This last week in his State of the Union Address, Obama, trying to claim the mantle of JFK, and sound Reaganesque all at the same time, referred to the crisis of our time as "a Sputnik moment." In the process he spoke a lot about "investment" (code word for more out of control deficit spending), and not only did he not sound like Ronald Reagan, he failed to make the connection between himself and John F. Kennedy.
In the dark days of the Cold War the Soviet Union launched the first man made satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit in 1957, and on April 12, 1961, they again beat the United States to the punch putting the first man in space. In response Kennedy challenged America to be the first to put a man on the moon. It was a rousing speech that ignited not only patriotic fervor, but American ingenuity to develop such a program and successfully carry it out.
Obama, trying to invoke the memory of Kennedy to restart his failing presidency, could hardly have chosen a more inappropriate comparison. In his two very long years as president he has gutted NASA's budget and made its top priority to improve relations with Muslims by making them feel good about their non-contributions to science.
Politics aside, NASA and the entire space program is one of the greatest examples of why America is the greatest nation on earth. Forty-two years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the moon's surface, while several other nations including China have slowly found their way into space flight, no one else has ever even considered going to the moon.
This passed week is an important week in the memory of America's space program. It was on January 27, 1967, that we had our first tragedy with the Apollo 1 fire. Apollo was the program designed to go to the moon and was using the first three-manned space capsule. Astronauts Gus Grissom, America's most experienced space flyer, Ed White, the first American to "walk" in space, and Roger Chaffee, on his first space mission, climbed into the capsule for a rehearsal countdown. Somewhere in the 100% oxygen atmosphere of the capsule a spark ignited and a shout came over the radio from Ed White, "Fire." In less than 30 seconds the conflagration turned the capsule into a charred wreck and three American heroes were lost.
January 28, 1986 was another tragic day in NASA history when the Challenger space shuttle blew up 73 seconds after takeoff. President Reagan was scheduled to give his State of the Union address that evening, but postponed it in order to speak to the American people and comfort the nation in the deaths of seven astronauts "who had slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."
The space program would suffer another setback when the Columbia shuttle disintegrated over Texas upon re-entry on February 1, 2003. NASA, and America, would overcome all three disasters to prove to the world that there is nothing that can stop the adventurous, pioneering spirit of a free people.
This was never more clearly illustrated than when an oxygen tank blew the side off of Apollo 13 on its way to the moon. On April 13, 1970, the radio crackled at the Johnson Space Center and Commander James Lovell reported, "Houston, we've had a problem." The problem became how to slingshot the space capsule around the moon and send it back to earth using only the Lunar Module engine. The Command Module was essentially one giant computer, but what is so amazing about it is that the technology, only 41 years ago, was so archaic, that today you have more memory in a laptop computer than they had in their space capsule. They had to figure out their trajectory by hand using slide rules. And they did it.
It is my opinion that to date in the history of the world, landing on the moon is the crowning achievement of mankind. When Neil Armstrong took "one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind," he simply surpassed every other achievement ever made by man in any other condition or situation in all recorded time. It is not insignificant that it was America that did this. A free people in a nation built on Christian principles, honoring God with their lives and their history, accomplished what no one else has done, nor is likely to do for a long time to come.
When the Soviets put their first cosmonaut into space, Yuri Gagarin returned to earth and very sarcastically said, "I didn't see God up there." What a contrast to Apollo 8, the first spacecraft to ever leave earth's orbit and completely lose contact with the earth as it went behind the moon. Before signing off on Christmas Eve 1968, astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders sent a message to the world that God is up there. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," they read and continued through the first nine verses of Genesis 1.
The godless Soviet Union is no more, while God-fearing America continues to thrive. Tragically, our future as a free nation is today in danger. The Marxists of the Obama regime, aided by the leftist socialists of the Democrat Party, are endeavoring to enslave our free society with massive bureaucracy and unsustainable national debts, which are destroying our economy, and will change forever our country as we know it.
The answer to this Sputnik Moment is not more "investment" in America's future bankruptcy; it is overturning the Obama agenda that seeks to "change" America by ignoring the Constitution and spending us into oblivion. The answer is a return to Constitutional government, fiscal responsibility, and the God of our Founding Fathers.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
The Constitution
We were on the coast in Malindi at Turtle Bay last week; no TV's, no internet, completely disconnected from the rest of the world for a relaxing six days. Consequently we missed the opening of Congress and the reading of the Constitution, and we didn't hear about the Tucson, Arizona shooting until Monday.
