BO says “No Muslim Terrorists Anywhere, Only Christian and Jewish Terrorists” + More

The Patriot Post Chronicle

The Foundation

"To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character." --Alexander Hamilton

Editorial Exegesis

Maybe there's a reason for being aware of radical Islam

"Rep. Peter King, New York Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, will hold hearings this week on Muslim extremism in the United States. The Obama administration and other pro-Islamic activists argue that because the vast majority of American Muslims aren't violent extremists, Congress has no business examining the growing numbers who are. This redirection is tantamount to saying that because most people are law-abiding, the police should ignore the study of criminal psychology. Mr. King's planned hearings will shine a bright light on a challenge the Obama administration has studiously ignored, with fatal results. Overlooking the motives of Muslim terrorists has become an O Force obsession. ... The Obama administration persistently has stricken the concept of Islamic extremism -- whether foreign or domestic -- from U.S. public policy. In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security drafted a Domestic Extremist Lexicon that listed Jewish extremism as a threat and described various strands of purportedly dangerous Christian extremism but made no mention of any form of Muslim extremism. This document was pulled along with other questionable Homeland Security publications once their contents became public. The February 2010 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review discussed terrorism and violent extremism but didn't refer to radical Islam in any context. Likewise, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review avoids any terminology related to Islam. Mr. King's hearings are a useful step toward opening up the debate on the pressing problem of domestic Islamic extremism. Mr. Obama's inexplicable tendency to turn aside from the question has harmed the ability of the United States to deal with this threat." --The Washington Times

Upright

"In the context of federal spending that will total something like $3.8 trillion this year, $61 billion is a rounding error. Yet the Democrats resisting that amount in House-approved cuts say it will wreck the economy while leaving children unschooled, taking food from the mouths of the elderly and casting disabled people into the streets. ... The cuts represent less than 2 percent of the total budget, less than 4 percent of the deficit and less than 5 percent of discretionary spending, which rose in real terms by 75 percent from 2000 to 2010 and by about 9 percent in each of the last two fiscal years. If the House-approved reductions would be 'the largest one-year cuts in history,' as the folks at Every Child Matters say, that is a sad commentary not on Republican cold-heartedness but on the fiscal incontinence of both parties." --columnist Jacob Sullum

"That 'clean energy' is code for 'anti-warming' is obvious, given that even Environmental Protection Agency numbers show that virtually all emissions have dropped dramatically in recent decades -- except for greenhouse gases. ... Global warming is a dying cause because the costs of the favored 'fixes' for the problem vastly outweigh the supposed benefits -- and China and India aren't going to stop industrializing, and stay poor, simply to please Western elites. Republicans should wake up and not let Obama use the guise of clean energy to keep the anti-warming crusade alive." --Reason Foundation Senior Fellow Shikha Dalmia

"Today, we take universal literacy for granted. But literacy has not been universal, across all segments of the American population during all of the 20th century. Illiteracy was the norm in Albania as recently as the 1920s and in India in the second half of the 20th century. Bare literacy is just one of the things needed to make democracy viable. Without a sense of responsible citizenship, voters can elect leaders who are not merely incompetent or corrupt, but even leaders with contempt for the Constitutional limitations on government power that preserve the people's freedom. We already have such a leader in the White House -- and a succession of such leaders may demonstrate that the viability of freedom and democracy can by no means be taken for granted here." --economist Thomas Sowell

"In truth, President Obama couldn't send a proper naval display to Tripoli or Benghazi even if he could borrow enough courage from the typing pool to order it. The big warships have been diverted elsewhere ...      Read the rest here.

Too Bad Obama Is Only Half-White

By Burt Prelutsky

The worst thing about Obama's being a black man is that when you take him to task for his leftist agenda, it's so easy for those who endorse his policies to accuse you of being a bigot.

It's fascinating how that works. If you happen to disagree with Henry Waxman or Charles Schumer, you're not automatically called an anti-Semite. If you take exception to Nancy Pelosi, you're not immediately dismissed as a misogynist. In most quarters, you can even dismiss the lunacies of Barney Frank without necessarily being labeled a gay-basher.

What is it about being black, 150 years after the end of slavery and nearly half a century after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, that gives them this special status? Whatever it is -- and I suspect it's nothing more than the non-stop, self-serving blather by the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the assorted jackasses who comprise the Congressional Black Caucus -- it's high time we stopped giving them the license to whine. In fact, it's long past time that we told them to put a cork in it.

I know a great many people who think that Obama is the worst president we've had in a very long time -- and they are not overlooking Jimmy Carter -- and not one of them gives a hoot about his race. Their reasons have everything to do with his politics and his policies and nothing to do with his pigmentation. If it were otherwise, wouldn't these same people dislike Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and Star Parker, all of whom are 50% blacker than the president?

Obama got off on the wrong foot when we discovered he was a friend of Bill Ayers and that he regarded Jeremiah Wright as his spiritual advisor. It didn't help when we heard him say that the problem with the Constitution and the Civil Rights movement was that they failed to deal with the redistribution of wealth.

Things then went from bad to worse when, after being elected, he went off on a world tour where he bashed our allies, kowtowed to our enemies, and competed with Michael Moore, Hugo Chavez and Mahmud Ahmadinejad, in trashing America.

Not satisfied with all that, he went on to lie about the great contribution the Muslims made in the creation of this country, forcing some of us to wonder if he knew something about the Barbary pirates that Thomas Jefferson didn't.

Perhaps his endless gaffes and apparent contempt for American symbols wouldn't be quite so offensive if so many people, on the right as well as the left, didn't, in spite of his almost comical reliance on Teleprompters, keep reminding us how doggone brilliant the guy is.

A while back, His Brilliance said, "America has its roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi." Now, I'm grateful that for a change he complimented one of America's few allies in the world, but why is it so impossible for this lunkhead to give credit where it's due? Would it kill him to praise the Founding Fathers? I mean, I know they were a bunch of white guys, but they couldn't help it.

Suggesting that Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948, provided the roots for the United States, 1776-????, is comparable to the schlemiel who recently said it was our dropping the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that compelled Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.

I think I'm beginning to understand why Obama is so secretive about his academic records.

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Saturday Night Alive?

By Ken Blackwell

We all breathed a sigh of relief when the ball fell in New York's Times Square and the holiday season this year ended without another terror attack, or attempted attack on our homeland. You'll recall that on Christmas day, 2009, the notorious "underwear" bomber tried to blow up his jet over Detroit. Young Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian citizen, wanted to take down his Northwest Airlines Flight 253 right over Detroit's airport. Had he succeeded in detonating his BVDs, his victims would not only have been the 288 passengers and crew he was flying with, but doubtless hundreds or thousands on the ground.

