At the start of 2008, according to Pew, well before the September financial implosion, 41% said the U.S. was the world’s leading economic power; 30% said China. By this November, those numbers had flipped: 44% said China was on top; only 27% said the U.S.

However false this is, what people are saying is they assume China in time will clean our clock. This is a frightening snapshot of national demoralization.

If we had a **shred** of leadership in the White House, this doesn’t happen. One leader, one spokesman who refuses to bad mouth the States would reverse this malaise.

Related posts:

1. Hands off my damn shower!
2. Reagan on Nationalized Medicine
3. What can future GOP leaders learn from Margaret Thatcher?

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The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand “American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy” to keep Muslims down.

In other words, it’s weakly written tripe for the weak-minded.

Broad brush? Perhaps.  The Jihadi makes up a statistically small portion of Muslim society, yet the Jihadi cheerleader, love the imagery, is vastly numerous.

The Jihadis mask the fact the Muslims are killing themselves off heinous numbers; we get blamed, and it sticks with the Islamic hive, packed with drones of multitudinous nationalities.  This myth is perpetrated and perpetuated by Muslim governments.  Like the German Jews, America is too easy a target to resist.

Lastly, this:

“Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, ‘This is not Islam.’ I believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn’t. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves.”

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1. Compare and contrast protests
2. Remembering September 11

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For the brave first responders, servicemen & women, and civilians who made the sacrifice in trying to save lives that day.

For the passengers and crew of the flights who overcame immeasurable fear in sounding the alarm that we were being attacked.

For the passengers and crew of Flight 93 who were the first to take up arms and fight back, defeating the enemy that morning in the first counter-attack against the Taliban and radical, militant Islam.

For the everyday people who dropped everything to help out in New York City and Washington D.C. in the days and weeks after the attack.

For the men and women who stepped up to serve in uniform in the months and years after, answering the call of service to their nation.

For the children and families of those killed or touched by the attacks.

For all our children who will study this as history, without the knowledge of being there or being alive when the attacks took place.

May the blessing of the earth be on you, soft under your feet as you pass along the roads, soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day;and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it.

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2. National Endowment for the Propagandists
3. Kennedycare vs Obamacare – two sides of a bad idea?

Pro-labor policies pushed by President Herbert Hoover after the stock market crash of 1929 accounted for close to two-thirds of the drop in the nation’s gross domestic product over the two years that followed, causing what might otherwise have been a bad recession to slip into the Great Depression, a UCLA economist concludes in a new study.

“By keeping industrial wages too high, Hoover sharply depressed employment beyond where it otherwise would have been, and that act drove down the overall gross national product,” Ohanian said. “His policy was the single most important event in precipitating the Great Depression.”

“These findings suggest that the recession was three times worse — at a minimum — than it would otherwise have been, because of Hoover,” said Lee E. Ohanian, a UCLA professor of economics.

My knowledge of Hoover is not that strong, so I can’t comment on this being true or not. The report will be published in the December issue of the Journal of Economic Theory (it’s peer-reviewed) and were apparently posted today, as a working paper, at the website for the National Bureau of Economic Research, available for subscribers.

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“…one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”

The transcript of the recording follows:

Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program. There are many ways in which our government has invaded the free precincts of private citizens, method of earning a living; our government is in business to the extent of owning more than 19,000 businesses covering 47 different lines of activity. This amounts to 1/5th of the total industrial capacity of the United States.

But at the moment I would like to talk about another one because this threat is with us, and at the moment, more imminent.

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project, most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it. Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We have an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.

So with the American people on record as not wanting socialized medicine, Congressman Ferrand introduced the Ferrand bill. This was the idea that all people of social security age, should be brought under a program of compulsory health insurance. This would not only be our senior citizens, this would be the dependents and those that are disabled, this would be young people if they are dependents of someone eligible for social security.

Now Congressman Ferrand, brought the program out on that idea out, on just for that particular group of people. But Congressman Ferrand was subscribing to this foot-in-the door philosophy, because he said, “If we can only break through and get our foot inside the door, then we can extend the program after that.”

Walter Ruth said, “It’s no secret that the United Automobile Workers is officially on record of backing a program of national health insurance.” And by national health insurance, he meant socialized medicine for every American.

Now let us see what the socialist themselves have to say about it. They say once the Ferrand bill is passed this nation will be provided with a mechanism for socialized medicine capable of indefinite expansion in every direction until it includes the entire population. Now we can’t say we haven’t been warned.

