Ok, now, before I start, I am well aware that by this time next month it's more than likely that things will be completely different. But for right now, I am thoroughly enjoying seeing Herman Cain take the FL CPAC straw poll and the latest Zogby poll. Mostly for no other reason that it seems to be confounding the pundits who want us to accept their choice of candidates. Well sorry, but Romney is our John Kerry; everything he's "for" now he was against when it was necessary to be so to get elected governor of Massachusetts. In case you've never been there, no governor of Massachusetts could ever truly be a conservative, so forget it. No matter what you say, or what he says, Romney is a conservative like the Dalai Lama is a break dancer. You'll convince me Obama loves America before you convince me Romney is a conservative. And Rick Perry, who I really wanted to like... what was THAT?!? He has no one on his staff who thought to tell him that a GOP debate isn't something you "wing"? For crying out loud, Merriam-Webster is thinking of putting his picture next to "Deer-In-The-Headlights" and "Oops" in their next edition.
I love Gingrich's snappy retorts. I think I speak for a lot of conservatives when I say it's about bloody time someone on our side sprouted a spine and started calling BS when they hear it. The problem for Gingrich is his little eco-issue. It troubles me that such a brilliant guy was sucked in so badly on that, and it makes me wonder where else his discernment needs a little shoring up. If Newt Gingrich would really work hard to convince me that he's truly and fully conservative, no more Mr. Nice Guy and it's time to get down to real solutions vs. the compromises that make up every single Republican final position ever, maybe we can talk. But this is the last chance, Newt; burn me here and I don't care if you channel Ronald Reagan and Charleton Heston at the same time, we're done.
I really wanted to like Michelle Bachmann. But she blew it so badly with the Gardisil thing. I technically agreed with her position, but to learn that the program was opt out and that other parts of the story were kind of squishy, well, making points only works when you get to keep the points. Those didn't last long. Either your message and your positions get you to the top or they don't. Stretching the truth to nail someone, even if what they did wrong, will always backfire. Well, at least unless you're a Democrat. Ah, but I digress...
Gary Johnson makes me scratch my head. For the life of me I can't figure out what he's doing there. At least with Ron Paul you can understand that he knows he's not going to be president, but that he has a real opportunity to shape the discussion. Unfortunately, when it comes to foreign policy, the shape he makes of the discussion is something of a pink fluffy bunny in a soundproof Lucite box ignoring everything going on around it. But on money he's making the right noises.
Why is Herman Cain leading right now? Because he calls it like he sees it. When you've been where he's been and you have nothing to lose, you can talk like it, and I think people really appreciate it. I for one would much rather have the truth even if it's a hard truth than the mosaic of lies, demagoguery and agenda that we've dealt with the past three years. I want someone with a real plan to fix real problems even if maybe it is a little simplistic sounding than someone who beats the country into the ground jamming false solutions to secondary problems down our throats while Rome burns. I want someone who actually cares about America more than about what he can turn it into. And I don't think I'm alone. Herman Cain resonates with conservatives if only because he has the nerve to look at the camera and tell you the president is lying. It's about time.
So you there at Fox News, quit trying to sell me Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Captain Mumblebug ain't doin' it for me, and neither is the standup chameleon, I mean comedian, from the second left coast. Them buses already left the station...
Monday, September 26, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Don Burgett
I saw part two of the interview with WWII paratrooper Don Burgett on American Rifleman tonight. According to Wikipedia:
He was talking about the end of the war. He and his group were moving through Germany and came to a place with a concentration camp. I didn't hear the name but he said it was near the Lecht river. He said that when he arrived there, he entered the building with the ovens and saw several Jews carrying other Jews into the ovens on metal stretchers. (I hope those were already dead, he didn't say.) He told them to stop. They said they could not. He asked why. They said, "They told us that if we don't do it, they will put us in there alive." Burgett said to them, "I am an American, and America says stop!" They talked amongst themselves for a moment and then said they would stop.
The next day he said that he saw four of them barely able to walk carrying one of those stretchers covered with a purple cloth toward the river. He asked them what they were doing. He pulled back the cloth and the stretcher was carrying yellow bars of soap that he compared to something called "Fels-Naptha". He asked them what they were doing with the soap. They said, "We're burying them. They're people." He said they told him the Nazis rendered people to make soap. He said they did much worse things as well but then he stopped talking as if it would be wrong to go on. I was grateful.
