THE FOUNDATION: PATRIOTISM

“Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.” —George Washington

THE GIPPER

“We’re gathered today, just as we have gathered before, to remember those who served, those who fought, those still missing, and those who gave their last full measure of devotion for our country… One of those who fell wrote, shortly before his death, these words: ‘Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own. And take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.’ Well, today, Veterans Day, as we do every year, we take that moment to embrace the gentle heroes of Vietnam and of all our wars. We remember those who were called upon to give all a person can give, and we remember those who were prepared to make that sacrifice if it were demanded of them in the line of duty, though it never was. Most of all, we remember the devotion and gallantry with which all of them ennobled their nation as they became champions of a noble cause… Our liberties, our values, all for which America stands is safe today because brave men and women have been ready to face the fire at freedom’s front. And we thank God for them.” —Ronald Reagan

SELECT READER COMMENTS

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“Another grand slam with the Roger Helle story. Great, great story. We need to continue to make sure all Americans understand the sacrifices made for them. I only with I could meet Mr. Helle and personally shake his hand.” —Colonia, New Jersey

“It is a pleasure to support The Patriot Post! The ideology of the Left is so incredibly shallow and insignificant in relationship to the faith, truth and freedom articulated so clearly by The Patriot. The call to action is clear and I pray our collective influence will be sufficient to some day restore the liberty that our government was conceived to protect.” —Port Matilda, Pennsylvania

“Regrettably the voices of conservative wisdom are being overwhelmed by the raucous cries of the MSM, so it behooves us who appreciate The Patriot Post to add our mite to keep yours from being stilled for lack of funds.” —Lakeside, Arizona

“Regarding support for The Patriot Post, the honor and privilege is ours. Keep on fighting the good fight. I subscribe to both The Weekly Standard and World Magazine. They are very fine publications, but my absolute favorite is The Patriot!” —Nampa, Idaho

“Thank you for expressing my thoughts and views without having met or talked with me. May God continue to Bless Our Troops, Our Veterans and You, who continue to defend this Great Country. In thought, word and deed please continue the fight.” —Cleburne, Texas

CALLING ALL PATRIOTS!

Heritage Foundation President Dr. Edwin Feulner, Jr. reads The Patriot Post: “The best Websites wield remarkable influence in the marketplace of ideas. The Patriot Post is a ‘must read’ for informed conservatives.”

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I thank you for the honor and privilege of serving you as editor and publisher of The Patriot. On behalf of your Patriot staff and National Advisory Committee, thank you and God bless you and your family!

Lex et Libertas—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander Publisher

LIBERTY

“Beyond principle, there are practical reasons for denying licenses to illegal immigrants. As some reformers have pointed out, the driver’s license is more than a permit to drive. It’s a nationally recognized ID that implies citizenship, and is the most coveted ‘breeder document’ of terrorists because it allows them access to all the other things they need to blend in—jobs, housing, bank accounts—as well as access to commercial airplanes and rental cars. Many states still don’t verify applicants’ identities. In May 2001, when Tennessee dropped its requirement that applicants supply a Social Security number, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants applied for licenses, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform. There may be no way to solve every aspect of the immigration problem. Certainly, no serious person thinks we can round up 12 million people and deport them. But it would be refreshing if we began to take seriously what it means to be a citizen and stop making it so attractive to be a lawbreaker. That would make sense.” —Kathleen Parker

CULTURE

“Boomers came of age eager to offend everybody but were so indulged that anything that offended them became taboo. The social slights sensitive adolescents always decried were writ large with narcissistic perception codified in political correctness… Diana West in her book, ‘The Death of the Grown-Up,’ says trouble began when children started aspiring to adolescence rather than adulthood. They replaced information with animation: ‘More adults, ages 18 to 49, watch the Cartoon Network than watch CNN.’ An adolescent lurches within minutes from fear and insecurity to self-confidence and bravado. But a culture sustains perpetual adolescence at deadly peril. It’s our collective identity crisis.” —Suzanne Fields

