Higher education...

[Iowa] College Republicans Attacked for Supporting the Troops
The Iowa Republican ^ | December 6, 2011 | Editorial Board


Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2011 1:50:12 AM by Cincinatus' Wife

This past Saturday, College Republicans from across the state braved the rain and cold to converge in Des Moines to box donations for Iowa soldiers deployed in Afghanistan. For weeks they fundraised independently on their campuses to buy socks, wet wipes, shampoo, lip balm and much more in an effort to make our brave men and women overseas slightly more comfortable this holiday season. The Iowa State College Republicans received second place overall in the most items fundraised by any chapter, mainly due to the efforts of ISUCR Jeremy Freeman.
 

The Iowa Federation of College Republicans has made donating to Iowa’s troops a holiday tradition for the last five years with the firm belief that these annual acts of appreciation should always be ones of duty, and never self-aggrandizing. Yet, an ISU English Lecturer [Thomas Walker] found the CR’s acts callous enough to insult and demean the efforts of Jeremy and Iowa’s CRs publicly in the Iowa State Daily on Monday.

Through his blatant disregard for our nation’s heroes overseas, Walker’s letter exemplifies the intimidation tactics used by the left to bully young conservatives out of any form of activism. Sadly, yet ever more predictably, this response comes from a state-employed educator at one of Iowa’s public universities. This past spring, Iowa College Republicans faced similar vitriol from a tenured Professor of Gender and Women Studies at the University of Iowa College Republicans who chose to use her position to hurl expletives at young conservatives on campus. Somewhere along the way, our learning institutions have sanctioned the authoritative ridiculing of inquisitive, conservative minds on campus, but to do so while lambasting our troops is truly a new low we cannot accept.
 

College Republicans will proudly defend those that defend us and will never apologize for supporting the brave American heroes of our military. Most of us involved with this project personally know someone deployed – they are our family, friends and neighbors. We miss them dearly and pray for their safe return. While some may deride our attempt to increase our soldier’s comfort overseas, we sincerely wish there was a way to provide them with more, as they truly deserve.
 

As Republicans, we believe in initiative, and that it is our duty to help. Rather than ignorantly place our charitable responsibility to nameless government agencies, we choose to individually help with our own time and money to ensure our resources are not diluted. This claim was statistically verified by researcher Arthur C. Brooks in his book, “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.” Brooks found that although liberal families incomes average 6% higher than conservative families, it was the latter group that, on average, gave 30% more to charity, in addition to more of their blood and their time.

Regardless of whether it is an election year or not, the members of the Iowa Federation of College Republicans work tirelessly to make their voices heard as they participate in the functions of our democracy we hold dear. A democracy, I remind you, that was given to us on the blood, sweat and sacrifice of our nation’s military members and their families.
 

Just mere hours after our packages were shipped to Iowa’s waiting troops, IFCR received a Facebook comment from a formerly deployed soldier so eloquent in its brevity,, “You have no idea how much these packages cheer us up when we’re over there.”
 
Somehow, this sentiment will always mean more to IFCR than any imbecilic, long-winded rant that shamelessly compares a discharged veteran to an aborted fetus.

Regardless of whether the author includes the word “eleemosynary”.
 

Thank you, TIR, for the continued support. Merry Christmas and May God bless each and every one of our soldiers and their families,
 

Natalie Ginty
Chair – Iowa Federation of College Republicans
 

If you support the College Republican cause, please consider looking over our website (iowacrs.org) today and assisting in our efforts.

Here is the Letter to the Editor which is refered to in the above article:


 

I read in Tuesday's Iowa State Daily that the College Republicans have begun collecting sundries for U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why? Doesn't the U.S. Army victual its soldiers? Don't their families send them yuletide goodies? Aren't GIs paid enough to buy what they need, and even what they want?

