The Foundation

“We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again.” –George Washington

Japan Crisis Escalates

More than 10,000 Japanese citizens are estimated dead in the wake of Friday’s tsunami. Prime Minister Naoto Kan told the nation Sunday that the earthquake and tsunami represent the biggest crisis to face the country since the end of World War II.

Complicating matters greatly, Japan’s nuclear crisis has escalated as authorities attempt to mitigate the threat of multiple potential reactor meltdowns. The cooling system at a sixth reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants has now failed, and one meltdown is occurring. Some 200,000 people have been evacuated and the evacuation zones are being widened.

Read more from Mark Alexander and comment here

Political Futures

“[N]ow gasoline costs more than $4 a gallon in many places in California, and averages more than $3.50 nationwide. In response, the Obama administration is reportedly considering tapping into the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase supplies and drive down high prices brought on by a recovering world economy and unrest in the oil-rich Middle East. Yet the reserve depot was not designed to alleviate periodic gas-price spikes, but to ensure our very survival during a global catastrophe that might result in a cutoff of most petroleum imports from overseas. There are now more than 700 million barrels of stored oil in the reserve. In times of near-Armageddon, even that huge supply would provide for all of the nation’s oil needs for only a single month. It would make up for all imported oil cutoffs for only two months. So how is it wise to tap this critical but finite reserve – especially when the current administration had prohibited new oil and gas production in large parts of the Gulf of Mexico and the western United States? The administration certainly will not reconsider new drilling in oil-rich areas in Alaska or elsewhere off the American coasts. The message to Americans seems to be that it is OK to consume old oil stockpiled by previous generations (the reserve was begun in 1975), but quite wrong to drill for new oil to be used by the present generation.” –historian Victor Davis Hanson

Opinion in Brief

“[T]he scandal is not that House Committee on Homeland Security chairman Peter King (R., N.Y.) [held] hearings on ‘The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.’ The scandal is that they have been so long in coming. The Department of Homeland Security was created in direct response to an act of Islamic terror, an act perpetrated by radical Muslims who lived and worked, planned and plotted inside the United States. Post-9/11, the threat of homegrown jihad is as great or greater. … [A] search of the Homeland Security hearings in the 111th yields not one mention of Islamism or jihad. So the cries of religious persecution from groups like CAIR and their allies on the left badly miss the point: It isn’t that we have cast a discriminatory eye toward Islam, but that excessive concern with the pieties of multicultural relativism has prevented us from being sufficiently critical of Islamism. A problem cannot be dealt with that is not first faced foursquarely, and, to appropriate a phrase, we have for too long been a nation of cowards when it comes to addressing jihadist radicalism between our shores. Representative King’s hearings make an honest first effort to do that.” –National Review editors

Re: The Left

“For many on the Left the real fear is that for the first times in their lives they would have to find a job in the private sector they so vilify. Therefore the real interest of these radicals [regarding Wisconsin] is not the so-called denial of the ‘right’ to collective bargaining but that by eliminating compulsory union dues … a major source of funding for their groups will be eliminated. … The Left, despite their protestations that they always have the best interests of the people at heart, have only their own interests at heart. It is their individual income stream and their massive egos which must be fed, and there is not enough private funding to do so. Therefore it must come from the public coffers whether directly from government programs or indirectly through compulsory public sector union dues. It has taken a national and various state financial crises to pull back the curtain so the American public can view the corruption and greed in the full light of day. The Left … will not go gently into that good night; but no longer will they operate with such impunity as their influence wanes and funds dry-up.” –columnist Steve McCann

Liberty

“If you can’t read the Constitution, or the Declaration, or The Federalist Papers, you won’t understand their essential concepts or why they represent so much wisdom. When even our elite colleges and universities aren’t teaching the next generation the basic concepts of the American republic like federalism or the difference between Thomas Jefferson and Karl Marx, it ought to be obvious that American public education is failing American democracy. … [A] generation that is not taught to recognize the irreconcilable differences represented by the Declaration of Independence and the Communist Manifesto, between Madison and Marx, the Federalist Papers and Rules for Radicals is doomed to be ruled, not to rule. Individual liberty will not long survive in a republic of civic dunces.” –Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott

