The Patriot Post® · Petty Politics v. the Price of Defending Liberty

“The consciousness of having discharged that duty which we owe to our country is superior to all other considerations.” –George Washington (1789)

Every day inside the Beltway, politicians in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, recklessly violate their common oath to support and defend our Constitution. They do so endeavoring to formulate policy and redistribute wealth in order to subsidize the agendas of their special interest groups – whose votes are critical to their perpetual re-election or appointment. The generational consequence of this dereliction of duty is the wholesale corruption of the role of government, as established by Rule of Law, the written institution of Liberty.

Propaganda tactics of the current Socialist Democrat regime occupying the White House exemplify this degraded state of the Union. This administration has mastered the art of trivial political punches in order to win campaign converts, and, more importantly, divert attention from legitimate issues such as restoring constitutional integrity.

A recurring example this year is the divisive classist rhetoric upon which Barack Hussein Obama has built his re-election campaign. His diversionary tactics, which focus upon the wealth of his opponent, Mitt Romney, prompted one astute commentator to conclude appropriately, “Apparently, I’m supposed to be more outraged by what Mitt Romney does with his money than by what Obama does with mine.”

Obama’s mainstream media minions really dove deep, however, when they recently devoted a lot of airtime and newspaper pulp to the key question of Mitt Romney’s suitability to be president – a question they posited based upon the fact of national interest that his family once traveled on vacation with their pet dog kenneled on the roof of their car. Needless to say, the dog was probably much happier on the roof than in the car with all of the Romney kids. Team Obama’s focus on such nonsense – and the mainstream media’s abetment of it – not only betrays their illimitable ignorance about the implications of the next election upon the future of Liberty, but also their errant enthusiasm for distracting the attention of Americans with trifling twaddle.

The aim of this diversion, and others like it, has been to keep voters focused on anything but the critical need to restore the eroding constitutional foundation of our nation. At some point, that foundation – large portions of which have already been emasculated – will collapse, and our country will implode on top of it.

So with that backdrop on Tuesday morning, I was contemplating topics to address this week. Above all the incoming e-mail commentary on the previous day’s petty political punditry, a new batch of messages arrived in a private inbox. Among the latter communications was one from a young 1st Lt. Army Ranger stationed in Afghanistan.

Like most uniformed Patriots serving our nation, this young man is a living example of sacrificial love for his brothers in arms, and for the nation he serves by oath with honor. He is the youngest member of our National Advisory Committee, having first come to my attention a few years back when he established a popular Patriot Post fan page for his peer cadets at the United States Military Academy.

There was nothing in his e-mail subject line that conveyed urgency, but when I opened the text, it provided the starkest of contrasts between the other news I read Tuesday morning and the news he had written a few hours earlier.

Two members of his 82nd Airborne team, 1st Lt. Jonathan P. Walsh and PFC Michael J. Metcalf (whose names have been released by DoD), were killed in action when an IED detonated under their vehicle. Without further relating the details, which I believe would leave even the most seasoned combat veterans among our readers in tears, let me just say that they were part of a close band of brothers and that 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company, suffered a great loss.

For those who have not experienced warfare and the brotherhood it establishes under fire, it may seem that such losses are commonplace, and that the survivors are largely immune to loss. Let me assure you, however: Combat vets will tell you that no loss is commonplace, and that no one is granted immunity from the experience of that loss.

What most Americans experience when they hear about a combat death via a 24-hour news cycle sound bite, or read about in a print snippet, has no correlation with what is experienced by young Patriots serving our country when one of their own falls.

The service and sacrifice of these genuine American Patriots embody the real price of defending Liberty, versus the self-interested service of petty politicos who only masquerade as Patriots.

Days after their deaths in defense of our nation, I’m ashamed to report that there has been scant mention of 1st Lt. Walsh and PFC Metcalf, even by their local media outlets. But there has been plenty of media time and space dedicated to trivial political policies, without any regard for the constitutional authority of those policies – in the defense of which Jonathan Walsh and Michael Metcalf died.

So today, tomorrow and for the rest of your life, if you are not already so predisposed, I beg of you this: When you hear some politician violating his or her oath of office, promising socialist policies and programs funded by, in Obama’s words, “redistributive justice,” for which there is no constitutional authority, please pause and consider the sacred oaths to support and defend our Constitution honored by 1st Lt. Walsh and PFC Metcalf, and generations of uniformed Patriots who have likewise sacrificed their lives honoring that oath.

Further, when the MSM endeavors to entertain you with the political horse pucky they package up and pass off to divert your attention from the Left’s assault on Essential Liberty, take pause and reconsider the real cost of defending that Liberty.

As I write these words, young Jonathan Walsh and Michael Metcalf are being escorted on an Angel Flight en route home, where their families await their remains in Cobb, Georgia, and Boynton Beach, Florida, respectively. Please pray for their families, and for the band of brothers they leave behind. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

Meanwhile this week, a senior Obama administration official issued this populist political proclamation in the interest of his boss’s re-election: “The war on terror is over. Now that we have killed most of al-Qa'ida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al-Qa'ida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.”

The families of 1st Lt. Walsh and PFC Metcalf and all those who remain on the warfronts with Jihadistan around the world, might see it differently.