Sadly, the mainstream media's reaction to the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six others was not only typical, but predictable. While they immediately warned the country not to rush to judgment when Nidal Hassan murdered 13 soldiers while shouting, "allah akbar," this time they rushed to judgment blaming the Tea Party movement, talk radio hosts, Sarah Palin, and guns. One deranged Congressman from South Carolina even suggested that the reading of the Constitution at the Capitol caused the atmosphere for the shooting to take place.
For four days the media shamelessly spewed their vitriol until the President made his speech about not using this for political expediency. Nice, except it was about four days too late. And it hasn't apparently helped. We just watched Jonathan Mann's weekend review on CNN Overseas. His expert analyst reported it was a bad week for news journalists because of all the false accusations that went flying over the airwaves. While making the analysis pictures of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter were splashed on the screen. Let me see, those weren't the journalists spreading the lies and hate, they were the ones being slandered by people who were spreading the lies and hate. Shameless isn't even a strong enough word for the MSM.
Now it turns out the shooter is an extremely liberal registered Independent, looney-tune pothead, who was in favor of illegal alien amnesty. A far more rational rush to judgment would have been to say that he shot Giffords, who is a conservative Democrat in favor of closing the border and against amnesty, because he was influenced by liberal alien amnesty supporters. But the MSM hasn't given us that side of the story.
"The pen is mightier than the sword," but the pen can be used to tear down or to build up. In this case it is the pen of hate filled left-wing socialist slugs who don't give a rip about America. They don't care about the Constitution either, which is why the left wing agenda so often rejects the very basic tenets of our founding document.
The Constitution was written "in Order to form a more perfect Union." In other words, the Constitution was designed to unite, not divide. Anybody who will take an objective look at America today (which leaves out the MSM) will see that the vitriol, the hate speech, the perpetuation of racial divisions, and the perversion of the Constitution comes not from conservatives, but from the far left. Liberals are usually guilty of the very things they accuse conservatives of, and they are the ones doing the dividing, not the other way around.
One purpose of our more perfect Union is to "establish Justice." Justice is not served, however, when the Constitution becomes a living document that constantly changes to fit self-serving liberal interpretations of it. Neither is justice served when our national boundaries are left unprotected and foreign drug cartels run freely across American soil murdering Americans eighty miles inland from the border, and US Border Patrol agents are sent to jail for trying to stop them.
Another purpose is to "insure domestic Tranquility." That means to keep the peace, which is to be kept by the rule of law, which is the Constitution. Unfortunately, the current administration has thumbed its nose at the Constitution, showing its absolute disregard for America's traditions and the rule of law.
The Union is to provide for the "common defense" which includes closing and protecting our borders from all enemies, which illegal alien drug running cartels from Mexico are.
Finally, the Union is to "promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." A socialist state will not promote the blessings of liberty. It will restrict them until it enslaves the people, and a 14 trillion dollar untamed debt will deny those blessings to our children for generations to come.
The answer for America is to go back to our beginnings, re-establish our Constitution, and govern by the principles and character of our Christian Founding Fathers. We could no more govern America effectively without the Constitution than a Christian Church could carry out its business without a Bible. Enough of the progressive movement trying to rewrite our history and our beliefs. We have the greatest governing document ever written in the history of man. Reading it in Congress was a good idea. Now, We the People need to demand the government not only defend the Constitution of the United States, but govern strictly by the Constitution of the United States.
Sadly, the mainstream media's reaction to the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six others was not only typical, but predictable. While they immediately warned the country not to rush to judgment when Nidal Hassan murdered 13 soldiers while shouting, "allah akbar," this time they rushed to judgment blaming the Tea Party movement, talk radio hosts, Sarah Palin, and guns. One deranged Congressman from South Carolina even suggested that the reading of the Constitution at the Capitol caused the atmosphere for the shooting to take place.
For four days the media shamelessly spewed their vitriol until the President made his speech about not using this for political expediency. Nice, except it was about four days too late. And it hasn't apparently helped. We just watched Jonathan Mann's weekend review on CNN Overseas. His expert analyst reported it was a bad week for news journalists because of all the false accusations that went flying over the airwaves. While making the analysis pictures of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter were splashed on the screen. Let me see, those weren't the journalists spreading the lies and hate, they were the ones being slandered by people who were spreading the lies and hate. Shameless isn't even a strong enough word for the MSM.
