The US Constitution. The Deliberate Stumbling Block.

By: J. D. Longstreet

You know, every now and then, every American ought to read the US Constitution from beginning to end.  I’d wager that if we did, we would not be living in such a screwed-up country as we have today.

 

One of the things I have learned, over my better than 6 and a half decades on this earth, is that the fellows who wrote the Constitution were quite likely the smartest, most intelligent, men on the entire planet at that time… and… without a doubt… would rank at the top of the intelligentsia today!

 

Funny thing is that back in the 18^th century, folks had a tendency to say what they meant and mean what they say.  They had never heard of political correctness, so… they called “a spade a spade”.   When they applied pen to paper, to write their thoughts, they didn’t hem and haw about… they wrote down those words, which illustrated, exactly, their thoughts and their intentions.

 

Now, here’s the thing:  When a person, of even average intelligence today, takes it upon himself, or herself, to read the US Constitution… as those Founding Fathers wrote it… they understand it!  It’s as clear as a bell.

 

Now the question:  Why, then, do we find it so inconvenient today?  Yes, the US Constitution is inconvenient.  To the power brokers in the US, the Constitution is a roadblock.  It is continually getting in the way.  And that is where the US Supreme Court comes in.

 

When an American turns to the Constitution, to learn the duties of the Supreme Court, often he, or she, is surprised at the limits on the Court.  More surprising, still, is the mantel of powers the Court has assumed which the Constitution does not grant the Court!

 

The national powerbrokers learned, long ago that a Supreme Court molded in their likeness, could extend THEIR powers simply by INTERPRETING the Constitution in a manner which would benefit them. To arrive at that beneficial arrangement, the powerbrokers had to see that they determined the make-up of the court… that only those nominees to the Court who favored their biases could be allowed on the court.  That set off a continuing battle between the two sides of the American Political Spectrum, which is near a fever pitch today. 

 

A fairly intelligent high school student can interpret the Constitution.  It is that clearly written.  Yet, today we require a court of nine persons made up of scholars of the law… even though the Constitution does not require one to be a lawyer to serve on the Supreme Court!  Did you know that?

 

Let me give you an example of how simple the Constitution is to interpret:  Article One, section 8 of the Constitution declares that the District of Columbia shall be no larger than ten square miles.  Got that?  Ok, then why, today, is the District of Columbia 98.25 square miles?  Huh?  Oh, you see the constitution was inconvenient when it came to that ten square mile law.

 

The point in all this rambling is… you really ought to acquaint yourself with the US Constitution. When you do, you are going to marvel at how far from the Constitution the US has strayed.

 

May we suggest that you set out to familiarize yourself with the Constitution while you can?  Already, our government is in talks with Mexico and Canada to merge the three countries into a single entity patterned after the European Union.  Once that happens, there is a better than even chance the US Constitution will become subject to whatever passes as a constitution for the North American Union.

 

 By:J. D. Longstreet

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Happy Thanksgiving all!

 

Longstreet, and the lovely and gracious Mrs. Longstreet, are off to be with family today and enjoy the annual Thanksgiving Feast with the Grands!

 

Please remember your blessings today and take the time to offer thanks to God, the source of all those blessings.

***************************************

We Gather Together

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens his will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing,
Sing praises to his name: He forgets not his own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, wast at our side, All glory be thine!

We all do extol thee, thou leader triumphant,
And pray that thou still our defender wilt be.
Let thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!
Amen

–Traditional Thanksgiving Hymn
(A translation by Theodore Baker: 1851-1934)

We leave you with this note from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

We’ll be back in the trenches tomorrow!

 

Happy Thanksgiving all!

 

Longstreet

 

 

 

The UN Celebrates “Palestinians”, Hates Jews … by Alan Caruba

The UN Celebrates “Palestinians”, Hates Jews

By Alan Caruba

 

On Monday, November 24, the United Nations will commemorate its annual “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”, a hate-filled day that ignores its own role in the establishment of Israel.

 

An international institution that trumpets its Universal Declaration of Human Rights while openly seeking the destruction of the population of one of its member nations is so inherently debased that it should cease to exist.

 

The notion that the United States of America should continue to participate in the UN on the grounds that it is the only forum or means to resolve conflicts is absurd.