This year, thank goodness, no attacks. But that does not mean we didn't have cause for concern. The newly-installed Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James Clapper, was interviewed by ABC TV's Diane Sawyer. In the company of homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano and the president's assistant for homeland security and counter-terrorism, John Brennan, Jim Clapper got the first question:

"London. How serious is it? Any implication that it was coming here? ...Director Clapper?"

London? What about London? That's what Clapper's on-camera face seemed to be saying, but he remained mum. He's really good at keeping national security secrets, it seemed. Or, as we would soon find out, was London a secret to the Director?

It was. It turned out that everybody but Jim Clapper knew about the Britain's MI5 arresting a group of terror suspects ranging in age from 17-28. The ring hailed from the English cities of London, Birmingham and Stoke. Cardiff, in Wales, was also the target of the arrests. It was the largest mass arrest of would-be terrorists in recent memory.

Our director of national intelligence didn't have a clue. Well, that was London, after all. That's 3,000 miles away.

Presidential assistant Brennan went on TV to try to shovel up what the donkeys had left on the ABC set. "I know there was breathless attention by the media to these [London] arrests and it was constantly on the news networks. I am glad that Jim Clapper is not sitting in front of the TV 24 hours a day and monitoring what is coming out of the media."

You can't make this stuff up, folks. It seemed like a skit from Saturday Night Live. Is there anything more bizarre than the Keystone Cops show that was put on TV for Americans this holiday season?

This capital gang voluntarily sat down with a national television news anchor for a group interview. What would be more sensible than for someone who claims to be up on, well, intelligence, to have an aide quickly review the top stories in the world from the war on terror? We used to call a lot of our newpapers intelligencers. Isn't there an intelligencer somewhere in the bowels of the bureaucracy whose job it is not to let the Director go on TV and look like a fool?

We have created a huge bureaucracy to handle homeland security. The idea in establishing the post of Director of National Intelligence was to gather all the loose strands of intelligence, to weigh and sift them, and to let the relevant agencies know what everyone needs to know when they need to know it.

Is there anything in the world more embarrassing than a prime time demonstration that the Director of National Intelligence doesn't have a clue? And no, Mr. Brennan, we don't expect our Director of National Intelligence to sit in front of the tube 24/7. But is it asking to much that national intelligence czar be well-briefed on the latest -- intelligence?

It's a short five hours from London to Washington. As we learned from Abdulmutallab's attempt, it wasn't that hard for a young man bearing a passport from an Islamist-afflicted country to get on a one-way flight to the U.S. -- with no luggage. Those arrested suspects in London might well have had cohorts who were headed here.

It is completely unacceptable for our Director of National Intelligence to be so woefully unprepared, so evidently not up to speed. And to allow the world to see this unpreparedness is not just an appalling lapse; it is itself a major danger to our country.

Let's hope Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, will hold hearings to determine how it was possible for the DNI to be so out of the loop. Doubtless Mr. King's committee will find out many other useful things about this unprofessional administration.

It's clear that on matters of homeland security, this administration is not ready for prime time. We were spared this time. Next time, we may not be so fortunate. And, like you,I'd rather spend next Saturday night, alive.

Read more excellent articles at The Patriot Post - Opinion

Liberals Don't Deserve America

By Burt Prelutsky

Considering the way that Obama shows his contempt for patriotism time and again -- as when he misquotes the Declaration of Independence, neglects to place his hand over his heart at flag ceremonies and denies American exceptionalism at every opportunity -- you'd think he'd learn to leave symbolic gestures to the professionals. Instead, whether the issue is closing Gitmo, providing civilian trials for Islamic terrorists or racial profiling at airports, his sole consideration seems to be whether something will annoy Muslims. Understand, I'm not claiming he is a Muslim. I have no proof of that. I'm claiming he's an arrogant idiot.

As I see it, America has been setting the world a damn good example for over 230 years. Most people have gotten the message long before now. The exceptions have mainly been Islamics and communists, and they're not looking for good examples; they're looking for world conquest. If the president wants to set a good example, he should stop insulting our allies and mollifying our sworn enemies.

Frankly, whenever I hear those knuckleheads in academia and the media praising the likes of Castro and Chavez or lamenting the loss of Mao or Che, I want to rap on their heads just to hear the echo. I mean, is it possible that they are totally unaware that, starting with Stalin, every communist regime has started out by employing intellectuals (aka "useful idiots") to propagandize on their behalf, and, inevitably, ended up by executing the ultimately unnecessary pests.

The reasons that intellectuals are so dangerous is because, one, they reside in a bubble, be it at a university, a paper or a TV newsroom, where they are surrounded by their clones; and, two, they are so certain that they're smarter than everyone else that any two-bit despot who pays them the least bit of attention will have them acting like lapdogs, eager to lick his hand and kiss his patootie.

Intellectuals remind me of Randy and Evi Quaid. They're the couple that escaped to Canada. Psychiatrists have suggested that the Quaids suffer from folie a deux, the madness of two. It's a delusional state shared by two people who bolster each other's twisted take on reality. When more than two people share the same delusions, we refer to it as the Democratic party.

In the case of the Quaids, they believe there's a secret cabal in America that has been responsible for murdering Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger. The Quaids believe those mysterious assassins they refer to as the Star Whackers are now after them. Of course, any sane person would realize how ridiculous that is. We're talking about Randy Quaid, for crying out loud. He really shouldn't start worrying until he gets word that he's been targeted by the Has-been Whackers.

Finally, getting back to Obama and foreign policy, the man is convinced that we can actually undermine and destroy Iran through economic pressure. That might be described as folie a un. Still, I can see where he might have gotten the idea. After all, it's worked like a charm for him here in America.

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Culture Challenge of the Week: The Siren Song of Malevolence

By Rebecca Hagelin

Culture Challenge of the Week: The Siren Song of Malevolence

America's children have been taken captive by a brilliantly deceptive culture that offers them a world of pleasure, limitless fun, and the possibility of a utopian harmony with all mankind. The tune is the melody of self-absorption and instant gratification, insidiously crafted to manipulate their vulnerable minds into a numb acceptance of whatever the deceivers tell them. Not unlike those whose imaginations were captivated by the siren songs in Greek mythology, our children are being steadily and brilliantly lured into a dark and dangerous world that seeks to destroy all that is right and just -- and their very souls.

Our children desperately want to be rescued. At some level, their little hearts recognize that the messages of Hollywood decadence and government -as-God don't ring true. They long for their moms and dads to help them sort through the glitz and gleeful tunes to find truth they can count on. Tragically, most parents are so busy listening to their own generational deceivers that they can't even hear their children's cries for help.

