Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands.

Protect them as they protect us.

Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need.

Amen.

Capt. Morgan J. Donahue USAF MIA-Laos 12-13-1968 Missing but NOT Forgotten.
Capt. Michael Speicher Navy MIA 17-January-1991 Recovered/Home 1-August-2009
Mike Spann CIA KIA-Afghanistan 11-25-2001 Gone but NOT Forgotten.

PRESIDENT BUSH: The most important lesson in life in the presidency? Have a clear vision of where you want to lead, and lead.

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end of the triumphs of high achievement; and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither defeat nor victory.” TR

“The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!” Eleanor Roosevelt

John Stuart Mill:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. -- John Stuart Mill, writing on the U.S. Civil War in 1862"


General U.S. Grant once said: "I pray that God has mercy on my enemies for I shall have none."

"That state which separates it's warriors from it's scholars will have it's thinking done by cowards and fighting done by fools" Thucydides - The Pelopenisia

"The people who read the NYT THINK they run the world. The people who read the WSJ DO run the world."

Socialism is the incremental takeover of society by its rulers
Communism is socialism at gunpoint. Communists are socialists in a hurry.

What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?.... The [Security] Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers ... and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!”—
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." -George Orwell


George Orwell, the author of 1984, wrote: "That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."

The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. -- C. S. Lewis

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences." C.S Lewis

“Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against... We’re after power and we mean it... There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.” - Ayn Rand, ‘Atlas Shrugged’ 1957

”The message of existentialism, unlike that of many more obscure and academic philosophical movements, is about as simple as can be. It is that every one of us, as an individual, is responsible—responsible for what we do, responsible for who we are, responsible for the way we face and deal with the world, responsible, ultimately, for the way the world is. It is, in a very short phrase, the philosophy of “no excuses!” Life may be difficult; circumstances may be impossible. There may be obstacles, not the least of which is our own personalities, characters, emotions and limited means or intelligence. But, nevertheless, we are responsible. We cannot shift the burden onto God, or nature, or the ways of the world. If there is a God we choose to believe [and choose not to believe]. If nature made us one way, it is up to us to decide what we are to do with what nature gave us—whether to go along or fight back, to modify or transcend nature.”

"Only civil virtue can bring peace to an empire; only martial virtue can quell disorder in the land. The expert in using the military has three basic strategies that he applies: the best strategy is to attack the enemies reliance on acuteness of mind; the second is to attack the enemies claim that he is waging a just war; and the last is to attack the enemies battle positions." -- Sun-Tzu, The Art of Warfare (1)

Samuel Adams said this about Loyalist Americans who would soon flee to Canada to become the hard core of British Canada:
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
--Samuel Adams

"The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Sam Adams

The Declaration, Perry reminds us, was an ex post facto justification of American beliefs. It was addressed to educated elite opinion, especially abroad; it was designed to win arguments, not to capture the essence of Americanism as Americans themselves already understood it.



" It is a basic principle of a tyrant to unarm his people of weapons, money and all means whereby they resist his power." - Sir Walter Raleigh
"The right to be armed is the security without which every other is insufficient." - Thomas Babington Macauley
"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?" AND "NO FREE man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson

"Mercenary armies have at one time or another subverted the liberties of almost all the Countries they have raised to defend." - George Washington


Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth. - George Washington

"Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense." - John Adams

"Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation." - James Madison

"To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them." - George Mason


"The Constitution shall never be construed.... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms, within the laws and regulations of the government, and providing that they shall never be used, under any circumstances, for the commission of a violent act or cause." - Alexander Hamilton

"Whenever . . . the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - St. George Tucker

"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." - Thomas Jefferson

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no fear of an armed militia, for we are a peaceful people. Violence is abhorrent to us, and we shall never take up arms, for any reason, towards the protection of ourselves, our families, our property and our rights. That responsibility lies entirely within the hands and might of government. No matter how just our claims, let peaceful protest be always our means of addressing grievances against our government." - Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, 20 Feb, 1788

For what it's worth I once saw a PBS FrontLine round table about reporting on war. A uniformed Captain ask Mike Wallace if he would let a US patrol get killed in the ambush he was reporting on from the other side. He replied he probably would keep quiet because he was a reporter and not a combatant. He was then ask if the ambush was blown and now he was captured and screaming for help, should the soldiers rescue him to which he said "yes he was still a citizen." The Captain raised his arm and pointed the stump of a wrist where his hand should be and said "Mister, we'd do it, and some good men would probably get killed… and you AREN"T WORTH IT!!!"
Needless to say he had no reply, you could hear a pin drop.


200 years from now, I want their children's children's children's children
to cower and cringe in fear whenever they hear the sounds of jet engines overhead
because their legends tell of fire from the sky.
I want them to hide in dark caves and holes in the earth,
shivering with terror whenever they hear the roar of diesel engines
because the tales of their ancestors talk about metal monsters
crawling over the earth, spitting death and destruction.
I want their mothers to be able to admonish them with
"If you don't behave, the Pale Destroyers will come for you",
and that will be enough to reduce them to quivering obeisance.
I want the annihilation to be so complete that their mythology
will tell them of the day of judgment when the stern gods from across the sea
.. the powerful 'Mericans .. destroyed their forefathers' wickedness.
(Original created by BlueLancer ... 13 September 2001)



''When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by George Bush.
He answered by saying that, ''Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders.
The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.'' It became very quiet in the room.''

On October 11, 1798, President John Adams addressed the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts in a letter: 'We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.'

courtesy William Federer's American Minute, Oct 11.


To paraphrase Sgt. Muldoon-
Arab Islamist, African Islamist, South Asian Islamist, South East Asian Islamist, South Pacific Islamist... No sir Mr. Beckworth… It doesn't take a crystal ball or a hit by one of their weapons to know that what's involved here is Islamist domination of the world.



"Freedom - freedom is not America's gift to the world or Great Britain's gift to the world. Freedom is the Almighty's gift to everybody who lives in the world." Pres. George W. Bush.


"When you are in office, it is not enough to have the right intentions, although that helps. It is not enough to seek the best advice, although that is important. In the end, you have to believe in what you are doing and be able to carry the nation with you." Margaret Thatcher


Words Ronald Reagan made obsolete:

U.S.S.R., Iron Curtain, Berlin Wall, East Germany, Soviet Bloc, Cold War, Warsaw Pact, KGB, Soviet Satellite nations....... wookie

Defining a communist, Reagan once said: "Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin." An anticommunist? "Someone who understands Marx and Lenin," he said.

It's amazing what can be accomplished when you don't care who gets the credit... Ronaldus Magnus

The sequence in the rise and fall of a democracy generally attributed to Alex Fraser Tytler:
1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from great courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to selfishness;
6. from selfishness to complacency;
7. from complacency to apathy;
8. from apathy to dependence;
9. from dependency back again to bondage.


Efim Bogoljubov once said, "When I am White, I win because I am White" — White moves first and therefore has a distinct advantage — "when I am Black, I win because I am Bogoljubov."


As John Kennedy said, lower level staff can handle decisions concerning right and wrong. The President's job is to choose between awful and Gawdawful.


"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
Winston Churchill

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy. Its one inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. Winston Churchill

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Patrick Henry


In the late 60's Al Capp (Lil Abner cartoons) stated...
"If striking a university official is now political speech, then robbing a gas station is a financial transaction and rape is a social event."
The left was not amused.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.
But... this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all.
We have room for but one flag, the American flag..
We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." Theodore Roosevelt 1907

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

***

It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master. Ayn Rand and

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get r