 

Monday’s observance marks November 29, 1947, the day that the United Nations voted to establish a Jewish and an Arab state in what was formerly the Palestinian Mandate whose administration had been ceded to Great Britain following the end of World War One.

 

The State of Israel was not created out of “Palestinian” lands. It was part of the Ottoman Empire that had ruled much of the Middle East for four hundred years and which, at the Versailles conference following the end of WWI, was divided into nations conjured up by England and France. Among the newly designated nations were Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.

 

There were no “Palestinian” people claiming a land called Palestine. Most of the Arabs regarded themselves as living in the southern portion of Syria.

 

The 1947 UN partition plan mandated the creation of two states on the remaining twenty percent of the Palestine Mandate. There was to be the State of Israel for the Jews and a new state for the Arabs.

 

What happened, however, was that the Arabs rejected a state of their own and launched a genocidal war against Israel. The war was the primary cause of the Arab refugee problem that exists today because none of the Arab nations in the region would accept the refugees and the UN facilitated their permanent status and continues to do so today.

 

There were, however, Jewish refugees. Between 1949 and 1954, an estimated 800,000 Jews were forced to flee the Arab and Muslims lands where they had lived for hundreds of years. In addition, many European Jews who had survived the Nazi Holocaust migrated to Israel. Later they would be followed by the persecuted Jews of Russia and other lands.

 

On Monday afternoon, the UN General Assembly will convene to discuss the “Question of Palestine” and if this is redolent of the Nazi “Final Solution” the comparison is accurate. The General Assembly is scheduled to adopt six resolutions condemning only Israel for violations of human rights. This will bring the total thus far this year to twenty such resolutions as opposed to four resolutions critical of any of the remaining 191 UN member nations.

 

Israel is not “occupying” land that belongs to a Palestinian state because no such state exists. It has occupied land won repeatedly in combat for its very existence. In recent years it ceded the Gaza strip to the Palestinian Liberation Authority, Fatah, but the result has been that Hamas drove Fatah from Gaza at gunpoint and now uses it to launch rockets against Israel on a daily basis. The West Bank, by any international standard, is a legitimate part of Israel.

 

The Arabs who did not flee Israel in 1947 were the lucky ones. They were able to remain in the only functioning, true democracy in the Middle East and today their children and grandchildren number more than a million Israel citizens, some of whom serve in the Israeli Knesset or parliament, on the Israeli Supreme Court benches, and as tenured professors in Israeli colleges and universities.

 

The United Nations continues to promulgate the most offensive anti-Semitism found anywhere in the world and Monday’s observance is just one aspect of it. Its “Durban II” conference on racism to be held in Geneva in April 2009 will be a repeat of the hateful first conference that was boycotted by several nations, including the United States. It should be condemned and avoided by all nations that take the professed UN Human Rights declaration at its word.

 

Those attending Monday’s International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People should be hosed down and driven from the chambers where it is held. The General Assembly should be seen for what it is, a place of shame, duplicity, and genocidal hatred in which no civilized nation should take its seat.

 

November 24, 2008

Alan Caruba

 

 

 

 

Religious Conservatives Should Leave The GOP!

Religious Conservatives Should Leave the GOP!

By J. D. Longstreet

If I have said it once, I have said it a dozen times!  The Republican Party no longer wants conservatives, especially RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVES!  As if one needed proof, here comes an article by Kathleen Parker to end the discussion. The article is titled: “ Heresy and Other Truths.”  In her article, Ms. Parker says:

 

 “As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.

 

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

 

I’m bathing in holy water as I type.

 

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh.

 

You can read the entire article at:

 

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_11024437

 

This underscores the on-going battle within the Republican Party these days.  Religious conservatives are flat-out at odds with the moderates and liberals in the party and they (The moderates and liberals) want us (The conservatives, including the religious conservatives) gone.  In fact, they seem to want GOD gone from the party.

 

I am indebted to Ms. Parker for “backing up” what I have been saying for many years now.  Conservatives need to get out of the GOP and found their own political party and be done with it. When I refer to CONSERVATIVES, I, of course, mean the religious conservatives because there are very few, if any, non-religious conservatives.  You must understand that, in my opinion, the term “religious conservatives” means ALL conservatives.

