By Alan Caruba
With the advent of the Fourth of July, I know the expectation is that some patriotic prose is expected. I also know there have been many previous Fourths when Americans could have legitimately asked whether the United States of America would survive.
Why now? We date the Fourth from 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was published by representatives of the Colonies who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
However, the nation we celebrate began in earnest on May 25, 1787 with a quorum of representatives from seven states met in Philadelphia to draft a Constitution. They met in secret. They were all Christian. They were all white. They were the best and the brightest of their generation and, arguably, of many generations since.
By September 17, 1787 all twelve of the delegations had approved the Constitution. Out of the 42 members present, 39 delegates signed it.
When New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it, the Constitution went into effect on June 21, 1788. The first Congress convened in New York City on March 4, 1789. On September 25, 1789, Congress approved twelve Amendments, including those known today as our Bill of Rights and sent them to the states for ratification. On December 15, 1791, Virginia ratified ten of the twelve and they became part of the Constitution.
By a single vote of a single Justice of the Supreme Court, we managed to hold onto the Second Amendment just days ago. That is frightening. If Sen. Obama becomes President Obama, the appointment of new members of the Court could do extraordinary damage to the Constitution.
That is why on July 4, 2008, it is legitimate to ask if the United States of America can survive.
There are other reasons to raise the question. Specifically, they are the 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 members of the Senate of whom only a minority wants to stop the illegal invasion of America across our southern border or begin to drill for the vast amounts of oil and natural gas known to exist in our nation.
When you have a Senate Majority Leader saying, as Harry Reid did, that “oil makes us sick. Coal makes us sick,” and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, saying we cannot and should not drill our way to a decent level of energy sufficiency, you have a leadership that is certifiably insane or too stupid to be allowed to ride a bus unattended.
There is the Islamic Revolution that is alive and well among at least a hundred million Muslims of the more than one billion in the world. Pretending that we are not at war with them is suicidal.
When you have a $14 trillion economy and the only thing the mainstream media can write about is a Recession that is not in effect or a Depression they predict is just around the corner, something is very wrong with what passes for journalism in America.
Is the deficit too high? Yes. Is our money supply too cheap? Yes. These things can be fixed if we can just elect a Congress that will not repeat the spending frenzy of the passed eight years.
So, yes, it is proper and necessary to ask if America can survive. It’s not the 300-million plus Americans I worry about. It is the steady flow of illegal aliens that worries me. It is a government that is not supporting American industry, entrepreneurs, and small businesses that worries me.
It is a bloated and wasteful federal government that worries me.
It is the people in elected offices from the Congress to the local governments who worry me. A lot!
I read a proverb that went something like
ReplyDelete"If you give a fool a million dollars they will loose it in a day, but if you give a wise person a simple axe they will set them selves up for life."
It amazes me how the founding fathers could carve something great with nothing, but those of us who inherited millions are loosing it hand over fist.
I think the difference between wise and foolish is in Utopianism.
A wise person knows life basically is not fair and so tries to survive as best he/ she can. A fool thinks he can change this nature, and waste billions trying to do it.
You also know that conservitives make money, and sponsors pay big bucks to have adds on conservitive programing. Liberals simply have to begg for their money, and beg for more money to keep there message going.
This is what gives me hope that eventually they will go out of business; hopefully they will not wreck the country before doing so.
The liberals supporting Obama don't seem to have any problem raising campaign funds and there are any number of wealthy liberals contributing along with the smaller amounts for individuals.
ReplyDeleteThe voters have consistently put people in office for decade now who have ignored the nation's energy needs in favor of preserving "pristine" this or that, thwarting the building of new plants to generate electricity for equally foolish reasons.
Republicans are having problems raising campaign cash because the party betrayed its supporters with eight years of spending on capital hill and what many regard as an ill-conceived and conducted war in Iraq. The fact that it is enjoying some success and a new, democratic nation may emerge, is a mitigating factor at this point.
We have had a significant failure of leadership from both parties. We are being asked to choose between two candidates, one of whom has a very thin resume and the other who subscribes to some very bad ideas about the environment and the economy.
Not a good time to be a voter, but vote we must.