How To Save Your Family: Teach Your Children To Reason

Michael Sabbeth's challenging book, The Good, The Bad and The Difference: How to Talk with Children About Values equips parents to help rescue their children. (Available at www.KidsEthicsBook.com.) Based on over twenty years of teaching ethics and moral reasoning to elementary school children, Sabbeth reveals that children are hungry to learn how to reason through the noise, recognize the deceptive messages and discover timeless principles.

Michael teaches by presenting life and its events in a metaphoric context, that is, to illustrate the character or ethos of an event or of a decision and demonstrating that the event or action has qualities that go beyond itself.

For example, the decision to stop and help a driver on the side of the road that seems to have a flat tire is the product of dozens of pieces of information, competing values and complex risks, Michael points out. Some reasons are better than others. Some risks are more unreasonable than others.

Doing 'good' is not easy, Michael writes, "and if we teach children that it is easy, we weaken children, subvert their intellect and moral development and raise apprehensive children that have no faith in or motivation to pursue virtue when challenges are difficult."

By encouraging children to think within a framework of moral principles, such as Sanctity of Life and Justice, and virtues such as Competence, Conscience, Courage and Character, we can inspire children toward enhanced morality. "The stronger they become as moral thinkers, the greater the probability they will act with a will consistent with a moral character," Michael asserts.

The book is about engaging in dialogues, a word derived from the Greek language and which means approximately to "speak across, to share words." It starts with a parent simply asking his child, 'What do you think?'" The implied but powerful message is: Your thoughts matter to me. You matter to me.

Themes of the book include:

1. That good and bad can be measured, contrasted and evaluated.
2. That when good is identified and measured, people are more motivated to do good.
3. That parents are, as a general rule, the best and most credible disseminators of morality and ethics.
4. That children want and expect moral leadership from their parents. Children must no only know that parents are in charge. Children should know that parents deserve to be in charge.
5. That spending time with your children talking about ethics and other serious matters can be a soul-churning joy.

If one theme dominates all others, it is that parents are competing against the world for their children's time, respect and as a legitimate dispenser of moral authority. To be effective, parents must be credible competitors, and that requires a parenting foundation based on reason, ethics, compassion and moral strength. Become your child's rescuer -- visit www.KidsEthicsBook.com today.

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Anti-Semitism

By Burt Prelutsky

It’s easy to figure out why the various dictatorships in the Middle East have made a scapegoat of Israel. It allows the various imams and sheiks to keep their oppressed masses focused on a common enemy, lest they awaken and realize that it’s not the Jews who keep the men poor and powerless and keep the women ignorant and oppressed.

Trying to figure out why government leaders, universities and individuals, in so-called civilized nations choose to side with Arabs and Muslims, who not only out-number Israel’s Jewish population 300,000-1, but who represent the antithesis of everything Americans and Europeans allegedly hold dear is the real mystery.

A visitor from another planet would see on one side a people, Israelis, who are educated and accomplished, who believe in freedom of speech, religion and assembly, who defend a free press and who subscribe to the full equality of the sexes.

On the other side, he would see people who, in the 21st century, think, live and behave no differently than their ancestors did 1300 years ago. They stone to death adulterers, they behead their enemies, they perform female mutilations as part of their religion, they make martyrs of those who suicide-bomb school buses and pizza parlors, they rain missiles down on civilians and, proving that they nevertheless have a droll sense of humor, they refer to their religion as one of peace.

If you asked the alien which group a free and democratic people would favor, he would assume it was a trick question. When told that the majority of people in the western world favored the latter group, he would assume it was a trick answer.

His next order of business would be to get back to his space ship and get away from these lunatics as fast as he could.

The question as to why America’s leaders, academicians and young people, choose to hate Israelis, why they continue to believe the worst of them even when the photos and news stories purporting to show their villainy are proven to be clumsy attempts at propaganda, can only be explained by a deep-rooted anti-Semitism.

When Americans, who have experienced not only 9/11, but scores of other brutalities at the hands of Israel’s enemies over the past 30 years, continue siding with those same enemies, it’s impossible to explain except as rampant anti-Semitism.

When a nation that is rooted in Judeo-Christian values, whose Constitution and Declaration of Independence were based on those values, sides with those who despise liberty and freedom, the contradiction cannot be explained except as an anti-Semitism that is bred in the bone. And isn’t it odd that the very same people who go around insisting that “separation of church and state” actually exists in the Constitution have no problem at all defending Muslim theocracies?

No matter how many trains are blown up in Spain, no matter how many riots and murders are committed in France or England, Russia, Germany or Holland, the anti-Semites of Europe inevitably excuse the actual perpetrators, while holding the Jews accountable.

Perhaps if God made an appearance and announced: “When I made them my chosen people, I did not choose for them to be sacrificed to the barbarians,” the world would shape up.

Short of that, my money is on the barbarians.

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Attack the Deficit: The Fierce Urgency of Now

By Ken Blackwell

Appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY.) told host Christiane Amanpour he would push for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This is an idea whose time has come. In 1994, Republicans campaigned -- and won -- on a balanced budget amendment (as part of the Contract with America). Back then, the deficit was just $203 billion. Today, the national deficit is at $1.4 trillion (that's roughly $3,500 for each American, and some $14,000 for each family of four in deficit spending just this year alone).

Most states require their elected officials to balance their budget each year, but no such requirement impedes the reckless spending of the United States federal government. A constitutional amendment would bar the federal government from spending more money than it brings in each year -- and require a supermajority in order to raise taxes. This is not a radical idea, but the consequences of failing to enact such a measure cannot be overstated.

Fortunately, as evidenced by the Tea Party movement, there appears to finally be the political will required to get this done. Newly elected Republicans simply must realize they weren't elected to merely "trim" spending or "slow down" the rate of government growth, but rather, to cut, de-authorize and balance the budget. (If they fail to grasp this fact, it will be a short and depressing two years).

It is also worth noting that the conservative movement is united behind this cause.

That Senator-Elect Paul was the one to reignite this debate after the GOP's historic victory on Tuesday is not terribly surprising -- he campaigned on this. And though he represents the libertarian wing of the conservative movement (his father ran for president as a Libertarian), his vocal support is indicative of the broad-based support for this amendment.

The financial crisis has galvanized the disparate elements of the conservative movement, just as the threat of Communism united the "three legs" of the conservative movement during the Reagan years (like Communism, the deficit has become an existential threat to our freedom).

As a Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment at the Family Research Council (FRC), I've seen first hand that social conservatives view the economic crisis -- and, more specifically, a balanced budget -- as a moral issue. Similarly, national security conservatives realize it's a security issue (America's debt is being lent by foreign interests, with China being the largest single holder). This is an issue that transcends the normal dividing lines, and unites us.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a solid full-spectrum conservative who is just as at home at a Club for Growth Meeting as he is at a Christian Coalition dinner, and others, are expected to lead the charge on a balanced budget amendment. The additional Tea Party conservatives who were elected on Tuesday will aid them. But they will need reinforcements.

