About Those American Flag Lapel Pins....

April, 2008

About Those American Flag Lapel Pins….
By J. D. Longstreet
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In the spirit of full disclosure allow me to say, right up front that I have several American flag lapel pins. Some are singles, and some are crossed with the NC state flag, etc. When I am not wearing the Sons of Confederate Veterans Lapel pin, I will have either my American Legion pin, or my American flag pin on my lapel. Sometimes I will wear the American Flag pen on my left lapel, nearest my heart and at the same time, the Third National Flag of the Confederacy on my right lapel.

Yes, I AM making a statement with the wearing of those lapel pins. I am saying, loud and clear, the things those pins represent are things that are very important to me. It is an overt expression of my love and my caring for those things, those principles, which are the foundation of the countries, and the organizations, those tiny little lapel pins represent.

I will readily admit to being a nationalist. I think my country, the USA, is the best nation on the face of the earth. You may disagree. That is certainly your prerogative. But, do not expect me to change my mind. My country makes mistakes. It blunders sometimes. But… and you know what is coming… it is still my country!

As an American citizen, I am free to change that. I can denounce my citizenship and become a citizen of another country, if I wish. I DON’T wish. Some do.

Let’s be clear about something: I am not ashamed of my country. From time to time I am ashamed of some of my country’s leaders… but never my country. Just because I am ashamed of the actions and the behavior of some of my country’s leaders is no reason for me to remove, or not wear, an American Flag lapel pin. You see… that makes a statement, too. It says, again, loud and clear, that I am ashamed of my country. I won’t do that.

Back in the 1950’s I took an oath, as I was sworn in to the Army, to defend this nation from all enemies foreign and domestic. It is essentially the same oath the President of the United States swears when he is sworn into office. I don’t recall there being an expiration date on that oath. I’m proud of that. I wasn’t much of a soldier, but I had committed what there was of me to the service of my country. I have never regretted that.

We have a nation of leaders these days that have never worn the uniform of their country. They have never crawled in the mud with the enemy popping off 7.62 rounds over their heads, or heard the rattle of a machine gun, or fully automatic assault rifle, in the dark and watched the tracers skimming the service of the earth searching for a target in the blackness of night. They have never felt the stark terror of combat that dries your throat and mouth until your tongue is sticking to the roof of your mouth and you could not spit if your life depended upon it. And they know absolutely nothing of the courage and fortitude it takes to overcome all that and force your mind and your body to work and do the job you were trained for until the enemy is vanquished or you are dead. They have no clue! Yet, today we make these people our leaders and even the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces.

You see, those of us who have made the commitment have paid for the right to question the patriotism of a person who refuses to wear a simple American Flag lapel pin near his heart to announce to the world, “I Love My Country”. A person who cannot speak or understand one single word of English will understand exactly what that simple little lapel pin is saying! That is one HELL of a statement. It is a powerful declaration!

Now, it seems to me, when a person is a candidate for President of the United States of America, which carries the title and the duties of the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, he should wear that American flag lapel pin, if for no other reason than respect for the men and women who WILL go in his place, in his name, to fight, bleed, and die, on the battlefields where HE sends them. Is that asking too much?

Apparently it is, these days.

To even ask me to support such a candidate insults me.

Now, I understand some of you don’t wear lapel pins of any kind… anytime. That’s fine. I respect that. Not a problem. I’m just saying that IF you DO, and you choose NOT TO WEAR a simple American Flag lapel pin and you just HAPPEN to be a candidate for President of the United States of America… well… that tells me all I need to know about you.

J. D. Longstreet

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Filed under:

Conservative+US+Patriotism

The IRS Will be Hiring ... By Alan Caruba

The IRS Will be Hiring
By Alan Caruba

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If Barack Obama is elected, the Internal Revenue Service had better double its workforce because the amount of cheating on tax returns will rival Italy’s.



The scariest thing about the final debate between the candidates is that both appear to be utterly oblivious to the way the Stock Market dropped 700 points on Wednesday after a brief rally the day before.



Hearing either candidate talk about spending billions to fix this or that was surreal. I don’t even know how deep in debt the nation is at this writing, but I am of the view that we don’t have billions to “fix” education, health care, or anything else. Of course, John McCain did talk about taking an axe to the budget and Barack Obama did talk about using a scalpel, but who’s kidding who here?



Any budget cutting would be an improvement over the last eight years of George W. Bush’s failure to veto any spending bill Congress, controlled by Republicans until 2006, sent his way. Only after a Democrat epiphany did W actually wield the veto in the name of fiscal prudence. By then it was too late and talk of $700 billion bailouts filled the air.