"As Republicans we believe in charity," stated Jeremy Freeman, a member of the College Republicans. Donating toiletries, boxed and canned foods, socks and beanies to U.S. soldiers who can already deodorize themselves, who eat better than the poorest Americans and who are gallantly garbed, is an eleemosynary travesty.

Necessities should be doled out to people who really need them and who might get them if not for the hundreds of billions of dollars being funneled to the Pentagon in the greatest squandering of money on the planet. If anything, Republicans should sympathize with veterans struggling to find employment, a challenge that may daunt the discharged soldier, who might wish he had reenlisted. Soldiers are to Republicans as fetuses are to them: prized. But once out of the womb-like army, Republican solicitude for hapless veterans goes where extracted zygotes go.
"We get to show the troops we still appreciate what they're doing for us," said another College Republican. What are they doing for us? Nothing. But against us they're doing a lot: creating anti-American terrorists in the countries they occupy. Said the same College Republican, "It can't be fun to be away from your family for the holidays. As if American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had been conscripted? They chose to leave home.
Why do Republicans care so much about the military? Because the military-industrial complex is dear to their simplistic laissez-faire fantasies: a bottom-line patriotism that excludes the people at the bottom.

No, Republicans just want those people to get off their asses and away from the government teat.  Get a job and be productive.  They want to decide where their "charity" goes.

This is one of the people teaching our children.

No wonder we're so screwed up.

Wow.

And my tax dollars pay assclowns like this to teach our children?

Sickening.

Stay safe.

World Power Elites...

The link to this article was sent by SFMEDIC this morning in a comment to yesterday's blogpost.  It's definitely worth reading and should give you pause to think about the "global" aspects of what's happening in America (and the world) today.  I think it's an excellent read and, as always, the comments....  Read the comments.

NATO Preps for World War?

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 – by Staff Report

According to reliable sources, China has attempted to warn Russia of US and NATO plans to initiate a global armed conflict. This conflict has reportedly moved from the drawing board to an activation stage. According to both Chinese and Russian Intelligence Sources, the US and NATO plans include among other, the deliberate implosion of the US- and EU Economies, destroying the worlds financial systems, and the launching of a massive conventional war throughout North America, Africa and Asia, as well as the Middle East. The war plans include the release of biological warfare agents designed to kill millions if not billions of people. The NATO strategists rely on their ability to sue for peace when the coming conflict is at its highest, to call for the establishment of a "New World Order" under the pretext of preventing the destruction of the planet and civilization as we know it. – NSNBC by Dr. Christof Lehmann.

Read the rest here.

Like I said, it puts everything in a more complete perspective. 

It's certainly something to think about.

Stay safe.

Iron Curtain...

I was reading over at Brock's blog when I came across this post.  A young person today would have no idea what is being talked about in that article.  The Eastern Bloc.  The Iron Curtain.  Those phrases, Eastern Bloc and Iron Curtain may not have been used directly in the article but they are what the article is about.  And Gulags.  100,000,000 dead citizens in the last century.  Killed or allowed to die by their own governments. 

People don't treat people like that.  Do they?  Governments don't treat their citizens like that.  No way.

We have a nation of uneducated, naive children.

It could never happen here.

I served in an artillery unit with the 3rd Armored Division in Germany from 1972 to 1975.  Our area of responsibility was known as the Fulda Gap.  It was a large flat plain sitting between several mountain ranges east of Frankfurt and was deemed to be the logical place for an enemy to attack.  It was our duty to stop the Russians if they tried to invade western Europe. 

The borders between West Germany and her eastern neighbors, East Germany and Czechoslovakia, were manned on both sides 100% of the time.  We watched them watch us watch them.  It was eerie.

Walls, fences, and wire.  And a clear zone.  Not a place to screw around.

And then there were the towers.

After my first tour in Germany I spent a little over a year at Fort Hood, Texas.  Nothing too exciting there.  I requested transfer back to the "Real Army" in Germany and, surprisingly, it happened.  We were always told that the only way to leave Fort Hood was to ETS or die.  Hmmm....

