Tag: Ronald Reagan

The Republican Civil War: Bold Colors Vs. Pale Pastels

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Cartoon-Cruz-Vs-Establishment-600Three years after the now-legendary Grassroots Movement known as “The Tea Party”, the Republican Party is in a state of disarray and discontent, to put it mildly. The Republican Establishment, or Vichy Republicans, as I have dubbed them, are desperately clinging to the Washingtonian Status Quo: reaching across the aisle, and going along to get along, known non-politically as “caving in”, while pushing potential Presidential Candidates for 2016 whose platforms are so similar to those of their potential Democrat Opponents are to be virtually indistinguishable.

Oblivious of their past failures (i.e., Dole, McCain, and Romney), while pursuing their milksop Political Philosophy, the Vichy Republicans, or GOPe, as an internet friend has named them, cling to their mission to hold onto their cushy Seats of Power, by playing an old, tired political game.

Make no mistake, they will defend the Washingtonian Status Quo to their last breath, and savage anyone who threatens it, with the help of their allies from “across the aisle”, the Democrats and their minions in the Main Stream media. Look at how they have attacked Former Alaskan Governor and Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate, Sarah Palin., and now the Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

They have called them both everything but Children of God.

However, they are not the first Conservative Republican Politicians to be attacked in this manner, in this generation.  That honor belonged to the greatest United States President in our lifetime.

On March 1, 1975, the Great Communicator and Future President of the United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan, spoke the following words at the 2nd Annual CPAC Convention. He may as well have been speaking yesterday.

I don ‘t know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, “We must broaden the base of our party” — when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.

It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating?

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?

Let us show that we stand for fiscal integrity and sound money and above all for an end to deficit spending, with ultimate retirement of the national debt.

Let us also include a permanent limit on the percentage of the people’s earnings government can take without their consent.

Let our banner proclaim a genuine tax reform that will begin by simplifying the income tax so that workers can compute their obligation without having to employ legal help.

And let it provide indexing — adjusting the brackets to the cost of living — so that an increase in salary merely to keep pace with inflation does not move the taxpayer into a surtax bracket. Failure to provide this means an increase in government’s share and would make the worker worse off than he was before he got the raise.

Let our banner proclaim our belief in a free market as the greatest provider for the people. Let us also call for an end to the nit-picking, the harassment and over-regulation of business and industry which restricts expansion and our ability to compete in world markets.

Let us explore ways to ward off socialism, not by increasing government’s coercive power, but by increasing participation by the people in the ownership of our industrial machine.

Our banner must recognize the responsibility of government to protect the law-abiding, holding those who commit misdeeds personally accountable.

And we must make it plain to international adventurers that our love of peace stops short of “peace at any price.”

We will maintain whatever level of strength is necessary to preserve our free way of life.

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

I do not believe I have proposed anything that is contrary to what has been considered Republican principle. It is at the same time the very basis of conservatism. It is time to reassert that principle and raise it to full view. And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.

Timeless Advice.

Here’s some from ol’ KJ, if I may be so bold: you members of the Republican Establishment need to climb down off of your bar stools at the Congressional Country Club, and travel outside the Echo Chamber of the Beltway, where actual, average Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, trying to provide for their families, while attempting to make a better life for their children and grandchildren.

Come on down to Mississippi and sit a spell and have some barbecue, sweet tea, and ‘nana puddin’ with us average Americans, instead of hanging out with Obama at the White House and partaking of Arugula and Wagyu Beef.

You want to know why Folks like Sarah Palin, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz are so popular with average, real-life Americans (as opposed to statistics in an anonymous poll)?

Check out the pictures from a week ago Saturday of the Veterans March on Washington. They were there, GOPe. Why weren’t you?

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Shutdown: Still…”A Time for Choosing”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

reaganI really did not know what to write about today. Like the rest of you, I am getting sick and tired of the self-serving politicians, up in the Halls of Power, acting like a bunch of spoiled children choosing sides for a kickball team.

Our petulant President, while remaining in the middle of a now 13-day-long Temper Tantrum, wants everything his way, refusing to negotiate, because those eeeevil Republicans won’t bow down and kiss his Imperial Hindquarters, as the Vichy “Moderates” among them usually do.

Give them a couple of days. Paul Ryan is working on it, even now.

Anyway, my mind traveled back, as it often does, to a seminal moment in our nation’s history, which might give us guidance in a situation like this.

I found an appropriate message in the words of the greatest President in our Generation, Ronald Wilson Reagan.,delivered on a legendary night in 1964, as he was out delivering stump speeches for the Republican Presidential Campaign of Barry Goldwater. The title of the speech is “A Time For Choosing”, and The Gipper’s words ring as true today, as they ever have…

It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”

This idea — that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power — is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream–the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always “against,” never “for” anything.

…Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

Today, as we watch our nation’s Veterans, who sacrificed for this great nation, visit the memorials built in their honor, closed right now by the order of a Petulant  President, in the middle of a Temper Tantrum, think about the words of The Great Communicator, who also said, 

Man is not free unless government is limited.

Call your Republican Representatives and tell them, in the words Scotsman William Wallace, to “Hold that Line!” against this present-day tyranny which America is suffering under.

Remind them that our Freedom and their jobs depend on it.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Keeping the Faith: Lighting a Candle in the Darkness

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics21 Comments

WashingtonPrayingI am an anachronism.

I was told that, in no uncertain terms, yesterday, by “Libertarians”, on a Conservative website I frequent.

My crime? I refused to be in favor of legalizing marijuana, and I had the nerve to say that I felt that it was more dangerous than alcohol. What’s more, I refused to say that there was a moral equivalency between them.