At this point he lost his composure a little and mumbled something about the second amendment. Then he said, "The people who want to take our guns away need to remember that it's only Americans like me with guns who stand between them and the ovens. I've seen the ovens."
Could it happen again? Who knows? It's hard to guess, although I sincerely doubt that the basics of human nature have changed much since 1940. You want to say no, but then similar things happen in Africa with regularity and the rest of the world looks the other way and whistles. I just hope that if it does get close to happening again, there are still Americans with guns ready to say, "I am an American and America says stop!"
Donald R. Burgett (born April 5, 1925) is a writer and former paratrooper. He was among the Airborne troopers who landed in Normandy early in the morning of D-Day. He was a member of the 101st Airborne Division, ("The Screaming Eagles"), and the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Burgett served in 'A' Company, 1st Battalion, 506th PIR as both a rifleman and a machine-gunner.
Burgett parachuted into Holland as part of Operation Market-Garden[1] with the 1st Allied Airborne Army, fighting for 72 days behind enemy lines. With just a few weeks rest, he was sent into combat at the Battle of the Bulge, where the 101st, along with Combat Command B of the U.S. 10th Armored Division and the all African American 969th Field Artillery Battalion successfully held out against nine German armored divisions during the siege of Bastogne. He went on to fight through Operation Nordwind, on into Germany to the Ruhr Valley, the Rhineland, and Bavaria, where he helped capture Hitler's mountain retreat in southern Germany. While in action with the 101st, Burgett survived numerous battle wounds and had his M1 rifle shot out of his hands at least twice. He was one of only eleven men out of two hundred in his company to survive from D-Day Normandy all the way to the war's end.I'm going to try to repeat from memory some of the last things he said in the interview because they were so powerful.
He was talking about the end of the war. He and his group were moving through Germany and came to a place with a concentration camp. I didn't hear the name but he said it was near the Lecht river. He said that when he arrived there, he entered the building with the ovens and saw several Jews carrying other Jews into the ovens on metal stretchers. (I hope those were already dead, he didn't say.) He told them to stop. They said they could not. He asked why. They said, "They told us that if we don't do it, they will put us in there alive." Burgett said to them, "I am an American, and America says stop!" They talked amongst themselves for a moment and then said they would stop.
The next day he said that he saw four of them barely able to walk carrying one of those stretchers covered with a purple cloth toward the river. He asked them what they were doing. He pulled back the cloth and the stretcher was carrying yellow bars of soap that he compared to something called "Fels-Naptha". He asked them what they were doing with the soap. They said, "We're burying them. They're people." He said they told him the Nazis rendered people to make soap. He said they did much worse things as well but then he stopped talking as if it would be wrong to go on. I was grateful.
At this point he lost his composure a little and mumbled something about the second amendment. Then he said, "The people who want to take our guns away need to remember that it's only Americans like me with guns who stand between them and the ovens. I've seen the ovens."
Could it happen again? Who knows? It's hard to guess, although I sincerely doubt that the basics of human nature have changed much since 1940. You want to say no, but then similar things happen in Africa with regularity and the rest of the world looks the other way and whistles. I just hope that if it does get close to happening again, there are still Americans with guns ready to say, "I am an American and America says stop!"
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Stigma? Why yes, thank you...
So the completely unexpected headline of the day is that food stamp recipients should be able to use them in restaurants. Food stamps. In restaurants.
Let me take you back, back to a time and place long ago and far away. I call it the 1970s. The 1970s seem like a magical fairy land compared to the time in which we currently live. In the 1970s, people were unemployed too, not unlike today. And back then we also had a feckless president, a man not so unlike our current president in that everything he touched turned to offal. In fact, the similarities only end when you consider that the president back then seemed truly not to understand why his mojo didn't have no go. The current iteration seems perhaps to be aware that it's not going to work, but there's an ideology to satisfy come hell or high water.
