What’s In a Name?
Homophobe, Islamaphobe, intolerant, racist, bigot, woman-hater, backward, ignorant, redneck, cracker. If you are a white, Christian, Conservative, you have probably been called at least one of those words, or something worse. Here’s a word for those who are quick to throw out the aforementioned terms, hypocrite.
I don’t know about you, but I am getting weary with being told what I think and how I feel from people who have no idea who I am or what I stand for. People who are content to be told by the entertainment industry what to think, not how to think. People who are too quick to believe what they are told, by a media more concerned with pushing a social agenda, than seeking the truth.
I watch everyday, on the news, on the web, and I am astonished that people blame racism, and bigotry in all its forms when they are faced with the consequences of their behaviors. Common sense and civility have been driven from the public square, and I shake my head and wonder, at what point did the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment, become so twisted and perverted that it is now the instrument by which I am stripped of the very rights it was meant to preserve?
Conservatism has always been about protecting the rights of the individual. Every individual, no matter what your personal philosophy. In spite of the picture painted of us, Conservatism is about compassion and compromise, within a framework of self-determination and personal responsibility. It is clear now however, that the Progressive movement, in spite of the narrative pushed for it, is not about compromise, it is about control.
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9/11 My Thoughts
Every generation has it’s defining moments. Those events where you can remember where you were and what you were doing at that time. I can remember three such events during my lifetime, the moon landing, the Challenger explosion,… 9/ 11. I know we all have our recollections of that day. Here are mine.
We were stationed at RAF Lakenheath, in England at the time. There were two other bases nearby and we were living in the housing units just outside of one of those bases. The circular street, called a close, had about twenty-five, neat brick houses surrounded by a fence. It was just outside of the main gate of RAF Feltwell, just outside of a village with the same name.
“G” was taking his nap and I turned on the TV to CNN. It was nearly two o’clock in the afternoon. I watched what I thought was a report about a terrible airline accident. Then, live on the TV I watched as a second airliner circled around and crashed into the South Tower. As I sat transfixed watching the events unfold, it still hadn’t sunk in that this was a deliberate attack. Then came the crash at the Pentagon. I know at some point during this time I must have prayed. Prayers for the people at the Pentagon, prayers for the safety of my family and my husband’s family even though they were thousands of miles from New York and DC. And prayers for the people trapped inside a house of horrors as I watched through the TV screen as the South Tower collapsed. I knew life on base was about to get very complicated. My mind turned to some mundane thoughts. “Did I have enough milk and bread? What about diapers? Heaven forbid I run out of diapers.
It was just after three pm, school had just gotten out and “A” came rushing through the kitchen door. “Mom, I left my back pack on the play ground and we have to go back and get it.” “We’ll have to hurry before they lock the gates” I told her. “Why would they lock the gates? “ She asked, unaware of what had just happened. “I’ll tell you later.” I knew that any minute the base would be going into Threatcon Delta and if the base was locked down we might be stuck there for hours. I grabbed “G” and buckled him into his stroller, grabbed my purse and a couple of diapers, just in case. We ran a block to the street that separated the houses from the main gate of the base. As I showed the guard my ID, I asked him how long we had before he would be locking down. He gave me a strange look and said he wasn’t closing the gate. Obviously he didn’t know yet. We ran to the playground, found the backpack, then ran the couple of blocks back to the gate. We crossed the street just as the guard pulled the big iron gates, that would block vehicles from coming on to the base, closed with a loud clang.
Why did we have to run? Why did they close the gates? How do you tell an eight-year-old child that we are at war and maybe in danger? I had to be straightforward. “A” would not accept a half-truth. We sat down and watched as the events continued to unfold on the TV. Some people thought that it was wrong to let a child see the coverage. But I have never lied to my children even when the news might be hard to bear. The phone rang. It was the hubs calling to say he would be home late. “I know,” I said. Then hung up the phone. I know at sometime during the evening I called my family. Even though I knew they were fine, I need to hear it from them, and “A” needed to know that they were OK.
The next morning, the gates to our housing unit were locked. In front of the pedestrian gate where the kids would meet the lollipop lady that helped them across the road, was a Humvee with a .50 caliber machine gun on top. For the next three days we were locked in. Only the active duty military members were allowed in or out on their way to and from work. No school, and very little information about what we were supposed to do. This was new territory for us military spouses. Some kept their blinds closed, others kept their lights off after dark. The BX was closed, the Commissary was closed. After a few days the walls began to close in. We decided it was safe to let our kids play outside. Under the watchful eyes of the guard, we walked by the gate. There on the other side of the street in front of the entrance to the base was a mound of flowers. Our English neighbors showed their support in so many ways. The Queen even ordered that “The Star Spangled Banner” be played at the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. The only time another country has been so honored.
Slowly we settled in to what was now the “new normal”. The Humvee was replaced with a portable guard shack. The gates were open, but were filled with iron obstacles that resembled giant jacks. The kids having to show ID’s to the gate guard, the vehicle searches and the dogs became routine. As we once again returned to the villages we were often greeted with, “we’re so glad to see you out and about”. It wasn’t the greeting of shop owners, glad for the returning business; it was the kind of greeting you would give a friend who was finally outside after recovering from a serious illness.