I went back to Germany and was stationed with a Pershing missle battalion in southern Germany for 3 years.  We still had some border responsibilities, even though you didn't need to be real close to anything to get your point across with the Pershing 1A missle system.  :)

There were towers and walls and wire there too, in Bavaria.

The thing that most kids these days wouldn't understand is that these towers, walls, and wire weren't to keep us out.  They were to keep their own citizens in.  Communists.

Total control.

But, in the end, the West "won".  The towers and the walls and the wire aren't there any longer.  Communism failed just as it has every time and every place that it has been tried.

It's been 20 years.

It couldn't happen here.

Stay safe.

Dog Tags...

Stay safe.

"Facts are stubborn things..."

Senator Grassley's weekly newsletter is a little different today.  It's 100% about Fast & Furious.

Check it out here.

Follow the link at the bottom of his web page to see the Documents supporting the facts.

Interesting stuff.

I don't think that Chuck is going to let this go :)

I think he upset former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke.  Read that here.  Burke was the U.S. Attorney for Arizona while the Gunwalker fiasco was taking place in his area of responsibility.

Seems to be getting a mite bit warm in the Gunwalker kitchen.

Stay safe.

Salesman...

A salesman goes up to a house and knocks on the front door.
It's opened by a little ten year-old boy who has a lighted
cigar in one hand, a glass of whiskey in the other and a
Playboy magazine tucked under his arm.

Salesman: "Hello son. Is your mommie or daddie home?"

Little boy: "What the fuck do you think?"

Stay safe.

WOW...

WEST PHILADELPHIA - November 28, 2011 (WPVI) -- A group of 4th grade students has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a classmate. 

The 8-year-old boy was allegedly attacked in the bathroom of Bryant Elementary School in West Philadelphia at the end of October.

Earlier this month, the mother of the victim spoke to Action News.

"I felt helpless, it took him almost 7 hours to try to tell me what happened," the mother told Action News.
The advanced student is in the same grade and class as his alleged 10-year-old attackers.
The three juvenile suspects turned themselves into the Philadelphia Police Special Victims Unit today, accompanied by their parents.

Each of the youngsters is charged with attempted rape and indecent sexual assault.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/crime&id=8447643

 

WOW.  Where do kids learn this stuff?  Times have definitely changed.

 

Stay safe.

To your health...

I did not know this...

When you drink vodka over ice, it can give you kidney failure.
When you drink rum over ice, it can give you liver failure.

When you drink whiskey over ice, it can give you heart
problems.
When you drink gin over ice, it can give you brain problems.

Apparently, ice is really bad for you.
Warn all your friends.


Stay safe.

Reality...

The first reality of our situation is that we are much fewer in number than we’d like to believe.  The second reality is that we are getting old, those of us who care.

The communists had full control of our public schools by 1975 and we have one full generation of our children and at least part of another who have known no other education system.  They know no better than what they were taught, which isn’t much.  Our children weren’t taught the same things that we were taught.  The teachers of today were taught in this system since kindergarten.  They know no better.  They teach only what they were taught.  How many Conservative teachers do you know?

They were taught in a system where Political Correctness was the prime motivator.  No one gets his or her feelings hurt.  There are no winners and there are no losers.  The revisionist history that they learned left them believing that America is an evil nation.  All of our accomplishments were made in the name of personal greed.  The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  They have been “primed” for the coming revolution.  They don’t want the same things that we want.

We, their parents and grandparents, allowed this to happen.

We are old and we are few. 

How many of you ever read the material that your children were being taught in school?  How many of you took your complaints to a School Board meeting?  How many of you tried to correct the “system” before it got out of control?  How many even knew what your children were doing or what they were learning?

The answer is self-evident.  It’s as obvious as the nose on our collective face.  We did nothing to prevent the disaster that we face today.  By our inaction, we can be blamed for encouraging it.