That's why I have agreed to serve as chairman for a new group, 'Balanced Budget Amendment Now.'

Our organization will launch an aggressive campaign to pass a balanced budget amendment. This will include building an infrastructure needed to enlist a minimum of 5,000 supporters in each Congressional district to urge their Members of Congress to vote for an amendment.

Our goal is to accomplish a vote on a balanced budget amendment by October 1, 2011. (Senator-Elect Mike Lee (R-UT) has graciously agreed to draft the balanced budget amendment language for us -- and to enlist the support of his colleagues).

There are many issues vital to our future, but I can think of none more worthy than this effort.

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the "fierce urgency of now." I would urge all Americans to consider the urgency of passing a balanced budget amendment.

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Tea Partiers Won’t Go When Fun Ends

By Ed Feulner and Sen. Jim DeMint

In only 21 months, the tea party has exploded from a handful of scattered, spontaneous rallies into a full-fledged national movement capable of throwing out incumbents. Challenging entrenched Washington habits, it is a force both parties must reckon with.

Skeptics and opponents, however, continue to ask two basic questions. First, does the tea party have any real philosophical depth, a historical pedigree? Second, will its force dissipate after the elections?

In short, critics accept that the tea party has a present — but they question whether it has a past and a future.

Yes and yes. Yes, the tea party has a pedigree as old as our nation, and yes, we think it is likely to continue to play a significant role in politics after Nov. 2. People in both parties who hope to wish it away and continue business as usual had better think twice.

Americans have been disappointed by leaders in both parties who campaigned to right past wrongs and then, after getting to Washington, cared more about power than promises. Tea party supporters care more about principle than party labels or politics.

Tea party members voice the kinds of concerns that even some of President Barack Obama’s former supporters are beginning to raise. As one Obama voter asked the president at a recent town hall, “Is the American dream dead for me?”

These are the questions Americans are asking nationwide — in their kitchens, church halls and ballparks. These are the concerns expressed at tea party rallies everywhere.

The tea party seeks answers to such questions not in the dictates of Washington today but in our country’s founding principles. There, it finds a prescription for constitutional, limited government based on God-given rights — not a Utopian blueprint for bureaucratic-managed change.

The tea party, in other words, is that inner voice that speaks to us when things go wrong — the conscience of the nation at a crucial point in our history.

What has gone wrong is clear. The “stimulus” package has failed to get this country back on its feet. The latest unemployment figures show that we still have anemic growth and nearly 10 percent unemployment. As Americans suffered, Washington wasted its time on a gargantuan, unmanageable and unaffordable health care package. No wonder many Americans feel frustrated.

But underneath the frustration, the tea party has roots that are deeper and aim higher. Deeper because it is within the best tradition of popular movements in our history — from the Great Awakening that gave rise to the American Revolution to the conservative revival that helped elect Ronald Reagan. Higher because it aims to recover our moral compass, bequeathed by our Founders and preserved ever since.

The tea party also symbolizes Americans’ indomitable desire for a better life. It reminds us that we’re a country of free people who understand that liberty is fragile and must be vigilantly defended.

Some past grass-roots movements have succeeded, and others have failed. Success comes because the energy of the moment is translated into a lasting, governing philosophy consistent with the settled opinions of the American people.

On this score, prospects look good. The tea party isn’t about to go away after the November elections. Its powerful message of limited government is likely to remain a sharp thorn in the side of those in both parties who want to continue politics as usual.

Take Obama’s health care package, which tea partiers have labeled “Obamacare.” Obama and Democrats rammed this through Congress, against the wishes of a majority of the American people.

But the repealing legislation should not itself contain some new massive health care plan. Even if the legislation offers good policy, the tea party is here to remind Republicans that pushing large, unexamined bills through Congress is wrong. We need to repeal Obamacare immediately, then openly debate and pass conservative-drawn, sensible and broadly supported health care reform.

It’s no surprise that pollsters Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen found that more than “half of the electorate now say they favor the tea party movement, around 35 percent say they support the movement, 20 [percent] to 25 percent self-identify as members of the movement and 2 [percent] to 7 percent say they are activists.”

This means that all those protesters with their Constitutions at tea party rallies nationwide represent millions of fellow Americans. The answers they seek won’t be found in the thousands of pages of new legislation coming out of Washington.

They are in those documents that first defined this nation and provide the most just framework for a free people to work hard, play by the rules and succeed.

Ed Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation. Sen. Jim DeMint is a Republican from South Carolina.

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‘Dogs Don’t Bark at Parked Cars!’

By Ken Blackwell

That’s some of the wisdom my Dad taught me. I thought of that saying when I read the attacks on Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. There’s a concerted effort to marginalize those who think marriage is important. In doing so, the left wants to shut out millions of Americans at the grassroots. But Mr. Perkins never runs from a fight. He’s out in front, leading. And all the dogs are barking at him.

Recently, Mr. Perkins was attacked as a big government backer. Apparently, if you try to defend marriage as the union of one man and one woman, that is supposed to make you an advocate of big government.

Perkins has been fighting for tax cuts and less spending for twenty years. He wants the federal government to stop interfering with the family, stop intruding into small businesses, and stop usurping state and local authority. How does that make him an advocate for big Government?

Some critics think that when you stand up for marriage, that makes you an ally of big government. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The wedding march began through the states in Hawaii. The Aloha State was America’s first majority non-white, majority non-Christian state, and Hawaii voters strongly backed a referendum that prevented the state’s Supreme Court from overturning marriage.

Conservative leaders have teamed up with the people against liberal powers in state after state. All too often, the top dogs of both parties opposed these people’s initiatives, or else hung back.

These state and local groups have rack up popular victories for marriage in 31 states. Wherever the marriage issue appears on the ballot, the people say it loud, say it proud: Marriage is between one man and one woman.

There are no marriage questions on the state ballots this year. Liberal journos are trying to say the movement has lost steam. What? Is that why liberals are afraid to let the issue come to a vote in Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York?

Judges of the Iowa Supreme Court are hanging onto their hats and their seats, facing voter wrath because they decided to overturn marriage – and the people’s voice be silenced.

Thirty-eight million Americans have voted to protect marriage. Marriage is more popular than any other issue on the conservative agenda. Marriage wins in liberal states, like Hawaii and Wisconsin, in conservative states like Kansas and Utah, and in middle-of-the-road states like Virginia and Ohio.

Marriage is no “wedge” issue. Some jounalists like to call it that, as if it’s not important. But Marriage is a bridge issue. Marriage wins among blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and whites.

Marriage appeals to non-college educated as well as to blue collar workers. It’s a way of bringing those elusive Reagan Democrats back into the fold.