It is essential to remember that the current crisis is entirely the creation of Democrats. Starting with Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, exacerbated by Jimmy Carter’s and Bill Clinton’s exploitation of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, ignored by congressional oversight, the Democrats own this one.



It’s no comfort that Speaker Nancy Pelosi cannot wait to get the House to enact a bushel of new spending bills. The Senate historically has been a break on the short-term Representatives (two years versus the Senate’s six year terms) who, when not devoting most of their day raising money for reelection, spend the rest of it on, well, spending the public treasury for various pet projects and special interests.



Congress seems to exist in some parallel universe that has no connection to the rest of the nation. Its disconnect can be seen in the way, since Jimmy Carter was in office, Congress has actively worked against any exploration or extraction of the nation’s oil, natural gas, and coal reserves. It imposed “windfall taxes” and other restrictions until now there are only three oil companies of any size, mostly due to mergers. Now Congress apparently hates coal, too.



Then there was the creation of the Department of Education, contrary to the Constitution that excludes federal involvement by not mentioning it. It effectively has nationalized the education system with a one-size-fits-all policy that totally ignores the fact that different children in different places learn at different rates. The failure of urban schools has less to do with the enormous amounts of money spent per pupil than the crime-infested, jobless streets they must walk to get to school. It’s not like their parents don’t want better schools. They do. The grip of the teacher’s unions makes that nearly impossible.



I could list other government programs, but the point is they all cost a lot of money and a lot of that money is just totally wasted. For example, the government has a host of idiotic programs involving “climate change” when no government on Earth can do a thing about the climate. Likewise, the only reason to maintain a “space” program is to hoist spy and communications satellites into position. Explore Mars? Are you kidding me?



John McCain and the Republicans are right about cutting taxes. If that doesn’t happen, this Recession I assume we’re in, will turn into a full-fledged Depression just like 1929. At that point, we won’t be able to borrow money from China, Japan, and elsewhere. At that point, it won’t matter who’s in Congress or the White House because they created the problem.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

Filed under:



Liberal+Obama+Socialist+IRS+TAXES

Israel and the Obama Administration. Forget About It!

Israel and the Obama Administration. Forget About It!
By J. D. Longstreet
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Should Obama win the election here in America next month, the doors and windows to Israel will slam shut for members of the Obama Administration. See, Israel already knows they cannot trust an Obama administration and they will shut off all avenues of approach for the US… except for those absolutely necessary to maintain a tenuous connection to the American government.

Israel knows it cannot share intelligence with an Obama Administration. Perhaps our most valuable source of intelligence on Iran and the other rogue states in the Middle East will suddenly and completely dry up. Israel is not about to risk valuable Intel gathered by Mossad, and other Israeli intelligence agencies, being, shall we say… “shared” with the… uh… opposition. Israel cannot risk that and they won’t.

I do not mean to imply that Obama is a Muslim. I know I’m going to be accused of that. Let me just say, that it seems the Israelis have made up their minds on that matter. Let me also say…I trust Israel.

Jesse Jackson is out there saying that "decades of putting Israel's interests first" will be over under an Obama Administration. Jackson made those remarks at a World Policy Forum in Evian, France last week. You’ll find an article on that here:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10142008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/
the_o_jesse_knows_133450.htm?page=0
(If the line is broken above you may need to copy and past this URL into your browser. We apologize for the inconvenience.)

How do you suppose that made Israel feel? Not charitable toward Obama, I suspect. (Of course, this is the same Jackson who made the remark about altering Obama’s anatomy while near what he (Jackson) thought was a "dead" microphone. As a long time veteran of the broadcast industry, I offer a bit of advice to everyone. When you see a microphone… always assume it is “live”. ALWAYS!)

Now, I have been accused, just a few days ago, of being a “nut job” supporting Israel and waiting for the Rapture. First let me say that I am an old Lutheran. My support of Israel has nothing to do with the Rapture. It has to do with common sense and my parents raising me to look out for the little guy, the underdog, especially if that underdog is on my side. Add to that the fact that I don’t hate Jews and well, I suppose that makes me some sort of thoroughbred bigot. I’ll leave it to those of you who feel you must have someone to hate in order to feel some sense of self-worth to decide what pigeonhole to put me in. Frankly, I don’t care.

There is an excellent article at the American Thinker titled: “Barack Obama and Israel”. The article is by Ed Lasky. We recommend you read it. You’ll find it at:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/barack_obama_and_israel.html

As one who does not favor a Palestinian state… at all, I tend to look with disfavor on those in the US government who do. I never supported the current administration’s aims toward establishing a Palestinian state and I certainly will not support any future President’s attempts to do the same thing whether republican or democrat.

