Fundamentally Un-American

On PBS's "Inside Washington," host Mark Shields, pontificating about raising the debt ceiling, pointed out that because of "two wars" we are spending 25 percent, but only taking in 14 and a half percent in revenues. "That's unsustainable and it's unacceptable and it's fundamentally un-American."

True, spending ten and a half percent more than you're bringing in every year is unsustainable and unacceptable, but raising taxes to cover for the greed of self-absorbed politicians who can't control their spending urges is hardly American. It's ignorant stupidity.

Mark Shields needs to go back to school. No, I take that back. It's the public schools that liberals are always crying need more money that are dumbing down America. Politically correct liberal education policies are failing to teach America's children real history, and instead are rewriting it to fit a socialist agenda. Public education is not teaching, but keeping the truth from America's children.

At the end of the Seven Year's War (French and Indian War) in 1763, the British government was deep in debt. Parliament passed a series of measures to tax the colonies and make them pay for their share of the war debt. It began with the Quartering Act in 1765, which allowed the British Army to billet soldiers in private homes without the consent of the home owners.

The Stamp Act followed in the same year, requiring all paper used in the colonies to come from London based companies with a government stamp indicating a tax had been paid to the Crown. Protests in the colonies led to the Declaratory Act of 1766 in which Parliament claimed it had the right "in all cases whatsoever" to pass legislation for the colonies, even though the colonies had no one to represent them in Parliament.

This was followed a year later by the Townshend Acts, five laws taxing the colonies for the salaries of Crown appointed governors and judges whose allegiances were to the King. These were intended to punish the colonies for failing to comply with the Quartering Act and previous taxes, and to force the colonies to submit to trade regulations. Resistance to the Townshend Acts led to the occupation of Boston by British troops in 1768. Tensions grew until in 1770, a confrontation in the streets resulted in the Boston Massacre.

Protests were so great that eventually most of the taxes were rescinded, but the Quartering Act remained, and Boston remained under occupation. Then on May 10, 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act to strengthen the British East India Company's monopoly on the tea trade, which further restricted international trade in the colonies, driving up the price of goods and burdening the colonial economy.

In response, an underground colonial patriot organization led by Samuel Adams held a party. In December 1773, the Sons of Liberty, dressed as Indians, boarded British ships in Boston Harbor and tossed their entire cargoes of tea into Massachusetts Bay, an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party.

Parliament countered with a series of laws, which became known as the Intolerable Acts, to try and force colonial submission to Crown authority. The effect was just the opposite as colonists were outraged and even more defiant than before. To coordinate their protests the First Continental Congress was organized in 1774.

Step by step events led slowly toward the Revolution, but underlying all the protests was one consistent theme. In 1765, James Otis declared "taxation without representation is tyranny," but the phrase that became a slogan for the Sons of Liberty and a battle cry of the Revolution was first used in a sermon preached by Rev. Jonathan Mayhew in Boston in 1750; No taxation without representation.

Mark Shields might well argue that we have a representative government, and on paper that is true. We have the Constitution, yet the current issue of Time magazine showing a picture of a shredded Constitution and asking whether it is still relevant, shows how far our government has drifted from representing "we the people." With a majority of Americans opposed to raising the debt limit, opposed to deficit spending, opposed to higher taxes, and in favor of a balanced budget amendment, a government that insists on ramming all of these down our throats and refuses to balance the budget is not representing its citizenry.

Higher taxes without the consent of the governed is fundamentally un-American, and so indeed are Mark Shields and all his leftist, elitist, socialist friends. They need to read some real history (let me suggest books by David McCullough and Richard Brookhiser) and find out what America is really all about.

Common Sense

By the end of 1775 the American colonies were in a tentative war with the mother country, Great Britain. It had begun with protests against unfair, debilitating taxes levied against the colonists to pay for the king's European wars, but grew as British troops, ostensibly occupying the colonies to provide security for the colonists, took over their homes and attempted to confiscate their weapons, denying them the means of personal safety. In April "embattled farmers," the Minutemen, took up arms and faced off with the most powerful army in the world at Lexington and Concord.

Colonial militiamen came from all over New England and fortified Breed's Hill in Charles Town, across the channel from Boston. As they gathered, the Continental Congress realized they needed an organizational structure and on June 14, established the Continental Army. The next day George Washington was appointed Commander-in-Chief, but before he could take command, the British attacked on June 17, and at great cost drove the colonists back in what became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The British garrison was too decimated to carry the fight back into the interior, but the growing colonial army was untrained and poorly equipped, and the situation turned into a stalemate. A siege developed around Boston. While the Crown dallied, hiring Hessian mercenaries to fight the war for them, the colonists hadn't decided yet whether or not this was a struggle just for rights or for the whole pie, independence.

