Dear Mr. Obama

I received this from iVoteRight just as I was leaving South Korea and this is the first chance I've had to post it. It speaks for itself... now please excuse me. I have something in both of my eyes.

Never Forget

September 11 News.com - The 9/11 Terrorist Attack on America. September 11, 2001 News Archives in pictures and newspapers from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Why the Left is Unpatriotic

Why the Left is Unpatriotic and Why the Right Should Say So
By Larrey Anderson of American Thinker

Most conservative political commentators tiptoe around the unpatriotic positions maintained by many liberals in America. We hear prominent conservatives say things like this, "I am not challenging Mr. Liberal's patriotism. I am challenging his point of view."

The fact is that much of the new left is unpatriotic. And that is okay. The Founding Fathers knew that not all Americans would be patriots; in fact, they counted on it. In this article I will show why the culture of the left is not patriotic. My basic contention is that patriotism is now the responsibility of the right -- abandoned by the left. I will use stories and photographs from this year's Oregon Country Fair to help make the point.

Read the rest here.

Paris Hilton for President

Nice energy policy.

Troubling Texts at Virginia's Saudi Academy

From FOXNews.com

Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday.

Other passages in the school's textbooks state that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed "polytheists."

The passages were found in selected textbooks used during the 2007-08 school year by the Islamic Saudi Academy, which teaches 900 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax and receives much of its funding from the Saudi government.

Read the full story here...

The Soldier

I can't think of a better Memorial Day tribute than the following quote I found at Stix Blog.

It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves under the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag. - Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

Thank you men and women of the United States Armed Forces and have a good Memorial Day everyone.

Fairness, Idealism and Other Atrocities

By P.J. O'Rourke

I've been a fan of P.J. O'Rourke since his National Lampoon days (yeah I'm that old). Here's his commencement speech to America.

Well, here you are at your college graduation. And I know what you're thinking: "Gimme the sheepskin and get me outta here!" But not so fast. First you have to listen to a commencement speech.

Don't moan. I'm not going to "pass the wisdom of one generation down to the next." I'm a member of the 1960s generation. We didn't have any wisdom.

We were the moron generation. We were the generation that believed we could stop the Vietnam War by growing our hair long and dressing like circus clowns. We believed drugs would change everything -- which they did, for John Belushi. We believed in free love. Yes, the love was free, but we paid a high price for the sex.

My generation spoiled everything for you. It has always been the special prerogative of young people to look and act weird and shock grown-ups. But my generation exhausted the Earth's resources of the weird. Weird clothes -- we wore them. Weird beards -- we grew them. Weird words and phrases -- we said them. So, when it came your turn to be original and look and act weird, all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologize.

So now, it's my job to give you advice. But I'm thinking: You're finishing 16 years of education, and you've heard all the conventional good advice you can stand. So, let me offer some relief:

1. Go out and make a bunch of money!

Here we are living in the world's most prosperous country, surrounded by all the comforts, conveniences and security that money can provide. Yet no American political, intellectual or cultural leader ever says to young people, "Go out and make a bunch of money." Instead, they tell you that money can't buy happiness. Maybe, but money can rent it.

There's nothing the matter with honest moneymaking. Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box. In a free society, with the rule of law and property rights, no one loses when someone else gets rich.

2. Don't be an idealist!

Don't chain yourself to a redwood tree. Instead, be a corporate lawyer and make $500,000 a year. No matter how much you cheat the IRS, you'll still end up paying $100,000 in property, sales and excise taxes. That's $100,000 to schools, sewers, roads, firefighters and police. You'll be doing good for society. Does chaining yourself to a redwood tree do society $100,000 worth of good?

Idealists are also bullies. The idealist says, "I care more about the redwood trees than you do. I care so much I can't eat. I can't sleep. It broke up my marriage. And because I care more than you do, I'm a better person. And because I'm the better person, I have the right to boss you around."

Get a pair of bolt cutters and liberate that tree.

