The Savage Republican

History redux

I assume that most of you know me as a historian. Mainly war and especially WWII. I happened across an article today from the WSJ written by two mediocre Senators who garner great headlines amongst the press and Republicans: namely Lieberman and Graham.
They've just returned from a trip to Georgia and scribed an article issuing a warning about Russia and Russian intentions. I agree with the premise that "Russia's invasion of Georgia represents the most serious challenge to this political order since Slobodan Milosevic unleashed the demons of ethnic nationalism in the Balkans. What is happening in Georgia today, therefore, is not simply a territorial dispute. It is a struggle about whether a new dividing line is drawn across Europe: between nations that are free to determine their own destinies, and nations that are consigned to the Kremlin's autocratic orbit." However, what caught my eye and is now sticking in my craw was this sentence two paragraphs down:"The first priority of America and Europe must be to prevent the Kremlin from achieving its strategic objectives in Georgia. " I stopped at the end of that sentence. What's the population of Europe again? What is the EU's GDP? How strong are it's armed forces? Didn't America rescue Europe twice in the twentieth century? Didn't we preserve it for fifty plus years during the Cold War? And yet the armed forces of Britain, Germany and France couldn't handle the Balkans without the U.S. Air Force? And now, once again, there is the suggestion that Europe can not/will not act in its own long range interests?
In the early 80's, Ronald Reagan strongly urged the Germans NOT to have or accept the Russians building a natural gas pipeline into Germany. His concern was that the Germans would become dangerously dependent on Russian largess and mercy should the Russians ever need to have Europe back down. Germany now receives a worrying percentage of its energy from Russia. This Russian hammer over Germany and the EU is reminiscent of the first OPEC oil embargo in 1973: the Japanese received a majority of their oil from OPEC. OPEC told Japan to either denounce Israel of face a total OPEC embargo. Japan denounced Israel.
And so the only nearby armed forces that can respond to Russian aggression against say Poland or the Ukraine are based in countries that need Russian natural gas to function.
Not a lot of forward thinking in Europe. Matched neatly by the lack of any forward thinking in Washington as evidenced by $4.00/gal gasoline.
Victor Davis Hanson always has particularly sharp insight. Go here and pick out some of his articles on Russia and Georgia.

Heller and the 2nd Amendment- the war continues

Dick A. Heller has finally registered his revolver. Heller is the security guard who was refused a permit to have a firearm in Washington D.C. and subsequently sued. The result was the landmark case "Heller v D.C." which resulted in the Supreme Court ruling, for the first time, that the 2nd Amendment guaranteed that right to keep and bear arms is an individual right.
However, as I blogged, that ruling is not and will not be the end of the war against the 2nd Amendment and the Constitution, especially the 10th Amendment.
As the heller article reports:"Heller recently sued the city again, saying the registration rules adopted by the D.C. government after the ban was overturned are too cumbersome and violate the spirit and letter of the court's decision...."I am not surprised at all. As a matter of fact, the NRA has instituted a number of suits based on Heller. And I applaud them for it.
As I warned, the SCOTUS proclamation on Heller means that the fight will continue in the Congress, legislatures and courts. Heller was only a single victory in a single battle, albeit an important one.
The war on and for liberty: It will never end.
But there seems new energy to press the war forward.

McCain giveth and McCain taketh away

I'll let you go elsewhere to read how well Senator McCain did against the Pelosi anointed one at Saddleback Church on Saturday. I'd give McCain a solid A. I'd give BHO a solid F...minus. Especially now that he has become such an accomplished liar when it comes to killing babies.
And when Senator McCain gives a straight out, solid, eyes on performance, he then comes out with this:

What the H*** are his campaign advisors thinking? "Washington is broken". Yup. And you helped break it! "The Original Maverick", "He fought Big Tobacco" and drug companies? He'll fight Big Oil and Wall Street?