But, that’s a discussion for another day.

Dictionary.com defines an anachronism as

something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time.

I suppose that’s me.

I started this Blog as a way to vent my frustrations with the ever-evolving “societal norms” and political mayhem around me. A lot of things just grated on my nerves. They still do.

I was “reared” (as we say in Dixie) by a Mother and Daddy (Southern colloquialism for a Male Parental Unit) who were members of the Greatest Generation. In fact, I was born 3 days before my mother’s 40th brithday. To this day, I believe that they were going to name me “Oops”.

My view of the world around me was shaped and nurtured by my Daddy, a Christian American, and the finest man I’ve ever known, who served with an Army Engineering Unit, as a Master Sergeant, in World War II, and who jumped off of a perfectly good boat into a hail of gunfire to join his American Brothers in the tide-turning American Victory known as “D-Day”.

Between him and my Mother, they taught me what it was to be a hard-working, Middle Class Christian American Conservative….and, to be proud of it.

But now, at 54 years old, having just seen an anti-American, Muslim-sympathizing, political-pandering, class warfare-preaching, card-carrying Communist, get re-hired for a job in which, if he were in the private section, his butt would have gotten canned  within the first 7 months, I’m beginning to feel like I’m beating my dadgum head against the wall until it’s bloody, and for no cotton-pickin’ reason at all.

Why am I feelng that way?

Well, there are several reasons.

1. This country re-elected an idiot. Now, I realize that’s been done before. But, they all paled in comparison to this guy. I believe that “Scooter”, my pet name for Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmm), burnt up the vast majority of his gray matter during his “Choom Gang” days in Hawaii, and now, as an old friend, a former Meth-head, who, sadly, later committed suicide this time of year, used to tell me, he has “2 brain cells left and they’re fighting to the death”. I pray we survive the next 4 years.

2.  Evidently, Americans, at least the majority of the ones that actually got up off the couch (Pookie, included) to vote on November 6th, want the Federal Government to take care of them, cradle to grave. Rush Limbaugh labelled this symptom, “The Baracky Claus Effect”.  I pray, that, just as the Proletariat eventually figured out in the old Soviet Union, Americans are going to wake up one day, to find that mega-dependence on The State to run your life, leads to the loss of personal freedom. And those, who believe that they are “the most enlightened people in the room”, will be the first ones hollering, when they discover that their freedom has been taken away.

3. America seems to be devolving into a collection of Libertines. Notice, I did not say “Libertarians”, although, both descriptive words come from the same root word. A Libertine is, per Merriam-Webster.com,

a person who is unrestrained by convention or morality: one leading a dissolute (lacking moral restraint) life

Being a Libertarian used to mean you wanted less Government in your life and less restrictions on your personal happiness. Notice I said used to mean. Now, Libertine and Libertarian both seem to mean the same thing to the majority of posters self-identifying as members of the latter group on Internet chat boards.

Caligula’s Horse approves.

I suppose I could pontificate on the fallen nature of Man at this point, but, that’s fairly self-evident…and, as the late Freddie Prinze used to say, “Ees not my yob, man.”

4. Finally, I was told the other day, during the before-mentioned “discussion” on that Facebook Page, that my blog was considered a “joke”. I allowed this to hurt me very deeply. You see, since April of 2010, I have devoted a lot of time and effort to putting my ideas, however old-fashioned and cornball they are, down on paper. I truly enjoy doing it. I must. I haven’t made a dadgum dime off of it. Although, as I’ve previously written, it did help me land my present job.

A while back, I was asked to define what it means to be a Christian American Conservative.  After all, that’s how I identify myself and that is what it says on the top of this blog, since I began this exercise in ranting and raving in April of 2010.

Let’s perform a dissection, shall we?

First word:  Christian – A follower of Jesus Christ.

I was raised as a Christian by my parents and accepted Christ as my personal Savior many years ago.

Here are some interesting things about Christianity to consider, written by Dr. Ray Pritchard and posted on christianity.com:

1) The name “Christian” was not invented by early Christians. It was a name given to them by others.
2) Christians called themselves by different names—disciples, believers, brethren, saints, the elect, etc.
3) The term apparently had a negative meaning in the beginning: “those belonging to the Christ party.”
4) It was a term of contempt or derision.
5) We can get a flavor for it if we take the word “Christ” and keep that pronunciation. You “Christ-ians.”
6) It literally means “Christ-followers.”
7) Over time a derogatory term became a positive designation.
8) Occasionally you will hear someone spit the term out in the same way it was used in the beginning. “You Christians think you’re the only ones going to heaven.”
9) There was a sense of suffering and reproach attached to the word in the New Testament.

In working my way toward an answer to “What is a Christian?” I decided to check out the dictionary. I found these two definitions:

1. One who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus. 2. One who lives according to the teachings of Jesus.”

That’s actually quite helpful because it gives some content to the word. To be a Christian means that you . . .

Believe Something
Follow Something
Live Something
A Fully Devoted Follower To borrow a contemporary phrase, we could simply say that a Christian is a “fully devoted follower of Jesus.” As I think about that, two insights come to mind.

1) It doesn’t happen by accident. You are not “born” a Christian nor are you a Christian because of your family heritage. Being a Christian is not like being Irish. You aren’t a Christian simply because you were born into a Christian family.
2) It requires conversion of the heart. By using the term “conversion,” I simply mean what Jesus meant when he said that to be his disciple meant to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him (Luke 9:23). The heart itself must be changed so that you become a follower of the Lord.

