Lest we forget during this holiday season what the stakes were one Christmas that changed history

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.”

— The Crisis by Thomas Paine, Dec. 23, 1776

George Washington and his tiny band of remaining soldiers did not shrink nor shirk. On Christmas, it was Victory or Death. (OK, it is a Newt Gingrich turn out the vote commercial from 2011, but the message still.)

How many today are giving up on the concept of liberty and letting the forces of overweening socialism change this nation forever into something the Founders did not intend, but rather feared and warned repeatedly against.

The stakes were life or death in 1776.

Paine concluded:

“Once more we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may know it. By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils — a ravaged country — a depopulated city — habitations without safety, and slavery without hope — our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.”

Lest we forget.

First posted in 2012.

Washington crossing the Delaware.

Lest we forget during this holiday season what the stakes were one Christmas that changed history

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.”

— The Crisis by Thomas Paine, Dec. 23, 1776

George Washington and his tiny band of remaining soldiers did not shrink nor shirk. On Christmas, it was Victory or Death. (OK, it is a Newt Gingrich commercial from 2011, but still.)

How many today are giving up on the concept of liberty and letting the forces of overweening socialism change this nation forever into something the Founders did not intend, but rather feared and warned repeatedly against.

The stakes were life or death in 1776.

Paine concluded:

“Once more we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may know it. By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils — a ravaged country — a depopulated city — habitations without safety, and slavery without hope — our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.”

Lest we forget.

First posted in 2012.

Washington crossing the Delaware.

There was plenty to criticize in Obama speech ending the ‘global war on terror’

In an earlier posting I remarked that Obama’s speech this past week at the National Defense University was basically a unilateral capitulation in the “global war on terror.”

In the 7,000-word speech he said “a perpetual war — through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments — will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways,” and he outlined his plan to win the hearts and minds of people who wouldn’t mind cutting out our hearts. We’ve tried the hearts-and-mind strategy and it never ceases to fail.

But I was kind compared to Newt Gingrich, who called the speech “just stunningly, breathtakingly naïve.”

The former Speaker of the House added:

“He says at one point ‘wars have to end.’ Well, [Leon] Trotsky said, ‘you may not care about war, but war cares about you.’ I mean, right after you have somebody beheaded in London, you have a bomb go off in Boston, you have the Iranians … every day trying to penetrate our system with cyber, you have an Iranian nuclear program underway and the president announces cheerfully, ‘the war’s going to end because I’m not happy being a war president.’”

Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal called message delivered in the speech Obama’s “Retreat Doctrine:”

“It’s alluring to think that, merely by declaring an end to ‘continual warfare,’ we can end continual warfare; that we can define our problems as we’d like them to be, rather than take them as they are and have them define us in turn.

“Thus the operating assumption of Mr. Obama’s speech, and for that matter his entire presidency: Saying it makes it so.”

Obama at National Defense University capitulating.

Stephens also pointed out the absurdity of Obama’s claim that war has cost us “well over a trillion dollars … exploding our deficits and constraining our ability to nation-build at home,” when the federal government has spent $31.3 trillion since 2002. The war has hardly exploded our deficits. It is the lavish spending from Washington on all those stimulus programs, entitlements, ObamaCare, green energy and so much more that is the problem.

Even the Obama-friendly New York Times pointed out a few incongruities, including the fact this Nobel Peace Prize recipient has a “kill list.”

According to the piece by Peter Baker, Obama is trying to repair his legacy:

“He wanted to be known for healing the rift with the Muslim world, not raining down death from above.

“Over the past year, aides said, Mr. Obama spent more time on the subject than on any other national security issue, including the civil war in Syria. The speech he would eventually deliver at the National Defense University became what one aide called ‘a window into the presidential mind’ as Mr. Obama essentially thought out loud about the trade-offs he sees in confronting national security threats.”

The Times tale ends aptly with a quote from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, “At the end of the day, this is the most tone-deaf president I ever could imagine, making such a speech at a time when our homeland is trying to be attacked literally every day.”

“But this war, like all wars, must end,” Obama said Thursday. The best way to end a war, like a fistfight, is to win. Just dropping your hands to your side is an invitation for trouble.

It reminds me of a really, really old Aggie joke — with Obama playing the role of the assistant coach from Texas A&M dispatched to Austin  to win the hearts and minds of the Longhorn’s coaching staff and discover the secret as to why the Longhorns kept beating the Aggies in football.

The assistant coach went straight to then coach Darrell Royal (that’s how old the joke is) and asks, “Why do you beat us every year?”

Royal replies, “Because Aggies are stupid.”

The coach asks, “What do you mean?”

“Allow me to demonstrate,” Royal answers and holds his hand up to a brick wall and says, “Hit my hand.”

When the coach obliges, Royal pulls his hand away.

Back at College Station, with his right hand in a cast, the assistant is asked by his head coach what Royal said. He replies, “He said Aggies are stupid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Allow me to demonstrate.” The assistant holds his left hand in front of his face and says, “Hit my hand.”

Ramirez cartoon today