Into the mix came a disgruntled English philosopher by the name of Thomas Paine. He was also fed up with the tyranny of George III. Fearing, however, that he could be accused of treason, he published anonymously on January 10, 1776, a pamphlet encouraging the colonists to move for independence.

Common Sense became one of the most influential documents of the revolutionary period. The result was rational people thinking sensibly and counting the cost, pledging their lives, fortunes, and "sacred honor" to fight for independence. It was simply common sense.

One has to wonder what has happened to common sense in America today. Where is the sacred honor? The lunacy of an out-of-control government spending itself into oblivion is a far cry from the Patriots who sacrificed to build this nation. Liberal political elitists and arrogant, left-wing media view themselves as the intelligentsia and all the rest of us as stupid. But who is really suffering from a shortage of gray matter?

For example:

If Sarah Palin is so irrelevant, why does the MSM spend so much time trying to destroy her? Their failure has made her exceptionally relevant.

If lying to the public, lying to the press, and lying to Congress about sexting is enough to make Congressman Anthony Weiner resign, why was lying to the public, lying to the press, and lying to Congress about a sexual affair in the White House not enough to require President Clinton to resign?

Or, since it was just sex and character didn't matter then, why does it matter now?

If God doesn't exist, why does the ACLU and other atheist organizations waste so much time trying to prove the non-existence of nothing?

Since liberals generally support the ACLU and their godless philosophy, why do they ever end their speeches saying, "God bless America?"

Since socialism has never worked anywhere in the world where it has been tried, why does the left keep trying to force it on us?

Since Keynesian economics (high taxes and deficit spending) always leads to recession, and Reagonomics always leads to recovery, why do leftists keep insisting Keynesian economics is the way to prosperity?

If we are sitting on the highest oil reserves in the entire world, why are we still depending on OPEC and its intentionally inflated prices designed to ruin our economy, when we have the ability to become totally energy independent?

Since energy independence is the sole purpose of the Department of Energy's existence, and since we are more dependent on foreign oil now than when it was created, why do we still have a Department of Energy?

Since it takes more gasoline to produce ethanol than the amount of ethanol actually produced, why are we wasting billions subsidizing a program that wastes oil and corn as well, and drives the price of gasoline higher?

Two years after the 800 billion dollar stimulus package to rescue the economy was passed we have a net loss of 3 million jobs and an unemployment rate of 9.1%, so why would anybody in his right mind want to pass another stimulus bill?

By 2003 the Great Society had spent 7 trillion dollars fighting poverty. At the same the national debt reached 7 trillion dollars. Does anybody see a connection here?

If homosexuality is a genetic disorder (unproven by science), why do many homosexuals become heterosexual, or why are there bi-sexuals?

Why is it hate speech if you are pro-life, but not if you send death threats to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker?

The Nazis practiced infanticide, genocide, and euthanasia, and used mob rule to bully their way into power, yet the left continually compares the pro-life movement and conservatives with Nazis. If it is the left that is unapologetically pro-abortion and pro-genocide (Terry Schiavo) and resorts to mob rule whenever the cry-babies don't get there way (Wisconsin), who are the real Nazis here?

Every time there is a contested election, stuffed ballot boxes, dead voters, hanging chads and missing ballots found in car trunks, all turn out to be Democrat votes. Can we see a pattern here? Who really tries to steal elections?

If Islam is a religion of peace, why are 99% of the terrorists in the world Muslim?

If 99% of the world's suicide bombers are Muslim men between the ages of 18 and 35, why does Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano see no need to profile them?

Since the Arizona border with Mexico has become a war zone and Americans are dying, why did the media not challenge Obama when he said the border was secured?

What part of "illegal alien" do liberals not understand?

Why should 12 million illegal criminal aliens be given amnesty when my non-criminal sister-in-law had to wait twelve years to immigrate legally to the States?

Does changing the term to "undocumented immigrants" make illegal aliens any less illegal?

Does changing the term "global warming" to "climate change" make this phony scientific scam any less phony?

Since raising corporate taxes kills job growth, and raising personal income taxes kills retail sales and slows down economic growth, why do politicians still say the answer is to raise taxes?