Government

“There is a distinct group of Americans who bear a large burden for today’s runaway government. You ask, ‘Who are they?’ It’s the so-called ‘greatest generation.’ When those Americans were born, federal spending as a percentage of GDP was about 3 percent, as it was from 1787 to 1920 except during war. No one denies the sacrifices made and the true greatness of a generation of Americans who suffered through our worst depression, conquered the meanest tyrants during World War II and later managed to produce a level of wealth and prosperity heretofore unknown to mankind. But this generation of Americans also laid the political foundation for the greatest betrayal of our nation’s core founding principle: limited federal government exercising only constitutionally enumerated powers. It was on their watch that the foundation was laid for today’s massive federal spending that tops 25 percent of GDP. A good part of that generation is still alive. Before they depart, they might do their share to help us have a federal government exercising only constitutionally enumerated powers.” –economist Walter E. Williams

Faith & Family

“It was never an easy relationship. For a while, though, the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] and the Obama administration managed to live together. Then the administration walked out, leaving DOMA to fend for herself. There’s no point asking why. We know why – the president’s core supporters refuse to recognize what centuries of tradition and common sense tell us, and what voters and lawmakers confirmed in 1996 – that marriage is between one man and one woman. The question is, what’s next for this act scorned? … Its validity and constitutionality are beyond question. Yet the administration, by walking away from DOMA, is rejecting this. In effect, it’s saying, ‘Congress, you think the laws you pass on behalf of your constituents deserve a defense in court? Not unless we agree with them. Voters, you think marriage should be reserved for one man and one woman? You’re bigoted and irrational.’ … DOMA deserves better than the half-hearted defense it has been getting so far.” –Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner

The Gipper

“Let’s ensure that the federal government never again legislates against the family and the home. … But let us make certain that the family is always at the center of the public policy process, not just in this administration but in future – all future administrations.” –Ronald Reagan

Culture

“[Last] week, a sting video shows NPR Foundation President Ron Schiller (no relation) saying that tea party activists were ‘seriously racist’ and telling two purported Muslim program underwriters that there aren’t enough ‘non-Zionist’ news organizations. Vivian Schiller and Ron Schiller both have been forced to resign. But, with a new, large Republican majority in the House of Representatives, NPR leaders could hardly have done a better job of persuading Congress to zero out public radio funding. … Much if not all of NPR’s programming already attracts thinly (and irritatingly) disguised advertising. I’m sure the NPR demographic is one many other advertisers would like to target. At the same time, the case for government support of public broadcasting is far weaker than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, when there was far less variety in broadcasting and more reason to doubt that public radio could come up with a commercially viable product.” –columnist Michael Barone

Reader Comments

“Mark Alexander’s piece on Democratic Socialism is right on. However, you might catch some flak about framing Obama’s image with that of Hitler and Stalin. Allow me to say, as a Jewish American (not hyphenated, just used as way of identifying my point of view), stay the course. The three men just had different methods of achieving the same end – statist dominance over their respective economies and consequently, societies.” –Michael

“While I have disagreed with the vast majority of the decisions President Obama has made during his time in office, I have to say that I find the portrayal of his image next to Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler to be objectionable. Both Stalin and Hitler were directly, intentionally responsible for tens of millions of deaths. To compare our President (and like it or not, that’s what he is) to these men is exactly the kind of hysterics I found so reprehensible when President Bush was in office. If someone who was politically on the fence saw this image, the chances are good that all the text around it would be instantly discredited in their mind.” –Phil