 

There has been worry in recent years that the union of social and religious conservatives and the Republican Party is beginning to fray.  I beg to differ.  As far as I am concerned, it isn’t fraying. It is threadbare!  It’s OVER!  It’s long since time for conservatives, social, AND religious, to move on.

 

Look, as a social, and religious, and fiscal, and political, and every other kind of conservative, I can tell you, with no hesitation, conservatives need their own party.  We are not wanted any longer, if we ever were, in the GOP.  It is getting embarrassing for me as a staunch conservative to maintain my allegiance to a party that so obviously wishes I would LEAVE! 

 

Turning the tables on the GOP would taste very good at this point.  They know they have a snowball’s chance of winning another election without conservative support.  If we leave the party they will be forced to come to us and beg for our support in any future elections.  That’s fine by me!

 

Yes, founding a third party is going to be tough.  Yes, we may never have a Conservative Party candidate on a national ticket.  But, conservatives would be able to swing elections and you had better believe our support would be sought. That alone would give us more input into future elections than we have now.  Much more.

 

I am a conservative first and a republican second.  I am a republican because there was no conservative party, as such, to turn to. Given a choice, I would have joined the Conservative Party and never been a Republican in the first place. There are hosts of southern voters who feel the same way. I suspect there is another host of voters across the other regions of the country that feel the same way.

 

In two years we have another extremely important election coming up. If conservatives want to see any gains for conservatism in the Congress we had better get ourselves organized and ready. We cannot do that by staying in the Republican Party.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

 

 

 

How America Has Changed … by Alan Caruba

How America Has Changed

By Alan Caruba

 

Many of those who helped elect Barack Obama as the next President represent a very different generation of Americans from earlier ones. They have passed through the politically correct indoctrination of government/union controlled schools and have little accurate knowledge of history, geography, or civics with which to make informed judgments. They are more the product of popular media and culture than any previous generation.

 

The struggle for civil rights dominated the 1960s. The Watergate scandal marked the 1970s and the nation experienced its first serious military defeat after a protracted war in Vietnam. The rise of the Islamic Revolution began in 1979 and continued through the 1980s and 1990s, until it led to the 9/11 attack in 2001. The nation has been engaged militarily in the Middle East ever since. Events alter perceptions.

 

Here are some of the ways that America has changed since the 1960s:

 

The nuclear family—mother, father and children—is no longer the most common household type. It was in 1960, but today the nuclear family ranks third among alternative types of households behind married couples without children at home (mostly older, empty-nesters) and people living alone (also among the growing demographic of older Americans.) Divorce and out-of-wedlock births have caused the number of single parents to increase dramatically. Abortion ends 24% of pregnancies these days.

 

Most children have working mothers. In America today, 69% of married mothers work. The result is that most pre-school children are in daycare programs being raised and cared for by people other than their parents.

 

Only 16% of Americans think that our nation’s schools are doing a good job. To put it another way, 84% think schools are failing in their mission to educate today’s children. There are ample statistics to demonstrate this. For example, only 39% of white students in fourth grade were reading at or above their grade level in 2005. Among black students, it was only 12%. Asian American students, however, scored at 40%. Educators tell me that today’s schools are virtual zoos requiring all manner of monitoring of disruptive students. Fear rules the halls of too many schools, both inner city and suburban.

 

The median household income peaked in 1999 after some forty years of rising incomes. Between 1967 and 2006 the median household income grow by 32%, after adjusting for inflation, to $48,201. The average American household makes $1,000 less than it did a few years ago. The earning power of men peaked in 1989. Between 1967 and 2006, the median earnings of women who worked full-time grew by 53%. Together, those incomes allowed families to buy houses, SUVs, and other top dollar items. Americans have been on a credit spree, however. The median debt of average American households is $55,300!

 

The Social Security Trust Fund will exhaust its surplus in 2041. Nine out of ten people aged 65 years or older receive a Social Security check each month. It accounts for 40% of their income.

 

In a recent issue of Budget & Tax News, published by The Heartland Institute, an article noted that “Federal regulations cost Americans almost as much as the income tax and more than 40 percent of all federal spending…Federal environmental, safety, health, and economic regulations cost more than $1 trillion a year in addition to the costs of official federal spending.” These costs are passed along to consumers.