Second word: American – A citizen of the United States of America.

Stephen M. Warchawsky, wrote the following in an article for americanthinker.org:

So what, then, does it mean to be an American? I suspect that most of us believe, like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in describing pornography, that we “know it when we see it.” For example, John Wayne, Amelia Earhart, and Bill Cosby definitely are Americans. The day laborers standing on the street corner probably are not. But how do we put this inner understanding into words? It’s not easy. Unlike most other nations on Earth, the American nation is not strictly defined in terms of race or ethnicity or ancestry or religion. George Washington may be the Father of Our Country (in my opinion, the greatest American who ever lived), but there have been in the past, and are today, many millions of patriotic, hardworking, upstanding Americans who are not Caucasian, or Christian, or of Western European ancestry. Yet they are undeniably as American as you or I (by the way, I am Jewish of predominantly Eastern European ancestry). Any definition of “American” that excludes such folks — let alone one that excludes me! — cannot be right.

Consequently, it is just not good enough to say, as some immigration restrictionists do, that this is a “white-majority, Western country.” Yes, it is. But so are, for example, Ireland and Sweden and Portugal. Clearly, this level of abstraction does not take us very far towards understanding what it means to be “an American.” Nor is it all that helpful to say that this is an English-speaking, predominately Christian country. While I think these features get us closer to the answer, there are millions of English-speaking (and non-English-speaking) Christians in the world who are not Americans, and millions of non-Christians who are. Certainly, these fundamental historical characteristics are important elements in determining who we are as a nation. Like other restrictionists, I am opposed to public policies that seek, by design or by default, to significantly alter the nation’s “demographic profile.” Still, it must be recognized that demography alone does not, and cannot, explain what it means to be an American.

So where does that leave us? I think the answer to our question, ultimately, must be found in the realms of ideology and culture. What distinguishes the United States from other nations, and what unites the disparate peoples who make up our country, are our unique political, economic, and social values, beliefs, and institutions. Not race, or religion, or ancestry.

Third word: Conservative -A person who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

J. Matt Barber wrote in the Washington Times that

Ronald Reagan often spoke of a “three-legged stool” that undergirds true conservatism. The legs are represented by a strong defense, strong free-market economic policies and strong social values. For the stool to remain upright, it must be supported by all three legs. If you snap off even one leg, the stool collapses under its own weight.

A Republican, for instance, who is conservative on social and national defense issues but liberal on fiscal issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative socialist.

A Republican who is conservative on fiscal and social issues but liberal on national defense issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative dove.

By the same token, a Republican who is conservative on fiscal and national defense issues but liberal on social issues – such as abortion, so-called gay rights or the Second Amendment – is not a Reagan conservative. He is a socio-liberal libertarian.

Put another way: A Republican who is one part William F. Buckley Jr., one part Oliver North and one part Rachel Maddow is no true conservative. He is – well, I’m not exactly sure what he is, but it ain’t pretty.

Even the Brits understand what American Conservatism is.

Per blogs.telegraph.co.uk:

Conservatism is thriving in America today because liberty, freedom and individual responsibility are at the heart of its ideology, one that rejects the foolish notion that government knows best. And its strength owes a great debt to the conviction and ideals of Ronald Reagan, who always believed that America’s best days are ahead of her, and for whom the notion of decline was unacceptable. As the Gipper famously put it, in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1988:

Those who underestimate the conservative movement are the same people who always underestimate the American people.

In conclusion, I, a Christian American Conservative, am a follower of Jesus Christ and a citizen of the United States of America (by the Grace of God), who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

So, where do I go from here? Do I run away, with my tail between my legs, and live out the rest of my days in quiet desperation?

To any of you who repled, “yes”…you don’t know me very well.

Greater is He who is in me, than he who is in the world.

My Creator, while endowing me with certain inalienable rights, also endowed me with an indomitable will. Then, somewhere along my journey, He gave me the gift of being able to express my thoughts and feelings on this computer keyboard.

I will not give up. I will not surrender my Christianity, my love of the greatest nation on God’s green Earth, or my Conservatism, to appease those who wish everybody would just get in line and acquiesce to the prevailing “societal norms”.  I follow another set of guidelines, written a long time ago, but which remain as relevant as the moment in which the Hand of God guided those who wrote them down.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, – Colossians 3:23 (ESV)

I pray that you, the reader, are able to glean that from my blogs.  Because, as Matthew 6:21 tells us:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

May God bless you and yours,

KJ

President Victimhood

On By kingsjesterIn Uncategorized5 Comments

obamahoodiePast Presidents of the United States have all had a famous quotation that survived their time in office. For instance, Teddy Roosevelt said,

Speak Softly and carry a big stick.

John F. Kennedy said,

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can so for your country.

And, the greatest president of my lifetime, Ronald Wilson Reagan, who gave us a bunch of great quotations, once quipped,

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

Our current president, Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) gave a quote, during an unexpected appearance at the Daily White House Press Briefing yesterday, that will live on beyond his time in office, too.

Unfortunately.

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

Quite revealing, huh?

Is the president saying that he was a 17 year old thug, who was suspended multiple times from high school for suspected burglary, carrying a burglary tool around in his backpack, and chooming?

Well, one out of three, anyway…

However, considering he was raised in Hawaii, by his rich white grandparents, and attended a very prestigious private school, I do believe that he is prevaricating…again.

But, wait, boys and girls, there’s more. As they say in Redneck Fairy tales, instead of “Once Upon a Time”,…Y’all Ain’t gonna believe this sh…err…ummm…Mess. (Caught myself.)