Hey-Congratulations guys! I'll bet you get a great big thank you card from Barack Obama's campaign treasurer for saving the BHO campaign a bunch of money by running their campaign ad for them.

Give McCain a huge F double minus for this one.

One layer of separation

By now, I'm sure you've read of the murder of Todd Bachman and the vicious assault on his wife Barbara in Beijing where they were attending the Olympics. Todd Bachman was the CEO of Bachmans here in Minneapolis.
You've read my many blogs about the 8th Air Force Historical Society. I was introduced to the Society by the fact that my great uncle John and Larry Bachman were board members at the Masonic Home. Larry flew B-24's in WWII. Larry came back from the war and became an executive of Bachman's.
Todd Bachman is Larry's second cousin (Larry's brother and his only sibling Roy, was killed in WWII in the Pacific). When I heard the news early this morning and heard the last name "Bachman" I only thought fleetingly about a relation to Larry or maybe Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. It wasn't until this afternoon I heard a reference to Bachman's. Larry is my very good friend. I called him immediately after I heard the reference to Bachman's on the radio. We talked a while about the call he got early this morning from his son Dale.
Larry told me that Todd lived next door to Larry and his wife Louise, who recently passed away, and that Louise was nearly a second mother to Todd as his mother worked at the store.
Please remember Todd's family and all the Bachmans in your prayers. And pray for Todd's widow Barbara as she is fighting life threatening wounds.
For more information, Bachman's has established a website.

The hardest working Congress

In case you are wondering why Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats need to adjourn instead of actually voting on an energy package - Uncle Jay will explain why they need rest.

Rush's 20th and a divided nation

All this week Rush has been celebrating his 20th Anniversary. He done some flashbacks, played recordings of people who've called in to congratulate him all week congratulating him on his spectacular radio career.
My first blush with Rush (oh my, the poet comes forth) was in 1993. It was June, just after my Dad had passed away. A number of my friends were asking me if I heard , on the radio, this guy with a strange name. I said no, I hadn't. But one afternoon I tuned in to AM1500 and heard this guy named "Rush" something. Hey. This guy is saying what I'd been thinking and had been taught by my Mom and Dad. Well, I had never had a reason to listen to AM1500, but now was there each day. After Rush came Joe Soucheray who had a brand of what used to be common sense living we called conservatism (Joe called it "Garage Logic" figuring most problems could be logically discussed and figured out in the garage). About a year later a new guy appeared at 5:00pm. His name was (and is) Jason Lewis. Another guy named Dave Thompson filled in over the hours. This was now my entre into talk radio.
Now, here in Minneapolis we have five talk radio stations (six if you count failed 950 Fresh Air). I've left AM1500 behind. Joe Soucheray just got too sophomoric. His "bits" became poor locker humor episodes. He also lost me when he fell over for Carl Pohlad's stadium robbery deal (Joe is also a sports guy over at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He also does NOT live in Hennepin County and so doesn't pay a damn dime for the stadium he wanted). Added to that was when AM1500 lost Jason Lewis and proceeded to shoot themselves in the foot repeatedly with schedule and on air personality changes. So, now I listen to AM1280 , KTLK and Glenn Beck on the internet.
In 1999 I got my first computer. And shortly thereafter I discovered Al Gore's greatest invention (no, not man made global warming, though he has and does vigorously imagine it). No. I mean the internet. And I discovered a whole new world where the MSM didn't reign and didn't control. I found out that Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and their ilk had been either lying or deceiving me and the rest of America. I found that Big Education had created a generation of ignorant bobble head children imbued with hating America. I found that there was truth out there. And I was angry! I could do more research in an hour on the computer that I could in a month in a library. I could email hundreds of people. With a blog I could write my thoughts (BTW, SavageRepublican.com gets well over 1,000 hits a day). The monopoly and the back of the lefts grip on "truth" was broken. I've also bookmarked Victor Davis Hanson, Michael Yon, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and Hot Air (following my friend Ed Morrissey) just to name a very few.
So, when you hear about a divided America, it's because people like you, people like my brother, my sister,my friends and fellow lovers and defenders of liberty like me have discovered where we can find the truth after having been lied to and deceived for decades.
And we're fighting back.
And it started with Rush.
Congratulations Rush.
And thanks.

