America hasn't gone to hell, it is hell.  To be an American in this country is hell. To be labeled a right-wing extremist by our own US Government for simply being an ardent patriot and defender of the Constitution is hell.

Radical islamists training in this country and the government does nothing. Why? To use the attacks that must come as a result of all this training as an excuse later, after innocent lives are spent, to take our guns. A crisis allowed to happen. A disarmed American populace left vulnerable to the domestic enemies within--yes, the idea is pure hell. The current administration dreams of the day we are all disarmed.

A man in the white house who promised no new taxes on 95% percent of the population and then proceeds to tax 100% of us through schemes like cap and trade. No, the administration doesn't want to call this scam a tax, nor do the Feds want the mainstream media to call it a tax, but that's what it is. All this doublespeak = hell.

A cyber-czar to be named that answers only to the dictator in chief--to protect America's businesses from hackers, or so the administration says. More doublespeak to hide the fact that the administration will spy on patriotic Americans via the Internet. And they will spy on us, every single one of us who is not afraid to exercise their first amendment right to free speech in objecting to the hell this country has become. And one by one, we could, and just might, disappear into jail cells and re-education camps until we, like good little robots, spout the administration's politically correct lines as if we believed them all along. Or die.

A president who bows to the Saudi King as if he, and by inference America, were slaves to a throwback from the seventh century.

A so-called leader of our "free" world who apologizes for us as if we were ashamed of being America.

Weakness and words in response to nuclear tests by North Korea. Giving aid and comfort to thousands of members of Hamas, relocating these terrorists to this country with our own tax dollars footing their bills.

With the aid of the democratic majority in Congress, spending our tax monies as if no future accounting will ever come due. Promising this wild spending spree will save our economy while the Federal Reserve prints money as if it were worth the paper it's printed on. Jobs shed by the thousands, manufacturing capabilities further reduced.

The government nationalizing two of the big three auto companies, GM and Chrysler, and then closing down dealerships exclusively, with one exception, that contributed to the Republican party. Not that the Republicans currently in office have enough spine or even the will to stand up and bite the hands that feed them.

Yes, hell indeed looks like this. 

Our Forefathers spoke eloquently, at length, against the state of their world when it became a living hell and then backed those words of opposition with action. 

 The question every single American patriot ought to be asking themselves today is will we now, when we are needed most, stop at only words?

The following is the email I sent to GOPAC.org after taking their survey sent to me by Townhall.

I recently took your [Republican Party Issues] survey and have a few suggestions.

One is you should've given a person the opportunity to say what he or she thinks is wrong with the Party.

Even though you didn't ask, I'm going to tell you.

The stench of corruption that taints candidates from both parties cannot be removed as easily as "training" a new candidate or producing a new face with a so-called squeaky clean past. Both parties are equally responsible for the mess this country is in, and both parties continue to play the same corrupt political game of trading favors and kissing the [assets] of corporate sponsors while ignoring the interests of the People of these United States and especially the rights granted under the Constitution of these United States.

If there was one candidate who honestly admitted his or her party was equally responsible for this country's current woes, if the same candidate refused donations from corporations looking to buy political favors in future, if the same candidate then called for a return to the Constitution and abolishing the Federal Reserve, if the candidate promised to limit themselves to two terms, and if this candidate can show the world a track record of honest and upright dealings with regular people, in addition to holding a real job in the workforce at some point in his or her life before proceeding to a career in car salesmen politics, then I might believe some of the rhetoric proceeding from his or her mouth is real and NOT designed simply to pander to the electorate in order to curry votes. I might even vote for this person, whoever he or she might be, although I admit it's a very tall order. But that is the measure of how jaded I've become regarding the candidates of both parties and the political process that passes for governance in these United States. And what's more, I am not alone. Far from it.

Good luck to your party. I am a conservative, but I won't be voting for any candidate nor blindly swallowing the pablum dished out on a national scale by both Democrats and Republicans, not anymore.  I am part of the sleeping giant that is America who is now waking up from the American dream to the National Nightmare that the corruption of both parties in Washington has bred.

Mari L. Bushman
Excerpts available. For the missing pieces of your reading puzzle...
Jigsaw Press
Montana Crosswinds

You say the word revolution to some folk and they immediately think blood, guts, gore and fighting in the streets. Can't blame them--blood was shed in the formation of this great nation, a fact that, fortunately, is still taught today in our increasingly homogenized schools.

