Morning Bell: Happy Memorial Day

Posted By Conn Carroll On May 31, 2010

In honor of those who lost their lives while serving our country, we would like to share with you President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 Memorial Day remarks [1] at Arlington National Cemetery:

Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember.

I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they’ll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that’s good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.

Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI’s general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.

Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper’s son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, “I know we’ll win because we’re on God’s side.” Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, “Wait a minute and I’ll let you speak to them.” [Laughter]

Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn’t wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward—in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They’re only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on “Holmes dissenting in a sordid age.” Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: “At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight.”

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It’s hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it’s the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen—the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you’ve seen it—three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There’s something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there’s an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don’t really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they’re supporting each other, helping each other on.

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they’re still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam—boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.

And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.

That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That’s the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that’s all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.

Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.

As Euro Zone Demonstrates Again, Socialism’s Downfall Is Inevitable
By STEVE MCCANN
Posted 05/26/2010 06:31 PM ET
Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried, and it will continue to do so despite the best efforts of the die-hard true believers in the Obama administration and the rest of the world.

The most recent example of this failure: Euro-socialism is presently bankrupting the countries that embraced it in Europe. This will result not only in more social and economic upheaval, but also the ultimate demise of the ill-conceived European Union.

The original and current proponents of socialism fail to take into account one basic but immutable factor: the fundamental nature of the human race. The most dominant trait mankind has, as do all living creatures, is an innate desire to survive and prosper.

While some may willingly choose to pursue subsistence on their own terms, to the vast majority of the human race, the path of least resistance is the most desired. Thus, mankind is susceptible to financial scams, gambling, crime and resentment or violence toward those who may have more.

But above all, people are very open to the concept of a central authority providing them with the means of livelihood.

A secondary characteristic of human race, again shared by other species, is the need by some within the group to conquer or maintain control over their fellow man. Thanks to modern technology and weaponry, gone are the days when a megalomaniac could by sheer force of determination and arms conquer and impose his will on others.

Faustian Deal

The mid-19th century saw the Industrial Revolution and the rise in living standards and education for the populace in Europe. It was during this same period that the advent of socialist-Marxist theory occurred. Those who considered themselves superior to the masses, and in the past may have achieved ruling status through the power of intimidation over the illiterate and unwashed, now had to look to other means to achieve control of the levers of government.

The easiest course to assume this power was to promise, in return for the support of the people, that the state through a new ruling class would provide the citizenry cradle-to-grave economic security. Thus, a Faustian bargain encompassing the desire by the majority for ease of survival and others for the need to rule would be entered into. The populace, having committed itself to this compact, would expect never-ending freedom from adversity.

However, within this arrangement is the seed of its own destruction. For socialism to succeed, it must have an economic underpinning that can provide the foundation for massive social spending. The Soviet Union, as early as the 1920s and ’30s, proved that complete state control of the means of production was a colossal failure, as it could not produce sufficient wealth to support the population.

So only the capitalist system, which is anathema to a powerful central government and its attendant oligarchy, can produce sufficient wealth to underwrite a social safety net for the general public and finance the agenda of the governing class.

Capitalism, reflective of that portion of mankind choosing to seek subsistence on its own terms, does by its nature celebrate the success of the individual, not the collective. Individuals, separately or together, driven by the motive of self-enrichment, produce goods or services desired by others. In the process, jobs and wealth are created, thus benefiting society as a whole.

A massive tension exists between those who adhere to central government control and swear fealty to socialist-Marxist philosophy and those who produce the wealth of a nation. The state inherently has more power than the individual, and once the radical element of the ruling class assumes power, government begins an inexorable process of injecting itself into the affairs of the individual and producer class (which is always a minority in any society).

Those who believe they have a manifest destiny to rule and are faithful to socialist tenets have a predisposition to controlling the populace and economic activity through laws, regulations, taxes and intimidation. Despite the lesson of the Soviet Union and its state control of the economy, every new generation of adherents to socialist ideology believes it can make this fallacious philosophy work and maintain its arrangement with the citizenry.

But the reality is that it cannot, as the economic engine of capitalism will not continue to produce wealth if it is increasingly put under the thumb of bureaucrats and central planners inevitably attempting to not only institute state control of the economy, but to also regulate the day-to-day lives of all citizens. The motivation of the producer class will be stifled and members will either drop out, join the dependent class or simply move on to more hospitable countries.

