Sweet Phoebe Prince

“Good-night, sweet prince
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”

If someone were to publicly attack an adult, onlookers would immediately dial 911 on their cell phones, aiming those cell phone cameras at the perpetrators. The police would arrest the attackers. If found guilty in court, they would be sent to prison.

Why then do we think our children are less deserving of protection? Why have we always dismissed bullying and teasing as playground antics, harmless and innocent? Why do we tolerate behavior in children we would not tolerate in adults?

Why do we look away and tell our children not to bother us? To handle it themselves? Why do we tell them that such criminal behavior is a normal part of real life when, in real life, we punish it?

The same children who bully will grow up believing such a behavior is acceptable and turn into criminals. Only then do we arrest them, having neglected their poisonous growth while still in the nursery bed, when it could have been uprooted.

Phoebe Prince was pretty, smart, sweet, and the new girl in town, with a lilting Irish brogue that seemed to make her attractive to at least one senior high school football player at South Hadley High School. It also made her a target.

We always think it’s only the awkward, the homely, the misfits who are targeted by bullying. I was bullied mercilessly in grade school because I was homely. The teacher stood by silently as the 5th grade schoolyard bully incessantly slammed his desk into the back of my chair.

The torment only stopped when my mother burst into the schoolroom unannounced, threatening the boy with expulsion and the teacher with termination if it wasn’t stopped immediately.

When I was 12, I was beaten up by a gang of kids while on my newspaper route. One of my customers rescued me.

Phoebe’s mother was there for her. But the school administration was not. They dismissed her Jan. 14th suicide as the act of a “complicated” teenaged girl. The principal said we would never know why she took her own life.

The details of the case have been slow in emerging. Evidently, she briefly dated the two boys who have been charged with statutory rape, with the implication that she somehow consented to sexual relationships with them, bringing on the harassment.

It’s an old trick and an old story where an older, upper classman lures a younger, innocent girl into a sexual relationship. She’s the new girl in school, pretty, inexperienced, an underclassman, probably a freshman.

Within a few weeks, the captain of the football team takes notice of her, squiring her about to the exclusion of all the attractive, upperclass girls. Pretty soon it goes to her head. She figures she must be doing something right, that she’s pretty special to have all this attention

One thing leads to another, and the Cinderella fairy tale turns into a horror story. After consummating the relationship, “Prince Charming” drops her, then betrays her secret to the school cliques, ruining the girl’s reputation.

Knowing that she was now “available,” did the next boy sympathetically offer Phoebe his “services”, only to do the same thing to her? There may have been emotional blackmail involved, as well. Because she killed herself, we now only have their side of the story.

They knew exactly what they were doing, all these “Prince Charmings” and “Ugly Step Sisters” and feckless “Stepmothers”. There’s definitely no “happy ending” to this story, though perhaps there is a fairy godmother, albeit, a posthumous one.

The District Attorney is a gutsy woman. These two young men apparently didn’t comprehend their state’s statutory rape laws. The law differs from state to state. Or will they claim Phoebe just didn’t look her age?

The victim may be sexually mature, but if there is a sufficient age difference between the victim and attacker, the prosecution can argue that the mentally younger victim lacked the judgment to understand the consequences of consenting.

In the good old days, the boy would write the girl’s name on the wall in the boys’ room. Today, they use Facebook and Twitter. But it’s still the same old story of “Blame the Victim.” Caveat emptor. She was willing. She gave in. She “enjoyed” it. She was a girl of “easy virtue.”

Never mind what all this made these guys. The old double standard is in their favor.

The indignant mother of one girl claims that she raised her daughter with strong values. If only we knew the “truth,” we wouldn’t be so sympathetic. If we knew the whole story, we’d know it was all Phoebe’s own fault. That her tormenters spoke the “truth.”

Other students who know the “truth” about South Hadley harassment have been effectively silenced. A student who told a television news crew about the bullying was thrown against a locker as soon as they left, and beaten in the head. By a girl member of the gang.

These were no inner city, urban ghetto gangstas. Their pictures show seemingly clean-cut, wholesome, suburban progeny, just as my tormentors were, from “good” homes. Violence is not the sole province of poverty, by any means. Angelic faces can mask a hideous evil.

These monsters have not been expelled and have not been daunted by public outcry. Phoebe’s death was not enough for them. They signed onto her memorial Facebook page and continued their harassment, posthumously humiliating her.

So far, not all of them have been expelled from school and the outrage is spreading nationwide. The school is taking a circle-the-wagons public relations approach. Perhaps they fear the “truth” will come out.

After all, if it was known that Phoebe “consented”, she might be relegated to “Client Number Nine” status by the media. The school would look foolish then and be subject to lawsuits by the aggrieved parents of the “wronged” students who taunted Phoebe.

It’s a pity that it took a pretty girl’s death to raise awareness of school bullying. But if justice is done for her and all the other countless victims of harassment and abuse, then her death will not have been in vain, and she will be remembered as the angel of tormented children.

There have been so many, many others. Countless innocents, the victims of various degrees of abuse, who weren’t old enough, strong enough or defiant enough to fend off their attackers. The guilty live to swagger down the hallways of life, while we create memorials to their victims.

People have told me to just get over what happened when I was young. Not for the life of me would I allow my tormentors to drag me back down into that den of ugly memories, sobbing on some psychiatrist’s couch. I live, I laugh, I love. But I haven’t forgotten, either.

I once promised my chief tormentor, the 5th grade bully, that I would live to turn his laughter around. I would make people laugh and bring happiness to them, until his laughter was drowned out by theirs.

I also swore I would never forget any of those children like me who did not survive. I swore to fight tyranny in all its forms, social, religious, and political, and when I was victorious, to bring roses of peace to the graves of those whose spring was blighted.

