Moccasin Creek Minutemen

Obama’s Vision for a Spartan America

BY JONAH GOLDBERG

President Obama’s State of the Union address was disgusting.

The president began with a moving tribute to the armed forces and their accomplishments. But as he has done many times now, he celebrated martial virtues not to rally support for the military, but to cover himself in glory — he killed Osama bin Laden! — and to convince the American people that they should fall in line and march in lockstep.

He said of the military: “At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together. Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach.”

That is disgusting.

What Obama is saying, quite plainly, is that America would be better off if it wasn’t America any longer. He’s making the case not for American exceptionalism, but for Spartan exceptionalism.

It’s far worse than anything George W. Bush, the supposed warmonger, ever said. Bush, the alleged fascist, didn’t want to militarize our free country; he tried to use our military to make militarized countries free.

Indeed, Obama is upending the very point of a military in a free society. We have a military to keep our society free. We do not have a military to teach us the best way to give up our freedom. Our warriors surrender their liberties and risk their lives to protect ours. The promise of American life for Obama is that if we all try our best and work our hardest, we can be like a military unit striving for a single goal. I’ve seen pictures of that from North Korea. No thank you, Mr. President.

Of course, Obama’s militaristic fantasizing isn’t new. Ever since William James coined the phrase “the moral equivalent of war,” liberalism has been obsessed with finding ways to mobilize civilian life with the efficiency and conformity of military life. “Martial virtues,” James wrote, “must be the enduring cement” of American society: “intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command must still remain the rock upon which states are built.” His disciple, liberal philosopher John Dewey, hoped for a social order that would force Americans to lay aside “our good-natured individualism and march in step.”

This is why Obama’s administration believes a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. This is why Obama has been prattling about “Sputnik moments” and sighing over his envy of China and its rulers. This is why his spinners endeavored to translate the death of bin Laden as some sort of vindication of his domestic agenda: because he cannot lead a free people where he thinks they should go.

At the end of his address, Obama once again cast the slain bin Laden as the Vercingetorix to his Caesar. (Vercingetorix was the defeated Gaulic chieftain whom Caesar triumphantly paraded through Rome.) “All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves,” Obama rhapsodized.

The warriors on the ground “only succeeded . . . because every single member of that unit did their job. . . . More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other — because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s somebody behind you, watching your back. So it is with America.”

“This nation is great because we worked as a team. This nation is great because we get each other’s backs.”

No. Wrong. It is not so with America. This nation isn’t great because we work as a team with the president as our captain. America is great because America is free. It is great not because we put our self-interest aside, but because we have the right to pursue happiness.

I don’t blame the president for being exhausted with the mess and bother of democracy and politics, since he has proved so inadequate at coping with the demands of both. Nor do I think he truly seeks to impose martial virtues on America. But he does desperately want his opponents to shut up and march in place. And he seems to think this bilge will convince them to do so.

What I can’t forgive, however, is the way he tries to pass off his ideal of an America where everyone marches as one as a better America. It wouldn’t be America at all.

— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute . You can write to him by e-mail at JonahsColumn@aol.com, or via Twitter @JonahNRO. © 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

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As always, thank you for your support and please don’t hesitate to call or write if you have questions or comments. I can be reached at polivett@nationalreview.com or (814) 883 – 8067.

Paul Olivett, Associate Publisher

National Review, Inc.

Dear Friends,

Don’t watch the State of the Union alone! This is an experience best shared with like-minded friends, refreshments and a dose of reality!

You are invited to our program, the “Real State of the Union and North Carolina”, featuring Dallas Woodhouse, State Director of Americans for Prosperity; Roy Cordato, Vice President for Research and resident scholar at the John Locke Foundation; and Francis De Luca, President of the Civitas Institute. They will discuss the “real” state of the Union and the State of North Carolina and invite questions.

Then, view the President’s State of the Union with a gathering of like-minded activists. Join us for information, open discussion, and refreshments as we watch and counter President Obama’s impressions of the state of the Union. REGISTER HERE to save your seat.