 

Fully 63% of Americans believe in God and have no doubts about it, but 57% believe that it is not necessary to believe in God to be a moral person with good values.

 

According to the 2000 Census, America was home to 63 distinct racial groups, but it was the first census in which individuals could identify themselves as belonging to more than one such group, i.e., were multiracial. Whites constituted 211 million people. Blacks were 14% of the population and represented 25% of those living in poverty, but non-Hispanic whites represented 44%. Blacks constitute 41 million Americans and are outnumbered five to one by whites.

 

Despite the failure of some sub-prime mortgages, fully 68% of households own a home. The Great Depression caused such losses that the government created the Federal Housing Administration and a new system of financing, the 30-year, fixed rate mortgage. By 1950 home ownership rate had climbed to 55%. Allowing people to buy homes with no money down and a reasonable expectation of paying their monthly mortgage has proven to be a very bad idea.

 

If you were born in 1901 life expectancy was 47 years. By 2006, average life expectancy was 78! The leading cause of death in America is heart disease. More than two million Americans die of this cause every year.

 

Antonio Gramsci, a dedicated communist, wrote a book setting out a strategy for taking over strong Western democracies by infiltrating their churches and educational system, as well as a nation’s media. Communism could be imposed by turning churches into ideologically-driven political clubs. Educational systems had to be dumbed down and offer a politically correct curriculum. Mass media had to discredit traditional institutions such as marriage and commonly shared moral values.

 

If any of this looks like America today, consider yourself warned.

 

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

 

© Alan Caruba, November 2008

 

Will Israel Strike Iran If Obama Objects? … By J. D. Longstreet

Yes!  I believe she will.

 

Forgive me, but I cannot SEE Israel sitting around waiting on the Europeans, the Americans and the UN and the IAEA to do something about Iran… much longer.

 

The Israelis see all this “jaw-jawing” as just what it is… putting off an impending event. Israel cannot afford to wait.  Their very lives depend on the nuclear facilities of Iran being taken out.

 

Any morning now, I expect to awaken to news reports that unmarked aircraft conducted massive bombing raids over Iran and immense damage was done to Iran’s nuclear factories and research plants.  Of course, there will be a slew of reports of collateral damage. The Mainstream Media, in order to be sure we all understand, will report the deaths of uncounted women and children by these dastardly phantoms of the air!

 

Now… this is going to happen!  I see no way of preventing it now, at all.  The US has only two choices … they are… to be ahead of the curve… or behind it.  With, or without US help, Israel is going to defend itself and if that means pre-emptive air attacks on Iran and the use of Israeli nuclear weapons, then so be it.

 

There is now concern that an Obama Administration will not allow Israel to fly through Iraqi airspace, a route the IAF needs to get to Iran, drop their payloads, and get back to Israel.

 

Some time ago, I read an unconfirmed report concerning an Israeli plan to force their way through Iraqi airspace by taking on US air forces in air to air combat in order to allow enough of their bomb laden aircraft to get through to Iraq and bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.  It is understood by the Israeli airmen that if such a mission is undertaken by the IAF it will be considered a suicide mission. 

 

The tiny country of Israel is sort of like Fort Apache.  It’s surrounded by hostiles and it cannot survive a first strike.  It has no choice but to strike first and continue the strikes as long as it takes to remove the threat.  They cannot consider what the US wants, nor Great Britain, no the Europeans, nor the UN.  This is THEIR LIVES they will be defending.

 

Within 24 hours of the nation of Israel being created by the United Nations she was attacked by hordes of Muslims.  She fought them off and has continued to fight them off throughout their history. 

 

Israel has stated publicly that she will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons IF she believes her chances of survival are slim to none otherwise. 

 

The remainder of the world had best prepare.  All the negotiations, underway now, and all the posturing by the diplomats of the world, are accomplishing absolutely nothing.  As soon as Israel feels the time is right, they will strike.

 

We wish them every success.  We pray God that He will, once again, come to the aid of His people and extend His arm of protection over the brave pilots who will participate in the raid.

 

Godspeed IAF!