Obama’s insistence that he will “talk” with Iran about abandoning their drive toward development of an Atomic Bomb is chilling to say the least. It will accomplish nothing good, and, at the same time, any “official” talks with Iran will only elevate Iran in the eyes of it’s supporters and encourage other rogue states to follow the same route Iran is following today.

Israel would be well advised, it seems to me, to go ahead, at the earliest possible moment (certainly before Obama takes office should he win the election) and bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities with a time window for follow-up raids as necessary. Make no mistake about it…the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities is a must. It now appears that Israel is the only country with the “stones” to take on the task, and they must be prepared to do it alone and survive the diplomatic hailstorm that will follow.

Look, if Iran is not stopped we are looking at a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East. Israel has it’s own nuclear arsenal, which it is absolutely prepared to use to ensure it’s survival. The moment Iran fires a nuclear tipped missile in Israel’s direction Iran will be the country that will cease to exist…whether we have an Obama Administration or not.

There is good reason to suspect there will be little if any cooperation between Israel and an Obama Administration. We can only hope Israel has leaders who will dig in their heels and refuse to bow to pressure from a likely Obama Administration to accommodate the demands of the Islamic states surrounding her.

J. D. Longstreet

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Filed under:

Conservative+Socialist+Obama+Israel+Iran+Bomb

A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.

A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.
By J. D. Longstreet
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"And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand". From the Bible, Matthew 12:25.

The schism that slices through America today has been widening since the 19th century. Little by little, decade-by-decade, year-by-year it has continued to get ever wider and ever deeper. It has nothing to do with geography. It has nothing to do with slavery… and, yet, it has everything to do with slavery.

What, you say? Didn’t we put the slavery issue to rest with a war in the 1860’s? The truthful answer is NO, we did not. We put to rest the issue of whether or not a man could hold another man in bondage in this country. What we did not put to rest, however, is the question of whether this country’s government could hold its citizens in bondage.

The founders of this country intended to set up a government with very little power. They intended the government to have only the power the citizens allowed it to have. Almost instantly the power struggle began between those who wanted a strong central government and those who wanted strong states and a weak central government. After all, it was The States that created the Federal Government… as a utility of the states. Not the other way around. Look it up.

In 1860 there were 33 states in the so-called United States of America. I do mean “so-called” because they were anything but UNITED. By the spring of 1861 thirteen of those states had had enough of being dictated to by a dictatorial federal government wielding powers the constitution did not grant it, so they waved goodbye and took their leave of the United States. They created a country of their own with a constitution (mostly copied from the original constitution of the US) and they became a separate country.

A few Americans today actually know what caused that split. A handful of Americans understand what the ensuing war was fought about

A few million Americans still feel the sting of being forced, at the point of a government bayonet, to be a part of a country their ancestors had forsaken in order to set up a government in the image of the government the Founding Fathers of America had given the United States.

A few million Americans who either live in, or hail from, the only portion of this country to ever be invaded, conquered, and occupied by a foreign power, understand what is happening in America today, not because we learned it in school, no… because we learned it from the stories our families have handed down from generation to generation and from our own research into what happened to a country which had, less than a hundred years before, won it’s Independence from the Mother Country. We are scattered all over America today. We see where America is headed… and we fear for our fellow Americans because they/we are not ready for the cost of what is about to happen to her. None of us are. What America is facing, in the next few years, will make the American Civil War seem like a Sunday School picnic.

Yes, I am referring to SLAVERY. Voluntary slavery to begin with… then involuntary slavery… when it is then too late. The socially accepted word for it these days is… SOCIALISM.

In just a few days Americans will go to the polls to exercise a right granted them by their states… not the federal government. The issue we will be voting for, or against, is slavery. Whether America should stay free, or whether America should give up the freedom so many have fought, bled, and died for, and assume the yoke and chains of slavery under socialism.

Make no mistake. SOCIALISM IS SLAVERY. Under socialism you will give up all your rights… all your freedom for security guaranteed by the Central Government. Believe me, if you think democracy is expensive; wait ‘til you have to pay for all those FREE programs.

All my instincts tell me that Americans are willing to give up everything for the promise of security. Of all things “un-American”… that is the MOST un-American. But, that is what I expect to happen on Election Day.

Do not expect the half of the country who stands solidly against socialism to go along, quietly, into the self inflicted slavery of this hell-spawned form of government we call socialism.

