Supporting Our Troops

It is Memorial Day weekend already, marking the unofficial start of summer. The school year is ending, and families are getting ready to begin their annual summer vacations. In the fun of welcoming summer back into our lives, we have to be careful to not forget the “Memorial” part of this holiday.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day. It began when ladies in the South started decorating the graves of dead soldiers prior to the end of the Civil War. The first official observance was on May 30^th, 1868 when flowers were placed on soldiers graves at Arlington National Cemetery.

Memorial Day is officially a time to honor those who have given their lives in service to their country. Since the time of our nation’s birth, we have been blessed with brave and capable young men and women who were willing to dedicate, and if necessary, surrender their lives to protect our freedom.

It has become common in recent years for people to make a point of proclaiming “I support our troops” as a disclaimer during political debates, as though such a proclamation negates any evidence to the contrary. What does it actually mean then, to “support our troops”? To answer that question, it is first necessary to fully understand the overall mission of those troops.

Much of what I experienced on that day in 1979 when I officially began my enlistment in the U.S. Navy has faded to a distant memory, but one thing that continues to stand out is the oath I took that marked the start of my service.

I, James P. Willis, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Taking this oath created for me a solemn obligation to my country to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. This is an obligation that I took very seriously. My enlistment officially ended in 1988, but I don’t recall ever being informed that I was released from that obligation. All of the members of our armed forces have taken up this same obligation, and this is the basis for their service. If then, we are going to honestly say that we support our troops we must be bound to the same obligation as they.

Far too often when people say they support the troops, they are simply signaling that they will refrain from overtly criticizing the soldiers. For them ‘supporting the troops’ is simply a courtesy they are magnanimous enough to bestow. To go beyond giving simple lip service to supporting the troops takes much more.

To genuinely support our troops in their mission to uphold and defend the Constitution, it is necessary to at least have a basic knowledge of that document, and an understanding of its importance. Our constitution has been under attack since its signing. To defend it requires that we know its history and content, appreciate the simplicity and the genius of its provisions, and recognize those who seek to weaken and destroy its effectiveness.

It is important to understand that our rights were not granted to us by our Constitution. Our founding fathers recognized that we have certain inherent rights as human beings, and it was their goal to create a government that was tasked with the job of protecting our freedom to exercise those rights. No act of any government can ever take away those rights, but it can take away the freedom to exercise them. The Constitution is the document that defines the role and authority of the government that is tasked with protecting our freedom.

Enemies of that Constitution seek to weaken it for the purpose of restricting our freedoms. Obviously some of those enemies are foreign to this country, but far more enemies exist within our own borders. Some are organized groups that work to expand the government beyond the scope of its constitutional authority, and it is easy to see how successful those groups have been.

Some hold elected office, often occupying the highest offices of our government. They exist in each of the major political parties, and some belong to no party. It can be difficult at times to recognize them but as Jesus once said, “You shall know them by their fruits”. Look for those who, sometimes with the best of intentions, seek to expand the power and role of the government over our lives, and you can begin to recognize them.

Perhaps the most insidious of these enemies are those who belong to no organization and hold no political office. These are our very own citizens who, for the sake of their own comfort and perceived security, are willing to allow the government to neglect our freedoms and confiscate that which we earn. Most of us are guilty of this to one degree or another. It is far too easy to look to the government to make our lives easier, or to solve our problems (most of which are of our own making). We expect the government to protect us from anything that might befall us, forgetting the fact that the only proper role of the government is to protect our freedom.

How can we claim to support the troops while we are at the same time willing to undermine the very same constitution that they are sworn to protect? Is it not incumbent on us to examine our own hearts and beliefs and make sure that we are not among the enemies they face? As we honor our fallen soldiers this weekend, let us all take a moment to recommit our support of those who continue to put their lives on the line to protect our freedom.

Newt Revisited

Newt Gingrich has certainly kept his name in the news this week, which is usually a good thing for a Presidential candidate, but I get the feeling this wasn’t the way he had intended it to happen. Rather than using his face time to discuss his plans for America, he has been forced to spend a great deal of time digging himself out of a hole.