Good night, sweet Phoebe Prince. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, child.

Hold Your Fire

The news that 24 percent of Republicans believe Obama might be the Anti-Christ isn’t even a week old, and already, militant extremist militia groups are ready for the Battle of Armageddon.

Their guns are drawn and their targets in site. They’re ready for Jesus to come down here in that cloud of rapture and bear them away to glory.

Only Jesus isn’t quite ready, yet, and neither are we. We’ve only put our big toes in the water here.

Undoubtedly, Nanny Pelosi’s mocking mug drove these guys, and their comrades in arms, mad with rage. They chose some poor cop, however, in some little town as their first example, allegedly planning to shoot the mourners at his funeral.

Thank goodness for the FBI. They’re experts at handling nut-jobs. Long experience, I guess.

We’ve a long way to go before we reach that epic battle, where firearms might, might I say, be necessary, as a last, desperate measure. Regretfully, even peaceful Jesus acknowledged as much.

Before the world comes to an end, America must come to an end. The government will have to strip us of all our rights first. Our right to free speech, to freedom of religion, to being able to establish a militia, to a right to trial by jury, and all the rest.

Obama might just do it in one, fell swoop, tearing up the U.S. Constitution. He’s already taken over the banking, insurance, education, and car manufacturing industries. He’s determined to finish off the other private sector industries with Cap and Trade.

He rammed through Health Care in a strange contortion of legislative maneuvers, using all the usual politic tricks at his disposal – bribery, threats, corruption, scandal. Then mocked the American people for opposing him.

Then the government will begin throwing us in prison for opposing them, protesting, and criticizing them. For practicing our religion. For disputing their scientific theories. For daring to educate our own children or citing the Founding Fathers.

For threatening the U.S. government. For treason.

Nanny Pelosi must be laughing hysterically now. This extremist militia group, plotting a pro-active coup, rather than a defense of home and country, has given the Liberals exactly what they wanted – an excuse to repeal the Second Amendment.

The FBI might not like to hear it, but a “well-regulated militia” is the last defense of a free people against a tyrannical government. We just haven’t arrived at freedom’s last stand yet.

But removing that protection will make removing the other “weapons” of freedom and democracy much easier.

Stand down, you militia guys. Freedom still has a fighting chance..

Prepare for Emergency Landing

All day Sunday, I put off writing my column. Weary from a week of writing, I feared I had run out of energy and passion.

Finally, I decided I should keep up the momentum, and chose Palm Sunday as a fitting topic for that day’s blog.

Long ago, I lost my childhood Bible. Tired of its stern brow-beatings – no matter what page I turned to, a bible-thumping was in store – I banished it from one corner to another, until finally, I lost it altogether.

If I thought I was well-rid of it (at the time), my Bible felt the same way about me.  I’ve searched my home up and down trying to locate it, to no avail. I’ve cleared every book shelf, looked into every nook. Disgusted with me, I think it ran away from home.

So, I’ve had to resort to a secondary bible, New Testament only, when I wish to quote the scripture. It’s a modern-language Bible, and not one I’ve always had great faith in. But any Bible in a storm.

This Bible, which I picked up in my teens, it turns out, was published in a town not far from me, the same town in which I played percussion in a church band for awhile.

To this Bible, I made reference when discussing Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his subsequent teaching at the Temple there.

I cited the Parable of the Tenants and also made reference to some of his teachings regarding the End Times. I hadn’t realized he’d spoken of the sun, the moon, and the stars, and astrological prophecies.

Christians I know have always scorned astrology, I assumed, because Jesus did.

Very interesting. But no matter. I read some other interesting quotes from Jesus, too, which I didn’t include in my blog.

“Be careful,” he said, “or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life, and that day (Armageddon) will close on you unexpectedly, like a trap.

“For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always upon the watch and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

Whoa! Heavy duty stuff for 10:30 at night. I saved what I had written and posted it quickly so that it would appear in my Sunday blog. Then I went to watch a little television before I retired.

Channel-surfing, I discovered one of my favorite movies, Titanic. I tuned in during the great ship’s last moments. But this was more doom and gloom, of which I had had enough. I figured I’d watch the last commercial and hit the off button.

A new beer commercial came on. A jet had crash-landed on a remote, tropical island. A dripping wet young woman announced she had discovered the plane’s radio. They’d be able to call for help and be saved.

But then a guy’s voice called out. He’d discovered the ship’s refrigerator, conveniently stocked with the company’s beer. The other idiot passengers cheered in jubilation and danced around, leaving the girl with the radio dumb-founded.

“We’ve been saved!” a passenger cries, kissing the beer bottle.

I suppose it’s funny. I have a sense of humor, just like anyone else. And I would have laughed, if not five minutes before, I hadn’t read Jesus’ admonition about being weighed down with drunkenness.

Those actors didn’t look very weighed down to me. Nor did Sen. Chuck Schumer sound very glum when he told NBC’s “Meet the Press:

“’As people learn what’s actually in the [HealthCare Reform] bill, that six months from now, by election time, this is going to be a plus because the parade of horribles, particularly the worry that the average middle class person has that this is going to affect them negatively, will have vanished and they’ll see that it’ll affect them positively in many ways.’”

Fox News reports that a non-plussed “David Axelrod, President Obama’s senior adviser, predicted to CNN that once people get their benefits, they won’t want to give them up.”

“’Millions of small businesses this year will get tax credits for health insurance for their employees. Kids with pre-existing conditions will get coverage for the first time. They won’t be excluded any more.

“’If people really want to repeal those things, then go and make the case to the American people. After all, that’s what elections are for.’”

Evidently, the Liberals figure we’ll see this as our great-grandparents’, grandparents’, and parents’ health care. That it’s in our genetic make-up to accept freebies and not question their cost, constitutionality, or corruptibility.