Program: The Real State of the Union and North Carolina

and

Viewing: President Obama’s State of the Union Address

John Locke Foundation Building

200 W. Morgan Street

Raleigh, NC 27601

Tuesday, January 24

8:00 pm

I was impressed by the turnout tonight and the speakers we had were very informative. We had several new people and need to continue to grow. This is a very important year at which we need to be informed of who is running, what they stand for. Get to know the candidates, help them get their message out. We do not endorse candidates, but we bring them in to our meetings so we can get to know them. We have a Debate coming up March 31st at the Zebulon Community Center between the candidates running for the 13th district. More info will be coming out as we get closer, but get the word out so more people see who is running. I bet there will be bunches of candidates trying to get your vote in the primary’s. We will have BBQ while the candidates get warmed up. Spread the word. More to follow. Tell a friend.

Now that the local elections are over, we can either stick our heads in the sand, or fight for what we believe. I hope that some not quite awake will wake up. That being said we need to come together as a group to do what is needed to educate the public on what our Constitution and Declaration of Independence is, and why it is a great document.
Do you have a Pocket copy of Constitution, and Declaration of Independence? If yes do you carry it as reference, or is it stuffed somewhere and forgot about. I always have one with me so if necessary I can show what it states, and even give it away(gave my last one out the other day so I ordered 100 more from The Heritage Foundation. Note that there are some out there that are incorrect, so only get from a trusted site. Hillsdale College is out there and wants to get them out to everyone if you can donate. If you need a copy or would like you can call me and I will be more than happy to give anyone in need a copy I would like to figure out a program to educate students at local schools with a incentive to reward classes (So not just the better students get the reward) Judged by Some one with David Barton’s knowledge of these historical importance documents. I know this will take $ but to educate these documents to our children may excite them to pass to the parents. Let me know what you think.

Sincerely
Larry Schug
919-665-0697

This info provided by Patriot Dee Sams; I thought it was worth passing along.

Salary of retired US Presidents ………….$180,000 FOR LIFE

Salary of House/Senate ……………………..$174,000FOR LIFE

Salary of Speaker of the House ………….$223,500 FOR LIFE

Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders …… $193,400 FOR LIFE

Average Salary of Soldier DEPLOYED IN AFGHANISTAN $38,000

Average income for SOCIAL SECURITY seniors $12,000

I think we found where the cuts should be made! If you agree..Pass it on!

Do you believe in what the school board have done over the last 2 years. I have been to those meetings and saw first hand the obstruction the left put on. I firmly believe that while not perfect they have done for our children/grandchildren, and if you do not have children in public schools they have used your money as best as possible. They have added teachers in a down time, raised SAT scores, lowered suspensions. Now if we loose the seat Heather Lasordo is in a runing off against, almost guaranteed if taxes are not raised teachers will get laid off. It’s our choice to get up and SUPPORT HEATHER LASORDO.

As all of us know the local elections are upon us from our local towns to the school board. These past 2 years the school board has made great strides in higher SAT scores, lower suspensions, reducing spending without losing teachers. With that said we need to get out and support the candidates that support education, and not special interest of growing the administration, and unfunded programs that do not work. The new board and superintend found that a person given a contract for their job, hid $10 million, she/he resigned. How many more do we have in the school system that are stealing tax payer $ (remember that is your money) We need to help them continue fighting to educate our children so they grow to future of opportunity. Call Bessie Brantly and let her know what you can do at 919-210-6161 and leave a message she will get right back with you if she is not able to answer.

This was sent to me by a Texas friend. Not an endorsement by MCMM

In case you were wondering…………
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Who Is Rick Perry?

He is a fifth generation Texan, the son of hardscrabble west Texas tenant farmers – Democrats but conservatives through and through. He grew up in a farm town too small to be on the state map. Life was so hard that he was six years old before his house had indoor plumbing. His mother sewed his clothes, including the underwear he wore to college.

He is an Eagle Scout. After Paint Creek High School , he attended Texas A&M, graduated, and was commissioned into the Air Force where he became a C-130 pilot.