Earlier this week I spent some time discussing his unfortunate comments, reaching the conclusion that his chances of winning the GOP nomination were basically non-existent. Since that time I have had an opportunity to hear Newt explain himself in several venues, the latest being a lengthy conversation with Rush Limbaugh.

I will have to admit that Gingrich has done a remarkably good job of clarifying his position on healthcare reform and on Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. Without rehashing everything he has said on the subject, I will say that he has convinced me that he has the right attitude regarding the constitutionality of socialized medicine, and that he fully appreciates how wrong the entire idea really is. During his discussion with Rush, he touched on a plan he has been working on for some time, which he plans to announce with more detail next week. From what I understand of the plan, it sounds like a reasonable approach, and I will wait until I know more to comment further.

Newt has also explained his remarks regarding “right-wing social engineering” which were apparently wrongly associated to his opinion of Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan. Newt made it clear that he has always supported Ryan’s plan, and that both he and Ryan consider his proposal to be a starting point in Medicare reform with room for modification as needed. Again, his explanation was reasonable and believable.

There are several lessons to be learned from this incident. For Newt, I hope he will learn to be very clear about the things he says in the future. While he has done an admirable job of clarifying and explaining what he was trying to say, obviously he should have done a better job in the first place. Newt has to remember that, as a Republican candidate, the news media won’t make any effort to gloss over the things he says, nor will they jump at a chance to allow him to correct the record.

It is painfully obvious that I should have waited to hear Newt’s explanation before I dismissed him as a candidate. As I said in my last post, Newt has always been rather unpredictable, making it a little too easy for me to believe he was going out into left field on this issue. Had this been someone like Rep. Michelle Bachman, it would have been so out of character that I would have been hesitant to comment before hearing her explain. For my part, I will try to keep this in mind in the future.

Where does this leave us? It is possible that Newt can undo the damage and recover from this fiasco, and it is my hope that he will do so. I had reservations about Newt before this event, and those reservations remain. He would not be my first choice, but he could still convince me that he could be an acceptable choice.

So Much For Newt Gingrich

The field for the GOP 2012 Presidential primary is beginning to take shape, both in terms of who is running and who is not. Frankly, I’m neither surprised nor disappointed by Donald Trump’s announcement that he will not run. Although he promised to be an interesting candidate, it was becoming increasingly clear that he would prove to be more of a distraction than a serious contender for the office.

Newt Gingrich has finally made his candidacy official, and has promptly made sure there is no chance I will be able to support his efforts by trying to co-opt Obamacare and make it his own. In recent comments made on Meet The Press, Gingrich basically endorsed the idea of socialized medicine, with the major difference being that the states would be responsible for legislating the individual mandates rather than the federal government.

Although I have been interested in the idea of a Gingrich candidacy, I have always been hesitant about the possibility because one never really knows what Newt is going to come up with next. One day he is a champion of conservatism, and the next he is off literally into left field. This is one of those moments.

Not that Newt’s idea is worth discussing, but I will take a moment to point out what should be the obvious problem with the plan. Republicans have been working hard to make the case that the individual mandate is flatly unconstitutional, making Obamacare a totally useless legislative mess. This is based on the fact that the powers of Congress are limited to those specifically enumerated in the Constitution, and nothing in that document gives Congress the authority to pass such a mandate.

The former House Speaker, being quite familiar with that fact, is looking for a way to sidestep that bothersome little issue by delegating that responsibility to the individual states, while continuing with the overall plan of implementing a socialist healthcare system. Since Newt is far too intelligent to believe this is a viable plan, he is obviously allowing his own ego to lead him down this path for the sake of drawing votes from the left in his quest for office.

I see two major problems with his plan. First, even if his idea was allowed under the Constitution, socialized medicine is simply a bad idea and has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Even is he could get his plan past the Supreme Court, I wouldn’t want him to. The second problem is that, for his plan to work, all the states have to pass legislation to require individuals to purchase healthcare coverage. The only way that will happen is for the federal government to mandate to the states what legislation they will pass. Once again, Congress is not given that power in the Constitution.

It is truly sad to see such a gifted mind go to waste, but Newt Gingrich has effectively taken himself out of the running in his first week of the campaign. Fortunately, Mike Huckabee has had the good sense to opt out of running. The 2012 field of candidates is not yet filled out, and many of us are still waiting for that candidate who will speak convincingly for the conservative movement. We need someone who understands the proper role of the federal government, and who understands the value of a free market.

