Comments?

[lkjohnson1950]

A friend of mine forwarded the following to me. I was surprised. I had a strong reaction, but I will withhold it until some of you comment, if you want to.

Franklin Graham was speaking at the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville , Florida a
few weeks back when he said America will not come back.

Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the water twice, because the flow that has passed
will never pass again. Written by a USMC Vet.

He wrote:  The American Dream ended (on November 6th, 2012 ) in Ohio.
The second term of Barack Obama will be the final nail in the coffin for the
legacy
of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled
and developed the greatest Republic in the history of mankind.

A coalition of Blacks, Latinos, Feminists, Government Workers, Union
Members, Environmental Extremists, The Media, Hollywood, uninformed young
people, the
"forever needy," the chronically unemployed, illegal aliens and other
"fellow travelers"
have ended Norman Rockwell 's America . The Cocker Spaniel is off the front
porch...
The Pit Bull is in the back yard. The American Constitution has been
replaced with
Saul Alinsky 's "Rules for Radicals" and Chicago shyster, David Axelrod ,
along with international Socialist George Soros will be pulling the strings
on their beige puppet
to bring us Act 2 of the New World Order.

Our side ran two candidates who couldn't even win their own home states, and
Chris
Christie helped Obama over the top with a glowing "post Sandy" tribute that
elevated
the "Commander-in-Chief" to Mother Teresa status. (Aside: with the way the
polls were
run, he didn't need any help!) People like me are completely politically
irrelevant, and I
will never again comment on or concern myself with the aforementioned
coalition which
has surrendered our culture, our heritage and our traditions without a shot
being fired.

You will never again out-vote these people. It will take individual  acts of
defiance and massive displays of civil disobedience to get back the rights
we have allowed them to
take away.   It will take Zealots, not moderates & shy not
reach-across-the-aisle RINOs
to right this ship and restore our beloved country to its former status.

Those who come after us will have to risk their lives, their fortunes and
their sacred honor
to bring back the Republic that this generation has timidly frittered away
due to "white
guilt" and political correctness.

An American Veteran.........Semper-Fi

[Ian]

That applies to the UK as well Lonny, we've lost our identity too, thanks to the bleedin' hearts brigade.

[cosworth151]

GM is alive & Osama is dead.

Thank you, President Obama.

[Jericoke]

Most people say they like progress, and yet when progress happens outside their narrow view of it, they can't accept it.

The world will never be perfect in the eyes of everyone.  Sometimes, some places, will seem more perfect to some people than other times and other places.

Even if it is true that the USA (and UK, or Canada or any other nation) isn't the same nation that our grandfathers created, then so what?  When they were our age, it wasn't the nation that THEIR grandfathers created either.  There were people who objected to all humans being free.  There were people who objected to paying people a living wage as a basic right.  There were people who believed a woman's ankles should never be seen in public.  There were people who believed that alcohol in all forms must be banned from the face of the Earth.

There are people who still won't accept that these ideas have expired.

Progress will happen.  People will continue to change our nations, our lifestyles and lives.  Will everyone prosper from these changes?  No.  Will everyone founder from the changes?  No.

The question is, on balance, are more people going up or more people coming down?  Yes, it SUCKS to be one of the people coming down.  Yet if your standard of living drops so that three other people can have an increased standard of living... that's democratic.  If you have to keep 5 people down just to keep yourself up, that's not fair... even if it was your grandfather who unwittingly built the cage holding those 5 people down.

Quite frankly, I see companies like Apple, Tesla and Google, and I see that everything will be okay.  For the next generation at least, life will become easier.  Unless there is a concerted effort to tear down modern electronic R&D, I can use wikipedia whenever I want.  I can share pictures of my family with anyone in the world I consider family.  I expect that by the time my kids buy their first new car, it will have a minimal impact on the environment and be so safe that a car crash will be headline news.

Is this happening because of our elected officials? Despite our elected officials?  Or because our countries have entrenched ideals that will survive the worst any elected official has to offer?

[lkjohnson1950]

Very  well said Jeri.

[Steve A.]

"The white Christian males who discovered.........." weren't they the same people who forcibly took the country from the native indians.

[Scott]

Great post Jeri.  I had started something in the same vein but you laid it out much nicer than I could have. 

Just to add - why does everyone pick on Obama?  He's had about as much influence on American society as Lebron James, maybe less.  A lame duck presidency if there ever was one.  Hardly anything has changed, unless you call Universal Health Care insurance as an add on to a horribly corrupt Health Care program much change.  Congress and the Senate have locked him out of making anything but watered down moves away from the right.

DH, I totally agree.  Everyone has a 'good old days', but I expect the Native Americans (and Canadians) have a different take on things than a cocker spaniel on the porch reminiscence. 

[Dare]

My take and it probably will p*ss off a few is you'll probably
never see a Republican president again.We've become a
nation of people that don't want to work but want to draw
a check for doing nil.It's not how can I help it's what can
I get for doing nothing.

