Comments or suggestions: Gerard Van der Leun
Something Wonderful: November. Ready or not, here we come.


The Last Best Hope

"This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves." -- Ronald Reagan

Created by Ben Howe: BLOG HERE -- YOUTUBE CHANNEL HERE



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 25, 2010 10:32 AM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Recessional

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God of our fathers, known of old--
Lord of our far-flung battle line
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!

-- Rudyard Kipling



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 12, 2010 9:43 AM | Comments (19)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Something Wonderful: When Our President Was a Man

September 14, 2001: President G. W. Bush's Speech at National Cathedral after 9/11

"America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for, but we are not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America because we are freedom's home and defender, and the commitment of our Fathers is now the calling of our time."



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 11, 2010 12:24 PM | Comments (17)  | QuickLink: Permalink
An Open Letter to Democrats Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Was Not Enuf

Dear Friends,

Though we seem to agree so little these days, surely we must agree that in the pantheon of our Presidents, from the honorable and brave of old to the craven and corrupt of today, Abraham Lincoln is one of the few we all revere. Knowing that I direct your attention to his Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address when on the eve of civil war and caught in the vortex that swirled before that long fire in men's minds, he still held out his hand:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Lincoln knew, as we know, that citizens with the best of intentions can still be used by politicians with the most rapacious of intents. There's no shame in that. It is only human.

We too have been ill-used by many of those politicians we have trusted even if we have not been so ill-used as your trusting souls and easily gulled credulity have of late. We have had our Nixons and our know-nothings in our turn as well. We share, even though we are at times ashamed to admit it, you embarrassment of being taken by the bright and shining lie.

Still, there is nothing for it now except to make your wrong turn right. Slogans and bamboozling have fogged your minds. It is time now, as this essential election approaches, for you to get your mind right; to return to your right mind.

A mind is a difficult thing to change. I know this well having struggled with it and paid the price in property, position, and lost friends. It can be done but it cannot be done overnight. My fellow colleagues who have come late to their right minds can sometimes expect too much of you. They expect you to travel ten leagues beyond the wide world's end in the time a reasonable person can only attempt a city block.

There is a middle way for this November and I urge you to consider it.

If you have read this far you know that this looming election must be one in which the nation, without ambiguity, rejects the ruinous path on which it has been set by an administration and congress that is nothing short of monarchical in its structure and tyrannical in its aims. Power is too much in the hands of a criminal establishment with only the ruin of the nation as its goal. We see it in every action. We hear it in every speech. We feel it daily as we walk about our streets.

For the system of a democratic republic to sustain itself, it must check and balance power. Surely we all remember that from our school days -- "the system of checks and balances." For nearly two years now we have witnessed the unappealing spectacle of a system which has no balance and no effective check upon it. The result is a machine with no governor on its spending, its intrusiveness, its ability to cripple our economy, to weaken our armies, and to -- by removing itself from effective diplomacy -- destabilize the world. All history tells us, as our own ancestors -- no matter what their origins -- would tell us that this situation inevitably and invariably ends in guns. If not here, elsewhere in the world. If not now, later.

I implore all of you of good heart and clear sense to help us begin to restore checks and balance to our nation in November. Help us check this monarchical disaster and balance the ship of state.

It may well be that your own heritage and background may be such that it is anathema for you to vote against any candidate the Democrats may see fit to offer. I know that feeling well. It is not something cast off in a day, a week, or even years. The conditioning starts early and is continued in family, school, and work for many decades. It is not easily broken.

There are two alternatives.

The first is quite simple. Vote with your absence. Stay home on election day. Cast no vote. Let us carry the weight. We shall do so. As a wise man once said, "Sometimes the best action is to do nothing."

The second is nearly as simple and answers to the call of duty in a democratic republic which is to vote whenever you have an opportunity to vote. All this entails is to remind yourself that when you are in that voting booth, you are sovereign and your ballot is what strong ballots always are, secret. Knowing that and holding that as the single secret that can keep the blessings of liberty for yourself and your posterity, step into that booth and this time, I implore you, vote right.

Sincerely,
Gerard Van der Leun



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 7, 2010 11:34 PM | Comments (19)  | QuickLink: Permalink
RightNetwork to Launch Wednesday

Just as an aside this holiday Monday, I am working long days, as is everyone else on the RightNetwork team, to bring this new site, RightNetwork,online this Wednesday.

As it is with all launches we won't have everything live that we will have soon after, but it's a great team and we will have something available that you may well enjoy. And more on the way.

For now, this is how it is going behind the scenes:

Me? I think I'm the old military guy at the end. The look says it all.



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 6, 2010 5:17 PM | Comments (14)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Washington Frees His Slaves

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Last Will and Testament of George Washington

Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire, that all the slaves which I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom.