Fox News ended its report thus, “Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak held a two-hour town hall meeting on Sunday. It was supposed to be an opportunity for him to explain provisions of the law to constituents. Instead, he got an earful from voters who said the bill will bankrupt America and shred the limited government intent of the U.S. Constitution.”

We may lose our labor in the repeal process. But we are obligated to make the attempt all the same. We must have faith in our fellow Americans’ good sense and virtue. We must pray they don’t take the devils’ bait.

Of course, it will be hard work. We must convince thick-headed, beer-swilling neanderthals whose idea of retirement planning is playing the lottery that our country is trillions of dollars in debt. There’s a good chance they’ll just laugh and ignore us.

If they do, however, we must break out the life preservers and prepare for an emergency landing.

Palm Sunday, 2010

We all often wonder, what would Jesus say if he saw our modern world? Would he be pleased or would he be appalled. Would he think we’d made progress or that it was the same old, same old.

If Jesus entered say, New York City, instead of Jerusalem, was given a ticker tape parade up Broadway, with confetti instead of palm fronds, what would he think of what he saw?

It’s doubtful this one-time carpenter would be very impressed with our steel towers, our cars, or our computers. He’d probably ask to be taken to the poorest section of town.

Although he would find comparatively poor people, he’d also find that they were not starving. Fat, even. He’d listen to their complaints of poverty, of social injustice, and inequality. He’d be told of the suburban McMansions with their wide, paved streets.

Proudly, the Socialists would boast of the great strides they’ve made in resolving these inequities. But Jesus would also see criminal gangs, prostitutes, and drug dealers. He’d see fatherless families and x-rated movie theaters.

“Did you pray to God for the blessings you have?” he might ask.

Some would answer they had. God had helped them in their mission to rewrite justice, to tax the wealthy, and redistribute their wealth. They would make no secret of their hatred for the wealthier classes, and their satisfaction in wreaking vengeance upon them.

And then, he might ask, “And how have you repaid God’s bounty? You are fed, clothed, and housed at His will, you tell me. You have changed your society, for the better. But how have you altered? How have you thanked God?”

Then he might ask to be taken to the suburbs. He might then feast with them. He would ask his host if he had contributed to the needs of the poor. The host would say he had made charitable donations.

But the host would also complain about being taxed to support able-bodied citizens.

“Is not charity an act of free will, Lord, not compulsion?”

We hope he would say that the poor should ask of God, not men, and let God move other men’s hearts to goodness. As we ask the question here, we cannot speak for Jesus’ answer. He would probably have some harsh words for us, as well.  Like, “If you’re so worried about property taxes, why do you live in such large houses?”

He did say this, though, when preaching in Jerusalem during the Passover.

After he had entered Jerusalem, palm fronds thrown in his path in great welcome, Jesus began teaching in the temple every day.

One of the stories he told was the Parable of the Tenants. A rich vineyard owner rented his vineyard out to some local farmers. When he sent servants to collect some of the fruits for his table, the local farmers killed them.

Then he sent his son. He figured they’d show some respect for him. But, ‘This is the heir,’ the farmers said. ‘If we kill him, the inheritance will be ours.’ And so they did.

Jesus told the people that the owner would come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. His listeners were horrified. Jesus, in response, quoted from Isaiah: “The stone that the builders have rejected has become the capstone.”

He said all who fell on that stone would be broken to pieces, but those on whom it fell would be crushed. Jesus was speaking of the Sadducees, the givers of law of the Temple, who were cheating their people and who were suspicious of Jesus.

Jesus not only correct assessed the political situation in Jerusalem, but prophesied his own death. What parables he would tell today is anyone’s guess. The time for storytelling, indeed, may be over.

This parable still holds lessons for us today, both in the rejection of the capitalist marketplace, and the government’s usurpation of its place, and in the place Christianity holds today in our society’s estimation.

Like a domestic commodity that threatens imports in the market today, for which traders can command a cheaper price through cheaper, foreign labor, our government is inexorably outlawing Christianity. It would regulate its fields and sell them to others.

Socialism is effectively destroying the material marketplace in order to have better control of it. Socialists tout worthy philosophies, but reject the philosopher who taught them. He promised one day there would be a reckoning.

He did promise all sorts of calamities, man-made and natural.

“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines, and pestilence… and fearful events and signs from heaven.

“There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.”

Jesus said all this would come later. But first, his followers would be persecuted, thrown in prison, and even executed. “And all on account of my name. Watch out that you are not deceived, for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he!’ and ‘The Time is Near!’

“Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened. These things must happen first. But the end will not come right away.”

He tells them not to worry about what they must say to defend themselves, although he says all nations will turn against them and imprison them.

“For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. All men will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your heads will perish.

“By standing firm, you will save yourselves.”

Salt Teens

“Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce.

Special orders don’t upset us.

All we ask is that you let us

Serve it your way!”

 So went the Burger King jingle of the Seventies. Burger King held to its promise. You could ask them to leave off any item, and they would.

In the pre-Burger King days, I remember how we would stop at McDonald’s and my mother would let us have French fries. The fries came unadorned, but inside the bag, you had your choice of salt and pepper.

And of course, all the fast food franchises did the same thing: they’d place packages of salt and pepper in the bag. But then something happened.

Whether it was a corporate bean counter missive or a government fast-food regulation, they stopped giving you the salt and pepper in the bag. Instead, the fries came pre-salted.

Now if you have kids and ever watched them try to prepare something to eat, their measurement skills don’t exactly measure up. They’re still trying to get the hang of it. They’ll dump a whole canister of sugar into the mixing bowl. Or they’ll use six eggs to make an omelette (two of which inevitably end up in a mess on the floor).

The teen workers had a tendency to shake half their salt shakers onto the entire batch of French fries. If you’ll excuse the expression, they were a little too “liberal” with the salt shaker.

