We remember the trenches of Ypres, the slaughter of the Somme, the mud of Passchendaele, the triumph of Vimy.
We will not forget Juno Beach, the Battle of Britain, the slog of Holland, the disaster of Dieppe, the deadly fight against the U Boats, the loss in Hong Kong, or the push into Germany to defeat Hitler's tyrannous Third Reich.
We will remember defying the odds on Hill 132 in Korea and helping to repel the hordes of communist soldiers who tried to envelop the peninsula in statist oppression.
The heroism of the Gulf War, the precision attacks of the Kosovo War, and the continuing fight in Afghanistan against radicalism and subjugation will linger in our hearts and our soldiers will be in our prayers.
We always fight for the same things: freedom, individual rights, the rule of law, and democracy. We will always fight for liberty and the rights of mankind. And we will never forget the price that must be paid to preserve our freedom.
As usual, the fact that the Fort Hood attack was perpetrated by an Islamic extremist is being minimized by the media and the White House. There has been a pattern of such "down play", stemming from the DC sniper John Allen Mohammed, the attack on the recruiting office in Arkansas by Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, and the planned attacks against Fort Dix in New Jersey.
The fact is, few get on subways worrying about Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, or Christian extremists bent on self detonation. On the other hand, terrorist attacks by Islamic terrorists are common in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India. Spain, Indonesia, Britain, Australia, Russia, India, and Germany have been victimized by Islamic terror.
The attack on Fort Hood was another attack carried out by a radical Muslim bent on killing Americans because they were infidels. This was not a "crazy", a guy who snapped, or a disgruntled postal worker. The attack was carried out after Nidal Hassan yelled "Allah Akbar", a common pattern of behaviour for Muslim terrorists. Not only that, Hassan attempted to contact Al Qaida and made his anti-American, pro-jihad views known while serving in the Army. How his behaviour did not warrant consequences will haunt many families and servicemen forever.
For whatever reason, thousands of young Muslim men continue to find themselves enchanted by Islamic extremism. They are often fueled by Imams and literature preaching hate and radicalism. The Koran fuels their hate with anti-Semitic and violent passages compelling them to kill for their faith. This is a problem which Muslim leaders have failed to adequately address, continually. The result has been attacks by groups, coordinating with Al Qaida or other radical group or even individuals acting alone but inspired by Islamic terrorists.
If you ask me, Fort Hood was an act of Islamic terrorism plain and simple and to see it any other way is wilful blindness.
Twenty years ago one of the most remarkable events of the 20th century took place. Democracy, liberty, and individual rights triumphed over the forces of tyranny, oppression, and collectivism.
It is a tragedy that President Obama has chosen to not attend this great anniversary in Berlin. Ronald Reagan did more than anyone to bring the Cold War to end, not through war or appeasement, but through the steadfast ideology that freedom would triumph over statism (or, socialism). He did not accept the USSR, much to the chagrin of the left and elites in academia and the media, rather he dismissed the Soviet Union as a historical absurdity. Reagan challenged the Soviets confident that free markets and individualism would triumph over the collectivist, central planned monstrosity that trampled the dignity of people and killed without remorse or mercy.
Gorbachev is wrongly credited with ending the Cold War, but Gorbachev's plans for reform were intended to preserve and continue the existence of the Soviet Union while tens of thousands languished in gulags, disappeared in the night, or suffered at the hands of the KGB, Stasi, and other secret police. By the time the USSR finally collapsed, millions would be die at the hands of the most oppressive ideology to ever exist on Earth.
It is shameful that so many Obama administration officials have spoken warmly or even identified themselves as communists, Marxists, or socialists. Their desire to increase government at the expense of the free market and the choice of individuals in health care, cap and tax, while taking over entire industries reflects a pattern that is directly opposed to the ideological framework upon which America was founded. Freedom can only exist when people are free from government, not dependent upon it's programs or agencies.
