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While growing up in Pakistan, I experienced, first hand, the inherent intolerance which Islam has for those who are not Muslim. They even have a word for it: Infidel. As a practicing Catholic and one who has always been involved with the rubrics of the church, I watched while we were not permitted to have sacred processions, honoring the Eucharist, which passed within sight-line of mosques. Displays of anything Christian and sacred was forbidden if it could be seen from a mosque. We were not permitted to hang any religious icon where it might be seen by a praying Muslim. According to shariah law, the back bone of the life philosophy of Islam, anyone attempting to covert anyone from Islam to any other religion commits a capital offense. All westerners, who Muslims believe are surreptitiously trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, usually under the guise of doing any charity work, are arrested and tried for this capital offense. We see it happening in Iran over and over again. In Saudi Arabia one cannot build a place of worship for any other religion. In Pakistan one cannot read the bible in public. Like pornographic material in this country, one’s bible must be carried around in a plain brown wrapper. I believe I have established that Islam is completely unaccepting of any other religious values or practises but its own.

It must also be apparent that I, personally, am not fan of Islam. I believe it to be a life philosophy/religion which is grounded in the 6^th century and there has been no attempt to bring it out of this dark past, where practices like the subjugation of women and the severe system punishment ( something completely abhorrent to Americans where cruel and unusual punishment is completely unconstitutional)  for minor crimes and misdemeanors. This is contemptible and the amazing fact that Islam can exist today given the world wide preoccupation with human rights, I find incredulous. Perhaps if the majority of the world’s fossil fuels were not pumped out of land controlled by Muslims, Islam would be called what it is.

But now we must get down to the real purpose of this post. The plan to build a mosque across the street from America’s foremost shrine – Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, the erstwhile site of our World Trade Center Twin Towers. There are very few Americans who do not experience a disturbing wave of anger, grief, resentment and a commitment to punishing the murderers who did it,  when they remember that place and the events of the day which brought it to the front of our collective senses. It is a subject with is fraught with emotions, delicate sensibilities and unhealed, raw bleeding sensitivities. It is just not possible to make an object decision about anything relating to 9/11. This is the main reason why the plans for erecting a new building or buildings with some kind of  memorial have taken almost ten years. No one thinks anything is enough and some think that everything is too much and completely inadequate to express the heartache of the nation in relation to 9/11 and ground zero.

Now the Muslims of New York have developed and had sanctioned the building of a cultural center which will house a mosque. Here read: a building in which the religious practice which ( misguidedly or intentionally – you be the judge) gave rise to the mindset which resulted in the slaughter of nearly 3000 Americans on a blissful Tuesday morning in late Summer 2001. Can you feel the bile rising? Does not the very thought cause completely unreasonable reaction?

Now, President Obama, who seems to list putting his foot into his political mouth as one of his many accomplishments, brought the subject front and center last Friday when, while addressing a group of Muslims where he underlined and emphasized the absolute freedom the Muslims enjoy in this country, to worship anywhere and in any manner they choose. He has and will continue to fall in the polls for doing this. As though underscoring what the President said, it is the FIRST AMENDMENT of our constitution, something we celebrate and point to, as our crowning achievement as a nation. Making freedom of religion a concept which is mentioned first in the Bill of Rights is no accident. A vast majority of the immigrants who come to America do so to get away from religious persecution. They come to a land where their freedom to worship is absolutely guaranteed to be unfettered.

It’s that pesky Constitution of ours and those darn well-intentioned founders  who put it together who are now preventing us from venting the anger and the unhappiness and the disdain in which we hold the religion which gave rise to our greatest national disaster. Damn! Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could just tap out heels, close our eyes, and wish the blooming freedom of religion clause gone from the Bill of Rights? Then we could tell the Muslims to go take a hike and to build their mosque somewhere in Pennsylvania. No wait a minute…. Not anywhere near Shanksville (remember flight 93 and Tod Beemer and “Let’s Roll”). There’s that angry, emotional strain again. I am being tastelessly facetious here to make a point. We can no more stop the Muslims from building a mosque at ground zero than we can stop Muslims from praying at their desks in offices on the East Face of the Pentagon. Emotion, sensibilities, and sensitivities have no place here. It doesn’t matter if one’s entire family was wiped out on 9/11. Our national hearts will continue to bleed for all those who lost loved ones on that horrible, preventable day, but…. but…. Remember that our constitution is designed for precisely this reason; to help us overcome the human frailties under which we suffer, which derive from our uncontrolled emotions. President Obama was right on Friday night. It will cost him politically, but I admire him for saying something which is principled albeit unpopular. This will be his “Tear Down That Wall, Mr Gorbachov…” moment, with the opposite effect of  the Reaganesque popularity. His handlers made him come out the next day and soften his stance by saying that he wouldn’t make any statements about the correctness or value of building the mosque. Good for him. He is the President not a private citizen. His opinion doesn’t matter.

