL AND MEDICAL ASSISTANCE, IT IS OUR SINCERE HOPES THAT THE LOVE AND COMPASSION SHOWN THROUGH THE HEARTS AND COMPASSION OF THOSE WHO ASSIST IN THIS INDEVORE TO HELP YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN STAND FREE AND INDEPENDENT FROM THE THINGS THAT BROUGHT THEM TO OUR LIVES IS DONE SO THEY CAN LEAD PRODUCTIVE LIVES WITH FAITH AND FAMILY VALUES THEY SEE IN OUR OWN HOMES AS We SHARE OUR LIVES WITH THESE AND MANY YOUNG MEN & WOMEN.WE believe that to meet the challenges of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for oneself, one's own family or one's nation, but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace

Please forward this to as many of your contacts that you can and ask them to support this cause and to forward it to their contacts as well.

Thanks for your support