Editor’s Reply: The purpose of this image was clearly stated both in the essay and the image: The terminus of Marxist, Nationalist and Democratic Socialism is the same – tyranny. However, let me respond to your objection on the basis that “Both Stalin and Hitler were directly, intentionally responsible for tens of millions of deaths.” Hitler and Stalin were responsible for the policies of regimes that killed millions, Stalin (est. 20 million) far more than Hitler (est. 6 million), though the Leftmedia would have you believe the Nationalist murdered more than one of their Marxist brethren. However, there are few deaths directly attributable to either of them (as is often the case with tyrannical cowards, who have others do their bidding). I am aware of no deaths attributable to Barack Obama, however he has been very directly and intentionally supportive of his regime’s policy to allow the killing of approximately 53 million children since 1973. In his brief capacities as an Illinois state and U.S. senator, and subsequently as president, Obama even supported the killing of fully developed children, who, according to the American Medical Association, have “the brain and material inside the skull evacuated” prior to being fully born. Perhaps some would qualify counting the deaths of children ripped from their mothers wombs (also a practice of Hitler’s regime), “hysterics,” but this grisly practice is the direct result of eugenics as advanced in the 1930’s by Hitler in Germany and Margaret Sanger in the U.S. to “improve the genetic composition of a population.” But I digress…

“Quoting Jefferson and suggesting that active rebellion may be necessary to stop the slide toward Democratic Socialism is irresponsible. Some in your ranks may be deranged enough to take you seriously. We have the right to vote and that is sufficient.”

Editor’s Reply: “Deranged” better describes those who do not fully grasp the timeless wisdom of Thomas Jefferson’s words: “The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” More than a million Patriots have died in defense of Liberty and in honor of their oaths to support and defend our Constitution. If you are not among the ranks of Patriots ready to heed Jefferson’s words today, then for you, I invoke Samuel Adams words: “We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”

“Mr. Alexander, I’m a young Christian from a former socialist country, the Czech Republic. I subscribe to The Patriot Post and read it with great interest. My homeland once had Christian roots but in recent history, has been dominated by Nationalist Socialism and Marxist Socialism. Could you please help me to understand what the difference between ‘patriotism’ and ‘nationalism’ is? Here in Europe, anyone who puts his country first is called a nationalist. This term is pejorative. Thank you for the work you do. I would like to help my fellow Czechs to love God and our country as you do yours.” –Czech Patriot

Editor’s Reply: These words have different meaning both over time and geographically. Generally speaking, Nationalism refers to a blind allegiance to the state, no matter what the nature of the state may be. American Patriotism, as we use it appropriately, refers to a steadfast devotion to the fundamental principle of our nation’s Founding, individual Liberty as “endowed by our Creator,” and the extension of that principle to our posterity.

“In Alexander’s exposition on Democratic Socialism, there were a number of budget perspectives that I had never seen before. One of the most troubling was this one: ‘In 2010, central government spending in the U.S. was almost 41 percent of our nation’s GDP – by far the highest it has been since WWII. In the last decade of the Soviet Union’s existence before its collapse, the USSR’s central government spending peaked at 49 percent of GDP.’ U.S. government spending as a percent of GDP is on track to equal that of the USSR a the time of their collapse? Every American needs to read that stat. Please advise your source.” –Crimson Economist

Editor’s Reply: This information was provided directly by Andrei Illiarionov, former senior economic policy advisor to the Russia president, Vladimir Putin.

Insight

“Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit.” –Russian dissident and novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)

The Last Word

“In Washington, D.C., America is witnessing one of the grossest spectacles of fiscal incompetency, coupled with denial, ever perpetrated by a political party. And that’s the Republicans. Democrats have made it clear that they will accept nothing less than the destruction of the republic, if that’s what it take to prove progressivism is ‘successful.’ Over the top? Consider this: the highest cut in the federal budget proposed by the Irresponsible Republicans is $61 billion. The Democrat Destroyers say such a cut is way over the top. Last month, in 28 days, our government spent $223 billion of money we don’t have. That’s nearly four times more than the cuts proposed by the Irresponsibles, every one of which will be fought tooth and nail by the Destroyers. Any questions? I have one. At what point does this eyes-wide-open effort to bankrupt America reach the boiling point with the American public? If someone came into your house and ‘borrowed’ a little over seven hundred bucks – per family member – I bet most Americans would be pretty upset. Well try dividing $233 billion in borrowed money by 300 million Americans, and guess what: that’s precisely what the Obama administration added to every citizen’s share of the debt – in one month.” –columnist Arnold Ahlert