We have a Constitution which guarantees religious freedom. It is the largest, brightest beacon which continues to make America the proverbial Promised Land to all the poor, hungry, tired human refuse on teeming shores everywhere. To paraphrase Al Gore…. It is a truth… and at this time in our history… an extremely inconvenient one.

Wait a minute: what’s wrong with me; I am agreeing with Barack Obama and quoting Al Gore. I’m glad this post is over… I better go and ly down before this condition becomes chronic…heaven forfend!.

Blaming the Bush administration has provided fodder for late night comedians for the last 18 months. It has also provided a scapegoat for the current administration every time some policy or decision backfires or meets with the disapproval of the American people. It has become relatively easy to say “It’s Bush’s fault” and thusly to dodge the political bullet. Much of this shifting of blame is untrue. The state of the economy, right now, rests squarely on the shoulders of the President. The economic buck stops at his desk. The unemployment buck stops there, too. The fact that both wars are still very stagnant and seem to be going nowhere, fast is also a problem which lies with President Obama. Bush has been gone for a long time. From D-Day to the end of World War II, was a mere 11 months, and then we were fighting the most formidable and most organized, disciplined military force the world had ever seen. There has been a lot of legislation which has left the American people either downright angry or simply unimpressed. The Health Care Bill was the proverbial storm in a tea cup. The Cap and Trade Bill frightens most Americans. The Financial Regulatory Bill is a thinly disguised attempt to sock it to the big guy, something that liberals are constantly striving to do. The rate at which President Obama is spending is the material nightmares are made of. The fact that future generations of Americans will be saddled with $13 trillion of debt is staggering. And, none of this is Bush’s fault.

But … and there is a “but” which conservative like I am, having to admit. The Republican Party lost the election of 2006 because the Republican brand had simply lost its charm. Republicans in congress and the White House were spending like liberals on speed. The congress was spending, with the sanction of George Bush, as though there were no consequences for their actions. Bush did very little to keep the American people informed of the pressure that mortgage makers were feeling from liberals in the congress, like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, to make tottery loans to people who couldn’t afford them. President Bush executed the war in Iraq very, very poorly. On Rumsfeld’s advice that whole military operation was undertaken with a small military footprint with plenty of loose ends left dangling. The same loose ends which came back to bite us in the months after the unfortunate “Mission Accomplished” party on board the aircraft carrier. In a word, the Republicans were completely ineffectual. All that it meant to be Republican seemed to be gone with the wind. At the time of the general election in November 2008, there was very little that seemed to differentiate between the two parties. Naturally, the party with the cooler candidate, a black guy who had risen from poverty, was going to win. Most of it was Bush’s fault as the leader of the GOP and the electorate made this felt, in 2006 as well, when Congress was handed over to the left, and serves them right (pardon the rather painful pun).

Now the Republicans have to show that they are really what they have always said they were. The have the re-draw the lines that separate them from the party of the left. Fiscally responsible; not inclined to dole out entitlements, not the party which panders to any ethnic group at the price of reduced national security (I am talking about our southern border and the Hispanic vote here) and the party which feels no need to apologize for the country and any of its foreign policy. To date, the GOP does not have a leader who espouses these values. Michael Steele, as the head of the GOP, is a disappointment and in typical gutless fashion (why are politicians so incapable of telling a minority that he cannot do a job?) the GOP is keeping him on. Mitt Romney has been on a nationwide tour promoting his book, “No Apology” but that hasn’t caught fire like a pre-presidential campaign should have. Tim Pawlenty is spending a lot of time in Iowa and Rhode Island and Michigan. Rick Santorum is doing the same, but no one leaps out of the crowd. What we need is another Gipper, and soon. The November election will be history in a matter of days and then it is serious business. We have to give white people a candidate who will trump the need to scrub their guilt which can be assuaged by voting for the black guy. We have to give minorities a candidate who can convince them of their self-worth as more than victims, and we have to find a candidate who can show the independants that he or she can turn the ship of state around to head in the right direction.

The GOP needs speak out against the blatant racial overtones of the Justice department in ignoring the Black Panther voter intimidation case and the firing of Shirley Sherrod, and it needs to say that all spending will stop unless there is specific money to pay for it. The party needs to reiterate the need for a strong national defense even if it means annoying the Russians. It needs to support Arizona and the new immigration law. It needs to encourage Virginia and the immigration law ( a carbon copy of Arizona’s law) that the attorney General in that State is trying to pass, and it needs to say that we need a wall as impenetrable as the Berlin Wall on our southern border. That last point alone will guarantee support from 70% of the electorate. The election of November 2010 can be won, but not at the rate most Republicans are going right now.