Who does more for the redwoods and society anyway -- the guy chained to a tree or the guy who founds the "Green Travel Redwood Tree-Hug Tour Company" and makes a million by turning redwoods into a tourist destination, a valuable resource that people will pay just to go look at?

So make your contribution by getting rich. Don't be an idealist.

3. Get politically uninvolved!

All politics stink. Even democracy stinks. Imagine if our clothes were selected by the majority of shoppers, which would be teenage girls. I'd be standing here with my bellybutton exposed. Imagine deciding the dinner menu by family secret ballot. I've got three kids and three dogs in my family. We'd be eating Froot Loops and rotten meat.

But let me make a distinction between politics and politicians. Some people are under the misapprehension that all politicians stink. Impeach George W. Bush, and everything will be fine. Nab Ted Kennedy on a DUI, and the nation's problems will be solved.

But the problem isn't politicians -- it's politics. Politics won't allow for the truth. And we can't blame the politicians for that. Imagine what even a little truth would sound like on today's campaign trail:

"No, I can't fix public education. The problem isn't the teachers unions or a lack of funding for salaries, vouchers or more computer equipment The problem is your kids!"

4. Forget about fairness!

We all get confused about the contradictory messages that life and politics send.

Life sends the message, "I'd better not be poor. I'd better get rich. I'd better make more money than other people." Meanwhile, politics sends us the message, "Some people make more money than others. Some are rich while others are poor. We'd better close that 'income disparity gap.' It's not fair!"

Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, "That's not fair." When she says this, I say, "Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you." What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap.

5. Be a religious extremist!

So, avoid politics if you can. But if you absolutely cannot resist, read the Bible for political advice -- even if you're a Buddhist, atheist or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those people who believes that God is involved in politics. On the contrary. Observe politics in this country. Observe politics around the world. Observe politics through history. Does it look like God's involved?

The Bible is very clear about one thing: Using politics to create fairness is a sin. Observe the Tenth Commandment. The first nine commandments concern theological principles and social law: Thou shalt not make graven images, steal, kill, et cetera. Fair enough. But then there's the tenth: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."

Here are God's basic rules about how we should live, a brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts. And, right at the end of it we read, "Don't envy your buddy because he has an ox or a donkey." Why did that make the top 10? Why would God, with just 10 things to tell Moses, include jealousy about livestock?

Well, think about how important this commandment is to a community, to a nation, to a democracy. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't whine about what the people across the street have. Get rich and get your own.

Now, one last thing:

6. Don't listen to your elders!

After all, if the old person standing up here actually knew anything worth telling, he'd be charging you for it.

P.J. O'Rourke, a correspondent for the Weekly Standard, is the author of "Parliment Of Whores"

Reagan Killed Us

How Ronald Reagan Destroyed the World (Three Times).
By Bruce Kelly

1. Ronald Reagan Appointed James Watt Secretary of The Interior.
James Watt believed that destroying the environment would bring back Jesus. He supported the development and use of federal lands by evil corporations. They cut down all the trees and killed the oceans and we all died... except the Beach Boys. [source]

2. Ronald Reagan Ignored The Aids Epidemic.
Ronald Reagan was too old fashioned to understand how important having unprotected anal sex with strangers was to Americans. Aids mutated from a homosexual disease to a heterosexual disease. The heterosexual aids epidemic swept the world and everyone died... except James Watt. [source]

3. Ronald Reagan Started Nuclear WWIII.
Ronald Reagan wouldn't talk with our enemies, he thought America should stand up to bullies. He scared the communists so bad when he started putting more and more missiles into Europe that riots broke out. When the Russians went in to try and calm things down he bombed them and they bombed us back and everyone died... except some people in Lawrence, Kansas. [source]

More: Bullshit From the 80's

Democrats Defeated in Iraq

Do Democrats Really Want Us to Fail in Iraq?
By Adam G. Mersereau - AmericanThinker.com

Any time our government takes us to war, there is bound to be strong disagreement, but Iraq has been particularly divisive. At times it seems as if some Americans -- certain liberal Democrats in particular -- are eager to declare or even hasten our defeat.