There were many material “things” to give to our children and we spoiled them rotten with these “things”.  Technology ran rampant and became inexpensive.  The children of today couldn’t care less about riding a bicycle or playing cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers.  They don’t go outside and play “army”.  They sit at their computers and “kill” each other electronically.  They are fat and they are lazy and sadly, they are stupid.  And we sit back and wonder why.

And the government uses that inexpensive technology to watch our every move.  And our children and grandchildren are fine with that.

“It doesn’t matter as long as you are doing nothing wrong.”

How many times have you heard that statement?  Too few of us understand the implications of what that statement means. 

They have no grasp of reality.  I give you OWS and all of the other “Occupy” movements as proof.  I’ll also give you our current ratings in the world regarding knowledge of math and science.  23^rd and 25^th.  That’s out of about 40 “modern” countries.  We used to be in the top 5.

Think back to when you were a kid in school.  How many kids had “behavior disorders”?  What happened to them when they misbehaved?  What happened to any kid who misbehaved in school?   What happened to them when they got home?

What happens to them today?

How many of your peers were diagnosed with ADD or ADHD when you were a kid?  (Hint: none)  Today you will find up to half of our kids have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD.  It’s an excuse to not have to expect much from them.  It’s an excuse to make someone else in the “system” be responsible for them.  It brings the school districts a lot of money.  We just medicate them and hope for the best.

Public education is a failure.  Nothing is being done to correct it.  There is a reason for that.

We don’t discipline our kids.  We don’t want to hurt their feelings so we allow them to do whatever they want to.  We don’t want to be turned in to the government for “abusing” them.

Have you been to a mall lately, or to a supermarket?  Have you watched how they behave?  More importantly, have you watched how their parents behave?

Anyway, I kinda got off track there.  Must be the ADD.

Us older folks want a return to the Constitutional Republic that we knew as children and young adults.  We yearn for the old days when we were responsible for ourselves and when we knew that if we screwed up we would be held accountable for our actions.  We yearn for the lost times of civility and respect.  The days when our word was our bond.

Those times are gone.  I’m not sure they ever existed, really.

The sad fact is that we are greatly outnumbered.  The majority doesn’t care.  They believe that the path we are following today is the right path to take.  They believe in Marx’s maxim “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.

Lenin has also been proven to be correct.  “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted”.

Well, we will see if it is never uprooted.  Socialism has never succeeded anywhere in the past.  I doubt it can succeed anywhere in the future.  It forgets the fact that human beings are individuals with individual wants, needs, and desires.  It forgets that some people are stronger than others and will fill their wants, needs, and desires by force if necessary.  Law of the Jungle trumps the laws of man. 

We had our Utopia.  It is now gone.  We allowed it to slip away, silently into the night.  We trusted that our system of government was morally and ethically superior and that it would work properly forever without our input.

We were wrong.

Marx also said “The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to Socialism”.

Anyway…

We can talk for hours or days or weeks, months or years about the Constitution and what it means.  We can argue about whether it's good or bad.  We can yell and scream and posture all we want to about it but it doesn't change a thing.  We had it, we let it slip away, and there are too few left who care.  There will soon be no one left who remembers it.

"We can evade reality but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality" ~~ Ayn Rand

Stay safe.

The gathering will soon begin...

Little Miss and her Papa wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.

The gathering will soon begin in our house.  My middle son, Eric, is here.  His sons are in Indiana with their mother this year.  I know that they will enjoy the day there.

My oldest son, Carl, will soon be here with his wife Amy and Little Miss.

My youngest son, Adam, is in Arizona.  Perhaps he'll be home for Christmas?

The food is in the process of being prepared.  The entire house smells wonderful!  Soon we will have our small feast.  It will be good.

I'm hoping that each and every one of you has something to be thankful for and that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Stay safe.

Occupy...

http://www.lookingattheleft.com/2011/11/zuccotti-utopia-portraits-of-revolutionaries/

Wow.

Stay safe.

A good idea...