Sitting and waiting in traffic court to be arraigned is a frustrating and annoying experience. This experience, alone, should be ample punishment for whatever infraction one has committed. During this process one is shuffled around from room to room where one fills in reams of paper. I wonder if Al Gore or the brainless environmentalists who people our State Capital know how much paper the State of California uses just to collect a traffic fine.

The process was enlightening in many ways. During the my sojourn at the court  202 people were processed. I added up the total of their fines using a short stub of a pencil and the back of my citation.  I was forbidden to use the sophisticated calculator on my phone because electronic devices are banned and their use in the presence of His Honor, and can lead to a contempt citation and confiscation of one’s favorite piece of electronics.. The total amount to be collected from all these people was approximately $80,000. The judge did reduce almost every fine and by adding up the actual amount that everyone paid,  I came up with $61,000 revenue in two and quarter hours. Assuming that the Great State of California spent 75% of this to pay the cost of running the operation, they would net over $15,000. This is a return on investment that any small business would envy and covet. So I realized that while traffic citations border on being a scam, it is definitely a worthwhile scam for our State. Our tax dollars at work, generating income to pay of the States $20 billion short fall.

There were several benefits to spending this time in court. One learned, first hand, that the system did work. One realized that the traffic laws must be followed or one pays a lot of money to the State. There are expensive consequences for one’s actions. Why haven’t the liberal progressives found a way around this? One learned that one really cannot bluff one’s way out of a citation, these judges have heard it all and even Einstein would have a hard time coming up with something original.

The learning experience that I found to be most interesting was the fact that all 200 people had to sit and watch a video detailing the process of arraignment. It was a video of a venerable gray-haired magistrate enumerating everyone’s rights. In other words, the Sixth Amendment in a nutshell. Where else can Americans be strong-armed into sitting still, without any distractions, and listening to what the U.S. Constitution actually does for each one of us? I have experienced this lecture on a previous occasion. Then it was delivered live and in person by a judge and for the duration people dozed off, surreptitiously read their newspapers or novels or simply day dreamed. Now, we are a video nation. Put a TV screen in front of a group of Americans and you have their attention. I watched as everyone paid close attention to the subject matter of the lecture.

We were told that we had the right to a speedy trial. It had to occur no more than 45 days after arraignment. The judge actually asked if people would mind adding a month to this 45 day wait because the dockets were full. We were told that we were entitled to a public trial within the district in which we had committed our infraction. We were told that we had to be informed of the nature and the cause of the accusation and that we could confront witnesses brought against us. This incredible Constitution also guaranteed us the right to bring witnesses of our own to be heard in our cause. We could have an attorney present to provide counsel for us. I watched, very surprised, as several young people listened to this. I wondered if they would remember all this. I wondered if they cared.

When the hearing began in earnest,  a young lady, accused of transporting minors in her car (she was 17 years old) was called up. To my surprise she chose to plead “No Contest”. This would give her the protection in the event that her infraction caused someone to sue her civilly, against the plaintiff using her traffic infraction as evidence of her wrong doing. She had been listening to the video. James Madison, in 1789, had not spent sleepless night putting together a Bill of Rights for nothing. This young American, with more metal in her face, than the hardware aisle at Home Depot complete with violet hair had used one of those rights.

God Bless America, indeed.

The Republic still works, at least in traffic court.

Our President, it would appear, has a penchant for doing things that a vast majority of the American people do not want. First there was the health care bill which almost 70% of the country, according to several pollsters, did not care for. Then there is all the spending, the stimulus bills and the government takeover of financial institutions and the flagrant flouting of wealth redistribution. Now there is the Anti-Illegal immigration bill in Arizona.

The decision of Judge Susan Bolton, to emasculate the bill, will give that same 60% of the electorate a reason to blame the failure of the immigration system on President Obama. Every time an American looses a job to a migrant worker, or a crime committed by an illegal is publicized, the people will look around for someone to blame and that buck will definitely stop at the President’s desk.

The State of Arizona will appeal this decision to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, accoprding to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who is turning out to be one tough lady. There it will probably be supported by one of the most liberal courts in the land. This will fast track the case to the US Supreme Court and that is where it will be overturned and the President will be defeated. The legal foundation of the federal case against the Arizona law is that the State oversteps federal authority and jurisdiction by attempting to enforce immigration law which is solely a federal responsibility is just as applicable to sanctuary cities, in that those cities are choosing to ignore federal immigration law. But we don’t hear about that side of the matter from opponents of the Arizona law.  