Well, they’re young. It’s like trying to teach them to drive; they’re going to hit some curbs before they can distinguish between the road and the sidewalk.

I’m one of those people who can barely tolerate salt. I’d eat one of these holsters of salt fries and within an hour, came down with a migraine headahce. My boss wasn’t particularly sympathetic, either (to speak truth, she wasn’t much older than those teen burger flippers and less mature).

After awhile, I learned to specifically order the fries without salt. The franchises always complied, with no fuss, bless their hearts. Now and then, I’d feel guilty for having to ask them to accommodate my request and I’d explain why, just so they knew I wasn’t trying to be difficult.

The Burger King down the road from where I live has been especially gracious. And I’ve tried not to be a nuisance. When they ask me to pull up and wait, because they have to cook up a separate order of fries, I pull up.

Once, early on, I tried to tip the young person who came out in the freezing cold to give me my fries, but he said it was against the company rules for him to accept it. So things have gone on.

But then New York City banned salt completely from all its restaurants. Anyone who likes their salt is just out of luck because of a health-conscious few who not only want to watch their diets, but everyone else’s.

This law hasn’t come to pass in the state in which I live. Yet. But now when I ask the order taker to not put salt on my fries, I detect a distinct testiness in their voice, a readiness for battle.

Thank you, Uncle Sam, Nanny Pelosi, and all your bureaucratic ilk.

Things were going very nicely. I didn’t want salt on my fries, but I tried to be as uncomplaining as possible about it. The fast-food place, in their turn, was very pleasant and very accommodating.

They let me have it my way, without interfering with everyone else’s – the majority of people – right to have it their way. I was able to take care of myself, thank you very much. I didn’t need the government’s help to order a salt-free meal.

Now the whole world is going to have to be turned upside down to accommodate me. Isn’t that just special? Don’t I feel like I’m on top of the world? Everyone who wanted salt on their fries will now be forced to smuggle salt packets into restaurants with them.

If they’re out on the road and buy some fast food, they’re going to be stuck with bland French fries that taste terrible to them, for which they paid their hard-earned money. They’ll have to keep salt packets in their glove compartments to deal with it.

All because of someone like me. And someone not like me is going to protest, make a scene, cry foul, even sue, if they get salted fries, as a demonstration of their new-found power, their enablement to have it all their way. A way they once had for nothing.

All they had to do was be nice.

Doomsday Democrats

“Men at some time are masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

According to a new poll out, 24 percent of Republicans believe Obama is the Anti-Christ. The Big A.C. Gee, I wonder where they got that idea? Obama, for his part, dismisses Armageddon as asteroids and comets, fireworks, the stuff of kooks, not a battle between good and evil.

Years ago, a friend taught me astrology. The topic of the Anti-Christ is popular among astrologers. Like the Masons, though, they prefer to keep their secrets, and this date is one of them. They’ve shared it with many Liberal fanatics but not many Christian extremists. Those fanatics are waiting for a sign from God, not the stars.

Just as they won’t tell you when you’ll die, revealing this awful birth date is against the astrological code. They only teach the death-date calculation to their most trusted students.

My teacher wouldn’t teach it to me and I really didn’t want to know when I was going to die. But I was curious about the Anti-Christ’s birth-date. On my solemn vow I would never share it, she revealed the theoretical date and even the manner of the arch-villain’s ascendancy.

I can tell you this, readers: it’s not Obama. He’s really close. But no cigar. He’s not the Devil Dude incarnate. However, while he may not be the Anti-Christ, he sure is the Anti-American.

The prophecies say that this Anti-Christ’s life would parallel, seemingly, the life of Christ. He would preach peace, heal the sick, and lead the young. Hmm. But to an evil, rather than beneficial, end. Of the world.

If the parallel theory holds any water that you can walk on, revealing the date would bring about the murder of many innocent people born on that date whose only crime is being frightfully incompetent at relationships.

Besides, who wants to be the Prophet of Armageddon? The Prophet of Doom? Geesh. On the other hand, while he’s not the Anti-Christ, Obama’s chart does have, shall we say, “issues.” If I were him, I’d be doing everything possible to help prove the Birthers right.

I abandoned astrology as anything more than a hobby years ago. People asked me to cast their horoscopes and I’d refuse. I just didn’t want the responsibility of telling people what to do. If you have a serious question or problem, ask God. He’s always listening.

Besides, you don’t need astrology to tell you what’s going on here. People – a small percentage, 24 percent – believe Obama’s the Tyrant of Tyrants. Golly, I wonder why they think that?

He’s been bowing to heads of state all over the world. Hardly the act of the future king of Hell on Earth. Obama’s mentors are the world’s worst tyrants. Quite a fraternity.

Still, Democrats are said to be living in mortal terror from death threats. Yet when Obama signs the illegal aliens amnesty bill, he’ll unleash an army of Mexican drug dealers, murderers, rapists, and gang members upon helpless American citizens. Don’t talk to us about fear.

Then, he plans to grant voting rights to all felons. He’s interested in throwing out the First and Second Amendments of the Bill of Rights altogether, so that we’ll be defenseless figuratively and literally. The God Police may arrest us if we publicly pray to the Almighty for help.

He’s declared himself a Citizen of the World. He wants the U.S. to adopt a world currency. He campaigned for President of the United States in Europe. He’s admitted that he’s an opponent of the U.S. Constitution and believes in the Marxist principle of “spreading the wealth.”

His credentials for the presidency, beyond one term as a State Senator and one as a U.S. Senator, consist of a university professorship and a stint as a “community organizer,” helping the poor.

While helping the poor is hardly a sign of evil incarnate, his motives and methods are questionable, not to mention his associates. His cadre consists of radical, left-wing Sixties activists committed to destroying the nation, haters of liberty all.