Our missteps in Iraq have been numerous enough to discourage any patriot. Yet leading Democrats are beyond the point of discouragement. They are pessimistic; even hopeless. They have been this way for a long time.

At the first sign of difficulty, they deemed the war a mistake and victory impossible. They quickly adopted the language of defeat and surrender. Some declared the surge a failure before it began and General Petraus a liar before he uttered a public word about its effects. Others are quick to believe reports of alleged atrocities by our own troops, as if seeking an American disgrace. Now, leading Democrats seem to believe that recovery from past mistakes is impossible, and that any hint of success can be only illusory.

Why do so many Democrats cling so tenaciously to hopelessness, failure and despair in Iraq, even in the face of important recent successes?

The reason for this defeatism among Democrats lies beneath mere power politics, electioneering or disdain for President Bush. The real source of defeatism is rooted deep within the liberal mind.

Defeatist Democrats oppose the war in Iraq, not so much because they fear failure, but because they believe failure is inevitable. They believe the Bush Administration's goal of helping Iraq establish a democratic government is a fool's errand. They believe that the Western values on which democratic government is based -- and the Judeo-Christian truths from which those Western values are derived -- are not valid for Iraqis.

The Democratic Party is the home of modern liberalism, and modern liberals are deconstructionists. As this appellation suggests, deconstructionists are engaged in an effort to philosophically disassemble traditional Judeo-Christian truths. To the modern liberal, the very idea that traditional Judeo-Christian truths might be true for all men is oppressive, limiting, judgmental, discriminatory and outdated. The deconstructionists will not rest so long as anyone in our society believes that traditional Judeo-Christian truths might actually be universals. They desire a post-modern (and post Judeo-Christian) America, in which almost all traditional values and morality are reduced to the status of mere personal preferences, rendering it nonsensical to extend them beyond one's self or one's own community.

Yet Western civilization is founded on the idea that many Judeo-Christian truths -- and the Western values that spring from them -- are true for all men and women. This idea is especially important in the United States, a nation founded on a distilled set of Judeo-Christian beliefs and values that were declared to be true for all men.

Those beliefs and values are well known to most Americans: That God created all men, meaning that any legitimate government must recognize the fundamental equality of all men before Him; that the affairs of men are guided by the hand of Providence, meaning that government is not the final authority in the lives of its citizens; that the natural corruption of the human heart behooves us place checks and balances on governmental power; that it is best for all people, even rulers, to be subject to the rule of law; that government should protect all religions, leaving a man's conscience free to seek God as he thinks best, rather than constraining the religious urge by tyrannical decree or by force; that the maintenance of justice requires the freedom of the people to assemble and speak freely, even against those in power.

Most importantly, however, America's Founders believed that these Judeo-Christian truths were not true only for themselves but for all people. This meant that, for the first time in the history of the world, a nation would be built in which citizenship was determined primarily by allegiance to a set of declared truths. In other words, because these truths were held true for everyone, American citizenship would be available to anyone. (Even though the application of those truths is sometimes defective, such as in the case of early American slavery, the truths themselves have consistently proven larger than the flawed men who penned them.)

Because traditional Western values are so closely aligned with Judeo-Christian truths, the deconstructionists find it necessary to deconstruct traditional Western values as well. This helps explain the Left's love affair with socialism and communism. The Soviet Union, for example, was unashamedly founded on principles quite opposite those of Western civilization, and particularly those on which America was founded. So long as the Soviet Union appeared strong and robust, it seemed to provide a constant reminder that Western values were not true for everyone, and that mankind could indeed find another way to organize a just and productive civilization.