If the country votes in favor of socialism, on November 4th, all bets are off. The word “United” can be dropped from the country’s name. The country will be torn in two. And there will be no compromise. It cannot be healed, ever, again. Two peoples, this diametrically opposed, cannot share the same space. Only the most naive among us cannot understand where this argument over how we are to be governed will eventually wind up. Americans have been there before. More Americans died in the first American Civil War than in all the wars in which America has fought since her founding. And today, at least half of this country is deadly in earnest about their love of freedom and are willing to sacrifice, as their forefathers did, to preserve it.

Yes, we are in dangerous times. Extremely dangerous. If you have not taken the time to consider, seriously, how you will vote then may we suggest you do so, and do so prayerfully.

J. D. Longstreet

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Filed under:

Conservative+Freedom+Socialism+Slavery

Race as an Election Factor ... by Alan Caruba

Race as an Election Factor
By Alan Caruba

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I find it remarkable that so little attention has been paid to the role of race in the 2008 election, especially since, for the first time in the nation’s history, one of the parties has nominated a man who, though biracial, identifies himself as Afro-American or Black.

Throughout most of America’s elections, race was a factor, going all the way back to the way opponents of Thomas Jefferson spread rumors of a relationship between him and his slave, Sally Hemmings. Turned out the rumors were true, but Jefferson became our third president anyway.

Slavery, a racial issue, would eventually lead to a rupture among the states, much as the Founding Fathers had feared when they created the Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederacy. A Civil War would be fought to settle the matter. What followed was a century of suppression of blacks and a resistance, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that would erupt in the 1960s.

A lot of people, following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, concluded that, at last, America had put the issue of race and bias behind it. Not so. The vast majority of those in poverty today are descendents of those Black Americans who were granted a further layer of protection of their constitutional rights in the 1960s.

Add to them a whole new layer of society in the form of a huge influx of illegal aliens, primarily Mexicans and those of Hispanic descent, some of whom were granted citizenship via an amnesty in 1986. A second effort to provide amnesty to an estimated twelve million illegal aliens was defeated in 2006 due to a massive public outcry.

In a new book, “Segregation: The Rising Costs for America”, its authors argue that, “By the middle of this century, today’s minorities will constitute half of the U.S. population and that fast-growing population is disproportionately impoverished, ill-housed, poorly educated, and tenuously linked to labor markets.”

The book was published just as the financial system of the nation crashed, due almost entirely to laws that required mortgage loans, called sub-prime, be made to minorities in order that they be able to live in homes that it turns out they could not afford. Thus, a liberal program based on the view that the poor have a “right” to live beyond their means has created a crisis that has destroyed several banks and investment firms, and imperiled one of the nation’s largest insurance firms. Much of the value of stocks has been lost as well.

This is a financial crisis that is the direct result of a foolish notion that was entirely rooted in race. The problems associated with crime in America are largely rooted in race and the failure to stem the tide of illegal aliens. The nation’s jails are filled with minorities. The costs are measured in the billions.

It is one thing to open doors to opportunity. It is quite another to get people to walk through them. In the case of the illegal aliens, even the fences at the border could not keep them out and, once here, made them instant criminals breaking our laws.

One man has risen to challenge for the highest position in the land. He has been received by cheering throngs. And he is indisputably Black.

I think it would be a great mistake to think that Barack Obama’s racial identity would contribute to a reduction in any of the social problems afflicting America’s Black community. If anything, a Democrat controlled Congress is likely to repeat the same kinds of mistakes that produced the financial crisis.

Indeed, just as politicians used race in former times to influence the outcome of an election, Obama is the consummate politician and will do the same. If anything, Obama’s race, if he is elected, could lead to unrealistic expectations and possibly even social unrest.

Some may vote for him out of “white guilt” over offenses done to Blacks in a previous era, but no one living today ever owned a slave. Those whites who grew up in the segregated South, as often as not will tell you they were as trapped in its constrictions as Blacks. Most are glad to see the Jim Crow era gone.

But in countless ways segregation is not gone and it is practiced every day on a purely voluntary basis. Watch how students segregate themselves by race in a high school cafeteria. Watch how their parents segregate themselves by race when they attend church on Sunday. Watch how the two races tend to congregate in largely separate sections of a community.

Segregation or human nature? Discrimination or the choice of people to live among those who share their race, their heritage, their values, their culture? There’s a reason one can visit San Francisco’s or New York’s famed China Towns. Depending on where you live, tides of Russians, Indians, and of course Hispanics have created their own “towns.”

Remember, too, that even in Congress, there is a Black Caucus.

Race will surely be a factor in the 2008 election. It will be a factor long after.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

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Filed under:

Conservative+Liberal+Race+Election+Obama