Why is it that tolerance is only required of those with Christian values, but the ungodly are not required to be tolerant of Christian beliefs?

Why is the misinterpreted non-constitutional phrase "separation of church and state" used to throw Christianity under the bus, but never applied to any other religion from Islam to Wicca?

This is only a sampling of the lunacy that comes at us from left wing intellectuals and their media lap dogs every day. They've got their PhD.'s, and their ungodly, socialist philosophies from their Ivy League schools. They've got their utopian ideas for a perfect world. They arrogantly view themselves as the saviors of mankind while they drive America to the brink of destruction.

In all of the liberal ego bloated brain cells with all of their assumed intellectual superiority there's not an ounce of common sense.

Mt. Pinatubo

Twenty years ago today at 9:15 a.m., I was walking across the VC-5 ramp at Cubi Point in the Philippines to my assigned aircraft. I was about to lead a flight of A-4's to Okinawa. My head was down when one of my wingmen came over pointing to the north and saying, "Look!" A massive plume of light gray ash against a pale blue sky was rising quickly into the air through about 10,000 feet. The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo had begun.

By the time I got my gear into my plane, did a quick pre-flight and lit the engine on fire, the light gray cloud was turning darker, shooting up through 20,000 feet at least and falling on the northern shores of Subic Bay. When we reached the hold short, it was so dark across the bay it looked like the blackest of night and it was coming our way. And we had to hold five minutes to wait for the wake turbulence of a DC-10 that had just taken off ahead of us to settle down.

Two months before in early March, I had launched with John "Horse" Cochrane for a Cope Thunder event. Cope Thunder was an Air Force exercise out of Clark Air Base that took place eight times a year. We flew 150 miles west to Scarborough Shoals, found a KC-10 tanker, and topped off our fuel.

We were the bombing package for an attack on the Crow Valley bomb range on the northwest side of Clark. At the commencement of the exercise, we dived down to around 100 feet and flew in across the South China Sea with an F-16 escort overhead. We skirted over the mountains on the peninsula on the west side of Subic Bay, and then headed north to cross a ridge of mountains and drop down onto the target.

As we ingressed we came into what at first we thought was a fog, which was unusual for that late in the morning, but we had to climb to 3,000 feet to maintain visibility. Then the ground under us began to look almost like it was covered with snow. Finally getting across the ridge we saw five plumes of smoke rising from the northern side of the peaks and realized what we were seeing was ash. We were the first to see the initial eruption from the air.

On June 12, we got our flight airborne and another after us just before the airfield was closed. I diverted my flight from the normal departure and turned south to circle around the ash cloud. We turned north and passed about ten miles to the east of Clark. As we climbed through 27,000 feet, I snapped a picture of the eruption. The top of the cloud was around 45,000 feet and as it grew and expanded it took on the appearance of an atomic explosion.

The Air Force had evacuated all Clark personnel to the Subic Bay Naval Station because Clark was only ten miles from the summit of the mountain. Subic was 20 miles to the south-southwest. Interestingly enough, on that morning Clark was in the sunshine while westerly winds blew the smoke and ash toward Subic Bay and the South China Sea.

The next two days saw smaller eruptions, but ash fallout was landing on Clark and Angeles City as well. Then early in the morning on June 15, the big one came. Mt. Pinatubo blew ash, dust, dirt, and stones over 90,000 feet in the air. Over one hundred earthquakes shook the ground during the day and the power went out.

Then as if the eruption wasn't enough, a typhoon rolled right over northern Luzon adding rain and wind to the mix. Great red streaks of lightning slashed horizontally across the blackened sky. Clark and Subic Bay were in total darkness for 36 hours. The ash fell with a consistency of cement collapsing thousands of buildings in Angeles, Olongapo, and other surrounding towns and villages and on the military bases. Hundreds of people were killed.

My future wife's home was 18 miles directly south of the volcano. She had been sleeping soundly when around 10 a.m. her mother woke her up. Leah sleepily wondered what was the problem in the middle of the night and was shocked to know it was the middle of the morning. And then they felt the earthquakes. On a battery powered radio they heard an announcement warning people to clean the ash off their roofs.

Their house was on a slope, and by taking a 2x12 board, they were able to place it on the high side and climb up to the roof to sweep the sand and ash off. Fortunately they did because one of the rafters in the house had already cracked.

In Manila, 60 miles away, a friend of ours, Brenda Garren, went to sleep with her window open to enjoy the cool evening breeze. When she woke in the morning her bedroom was under a two inch layer of dust.