Now 61 years old, he has won nine elections to four different offices in Texas state government. In the first three elections he ran as a Democrat then switched to the Republican Party. He is currently the 47th governor of Texas – a position he has held for 11 years, the longest tenure of any governor in the nation.

He has never lost an election.

Rick Perry was the Lieutenant Governor to whom Governor George Bush handed over the office after winning the 2000 Presidential election. Since then, Perry won gubernatorial elections in 2002, 2004, and 2010, the last time by 55% against a field consisting of a Democrat, a Libertarian, a Green Party, and an Independent.

Since he became its Governor, Texas – a right to work state that taxes neither personal income nor capital gains – has added more jobs than the other 49 states combined. In the last two years, low taxes and little regulation led his state to create 47% of all jobs created in the entire nation. Five of the top ten cities with the highest job growth in the nation are in Texas . People follow jobs, so in the last four years for which data are available, Texas led every state in net interstate migration growth.

Perry signed ground-breaking “loser pays” tort reform and medical litigation rules that caused malpractice insurance rates to fall. Some 20,000 doctors have since moved to Texas .

Texas boasts 58 of the Fortune 500 companies – more than any other state. Since May 2011 Texas resumed its pre-recession employment levels. Only two other states and the District of Columbia have done that.

Texas ships 16% of the nation’s export value. California trails at 11%. Of the 70 companies that have fled California so far in 2011, 14 relocated in Texas .

In this year’s Texas legislative season, Perry got most of what he wanted. With no new taxes, a fiscally lean state budget was passed leaving $6 billion in a rainy day fund even as other states around the country struggled to balance budgets and avoid more deficit borrowing. A voter ID bill passed that was designed to prevent ballot box fraud and illegal voting. A bill passed that makes plaintiffs pay court costs and attorney fees if their suits are deemed frivolous.

Perry scored points even in his legislative failures. He failed to get sanctuary cities banned – Texas towns in which police cannot question detainees about their immigration status. The blame fell on the legislature. Perry also failed to get a so-called “anti-groping” bill passed that would put Transportation Security Administration agents in prison if they touch the genitals, anus, or breasts of passengers in a pat down. Federal officials threatened to halt all flights out of Texas airports and the bill died in special session. That endeared Texans even more to TSA employees living in Texas .

Perry jogs daily in the morning. He has no bodyguard with him, but his daughter’s dog runs by his side and he carries a laser-guided automatic pistol in his belt. Last year while jogging in an undeveloped area, a coyote paralleled his jogging route, eyeing his dog. He drew his pistol and killed the animal with one shot, leaving it where it fell. “He became mulch,” Perry said. Animal rights groups protested, but Perry shrugged it off. “Don’t come after my dog,” he warned them.

Recently, Obama asked Perry to delay the July 7 execution of Humberto Leal in order to comply with the International Court of Justice in The Hague and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Perry refused. Therefore Obama asked the US Supreme Court to delay the execution because it would damage US foreign relations. The Court refused 5-4 and Perry ordered the execution to go forward as scheduled. Over the howls of diplomats, politicians, and the UN, Leal was administered a lethal injection at 6:20 p.m. Before he died, he admitted his guilt and asked for forgiveness.

The case has special implications for Perry, who is considering a run for the presidency in 2012. Even his critics resent federal interference in a Texas execution, which is related to a state, not a federal, crime – an alcohol and drug-fueled rape and murder 17 years ago by an illegal whose family brought him into the country 35 years ago as a child. The interference hinges not on the man’s guilt, which Leal’s advocates acknowledged, but on a technicality – failure to inform Leal that he could have gotten legal representation from the Mexican consulate in lieu of the court-appointed attorneys who represented him. Independent Texans saw Obama’s interference as another intrusion of federal power into the affairs of a state, which could cost Obama support in other states.

Needless to say, Perry is a hard-edged conservative and a ferocious defender of 10th Amendments rights (“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”) – an explicit restriction of the federal government to only those powers granted in the Constitution. Perry accuses the federal government, especially the Obama administration, of illegal overreach.

