Morning/Mourning in America

In 1984 Ronald Reagan ran for re-election against Jimmy Carter's Vice President, Walter Mondale.  President Reagan restored America's horrendous economy to great prosperity.  He improved our strength and standing in the world.  He made us all proud to be Americans once again.  Reagan won reelection in a landslide and took 49 of 50 states in doing so, losing only Mondale's home state of Minnesota.

Now, in 2012, we have seemingly returned to the Carter years in many of the worst aspects of it.  Our true unemployment figures have been in double digits for nearly all of President Obama's first term.  People are afraid.  Our businesses and economy are in shambles.  We face ever greater dangers in the world, and seemingly turn a blind eye to them.  We have become a divided people and many folks are no longer proud to be an American, with the possible exception of Michelle Obama who famously stated that "for the first time in her life", she was "proud to be an American".

Now, Mr. Romney is not Ronald Reagan, and he certainly is not the candidate that many conservatives had hoped would be the eventual Republican nominee for president.  That said, he is a good and decent man.  He is a man that will strengthen our country both economically and in its standing throughout the world. 

Once again, we have a pivotal choice.  We can elect a man that actually will follow the Constitution and has a real plan for restoring America, or we can continue on the path of certain bankruptcy... both morally and economically... by re-electing President Obama.  Come November 7th, will there once again be hope and morning in America?  Or will we end this great 236-year experiment in freedom and have mourning in America?  It is truly a sad statement that the question must even be asked this close to the election.  I fervently pray that America will wake up and that Obama and his hyper-progressivism will be thoroughly rejected this November, just like Mondale was back in November of 1984.



The Reagan / Obama Debate

I do sorely miss President Reagan and my knowing that we had an American in the oval office back then that understood our history as a nation, our path to righteousness in the future, and how to ensure that our liberties were defended along the way. The distance between the Great Communicator and the Great Teleprompter is nearly incomprehensible in its breadth.

The one sought to restore America's anemic economy be unleashing the productivity of the American people through capitalism and less onerous regulation and taxation. The other today seeks to return us to the same socialistic Utopian Carter-like economy where misery was spread equally amongst Americans.

Reagan sought to restore our standing and might in the world and to let our allies know that we would stand by their sides in trouble, and to put fear in the hearts of those that might otherwise be willing to test our strength and resolve in the defense of freedom in the world.

Obama, on the other hand, seeks to accommodate and have dialogue with the most vile and evil despots of the world that have been responsible for the usurpation of human rights and the killing of millions of their own people as a group. He seeks common ground where none can be found, so he apologizes and makes America look sickly and weak by wearing the mantle of appeasement accordingly.

President Reagan understood our Founders, the sacrifices of our forefathers, and the price in blood, treasure, and sacred honor that was paid for our freedoms as given to us by God and enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

President Obama looks to see how to get around and avoid the constraints placed upon the federal government by these documents so as to further its expansive growth, thus further eroding the independence, self-sufficiency, and individual liberties of Americans, all in the name of doing so for the common good.

I was proud to serve under President Reagan in the military. He was an American in all the best senses of the word. President Obama is a faint shadow of the man that Reagan was, and for all of Obama's eloquence and rhetoric to the contrary, the main difference was that Reagan stood behind and acted upon his words given in honor to the American people whom he represented.

Obama shows no such honor and indication of acting upon his few appeals to greatness for the American people. Rather, he would simply choose to make us just one more nation of mediocrity amongst hundreds in the world, whereas Reagan inspired us all to become that shining city on a hill that the world admired and wanted to emulate.

The debate between Presidents Reagan and Obama is one that would not have been much of a contest accordingly, as you will see in the video below. May God bless President Reagan for being the leader he was and in restoring honor and strength to our nation when it so sorely needed it. I pray that another such American steps forward to right the ship of state once again at the conclusion of President Obama's first and only term. If not, President Reagan may be proven right once again that America's "freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."

The Cowboy Way

I always did like cowboys. Now, I don't mean the ones that dress up in their well-pressed Wranglers, put on a Stetson hat, jump in their pickup that has never ever left a concrete road, to go to the local honkey tonk to line dance in some downtown metropolis. I mean, I like real honest to goodness cowboys.

I admire and respect those men and women that have worked hard ranching. It would seem that there is something about having to be responsible for a herd of livestock's' well being and everything that it takes to do that that typically creates a man or woman of uncommonly good sense.

To this day, I cannot think of a single real cowboy or cowgirl that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting that has not exhibited this uncommonly good sense. A cowboy's sense of right and wrong, fair play, and justice is almost infallible. They are straight shooters and tell it like it is. They tend to see the world in more of the black and white shades that it often times truly is, rather than the myriad shades of gray that nearly all our politicians couch their positions in of moral relativism nowadays.

President Reagan was often called a cowboy by his critics. He returned to his ranch in California as often as he could when he was president. Perhaps that is why I liked and respected the man so much. I suspect it will take another cowboy sitting in the oval office to clean up the mess that the current goat-roper will leave us.

With this being said, an old Navy buddy who lives in Texas forwarded this short video to me. It kind of gives you an idea of why I like cowboys. Too bad the breed seems to be a lot harder to come by these days when we really could use a lot more to keep us all grounded in common sense.