In California this year, we may see a Republican win the state house and another go to the Senate. But it’s been more than twenty years since Republicans carried the Golden State for President. While John McCain was going down to a crushing defeat in California in 2008, Proposition 8, the Marriage Protection Amendment, was cruising to victory.

We have heard a lot about compassionate conservatism. And we’ve heard accusations that conservatives are “downright mean.” Well, defending marriage is the most compassionate thing conservatives can do.

Even some liberals recognize this. Bill Galston once worked for Bill Clinton. He says if a young couple will just finish high school, avoid having children out of wedlock, and marry, the chances are only 4% they will ever live in poverty.

Big government feeds on the breakdown of marriage. Our prisons are filling up with fatherless young men. What Bill Bennett wisely called the Broken Hearth fuels demands for more money for extra helpers in schools, for food stamps, for expanded medical coverage – all these needs are exacerbated by the breakdown of marriage.

Today, tragically, nearly 40% of our children are born out-of-wedlock. And big government consumes nearly 40% of our Gross Domestic Product.

I don’t believe the 40/40 link is imaginary?

If you want smaller government, lower taxes, and a return to constitutional principles, the fastest way to do that is to defend marriage, empower the family, and show Americans  real compassion.

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Let’s Give Dems The Credit They Deserve For Causing The Current Crises + More

The Patriot Post Chronicle

The Foundation

“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.” –George Washington

Editorial Exegesis

Halloween is just around the corner...

“Nancy Pelosi said Monday that ‘we haven’t really gotten the credit for what we have done,’ and the Speaker is right. However, it appears that her party will get that credit on November 2, which is why so many Democrats are now jumping the liberal ship, at least symbolically, to save their seats. … Mississippi Democrat Gene Taylor … [said] that he won’t support Mrs. Pelosi for Speaker, another revelation considering his vote for her in 2009. ‘I’m very disappointed in how she’s veered to the left,’ Mr. Taylor said, as if Mrs. Pelosi’s ideological predispositions were ever hidden. Mr. Taylor joins a growing list of Democrats who voted for Mrs. Pelosi in 2009 but now profess to be shocked by her left turn. They include Idaho’s Walt Minnick, Pennsylvania’s Jason Altmire, Alabama’s Bobby Bright and Texas’s Chet Edwards, endangered incumbents all. Brett Carter, who is hoping to replace Tennessee Democrat Barton Gordon, has gone even further and requested that Mrs. Pelosi not even run again for the Speakership. ‘Voters in my district believe that you do not represent their values, and my opposition has little to offer apart from critiquing your leadership,’ Mr. Carter wrote in a September letter. … Over in the Senate, the prize for distancing himself from his party goes to West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, who ran the famous TV ad featuring him literally putting a bullet through the ‘cap and trade bill.’ Apparently that wasn’t politically far enough away from the Washington Democrats he hopes to join, so Mr. Manchin declared on Fox News Sunday that he would have voted against ObamaCare too. … Remind us again why these folks are running as Democrats?” –The Wall Street Journal

Upright

“Either this is just the end of a big election that rolls back a few important mistakes, but basically changes little besides who gets the good parking spaces and whose staffers get to cash in for a few years. Or this is the beginning a great reformation that will take America back for liberty. It’s up to the people. We are so close. In 50 years in politics, I have never seen as large a percentage of the public self-motivated for reformation. For those of us who believe we are a providential country, now is the chance for the public to demonstrate it.” –columnist Tony Blankley

“The Democrats are about to be beaten by something they do not in their heart of hearts think exists, a huge national majority. … That majority is amiable, sensible and believes in limited government. It is convinced that we face a catastrophic budget crisis and that measures must be taken against the spending and on behalf of growth. … The liberals show no hint that they realize this, but the American majority does. Now that majority has to deal with the mess we are in. As for the liberals, they have to explain why they are summarily leaving office.” –columnist R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

“Team Obama’s message in the closing weeks of the campaign was completely eclipsed Friday by a union official who openly boasted in a story reported by The Wall Street Journal: ‘We don’t like to brag,’ but ‘we’re the big dog’ when it comes to campaign funding. Big as in $87.5 million. Big as in the biggest spender of any outside group — all meant to protect the interests of unions, the new ‘privileged class.’ But wait a minute: Team O led us to believe that honor went to the vilified U.S. Chamber of Commerce and all of its alleged contributions from ‘foreign money’ sponsors.” –columnist Mark McKinnon

“All of these [European] countries — and many more — are going through painful retrenchments because they spent too much money, made too many promises and expected too little from their own citizens. The era of European austerity is upon us, because the Europeans — or at least those in charge — understand the mess they’ve made of their economies. This should present a real problem for Barack Obama and the vast (though shrinking) chorus of experts, editorialists and activists who support his agenda. In broad terms, all of the policies Obama and the Democrats have pushed are the sorts of policies the British, the French and other Europeans had for years, even decades.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

The Demo-gogues

A call for conservatives to vote: “My name may not be on the ballot, but our agenda for moving forward is on the ballot, and I need everybody to turn out.” –Barack Obama  ...

Read the rest here

Spiritual Indifference and the Importance of Worshipping Together

By Rebecca Hagelin

Culture Challenge of the Week: Spiritual Indifference

“I don’t take my children to church,” the young woman said. “I’ll let them choose for themselves what to believe in, when they’re older.”

Her casual approach to her children’s religious involvement will surely affect her children’s lives. Even more so, decisions like hers have unintended consequences for our moral culture and political future.

Children and teens who lack religious connections today will be the spiritually indifferent adults of tomorrow. A recent study found that religious involvement as an adult strongly correlates with attendance at weekly worship services as a child or “weekly or monthly” religious programs as a teen. Most “unchurched” adults never went to religious services or programs as children and, consequently, religion means less to them later. Only 16% of “unaffiliated” adults describe religion as “very important” in their lives.

In a 2010 survey, “Millennials” (18-29 year olds) describe themselves as more “spiritual” than “religious”–which really means they congratulate themselves for their “spiritual” inclinations while doing virtually nothing to live their beliefs.

Over one-third of millenials say they never pray alone and two-thirds never or rarely pray with others. They say they don’t read the Bible and two-thirds rarely or never participate in worship services.

The weight of a spiritually indifferent younger generation will be a heavy burden on us all because, on the most significant moral questions of our day, religiosity makes a difference.

For example, “almost seven-in-ten (69%) of the religiously unaffiliated (including 85% of atheists and agnostics)” support unlimited abortion.  In sharp contrast, 82% of those who say religion is the most important influence in their lives believe abortion should be illegal. The religious influence is even stronger on same-sex marriage. Among those who say religion is the primary influence on their lives, 94% oppose same-sex marriage; only 6% favor it.