There are very few African American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me — at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

And I don’t want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear. The African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws — everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.

Now, this isn’t to say that the African American community is naïve about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence.  It’s not to make excuses for that fact — although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. They understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

And so the fact that sometimes that’s unacknowledged adds to the frustration. And the fact that a lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out there that show that African American boys are more violent — using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain.

I think the African American community is also not naïve in understanding that, statistically, somebody like Trayvon Martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else. So folks understand the challenges that exist for African American boys. But they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there’s no context for it and that context is being denied. And that all contributes I think to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.

Once again, Obama made it all about himself. (As long as he has himself, he’ll never be alone.) However, he went even further than that.

A sitting President of these United States actually promoted Black Victimhood and Racial Division.

Just in time for his fellow traveler Reverend Al Sharpton’s planned “Demonstrations for Trayvon” in one hundred American cities today. Obama basically gave implied consent for the continued racial strife being stirred up by the Professional Race Baiters.

As I’ve mentioned before, I live right outside of Memphis, TN, in NW Mississippi. I have seen racial strife. In fact, as I recently wrote, I was 9 years old when Dr. King was killed. Additionally, I was in ninth grade when forced busing started. A lot of my friends left our middle class public school for the private schools, which quickly sprang up.

Memphis, while it is valiantly hanging on, has areas within it, that resemble the bankrupt city of Detroit. The same thing happened to my hometown as happened up there: all the taxpayers left town.

But, I digress…

Remember the earlier quote from President Reagan?

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

Compare it to these words:

It’s not to make excuses for that fact — although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. They understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

Evidently, President Obama believes that the Black Community is still shackled and limited in their freedom.

Which is an ironic statement, considering, as a Black man, that he hold the position of president of the most powerful country on the face of the Earth.

Back in High School, I was a Sophomore Commissioner on the Student Council with a fellow named James. James was one of those students who were bused to our school. He went on to play football and run track. More importantly, James went on to have a 4.0 GPA,  make a 32 on his ACT, and receive a full scholarship from Harvard, and later, Johns Hopkins Medical School. James worked hard and he achieved.

Millions of other Black Americans have, as well.

Yesterday’s speech by the president dishonored those who have achieved and constrained those who might achieve.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Freedom…What a Concept.

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics2 Comments

American FreedomIn yesterday’s post, I touched on how the word “Freedom” is misunderstood.

The words “Freedom” and “Liberty” are intertwined…similar offspring from one Father…the Father of Man.

As as 54 year old, I was privileged to cast my first-ever vote for Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest President of the United States of my generation. He once said, 

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

One reason that President Reagan was so beloved by my generation was the fact that he dared to espouse the same beliefs, secular and sacred, which our Founding Fathers held so dear.

Especially, their beliefs concerning this unique gift of God, known as American Freedom.

Benjamin Franklin said,

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

What Dr. Franklin was talking about is the fact, as you’ve seen me state time and time again, that with Freedom comes Responsibility. Our actions have a direct effect on those around us.

Furthermore, man is a corrupt animal. Every child learns how to lie, at an early age. That is why we are told as parents to “raise a child in the way in which they should go”.

And, as those of us my age have observed, in the last couple of generations, there are less parents heeding that admonition from God’s Word.

Walk into any Walmart across America, and observe the behavior of children and their parents. It have become almost impossible to walk though a Walmart without almost running over a kid. And, please don’t stand there and wait for an apology from the mother of the “precious darling”, those come few and far between.

To be bold, a lot of these undisciplined children, grow up to be young adults, who seem to be allergic to responsibility. These are the ones, who, after college, refuse to leave home. Like the movie title, they experience a “Failure to Launch”.

Their every breathing moment is a quest for self-fulfillment, and an all-consuming involvement in a love affair…with themselves.

This selfishness guides their political ideology, as well. Usually these individuals become, either Liberals, or, they identify themselves as Libertarians. Those who identify themselves as Liberals, believe that their intellect is innately higher than the rest of us, and, therefore, they should be able to be the Elite Class, political party in charge of our nation. Those who choose to identify themselves as Libertarians, claim to believe in Fiscal Conservatism, and  Social Liberalism.

There is also a different sort of Libertarian in America….those who believe in the Constitution and the liberty of the individual. Those “Constitutionalists” are not the ones to whom I am referring.

Where the problem arises is the fact that Liberalism, Libertarian. and Libertine all share the same root word “lib”, which means “free”. The word “Liberty” contains that word, also.

The problem is, “Freedom” or “Liberty” without conscience, is licentiousness. And, unrestricted  licentiousness will destroy an empire.

If man is left to his own devices, he usually builds his own Golden Calf.

And, I am afraid that is what has happened in this sacred land.

Dr. Franklin once wrote,

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

Just the other day, in Texas, a group of Pro-life Protesters, standing outside the Capitol, where a bill calling for restrictions on third trimester abortions was being discussed, suddenly started singing the great American Hymn, “Amazing Grace”. Once they began, Pro-Abortion counter-protesters started chanted “Hail Satan! and “Jesus should have been aborted!”.

Now, I have seen Liberals on Conservative websites claim those horrible chants were just a feeble attempt to drown out the Pro-Lifers.  I asked a Liberal, who wrote such an excuse, if he would be able to chant those words in a public square.

I never got an answer.

Would you, as an average American, be able to say something that blasphemous in public? Probably not.

My love for the Savior prevents me from even thinking them.