Perry said “no thanks” to the feds whose stimulus offered taxpayer dollars for education and unemployment assistance. The strings on “free money” from Washington , he said, would restrict Texas in managing its own affairs. Perry even depleted all state funds to fight recent wildfires before asking Washington for disaster relief. His request has been ignored, which comes across as an unvarnished federal power play, further pitting Perry and Texans against the federal government.

Wake County School Board candidates need your help getting out the vote; can we help? This is our county, it matters.

Our New Dictator May Be In Deep Trouble…with Chief Justice John Roberts, U.S. Supreme Court.

According to sources who watch the inner workings of the federal government, a smack-down of Barack Obama by the U.S. Supreme Court may be inevitable.

Ever since Obama assumed the office of President, critics have hammered him on a number of Constitutional issues. Critics have complained that much, if not all of Obama’s major initiatives run headlong into Constitutional roadblocks on the power of the federal government. Obama certainly did not help himself in the eyes of the Court when he used the venue of the State of the Union address early in the year to publicly flog the Court over its ruling that the First Amendment grants the right to various organizations to run political ads during the time of an election. The tongue-lashing clearly did not sit well with the Court, as demonstrated by Justice Sam Alito, who publicly shook his head and stated under his breath, ‘That’s not true,’ when Obama told a flat-out lie concerning the Court’s ruling. As it has turned out, this was a watershed moment in the relationship between the executive and the judicial branches of the federal government. Obama publicly declared war on the court , even as he blatantly continued to propose legislation that flies in the face of every known Constitutional principle upon which this nation has stood for over 200 years.

Obama has even identified Chief Justice John Roberts as his number one enemy, that is, apart from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, and so on… And it is no accident that the one swing-vote on the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy, stated recently that he has no intention of retiring until ‘Obama is gone.’ Apparently, the Court has had enough.

The Roberts Court has signaled, in a very subtle manner, of course, that it intends to address the issues about which Obama critics have been screaming to high heaven. A ruling against Obama on any one of these important issues could potentially cripple the Administration. Such a thing would be long overdue.

First, there is ObamaCare, which violates the Constitutional principle barring the federal government from forcing citizens to purchase something. And no, this is not the same thing as states requiring drivers to purchase car insurance, as some of the
intellectually-impaired claim. The Constitution limits FEDERAL government, not state governments, from such things, and further, not everyone has to drive, and thus, a citizen could opt not to purchase car insurance by simply deciding not to drive a vehicle. In the ObamaCare world, however, no citizen can ‘opt out.’

Second, sources state that the Roberts court has quietly accepted information concerning discrepancies in Obama’s history that raise serious questions about his eligibility for the office of President. The charge goes far beyond the birth certificate issue. This
information involves possible fraudulent use of a Social Security number in Connecticut, while Obama was a high school student inHawaii, double citizenship, natural born…and others.

And that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Third, several cases involving possible criminal activity, conflicts of interest, and pay-for-play cronyism could potentially land many Administration officials, if not Obama himself, in hot water with the Court. Frankly, in the years this writer has observed politics, nothing comes close to comparing with the rampant corruption of this Administration, not even during the Nixon years. Nixon and the Watergate conspirators look like choirboys compared to the jokers that populate this Administration.

In addition, the Court will eventually be forced to rule on the dreadful decision of the Obama DOJ suing the state of Arizona. That, too, could send the Obama doctrine of open borders to an early grave, given that the Administration refuses to enforce federal law on illegal aliens.

And finally, the biggie that could potentially send the entire house of cards tumbling in a free-fall is the latest revelation concerning the Obama-Holder Department of Justice and its refusal to pursue the New Black Panther Party. The group was caught on tape committing felonies by attempting to intimidate Caucasian voters into staying away from the polls. A whistle-blower who resigned from the DOJ is now charging Holder with the deliberate refusal to pursue cases against Blacks, particularly those who are involved in radical hate-groups, such as the New Black Panthers, who have been caught on tape calling for the murder of white people and their babies. This one is a biggie that could send the entire Administration crumbling–that is, if the Justices have the guts to draw a line in the sand at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.