The media has, and continues to encourage the growth of the state in concert with the political left in the United States. They even have gone so far as to apologize for such tyrannies as the Soviet Union, as Dan Rather did in 1988, and even as recently as this year by NYT's Thomas Friedman who lamented the difficulties and slowness of democracy in comparison to the autocratic efficiency of the Chinese (never mind their horrible human rights abuses).
For the left, democracy has always been a stumbling block to the expansion of government. It is for this reason that the people must be ever vigilant against unchecked government expansion of any kind, no matter how benevolent it may seem.
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, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. -- Ronald Reagan
Canada became a freer country today with the vote to eliminate the gun registry. While the registry may have had good intent, encroachments on individual freedom are always couched in the rationale of "the common good", "safety", or "the collective". However, when the government has all the guns, freedom is gone. Its ironic that both tyranny and liberty come stem from the barrel of gun. The difference between the two depends on who's holding the gun.
In the movie "V" for Vendetta", "V" says that people should never fear the government, the government should fear the people. How true.
And while police advocates like Chief Blair in Toronto (aka Miller's puppet) say that it's a useful crime fighting tool, common sense shows that criminals don't register their guns anyway. There's scant evidence the gun registry stopped any crime at all. Nevertheless, we can be grateful to all the MP's who voted in favour of the private member's bill to abolish the registry.
The left is trying to play down the election results in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia, but it seems quite clear that people are rejecting the Big Government policies in areas that Obama had won in 2008. CNN and Fox News have declared Christie and McDonnell winners so far in their respective states. Christie's win is especially significant since NJ is typically a very blue state and has not elected a Republican to a state wide office in some time.
Hoffman, surprisingly to me, is trailing Owens by about 4% with 64% of polling stations reporting at 10:48pm EST. This would be a surprise to conservatives for a Democrat win in a district that has been traditionally Republican for decades.
The Democrats may have an even tougher time next year if the unemployment numbers don't start turning around. Ten percent unemployment will leave Obambi with a lot of explaining to do. It's no surprise to conservatives that if you implement anti-business policies, it will be hard to create jobs. Nevertheless, Obama, Biden and Pelosi keep spewing the fantasy that "green" jobs will be created in the same way a magician pulls a rabbit from a hat.
Is Obama a radical? No one in the press seems to really want to dig deep on that question, but it's clear that Obama has a heck of a lot of radical friends and appoints key members of his administration who praise murderous tyrants.
Of course, all this started recently and President Obama had no idea of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's communist, radical, pro-terrorist, America hating views.
Three special elections are poised to be a referendum on President Obama and, more so, the party of statism versus the ideas of individual liberty (typically known as conservatism). Christie in New Jersey faces Corzine, the incumbent governor of New Jersey, in a tight race. McDonnell faces Deeds in the governorship of Virginia and has a wide lead. Hoffman leads Owens in New York Congressional District-23 by about 5%.
The most interesting tale from these races has been the race with Hoffman, where GOP candidate Scozzofava dropped out after falling far behind the Conservative Party candidate and the Democrat. Revealingly, Scozzafaza endorsed Owens to the dismay of Republicans who had endorsed her. I was especially disappointed with Newt Gingrich's, who I still endorse for President in 2012, support for her. I understand his reasoning, but I believe principle always supersedes political party.
Reagan spoke of the need to have a big tent, but I don't believe he would have been willing to compromise his principles for the sake of "unity". The big tent for the GOP is not a state, region, or group; it is the United States of America where over 40% of voters identify themselves as conservative, not liberal, progressive, Republican, or Democrat. America's conservative streak is symbolic of its history of rugged individualism.
The Republicans do not need a single leader, they need to be a party of ideas. The have lost the idea that government is too big. Simply running a huge government better than Democrats do is not a political ideology. Conservatives, and the GOP, need to focus on rolling back government and increasing liberty and choices for individuals in all aspects of life. Entire governmental departments need to be eliminated: Energy, Education, every unconstitutional Czar, and the bloated pork barrelling that is corrupting America's political soul.
As Reagan prophesied: "Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem."
We remember the trenches of Ypres, the slaughter of the Somme, the mud of Passchendaele, the triumph of Vimy.
