Today is February 2, 2008.
I am over fifty years old. I am a product of American values, observed and experienced in the 1950s and 1960s, and sorely tried in the Vietnam, Watergate, and Carter years of the 1970s, and again in the Clinton years of the 1990s.
This is the timeframe and events that formed my political worldview. I grew up when we still said a prayer and read Psalm 23 at the beginning of the school day. I remember doing the duck and cover in elementary school, to be safe in the event of a Cold War nuclear attack, even though being only 12 miles from NYC, the odds of surviving such an attack or its aftermath was just about a negative number. I remember the pride in America and its flag; the meaning of independence, especially on the Fourth of July. My father's parents were immigrants and my mother was an immigrant, and the old country was just that--the "old" country. Most of my uncles served in the US Army and Navy during WW2, while my father was a foreman in a defense plant. The prosperity,music, and the social fabric of America in the 1950s and 1960s are still a source of inspiration to me. Because of my parents' background, we always helped anyone in need that came our way. My parents would brook no discrimination, even when at the time it was common to discriminate on the basis of skin color. No, the promise of America was for everyone. Sometimes, only an immigrant can appreciate America's true value, as did my parents.
I remember well the Carter years, with its mind numbing cowardice in the face of dangers from the USSR and Iran, and how it caused us to doubt our greatness. And I remember a man named Ronald Reagan, and how he inspired an entire nation to rendevous with its destiny once again, and in an inconceivable turn of events, won the Cold War and knocked down the Berlin War without firing a single shot. His courage and belief in America inspired policies that freed all of Eastern Europe and kept budding Islamofascism at bay, all the while he was opposed and reviled by the Democrats, the America-haters and the Communists worldwide.
I remember the horror of the Clinton years, when a rapist and abuser of women was the Commander in Chief, aided and abetted by a power hungry woman who hated the military. I remember fighting for his impeachment, only to be betrayed by a Republican Senate that had no courage, or that was compromised by stolen FBI files and failed to discharge its lawful duty to remove a lawbreaking President who brought shame to the Oval Office. I remember recoiling in horror and shame when a six year old boy whose mother drowned in an attempt to bring him to freedom from Cuba was removed from a private home under the force of arms and returned to Fidel Castro.
I remember crying tears of gladness when our current President said the words of his Oath of Office on January 20, 2001, ending my personal nightmare, an eight year long nightmare, of having Bill and Hillary Clinton in the White House.
The events of these last seven years are nothing what I expected that cold, clear January morning. The events of September 11, 2001, the invasion of Iraq, the War on Terror, all of them returned me to the patriotic days of my youth. I saw a nation united in purpose for the first time in my adult life, as the nation had been torn since the Vietnam War.
But I saw a Republican President I believed in, and a Republican Party that was my home politically, shift in a slow, determined, unstoppable drift away from its principles, adopting the policies and views of the Democrats, to the point where we now face having as our Presidential candidate, John McCain, an enemy of conservatism, of Republican principles, and of American sovereignty.
As I pondered these things today, February 2, 2008, I have come to a very troubling observation.
We conservatives always had a home in the Republican Party. President Reagan even came here when the Democrat Party became too radical for him in the 1950s. We were the foundation of 12 years of the Reagan Bush era and we fought for the current President to give him eight years, even in the face of a national election being stolen from him.
But when our country was threatened by the prospect of a mass amnesty last May and June, allowing 20 million or more illegal immigrants to become defacto citizens by fiat, we erupted in a display of power that had Washington DC recoiling in terror. We derailed their plan to ensure the Balkanization of America by giving it 20 million more citizens who would not assimilate into the culture, and to ensure a cheap workforce, and to permanently undercut American worker's wages. Together with Global Warming and carbon credits, America could be brought to heel and managed.
We stopped McCain-Kennedy and its cousin, alright. But there was a price to pay for our insolence.
We, the America loving conservatives of the Republican Party, are no longer needed by this party. We are too narrow minded and old school. Flag waving and the supremacy of the American Way are passe. We are not inclusive. We are standing in the way of the elites in Washington DC from making their wet dreams a reality--making America an also-ran, not a super-power. America as a third world country, not as better than anyone else. An America that is afraid to face its Islamic enemies,that worries about what the world thinks about it, strangled in political correctness, surrendering its freedoms on a daily basis in the vain hope for security.
We keepers of the flame of American liberty are now the enemy. When Hillary labelled us the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, we took that has a label of pride. But now the Republican establishment has decreed that we are a conspiracy to be defeated within our own party, as we face the prospect of John McCain being rammed down our throats. John McCain, the Manchurian Candidate, the man who has betrayed every tenet of Republicanism in his quest for power,who has railed against conservatives at every turn, who is bound and determined to grant amnesty to 10% of Mexico's population now within our borders, he is the one being annointed by the elites as our candidate.
His job is not only to become the candidate of choice, but to be the means of the destruction of the power of the conservative base of the Republican Party.