OPINION IN BRIEF

“So the real issue of dealing with proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, chemical or biological is: What is your tolerance for risk?… Because otherwise, we and our allies are at the mercy of regimes like Ahmadinejad and the mullahs in Tehran, or Kim Jong Il and the Hitler-in-the-bunker mentality in Pyongyang, or others who don’t share our calculus on the value of human life. And that’s why the Bush administrations pre-emptive strategy is so important, because the only real safety is to make sure that these weapons don’t fall into the hands of rogue regimes or terrorists in the first place.” —Ambassador John Bolton

GOVERNMENT

“Here we go again with payouts to well-off Americans that have neither logic nor morality. The farm subsidy program currently in place pays out over $7 billion directly to larger farmers for a few select crops like corn, cotton, rice, soy and wheat. But it pays nothing to most other—often smaller—farmers of fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet the former group of farmers is hardly in more need of welfare than the latter. And soy or rice isn’t more critical to the American diet than fresh fruit and vegetables. Federal farm bills originated in Depression-era America when commodity prices crashed, forcing tens of millions of bankrupt small farmers to turn to the federal government to survive. But that’s ancient history. Today’s corporate farm is about as similar to a 1930s homestead as a massive air-conditioned tractor combine is to a team of horses… [T]here is absolutely no need for this federal relic for 21st-century prospering farmers.” —Victor Davis Hanson

INSIGHT

“If the government gets into business on any large scale, we soon find that the beneficiaries attempt to play a large part in the control. While in theory it is to serve the public, in practice it will be very largely serving private interests. It comes to be regarded as a species of government favor, and those who are the most adroit get the larger part of it.” —Calvin Coolidge

RE: THE LEFT

“Hillary has a very clear stand on the war in Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran. It’s identical to her stand on Social Security reform, health care, religion, politics, driver’s licenses for illegals, global warming and, when it becomes fashionable again, global cooling. Hillary’s for the national interest when those interests coincide with hers, and for Democrats (if it works out that way). First, she’s foursquare for Hillary. Her bobbing, weaving, evading and trimming to slide through tiny loopholes that only she would attempt to slip through makes perfect sense. It’s not that she’s against pursuing the war against radical Islamic terrorism (she’s voted for that twice), or that she’s necessarily for that war. Like most Democrats, she can coo like a dove and screech like a hawk, depending on who’s there to listen. You might say she exercises a damsel’s right to change her mind. (You might say that, but I wouldn’t.) Hillary’s inconsistencies are actually no more glaring than those of her rivals; it’s only that Hillary herself is more glaring. The sudden revelation of barnacles on her backside, as it were, was inevitable. She had become the inevitable Democratic nominee, and now the Iowa caucuses are on the horizon, we’re within a year of the election, and the Democrats are taking their first cold stare at what life might be like with Hillary at the top of the ticket. And they thought Halloween was scary.” —Wesley Pruden

FOR THE RECORD

“It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the ‘research’ to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus… I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party. However, Global Warming, ie Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you ‘believe in.’ It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won’t believe a me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it… There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril… In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped. The sky is not falling.” —John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel

POLITICAL FUTURES

“If Rudy Giuliani were to win the Republican presidential nomination, would that trigger a significant third-party effort by social and religious conservatives, potentially costing the former New York City mayor the general election? Don’t expect an unequivocal answer here. I, for one, am still trying to get my arms around the fact that Giuliani is doing so well and appears to have a 50-50 chance of clinching the Republican nomination. Those odds perplex me, especially given his fairly liberal stands on hot-button cultural issues and his tangled personal life. An argument can be made that if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York is the Democratic nominee (as seems very likely), many Republicans—even those who are far more conservative than Giuliani on such issues as abortion, gun control, and gay rights—would hold their noses and vote for him anyway if he is the GOP’s standard-bearer. One can argue that in politics, hatred of the enemy is as strong a motivator as love of an ally…[But] a good case can be made that Giuliani would lose too much of his base to win the general election.” —Charlie Cook