How to Save Your Family by Worshipping Together

Our American founders understood the importance of faith, not only to our families but also to our cultural fabric. George Washington’s First  Farewell Address warned, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

Explain Washington’s words to your children and teens, so they will see the intimate connection between faith, world-view, religious practice, and moral decisions. Pray with them, for personal or community concerns and for America’s leaders.

As Americans, and as parents, we need to prioritize the time we give to family worship and particularly to educating our children in our faith traditions. Our children cannot drive themselves to church.  They won’t devote time to religious activities as teenagers-when studies, sports, and busy social lives compete for every hour-unless we encourage them and offer the practical support to make it happen.

Look for a youth group or religious education team that connects with your teen spiritually to reinforce your religious and moral messages. A good youth pastor can work miracles, opening a young person’s heart to eternal truths.

And, most importantly, live your faith out in your daily life. You and your actions will serve to either help lead your children to or away from God.

Read more excellent articles at The Patriot Post Opinion

Will Colin Powell Give Obama a General Discharge?

By Ken Blackwell

"If I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost Middle America," said President Lyndon B. Johnson at the time of the Communist Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968. Walter Cronkite was then the CBS News anchor man, often described as 'the most trusted man in America.' Just a few weeks after he said that, LBJ withdrew from his party's nomination contest.

No one thinks President Obama is in that much trouble—yet. But he has just been criticized by his highest profile endorser from the 2008 campaign. When retired four-star Gen. Colin Powell backed Barack Obama for President two years ago, it was a huge leg up for the liberal Democrats' prospects. Gen. Powell, a former Secretary of State and a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave Obama instant credibility on defense and foreign policy issues.

Now, Gen. Powell is criticizing the Obama administration. This is a very high level defection, if defection it is. If Gen. Powell is not the most trusted man in America today, it would be hard to name someone of higher standing. In fact, if Colin Powell had been pro-life, he probably would not have had to run for President. He would have been carried into the White House on his supporters' shoulders. In that event, Barack Obama would probably still be sitting in the Illinois State Senate.

Gen. Powell still considers himself a Republican. He says Obama must provide a "razor blade" focus on the economy, on bringing down the 9.6% unemployment rate. Gen. Powell is especially concerned about minority youth. Unemployment among black and Hispanic young people is above 20% in many urban barrios and inner cities.

"America is going to be a [majority] minority nation in one more generation. Our minorities are not getting educated well enough now. Fifty percent of our minority kids are not finishing high school. We've got to invest in education."

The general may be right about that. That's why he could help minority youth by getting behind parental choice in education. The Obama administration took a razor to the District of Columbia's Opportunity Scholarships. A mere $13 million dollars went to parents who chose successful schools for their poor and minority kids. Now, that program has been cruelly cut. If we had Colin Powell pumping for school choice, it would help him and help the children.

Gen. Powell even gives President Obama credit for something every other Republican in the country seems to be against: health care reform. Still, Powell says: "As far as the American people are concerned, the main attack is employment."

Gen. Powell has not said he would endorse President Obama's Republican opponent in 2012. It's still much too early for that. Colin Powell is probably the most prestigious Republican "moderate" we have in the nation. But the real source of his standing comes from his 40 years' service to the nation on the battlefield and at the highest levels of command.

President Obama needs to be very careful. If he loses the support of Colin Powell, it could be devastating. Obama will not have the same bright, shiny patina he had in 2008. He no longer could claim to be the J.F.K. of the black community. Instead, he'll have a record to defend. Even his strong appeal for minorities and women will be diminished unless he changes course. He has given us record levels of unemployment and all-out support for abortion. Every poll shows that women are more pro-life than men. Minorities are more pro-life than whites. If the economy were humming, the President might get away with his anti-life policies. But with people hurting materially and spiritually, he could be in for rough sledding.

Read more excellent articles at The Patriot Post

A Diverse Opinion About Diversity

By Burt Prelutsky

Recently, I heard from a guy who claimed that squirrel tasted just like chicken. Some days, I swear, I get the idea that everything's supposed to taste like chicken. But it brought home the fact that what we eat, as well as what we think, is often more a matter of geography than of anything else. Frankly, I wouldn't care if it tasted like chocolate ice cream, I've never had squirrel on my plate and I aim to keep it that way. As with frogs and snakes, there are some things I regard as food and some things I'd prefer not to think about at all. And that's how I want to keep it.

So it will probably come as no surprise that I am not a champion of diversity even though I am aware that the word, itself, has taken on sacred qualities in certain quarters, along with such words as liberal, progressive and Obama. Leftists mainly enjoy using the word as a club with which to bash conservatives over the head. Suggest that you believe that America's traditional values and culture trump those of other countries, and you can expect to get whacked.

For a couple of hundred years, foreigners have been flocking to the shores of this most welcoming of nations. They would bring along their art and music along with their cuisine, but they adapted their ways in order that their children and their children's children would acclimate and be full-fledged Americans. There was a reason, after all, that America was nicknamed the Great Melting Pot.

But somewhere along the way, there was a sea change. Now we have that oddest of strange creatures known as the dual citizen and we have millions of people living here who apparently have no particular loyalty to this country and are being encouraged to retain their own language and their old ways. "Press one for Spanish, two for English" has become commonplace. Teenagers who have never even set foot in Mexico, Salvador and Guatemala, demonstrate in our streets while carrying foreign flags, and we're all supposed to respect them or be labeled as bigots and xenophobes.

American citizens who are being taxed to death to support illegal aliens are called racists if they object to footing the bill for health care and education for millions of freeloading ingrates who insist they're only reclaiming land that is rightfully theirs.

On top of all that, our kids are being brainwashed in their schools into accepting that the only truly evil society on the face of the earth isn't North Korea, Iran, China or Syria, but their own. They're taught to accept that Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah, aren't gangs of butchers and terrorists, but simply freedom fighters. They are carefully taught that Christian and Jewish symbols and traditions are oppressive, but that they mustn't be judgmental when it comes to burkas, beheadings and female mutilation.

By their lights, tolerance is the greatest of all virtues, but only so long as it's not tolerance of anything American.

I accept that our ways wouldn't suit everyone in the world. In some places, after all, cock fights and bullfights are the norm, just as the execution of homosexuals in Iran, the sublimation of women in Saudi Arabia and the eating of dogs in parts of Southeast Asia are apparently part of their disgusting cultures. So while I may not approve of these loathsome activities, I figure they can do what they like, so long as they stay where they are. In fact, staying where they are strikes me as being one hell of an idea.