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/illinois-republican-wants-chicago-area-51st-state-160924927.html

A state Republican legislator has introduced a bill to the Illinois General Assembly to separate the Chicago's county from the state--effectively making the midwestern city the 51st state in the union.

The bill, filed by State Rep. Bill Mitchell of Decatur Tuesday, would "enact legislation dividing Illinois and Cook County into separate states" because county residents "hold different and firmly seated views" on "politics, society, and economics" from people in the rest of the state. The bill's supporters point to higher tax rates and strict gun laws in the Chicago area and contend that the northern county is out of step with its Illinois neighbors.

"These liberal policies are an insult to the traditional values of downstate families," Mitchell told the Decatur Tribune. "When I talk to constituents, one of the biggest things I hear is 'Chicago should be its own state . . . .Our voters' voices were drowned out by Chicago."

The measure would put the issue up to a vote by state residents through a referendum and then would require approval from the United States Congress and the president. As of this writing, the bill has just one other co-sponsor. 

Stay safe.

Occupy Alone...

Stay safe.

Signs of maturity...

http://cnsnews.com/blog/dan-gainor/occupy-oakland-calls-shutdown-all-west-coast-ports

Vandalism, violence, burning and shutting down the nation’s fifth busiest port weren’t enough for Occupy Oakland. On Friday, the General Assembly for the group voted unanimously for “a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast on December 12."

According to a statement from Occupy Oakland, this move is in “response to coordinated attacks on the occupations and attacks on workers across the nation.” “We call on each West Coast occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down its local port.”

Occupy Los Angeles had already called for action against one shipper at that port, stating, “occupation will take place at at least one facility owned by SSA Marine, a shipping company belonging to Goldman Sachs, (coordinated with a possible port shut down by the port truck drivers).”

The Occupy Oakland statement also complained about “continued union-busting and attacks on organized labor, in particular the rupture of Longshoremen jurisdiction in Longview Washington.”

Longview has been the site of some nasty union action already. According to the Sept. 8 New York Times, “About 500 longshoremen stormed the new $200 million terminal in Longview before sunrise Thursday, carrying baseball bats, smashing windows, damaging rail cars and dumping tons of grain from the cars, police and company officials said.”

The statement from Occupy Oakland also included multiple threats if their actions were opposed, including extending the shutdown past one day. “Should there be any retaliation against any workers as a result of their honoring pickets or supporting our port actions, additional solidarity actions should be prepared.” And this, “In the event of police repression of any of the mobilizations, shutdown actions may be extended to multiple days.”

The statement was signed “In Solidarity and Struggle.”

Actually, they're acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.

Stay safe.

Sunday morning blog surfing...

While doing my Sunday morning blog surfing I came across this over at Wraith's blog.  He linked to the entire post, which is the link you see below.  Worth reading, in my opinion.

"I think a big problem is that conservatives like us, and even more so the rest of “normal, non-socialist-rogue Americans”, have this thing about 1) Rule of Law (as we understand it) and therefore 2) Playing by the established rules (as commonly understood by reasonable folk) and 3) Not being the guy who fires the first shot."

Read it all here:
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2011/11/16/zmalfoy-isnt-nearly-as-concise-as-her-friends-coyote-and-sharon/#more-24920
Good stuff.

Stay safe.

Small batch bourbon...

Judy asked if I needed anything from the store.  I said "You could grab a gallon of milk".  Well, this doesn't look like a gallon of milk, but I'm not complaining.  :)

Stay safe.

Occupy...

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2011/11/occupy-bagram.html

 

 

Stay safe.

 

What a difference 50 years makes...

Stay safe.

Long ago and far away...

Article posted here in its entirety.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/objectivist/2011/11/18/america-before-the-entitlement-state/?utm_source=alertsnewpost&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20111118

 

11/18/2011 @ 4:36PM |2,882 views

America Before The Entitlement State

Yaron Brook and Don Watkins, Contributor

9 comments, 0 called-out

+ Comment now

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Reacting to calls for cuts in entitlement programs, House Democrat Henry Waxman fumed: “The Republicans want us to repeal the twentieth century.” Sound bites don’t get much better than that. After all, the world before the twentieth century–before the New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society–was a dark, dangerous, heartless place where hordes of Americans starved in the streets.