What’s more, Americans are observing more and more intrusion on their privacy and more government regulation of everyday life. There’s a tax or regulation for everything. There’s even news of a new monitoring device for cars that will record your driving speed.

With Nancy Pelosi’s aid, he rammed the Health Care Bill through Congress without revealing the bill’s contents until five days after it was passed. Congress passed the bill without making any corrections. They rectified it, correcting some passages, but adding even worse mistakes.

Obama’s preacher shouted, “God damn America!” and his wife vowed on the campaign trail that she was “finally” proud to be an American. All of this only points to the end of America, not the end of the world.

However, Obama has a counterpart on the other side of the world.

As Obama is Christian and American, but of divided parentage – one Christian, the other Muslim – this counterpart is the reverse: a full Muslim, with divided parentage, who also had a Christian mother and a Muslim father.

Even without astrological calculations, it’s not hard to figure how all this adds up. There is no mystical conjuring involved in putting together these concrete facts. What the sum will be of this union is anyone’s guess.

Are we on the brink of a worldwide holocaust? That depends on us, not the stars. Or asteroids. We can plunge over the brink. Or those who have brought us to that brink can step back from it.

Maybe he needs to think about his image when he bows to foreign potentates. Those with any knowledge of Islam are aware that “Islam” means “peace” and “submission”.

Maybe he, Congress, and the state-controlled Media need to rethink their boil-the-frog program of sweeping legislation. Americans aren’t as docile as they think, although they are boiling mad.

Maybe they need to step back on their condescending attitude towards the American public. Maybe they should stop lecturing us paternally, explaining how they know what’s best for us. Perhaps they need to stop acting like wolves, and we, like sheep.

Then, too, maybe they need to stop trying to replace God. They’ve thrown Him out of the schools, the Media, and even the public square. They’ve planted their Liberal flag on all of these venues, even denying school kids the right to play Ave Maria in a band concert, for God’s sake.

If you don’t want people to think you’re the Anti-Christ, maybe you shouldn’t act like him.

It would be nice if we could leave the Battle of Armageddon to some future generation to worry about. The Christians, incidentally – that is, the true believers – are ready for it. ‘Bring it on!’ they’ve exclaimed. I don’t know that the rest of us are quite ready, though.

We could sue for peace, at the price of our liberty. Some people just don’t care. They want the free stuff and don’t care what the ultimate price is. They’re the same dangerous people who owe thousands of dollars in debt on their credit cards. They don’t care about that, either.

Personally, I’d prefer to see Armageddon permanently relegated to the realm of Sci-Fi Horror movies. Both fanatical camps on this side of the ocean are at fever pitch for this catastrophe. We pawns in the middle aren’t so sure about all of this.

On the other side of the ocean, opposition to this world tyranny is vanquished. Osama Bin Laden promised only yesterday to commit yet another attack on America, and Europe is in her shadow, but under the sway of Liberals.

If we really want to help future generations avoid such a battle, it would be well if we didn’t pave the way smooth for that distant war. We think we’re frolicking on a meadow. But our line of sight is blinded to the huge gulf right in the middle of that pleasant field.

Sadly, the idolatry and reverence with which Obama’s loyal followers worshipped him along the campaign trail suggests they will not yield the ground they’ve gained. They will not step back but continue their juggernaut towards totalitarianism. It is a conquest long in planning.

His adherents display all the fervor of religious zealots. They chant mantras, react violently to dissent, and play psychological games with their adversaries. Reason falls on shuttered ears. They are a cult.

They implore us, with feigned weariness, to give up the fight, badgering us with loaded questions, as a prosecutor might ask an innocent man why he raped his wife. “Why do you hate the poor? Why do you hate immigrants? Why do you hate minorities? Why do you hate?”

Therefore, it is Conservatives’ responsibility to prevent the catastrophe. We need not submit. Indeed, we must do everything within our power not to consent to this overthrow of good. Will we provoke the other side by defying them, and precipitate what we fear and wish to avoid?

Maybe. We never imagine evil happening here in America. We could never imagine a tyrant rising to power, least of all in genial guise, greeting us from magazine racks. We never imagined 9/11. We can’t imagine an Armageddon and don’t want to think about it.

We were told we ourselves were to “blame” for 9/11. We will be “blamed” for repudiating the Health Care Reform law. We were told the sick would die if we didn’t enact this measure. We’ve been told a lot of things. We’ve been told a lot of lies.

They will try to frighten us with evil consequences for rejecting their measures, promising riots, bloodshed, nuclear holocaust. Global warming. We must resist them, despite their threats, despite the hard work it will entail, despite the criticism and negative publicity we’ll endure.

The bully will cry foul if he bloodies our nose, blaming us for being passive-aggressive. The victim shouldn’t have talked back, declares the principal, so they’re both at fault.

Conservatives, politicians and pundits alike, complain that repealing the health care law is virtually impossible. Nevertheless, we are bound to make the attempt. We must pull back from the side of wrong every voter we can, through patient, relentless persuasion.

Violence now will only ensure that we’re pitched over the cliff prematurely. We mustn’t let fanatics drive us to that edge. We can do this legally, honorably, and peacefully. We are not fanatics or barbarians; just patriots who love their freedom.

Yes, we must shout. And whisper. We must carry signs and we must sign petitions. We must make ourselves visible, and not skulk. We must, at times, meet in secret, and not reveal our strategies. We must practice peace, but anticipate violence.

We owe it to ourselves, as Americans. We owe it to future generations. We owe it to God.

Our options are almost apocryphal. A truly evil choice is laid before us: yield to tyranny, with an illegitimate peace, or defend freedom now through the democratic process, while we still can, before we’re compelled to fight for freedom through arms.