Governments will, as history has shown (most recently in Europe), turn to excessive and unsustainable borrowings and inflation to finance their societal obligations. The contract between the statists and the citizens who were promised cradle-to-grave security cannot be maintained, as the economic underpinning of this arrangement will quickly erode.

Rocky Path

Social and economic chaos resulting in a dramatically lower standard of living must inevitably ensue, and in some cases these conditions will lead to violence or revolution. No amount of promises, demonization of capitalism and seizure of the means of production, confiscatory taxes or printing of money will reinstitute prosperity or security for the populace.

This is the path on which President Obama and his fellow travelers have set the United States.

The Founding Fathers of the United States, one of the greatest confluences of brilliant minds in the history of mankind, understood the basic nature of human beings. They accordingly set forth a form of government and a written Constitution to greatly limit those who seek hegemony over the people, especially those seeking unlimited security from a central government. They recognized that only the individual free to pursue economic happiness would result in a society wherein all would benefit on a sustained basis.

American voters made a grave error in judgment in 2008. But unlike in many other countries in Europe and elsewhere, this mistake can be reversed, as the citizens of the United States do have the governmental structure to allow the country to step back from the precipice that this nation and many others are presently staring into.

But will the general public understand that the socialist path the nation is on is preordained to fail? Will the citizenry change the government before it is too late?

• McCann is a regular contributor to the American Thinker, the electronic magazine where this article first appeared.

Is the Impeachment of Barack Obama Moving Forward?
Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
Friday, May 28, 2010

All of a sudden, everyone is talking about the possibility of impeaching Barack Obama.

Drudge is writing about it. Sean Hannity is talking about it. Dick Morris is saying that the potential scandal is “enormous.”. Karl Rove called it an “extraordinary charge.” WorldNetDaily.com wrote that “it could be grounds for impeachment.”

What happened? The story surrounding the alleged bribe of Congressman Joe Sestak initially broke way back in February. We wrote about it then, but it never broke out into the mainstream media. But because of activist pressure and the courageous work of California Congressman Darrell Issa the story refused to die.

ImpeachObamaCampaign.com alone has delivered more than 750,000 petitions to Congress in support of impeachment. Make no mistake, patriotic Americans are driving this sudden turn of events. It is a testament to what can happen when patriotic Americans refuse to look the other way, and they make their voices heard in a real and meaningful way. It didn’t hurt that Obama has failed to answer the questions surrounding the attempted bribe of Congressman Joe Sestak.

So did Barack Hussein Obama commit a felony by offering Congressman Joe Sestak a “high ranking” Cabinet position to drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate race against Sen. Arlen Specter?

Let’s be clear. The commission of an actual felony is not actually required in order to impeach a sitting president, but if Sestak’s allegation is true, and if Barack Hussein Obama’s fingerprints are all over this offer, that’s a felony, and drawing up Articles of Impeachment against Barack Obama becomes a necessity.

According to Judge Andrew Napolitano with Fox News: “Federal law makes it a felony to offer ‘anything of value’ to an official of the government in return for a decision in your favor by that official of the government; it is called bribery.”

And Congressman Darrell Issa has been relentlessly pushing the matter. He’s called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the allegation, but Holder is essentially ignoring the request.

Recently, Issa directly challenged Holder: “You don’t answer or apparently investigate. … You’re not investigating whether it’s a false statement by a member of Congress or a crime by the White House. What are we to do?”

Back in February, Sestak confirmed to Larry Kane, a Philadelphia talk-show host, that the White House dangled a “high ranking” job in front of him to convince him to drop his primary challenge against incumbent Arlen Specter.

Initially, the Obama White House denied the accusation. According to a Fox News report: “White House official told Fox News that Sestak is expected to ‘clarify’ the allegation.”

But Sestak didn’t take the hint… he didn’t “clarify” the accusation.

He stood by his statement and told Fox News: “I was asked a direct question yesterday and I answered it honestly.”

Just prior to the Pennsylvania primary, Issa confronted Holder directly, but Holder refused to comment on the case. When Issa questioned Holder on why he had not responded to his request for a special prosecutor, Holder simply said that he thought he had responded to the request and offered his apologies.

Is it possible that Sestak lied, or that he was simply mistaken?