Except it wasn’t and they didn’t. The actual history of America shows something else entirely: picking your neighbors’ pockets is not a necessity of survival. Before America’s entitlement state, free individuals planned for and coped with tough times, taking responsibility for their own lives.

In the 19th century, even though capitalism had only existed for a short time, and had just started putting a dent in pre-capitalism’s legacy of poverty, the vast, vast majority of Americans were already able to support their own lives through their own productive work. Only a tiny fraction of a sliver of a minority depended on assistance and aid–and there was no shortage of aid available to help that minority.

But in a culture that revered individual responsibility and regarded being “on the dole” as shameful, formal charity was almost always a last resort. Typically people who hit tough times would first dip into their savings. They might take out loans and get their hands on whatever commercial credit was available. If that wasn’t enough, they might insist that other family members enter the workforce. And that was just the start.

“Those in need,” historian Walter Trattner writes, “. . . looked first to family, kin, and neighbors for aid, including the landlord, who sometimes deferred the rent; the local butcher or grocer, who frequently carried them for a while by allowing bills to go unpaid; and the local saloonkeeper, who often came to their aid by providing loans and outright gifts, including free meals and, on occasion, temporary jobs. Next, the needy sought assistance from various agencies in the community–those of their own devising, such as churches or religious groups, social and fraternal associations, mutual aid societies, local ethnic groups, and trade unions.”

One of the most fascinating phenomena to arise during this time were mutual aid societies–organizations that let people insure against the very risks that entitlement programs would later claim to address. These societies were not charities, but private associations of individuals. Those who chose to join would voluntarily pay membership dues in return for a defined schedule of benefits, which, depending on the society, could include life insurance, permanent disability, sickness and accident, old-age, or funeral benefits.

Mutual aid societies weren’t private precursors to the entitlement state, with its one-size-fits-all schemes like Social Security and Medicare. Because the societies were private, they offered a wide range of options to fit a wide range of needs. And because they were voluntary, individuals joined only when the programs made financial sense to them. How many of us would throw dollar bills down the Social Security money pit if we had a choice?

Only when other options were exhausted would people turn to formal private charities. By the mid-nineteenth century, groups aiming to help widows, orphans, and other “worthy poor” were launched in every major city in America. There were some government welfare programs, but they were minuscule compared to private efforts.

In 1910, in New York State, for instance, 151 private benevolent groups provided care for children, and 216 provided care for adults or adults with children. If you were homeless in Chicago in 1933, for example, you could find shelter at one of the city’s 614 YMCAs, or one of its 89 Salvation Army barracks, or one of its 75 Goodwill Industries dormitories.

“In fact,” writes Trattner, “so rapidly did private agencies multiply that before long America’s larger cities had what to many people was an embarrassing number of them. Charity directories took as many as 100 pages to list and describe the numerous voluntary agencies that sought to alleviate misery, and combat every imaginable emergency.”

It all makes you wonder: If Americans could thrive without an entitlement state a century ago, how much easier would it be today, when Americans are so rich that 95 percent of our “poor” own color TVs? But we won’t get rid of the entitlement state until we get rid of today’s widespread entitlement mentality, and return to a society in which individual responsibility is the watchword.

Interesting debate going on in the comments.  Click the link at the top for the article plus comments.

Stay safe.

Emit...

Traveling back in time.

(I think they spelled his last name wrong.  Should be LEVART.  The stonecarver was probably a union guy.  Or a Democrat.  Oh well, at least they got all of the appropriate letters on there.  We all know that it's the effort more than the result that counts in these modern, progressive times.  Well, the self-perceived effort, anyway)

Stay safe.