Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”- Rahm Emmanuel

You can say that Obama's Chief of Staff was pretty much on the money with this observation, and it's amazing, and a testament to the times we live in, that not more was made of it. It is frightening and discouraging that we weren't appalled, forewarned, and alarmed at this revelation. Isn't this as much as admitting that "if there was time", and "if the people knew everything", and "if we had time to think things out", that certain measures would never in a million years become accepted?

Say I'm a used car salesman and your'e looking at a car and I tell you that this is absolutely the bottom line price, but only for today. Then I tell you that my boss told me to say that the prices would triple tomorrow, that there was a crisis in the car industry and this would be the last chance you'd have to buy. I also told you that this wasn't exactly true, but my boss thought a crisis would encourage you to commit. First of all, you would be appalled, astounded, and mad. Then you would leave, hopefully.

But, that was exactly the whole point. I may be wrong on this one, but it was someone in the cabinet that also said, "The people don't really care." That's disturbing too.

So, off they went, in a flurry of spending trillions that we don't have, in a matter of months. Striking while the iron was hot, and the bloom of new Presidency and administration was still on the political rose. Prepare the bills, finish them in the middle of the night, and insist that they be voted on in the morning. We were in a crisis that demanded overnight action, with no reflection, discussion, or consideration as to what we were spending.

I know a lot of good salespeople who employ the same strategy. You go in for some small item, and they convince you that you need a package plan that is absolutely essential, but you have to get it now, because it will cost more later on, and this is your last chance or you will be sorry forever. We needed the money overnight, immediately. We couldn't survive another day without it. Then, the over 9000 pieces of pork or ear marks or whatever became public knowledge. Too late. All done. Thousands of endowments for projects that could wait if we were in such dire circumstances, but now if it was owed to those who could benefit you the most.

Flim-flam.

I don't know all the answers and I'm in really good company these days. However, the amount of "change", and proposed actions that have crammed down our throats in the last few months is alarming in anyone's book. Most of us wouldn't decide in a matter of hours to buy a business or a home without researching all the facts, or take out an enormous loan when we hadn't a clue how we would pay it back. Yet, we have.

Get Real America

I recently watched a program on TV, “Secrets of the Founding Fathers”, or what I could stomach of it. It was obviously, for whatever reason, an infantile attempt to discredit them in the eyes of Americans. The conclusion one of the so-called experts came too was that the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution while intoxicated and smoking hemp. That they were all influenced by the devious Freemasons, and that they were secretive about their decisions, keeping them from the populous.
First of all, I do not believe they were perfect people. They were human, and never, in any stretch of the imagination, did they propose to present themselves as perfect. In fact, if you read statements from Washington, he cringed at the idea that he would be set up as a demi-god. Did they drink? Of course. It was safer to drink whiskey and beer than water. Did they propose a break with England for financial motives? Of course. The whole taxation issue was at the heart of the Revolution, not only in the eyes of the professional, wealthier class, but the everyday man.
One of the main focuses of the program was the growing of hemp. Apparently, someone stumbled upon this fact, and decided that the Founding Fathers were all potheads. Hemp was widely used in the colonies for sail making, paper making, rope making and fiber for clothing. In fact, it was one of the largest crops grown in the colonies. The argument against Washington was that in one of his letters, he lamented the fact that he wasn’t home in time to separate the male and female plants. The comment was that this proved that Washington smoked it since the female plant apparently is used for this purpose. In all actuality, according to botanists, there are two types of hemp plant, one that has both male and female characteristics and the others that are male and female. They claim that a good and experienced grower tries to separate these to increase the yield. In fact, smoking the form of hemp that they grew would, it is claimed, give anyone a massive headache that would increasingly get worse.
It is highly unlikely that, in a country that grew tobacco, they would have considered hemp as a possible smoke, but, even if they did, we need to remember that up until the middle of the last century, heroin, cocaine and opium were often used as magic miracle cures. Some were used in elixirs and even soft drinks.
In the same “documentary”, Washington was both labeled a possible homosexual and a “womanizer”, which would have been quite a feat even for him. It was hinted that he had a relationship with La Fayette. He did. If you read their letters to each other, you can see that Washington, after some qualms about this Frenchman in the New World, eventually thought of him as a son. And, La Fayette, thought so much of Washington that he named his son after him. When they used words like embrace and love in their letters, you must remember that people in the eighteenth century (men and women) often hugged one another when they met. And they used the word “embrace”, not in a sexual sense, but in a warm and loving term. It was a different era. Letters were long, mushy and gushy, because it was the manner of the time- a social must. Much like when we were in elementary school, unworldly, innocent and holding hands with your friends on the playground. No one thought anything of it.
Washington often lamented the fact that he was going to die without an heir, and he thought of La Fayette as the son he never had.
As far as his womanizing , who knows. There is no real evidence of it, but it was well known that even when Washington was a young teenager, he always had an eye for the ladies. This trait continued until his old age.
One of the other suspicions about the Founding Fathers was their creation of the Constitution behind locked doors, and, their disagreements and arguments. You get any group of men or women together to organize or create, or legislate, and there’s going to be conflict. The locked doors were an effort to get things done, with only the delegates input, and not added influences from outside. Remember, this was a time when the Revolution was recent, Tories, British sympathizers abounded, and not everyone was convinced that the country was a viable idea. Also, it was important to them that no 18th century lobbyist influenced their representatives with their own agendas. Something that we have not learned to avoid in this day and age apparently.
The Freemason factor. Yes, some of them were. Bottom line, if they brought anything to the Constitution from the factors included in Freemasonry, it was items like “checks and balances”, hardly detrimental. They drew on what they were familiar with. Don’t we want checks and balances? Or, anyway, some of us do.
Yes, it is interesting to find out everything we can about those who set the wheels in motion to bring this country into being. But, there is also a move to change historical facts and bend them to further individual causes. This accomplishes nothing but demoralizing people who, do not expect perfection in our ancestral leaders, but honor their sacrifice.
The remarkable facts about these men is not their faults, which they would readily admit too if they were here, but their courage and sacrifice. These were, for the most part, men, well established in a British colony under British law. They had the most to lose from their actions, including their lives.
There is a shameful and ridiculous trend to rewrite history, omit certain aspects of history and distort facts, even in the text books today. The frightening thing is that there are some who will believe it.
The creators of this “program” were obviously trying to discredit the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and virtually the entire birth of our country. The same country that allows these people the opportunity to flourish, prosper, and deride anything they choose, all in the guise of intellectual freedom. These people should know that in many countries around the world their lives would be much different, but thanks to the old ladies and gentlemen of our past that they ridicule, they are free to invent their own versions of reality to their heart’s content.

