The Foundation

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” –Thomas Paine

Publisher’s Note: The Real Road Forward

Patriots, as the sun rose this morning on the remains of a battle lost, the odds we face in our quest to restore Liberty and the Rule of Law enshrined in our Declaration and Constitution, may seem insurmountable. However, I ask you find strength and encouragement in these words from the most noble of Founding Patriots, George Washington.

In 1777, at a very dark moment amid defeats in the first quest for Liberty – and just before the fall of Philadelphia and the brutal Winter at Valley Forge, Washington wrote one of his generals: “We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.”

I recall the words of Thomas Paine from his Revolutionary pamphlet, The American Crisis: “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.”

When Samuel Adams signed the Declaration, he said, “We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.”

Indeed, God is Sovereign in the affairs of men.

As for the challenges we face, hold fast to this wisdom from James 1:2-4: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Patriots, we have lost a battle, not the war. Hold your head high and redouble your courage and resolve. Remain steadfast in your devotion to Liberty and hold the line.

On behalf of your Patriot Post Team, God bless our great nation and may God bless each among our Patriot ranks fighting for the eternal cause of Liberty, as “endowed by our Creator”!

Editorial Exegesis

“At times like these, after a bitter and hard-fought election, it’s customary to talk about burying the hatchet, reaching across the aisle – pick your metaphor. It dawns on politicians that the public is sick of division and wants them to work together for the good of the country. This time is different, at least from our vantage point. Had Mitt Romney won the election, he would be reaching out to the other side already, without being told to. But Barack Obama is not that kind of politician or man. He thrives on division and reflexively demonizes his opponents. … The American people, by a slim majority, have chosen to go through four more years of a presidency that doesn’t seem to have a clue about bipartisanship. What’s worse this time is that America has lost four precious years to work out the tax and entitlement reforms it needs to ward off fiscal disaster. Another four years of gridlock brings national bankruptcy that much closer. Then there’s the dead weight of ObamaCare, which will soon hit the economy with full force. The next four years would be challenging even for a popular and politically masterful president. Obama is neither, and his nasty campaign has only made his job harder. … The election left the House firmly in Republican hands. Until that changes, the GOP can block the advance of Obama’s progressive agenda (at least that part of the agenda requiring laws rather than executive orders). … Obama will have other reasons to drive the GOP from its last beachhead. He owes his base some favors for its work in dragging him across the finish line. Unions will want another try at card check. Environmentalists will push for cap-and-trade and a tighter clampdown on coal. The left wing of his party will want to gut defense and ramp up social spending; he’ll be happy to go along, if he can. … The Republican Party must be willing to compromise when it is truly in the national interest to do so, but it also should be ready to fight for the Constitution, free enterprise and individual liberty.” –Investor’s Business Daily

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Upright

“There are two important lessons imbedded in last night’s debacle. We are losing the votes of young people. We are losing the votes of women. Why? The simple answer is that both groups have a disproportionate number who believe that the purpose of government is to 'supply my needs.’ … It would be astonishing that young people would go to government schools, then graduate to government colleges, or attend private colleges on government subsidies and come out with any conclusion other than ‘the purpose of government is to provide for my needs.’ Women are vulnerable to the siren call of ‘government services’ because of the sexual promiscuity of men. Men use, abuse, and abandon women. Divorced women and single moms abound because of the sin of men. We have more unmarried adults than married adults for the first time in American history. This fact has enormous political consequences.” –constitutional lawyer Michael Farris

“All that for nothing. It was the billion-dollar election that did not decide one single … thing. … Another four years with no hope of change. In this environment with this economy and all the gravely important matters pressing against the very existence of this country, it should have been a tsunami election. … Just about the only thing the election wasn’t about was the economy, which everyone agrees was the only thing voters actually cared about. People tend to really care about the economy when real unemployment reaches double digits, welfare rolls fatten by one-third, politicians rack up $16 trillion in debt and the largest tax hike in the history of the world looms just weeks away. Yet that obviously is not what decided this election. Politicians were too busy talking all about Big Bird, rape and dancing horses.” –columnist Charles Hurt

“At this point, only a sweeping new grassroots rebellion on the model of the Tea Party could change things. … Obama is willing to pay the price of national division for the sake of making the transformative changes he seeks. … [B]ecause the public has never truly seen the changes he’s enacted put into practice, Obama has an exceedingly tenuous mandate. But he doesn’t care. All Obama wants to do is to squeak by, after which he plans to depend on shifting demographics to cement his sweeping transformation in place. The question is, have Americans really changed as much as Obama thinks, or will the actual arrival of his long-delayed first-term agenda in his second term set off a populist movement that brings his plans to a halt?” –columnist Stanley Kurtz

“My counsel to you tonight: Please, do not be bitter. Do not fall prey to the Beltway blame game. Do not get mired in small things. Do not become vengeful creatures like our political opponents who voted out of spite instead of love of country. We still have boundless blessings to count – and to secure. I remain a proud, unrepentant believer in the American Dream. And I know you do, too. Freedom will endure because we will keep fighting for it. We can’t afford not to, friends.” –columnist Michelle Malkin

Essential Liberty

“Americans missed an opportunity to change course. And now the years ahead will be bitter and difficult. Our politics will be a zero-sum game, where benefits for some mean cuts to others, and a president who promised unity will inaugurate a new era of division. But it need not be an era without hope. The same principles that built this Republic can save it again. Indeed, those timeless principles are the only solution, the only vision. Our fault, as a nation, was to forget the lessons of our own success. Having triumphed in a global, decades-long struggle against collectivism and totalitarianism, we refused to celebrate that victory, failing for twenty years to teach its lessons to the next generation. And as Andrew Breitbart often reminded us, the most important battles must be cultural ones, because culture and media inevitably shape the political choices we make together. That war must begin anew. And it begins now. … The war is a fight for the hearts, minds, and souls of the American people – waged every day, in culture as in politics. In 2000, the left reacted to its peculiar loss by venting its rage against the Constitution, vowing to eliminate the Electoral College. It never did so, but never abandoned its broader ambition fundamentally to transform the nation’s constitutional foundation. Our reaction must be the opposite: to re-affirm our commitment to the Constitution, though it means losing this battle, and to find the courage for the long struggle that lies ahead.” –Breitbart’s Joel B. Pollak

The Last Word

“I cannot and will not stand by and see this great country destroy itself. Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control, on false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity. I don’t agree that our nation must resign itself to inevitable decline, yielding its proud position to other hands. I am totally unwilling to see this country fail in its obligation to itself and to the other free peoples of the world.” –Ronald Reagan

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team