To emancipate them during her life, would tho earnestly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties, on account of their intermixture by marriages with the dower negroes as to excite the most painful sensations -- if not disagreeable consequences from the latter while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same proprietor, it not being in my power under the tenure by which the dower Negroes are held to manumit them.

And whereas among those who will receive freedom according to this devise there may be some who from old age, or bodily infirmities and others who on account of their infancy, that will be unable to support themselves, it is my will and desire that all who come under the first and second description shall be comfortably clothed and fed by my heirs while they live and that such of the latter description as have no parents living, or if living are unable, or unwilling to provide for them, shall be bound by the Court until they shall arrive at the age of twenty-five years, and in cases where no record can be produced whereby their ages can be ascertained, the judgment of the Court upon its own view of the subject shall be adequate and final.

The negroes thus bound are (by their masters and mistresses) to be taught to read and write and to be brought up to some useful occupation, agreeably to the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, providing for the support of orphans and other poor children -- and I do hereby expressly forbid the sale or transportation out of the said Commonwealth of any slave I may die possessed of, under any pretense, whatsoever -- and I do moreover most positively, and most solemnly enjoin it upon my executors hereafter named, or the survivors of them to see that this clause respecting slaves and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the epoch at which it is directed to take place without evasion, neglect or delay after the crops which may then be on the ground are harvested, particularly as it respects the aged and infirm, seeing that a regular and permanent fund be established for their support so long as there are subjects requiring it, not trusting to the uncertain provisions to be made by individuals.

And to my mulatto man, William (calling himself William Lee) I give immediate freedom or if he should prefer it (on account of the accidents which have befallen him and which have rendered him incapable of walking or of any active employment) to remain in the situation he now is, it shall be optional in him to do so.

In either case, however, I allow him an annuity of thirty dollars during his natural life which shall be independent of the victuals and clothes he has been accustomed to receive; if he chooses the last alternative, but in full with his freedom, if he prefers the first, and this I give him as a testimony of my sense of his attachment to me and for his faithful services during the Revolutionary War.



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 5, 2010 11:14 PM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Prius Patriot

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Bumper Sticker Insurrection Spotted by a [Legal Insurrection] reader at the Grand Canyon ... Rewards clicking to expand and careful inspection.



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 5, 2010 7:05 AM | Comments (13)  | QuickLink: Permalink
True Tales from Where the Buffalo Roam

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Proof -- Dateline: Moab, Utah Taken at Site

DATELINE: Moab, Utah
He'd hunted big game for years all over the United States. Hunting was a way of life to him. But, in all those years, he'd never shot a buffalo. He'd put his name in for the lottery that gave out yearly licenses to shoot buffalo, but year after year the winning number had eluded him. As he failed, again and again, his need to add a buffalo, an American bison, to his life bag grew to obsessive proportions. Finally, he could stand it no longer. He determined that he would buy a couple of young buffalo, raise them, and then shoot them. It seemed like a plan.

When the buffalo purchase was completed the question arose about where these buffalo were to be raised. He wasn't a rich man and the cost to two baby buffalo maxed out his credit cards. The only viable option was to raise them on his front lawn in Moab, Utah. Accordingly, the buffalo were delivered and put out to pasture, or "out to lawn" as the case may be.

Besides grass the lawn also contained, courtesy of his kids, a couple of soccer balls. Shortly after the buffalo became his lawn ornaments, he was out walking among them when one of them discovered a soccer ball and butted it over to him with its nose. Without thinking he kicked it back towards the other buffalo, who passed it to the first buffalo who butted it back to him. An hour or so of passing and kicking the soccer ball between man and buffalo ensued.

When he went out on his lawn the next morning, they were waiting for him. One seemed to be playing midlawn while the other hung back by the water trough which had become some sort of goal. The forward buffalo butted the ball towards him. Without thinking he returned the kick over the head of the forward. No good. With a speed belying its bulk, the defensive buffalo moved quickly and butted it through his legs to the porch. When it bounced off the barbecue, they seemed to do a brief victory prance. The game was afoot.

Day after day, week after week, the strange lawn ritual with the soccer ball went on and on. In truth, he had long since pulled far ahead of the buffalo in goals, but what do buffalo know about keeping score?

In time, however, the hunting season came around. He looked out of his house on the first morning and saw the buffalo waiting for him, the soccer ball in front of the forward, the defensive buffalo pacing slowly back and forth by the water trough. It came to him then that he could never shoot them. It would spoil the season -- and the soccer season, in the deserts of Utah, is never really over.

On a hot afternoon soon after, he looked out his window and discovered, much to his delight and his neighbors' shock, that the two buffalo on his lawn were indeed male and female.

Now it is two years later and he has four buffalo on his lawn. He doesn't hunt anything anymore. Says he's lost the taste for it. His old hunting buddies come by every so often and razz him about the buffalo.