The point of my post is, while my generation and the majority of Americans, I believe, still recognize that Divine Spark that led to the birth of our American Freedom, we have those among us, who would rather fulfill their own selfish desires than be held accountable for their actions by their fellow man or a Divine Power. They proclaim American Exceptionalism, however, they do not seem to wish to participate in it. In fact, they seem to be quite content to watch the “shining city on a hill” be “radically changed” into North Korea or Venezuela, while, socially, coming down on the very same side of important national issues, as the Liberals they claim to oppose.

President Reagan once said,

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

Perhaps, that is the reason we find ourselves as a nation, struggling so mightily to stay free.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The War Against Christianity: Obama’s IRS

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics2 Comments

nationaldayofprayerI have always been told that prayer is a private thing.  Evidently, that’s no longer the case in Obama’s America.

The Thomas More Society is a national not-for-profit law firm that provides pro-bono representation with a focus on life, marriage, and religious liberty. Headquartered in Chicago, the firm provides these services from local trial courts all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

Yesterday, the firm presented over 150 pages of analysis and evidence to the House Ways and Means Committee concerning repeated IRS harassment of pro-life organizations. Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) requested the memorandum, which was prepared by Thomas More Society President Thomas Brejcha, Executive Director Peter Breen, and Special Counsel Sally Wagenmaker.

The material they prepared presents solid evidence of IRS harassment of pro-life organizations dating back to 2009.

According to the Press Release, prepared by Tom Ciesielka of the Thomas More Society,

The memo details the history of IRS misconduct in the cases of three organizations represented by the Thomas More Society. The abuse dates back further than the now publicized 2010 complaints and extends beyond the IRS’s recently exposed Cincinnati office to also include the tax agency’s California operations in the charges of blatant bias. 

The IRS office in El Monte, California, began harassing Christian Voices for Life of Fort Bend County, Texas in 2011. In a series of questions penned by Exempt Organization Specialist Tyrone Thomas from the California office, the IRS asked a series of unwarranted questions ordering Christian Voices for Life without any foundation, to explain its content, message, and prayers as if they were engaging in highly offensive or criminal behavior. 

Coalition for Life of Iowa found itself in the IRS’s crosshairs when the group applied for tax exempt status in October 2008. Nearly ten months of interrogation about the group’s opposition to Planned Parenthood included a demand by a Ms. Richards from the IRS’ Cincinnati office unlawfully insisted that all board members sign a sworn declaration promising not to picket/protest Planned Parenthood. Further questioning by the IRS requested detailed information about the content of the group’s prayer meetings, educational seminars, and signs their members hold outside Planned Parenthood. 

In yet a third matter, an IRS agent in their Chicago office repeatedly harassed Daniel and Angela Michael of Small Victories, a pro-life organization, with an intrusive investigation, calling the leaders every 2-3 weeks over the course of 2011, beginning in January of that year. The IRS officially closed its investigation in January 2012, having found no illegal activities.

Are we still in America?

After Lenin and the Bolsheviks took over Mother Russia, Russian Orthodoxy, the predominant faith in Russia, was persecuted almost to extinction within 20 years. The Communists slaughtered hundreds of thousands of priests, sisters, and brothers.

Between 1917 and 1937, more than 50 million people were murdered by KGB extermination squads or in death camps, and 8 million people died of starvation in man-made famines designed to consolidate Communist power. All land was confiscated by the state.

Those who were left alive were allowed to live under Communist totalitarian control to help rally the people to fight the Nazi German invasion in 1939.

The Commies let some churches stay open if they were licensed by the Communist government. Of course,they were very limited in what they could do: they could celebrate liturgies and the sacraments, but they could not teach Russian Orthodoxy to children or to adults.

The Orthodox Church became just another a highly regulated arm of the Soviet government, and all newly ordained priests and bishops became agents or cooperators of the Secret Police (KGB). The sacraments of baptism and marriage, as well as funerals, were usually performed only after substantial fees were paid.

In all levels of the Soviet School System, Students were forced to learn and believe atheism as scientific truth. This belief system was reinforced in all youth organizations, as well.

There were no private Christian schools or clubs.

The fear of persecution and government reprisal during the period in which Joe Stalin ruled Russia (1927-52) made parents afraid to tell their children about the Triune God.

It only took two generations for Russia to become an atheistic society.

Freedom of religion finally came back to Russia in 1991. However, by then, less than 25% of the population were Christians.

As it stands today in the former Soviet Union, less than 0.50% (one-half of one percent) practice any faith at all.

Are we headed in that direction?

I mean, look at the brazenness of  The Obama Administration. Never in my wildest dreams, could I imagine an agency of OUR government, asking a Christian what they prayed about!

My Lord.

Did any of us ever think that this would happen in a land founded by Christian men and women?

The U. S. House Judiciary Committee wrote the following in 1854,

Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle… In this age, there can be no substitute for Christianity… That was the religion of the founders of the republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.

When you tell a Liberal that the Founders of our country were Christians, they always bring up Thomas Jefferson, claiming he was a Deist…or something.

Here is what Jefferson had to say about it:

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.

The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society, He [God] has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in the obligation of the moral principles of Jesus and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in His discourses.65

I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.

I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.

Jefferson, while President, allowed church services to be held on Sunday mornings in the Capitol Building, which he attended. The practice continued until 1848.

So, what can we do about this encroaching darkness, brokered by an administration who is seeking to turn us into a Marxist nation, with limited personal freedoms, dictated by the State?

President Ronald Reagan said,

I believe with all my heart that standing up for America means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. We need God’s help to guide our nation through stormy seas. But we can’t expect Him to protect America in a crisis if we just leave Him over on the shelf in our day-to-day living.