Read more excellent articles at The Patriot Post.US

Introducing the Tea Party Pace Car

The Tea Party Pace Car leads the field in the race to restore Essential Liberty as enshrined in our nation’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

The Tea Party Pace Car is privately owned, but the owner has dedicated it to our Patriot mission for the purpose of promoting three of the Internet’s most outstanding resources for advocates of Liberty: The Patriot Post, The Patriot Shop and the Tea Party Primer.

This unconventional — but eye-catching — platform is not costing The Patriot a single dollar, but it has the potential to attract a larger young audience to our timeless message of liberty. Our success in reaching hundreds of thousands of additional Patriots depends on you. Please spread the word to your family, friends and associates — and encourage them to do the same.

The TPPC is among the last of the Dodge Vipers in production, a very rare color combination chosen to promote the Gadsden Flag. The Gadsden was the banner of the Sons of Liberty at the dawn of the American Revolution, and the first flag adopted by the United States Marine Corps in 1775 at the recommendation of Continental Colonel Christopher Gadsden. It was revived in recent years as the banner of the Tea Party movement to restore American Liberty.

“It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” –Samuel Adams

Don’t forget to “like” the Tea Party Pace Car on Facebook.

Visit TeaPartyPaceCar.com today!

See more at The Patriot Post

TEA Parties, Village Idiots, Demo-Gogues and More

Wall Street tea part

From The Patriot Post Wed Chronicle - Vol. 09 No. 16

THE FOUNDATION

"Newspapers ... serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke." --Thomas Jefferson

DEZINFORMATSIA

The media doth protest too much: "What's disturbing about some of these [tea party] protests and some of the people at these protests is this edge of anger at the government. There is ... a real hostility that is not just politics as usual among some of these people." --CNN's Jeffrey Toobin ++ "[T]his is a party for Obama bashers. I have to say that this is not entirely representative of everybody in America.... I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network, Fox." --CNN's Susan Roesgen ++ "Are these protesters really out of step with the majority of Americans? We just saw ... that 62 percent of the people here approve of the president's handling of the economy, and that Americans rate taxes, incredibly at, the very bottom of the most important economic issues right now." --CNN's Christiane Amanpour ++ "You have to remember that at almost any given time any cockamamie proposition in America will have at least 25 percent of those polled supporting it. It was a good stunt. ... We pay relatively small taxes. ...[W]hat you ostensibly get for it is a civilized kind of social compact where you don't have massive civil eruptions. That is what taxes are for." --NPR's Nina Totenberg on the tea parties

This week's "Leftmedia Buster" Award: "A lot of news outlets mocked these protesters.... But, if a media outlet wants to expose its bias, they can mock tea parties, if they like. ... I'm not going to mention names of people on networks that made sexual jokes, childish sexual jokes, about tens of thousands of Americans who went out and wanted to get involved in their government. I mean, it was really middle school jokes being made. I didn't hear those jokes being made when people on the left protested over the past eight years." --MSNBC's Joe Scarborough

Repeating the BIG Lie: "On the violence issue, 6,500 people were killed in drug violence in 2008 alone. Ninety-five percent of the guns used were out of the United States. What is the U.S. going to do to stop the guns from getting there?" --ABC's Diane Sawyer to DHS secretary Janet Napolitano, who replied that she wouldn't "quibble about numbers" since "that's not the point."

Newspulper Headlines:

Couldn't They Find One That Was Still Afloat?: "Coast Guard Opens Hearing on Sunk Fishing Boat" --Associated Press

Look Out Below!: "Workers Falling Through the Jobs Net" --Detroit News

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: "Thieving Dwarves Cause Supernovae" --BBC Web site

Bottom Stories of the Day: "Small Cars Get Poor Marks in Collision Tests" --Associated Press

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)

VILLAGE IDIOTS

Spewing hate: "It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. ...[T]he limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it's pushing against the frontal lobe. So their synapses are misfiring." --actress Janeane Garofalo on last week's Tea Parties

Speak for yourself: "Why are they out there whining with this Tea Party thing? Just a bunch of wimpy, whiney, weasels who don't love their country..." --CNN contributing Clintonista Paul Begala

Too many knocks upside the head: "I don't know whether it is better to have freedom or to have no freedom. With too much freedom ... it can get very chaotic, could end up like in Hong Kong or like in Taiwan... I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled." --actor Jackie Chan, who made millions of dollars filming movies in a free country

The BIG Lie: "You in United States, you have a lot of traffic of drugs, you have a lot of distribution of drugs, you have a lot of corruption as well. ... But most of the weapons, almost 16,000 are assault weapons and 90 percent of those were sold in United States." --Mexico's president Felipe Calderon

INSIGHT

"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity." --President Franklin Pierce (1804-1869)

"I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds. I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution." --President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908)

"I don't like the income tax. Every time we talk about these taxes we get around to the idea of 'from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs.' That's socialism. It's written into the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him." --accountant and Commissioner of Internal Revenue T. Coleman Andrews (1899-1983)

UPRIGHT

"The country has gotten into a painful fiscal predicament because both parties have let us believe we can have more and more goodies from Washington at no additional cost. The recent explosion of federal spending has succeeded in one way: It has exposed that assumption for the fiction it was. Like Bernie Madoff's investors, we now face the bleak truth that the comfortable future we expected is gone. Everything the federal government is doing will be forcibly extracted from our future earnings." --columnist Steve Chapman

"The GOP path to reclaiming power lies with candidates who can make a credible case that they will support and defend fiscal responsibility. That means acting on fiscal-conservative principles now, not paying lip service later." --columnist Michelle Malkin

"Our Constitution represents a compact between the states and the federal government. As with any compact, one party does not have a monopoly over its interpretation, nor can one party change it without the consent of the other. Additionally, no one has a moral obligation to obey unconstitutional laws. That's not to say there is not a compelling case for obedience of unconstitutional laws. That compelling case is the brute force of the federal government to coerce obedience, possibly going as far as using its military might to lay waste to a disobedient state and its peoples." --economist Walter E. Williams

Read the rest here: TEA Parties, Village Idiots, Demo-Gogues and More

Read more great articles at The Patriot Post.US

Right-Wing Extremists, a Dying Republic + More

From The Patriot Post Friday Digest - Vol. 09 No. 15

THE FOUNDATION

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." --Thomas Paine

PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE

Right-Wing Extremists

By Mark Alexander

My fellow Patriot "right-wing extremists" (or as Barack Obama prefers to describe you, those "bitterly clinging to guns or religion"), it is no small irony that, in the same week the central government demands payment of any income tax they hadn't already withheld (read: "pilfered") from our paychecks for redistribution, we observe Patriots Day.

April 19th marks the 234th anniversary of the early morning ride of Paul Revere and William Dawes to Concord, Massachusetts, in order to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that British troops were coming to arrest them and seize their weapons. Revere was captured but Dawes and Samuel Prescott, who had joined them along the way, escaped and continued toward Concord. Dawes later fell from his horse, but Prescott, who knew the area well enough to navigate at night, made it to Concord in time to warn the Sons of Liberty.