Something else that was different in the 1970s was the people. Back then, you were ashamed if you were unemployed. Heck, I was unemployed for nearly a year in 1992-1993 after I got out of the USAF and it ate me up. But something happened between that time and today. Somewhere around 2000 I think, shame was lost. The United States fell for the "it's all about me" advertising drive in a way it never had before, and suddenly the only thing that had a stigma anymore was the concept of the stigma itself. And hey, why not? We had everyone from Oprah and her army of new age writers to Robert Schuller and Joel Osteen in the Sales and Marketing wing of the evangelical Church assuring us that self-esteem was of paramount importance and that we were meant to live our best life now. And hey, if that means you have to charge it, or even better, get someone else to pay for it, so what? It's all about feeling good now, damn the torpedoes!
It's taken me a long time to come around, but here I am. And here is my list of demands.
Number one: You holdouts are buying me a bigger house. This one is too small and I want a bigger yard. So you'd better give me a tractor with it.
Number two: I want free health care and a pension. Since I'm not a member of a public sector union, I don't get either. In fact, my health care is costing me so much right now that I can't afford the pension. And that ain't right, so you all need to make it right! If my neighbor is getting it for working for the government, then I wants mines!
Number three: Some of my friends have Ford F-150 pickups. I can't afford one. I think you know where this is going. Get cracking, I expect to see my truck in my driveway when I leave for work in the morning.
Number four: Why should I have to work anyway? I have a better idea. I want all this stuff and I want to not have to work. I mean, why not? I've lived 46 years without entitlements, it's time all you rich people started paying your fair share and floating my boat some. A boat! Yeah, I want a boat too!
Listen. Food stamps are for survival, not Red Lobster. If you're on food stamps and you want to go to a restaurant, I'm sorry. I'm also sorry I don't have a brand new truck, but as they say, that's life. Suck it up, buttercup. Think of it as motivation. Yeah, I know, here you go: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/motivation
Let me take you back, back to a time and place long ago and far away. I call it the 1970s. The 1970s seem like a magical fairy land compared to the time in which we currently live. In the 1970s, people were unemployed too, not unlike today. And back then we also had a feckless president, a man not so unlike our current president in that everything he touched turned to offal. In fact, the similarities only end when you consider that the president back then seemed truly not to understand why his mojo didn't have no go. The current iteration seems perhaps to be aware that it's not going to work, but there's an ideology to satisfy come hell or high water.
Something else that was different in the 1970s was the people. Back then, you were ashamed if you were unemployed. Heck, I was unemployed for nearly a year in 1992-1993 after I got out of the USAF and it ate me up. But something happened between that time and today. Somewhere around 2000 I think, shame was lost. The United States fell for the "it's all about me" advertising drive in a way it never had before, and suddenly the only thing that had a stigma anymore was the concept of the stigma itself. And hey, why not? We had everyone from Oprah and her army of new age writers to Robert Schuller and Joel Osteen in the Sales and Marketing wing of the evangelical Church assuring us that self-esteem was of paramount importance and that we were meant to live our best life now. And hey, if that means you have to charge it, or even better, get someone else to pay for it, so what? It's all about feeling good now, damn the torpedoes!
It's taken me a long time to come around, but here I am. And here is my list of demands.
Number one: You holdouts are buying me a bigger house. This one is too small and I want a bigger yard. So you'd better give me a tractor with it.
Number two: I want free health care and a pension. Since I'm not a member of a public sector union, I don't get either. In fact, my health care is costing me so much right now that I can't afford the pension. And that ain't right, so you all need to make it right! If my neighbor is getting it for working for the government, then I wants mines!
Number three: Some of my friends have Ford F-150 pickups. I can't afford one. I think you know where this is going. Get cracking, I expect to see my truck in my driveway when I leave for work in the morning.
Number four: Why should I have to work anyway? I have a better idea. I want all this stuff and I want to not have to work. I mean, why not? I've lived 46 years without entitlements, it's time all you rich people started paying your fair share and floating my boat some. A boat! Yeah, I want a boat too!
Listen. Food stamps are for survival, not Red Lobster. If you're on food stamps and you want to go to a restaurant, I'm sorry. I'm also sorry I don't have a brand new truck, but as they say, that's life. Suck it up, buttercup. Think of it as motivation. Yeah, I know, here you go: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/motivation
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