Define Who You Are

Growing up, most of us were pretty sure who we were, and what we believed in. Maybe, we need to get back to basics and remind ourselves of what we really stand for. Here goes.

I am a citizen of the United States of America, as were many generations before me. A lot of them served in the service of their country, and I thank them and all the others for their sacrifice. I am descended from pilgrims, pioneers, laborers, farmers, teachers, patriots. They flew their flags proudly, fought for their homes and their rights, helped their neighbors, and worked hard for everything they had in life.

I love my country, the United States of America. There, I’ve said it. I confess. I get teary-eyed when I hear the Star Spangled Banner played, and when I see our troops marching by and when someone plays taps. I am proud of the fact that we, and we alone, were the experiment in democracy that succeeded. I know, there have been problems along the way. No one ever said there wouldn’t be. I am proud that our Constitution is based on freedom, and justice, and reference to God. Yea, you got me. I’m a patriot. I’m one of those, who in the “good old days” before what is “in”, overruled what is “right”, and “stretching and bending the law for the sake of political correctness” was acceptable would have been considered a good person.
But, that was then, and this is now. Patriots are those of us who still believe in old fashioned things like individual freedom.

The United States of America has come to the aid, financially, and militarily, more often than any other country in the world. We are the first to arrive with supplies and aid during natural, and unnatural disasters. We defend the rights of humanity when no one else wants to get involved.

Our young men and women have died for people around the world that they didn’t know. They have cried over the bodies of babies who never had a chance to know freedom, and people barely alive who survived the horrors of Dachau and Auschwitz.

I do not want anyone to apologize for my country. For all our faults, we are still the best place to live. I do not feel arrogant or politically incorrect for saying that. There are people arriving here every day from all over the world who feel the same way. They dream about coming to America, just as folks have for two hundred years, and they sometimes risk their lives to get here.

Nothing in my genetic makeup, or the cynicism that abounds today, or the constant “America bashing” we are subjected too, or the pseudo-intellectual distortion of the history of our country will change my admiration for my personal ancestors, or the millions of other patriots who have worked hard in the past to hold onto the America they loved.

As only one of the millions of Americans in this country, those whose families go back generations, and those who only recently became citizens, I am not important. What is important is that we never lose pride in this great country, or feel that we must humble ourselves in the eyes of the world.

"Thanks for the free clip-art to the Just A Touch Art Studio of Jonesboro, Georgia; www.justatouch.com"