The whole experience was surreal. As I went about my normal routine, it seemed somehow inappropriate to do so. After so many had lost their life, it seemed wrong to go to the market, to go out to eat or to the pub, or go to London to do some Christmas shopping. But carry on we did, because to do otherwise, was to let the terrorists win.
My most poignant memory of that time did not happen on 9/11 or the days following. It came several months later. “A” was learning patriotic songs in music class. In her backpack I found a paper the music teacher had given them, and this was what she had doodled on the page.
The patriotism, the pride, the tribute of an eight-year-old girl. There is hope for this country after all.
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Such a Time As This
We are truly living in an upside-down world. Faith, family, patriotism, and self-reliance, were once the moral bedrock of our society. Now, people who live by those precepts are seen as weak-minded, or eyed with suspicion. People of faith, and Christians in particular, are seen as anti-education and anti-science. Unable to think for themselves, they turn to an invented superstition to make up their minds for them. Women who choose to become single mothers* are heralded as trend setters. They are heroines who are breaking down the fettered bonds of matrimony. While women who choose to make the sacrifices necessary to have a loving marriage and a two parent household are seen as ignorant and dependent. Husbands and fathers are gleefully portrayed as abusive tyrants, or bungling buffoons. Those who love our country and the Constitution, those who are willing to fight and die for the freedoms we have left, are seen as dangerous revolutionaries. Backward crackpots who are worthy of suspicion and avoidance. Living by the consequence of your choices used to be a basic understanding, taught from childhood, but now millions of us are willing to trade our hard-won freedoms for a government controlled lifestyle. Free from worry or want, we neither know nor care how our lifestyle is funded and we are satisfied with mere subsistence.
We didn’t get this way overnight. There has been a slow eroding ever since the Communist Manifesto was published back in 1848. It kicked into high gear when the Baby Boomers came of age. It seemed for a brief period in the eighties that we had beaten back the hippies, but it didn’t last long. Now under the progressive control of the current administration, it looks like the Liberal Progressive movement might finally claim victory.
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. This quote, popularized by Karl Marx, doesn’t seem so wrong at a first look. After all, don’t those who have plenty have a moral obligation to help those in need? This would have made perfect sense to those living in early industrial Europe. Working class people who because of their social status, had no political power and were never truly allowed to prosper from their labor. Ironically, the Communist philosophy that sought to equal the field by eliminating private property and distributing it equally among everyone, could only work if that property and the division of labor were placed under the control of a limited number of individuals. These people would then dictate the balance of the labor force between manufacturing and agriculture. They would distribute resources as they saw fit. The Communist Manifesto that promised that every laborer would earn his subsistence from his labor, delivered only that. Everyone could survive, but no one, except those in control of the labor force, could prosper. The Proletariat would go from being controlled by the industrialists to being controlled by the government. This system of government that promised economic freedom, instead took all freedoms away.
In spite of the historically documented failure of Communism in every country where it has been tried, the Liberal Progressive still insists that governmental control produces a better standard of living than personal control. This is not what our Founding Fathers believed. The Founders sought to create a society where individuals controlled property and the government. There were no royalty, no titled gentry. Without government interference, every man was free to succeed, but he was also free to fail. In a free society, it is the risk of failure that compels the individual to better himself. The harder you work and the better you educate yourself, the lower the risk of failure becomes. To the liberal progressive, any risk of failure is unacceptable. It is better that no one prosper if it means that anyone might fail. Complete equity in the whole of society is the Liberal Progressive goal.
The most dangerous way this goal manifests itself is by the Liberal Progressive’s belief in moral relativity. There is no good or bad, no right or wrong. No lifestyle, personal choice, or belief system is better or worse than any other. The man who sits under a shade tree all day deserves his daily bread just as much as the man who toiled in the field all day to produce it. An Al Qaeda terrorist is just as much a freedom fighter as a Minuteman who fought in the American Revolution. Stealing from others is acceptable if they have more than you. The only evil the Liberal Progressive recognizes, is the discernment of evil. This is how a terrorist attack on an American military base can be called an act of workplace violence. It’s how Israel can be criticized for the heavy-handed defense of their country, while the brutal acts of the Palestinians against the Israelis, and even their own people, are ignored. It’s how a police officer can be labeled a racist murder with no evidence proving that is the case, while a young man, who moments before his death was robbing a convenience store, is lauded as a hero. It’s how an unborn child can be regarded as a parasite in its mother’s womb, and how mankind at large can be regarded as a parasite on the earth. It is this defective moral compass, that compels the President, a man steeped in Liberal Progressive ideology, practically from birth, to travel the world apologizing for the country he is supposed to lead. So warped is his thinking, that he truly believes that Islāmic terrorists are not evil, just misunderstood.
Perhaps the only truthful words uttered by this man, were his campaign promise to “Fundamentally change America”. It’s frightening how much he, and the Liberal Progressives have succeeded.
*This passage is not meant to include women who were abandoned, widowed, or escaping abusive situations.
Observations and Opinions of a Middle Aged Housewife 