 

J. D. Longstreet

I Overestimated My fellow Americans … by J. D. Longstreet

Some of us have been screaming from the rooftops, for nearly 2 years now, that Mr. Obama is a socialist. Only now, just days before the election, are people beginning to take notice. Why? It is there for everyone but the deaf, dumb, and bind to see.

 

America has been slowly but surely headed toward a socialist government since FDR’s “New Deal.” In the 1960’s it was Lyndon Baines Johnson and the “Great Society”, and now, the crowning touch, Barack Hussein Obama and the… what…”Spread the Wealth Around” government?

 

The Left in America knows they have not succeeded in convincing us all to buy into their “Demand whatever the country can do for you” approach to government. You see, there are a heck of a lot of folks, like me, still roaming around, out here in the hinterlands of America, who see them for what they are, who recognize their scheme to lock down a democratic majority, forever, in Washington by making every single American dependent on the government for their very existence. Folks like me are a threat to them and their plans.

 

That is why Obama has run a stealth campaign. Think back. Obama has not told us a single thing, in concrete terms, he will do for you. Oh sure, he has given us great oratorical flourishes that spellbind those who wish to be spellbound. Watching an Obama event is much the same as watching the old medicine shows of the 1800’s. His snake oil is his promise of change, of hope, of (—–) whatever you wish to place in the blank.

 

People, like me, pay attention to what is going on about them. We are aware of what our government is doing. We feel that the government is answerable to us, as the voter, and, equally important, we also feel we have a responsibility to watch the government and make sure they stay within the guidelines of the constitution. That is the way a free people stay free. Never, ever, trust your government.

 

It is we the left is afraid of. The fact that we continue to agitate and call attention to Obama’s obvious socialism grinds on them every second of every day. They fear that our collective voices may eventually cut through their carefully constructed façade and actually draw your attention to every thing that is wrong with the fine print in the Obama promise. First and foremost where is the money going to come from to finance Obama’s expanded government? Secondly, who is going to protect us from all this nations enemies now salivating at the expectation that such a weakling as Obama will assume the office of Commander-in-Chief of the US military? Apparently, everyone already knows that no amount of talking, and jawboning, with the Islamofacists, with Russia, with North Korea, with Iraq, with Iran, with Afghanistan, with Venezuela, and the host of nameless enemies we face daily will do any good, at all. Everyone, that is, but Obama. They look on, as Americans flock after this empty suit, in disbelief at their good fortune. They are ecstatic that America is about to be handed to them on a silver platter.

 

Our forefathers must be spinning in their graves. The blood, sweat, tears, and providential intervention they, and those who followed them, spent in building a nation unlike any on the earth is all for naught. For if the people have no more love of their country, no more pride in who they are as Americans, no more belief in themselves than those who follow Obama, then, I must tell you, we don’t deserve the country they gave us.

 

It would seem that I have overestimated the intelligence of the American people. It would seem that I have overestimated my fellow Americans’ love for freedom. My error, apparently, was in believing that a people grown from the stock of patriots who fought kings and world superpowers for their freedom, and created a country in which the citizens were limited only by their own imaginations and ambitions would naturally want to preserve this precious land and all the freedom if offers. My mistake. It is a mistake I will not make again.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

 

 

There Is No UNITED States!

There Is NO UNITED States!

By: J. D. Longstreet

 

There is a thread of fear running through the right side of the political spectrum in America. It is so real you can taste it. You can see it in the eyes of conservatives. You can hear it in their voices and you can even physically hear it when it is whispered into your ear. I will quickly add… it is fear mixed with resignation. Conservatives speak of it only in whispers. The left doesn’t speak of it at all because they are completely clueless about it.

 

Our fellow Americans, (on the left side of the American political spectrum) have mistakenly read the Right’s current state of mind as “fear of losing the election.” They could not be more wrong. It is not fear of losing the election. It is, however, fear of losing our country and the growing resignation that It is already too late to stop the sprint toward an inevitable conflict between citizens of what used to be the greatest country on the planet.

 

Yes, this IS a horrible thing to contemplate. Our forefathers in 1776 didn’t want it. Our ancestors in 1861 didn’t want it and we don’t want it. Nevertheless, the threat is there, standing just out of the light… but… just barely inside the shadows of our consciousness. The threat is visible to those who WANT to see it. The old expression “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” certainly applies to any who will not see that America is headed toward an internal conflict unlike anything this nation has seen since the 19^th century.