"You started with two and couldn't shoot them," one said. "Now you got four, and next year you're gonna have five. What are you going to do then?"

He went to his garage and came back with a basketball.



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 5, 2010 2:43 AM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Something Wonderful: Never Gonna Stand For This by Teachenor Clark

HT: Porretto who writes, "Finally, a YouTube video that deserves to go viral."

Make it so.



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 4, 2010 9:33 AM | Comments (11)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Imam Hitler Learns of Ground Zero Mosque’s Downfall

HT: Sun Tzu @ Big Peace



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 4, 2010 9:08 AM | QuickLink: Permalink
Working for Nothing: My Little Ditty for the Hard Core Unemployed

Job Data Casts Pall Over Economic Recovery and nobody, but nobody, believes 9.6% is true.
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Wall Street, NYC Photo by Vanderleun

ONCE upon a time
Making money was a crime,
And I was in my prime,
And working for nothing.

Now that habit's hard to break,
And what I got you wouldn't take
The time to steal. Life's so unreal
When you're working for nothing.

        Working for nothing
                   -- ain't my act.
        Working for nothing
                   -- an un-natural fact,
        Working for nothing.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Sep 3, 2010 4:44 PM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Not Man Apart

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Robinson Jeffers
(Portrait by Ansel Adams)

Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
      and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
      the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one's own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted
      and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will
      not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear
      the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
      and his history... for contemplation or in fact...
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness,
      the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty
      of the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions,
      or drown in despair when his days darken.

-- Robinson Jeffers



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 2, 2010 6:24 PM | Comments (16)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Your Daily Truth: This just in from Donald Sensing and Daughter

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"No place but in this besotted country could some bright young shoeless Arkansan go to Washington with nothing more than the Worlds Biggest Rolodex and some finely tuned Kennedy Body Language only to retire rich as Croseus 8 years later to a triple residency in Chappaqua, Georgetown and some architectural Gewgaw in Little Rock." - D.W. Sabin"

From Sense of Events: Heck, I even miss Clinton! Pass it along.



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 2, 2010 2:44 PM | Comments (9)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Fox News Watching in England: "A masterpiece of reportage."

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In a thoughtful reply to Side-Lines: Green Martyr with "Embiggened" Ideas Go Boom American Digest commenter FrankP, looks at a rare class act in American television journalism from his comfy chair in Angleterre:

I watched this story unfold on Fox News Channel from the comfort of my armchair in Norfolk, England, throughout our evening (your morning).

Megan Kelly kicked it off with a breaking news item and tentatively put together the early stages in her clinical and precise way, then handed over to Shep Smith. He fleshed it out during the dramatic stand-off with a gradual supply of background gen which moved it from a possible 'Asian' terrorist strike, to an environmental nut-job pantomime, in very smooth transition.

Interjected were vox pops from eye-witnesses and harrowing pictures of infants being removed from danger in their cots, one sitting up and apparently enjoying the incident (unlike his rescuers) despite looking a little bemused by all the excitement.

Shep, in his inimitable way sailed through an hour of faultless non-stop commentary, orchestrating the whole shebang with characteristic consummate ease and interjecting his wry humour into the incident without stepping over the line. He managed to get a couple of digs at Al Gore in the process.

Then Neil Cavuto took over. During his stint the researchers had contacted the husband of Lee's sister; Cavuto proceeded to tease from him the story of Lee's life and gradual decline of his mental health. Cavuto got more or less the complete story of Lee's families trials and tribulations resulting from Lee's descent into madness.

All this with a life and death stand-off being depicted by a multi-screen set up. Brilliant. It was a masterpiece of reportage.

Unfortunately I missed the denouement because just as we got to the vinegar strokes, we had a power-cut (not unusual in these here parts these days; it’s the Socialism thing – beware!). By the time power was restored, Beck was already into his usual entertaining crusader shtick - and didn't even mention it. It was only later when I scoured the Internet and discovered that Lee had been whacked by the SWAT cops; by then it was yesterday's potatoes and I went to bed.

The point of my own long ramble about it is to underscore for you guys that you are very lucky to have Fox News. We have nothing even approaching its professional journalistic and production qualities in Britain. The Fox Channel gets written off here by our liberal/communist MSM as a right-wing looney / commercialistic outfit.

The two hours plus of the Lee hostage siege was gripping telly and the journalists and producers should collect some sort of award as a result. Only in America, indeed! Congratulation to Fox - and all who sail in her.

As for the lies and corruption of the Al Gore bandwagon - perhaps some of them should reflect on what their cynical scams can provoke in the minds of the impressionable. The evil bastards won't - of course.

Posted by: Frank P at September 2, 2010 7:31 AM



Posted by Vanderleun Sep 2, 2010 9:55 AM | Comments (2)  | QuickLink: Permalink
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