One of those whom Obama’s IRS attacked, Rev. Billy Graham, once remarked,

Prayer is simply a two-way conversation between you and God.

My fellow Americans, it is high time we started a National Conversation with Our Creator.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama 2.0: The Scandals Just Keep on Coming

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

ObamalyingJust when you think that the Obama Administration is slowly circling around the porcelain receptacle…something comes along to speed up its descent.

Yesterday afternoon, news broke that the Obama Administration through Attorney General Eric Holder, had secretly wiretapped editors and reporters, working for the Associated Press,  for two months, in April and May of 2012.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt called the wiretapping a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news. According to Pruitt, the Obama Administration sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. Furthermore, Pruitt has demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all the copies.

This is the third Obama Administration Scandal to break wide open since Thursday, when the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Darrel Issa, interviewed 3 whstleblowers about that tragic night of  September 11, 2012, when Muslim Terrorists murdered 4 brave Americans at the U.S. Embassy Compound in Benghazi, Libya.  The brave men, who testified last Thursday, spoke of an Administration who turned a dear ear to their cries for help that night. They also related the fact that the Youtube Video, which Obama and his Administration had blamed for the attack, was not the reason for the attack at all. In fact, it was virtually unknown in the Middle East.

The Republicans clearly won the day, with the Future Presidential Aspirations of Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, seemingly shot to Blazes.

On Friday, the second Obama Administration Scandal broke wide open, as it was revealed that the IRS had targeted Conservative Groups seeking non-profit status. Originally, it was claimed this abuse originated out of the Ohio Area.  Yesterday, it was revealed that, officials in Washington and at least two other offices were responsible for the targeting of those conservative groups.

The officials at the IRS’ Washington headquarters sent forms to be filled out to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea party-affiliated groups.

It was found out through interviews with those Conservative Groups, that the Cincinnati Office also told conservatives seeking the status of “social welfare” groups that a task force in Washington was overseeing their applications.

When asked about the IRS’ actions at the joint Press Conference in the Rose Garden yesterday morning with Britain’s Prime Minister Cameron, Obama claimed that he knew nothing of the unconstitutional activities of the IRS until Friday.

Uh huh. And, I’m a 22 year old, blonde Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader named Buffy.

And, when asked about the Benghazi Scandal, Obama remarked that “There’s no there, there.”

Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods would disagree…if they were still alive to disagree.

According to reports, Obama had a tear in his eye as he answered the reporters’ questions about these scandals.

Somewhere, a crocodile is missing a tear.

One of our Founding Fathers, Samuel Adams, said,

The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.

At the time of Adams’ quote, America was under the thumb of a tyrannical despot, who sought to restrict our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, and even, our freedom of thought.

Today, as the events of the last 4 days have shown us, in unmistakable clarity, we are once again facing tyrannical oppression.

Not from a foreign enemy, but a domestic one, who is supposed to be the leader of all of us.

As the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama is supposed to be a champion of Freedom. Not a destroyer of it.

The greatest United States of America President in my lifetime, and a true champion of Freedom, Ronald Wilson Reagan, once said,

The United States remains the last best hope for a mankind plagued by tyranny and deprivation. America is no stronger than its people — and that means you and me. Well, I believe in you, and I believe that if we work together, then one day we will say, “We fought the good fight. We finished the race. We kept the faith.” And to our children and our children’s children, we can say, “We did all what could be done in the brief time that was given us here on earth.

Americans can overcome this freedom-stifling situation we find ourselves in. Its time to put pressure on our Senators and Representatives, and remind them who put them in office and who pays their salaries.

The Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and the Judicial Branch are supposed to be co-equal branches of our Government.

It’s time for the Legislative Branch to pull their weight.

This President and his Administration need to answer for their punitive actions, which have been directed at those whom they are supposed to be serving.

They seem to have forgotten who is supposed to be serving whom.

Until He Comes,

KJ

A Matter of Leadership

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

obamaOSUYesterday, President Barack Obama gave the commencement address to the graduating class of Ohio State University at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio.

During his speech, he said,

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems. We shouldn’t want to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. And as citizens, we understand that it’s not about what America can do for us, it’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government. And class of 2013, you have to be involved in that process.

Let’s translate this, shall we?

 Don’t believe the haters. They are just jealous of my wonderful plan to radically change America into a Socialist paradise, where we will “share the wealth”…

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Do not pay attention to the new media. Instead, hang on every word of my friends in the Main Stream Media. After all, the truth is highly overrated. 

This is not a sovereign nation , established by Christian men seeking Freedom of Religion, through an escape from tyranny. The Constitution is not relevant anymore. It is a fluid, changing document, subject to revision, in order to keep up with changing cultural mores, and the political plans of the present Administration. America is not the “shining city on a hill”. It is an “experiment”, And, You are all my lab rats.

Trust me and my Administration. We are smarter than every other American Administration in history. Working in the Dog Eat Dog Capitalist System is is for the birds. Come and work  for our ever-growing Federal Government. or, better yet, become a part of  “the 47%”. Baracky Claus knows what’s best for you. 

Now, compare what Obama told those young people, full of hope and potential, to these excerpts from Ronald Reagan’s famous speech, “A Time for Choosing”, given as a stump speech, at speaking engagements, and on a memorable night in 1964 in support of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign:

It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”

This idea — that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power — is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream–the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always “against,” never “for” anything.

…Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

Obama’s speech to those O.S.U Graduates was disingenuous, given his Presidential Track Record of Executive Orders, signing unwanted bills into laws against the wishes of the American People, and his self-centered temper tantrums we have witnessed when things do not go his way. Contrast that with the marvelous, uplifting oratory of Ronald Reagan, an American Leader who spoke of a hopeful future, of American Freedom,Entrepreneurship,and Exceptionalism, and of the courage and worth of average Americans.