 

For decades now a wedge has been driven deeper and deeper through the heart of what was a United America. We are no longer united. The UNITED states do not exist… except in poetry, verse, song, creeds, pledges, and in the imagination of those people who inhabit a “dream world” far above the plain upon which you and I dwell.

 

In reality, Americans are split asunder… cleft in twain by the cleaver of socialism. The election of a socialist President will complete the great divide of America and render us truly TWO nations. No hope for unity will exist. We will be constantly at each other’s throats, constantly in over-heated debate scratching and clawing at each other until the inevitable happens.

 

I’m over reacting… right? You’d better hope so! Just to reassure yourselves that I am a nut, check your encyclopedia for the history of this nation from about 1820 through 1865… then tell me you do not see the parallels. You see, for those of us who have paid more than passing attention to the actual history of this country, what is happening today in America is akin to the replay of a very old movie. A story that does not have a happy ending, but instead, flashes, “to be continued” at the end of the last reel. 

 

If you have been harboring thoughts that the American Left and the American Right will ever be able to reconcile and become one vast, single, goal-oriented electorate, allow me to disabuse you of that hallucinatory conception. No, the two are so totally different in their philosophies of life and politics… and even religion, that there is absolutely no hope of ever putting aside those differences and “coming together”. It just isn’t going to happen. The divide grows wider every day.

 

There was a time when I felt that I would not live to see the next civil war in America but I must say that at the speed comity is dissolving in American I may yet live to see the opening volleys.

 

The question is… how much longer will the Right restrain itself? The socialist government, we are likely to have after the election, may snap the leash.

 

 The Right’s patience is nearly spent. This very election could well be the last election held under the false claim implied by the current name of the country, “The United States of America.” We are decidedly split into two camps. The socialists are on the left, and on the right, those who want to preserve democracy. The line has been drawn.

 

Let’s face it:  The Left covets a socialist regime in America and they will stop at nothing, as we now know, to get it. The right wants to save the country and the constitution The Founders of this country gave us. To the left, the constitution is simply an impediment. It is in their way and they are forever looking for ways around it. Their henchmen on the Supreme Court find all sorts of things in the constitution that aren’t there. They claim it is a “living document” which it isn’t. The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the constitution, was intended to restrain the federal government’s power. Unrestrained government is, for all intents and purposes, the creed of the political Left. Many on the Right fear that in the event of a future national emergency a leftists/socialist government might find it “necessary” to suspend the constitution and, possibly, national elections. There goes democracy. 

 

I voted earlier this week. I voted for a true conservative for President. If this is to be the last election I take part in I wanted to mark my ballot in support of the idea of a democratic representative republic, the kind of government our forefathers gave us. As I stood there, with the ballot in my hands, I had a choice between Karl Marx’s brand of government or that of Washington Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and the all the rest of those men who put everything they had, including their very lives, on the line to create this government. I knew I could not sleep at night if I did not support the America for which so many Americans have laid down their lives since 1776.

 

Crunch time is coming. The Media is telling us that the sale of firearms is at an historical high in this country. I warned of this a few weeks ago. This election will decide if we stay free a few more years, or if we begin the descent into anarchy. I’m afraid it is too much to hope for “UNITED” any longer.

 

J. D. Longstreet

Redistribution of the Wealth

Redistribution of the Wealth
By J. D. Longstreet
**********************************

Question: Who said the following, Karl Marx or Barack Obama? “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” The answer is… BOTH. Well, Marx DID say it a little differently. Marx said it this way: “ From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Shocking? No, at least not to those of us who have been paying attention to the Obama Campaign. What was shocking, well, maybe not SHOCKING, but “TELLING” was the fact that so many people WERE shocked by Mr. Obama’s utterance to a plumber named “Joe” a few days ago.