Choose well and choose wisely. Because failure is not an option.

The Most Powerful Woman in the World

ABC News was called in right after the Health Care Reform “triumph” to do damage control on the woman they deemed “the most powerful woman in the world.”

Nancy Pelosi. Poker-Face Pelosi. The Face That Launched a Thousand Flips.

Reporter Diane Sawyer asked her what she thought of this distinction. Straight-faced, Nancy demurred that it was very nice to hear. Gone was the Joker-Faced smile, always painful to watch (and even more painful to maintain, I daresay).

According to Sawyer, Nancy’s poker face is her trademark. Such a smile invokes maximum aggravation, irritation, and frustration (and scars on the insides of her mouth from the wires holding it up), leading an opponent to costly emotional errors in the game.

Only this isn’t Monte Carlo. Or Las Vegas. Or a James Bond flick, with Nancy as the anti-Bond girl. The stakes are much higher. She’s gambling with our lives and her cavalier attitude didn’t win her any points back home on Main Street.

Her favorability ratings are at 11 percent. But she got what she wanted and she intends to get more. Damn the defiant Tea Parties; full speed ahead.

Tea Party leaders would warn us, rightly, that a poker face is no joke. We must be circumspect in our strategy leading up to November.

Letting this mocking puppet provoke us into emotional, rather than rational, arguments could lead us further into the trap. We cannot afford to yap like terriers at her teasing, noisy but ineffective, and irritate our neighbors. We can’t bite her, either.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t let them know a burglar is in the bedroom, however.

Former President Gerald Ford said, “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you have.”

Time and again, we’ve been led into government’s snare of all-encompassing social security. Once caught, we find it hard to extricate ourselves again.

Time Magazine published a caustic article deriding Conservative attempts to perform its own damage control. They listed “Five Reasons Republicans Should Let Go of Health Care.”

In the first reason, the article cites Obama advising the Democrat House Caucus that we’ll discover that ‘lo and behold, nobody is pulling the plug on granny.’

No, they’re just going to let granny die on her own, basically. The Medicare snare is tightening around their necks. Like the drugs they hooked a generation on in the Sixties, our elders are now financially addicted to this government health care solution.

Are their arthritic hands tied? You bet. And now the government has cut the service by $500 million, just to show us what it can do and laugh in our faces.

It also demonstrates to us why we should do everything we can to repeal this law before we find ourselves enslaved in a worse situation.

No. 2: Repealing the bill is popular with the base, but impossible to pull off without the numbers in Congress. No, we can’t put the cart before the horse. But nothing is impossible for the American people. If they want to, they will move heaven, earth, and hell to get the government off their backs. Ever hear of Prohibition?

No. 3. In opposing reconciliation, we’d cut off our noses to spite our faces. Go back and see No. 1.

No. 4. The courts have a long history of federal law taking precedence over states’ rights. Ahem, Medicare and Medicaid. Ahem, they also have a long history of ignoring the Constitution that gave the states’ those rights.

No. 5. We’ve been labeled “The Party of No.” Well, someone has to be the adult and take responsibility.

The Democrats are depending upon a seven-month advertising blitz and campaign appearances by Obama to see them through to the November elections. They plan to offer all the “goodies” to the public, and be well re-elected before the Jan 1st deadline when group health insurance premiums will skyrocket 300 percent.

Ever since the Tea Parties began, pundits have fretted over our public image. Would Main Street America join us, or shun us, fearing we’re the 21st version of The Hippies? Americans just don’t do those things. They don’t take to the streets, like gutter rats.

Here’s the thing about the Tea Partiers and the Hippies. In the Sixties, the protesters sang, “Blowin’ in the Wind” – a double entendre about war and drugs. The 21st century Tea Partiers sing “God Bless America”.

The Hippies burnt flags; we wave them. The Hippies drove psychedelic VW vans; today’s parents drive SUVs with car seats in the back. The Hippies wore lovebeads; we wear funny hats (so sue us!).

The Hippies smoked dope and wore flowers; after one N.J. Tea Party, the Tea Party donated its money back to the park’s caretakers to restore the landscaping, and patronized the local tea shop.

Liberals hope to frighten the public away from us, the way they alienated the public four decades ago. But our public rallies are organized and peaceful. No one has ever used tear gas to disperse us. We don’t lay down in front of traffic until the police cart us away.

And we don’t hurl bags of feces at American soldiers; we honor them.

You’ll never find positive images of us in the state-controlled Media. If people want to know the truth, they’ll just have to come see us for themselves on April 15th.

The Media’s derision of us is laughable, given Nancy Pelosi’s performance this past week. The picture of her with the sledge hammer is worth a thousand-word bill.

In fact, it just puts a smile on your face.

For Whom the Belle Tolls

As yesterday’s blog was too long – responding to the very interesting and satisfying commentaries of Mssrs. Beck and Limbaugh – today’s will be briefer.

Obama signed the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act into law yesterday at high noon – high time we learned the bill’s actual name – and the media rang their bells in jubilation.

This law sure doesn’t ring my bells.  Nor those of anyone I know, save my communist friends who laugh at my dudgeon.  It doesn’t ring my bells that my group insurance premium is going to increase 300 percent after January 1^st.  But I’m sure going to ring the warning bell about it.

Incidentally, I really am a bell player.  Orchestra bells.  Glockenspiel.  Chimes.  There are many patriotic “Belles” running around the internet these days, and more power to every one of my sister “Belles”.

But when it comes to ringing bells, I believe I’m the expert among them.  The only bell I would ring at this juncture is the bell of warning.  Not mourning.  Not yet.  Just warning.

It’s a warning not just for patriotic Americans, but for arrogant Democrats who feel secure in their victory.  It’s a warning we did not heed two years ago when the campaign began.  As early as the Spring of 2008, we were cautioned not to be fooled by glossy magazine covers.