For others, however, revolution means change that can be effected without a single shot being fired. Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King both showed the world that peace is a far more effective weapon. Peace is also a greater shield than it appears on the surface because those who war against peace come out looking violent themselves.

While I advocate a second American revolution and a return to the Constitution, I would choose peaceful means if I could. A march upon Washington DC by millions from all parts of the country to "fire" our so-called elected employees, our senators and representatives, even the President if need be, would be my first choice.

But even now, our right to assemble in peaceful protest of a government grown so big it feels it can ignore our Constitution with impunity is being assaulted. In cities and towns across America, the right to assemble is being abridged by the imposition of fees for permits and, in some cases, the arbitrary requirement that organizers obtain costly insurance before being allowed to purchase the permit.

Where in our great Constitution does it say that fees must be paid and insurance obtained before we the People can exercise our most basic right to assemble and protest?

This is but one example of the abuse of power going on across America. This is but one small reason among the larger abuses of power that, if they continue, will make a second American revolution necessary.

Would I choose peace first? You bet.

Will those abusing their power let us choose peace? Your guess is as good as mine. Apparently, our right to assemble, to protest, to try through peaceful means to effect revolution and a return to the Constitution depends on how many permits we can afford and how much insurance we can obtain from those we would ultimately dismiss.

To my way of thinking, our "fees" were paid in blood at the birth of our nation to "permit" our Constitution to serve as our "insurance" against tyranny, whether the enemy be foreign or Federal. 

We may soon find ourselves with no choice left but to make the same type of payment again. Still, I would choose peace first, and blood only as a last resort.

The woman who wrote "Nickel and Dimed," referred to in John Stossel's column--Making It has a lot to learn about simple survival.

In 2003, My daughter, who was only four at the time, and I left Dalhart, Texas in a twenty-year-old station wagon filled with our belongings and drove to Great Falls, Montana to start a new life. When we arrived in town, we knew no one. No local references, nothing. Granted, we had a small stash of cash to see us through for a month or so. By 5:30 that evening, we were in a tiny rented house, we had a bed, and one small child's table. Our belongings were mainly necessities--bare-bones kitchen essentials, clothing, some bedding, my computer (as I'm a writer) and toys, lots of toys. Even tied my daughter's bike to the top of the car. We had a thirteen-inch television. That's all we had.

Now, here it is, nearly six years later, and we're living in the country in a small, but sturdy two-bedroom house on 3/4 of an acre that I bought through Rural Development with no money down. My payments are actually one-hundred dollars less than my rent was before. We have a different car, a wonderful old Taurus, because that first winter we spent here, the transmission on ye olde station wagon that carried us out of Texas gave up the ghost during the first 20-below cold snap. We took the bus for a long time, I'd guess close to a year, until we managed to get another car.

I worked as a customer service rep in a call center for the first three years we were here in Great Falls. Even to this day, we shop Goodwill and clearance sales, and we're making it.  In fact, I have an interview coming up with WalMart for a part-time position just to pad the earnings from my novels and what I make as a substitute teacher.

Attitude is everything in America. Those who want to survive, will.  Perhaps I should write a book about nickels and dimes and what great things can be accomplished when you put a little research into where best to spend them.

With all the talk of revolution these days, and rightly so, I've been waiting for the first "radical fringe group" who's going to "rise up" violently, only to be "put down" by the Feds, who will then use the fabricated "crisis" as an excuse to institute martial law and take our guns. Most likely, this radical "group" will be funded in secret by our very own Federal reserve or some other entity that has everything (read: power) to lose, and it will be oh-so-convenient when all the members of this "group" are killed during the "uprising". After all, the current administration believes they should "never let a good crisis go to waste." And government sympathizers among the media will be conveniently "embedded" to get every second of the gory details to television as "breaking news" in order to intimidate and frighten the more timid Americans among the populace.

Violence is the Fed's weapon, one they are very good at wielding to their advantage.

But peace they cannot fight. And they know this. If we the People march on Washington this summer in sufficient numbers with one mission--to "fire" all of our elected employees and start over with the Constitution--we will undoubtedly find no one home when we get there.

I'm all for a revolution to rescue America and return our beloved country to the Constitution, but in a peaceful orderly manner. Ghandi got what he wanted for his people this way, and Martin Luther King as well, until he was killed by those who feared him. But King knew, as did Ghandi, as does even our Federal Government who would love nothing better than a new "crisis", that peace in sufficient numbers cannot be "put down" with violence. Peace, backed by enough supporters, can never be stayed at all.