Col. West, are you listening?

A Good Day to be an American

There are times when words fail to express your true feelings; this is one of those times.

The first thing I want to say is that, as a Christian I cannot feel happy that anyone’s life has ended without them knowing the saving grace of Christ. The state of Osama Bin Laden’s soul is only known to God and to himself, but my knowledge of God’s Word gives me every reason to believe that Bin Laden will spend eternity in Hell. As tempting as it may be, I cannot take pleasure in that knowledge.

As an American, I rejoice with the rest of the sane world that this blight on humanity has been eliminated as a threat and has been brought to justice. Osama Bin Laden made the choices that brought him to this end, and he has only himself to blame. While I do not take pleasure in his death, it does give me a great deal of satisfaction to know that rather than being killed instantly by a missile he did not know was coming, the last thing Osama Bin Laden saw was the face of a dedicated United States Navy Seal and the barrel of his gun. I am proud to be an American, and proud of and grateful to our Armed Forces.

To President Obama: Congratulations sir, on a job well done. While I have many, many areas of disagreement on almost every issue, I want to give credit where credit was due. This operation, under his command, was carried out with great professionalism and with an amazing amount of operational security.

To former President Bush: Thank you sir and congratulations on the successful culmination of the mission you ordered nearly ten years ago. Thank you for having the courage and wisdom to take the steps necessary, including the use of the “enhanced interrogation” tactics provided the intelligence clues that ultimately led us to the compound in Pakistan that was the hiding place for the world’s most wanted terrorist.

To the brave and dedicated men and women of our Armed Forces, particularly those who were directly involved in this operation: Thank you and job well done. You continue to make us proud to be Americans, and secure in the knowledge that you are on the job, protecting freedom around the world. Thank you for your sacrifice and for your unmatched dedication and skill.

To our enemies: Let this fact not escape your attention, you can run, but you cannot hide.

While the death of Osama Bin Laden is incredibly important to our nation and to the war on terror, we cannot make the mistake of believing this is the end of the effort. To be sure, Al Qaeda will do their best to respond, and to continue the cowardly mission of their dead leader. It would be wise for everyone to be vigilant and aware that retaliation is almost inevitable.

It is a good day to be an American.

The Root of the Problem

You can learn a lot about life through manual labor. A few years ago my wife and I bought a lake house. The lawn was beautifully landscaped, but during the time the home was vacant things had been neglected. As I worked to clean out some flower beds for my wife, I began to clear out some of the weeds that had grown up. The worst of the weeds were the wild blackberries that were choking out the other, more desirable plants.

My first plan was to grab them and pull them up, but it didn’t take long to figure out that was a losing proposition. They often just snapped off at the surface, soon to re-grow from the root. I soon found that it was much more effective to dig around in the soil a little, and get to the root of the plant and pull up the whole thing. In doing this, I discovered that the roots created a network under the surface, and that most of them were connected to each other. Often, those roots could be followed back to an origin outside the boundaries of the flower bed. By following the roots through the soil, I was soon able to weed out everything that was undesirable, restoring the garden to its original condition.

 

Since then, I have learned to apply this principle to other aspects of life. As I observe the condition of our country, it becomes obvious that we need to clear out some of the more thorny problems that we face, and the best way to do this is to get at the root of the problem.

Our nation faces many issues, the worst of which are high unemployment, rising inflation, a massive federal deficit, and sharply higher energy prices. Naturally, we look to our leaders in Washington to find solutions, and many people are left wondering why those solutions are not forthcoming. I am not one of those people.

In this case it is a fairly easy prospect to get to the root of the problem, if you are willing to look beneath the surface. Let’s take these issues one by one, and see where it leads us.

First, let’s take a look at fuel prices. When Barack Obama took office, the average price of gasoline in this country was $1.85 per gallon; today the average price of gasoline is $3.88 per gallon. What is Obama’s answer to the problem? He has ordered the Justice Department to form a commission to investigate the cause of the high prices. I can save him some time and the country a few million dollars. All he has to do is look at his own policies. Of course, he knows all of this, but he hopes we don’t.