A spam making a hit on the Internet these days speaks of Obama as a fool.  But only those who were fooled by him are fools.  He is no fool; Obama has accomplished exactly what he promised he’d do.  He’s also preparing to open the floodgates of illegal immigration.

People who have no stake in the country other than as a plot of ground to plunder will arrive in the next month or as part of an October surprise to ensure a Democrat victory in November. 

Do you know how the middle class in Mexico City lives?  In fortresses, behind walls that are difficult to scale.  In fear.

No “mere fool” could be so insidious.  The smell of corruption fouls the wind, stings the nostrils, and makes one’s neck bristle.  In this the season of treason, who has more to fear, loyal Americans, or the elected officials who betrayed our trust?

If Nancy Pelosi and Judge Sotomayor are so powerful, what are the Democrats afraid of?  Maybe it’s that they know what they would do, if the positions were reversed.

Why else would one of their legislative plans include regulating the Internet and Talk Radio, breaching the First Amendment?  If they plan to unleash upon us a torrent of illegal aliens, what use could either be to us, if political redress is no longer an expedient? 

 The hives of the Tea Parties are already abuzz with excitement, anticipating the battle ahead.  Those who fooled us will pay for their lack of foresight and they will be stung.

 To paraphrase poet John Donne, ‘Ask not for whom the Belle tolls; it tolls for thee.’

Signing the Paper

 

Today, Obama signs into legislation the ominous Health Care Reform bill.

Some Americans are downcast, feeling defeated. In spite of all our efforts, the Liberals won this battle and we’re wondering what else we could have done to prevent its passage and what we can do now.

First, we can look on the bright side. Yes, there is one. We conservatives fought them to a closer draw than was comfortable for them. With polls showing Americans against the bill, 219-212 is hardly a sweeping mandate for the Democrats.

It took all of Nancy Pelosi’s sledge-hammering, bribery, corruption, conniving, and threats to accomplish it. Despite her smug smiles and carefree laughter on the Capitol sidewalk, you’d probably find her expensive suit was stained with sweat.

A sledgehammer is a double-edged sword. You use it to destroy old obstacles in order to create new ones. But when you’re an American legislator and that obstacle is the U.S. Constitution, and you’re publicly photographed smiling and laughing as you’re about to sledgehammer the nation’s founding legal document, you’ve got an image problem.

That indelible image is going to follow her around at every Tea Party this summer, right up until the elections. Thank God for the photographer who shot it, though their intentions were no doubt in service of the Liberals.

Nancy Pelosi is rather like a suicide bomber, minus the bloodshed. The ends justify the means – it’s the communist mantra. Anything she does in service of the greater cause of socialism she’ll consider an honorable sacrifice, even to sacrificing her own career.

We know what they are. But do we know what we are? We’ve been too complacent for too many years, and too trusting. We believe anyone who espouses our conservative cause, without any actual proof beyond vague promises.

We also let the Liberals write too many of the rules of the game. Last evening, Glenn Beck spoke of battle ball, or dodge ball. He said too many parents were overprotecting their children in this game and that they must learn to accept defeat.

Glenn’s a guy of course, and the rules are different for guys. But I remember dodge ball, too. I remember for too many years being lined up against opponents for whom I was no match. I didn’t stand a chance and neither did other, weak team mates.

It’s true, we can’t always win and life isn’t fair. But that doesn’t mean we have to paint bulls-eyes on our foreheads, either. That’s what we’ve allowed the Liberals to do to us.

When I was in the 8th grade, the gym teacher pitted the boys against the girls. You can imagine how that match was going to turn out. It was one thing when there were mixed teams, some stronger boys, and even girls on each side.

In this match, it was the girls versus the gorillas and the only weapon, a rubber ball. Had we other resources, perhaps we could have devised some defense, at least. But there was nowhere to hide and nothing with which to deflect the balls.

I decided to take the Sixties option – I rebelled against authority and held a sort of one-girl sit-out. I refused to play. There was nothing sportsman-like about this game, nothing fair, nothing to put us on an equal footing with our opponents.

This wasn’t a game, I told her in conclusion; this was target practice and I wasn’t having any part of it. If the boys wanted to play this game, let them play amongst themselves.

The teacher asked if any other girls felt that way. Nearly all did. Only two husky girls admitted they were up to the challenge, but they wouldn’t blame the smaller girls if they didn’t want to play.

Obama and Pelosi would like to change the rules of the American political game so as to leave the other side exposed and vulnerable. They want to play dodge ball. We conservatives, however, have more resources at our service than we did in the 8th grade.

Media coverage was very one-sided back in the Sixties, also. But that’s not the case today. We’re still out-numbered in outlets, but intellectually we hold our own, and in fact, we enjoy the advantage. We can Twitter as well as any young Liberal.

They would have us believe that we’re making ourselves targets by holding Tea Party rallies. Mocking us, they hope to intimidate any other followers. Some are frightened, but none more than the Liberals themselves. We’re fighting back and nothing daunts a bully more than a victim who suddenly turns on them.

We must hold our team captains to a higher standard, though. John McCain was clearly not that man. Various warning signs about him went unheeded. Average people were aware of them and perplexed when he commandeered the primaries.

The red light went on in the news interview with the Viet Cong prison guard. “He betrayed his own country,” said he. “He signed the paper.”

When you envision John McCain, his arms paralyzed, his hair white, his face burnt from the torture of the hot box, it’s difficult to condemn him for signing that paper. They’d only have had to say “Boo!” to me and my signature would have been on that form.

To censure him would be to censure every prisoner of war who’d ever gone through that kind of hell. Who would we be to judge him who’d never endured that sort of treatment?