In the words of Karl Marx (above), ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.’ That, dear reader, is straight out of the Communist Manifesto. Haven’t read the Communist Manifesto? You should. It will be a fantastic eye-opener if you are still undecided about whom you will vote for. You’ll find it at:

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html

Here are just a few things the Communist Manifesto states:

“…..But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to communism.
We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.”….
(From the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1848

For another view of the type socialism Mr. Obama is preaching let us turn to one Mr. Winston Churchill. He said this: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
There is an excellent article at The Chistian Science Monitor on this very subject. You’ll find it at:

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/10/14/obamas-tax-plan-and-the-redistribution-of-wealth/

Then, again in 1945 Winston Churchill said this about “socialism” in a broadcast he made during the election campaign broadcast he made just before the General Election that year. Mr. Churchill said this: “…. . . a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state. It will prescribe for every one where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance. “

In the book “The Downing Street Years” the conservative Brit, Magaret Thatcher, Former Prime Minister, believed that there was no fairer trial for socialism than in Britain in the mid-20th century, and it has been conclusively proved to be a failure.

Now… considering all this, we, here in America, are seriously considering switching from freedom and capitalism to slavery and socialism??? Even the thought, itself is troubling. The choice between the two candidates for President is so clear that it cannot be confused. And yet, we have Americans who claim to be “undecided”. How can that be? The choice is clear: freedom or slavery.

The moment for indecision has long since passed. It is time now to make a commitment to see that America is preserved as the home of the free. There are no second chances or “do overs”. This election is for “keeps’. We have to get it right the first time.

J. D. Longstreet

The Beauty of the Scriptures is Lost. By J. D. Longstreet

The Beauty of the Scriptures is Lost!   …   By: J. D. Longstreet

***************
My favorite translation of the Bible is the Revised Standard… and second, the American Standard..

As a youth, in grammar school, I read the bible from cover to cover. The King James edition, I might add. I was enthralled with the beauty of the near poetical rhythm of the scripture as it flowed.

I was brought up in a church, which stressed knowledge of the scriptures. And so… I learned them. That scripture has served me well over some 65 years of life and I’m sure it will serve me until my death.

Now, having said all that, I have to tell you the new translations leave me cold. There is no beauty, there is no poetry, there is no rhythm, and there certainly is nothing to draw a reader to the pages. (Now there is the new GREEN BIBLE.)

For thirty years I made my living with the spoken, and written, word. I know a little something about words and stringing them together to create a visual image in minds of the listener or reader.

As my wife prepared the bulletins to be used in her church services, for the various Christmas services, she asked me to proof read them. I did. But as I read the scripture, which was from one of the new translations, I found myself left cold. There was no passion there… there was no life to the words on that page. I found myself interjecting words and phrases from the old King James Version of the Christmas Story. I simply could not help myself. My brain shifted gears, and before I was conscious of it, I was spouting that beautiful passage of scripture, which was burned indelibly into my consciousness as a child. There it was! The Christmas story I knew. The Christmas Story with the warmth,. The passion, the beauty, the inspiration, and yes, even something which resembles a soul.

Today, we read the modern day accounts of the events which transpired on Jesus’ birthday over 2000 and six years ago and they are, well, like reading a 6th grade student’s book report. DULL. Lifeless. Boring!

Now, I don’t recommend the King James Version of the Bible for accuracy. I DO, however, recommend it to you for a classic work of art. The Revised Standard and the American Standard are probably the most accurate translations to be found today. The Revised Standard, which I believe is now out of print, maintained some of the beauty of the old King James Version and added the accuracy.

It seems to me that the churches, which use the new translations of the scriture for their services, should consider using the King James Version for the two High Holy Days of the Christian Calendar, Easter and Christmas.

I taught myself to read as a child reading first the newspaper, and then Popular Mechanics, and then Popular Science, and then I discovered the Bible. I was hooked on reading from then on. Even then, I could see the difference between the language of the newspapers and magazines of the day as compared to the language of the old King James Version of the Bible.

I must tell you what I believe has happened. I believe the publishers of bibles have “dumbed the bible down” to around, roughly, the comprehension level of a 5th or 6th grader. In so doing, in my opinion, they have done great damage to the Christian faith, and to the literacy of the Christian community.

Now, this is all my personal opinion, mind you. If you find understanding in the modern translations of the Bible, then good for you. But, for me, reading the back of a cereal box has about as much meaning.

J. D. Longstreet