Opponents continue to cite all kinds of civil rights issues in regard to this law. One commentator compared it to the Jim Crow laws in which de jure racial segregation was mandated in all public facilities, with a supposedly “separate but equal status” for black Americans.  In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans creating a huge number of economic, educational and social disadvantages for the black people of the United States. That is patently ridiculous.

Others cite the xenophobic targeting of Hispanics who will be easily identified, and therefore harassed , by their complexions.  One liberal progressive commentator said that the authorities and the people supporting the Arizona law were not trying to keep Canadians, or Swedes or Norwegians or Finns out of the United States; the unfounded fear was of Hispanics.

Let’s for one second ditch the political correctness nonsense here: Walk into any emergency room and check out the number of Canadians, Swedes, Norwegians or Finns waiting in line for treatment without insurance or legal papers. How many Europeans and Middle Easterners are arrested trying to jump the border every year, compared to the number of Hispanics. This IS a Hispanic problem. No getting away from it. There are 12 million illegal Hispanics in America right now. If there were 12 million white skinned, blued eyed, blond Viking types floating around this land without legal authority, looking to benefit from every entitlement in the land that would be just as much of a problem. No one particularly cares what the illegals look, sound or smell like. It’s the fact that they are illegal that is troublesome and that our infrastructure is crumbling under the weight of so much unpaid for patronage.

The Arizona State appeal isn’t likely to happen before the November midterm elections, but it will definitely happen before 2012 and it will provide some Republican Candidate plenty of ammunition against the President during a debate and during the campaign, as will health care and Cap and Trade and all the other follies of this administration.

One wonders why this President, with all of his political savvy, has decided to do what he has done and what he continues to do. He appears to be following an agenda which is alienating every sector of the wide support that he had; the support that “brung him to the dance”.  With the Arizona law, President Obama has made a gamble for the Hispanic vote and in doing so has turned many who supported him, against him. His approval rating among Hispanics has dropped 54% and effect he hoped for has not happened.

Could it be that the President is so steadfast in his determination to complete his goals, even at the risk of re-election, before his first and only term is over? Could it be that he hopes that the American people will see how determined a man he is and reelect him in spite of all. Could it be that Barack Obama is much, much more an intelligent politician than we give him credit for and that he knows what he is doing and what he is doing will get him a total of eight years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Time will tell!

by Newt Gingrich (more by this author)

New Yorkers are upset, as are many Americans, at the prospect of a mosque being built at the site of the most heinous of terrorist crimes: the murder of 3000 innocent Americans on September 11^th, 2001. The peaceful religion which gave validation to the unhinged mentality of the 19 terrorists is going to be celebrated within yards of this shrine to America’s precious 9/11 dead. The emotional dismay at having a place of worship for the religion which gives rise to almost all of the terrorism in our world today at the very site where we all watched in horror 9 short years ago, as Muslims killed thousands of innocents and altered a large part of our way of life is understandable.

But we live in a Republic, not a straight democracy. We have a Constitution which can be a nuisance, sometimes.  Unfortunately, the US Constitution requires that Muslims be allowed to build a place of worship anywhere in the country. This is the difference between our Republic and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where churches, synagogues and temples are forbidden because they are places of worship for infidels.  There can be no contest there. The First Amendment is inviolable.

In reality, if one looks a little further, one uncovers the philosophy of the Imam who will head the religious community which will worship at this soon-to-be-built mosque.

 This imam feels that America’s judicial system should be more Shariah friendly. In other words he feels that Shariah Law should trump the Constitution whenever a Muslim feels like appealing to it.

 Shariah law is Islam’s law. They believe it to be the law of God.

 In as much as females are treated as second class, this is adamantly opposed to everything our constitution stands for. The feminists are always strangely silent about women’s rights when it comes to the way Islam, treats women. One aspect is multiple wives. Under Shariah a male is allowed up to four wives. The Supreme has ruled against various arguments in favour of polygamy because of the distinction between religious opinion and human action. The Court believed the true spirit of the First Amendment was that Congress could not legislate against opinion, but could legislate against public action.

 Court proceedings in Shariah law are conducted by judges without the benefit of legal counsel or juries for the defence. The Constitution, in the due process clause of the Sixth  Amendment, says: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed ….. to be confronted with the witnesses against him and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. Will we toss out the Sixth Amendment to curry favor with the Muslim World?

Shariah law require floggings for adultery, stoning for married people who commit adultery and amputation of the hands for stealing. This was all normal in the eighth century but is regarded as brutal and brutish by today’s standards and all of it directly conflicts with the cruel and unusual punishment requirement of the constitution. The Eighth Amendment prohibits the federal government from cruel and unusual punishments. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause applies to all the States, as well.