It seems unlikely as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs issued the following carefully guarded statement to the press: “I’m told whatever conversations have been had are not problematic” and Gibbs added that the matter was “in the past.”

Stonewalling… obstruction… but it’s clear by Gibbs’ statement that someone made Sestak an offer.

Keeping in mind that only Barack Obama has the authority to appoint an individual to his own Cabinet, the only question that remains is: What did Obama know and when did he know it?

The American people deserve an answer.

What if 20 Million Illegal Aliens Vacated America?
I, Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column titled, “Mexican Visitor’s Lament”- 10/25/07.

I interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week.  Hernandez said, “illegal aliens pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes. What Happens to your country’s economy if 20 million people go away?”  Hummm, I thought, what would happen, so I did my due diligence, buried my nose as a reporter into the FACTS I found below.

It’s a good question it deserves an honest answer. Over 80% of Americans demand secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million or more vacated America? The answers I found may surprise you!
In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupt hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave highways cleaner, safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominant language again.

In Colorado, 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and grand-kids  would move back ‘home’, mostly to  Mexico. That would save Coloradans an estimated $2 billion (other experts say $7 billion) annually in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs. It means 12,000

gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.

Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens. Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegals.

Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67% drop-out/flunk-out rate because of thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our gridlocked cities in Colorado. Denver’s 4% unemployment rate would vanish as our working poor would gain jobs at a living wage.
In Florida, 1.5 million illegals would return the Sunshine State back to America, the rule of law, and English.

In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegals would free up hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free experience.

If 20 million illegal aliens returned ‘home’, the U.S. Economy would return to the rule of law. Employers would hire legal American citizens at a living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn’t be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401 Billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local, state and city coffers.

No more push ‘1′ for Spanish or ‘2′ for English. No more confusion in American schools that now must contend with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our over-crowded schools would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.

We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country.

In cities like L.A., 20,000 members of the ‘18th Street Gang’ would vanish from our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters!

Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded highways and gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths by illegal aliens!
America’s economy is drained. Taxpayers are harmed. Employers get rich. Over $80 billion annually wouldn’t return to the aliens’ home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drains America ’s economy which currently suffers an $8.7 trillion debt.
$8.7 trillion debt.

At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in California, Georgia and  Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupt out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act.

Americans wouldn’t suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country-brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders.

Our cities would see 20 million less people driving, polluting and grid locking our cities. It would also put the ‘progressives’ on the horns of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11% of our greenhouse gases.

Over one million of Mexico’s poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California in what the New York Times called, ‘colonias’ or new neighborhoods. Trouble is, those living areas resemble Bombay and  Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean water, streets, roads, electricity, or any kind of sanitation.
The New York Times reported them to be America’s new ‘Third World’ inside our own country. Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 20 million residents of those colonias. (I’ve seen them personally in Texasand Arizona; it’s sickening beyond anything you can imagine.)

By enforcing our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico. We should invite 20 million aliens to go home, fix their own countries and/or make a better life in Mexico. We already invite a million people into our country legally more than all other countries combined annually. We cannot and must not allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy within our borders and growing lawlessness at every level in our nation. It’s time to stand up for our country, our culture, our civilization and our way of life.

Interesting Statistics!

Here are 14 reasons illegal aliens should vacate America, and I hope they are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them:
1. $14 billion to $22 billion dollars are spent each year on welfare to illegal aliens.(that’s Billion with a ‘B’) -http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 billion dollars are spent each year on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.  http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $7.5 billion dollars are spent each year on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 billion dollars are spent each year on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they still cannot speak a word of English!  http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

5. $27 billion dollars are spent each year for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.  http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars ‘PER DAY’ is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. That’s $1.2 Billion a year.http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 28% percent of all federal prison inmates are illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8. $190 billion dollars are spent each year on illegal aliens for welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. - http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 billion dollars per year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year 2005, there were 8 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our southern border with as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from other terrorist countries. Over 10,000 of those were middle-eastern terrorists.  Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine, crack, Guns, and marijuana crossed into the U.S.from the southern border.  http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, estimates that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion, or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period and nbsp; -http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute..org/publications.php?b=deportation
13. In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $65 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin, to their families and friends.  http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14. The dark side of illegal immigration: Nearly one million sex crimes are committed by illegal immigrants in the United States!  http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

 Total cost a whopping $538.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!