Freedom

The image below is not about me – it is about the size of the flag – and the size of the hearts of two men I met at RightOnline. 

No, this post is not about the ‘Grok, what I did or what I said; it is rather, about two older gentlemen that taught me a lesson – old soldiers do not just fade away.

They stand, always ready to respond to" a call to arms" when their nation’s principles are in danger; they live on and are willing learn to fight another way.

I have encapsulated this story in a thank you email to Corey Lewandowski, the NH State Director of Americans for Prosperity (er, a bit edited from the email):

Hi Corey!

BOTH TMEW and I want to THANK you so much for the sponsorship to RightOnline….

…While the ad hoc roundtable was probably the best blogger highpoint, there was a much more indelible mark that was made on my outlook of what the RightOnline conference really means.  Also sitting at the table with TMEW, Candice, and I were retired servicemen: Lt. Col. "Lou" from the 82nd Airborne that is just getting started online, and Col. "Ed", retired from the Air Force.  Since the Eldest served in the Marines (Iraq) and Youngest is now in the 101st Airborne (in Afghanistan right now), I thanked them for their service.  I found out about Lou’s service during the pre-dinner chatting, and learned that he had served in both Viet Nam and in Desert Storm….  

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…was just held in northern New Hampshire from June 24th through the 27th. I was there with my wife and grown kid. Every year I resolve to write about the PorcFest (so-nicknamed), and about what I saw and experienced there. And every year I fail. Maybe now’s the time. In snippets.

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What kind of a “right” mandates that you exercise it?  For example, imagine a law that imposes a monetary fine on anyone who does not own a gun or who does not belong to a church.  Can you imagine the New York Times, or NBC, or any other component of the left-stream media describing such laws as guaranteeing a right to bear arms and to practice religion?  Yet the left-stream media invariably lauds Obamacare as guaranteeing a right to health care.

Saying that Obamacare guarantees a right to health care is at best nonsensical.  It’s like saying that that the Internal Revenue Code guarantees a right to pay taxes.  Of course, the Orwellian use of language by the left-stream media is quite deliberate.  The left-stream media is in the tank for Obama because he, like them, wants to turn the United States into a European-style nanny-state.

And we are almost there.  The PGA Championship is known as “Glory’s Last Shot” because it is the last of golf’s four majors.  The 2010 and 2012 elections may be called “Freedom’s Last Shot” because they may be our last shot to stop the descent to the ant heap of totalitarianism.

The present Supreme Court of the United States is not going to strike down Obamacare.  There are four incorrigible left-leaning judicial activists on the Supreme Court, so all Obama needs to do is pick off one other justice.  Indeed, I think that the tactless remarks Obama directed to the Supreme Court at the State of the Union speech were really about Obamacare.  It was a message to the gang-of-four that we’ve got your back.  And it was a shot across the bow of the other justices; this is what to expect if you mess with us, so don’t.

Justice Anthony Kennedy famously flipped his vote in the Casey case because he feared the opprobrium of the chattering class if Roe v. Wade were overturned.  It’s hard to see him being the fifth vote to strike down Obamacare.  And while I am sure Justice Antonin Scalia could care less how his vote plays politically, based on his concurring opinion in Gonzales v. Raich (the Califormia medical marijuana case) it’s also hard to see Scalia voting to strike down Obamacare.

So, the 2010 and 2012 elections will be, to borrow a phrase famously used by Ronald Reagan nearly fifty years ago, a time for choosing.  The choice is between liberty, on the one hand, and the illusion of security and the reality of government control, on the other.   

Obamacare represents a moral judgment that the end, providing accessible and affordable healthcare to everyone (or, more accurately, what government deems to be accessible and affordable healthcare), justifies the means, denying the individual the right to choose whether to carry health insurance.  Such a moral judgment leads inexorably to healthcare rationing and heavy and ubiquitous government control over our lives.

If the goal of accessible and affordable health care is to be treated as paramount,…

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OK, a little test for the scholars among us-which of the following is the truth? 

-A baby still in the womb is not a baby but a tissue mass, but the second it is born it becomes a baby.

-Islamic terrorists only want to kill Americans because we imprison them when they try to kill us.

-When it’s too hot, it’s due to global warming.  When it’s too cold, it’s due to global warming.

-The way to get out of a recession is for the government to take money from the private sector, siphon off enough to support the bureaucracy and then give the rest to companies that are unionized.

-The way to put people back to work is to take money from people that have jobs, and extend the jobless benefits of the unemployed.

-Another great idea to promote employment is to require small banks to make loans to small companies that don’t want loans. 

-Public school teachers work harder than any other profession and are grossly underpaid for what they do.

-Government at any level can never do with less funding than they had the year before, they always need more.

-Creating more bureaucracies and government agencies, and increasing regulations and taxes on the private sector, will lead to prosperity for all.

-If you run out of money, just print more!!  No problem!

-Evolution is a proven fact and the fossil record…..ummm…just take my word for it. 

-Good science is based on consensus or majority opinion.

-Liberal politicians never act like conservatives just to get elected.

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