I wish we had a leader like Ronald Reagan, today.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Effort to Redefine “Conservatism”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

reaganAs we enter the fourth month of Barack Hussein Obama’s (mm mmm mmmm) Second Term as President of the United States, I have noticed something that is both puzzling and troubling to me.

Actually, it is something that I noticed starting to gain steam as the Presidential Primaries started kicking into gear: a serious effort to redefine Conservatism to mean “wanting a government which doesn’t blow all my money and leaves me alone, so that I can do what I want do, regardless of how it effects others around me”.

On the internet, these believers express themselves in various terms, which all translate to the same thing: Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal.

Their common goal is a desire to redefine the definition of Conservatism in order to make them feel better about their non-Conservative, and oft times, downright hedonistic,  social ideology.

You’ll find these same individuals on Internet Chat Boards, complaining about how narrow-minded and statist Reagan Conservatives, like myself, are.

And, God help you if you tell them that there is such a thing as morality and ethics. They will tell you that you”re nothing but a busybody who wants to meddle in people’s private lives  and take away their “freedom”.

They insist that the only way for the Republicans to win anything at all in 2014 and 2016, is to forget the antiquated ideology of Reagan (Social) Conservatism.

You know, that whole God and Country Bit that I always talk about.

Evidently,to these folks, good, old-fashioned American Faith, Values, and Ethics are just that…old-fashioned.

That’s funny. Down here in Mississippi, that is how we live our lives. We love God. We love our country. We love our family and friends…and, we look out for one another.

Mississippi is not the only state like that. All the states in the Heartland of America, share the same Classic American Values and Beliefs

That’s why the President is still out campaigning. He can’t overcome them.

Look at how all of the National Issues which he and all of his ideological forces have been so feverishly trying to ram down our throats, homosexual marriage, amnesty for illegal immigrants, the legalization of marijuana, and gun confiscation, have stalled.

No matter how much Progressive Propaganda is unleashed upon the American Citizenry, Conservatives in America’s Heartland are standing firm, solid in their beliefs, still “bitterly clinging to their Bibles and guns”.

No matter how many rigged polls  and slanted news stories are thrown at us, we will not be moved.

Concerning those who believe that being a Conservative only hinges on your Fiscal Ideology…

J. Matt Barber wrote in the Washington Times that

Ronald Reagan often spoke of a “three-legged stool” that undergirds true conservatism. The legs are represented by a strong defense, strong free-market economic policies and strong social values. For the stool to remain upright, it must be supported by all three legs. If you snap off even one leg, the stool collapses under its own weight.

A Republican, for instance, who is conservative on social and national defense issues but liberal on fiscal issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative socialist.

A Republican who is conservative on fiscal and social issues, but liberal on national defense issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative dove.

By the same token, a Republican who is conservative on fiscal and national defense issues but liberal on social issues – such as abortion, so-called gay rights or the Second Amendment – is not a Reagan conservative. He is a socio-liberal libertarian.

Put another way: A Republican who is one part William F. Buckley Jr., one part Oliver North and one part Rachel Maddow is no true conservative. He is – well, I’m not exactly sure what he is, but it ain’t pretty.

At the Forth Annual Conservative Political Action Committee Convention in 1977, Ronald Reagan said,

The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind. When we conservatives say that we know something about political affairs, and that we know can be stated as principles, we are saying that the principles we hold dear are those that have been found, through experience, to be ultimately beneficial for individuals, for families, for communities and for nations — found through the often bitter testing of pain, or sacrifice and sorrow.

One thing that must be made clear in post-Watergate is this: The American new conservative majority we represent is not based on abstract theorizing of the kind that turns off the American people, but on common sense, intelligence, reason, hard work, faith in God, and the guts to say: “Yes, there are things we do strongly believe in, that we are willing to live for, and yes, if necessary, to die for.” That is not “ideological purity.” It is simply what built this country and kept it great.

So, if your stated political ideology is one of those listed above, by not differing from them in your Social Ideology, and fighting against Reagan Conservatives, in your own Party, like me, which you have so derisively named “True Conservatives”, aren’t you being unwitting dupes for the Progressives?

Even the Progressives claim to be “Fiscally Responsible”.

Not to be rude, but, a one-legged stool is awfully hard to stand on.

Until He Comes,

KJ

You Say You Want an Evolution…

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

demrepA very strange phenomenon has been occurring, involving Capitol Hill Politicians…on both sides of the aisle.

The people who owe their livelihoods to us are doing an about-face in their views on the core principles which got them elected to office in the first place. It doesn’t matter what political promises were made on the campaign trail to the folks back home.

However, they’re not just simply changing their minds. They’re evolving. Republicans are evolving into Democrats and Democrats are evolving into socialists.

A social/cultural evolution, if you will.

I would say, let the professional politicians make fools of themselves, and throw themselves and whatever principles they have left into the Potomac River. The only problem is…they’re taking us with them.

For example…

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is “evolving” on the issue of gay marriage, but she has stopped short of joining the other senator from Alaska, Mark Begich, D-Alaska, in endorsing it.

Following an address at the Chugiak-Eagle River Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, she said, “The term ‘evolving view’ has been perhaps overused, but I think it is an appropriate term for me to use,” Murkowski said, according to the Chugiak-Eagle River Star. “I think it’s important to acknowledge that there is a change afoot in this country in terms of how marriage is viewed.”