Those were the glory days for the deconstructionists. They reveled in the apparent success of the Soviet Union, and made it their mission to ignore Soviet communism'a obvious flaws (while disparaging America). For as long as the Soviet Union appeared powerful and healthy, their case against the universality of Western values seemed credible.

Elevating non-Western civilizations to impede the ascendance of Western values led directly to the "multiculturalism" movement. Going beyond the mere study of other cultures, multicularalism seeks to indoctrinate people with the notion that (almost) all cultural values are equally valid. This helps deconstructionists promulgate their claims against Western civilization. After all, if the non-Western world is thriving without Western values, those Western values cannot possibly be true for all people.

To elevate other cultures, the multiculturalists inevitably must strain to find beauty in many cultures that are not so beautiful; some in which children were sacrificed, in which violence is a way of life, in which discrimination is systematic, in which women are treated as property, and in which totalitarianism, ignorance and occultism have resulted in great human suffering. The more lovely they can make other cultures appear, the smaller and less significant appear traditional Western values. This is the multiculturalist agenda.

The deconstructionists not only downplay the failures of other civilizations, they grossly exaggerate the failures of our own.

Proud of your Judeo-Christian heritage? The deconstructionist sees only religious oppression and bigotry in our past.

Inspired by the great sacrifices made by Americans to eradicate slavery on our shores? The deconstructionist will argue that no amount of white men's blood can compensate for the injustice of slavery, upon which, they claim, our illegitimate nation was built.

Grateful for the advancements in the human condition spurred by free enterprise? The deconstructionist insists that free enterprise is singularly responsible for global poverty and the destruction of the planet.

What does all of this have to do with Iraq? Everything.

If traditional Western values of governance ultimately provide the basis for a strong, peaceful and free Iraq, then the world will see that much of what was true for 18th century white European Judeo-Christian colonials is also true for 21st century Muslim Iraqis. The universality of Western values -- and of the Judeo Christian truths that form the foundations of those values -- will gain profound credibility. Deconstructionism and its current political host, the Democratic Party, will both suffer enormously. For deconstructionists bent on discrediting Western values, victory in Iraq is the worst possible outcome.

The most ardent deconstructionists do not believe victory is even possible. Because deconstructionists believe Western values are a sham, they believe President Bush's strategy cannot possibly prevail. How, after all, can we expect Western principles of governance to help heal Iraq if the very foundations of Western governance are flawed?

So they feel duty-bound to say or do whatever is necessary to truncate the violence by accelerating our inevitable failure. In their hearts, they believe they are acting out of humanity, to stop the pointless suffering of a futile struggle. They must bring low all successes, and they must amplify all failures. If enough Americans would only reach the conclusion that Iraq is beyond hope, they will call more vigorously for withdrawal.

Western values would be left bleeding in the streets of Baghdad, and the deconstructionists would win an important victory.

So things are worse than they seem. While our soldiers are fighting on the battlefield, the leadership of the Democratic Party is deconstructing the Western values for which they fight.

Listen closely to Osama bin Laden's recorded monologues, and you will detect at least some subtle similarities to the diatribes of the Democratic Congressional leadership. This is not a coincidence, for the core beliefs that Judeo-Christian truths and Western values are passé, and that Western civilization is therefore a sham, are to some degree shared by both camps. This leads to Democratic anti-war rhetoric that strikes many average Americans as unpatriotic.

But in fairness, the Democrats are not unpatriotic. They love America. They simply define America differently than most Americans. Their America is a very small place. They do not believe that America's greatness is found in the truth of its founding principles, but in their own enlightened leadership, and in a deconstructed brand of "freedom" that more and more resembles license.

They do not believe our founding truths are necessarily true at all. No wonder they want to cut and run.

In War: Resolution

By Victor Davis Hanson

Somehow we forget that going into the heart of the ancient caliphate, taking out a dictator in three weeks, and then staying on to foster a constitutional republic amid a sea of enemies like Iran and Syria and duplicitous friends like Jordan and Saudi Arabia - and losing less than 4,000 Americans in the five-year enterprise - was beyond the ability of any of our friends or enemies, and perhaps past generations of Americans as well.

