A few thoughts over Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day weekend. I have a lot of things to be thankful for. (So do you, for all that.) Many brave men and women have died--and many more have served our country through our Armed Forces--to secure our rights and liberties. This includes the right of free speech, which I will warn you, I am about to exercise rather vigorously.

Since this is blog is probably being read and monitored somewhere by some soulless, nameless bureaucrat because of my beliefs, then Uncle Sam, please mark my file as follows: "Right-wing, conservative male with occasional liberal leanings. In fact, I am white, male, conservative, Republican, straight, still married to my first wife--a woman I love and respect--and I am Christian above all. I work for a Bible School, and have serious Christian beliefs. I read my Bible and the daily news, just because I can. My beliefs shape my vote, not dictate it. I drive an import, because Detroit hasn’t made a decent car since the Dodge Gold Duster--and isn’t likely to anytime soon just because you asked them to. I voted for John McCain in the last election, and in fact have voted Republican in every election since 1984. I'm white, not "Euro-American"...please. I feel that cutting the Fine Arts in our schools is a crime. Music and Art and Drama are required to be well-rounded citizens. I also feel that vouchers for school should be the law of the land. I do not care for Nancy Pelosi, Al Franken, Joe Biden or Left-wing radicals. I don’t watch much basketball, golf, or NASCAR. I am a Navy vet, with Naval Anniversary medal and Cold War victory medal. I do not own, nor do I want, a gun. I am sick and tired of everything having to be “green.” I listen to Praise and Worship music, Southern Gospel music, and worship the Lord God Almighty and His Son, Jesus Christ. I have been in attendance at five Promise Keeper events-with my wife’s blessings. I own cats, and do not care for most dogs. I do not trust Richard Geithner OR the Office of Homeland Security. I want less government, a truly free-market system with reasonable checks and balances, and a flat-rate income tax. I want the government out of the education business, except to fund college educations, and believe that those paying student loans should have their loans forgiven after five or six years of repayment. I want every teenager, at high school graduation or age 18 if they’ve dropped out, to enroll in a branch of the military for a minimum four year hitch, to assist in paying for said education. I suspect I have an IQ higher than than the President, VP and the Secretary of State...combined. I believe in free speech and a free press, but I also advocate returning to the Family Hour(s) on TV...including all cable channels. I see premarital and extramarital sex as being wrong, and so I'm not in favor of abortions either here or overseas. In fact, we have no business telling other countries how to handle the abortion issue at all. We should be stressing control of our hormones and abstinence; after all, our parents could control themselves as teenagers. We need to control, if not end, porn and gambling on the internet. The Wall Street bailout, credit relief plan, and TARP are all wrong. People being responsible for their own actions, including paying their bills, is what made America strong in the first place. The government running Bank of America, Citibank, GM and AIG is A Bad Thing. It is worse if you insist on running them like you have Amtrak, the USPS, the VA and NASA. I am more than a social security number...I am a free person. I am also a thinking man, and therefore you should probably consider me dangerous. I do not play well with others, and I refuse to conform to the values of this world."

Happy Memorial Day. Say thanks to a vet this weekend.

Enough for now.

(Posted 5/23/09)

What have we done?

Before I get started, I am only going to say this much: Don’t blame mefor the mess the U.S. is in. I voted Republican—albeit with misgivings—and did so before leaving for O’ahu. And while I am not sure that McCain and Co. would have been any prize, I also suspect we wouldn’t be mortgaging our grandchildren’s future, either.

For openers, I hear that we need to save money. On the other, I hear we aren’t spending enough. Make up your minds, please.

Then there’s this war we are still mired in, that we can’t seem to get out of. We can’t trust Wall Street, sports figures, or our elected public officials to tell us the truth about anything--including whether or not they've paid their taxes. Every time I turn around, something else is being recalled because it will kill you if you consume it. There are super-bugs that are resistant to antibiotics, so we can’t treat you when you get sick because you went ahead and ate something that was recalled.

Worse yet...Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are stillon the radio. Wellllllll...okay. This might not be as bad as I thought. At least they’re trying to shed light on what’s up with our elected Bozos...uhhh, I mean public officials. Yes, they can be very trying. Let’s not go there.

Looks like the era of Big Government is here. The Government is here to help you. This is called Socialism. Socialism is defined as a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating public or state ownership. Is thisthe change you all wanted? Back after 9/11, the French annoyed us in the US to no end. Now we want to be like them!Did I miss the memo on this radical shift? I though we were supposedto be a Capitalist Democracy, or a Republic, or something other than a bunch of Socialists. Yet, that seems to be where we are heading.

Now they are talking, since they have partially privatized the banks, about privatizing health care (otherwise known as “universal coverage”). I’m a vet—and if the government were to take over health care, they’d run it like the VA. Or worse...Medicare. Ponder that, Pinky!

Many of you voted for change. Seems to me that’s all we have left in our pockets!

Just in case some of you have missed the news, the economy is in tatters. As I write this, the Dow has lost over half its former value. People are getting laid off in the hundreds of thousands. Unemployment has risen to at least 7.6% as of January 2009. The government has passed the largest spending bill in the history of the nation...just shy of a trillion dollars. That’s right...trillion, with a “T.” We now are waiting to see if the biggest pork bill ever signed into law will bail us out. A side note to you all—it won’t. It won’t help us one whit. It certainly isn’t going to work for me. It isn’t going to work for you, either, unless you’re into blue-collar work. (Which is, by the way, quite all right. People working beats people on welfare and unemployment any day.)

Nobody, but nobody, wants to use the “D” word yet. As in "Depression."

I’m saying it’s way past due, kids.

Enough for now.

(Posted 3/4/09)