The world has witnessed, in the recent weeks, the dark age mentality of Islam and its laws. Hundreds of people have held rallies across the world in support of an Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was originally told she would be killed by stoning but the sentence was put on hold following an international outcry. In London, campaigners protested against what they described as “medievalism and barbarity”. Protesters also marched in Toronto, New York, Paris, Berlin and other cities. In London’s Trafalgar Square, campaigners called on the international community to “make the world stand still”. In Sweden’s capital Stockholm, protesters signed a large petition calling for Ashtiani’s release. However, her death sentence remains in place. She has already received 99 lashes( what Sixth Amendment?) for what Iranian officials called an illicit relationship outside marriage. Can we resurrect Thomas Jefferson and ask him what he thinks of all this and whether he thinks Our Republic should allow this?

Iran has long argued that the death penalty is essential in maintaining public security. It also says it is only carried out after exhaustive judicial proceedings, a claim that has been challenged by human rights groups.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party, requires those states that maintain the death penalty to restrict it to “the most serious crimes”. Critics of the way Iran has been using capital punishment say that it has acted in clear violation of the covenant. From time to time there have been reports of stonings from other countries, such as Somalia and Afghanistan.  A case in Somalia in October 2008 attracted much attention. A girl was stoned to death before a large crowd at a football stadium. Didn’t our founders create the Republic based on a solid Constitution to get away from this kind of barbaric society?

The last straw came last week when Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, the acting Friday prayer leader in Tehran, said women should stick to strict codes of modesty to protect themselves.

“Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes,” he explained.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Iran earthquakes in the last decade.

Mr Sediqi was delivering a televised sermon at the Tehran University campus mosque last Friday on the need for a “general repentance” by Iranians when he warned of a “prevalence of degeneracy”.

“What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes,” he said.

 Perhaps the Imam has something here.

Take a close look at California, a liberal den of iniquity, which has an earthquake every five seconds. Maybe we should mend our ways. Maybe women should cover up, we should stop messing around with each other’s wives and toe the moral line and maybe then the temblors will finally stop and we wont have to hold our breaths waiting for the “big one”.

A couple of  Sundays ago on one of the morning talk shows, several Democrat and Republican Senators and Representatives shared their views on what should be done to fix the problems we are facing in the country right now. The Democrats spent most of their time defending the Obama tax and spend policies which we have been plagued with in the last 18 months. The Republicans came off so wishy-washy in their ideas that had I been an undecided voter I would have decided to simply stay home on election day. This is not a good plan to get back congress from the liberals. The Republican party has to have some concrete plans and they have to share those plans with the American people before more time runs out. Looking at some 98 days left before the country goes to the polls, the election is there to be lost by the Republicans and it looks like they are on the way to loosing a extremnely easy proposition.  

Remember when Newt Gingrich and his fellow Republicans signed a contract with America in 1992? It seems a long time ago and most of us have forgotten about that time. After all it was 18 years ago. Those of us with teenage children have seen them go off to college. Those of us with dogs have buried them. Some of us have dissolved marriages. Many of us have sold homes or lost them to mortgage bankers. A great deal of water has passed under the bridge. A long time has passed and for all of us 18 years represents the passing of at least a fifth of our lives.

 But let’s stop and think about the condition of our Union right now. We have run away governmental spending. An administration which is hell bent on instituting a socialist-like economy which equalizes wealth with no regard to merit or hard work. An education system which represents between 50% and 60% of every State budget and yet our school children cannot compete with children from India, China or Japan.

 Don’t you think that as a condition for support at the polling booth each candidate for elective office should be willing to make some promises that he or she will absolutely not break, come hell or high water?

Why can’t we demand things like Fiscal responsibility? A FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out- of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses.

Why can’t we demand a return to the intent of our founders? Why can’t we remember that the pursuit of happiness has no guarantees? Why can’t we admit that no man made laws will protect us from fraud, theft, financial abuse, marital infidelity and all moral disintegration like the Laws of God will? Let’s remind politicians that granting rights to everyone at the expense of the working class  is not a wonderful act of charity. Let’s remind them that rights not specifically in our constitution do not exist. That our constitution is set in stone and is not a malleable and ductile document.

 Demand personal responsibility. Illegitimate children should become, once again, a cause of great shame. Stop rewarding teenage girls who return to school after giving birth to an illegitimate child as though she has done sometime honorable.  Males who father children and then run away from the scene should be condemned as the renegade vermin that they are. Unmarried mothers are a unfortunate situation which is only a condition to be admired in the case of a widowed woman.Shouldn’t we demand that our borders be secured by the federal government which is charged to protect us by our constitution? We should arrest people who are obviously in this country illegally whether we offend people of a certain ethnicity or not. Close down, by confiscating assests and business licenses, all companies hiring illegals. When the jobs dry up, so will the illegal immigration.