Now it turns out the shooter is an extremely liberal registered Independent, looney-tune pothead, who was in favor of illegal alien amnesty. A far more rational rush to judgment would have been to say that he shot Giffords, who is a conservative Democrat in favor of closing the border and against amnesty, because he was influenced by liberal alien amnesty supporters. But the MSM hasn't given us that side of the story.
"The pen is mightier than the sword," but the pen can be used to tear down or to build up. In this case it is the pen of hate filled left-wing socialist slugs who don't give a rip about America. They don't care about the Constitution either, which is why the left wing agenda so often rejects the very basic tenets of our founding document.
The Constitution was written "in Order to form a more perfect Union." In other words, the Constitution was designed to unite, not divide. Anybody who will take an objective look at America today (which leaves out the MSM) will see that the vitriol, the hate speech, the perpetuation of racial divisions, and the perversion of the Constitution comes not from conservatives, but from the far left. Liberals are usually guilty of the very things they accuse conservatives of, and they are the ones doing the dividing, not the other way around.
One purpose of our more perfect Union is to "establish Justice." Justice is not served, however, when the Constitution becomes a living document that constantly changes to fit self-serving liberal interpretations of it. Neither is justice served when our national boundaries are left unprotected and foreign drug cartels run freely across American soil murdering Americans eighty miles inland from the border, and US Border Patrol agents are sent to jail for trying to stop them.
Another purpose is to "insure domestic Tranquility." That means to keep the peace, which is to be kept by the rule of law, which is the Constitution. Unfortunately, the current administration has thumbed its nose at the Constitution, showing its absolute disregard for America's traditions and the rule of law.
The Union is to provide for the "common defense" which includes closing and protecting our borders from all enemies, which illegal alien drug running cartels from Mexico are.
Finally, the Union is to "promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." A socialist state will not promote the blessings of liberty. It will restrict them until it enslaves the people, and a 14 trillion dollar untamed debt will deny those blessings to our children for generations to come.
The answer for America is to go back to our beginnings, re-establish our Constitution, and govern by the principles and character of our Christian Founding Fathers. We could no more govern America effectively without the Constitution than a Christian Church could carry out its business without a Bible. Enough of the progressive movement trying to rewrite our history and our beliefs. We have the greatest governing document ever written in the history of man. Reading it in Congress was a good idea. Now, We the People need to demand the government not only defend the Constitution of the United States, but govern strictly by the Constitution of the United States.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Time
Fast away the old year passes, and it’s only 357 days until next Christmas. Where does the time go? Or better yet, what are we going to do with the time before it gets away? We’re at the beginning of a new year with all the promises of a new beginning before us. What are we going to do with it?
John Quincy Adams once wrote, “There is no people on earth so ambitious as the people of America. The reason is because the lowest can aspire as freely as the highest.”
That’s why the son of a dirt poor farmer in the wilderness of Kentucky and Indiana, who learned to read by firelight and never finished school, much less went to college, could rise to become president of the United States. In his book, The Inspirational Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, Philip Ostergard writes, “While others slept, Abe read all the books he could find; while others fiddled, he gained skill in mathematics; while others wasted time, he attended court in the County Court House, some fifteen miles distant from his home.”
Lincoln never let his poor, uneducated upbringing hold him back. He worked hard at everything and never wasted a moment. He grew strong and sinewy. No one could keep pace with him with an axe, but he was more than just a rail-splitter. Every experience for him was an opportunity to learn, and learn he did. Ostergard concluded that, “He embodied the best traits and spirit that characterize an American.”
Lincoln lived and fulfilled the American Dream. That dream of freedom to rise above your surroundings and the equal playing field to achieve a better life if you are willing to strive for it, as opposed to being stuck in a caste system, or an enslaving dictatorship, or an economy so poor there is no hope, is the desire of the world. For most of the world a desire is all it is, but Americans own the dream. That’s why everybody wants to come to America. It is a land of opportunity.