[John S]

My take and it probably will p*ss off a few is you'll probably
never see a Republican president again.We've become a
nation of people that don't want to work but want to draw
a check for doing nil.It's not how can I help it's what can
I get for doing nothing.

We had similar feelings in the UK, Dare, it started about 20 or 30 years back. However it seems the big Banks crisis of 09 put it all into sharper focus over here as there is less money available to pay welfare. Now the hand-outs are reducing, and harder to get, more are opting to earn their own.

Whilst I applaud Jeri's summing up of the situation I do feel the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc, etc, are helping make the political models that most western countries follow almost redundant, and have caused a huge rise in the anarchy we see in very many others.

With instant free communications we see the rise of mob power rather than people power, by that I mean millions acting as judge and jury on matters and occurrences that they have little or no real understanding of.

Mostly, it seems to me, they are responding to only the last part of situations - what led up to or preceded is of little importance before they jump on the band wagon.

This torrent of anti establishment rhetoric and hatred makes some areas now virtually ungovernable by established political systems.     

[lkjohnson1950]

Wow, you guys have gone some places I never expected. Let me say first  that the percentage of people on welfare is actually quite small, barely enough to tip a very close election. Further, the welfare laws were changed a few years ago so that if you do not attend job training and attempt to work, you are removed from the roles. I don't think a desire for handouts is a huge motivating factor. I could be wrong.

My first take on this was that it is incredibly racist. In addition a large number of the Founding Fathers were reputedly Masons, who are not Christians in the Falwell-Robertson sense of today. The preeminent principle of the Founders was majority rule. A republic based on a democratic process that gave all men a say in government. It WAS originally restricted to male landowners, ALL male land owners, but has been expanded over the years to include all people of voting age. Thus the poor, lazy, brown, black etc have the right to vote the same as me. That's as it should be. There will be changes over the coming years. It is estimated by the Census Bureau that Hispanics will be in the majority in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas by 2050. Arizona's legislature is already appearing before the Supreme Court accused of gerrymandering to mitigate the effects of minority populations.

Personally don't understand why anyone votes Republican, but that's another topic. I was surprised that my friend sent this. I knew he was a Republican and anti Obama, but to me this seems a bit extreme. There seems to be a surprising amount of racism underlying the opposition to Obama that I find disappointing and disturbing. I guess I'm just getting too d@#$ old.

[Scott]

Is it just me, or doesn't it seem that every US election is 51-49.  I'm always astounded how it plays out to almost exactly half of the voters.

In Canada we have 3 major parties, right (Conservatives), centre (Liberals, who sometimes slide a little right or left depending on what the tide is doing) and left (NDP, who have come waaaaay centre in the past decade or so).  The upcoming election in Canada is leaning towards the NDP for the first time in...well, ever.  It's going to be an exciting time.  The NDP just took over in Alberta (think Texas north), which shocked the all heck out of the good ole boys running the tar sands and other oil interests in the province, but the people have spoken, and the NDP are riding a wave.  The Liberals have a weak leader at the moment, and the NDP's is a serious debater, so it should be fun...if the Conservatives will even allow a debate to happen...seems doubtful at the moment.  Stephen Harper runs the country a bit like Putin does Russia.

[Dare]

You know Lonny I don't see why anyone votes
Democrat,Republican,Independent,or what ever
some people always pull that lever.

Wouldn't it be a better country here or anywhere else
if people voted for the candidate running and not the party.

And for the welfare is such a small part I'll paraphrase Scrooge
": That's a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket"

If welfare is such a small pittance then there should be plenty
of money left for a yearly bonus for people that work but no
there's talk of cutting social security or ever the possibility of
no money being there for the people that paid in or are paying in.

[lkjohnson1950]

You may thank the Sainted Ronald Reagan for the problems at Sociaql Security. He promised to cut taxes if elected, and did just that. Then the red ink flooded the federal budget and rather than man up and say he made a mistake, he raised Social Security taxes and moved it out of it's protected status and into the general budget. They spend most of your future on debt interest and military hardware, Those 2 items make up 2/3 to 3/4 of the budget. In corrected dollars, we spend more on the Pentagon now than at the height of WWII.

[Jericoke]

My take and it probably will p*ss off a few is you'll probably
never see a Republican president again.We've become a
nation of people that don't want to work but want to draw
a check for doing nil.It's not how can I help it's what can
I get for doing nothing.

Keeping in mind that the Democratic party was the one in favour of slavery and segregation and has quite successfully changed their stance, I don't see why the Republicans can't change.

True, the next Republican president won't have much in common with Reagan, but how much does Obama have in common with Truman?

[lkjohnson1950]

The problem the Republicans have is that the far right controls the primary elections because they are passionate about their candidates. The candidates therefore cater to them and by the time the general elections roll around they are perceived as too conservative for the more centrist general population. A highly charismatic, less conservative candidate will have to come out of the woodwork and drag them back toward the center to get elected.