Read More...

Can Diversity Destroy Us?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

On the Great Seal of the United States, first suggested by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, there was to be emblazoned a new motto: E Pluribus Unum Out of many, one.

It was in their unity, not their diversity, that the strength of the colonies resided. So Patrick Henry believed, as he declared, The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.

National identity must supersede state identity for America to survive.

Yet it has lately become fashionable to say that America is great not because she is united, but because she is diverse. It is because America is a multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual nation that she is a great nation. A corollary is that the more diverse America becomes, the better and greater she becomes.

After the Los Angeles riot of 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle was asked by his Japanese hosts if perhaps America did not suffer from too much diversity. I begged to differ with my hosts, Quayle retorted. I explained that our diversity is our strength.

And so our rulers, marinated in the myths that we are a nation of immigrants and our diversity is our strength, continue to embrace mass immigration the more the better. But are the myths true?

America was settled by colonists from the British Isles. In 1789, two centuries after Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, we were 99 percent Protestant. Until the Irish came in 1845, there was almost no immigration. Even during the Great Wave of 1890-1920, the number of immigrants was a fraction of the 38 million here today. And all had come from Europe. By 1960, we were almost 90 percent European and more than 90 percent Christian - of one nationality, American, one language, English, and one culture.

That America is gone forever.

Last week, we learned that in the last seven years 10.3 million people, almost all from the Third World, entered the United States, more than half illegally. The nation that was one-tenth minority in 1960 is now one-third minority. European-Americans will soon be a minority in the nation, as they are today in California, Texas and most large American cities.

And when that day comes, what then will unite us as a people?

Certainly not religious faith, for the last 40 years have seen a large influx of Muslims, the rise of a rabid secularism and the break-up of Christian churches the Episcopalians most recently over issues of morality: abortion, civil unions, homosexual bishops, assisted suicide, stem cell research, Darwin, creationism. No longer are we united by a common language, as the fastest growing radio and TV stations are Hispanic. And certainly not culture, as we are in a cultural war over history, heroes and holidays.

And how can we say diversity is a strength, when the most diverse nations of Europe, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, shattered into 22 nations as soon as they became free, and Slovaks and Czechs divorced? Ethnic and linguistic diversity is now pulling Belgium apart, as they tore Cyprus in two.

Since World War II, diversity racial, religious, ethnic, cultural has pulled Malaysia, the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan, Indonesia and Ethiopia apart, and is today pulling Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon apart. How, when tribalism is everywhere ascendant, is diversity a strength?

When Islam arose in the 7th century, our world became more diverse. Fourteen centuries of war followed. When Catholic Europe became more diverse with the Protestant Reformation, a century of war followed, ending in a Thirty Years War that carried away a third of all the German people.

There came a new diversity when the English came to the Red Man's continent in 1607 and Africans were brought as slaves in 1619. From that diversity came the near annihilation of American Indians and a racial divide that led to the American Civil War, bloodiest in the West in the 19th century.

Our racial diversity has ever been the most divisive issue in America and remains so, as we see daily from Jena, the Imus affair and the Duke rape case.

Britain is more diverse than in the time of Victoria and Churchill. Is Britain a better, stronger nation now that London is Londonistan, madrassas defend the London bombers and race riots are common in the industrial north? If diversity is a strength, why do Scots wish to follow the Irish and secede?

Has Germany been strengthened by the diversity the Turks brought? Is France a stronger nation for the 5 million to 8 million Muslims concentrated in the banlieus? How have the Japanese suffered from their lack of diversity?

The Melting Pot language, law, culture worked to make us one nation and one people. But that Melting Pot, cracked and broken, is rejected by multiculturalists as an instrument of cultural genocide, crafted by white Europeans to annihilate native cultures.

This generation is witnessing the Deconstruction of America. Out of one, many.