Unfortunately, there are sinister forces that want to take that opportunity away and replace it with a socialist “Nanny State,” that will make everybody equally poor and control every move everybody makes. They promise a big, benevolent government that will take care of you from the cradle to the grave. You don’t have to do anything. Sadly, and sickly, I might add, a large part of America’s non-thinking citizenry has bought into this nonsense. That’s why we have had the Obama/Reid/Pelosi reign of terror for the last two years.
Our hope now, however, is that when the new Congress is sworn in this week it will not forget the mandate it was given in the last election to overturn this socialist takeover of our country. Politicians being what politicians are, however, the new Republican majority in the House is just as likely to be stalled and buffaloed into business as usual, and go down the road of compromise to more mediocrity and a failure to follow through on the conservative principles that got them elected.
On January 27, 1838, in an address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln compared the United States with the Church, which “the gates of hell shall not prevail against.” America is invincible, he said, as long as it remains true to the principles it was founded upon.
In his first Fourth of July address as president in 1861, Lincoln seemed to question whether or not America was being true to its founding principles. “Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it, our people have already settled – the successful establishing, and the successful administering of it. One still remains – its successful maintenance against a formidable attempt to overthrow it. . . . ”
In his Gettysburg Address he posed the same question: “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
We may well ask ourselves that question today. Is America going to long endure, or are we going to succumb to the godless, socialist threat from the liberal left, and from a president who may not even be eligible for the office?
“Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,” and if the next year is going to be different than the last, we must not waste our time resting upon the laurels of the recent elections. We must use our time wisely to continue to be eternally vigilant.
John Quincy Adams once wrote, “There is no people on earth so ambitious as the people of America. The reason is because the lowest can aspire as freely as the highest.”
That’s why the son of a dirt poor farmer in the wilderness of Kentucky and Indiana, who learned to read by firelight and never finished school, much less went to college, could rise to become president of the United States. In his book, The Inspirational Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, Philip Ostergard writes, “While others slept, Abe read all the books he could find; while others fiddled, he gained skill in mathematics; while others wasted time, he attended court in the County Court House, some fifteen miles distant from his home.”
Lincoln never let his poor, uneducated upbringing hold him back. He worked hard at everything and never wasted a moment. He grew strong and sinewy. No one could keep pace with him with an axe, but he was more than just a rail-splitter. Every experience for him was an opportunity to learn, and learn he did. Ostergard concluded that, “He embodied the best traits and spirit that characterize an American.”
Lincoln lived and fulfilled the American Dream. That dream of freedom to rise above your surroundings and the equal playing field to achieve a better life if you are willing to strive for it, as opposed to being stuck in a caste system, or an enslaving dictatorship, or an economy so poor there is no hope, is the desire of the world. For most of the world a desire is all it is, but Americans own the dream. That’s why everybody wants to come to America. It is a land of opportunity.
Unfortunately, there are sinister forces that want to take that opportunity away and replace it with a socialist “Nanny State,” that will make everybody equally poor and control every move everybody makes. They promise a big, benevolent government that will take care of you from the cradle to the grave. You don’t have to do anything. Sadly, and sickly, I might add, a large part of America’s non-thinking citizenry has bought into this nonsense. That’s why we have had the Obama/Reid/Pelosi reign of terror for the last two years.
Our hope now, however, is that when the new Congress is sworn in this week it will not forget the mandate it was given in the last election to overturn this socialist takeover of our country. Politicians being what politicians are, however, the new Republican majority in the House is just as likely to be stalled and buffaloed into business as usual, and go down the road of compromise to more mediocrity and a failure to follow through on the conservative principles that got them elected.
On January 27, 1838, in an address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln compared the United States with the Church, which “the gates of hell shall not prevail against.” America is invincible, he said, as long as it remains true to the principles it was founded upon.
In his first Fourth of July address as president in 1861, Lincoln seemed to question whether or not America was being true to its founding principles. “Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it, our people have already settled – the successful establishing, and the successful administering of it. One still remains – its successful maintenance against a formidable attempt to overthrow it. . . . ”
In his Gettysburg Address he posed the same question: “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
We may well ask ourselves that question today. Is America going to long endure, or are we going to succumb to the godless, socialist threat from the liberal left, and from a president who may not even be eligible for the office?
“Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,” and if the next year is going to be different than the last, we must not waste our time resting upon the laurels of the recent elections. We must use our time wisely to continue to be eternally vigilant.
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