Now Congressman Ferrand is no longer a Congressman of the United States government. He has been replaced, not in the particular assignment, but in his backing of such a bill by Congressman King of California. It is presented in the idea of a great emergency that millions of our senior citizens are unable to provide needed medical care. But this ignores that fact that 127 million of our citizens, in just 10 years, have come under the protection of some form of privately owned medical or hospital insurance.

Now the advocates of this bill when you try to oppose it challenge you on an emotional basis and say, “What would you do? Throw these poor people out to die with no medical attention?”

That’s ridiculous and of course no one is advocating it. As a matter of fact, in the last session of Congress a bill was adopted known as the Kerr/Mill bill. Now without even allowing this bill to be tried to see if it works, they have introduced this King bill, which is really the Ferrand bill.

What is the Kerr/Mills bill? It is the frank recognition of the medical need or problem of the senior citizens I have mentioned and it has provided from the federal government, money to the states and the local communities that can be used at the discretion of the states to help those people who need it.

Now what reason could the other people have for backing a bill which says we insist on compulsory health insurance for senior citizens on a basis of age alone regardless if they are worth millions of dollars, whether they have an income, whether they are protected by their own insurance, whether they have savings.

I think we can be excused for believing that as ex-congressman Ferrand said, this was simply an excuse to bring about what they wanted all the time; socialized medicine.

James Madison in 1788 speaking to the Virginia convention said, “Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

They want to attach this bill to social security and they say here is a great insurance program; now instituted, now working.

Let’s take a look at social security itself. Again, very few of us disagree with the original premise that there should be some form of savings that would keep destitution from following unemployment by reason of death, disability or old age. And to this end, social security was adopted, but it was never intended to supplant private savings, private insurance, pension programs of unions and industries.

Now in our country under our free enterprise system we have seen medicine reach the greatest heights that it has in any country in the world. Today, the relationship between patient and doctor in this country is something to be envied any place. The privacy, the care that is given to a person, the right to chose a doctor, the right to go from one doctor to another.

But let’s also look from the other side. The freedom the doctor uses. A doctor would be reluctant to say this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can say it in his behalf. A doctor begins to lose his freedom, it’s like telling a lie. One leads to another. First you decide the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government, but then the doctors are equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him he can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go some place else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom I wonder if any of us has a right to take from any human being. I know how I’d feel if you my fellow citizens, that to be an actor I had to be a government employee and work in a national theatre. Take it into your own occupation or that of your husband. All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it is a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay and pretty soon your son won’t decide when he’s in school where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.

In this country of ours, took place the greatest revolution that has ever taken place in the world’s history; the only true revolution. Every other revolution just exchanged one set of rulers for another. But here, for the first time in all the thousands of years of man’s relations to man, a little group of men, the founding fathers, for the first time, established the idea that you and I had within ourselves, the God given right and ability, to determine our own destiny. This freedom is built into our government with safeguards. We talk democracy today, and strangely, we let democracy begin to assume the aspect of majority rules all that is needed. The “majority rule” is a fine aspect of democracy provided there are guarantees written in to our government concerning the rights of the individual and of the minority.

What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can write to our congressmen and our senators. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms. And at the moment, the key issue is, we do not want socialized medicine.

In Washington today, 40 thousand letters, less than 100 per congressman are evidence of a trend in public thinking. Representative Hallock of Indiana has said, “When the American people wants something from Congress, regardless of its political complexion, if they make their wants known, Congress does what the people want.”

So write, and if this man writes back to you and tells you that he too is for free enterprise, that we have these great services and so forth, that must be performed by government, don’t let him get away with it. Show that you have not been convinced. Write a letter right back and tell him that you believe government economy and fiscal responsibility, that you know governments don’t tax to get the moneys the need; governments will always find a need for the money they get and that you demand the continuation of our free enterprise system. You and I can do this. The only way we can do it is by writing to our congressmen even we believe that he is on our side to begin with. Write to strengthen his hand. Give him the ability to stand before his colleagues in Congress and say that he has heard from his constituents and this is what they want. Write those letters now and call your friends and them to write.

If you don’t, this program I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow and behind it will come other government programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country until one day as Norman Thomas said we will wake to find that we have socialism, and if you don’t do this and I don’t do this, one of these days we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.

Related posts:

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3. Nancy Pelosi then and now