Protests had been taking place since 1765 over increased taxation and other indignities, resulting most notably in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, when colonists boarded three ships in Boston Harbor and threw English tea overboard. The grievances against the imperial authorities were many, but they found their voice in one familiar phrase: "No taxation without representation."

In the early dawn of April 19th, Captain John Parker, commander of the militiamen at Lexington, ordered, "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they want a war let it begin here." And it did -- American Minutemen fired the "shot heard round the world," as immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting the British on Lexington Green and at Concord's Old North Bridge.

A year later, American Patriots formalized their grievances in the Declaration of Independence, and some 3 percent of the colonists took up arms to battle the well equipped British regulars for almost eight years, until victory was won.

In 1787, our Patriot founders codified a Constitution of Government for their hard-won republic. For almost 150 years, our Constitution stood true to its original intent, just as our Founders, and more important, "the people," had willed it. But constitutional rule of law suffered repeated humiliation during the Great Depression, as FDR used the economic crisis as cover to implement "change," ostensibly at the behest of "hope."

The result was a "Living Constitution" for a Dying Republic.

In the 1930s, FDR launched myriad socialist programs and redefined the role of the central government. He proposed to pay for his folly through excess taxation, proclaiming, "Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle." (Of course, that wasn't an "American principle," but a paraphrase of Karl Marx's Communist maxim, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.")

More recently, under cover of yet another economic crisis, Barack Obama and his Leftist cadres in Congress have authorized trillions of dollars of government spending programs. Many economists believe the generational tax burden for these programs will, by design, prove the demise of free enterprise in America. As Obama's chief water boy, Rahm Emanuel, announced, "Rule 1 of the Obama administration: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things."

Indeed, Obama and company accomplished this subterfuge in their first 60 days, and the magnitude of their ruse is staggering -- but the inevitable consequences have not gone completely unnoticed.

As it was in the years before the first American Revolution, this week a small but clearly perceptible grassroots movement manifested in the form of more than 750 "Tea Parties" across the nation attracting "hundreds of thousands" of American citizens, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Some other news organizations, with a little prompting from the Department of Homeland Security, preferred to call those citizens "radicals."

A DHS document, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," published by the Office of Intelligence and Analysis includes a footnote which defines "rightwing extremism in the United States" to include groups which question federal authority and support states' rights. It also notes that DHS "will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months" to collect information on these radicals, with "a particular emphasis" on sources of "rightwing extremist radicalization."

As my colleague Michelle Malkin observed, "What and who exactly are President Obama's homeland security officials afraid of these days? If you are a member of an active conservative group that opposes abortion, favors strict immigration enforcement, lobbies to protect Second Amendment rights, protests big government, advocates federalism or represents veterans who believe in any of the above, the answer is: You."

DHS czar Janet Napolitano expressed her concerns about "trends of violent radicalization in the United States," but insists, "We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not -- nor will we ever -- monitor ideology or political beliefs. We take seriously our responsibility to protect the civil rights and liberties of the American people, including subjecting our activities to rigorous oversight from numerous internal and external sources."

The report also took a cheap jab at veterans and active duty military personnel, prompting American Legion national commander David Rehbein to respond: "Your report states that 'Rightwing extremists were concerned during the 1990s with the perception that illegal immigrants were taking away American jobs through their willingness to work at significantly lower wages. Secretary Napolitano, this is more than a perception to those who have lost their job. Would you categorize union members as 'Right Wing extremists'? I think it is important for all of us to remember that Americans are not the enemy. The terrorists are."

Perhaps DHS should add a threat warning level colored red, white and blue.

Napolitano could not explain why the DHS "radicalization" report was released just ahead of all the Tea Parties -- a mere coincidence, I'm sure.

Of course, "radical" is a term that was correctly associated with anarchists of the 1960s and '70s -- paradoxically, those who occupy key national leadership positions today. But anarchy is defined as "lawlessness," which raises an important question: Who better fits that description -- conservatives or liberals?

Let's review: Conservatives have always endeavored to conserve our constitutional republic while liberals have sought to "liberate" America from constitutional rule of law for decades, preferring instead to make all the rules themselves.

Answer: Obama, et al., are the "radicals."

As for the Tea Parties this week, I wouldn't describe the level of grassroots discontent as a "powder keg." At least not yet.

The Tea Party of 1773 was a tactical event, but the rallying cry of "No taxation without representation" provided a unified strategic front.

As more Patriots across the nation take a lesson from our Founders, and make the leap from tactical skirmishes to a unified strategic front, protests will become far more focused and effective.

If I might make a humble suggestion, insisting on the restoration of constitutional rule of law is a worthy unified strategic objective.

While most of my colleagues at the nation's premier think tank, The Heritage Foundation, have yet to be profiled by DHS as anarchists, their organization has done precisely what I believe every Patriot should do.

Though Heritage will remain on the front lines of the war of ideas, producing some of the best policy analysis available anywhere, they are renewing their strategic emphasis on "First Principles."

Their revised statement of purpose notes: "We face an education system that upholds mediocrity in the name of relativism; an ever-expanding and centralized government, unmoored from constitutional limits; judges openly making laws and shaping society based on pop-philosophy rather than serious jurisprudence; and growing confusion over America's legitimate role in the world, made all the more apparent by the fundamental threat posed by radical Islamists. At the root of all these problems is a pervasive doubt about the core principles that define America and ought to inform our politics and policy."

Consequently, Heritage is focusing its resources to "recall the nation to its first principles, reinvigorate American constitutionalism, and revive the sturdy virtues required for self-government."

The statement concludes, "In short, our vision, building on the great successes of the modern conservative movement, must now be to save America by reclaiming its truths and its promises and conserving its first principles for ourselves and our posterity."

So there it is: a template for the strategic commitment every Patriot and every grassroots movement ought to adopt.

With a strategic cause of "restoring constitutional primacy and integrity," we could then stage tea parties to ask, "What is the constitutional authority for all the government programs now being funded by Congress?" And given that there is no constitutional authority for the redistribution of our wages, we could then adopt a rallying cry of, perhaps, "No taxation without constitutional authority."

How this plays out in the political arena depends largely on whether we get sucked into "constituency politics" built around tactical issues. Far better to find and support national leaders who can both articulate and advocate for constitutional rule of law, the most pressing issue of our time.

Should the Republican Party ever wish to regain its majorities, it might start by reading Ronald Reagan's speech, "A Time for Choosing," and then adopt and abide by his 1984 Republican Platform, which yielded a historic victory.

Read the rest of Right-Wing Extremists... at PA Pundits - International