Two hundred miles to the south in northern Palawan, missionaries Harry and Ann Rogers woke to a motor tricycle driving up the lane to their hospital. Their worker came to warn them, "It's raining milk!" The ash mixed with the rain was coming down in a milky white color.

Anticipating the fresh water supply at the naval base would be contaminated, the Navy directed a destroyer (the name of which I don't remember and I don't have my resources to look it up at the moment) to head for Subic Bay. It arrived in the middle of the eruption. The captain ordered all air vents sealed with duct tape and the ship steamed into the darkness and found its way into the bay using sonar. And fortunate it was the ship was there. It's water desalinization plant was the only source of water on the base for weeks.

Clark Air Base was a loss and the Air Force walked away no questions asked. Subic Bay, however, had something the Air Force didn't have: Seabees. The Seabees said, "We can fix this," and they went about fixing it. They cleared the mud off the roads and the airfield, repaired the water treatment plants, and in two weeks Cubi Point was open for limited operations.

The devastation was indescribable. There was an area around Mt. Pinatubo on the west and north sides that was a series of deep jungle covered ravines. Nobody lived in there and we used to call it "Prehistoric Valley" because it was so primitive it looked like a place you would find dinosaurs. The eruption filled those valleys, some of them several hundred feet deep, including the Crow Valley bombing range. The forestation was gone and flying over it, it looked like what you'd expect to see on the moon.

The rainy season usually starts in June, but the rains were late coming that year. When they finally did, they started washing all the dirt out of those valleys. Just as some people thought they were going to move back into their homes and rebuild, lahar (volcanic mud flows) swept down the valleys and carried away or buried entire towns.

Leah and I had been trying to make wedding plans, but there was a ton of red tape to go through. Mt. Pinatubo literally made it tons worse. We had to get certain documents from the Local Civil Registrars Office, but the building was destroyed and the records were lost. When the eruption was over, we had to start all over.

When we finally got married, we had planned our honeymoon in Hong Kong. But to get to Manila we had to take a Victory Liner bus, and rains had left the entire country side north of Manila under two feet of water, and the highway under several feet of mud. What was normally a two and a half hour trip took us seven hours.

A year later, almost to the day, I flew my last flight in an A-4. It was a freebie. I went out sight seeing all of my favorite places in northern Luzon, including flying down a flat river bed at 350 knots to see how bold I was and how low I could get. I had set my radar altimeter at 25 feet and it was flashing at me before I climbed out. I finished the flight going where no man had gone before.

The rains had left a lake inside the Pinatubo crater, but steam continued to rise from several vents and a strong sulfuric smell pervaded the air. On the northwest side of the crater was a wide, deep crevasse. The water from the lake flowed down through the crevasse and out into Iba Valley. I got down into the valley at 100 feet and flew up the crevasse into the crater at about 450 knots. Turbulence was so bad as I flew through the crevasse that I had to climb slightly, but then as I reached the center of the lake I pulled my nose straight up and flew out of the crater.

A few days ago, almost 20 years exactly, I went back to Mt. Pinatubo. My son, Jonathan, and I, and some friends went up to Crow Valley and took a jeep across the valley and up the ravine as far as we could go. Over the years the rains have basically washed away all the mud that had filled the bomb range, and although the target areas aren't there anymore, I recognized the spot where the old simulated airstrip, buildings, and fake planes sat waiting for the bombs to drop, and the circular target at the head of the valley.

The Philippine Air Force is still using the area where the circular target was for a weapon's range, and on our way out we had to wait 45 minutes for two OV-10's to strafe, lay smoke and shoot rockets.

As we got out of the target area and into the ravine we had to drive up the river, around boulders, across the leftover mud, and through the water. We went several miles until we reached the extent that the vehicles could go, and then we continued on foot. We still had three or so miles to traverse across very rocky, sandy, and muddy ground, and shallow water runoff so wide there was no way to avoid getting our feet wet.

The walls of the ravine were in places 200 feet high or more, and looked to be plastered with mud and volcanic ash. In places great heaps of mud had fallen to the bottom, and no doubt with every rain more of it continues to fall and wash away. We finally reached a rest area at the top of the canyon. Our guide told us that when they originally built the three pagoda like pavilions, they had been able to drive all the way up the canyon to that spot. So much mud has washed away that now they can't even get close.