Still, that statement, “He signed the paper” hovered, like a bothersome mosquito you don’t want to swat but won’t go away. Conservative Americans were placed in an awkward position regarding John McCain.

He had no reservations about crossing the aisle, either, particularly on immigration reform. If he signed that paper – which other POWs had not, though they suffered the same treatment and worse – if he crossed the aisle, what else would he sign, as president?

Still, impugning his patriotism is wrong. He’s an honorable, if at times misguided, man. I believe McCain loves America. His ambition, hubris, and determination to win at all costs, controverting the will of the people to choose their candidate, cost us the election and have helped bring us to this pass.

Of course, the crossover voters casting ballots for him in the Republican primary were of great value. Alas that we awoke to that danger too late. Enough people harbored doubts about McCain to avoid the polls in the 2008 election, and Obama became part of history.

If we are to learn the lessons from the past, as Rush Limbaugh bids us do, rather than simply gnaw on the old bones like a toothless dog, it’s that the people, not the money, power, and influence of political machinery must decide America’s direction.

That’s been the resounding message of the Tea Parties. We’ll not make the mistake again of leaving our representatives to their own, corrupt devices, to backroom deals and other shenanigans, beyond the light of reason and honesty.

If we knew John McCain would sign the paper, then it was a certainty Barack Obama would. Only those who voted for Obama not only entertained no doubts but welcomed that certainty.

Today, Barack Obama, displaying the same flaws as his opponent, will sign the paper that will betray our country and send it spiraling into the gulf of socialism and inevitably communism, and then totalitarianism.

To watch this event unfold will be certain torture for loyal Americans. We must meet the battle head-on, however, and not shirk from the coming onslaught against our rights as Americans.

We must stand our ground. We must not give up and we must not give in (inspired by Winston Churchill, my World War II-era mother drilled that bulldog mantra into my head when I was young and being bullied in school).

We cannot and must not walk away from our duty as Americans.

Historic Legislation?

Welcome to the United Socialist States of America.

Last night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Health Care Insurance Reform bill by a vote of 219-212.

In some extraordinary examples of propagandist journalism, the state-run media claimed the new bill will cover 32 million uninsured Americans, reduce deficits, and force insurers to provide previously banned coverage such as pre-existing conditions.

Even Fox News, always faithful to its conservative audience, chimed in with celebratory proclamations.

“Historic Legislation!”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a display of equally extraordinary poor saleswomanship, compared this new legislation to its socialist predecessor and grandparent, Social Security.

Never underestimate the ignorance of the American people, who succumbed to manipulative media stories of families beset by medical and financial problems, senior citizens who believed Hilary Clinton’s lies on the campaign trail (how’s that Medicare thing working for you, Grandma and Grandpa Citizen?), and suckers who believe in the free lunch program.

Social Security is bankrupt. There is a vault with endless rows of file cabinets filled with IOUs for all the money the government has handed out to retirees, the disabled, and illegal aliens. The American worker put in hard-earned money to the system, and received worthless paper money in return.

Is there something about the Democrats’ lies, distortions, and misinformation that the American people failed to grasp all this time? Critics in the Thirties decried the Social Security system, but they were smugly dismissed as unsympathetic, heartless cranks.

The American people meanwhile, for generations, began collecting their Social Security benefits (at increasingly older ages), which they assured themselves they had justly earned. “This isn’t so bad,” they told themselves.

Then came the Great Society in 1965. Democrats promised a skeptical American public that Medicare would work. This generation of Liberals sneer at the Americans who finally woke up last year to the shouts of the Tea Party, realizing they’d been hoodwinked.

“You don’t want Universal Health Care, but you took the Medicare, didn’t you?” the Liberals caw.

What is that story again about the snake biting the trusting girl who took it into her arms to cradle it?

The American people were beguiled by the pitch about insurance companies denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. When I was young, I thought it was terrible and heartless, too.

However, my mother explained it to me this way: suppose you opened a bank account today? You put in the minimum of $100. And then you wrote a check for $1,000. What would happen?

The check would bounce and you could be arrested for writing bad checks. Cruel as it may sound, you simply can’t sign up with an insurance company one day, then present them with a bill for say, dialysis, a week later.

A health insurer must look at your record the same way an auto insurer does. An auto insurer has a right to know if you have an accident or traffic violation record a mile long and deny you coverage. They must; taking on such a known risk is simply not fair to the other policyholders who’ve been paying their premiums.

At the very least, a health insurer would have to charge you a higher premium. A friend pays $1,200 a month in coverage. But she has huge medical expenses and has had them for a long time.

But never fear, America, Uncle Sam is here. He’s in debt to the tune of trillions of dollars. But he’s hewn down all those craven private insurers, or soon will do so. Bankrupt though he is, he can print money, and they can’t.

The money he’s handing out is worthless. He has nothing but IOUs in his vault. But who cares? You’ll be getting everything for free.

You can go back home to your 3,000 square foot McMansion you paid too much for, that you’re going bankrupt yourself just trying to heat in the winter, and watch Obama and Pelosi beam on your new HDTV you just maxed out your credit card to buy.

And comes April, when you see the now-enraged Tea Parties “shouting”, you can just hit “mute” and scorn them as “fools”. By November, you’ll have predictably forgotten all about this. You’ll be in the tank for the people who cared enough about you to enslave us forever in a fool’s paradise of endless debt.

You’ll forget all about the financial costs of Universal Health Care the way you’ve forgotten what money really looks like, how to balance a checkbook, what a savings account was, and how to clip coupons.

As for the cost of freedom? Oh, heck. What’s freedom? What’s liberty? What are they? Who cares, dude?! Freedom is so last-century, like the typewriter, the record player, and the Conestoga wagon, and just as worthless to you.

This is the 21st Century, the Age of Aquarius, the Age of Obama’s Hope and Change.

This is the United States of Socialist America!