 We must demand that all of congress cut its staff by half? Can’t we half the number of house committees that exist. Can’t we have independent auditors go through the expenses that congress has and cut waste and excess spending?

 We must demand that the Department of Education and the National Endowment of the Arts be dissolved? Social security and Medicare are both threatened and we want to fund some idiot who thinks that standing a crucifix in urine is art?

 WE must demand that all negotiations indulged in by congress be made public via C-span.  We have the technology and it should be used. Only matters of nationals security should be behind closed doors.

 We need a constitutional amendment that requires a three-fifth majority to pass any tax increase?  The law should be broad enough to recognize any increase in outlay for the American people, whether it is called a surcharge or a franchise charge or a levy.

We need a new law that says that Earmarks can only be attached to the annual budget bill. Earmarks cannot be tucked into bills to fund the military or any military action. Earmarks cannot be tucked into the folds of an immigration bill or a health bill or a a financial reform bill or a Medicare or Medicade bill. In other words, if it relates to the annual federal budget, you can include earmarks, if it does not, you cannot.

Does anyone running for office have the courage to write up a contract like this? 

If someone does; perhaps Marco Rubio or Carly Fiorino or Pat Toomey or Sharon Angle or Michelle Bachman?

Will we, the people, agree that we will not vote for anyone who hasn’t signed this contract?

If we do, that will be government by the people….

De Tocqueville may have started it.

I believe it with all my being. I believed it when I was a youngster growing up in Pakistan, 7000 miles away from this land. I cannot shake the idea that America has a special place among the people and the nations on the planet. The national collection of beliefs of the majority of Americans, where the Republic came from, the politics and the institutions, the fundamental Judeo-Christian roots of all things American and the fact that it is an even more mongrel nation than Churchill’s native land, given that it is comprised of immigrants from every chunk of real estate on earth. In no other country can immigrants become so completely absorbed into a culture as to become indistinguishable from each other, if they choose to do so.

Our smoothly operating representative democracy is the envy of the world. In the recent past we have seen how the Constitution allowed a civilian chief executive relieve a powerful general of his position. This happened with a much greater general in the 20th century where the firing was done by a much weaker President. We saw in the last century power pass from one man to another; in one case after one chief executive was brutally murdered and in the second case where public opinion and the force of law caused the chief exec to resign his position as the most powerful man on the earth. We have seen major changes in the control of the congress because popular expectations were not met with.  We are about to see that happen again. Currently we are seeing the debate and the division caused by illegal immigration being handled smoothly by the workings of the law. The central government suing a state government over a law voted into force by the people of that state. The fact that a collection of printed pages permits the separate, balanced powers in play, to do this, without violent challenge, is mind boggling.

American exceptionalism definitely carries with it the notion, subscribed to or opposed mightily, that American forces must police the world. America has been severely criticized for this and it will continue to be so, but the reality exists. In the past century American forces delivered millions of Jews from the hands of an evil power which sought to exterminate them. American forces liberated the whole of Europe, almost singlehandedly, from that same power. In Korea, America prevented the takeover of the south by the communist north and America planted the seeds of economic prosperity in South Korea which has led to that country’s becoming an economic force to be reckoned with.  America is attempting to do this in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Chinese appropriation of the American system of free markets has led to China becoming an economic superpower. The American system works. Inspite of her position in the world,  America has never seized the land of another country or occupied another land with the intention of making that real estate a possession.

But, alas, American exceptionalism is now something that must be apologized for, by everyone from our current Secretary of State to our President. President Obama has apologized for our arrogance, our derisiveness, our supposed heavy handedness. The left continues to foster the notion that this heavy-handedness caused terrorists to murder 3000 Americans, in cold blood, on that horrifying day in September 2001. The unfortunate reasoning is that by apologizing for what the envious world perceives as American imperialism, we will make friends of our enemies. That is yet to happen after 16 months of this kowtowing.

 Americans are sick of being told that we must surrender the idea that our country is special. A city on a hill, to which the rest of the world looks for guidance, protection and financial support.  Today America provides assistance in sub- Saharan Africa, Asia and the Near East, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Eurasia. American assistance helps 100 developing countries and is in close partnership with private voluntary organizations, indigenous groups, universities, American businesses, international organizations, other governments, trade and professional associations, faith-based organizations, and other U.S. government agencies. The United States of America has working relationships, through contracts and grant agreements, with more than 3,500 companies and over 300 U.S.-based private voluntary organizations, in countries on every continent on earth. Yet our President continues to apologize for us.