Obama’s advice to a father of ten to buy a smaller car is a clue that he has no real interest in taking steps to lower gas prices. Although in a free market the President should have no role in determining the price of gasoline (or anything else for that matter), we all know that administration policies do affect the market. Most people have enough common sense to know that, by not accessing our own oil reserves, we place ourselves at the mercy of foreign oil producers.

Other policies affect the price of oil however, and one of those is the monetary policy. Since our oil is bought on the world market, the value of the dollar overseas has a direct effect on the prices we pay. In response to the ballooning federal deficit, the Federal Reserve has been printing massive amounts of brand new dollars, with nothing to back it up. Naturally, the oil producers are very aware of this policy, and expect more of those dollars for their oil.

Rising energy prices shouldn’t come as a surprise to us however, since Obama very clearly stated that causing energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket” was one of his objectives during his campaign for President. To make sure that goal was met, he appointed Dr. Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy, who in an interview with the Wall Street Journal said “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” As we can see, we are well on our way.

The President of course, wants us to believe that the high fuel prices are a result of speculators in the market. This would be the same thing as the Detroit Lions blaming their losing season on people who bet against them. True to form, the President also wants us to believe that raising taxes on oil companies would help bring prices down. Anyone who understands that a business passes on all of their expenses to their customers knows how this plan will turn out; but that is the goal, isn’t it?

Taking a look at the deficit, we find more deeply rooted problems. Obama supporters will undoubtedly tell you that Obama inherited a huge deficit, and that is certainly true. The fact is however, that President Obama with the help of the Democrats in Congress has added more to the deficit than all of the previous presidents combined. Couple that with the fact that they are fighting tooth and nail to stop any attempt to reduce spending, and it becomes evident that the Democrats see a huge deficit as a goal rather than a problem.

To understand the rationale behind their policies, we only have to take a look at their proposed solution – higher taxes on “the rich”. As we do, please allow me to state the obvious. Our federal deficit is not a result of taxes being too low, it is a result of spending being too high. It is easy to say that the Democrats are simply being irresponsible with spending and are trying to raise taxes to avoid cutting off their spending habit, but that would be naïve. Democrats are fully aware that spending is causing our deficit, and that is precisely what they intended.

Understanding the motives of Democrats requires a basic understanding of Marxism. The followers of Marx believe that social change comes through class struggles. In order to effect their desired social changes then, they must promote class envy ultimately resulting in class warfare, thus their incessant attacks on “the rich” while pretending to protect “the working class” from the evils of capitalism. The social changes they seek to put into effect boil down to the confiscation of wealth to be redistributed in a manner they, the ruling class, deems fair to society.

This idea often finds favor with those who do not see themselves as being rich. What they fail to understand however is that Marxism is requires the confiscation of all wealth; not just that of the jet set class. It is true that the focus is on higher taxes (confiscating the wealth) for “the rich”, but a more subtle confiscation of the wealth of the working class happens when government policies result in a lower employment levels, and a loss of the standard of living that we have earned for ourselves.

Obama’s policies have certainly gone a long way towards achieving that goal. With unemployment hovering near ten percent, and under-employment at double that amount, a lot of Americans have seen their savings wiped out, lost their homes, and are now facing rising inflation. Remember that Fed policy of printing more money? The program, called QE2, was designed to cause higher inflation.

Higher food and fuel prices are a double blow to those who are already struggling. Obamacare and other regulatory measures are making it nearly impossible for small businesses to start, grow, and even to survive; making it unlikely that there will be any improvement in the employment situation in the near future. Due to these conditions, more Americans are dependent upon a check from the government than at any time in our nation’s history. The redistribution of wealth is well underway.

We have to understand that no one in the Obama administration is going to suddenly wake up one day and realize that their policies aren’t working, because from their point of view, they are working just as planned. We must let go of the notion that the Democrats want the same things we do for the country but approach it from a different perspective. In fact, they want something far different for the country than the rest of us.

The root of the problem then, is not the policies of the Obama administration. If we dig down just a short distance below the surface, we will find that the root of the problem is the guiding ideology of the Left: Marxism. Until we make the effort to defeat this vile ideology, our American way of life wi