Pakistan, Illegal Immigrants and the Constitution

The title for this piece is probably the most discordant at first glance title I've ever put together. But, there is logic in my seemingly incongruous heading.
I just finished reading an entry over at Hot Air where my friend Ed Morrissey writes. There is an article about the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI) and the danger to the US and the region that the ISI loyalties are engendering. There are comments about the ISI and a nuclear Pakistan and A.Q. Khan that can be made later. What caught my eye was in the comments section by a contributor called "coldwarrior". He makes mention of the diminishing Pakistani middle class. He states that they are leaving Pakistan and had at first gone to the UK. Their reception there was less than warming and so they've started to come to the US. And any country can not survive well with only an elite and a lower class. The movement of this population gave me pause however.
I restate the obvious when I talk about illegals coming from primarily Mexico to the US. Again it's no secret why they come to America. But what a horrible indictment of the Mexican government! That your citizens find it necessary to leave their birthplace because of no discernible economic hope of improvement. And they come knowing that that is hostility towards them, that they may very well be exploited. And yet they come. But, here was where I tied the Constitution into this immigration scenario from two widely divergent countries: The Founders put great emphasis on individual and states rights. They envisioned and created a federation of individual and therefore fairly autonomous structures called states. The rights of the states were well protected within the framework of the Constitution (read the IX [aka 9th] Amendment to the Constitution). The Founders created a framework of territories (states) where if a citizen found a state inhospitable or not to his or her liking, they were able to move to a state that they found more agreeable. That as a moral and educated people, as long as neither force nor fraud were employed in any activities, we were free to be about our business as best we saw fit to pursue it. Truth be told, that if the Founders wrote a Constitution that did not guarantee that sovereignty to the states and individuals, there would have been no ratification potential by the states at all! This was the idea behind federalism. That idea is now moribund. With an overarching federal government, there is now no place to go to escape bad and crushing federal laws, bloated and "badge heavy" bureaucrats and bureaucracies with bad rules and even worse outcomes. This is not what the Founders had created. They created a constitutional republic. We now live in a functional democracy administered by a class of bureaucrats. They Founders abhorred the idea of a democracy.
And so, the Pakistanis and the many Mexicans exercise a type of international federalism in coming to the US, legally or otherwise. But they do come.
And where do we Americans go to escape a tyrananny federal government?

USA! USA!

Joey Chestnut retain the Mustard belt.
Take that World.

Put your life at risk!

OK kids, put your life on the line! Risk being arrested and tried for treason and being executed! Step up! Sign the Declaration of Independence!
Now, a quick history refresher:
What does the 4th of July commemorate here in America? (Insert Final Jeopardy interlude music here). It commemorates the PASSING of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress, not its signing.
Anyhow, here is what the final product looks like:

Your signature appears at the bottom of the far left column.
So, there I am, Amendment X, risking the calling down of the furies for high treason against the Crown.
So be it. Bring it on!
By the way, here is the story of the Declaration of Independence and what happened to the signers.
Brave men indeed as there was no prohibition against "cruel or unusual" punishment. And high treason was punishable by drawing and quartering.

The Savage Republican

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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

History redux

Monday, August 25, 2008

Heller and the 2nd Amendment- the war continues

Monday, August 18, 2008

McCain giveth and McCain taketh away

Saturday, August 09, 2008

One layer of separation

Saturday, August 02, 2008

The hardest working Congress

Rush's 20th and a divided nation

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Pakistan, Illegal Immigrants and the Constitution

Friday, July 04, 2008

USA! USA!

Put your life at risk!