The left and by definition this refers to the Democrat party, continues to think that America is always wrong. This was confirmed when President Caldaron of Mexico addressed congress and used the venue to criticize the new immigration enforcement law in Arizona. The entire body of Democrats stood and applauded the criticism. With friends like this, America doesn’t need to look far for enemies. We have them in our backyards, under our very noses.

The United States is, without a doubt, the most benevolent and charitable country on the planet. The government and the people of the United States reacts twice as fast as any other country in the world with treasure and with human assistance whenever hurricanes, floods, volcanoes, tsunamis and earthquakes strike any part of the world. The people of this country have given willingly, hundreds of precious lives to liberate peoples all over the world without taking anything in return. It is not an over statement to say that without the assistance of the United States armed forces, World War II would have gone on much longer and Hitler would have, quite possibly, invaded and occupied Great Britain. So how does this country condone the murder of babies routinely, as a means of ending an inconvenience? Since 1973 it is estimated that 49.5 million babies have been aborted (http://www.alanguttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html). While the numbers are down and continue to fall; in 2005 (the most recent year for which there is reliable data), approximately 1.21 million abortions took place in the U.S., down from an estimated 1.29 million in 2002, 1.31 million in 2000 and 1.36 million in 1996. From 1973 through 2005, more than 49 million legal abortions have occurred in the U.S. (http://www.alanguttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html).

Even if this number were halved, it dwarfs Hitler’s Holocaust, the genocide in Biafra, the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans in the early 1990s, Mao Tse Tung’s slaughter of people who would toe the communist line and Stalin’s murder of non-aligned people in the outlying States in the Soviet Union of the 1940s.

Eighteen percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are teenagers; Women in their twenties account for more than half of all abortions; Thirty percent of abortions occur to non-Hispanic black women; Women who have never married and are not cohabiting account for 45% of all abortions. Forty-two percent of women obtaining abortions have incomes below 100% of the federal poverty level ($10,830 for a single woman with no children). (Jones RK, Finer LB and Singh S, Characteristics of U.S. Abortion Patients, 2008, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2010)  Abortion is being used as a contraceptive procedure. Most aborted pregnancies are inconvenient. Three-fourths of the women getting abortions say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the advancement of a career. (Finer LB et al., Reasons U.S. women have abortions: quantitative and qualitative perspectives, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2005, 37(3):110–118.) It is inconvenient to have a child. The President of the United States said, during the campaign in 2008 that a baby would be a punishment that he would not impose on a teenager.

The liberal promoters of women’s rights argue that the right a woman has to make all the choices involving her own body completely trump any other consideration. A woman’s  right to choose is more important than a baby’s right to life. What’s wrong with this picture? On the one hand we have the right to life and on the other we have the right to make a decision about someone else’s life. Make no mistake: a woman has choices. She can choose not behave like a rabbit in mating season.  She can choose not to place her self-esteem and her self-worth at a lower level than her desire to be physically coveted by any and every male who looks twice at her.  If she chooses to have wanton sex with any and every Tom, Dick (no pedestrian pun intended here) and Harry,  and she has the choice to make use of a variety of contraceptive devices which are readily available to her.

To those who would say that it is unfair that for eighteen years of her life a woman is burdened by a child, I say: live with it. Nature’s God designed it so that a woman would much more intimately connected with a child than the male who helped her procreate (here in lies the absolute reason to choose carefully before mating with wayward males).  If you do not believe in or subscribe to a Divine Creator, then blame it on the evolution of some protoplasmic glob which crawled out from under some pre-historic rock and decided that it would  become male and female and the female would carry and care for the young of the species, while the male would slither off in search of other seductive female globs. Too bad women got stuck with being mothers. This knowledge should promote the practice of abstinence or the very careful use of contraceptives. It’s going to be your baby and it’s going to hang around for a long, long time. Be careful;  Be aware;  you have the choice to do that. No one will take that choice away from you. However, once that darned cell bifurcates, you’re out of luck. It’s not just your life or your body anymore. There is another life involved. A life, that has been entrusted to your care, either by God or by some uncaring and ill-natured evolutionary process.  

What would liberals say, or call me if I advanced the idea that there should be a law that requires all single mothers who are not possessed of sufficient income or resources  to raise a child in a comfortable life style, should be required by law to surrender their new born child up for adoption to a two parent/male-female couple? Hear me: not two males or two females. Every child deserves a Dad and  Mom. I enjoyed mine and benefitted enormously from both of them equally. So should every child.

I can hear the incoherent ranting now.