We hiked on another 15 minutes until we crossed the ridge, and before us was a magnificent valley with a deep, lime green lake. At the top a little resort like area had been built with a refreshment stand, and a long, steep, stone staircase went down 169 steps to the shores of the crater lake. The water was cool and we were hot and soaked from the humidity. We had not come prepared to swim, but when we got there the temptation was too great, so stripping down to our skivvies, we jumped in.

We were in a bay on the east side of the crater. The crevasse I flew in through was around a point to the west and we couldn't see the valley from where we were. The water, although it looked beautifully clear from above, was so murky you couldn't see five feet in it. Our friend, Pastor Jihan Senina, and I swam the quarter mile or so across the bay to sheer cliffs on the other side and then back.

I couldn't help but think how beautiful, relaxing, and restful, was this place that had caused so much trouble and devastation so many years ago. And I was reminded that God will make all things beautiful in His time (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Remembering James Arness

In the 1950's the growing new medium of television invaded American homes and one of the most popular TV genres was the western. The first western to appear was the Hopalong Cassidy show in 1949. Many of the early programs such as The Roy Rogers Show, Gene Autry, and The Lone Ranger were oriented more toward child audiences. Plots were usually pretty simple 30-minute "shoot-em-ups" with the good guys in white hats and the bad guys in black hats.

As television grew programs became more sophisticated and westerns began to target adult audiences. By 1959 there were 26 westerns on prime time TV, and eight of the top ten rated shows were westerns.

The first hour long western, Cheyenne, premiered in September of 1956, and starred a six foot six inch hunk who could have won a Mr. America contest, Clint Walker. About a post-Civil War frontier scout wandering across the West, the program was initially popular and ran for eight seasons, but the hour long format was new and presented unique difficulties, and fewer episodes were produced. Although the lead character, Cheyenne, was a good guy, he was a drifter with no home roots, and the show eventually became monotonous and lost its appeal.

The same month Cheyenne hit the airways, another western about Marshal Matt Dillon of Dodge City, also premiered. Gunsmoke starred another tall (6 foot 7 inch), although not quite as big, actor by the name of James Arness. With a cast of steady characters, home roots, and first rate script writers, the show was a hit, finishing first in the TV ratings five years running from 1957-61.

James Arness had been wounded in the right leg in the invasion at Anzio in World War 2. In his autobiography he wrote that his favorite hymn was "Holy, Holy, Holy," and that as he lay in a field severely wounded and unable to move, that hymn went through his mind over and over through the night until he was rescued.

He spent a year in the hospital recovering and after the war got into radio broadcasting, which then led to the movies. In 1951 he met John Wayne and starred in four movies with him for Batjac, Wayne's production company, including the anti-communist film, Big Jim McClain. He and Wayne developed a great friendship, shared the same conservative values, and it was John Wayne that recommended Arness for the roll of Matt Dillon.

Gunsmoke became the longest running drama in television history, lasting for 20 years. Following Gunsmoke, Arness made several TV movies and the miniseries, How the West Was Won, one of the best things ever done on television.

During the filming of How the West Was Won, a horse riding club, the Westernaires, from Jefferson County in Colorado was used for the US cavalry in three episodes. My brother, Randall, was a member of the Westernaires and spent several days around Canon City, Colorado where they were filming. (We saw him on screen twice!)

Randall, who has spent his life in the entertainment business, was particularly interested in how the actors worked and performed. He watched Arness closely whenever he had a chance, and one day had the privilege of a long chat and having his picture taken with another great actor, Ricardo Montalban. When he had a chance to meet James Arness, Arness was very kind and personable without the least bit of Hollywood pride or arrogance.

In more recent years Arness started a website (www.jamesarness.com) in which he posted a monthly update on his activities and answered questions from his fans, mostly about Gunsmoke and his relationships with the cast. He was very generous in his remembrances about his co-stars and the entire Gunsmoke experience, and he always made a plug for the United Cerebral Palsy foundation with which he had been actively involved for years.

About four years ago he announced that he would no longer be making public appearances and I noticed in the last year or more that his updates were becoming fewer and I began to wonder about his health. Sadly today we learned of his passing away.

When I was about six years old, Friday nights at our house consisted of dinner, then moving to the living room to watch Paladin, followed by Gunsmoke. Paladin, as most of the rest of the westerns, faded into obscurity, but Gunsmoke continued on year after year. Matt Dillon bringing justice to the wild west, and promoting pro-family morality and good neighborly values was part of my upbringing.

James Arness, a real American hero, will be missed.