Between McCain, Obama and Hillary, there isn't a dime's worth of difference in their political views. The Republican and Democrat established elites have melded into one entity, and they will win no matter who gets nominated or who wins the general election, especially if McCain is the nominee. All three believe in unlimited amnesty, an open border, cap and trade globaloney, giving rights to Gitmo detainees, and the restriction of free speech and gun rights.
The MSM is their collective cheerleader, actively working to marginalize us as a viable force for the America we visualize.
Many of us will vote Republican in November, only because we cannot, in good conscience, vote for Obama or Clinton. The Republican establishment knows this, and knows because we are principled, we can not do otherwise. Rather than enlist us to help, they are engaged in a policy of containment and neutering, because we stand in the way of their vision of America.
McCain as a candidate will be a disaster. The Republican establishment knows this. But they don't care, because the goal is not to win this election. It is to remove us from the political table, and for them to join with their Democrat brothers in the march toward an America subsevient to global interests. Sovereignty is treated as a quaint, outmoded concept, even by many Republican governors who are pushing the globaloney nonsense that will cripple this nation.
The perfect storm of American politics is converging in a bid to elect one of three horrible candidates, McCain,Obama, or Clinton, to be our next President. The odds are that the Republicans will not only lose with McCain, but they will lose even more of the House and Senate, enough to relegate Republicans to a minority status for decades to come.
Where are the national Republican leaders speaking out against where our party is heading? As one looks over the events of the last 15 years, since the ascension and improbable election of a no good, draft dodging, lying huckster like Bill Clinton to President, we have witnessed a snowballing reversal of American values and fortunes. With Clinton II on the horizon, we face a complete collapse of American values and soveriegnty and freedom with the "CHANGE" that is being promised for the electorate.
That "change" is starting right now for us. By Tuesday midnight, we will know if the fate the elites have decreed for us will become reality, if McCain is our candidate.
In the past few days, the lenses through which I view politics have changed in prescription. I see now that we are the enemy to our own party's leaders, whose leaders have decreed that our nominee will be the anti-conservative, anti-Republican candidate. The other candidates still open to us, Huckster, Romney and Paul each have their own problems with our values.
There are only a few short days to stop the McCain Screwball express. As we fought the impossible fight against McCain and amnesty last year, we have but a few days to influence our fellow conservatives and Republicans not to allow the predetermined outcome to occur.
I offer this screed in an attempt to understand what is going on today, to explain the inexplicable in what is occurring to our party and our chances for success in November against the second ascension of the corrupt Clinton Machine. I wish not to tell my fellow conservative who they should vote for, but I ask them not to vote for McCain.
Others, including the Republican establishment, have decreed for us who are candidate should be. American loving Republicans should reserve the right to make that choice.
Jim, John—thank you for letting play here for 12 years.
A Happy New Year to you and your loved ones.
Here is the link to the original vanity and thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1963918/posts
Just over 7 years for me.
Heartfelt best wishes and congratulations from a freeper classmate (November, 1998).
Do we get a pension?
Leni
12 years for me, too.
Bravissima! Your essay was right on the mark. Except that no one could have imagined an upset like Palin, who is a galvanizing voice for the America we love.
Congratulations on your having heard this distant drum in 1998, and having been such a strong supporter of the values we hold dear. I remember meeting you at one of the DC events in 2005 or so. It’s been a pleasure. Onward and upward!
Awesome!
Next year the FReeper class of ‘98 will be teenagers! And they’re already difficult enough! ;)
I have a bit of longevity, too. Seems like a whole lot of us found the site by accident, lurked, then joined after the appalling Clinton impeachment farce.
I think the coolest thing ever was watching, in real time, as Freeper “buckhead” and others, used forensics to take down Dan Rather and Mary Mapes after they used phony documents to discredit GWB on behalf of John Kerry a few weeks before the election in 2004. Outstanding work, and historical.
Thanks, Jim! Happy New Year to all.
Congratulations.
I first signed up with Free Republic at the Texas Republican State Convention in 2001 (different screen name, never activated). Was a lurker for many years, never posted anything. So long that my screen name did not work when I finally did try to post. So when I finally decide I “must” post an article, I had to register again.
FR is still the best of the best.
Newbie.
:-)
Congrats on making 12 years, you oldtimer!
Happy FReeper Birthday / Anniversary to you!!
I lurked after Rush or some talk show host was talking about the FReepers going crazy about some subject after the 2000 elections. Took me almost three years to sign up, but I’m glad I did.
Happy Anniversary and congratulations from a n00b. I had my 10th anniversary last month. :)
Congrats on your anniversary. Just a couple more months for me to get to 12 yrs.
I then joined after a great thread by BKO, inspired me to join. (Barbra K. Olson, who now smiles down on us all!)
Onward FReepers! To decades more!
p.s. Thanks again to all of you that supported my son-in-law, Jesse Kelly, in AZ CD-8.
So much history, so many people, in such a short time. Ash, the Hurtgen forest, the pitiful good by’s of those offended, Our Republic and Constitution continually under attack from domestic enemas, our out of control government and Free Republic marches on.
Thanks for the write-up. From one “old Freeper” to another ... congratulations and Happy New Year (and here’s to many more).