Murkowski said she is reviewing her stance on the issue.

“It may be that Alaska will come to revisit its position on gay marriage, and as a policy maker I am certainly reviewing that very closely,” Murkowski said, indicating that she had spoken to her two sons about the issue.

“I’ve got two young sons who, when I ask them and their friends how they feel about gay marriage, kinda give me one of those looks like, ‘Gosh mom, why are you even asking that question?’”

In an interview with Alaska Public radio she expanded even more, indicating a softening of the issue.

“I think you are seeing a change in attitude, change in tolerance, I guess, and an acceptance that what marriage should truly be about is a lasting, loving, committed relationship with respect to the individual,” Murkowski said.

If she does flip, she would joined Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, as the only other Republican senator to back same-sex marriage. Begich, the Democratic junior senator from Alaska, flipped and endorsed same-sex marriage earlier this week.

Murkowski spokesperson Matthew Felling confirmed to ABC News that Murkowski’s views are the same as what she told the Alaska media and that she does not currently support gay marriage, but that she is reviewing the issue.

In 1998, Alaska passed an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

Evidently, those brilliant minds that are up there breathing the heady air of the Beltway, simply have no choice but to evolve…away from the beliefs of their constituency.

The Guardian (UK) thinks that the Republicans should go squish…when they walk. Of course, Sharia Law is taking over the United Kingdom.

The one area where moderates are increasingly willing to speak up in a consistent way is on social issues. I used to live in the region that Dent represents. It’s certainly conservative area, but, increasingly, I would hear voters say something to the effect of, “I’m fiscally conservative, but and socially liberal or libertarian.” In other words, their economic beliefs lean Republican, their social values Democratic.

The fiscal issues and desire for a “smaller government” would often win out when it came time to vote, but it was notable that there was a growing acceptance – or at least tolerance – on issues like gay marriage. As Dent says:

“I hear from a lot of younger people who identify that way. There’s certainly room in the party for people like that – or there should be.”

It might explain why Dent has been one of the more vocal House Republicans supporting the Violence Against Women Act.

Moderate congressmen and governors can have a real impact on policy right now. They hold more power than they realize, and they might actually be able to change their party for the better. It starts with speaking up.

So what is all of this “evolving”into squishy mounds of Jello getting Republicans? The eternal gratitude of the Democrats, that’s what. Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast has some advice for the GOP:

Moderate Republicans, and even mainstream conservative Republicans who want to see Washington function again, should get together to form and fund a network of organizations that will pursue four goals:

First, just make moderate Republicanism visible again. Launch a public-awareness campaign. Get a television show. Or at least get a stable of people to go on the other shows. Let Americans know that the viewpoint even exists.

Second, start an organization to recruit young people, activists of all ages, and potential candidates. Start college campus clubs and newspapers or magazines. Host big conferences in Washington and elsewhere. Give people a sense of an extant community.

Third, start running some primaries against some hard-right people in districts where victory is possible. Admittedly, there are many states and districts where there’s no chance in blazes that a moderate could beat a conservative. Many state parties have been captured lock, stock, and barrel by the Tea Party, even in liberal states (Maine). But there are some places where moderates could win. And the Tea Party may be fading.

Fourth, set up a big think tank in Washington to advance more moderate policy ideas and, just as importantly, to urge moderation in tactics as well—that is, more civility, such that every single vote isn’t a matter of warfare.

 

By moving toward Moderation and “Fiscal Conservatism only” (and, not much of that) Republicans are becoming lemmings, following the Democratic Party straight over the cliff.

I say that it’s time that the Republican Party turns back to what won them elections: Conservatism.

Back in 1979, the Iranian Hostage Crisis was all over the news. President Carter could do nothing to stop it. Americans were beaten down with insecurity and malaise. Sound familiar?

They were waiting for someone to tell them what they needed to hear.  That man was Ronald Reagan.  He told Americans that it was okay to believe in themselves again.  He proudly declared that the United States was a “shining city on a hill” whose best days were still ahead. The usual pseudo-intellectuals labelled him as too extreme and simplistic. The American people decided not to listen to them.   Reagan defeated Carter in a landslide, winning 44 million votes, or 50.7 percent, and 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 35.5 million votes, or 41 percent, and only 44 electoral votes. It put a sudden halt to the out-of-control locomotive that Franklin Roosevelt rode toward ever-bigger government and tore asunder FDR’s political coalition that had smothered the politics of America for most of the previous half-century.

Reagan never forgot who he was and where he came from. That is what endeared him to the majority of Americans.  On Election Day, when  a journalist asked Reagan what Americans saw in him, he asked:

Would you laugh if I told you that I think, maybe, they see themselves and that I’m one of them? ”I’ve never been able to detach myself or think that I, somehow, am apart from them.

Compare that statement to those of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  I dare you.

He was the oldest person ever elected president for a first term, but in the end Americans didn’t seem to mind because he was in such good health and looked much younger than his 68 years.  From the start, this humble man made his intentions very clear.  He would roll back communism where possible, strengthen national defense, cut taxes, and stop or slow the growth of government. Many disagreed with the details of his policies, but they accepted the direction he was setting and liked his positive, decisive leadership.

It was not coincidental that President Reagan’s rise in politics happened at the same time as the ascension of the religious right, the term given to millions of Christian Conservative voters who held the balance of power in many states.   Under Reagan,these people, like myself, became much more active in politics.

That is what is needed now. Strong Conservative Leadership. Reagan-esqe, three-legged stool Conservative Leadership.

Now, that would be evolution.

Americans deserve nothing less.

Until He Comes,

KJ