It will be incoherent, because of the level of anger they feel. There will be much gnashing of teeth. How dare I suggest a law which would force a young woman to surrender her child? Isn’t this exactly like China? Remember when China had a law requiring women to have only one child?

Here is the defense of my position. You, as a young woman, were irresponsible. You behaved like the average alley cat and as a result you now have control over another life. If you are allowed to give birth to that child, and then you were to strangle it, you will be charged with murder and serve a long time in prison or be executed for the crime. If you are kidnapped while pregnant and murdered by your kidnapper, in all our States, your kidnapper would be charged with dual kidnapping and dual murderer. The crime would carry the death penalty.  Once you give birth, we accept a baby as an American with all the rights granted to it by law. Six months prior, it is permissible to suck it directly from your womb into a sink just because it was inconvenient.  By getting pregnant you have proved that you are irresponsible and we know you cannot afford this child.  So, why can’t we take better care of your unwanted child. Way better than you ever will be able to? After all:  In our country if you drive while drunk , don’t we take away your driving privilege? If you starve your dog because you cannot afford to buy kibble, won’t animal control take it away from you? In some States, if your house becomes dangerously cluttered, the State authorities will come in physically remove you unless you promise to clean it up; watch “Hoarders” on TV. Try blasting your neighbors out of their peaceful homes by playing your choice of music overly loud…. The State steps in every time you exhibit irresponsibility.

Finally, let me say that I was very disappointed when Sarah Palin encouraged her daughter to keep her child. I am now doubly disappointed that her daughter is going to marry the flake who impregnated her. How have the mighty fallen. I expected better from Governor Palin.

I don’t care what the libs say…. We need a law to protect babies, born and unborn….

It was as the campaign for the Presidential elections of 2008 was drawing to a close, when it seemed as though the Republican candidate was definitely going to lose, that a colleague of mine, a very liberal young man, who had been enflamed by the Obama zeal hitting people of his age group, told me that the Republican party would never win another election if we didn’t stop being the “GOD party”. 

 At first I was alarmed. Then he elaborated and it became clear that to him and those who contributed to his mind set, that the Republican party was being associated with the group of people for whom God and organized religion was important. According to this young colleague, that was an idea whose time had passed. He firmly believed that America had heard enough about God and any political entity pushing God would suffer in the polls and consequently be voted out of office come election day. I must admit to being of faint heart, because when John McCain lost and Barack Obama won, there was a short time when I actually started to give the idea some thought.

Now it has been eighteen months later and the country is making something of a U-Turn. We are hearing an awful lot about God and the need for his help to right our course. The huge ground swell of the tea party movement has re-awakened that same silent majority of the 1980s, which I think never really went away. The people for whom religion and being a part of an organized group of people for whom collective worship is very important, seem to have regained their voices and they seem determined to be heard now.

 It is interesting to see the liberal progressives asking for more and more regulation? We have seen our House of Representative put forward bill after bill that would curb the likes of Goldman Sachs and Bernie Madoff. Why more regulation?  They ask for more and more regulation to keep greedy people from going off the deep end with other people’s money. This is the very regulation that all the founders, to a man, were worried would stifle the Republic and the American drive to success. To the liberal mind it is only a burdensome quantum of man-made laws that will keep people straight. The idea of a natural law, an innate idea of right and wrong, a congenital desire to follow the laws of God, that are far better at keeping people from getting greedy, is completely alien to the liberal progressive. We don’t need God or his Natural Laws.  We can regulate. But isn’t it true that for every law there is an equal and opposite loop hole?

Every one of the founders was convinced that if this Republic were to work the need for moral law and a strong religious adherence was absolutely essential. Think about it. Would Bernie Madoff have done what he did if he had a desire to follows God’s laws. Wouldn’t that desire have had a far greater effect at keeping him honest, than all the regulations that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama could think of, together? So, in essence, haven’t the very Progressives who were determined that God did not belong in our classrooms and who were adamant about keeping the Ten Commandments out of our courts, and who were almost violent in their opposition to teaching creation or anything remotely connected with the Divine Act of a Supreme Being in creating the universe, brought about a society which has no regard for right and wrong.

 “Thou Shalt Not Steal.”

“Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness.”

“Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbors Goods.”

Exactly; because Bill No. HR 47XXX covers all that. Congress passed it. The President signed it into law. It is now the law of the land. Everyone had better follow the law, or else.

That is until someone finds a way around those laws.

Then they will continue to bear false witness, to steal, to covet, because, unlike the commercial says, they do not answer to a higher authority! The higher authority is banned from the class room: by the law of the land!

 This should have been expected. I think that this idea of the necessity of the belief in God and the need for an organization which helps a person to worship Him is genetic to the American organism.