We ought to try peace first and have the patience to see the attempt through to the end. Yes, some may be assassinated as King was--I would not put it past the current government to try to "scare" us off our mission to take back our country by shooting and killing some of us. My point remains, however, that if we the People stick to the peaceful means already at our disposal, rights guaranteed us under our Constitution, if we persevere in the face of whatever is thrown at us, be it bullets, bombs or merely more intimidating rhetoric and doom and gloom forecasting, we will overcome.

Peace is our greatest weapon in defense of America. If only we the People realize this and take advantage of it before we lose our right to freedom of speech, of assembly and protest, under martial law.

To my way of thinking, all this debate about the so-called stimulus bill being rushed through both the Senate and the House is missing the point. We the People will apparently have billions of dollars in excess spending shoved down our throats, whether we like it or not, yet no one appears ready to tackle the question of how we and our children and their children are going to pay for this.

We will pay, in one form or another, but if not right away, then when and how?

Are the current crop of U.S. Senators and Representatives gambling that they will be out of politics or in the grave by the time the debt comes due? If so, doesn't this speak to their general greed, selfishness and incompetence as a whole, irregardless of party affiliation?

I have written my Senator to ask how we will pay for this, and haven't gotten an answer, not that I ever expected one.

I've read reams of copy here and elsewhere on the matter, saying this so-called stimulus plan is bad and yet we can't seem to come together as a nation long enough to force our Congressmen and women to answer this one simple question--how do you plan to pay for this?

This is the question that needs answered above all.  The answer is of the utmost importance for it will determine not only our future, but our children's and their children's.

If any one of us budgeted our money so poorly, we would be homeless. Perhaps it's time for the entire Congress to be turned out to the same.

Barney Frank must be one of the laziest, most anti-American members of Congress. After his wonderful track record in royally screwing up the economy, he's come up with a "brilliant" idea to give even more power to the Federal Reserve, if the story in the Washington Post is to be believed.

The Federal Reserve is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Created in 1913, the Federal Reserve was nothing but a bill of goods sold to the People as a way to ensure economic stability after a series of bank failures had the national economy in a tailspin (sound familiar?). Congress then voted to allow a consortium of privately-held banks to take over their constitutionally mandated job of creating and printing the money.  But anyone who's actually read the US Constitution knows this was never what our forefathers intended. However, this may have been the first rather egregious example of Congress making less work for themselves. And successive Congresses have been emulating this example ever since. We get less and less work out of our elected employees every year, and less willingness to take responsibility for what they do to us and take from us on behalf of themselves, their pockets, and their corporate benefactors. 

Now Mr. Frank would have the members of Congress do even less work for the exorbitant salaries we the People pay them. Oversight of the Federal Reserve and the banking industry? That's apparently too difficult a task for poor Mr. Frank and his pals. He probably doesn't understand simple math anyway. How much he was paid by the Federal Reserve to propose this legislation is anyone's guess, but the fact that he is on their dole couldn't be any clearer.

There ought to be a law. Oh wait, once there was a whole herd of laws called the Constitution of the United States of America. Maybe Mr. Frank needs to go home and study this fine document. Perhaps all the members of Congress, up to and including the President and Vice President, should be required to pass an entry level exam on this and other important documents--the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights--prior to taking their oaths of office. Nowhere in any of these finely-crafted instruments where each word was weighed and measured does it say that the duty of US Senator or Representative is to hand off their work constantly, repeatedly, to private corporations like the Federal Reserve, which itself exists in defiance of the US Constitution.

Mr. Frank needs to go home and learn what an American is, what hard work is, what the Constitution actually says, and then perhaps run again for office when he understands that we the People aren't paying him or any other member of Congress to continuously pass the buck on their responsibilities to us. And he can damn well take the Fed with him when he goes. 

I suppose though, being as uneducated as he apparently is in all things American, including the history of our fine country, Mr. Frank and his Fed compadres will eventually have to learn the hard way, just like the British King in 1776. To my way of thinking, we could save ourselves a lot of time and expense and taxes if we simply bought them all a ticket to England now.

I have never ever seen such irrational, childish people as the so-called Democrats and Republicans who comment ad nauseam on various columns here on this site.

What brave souls, these name-calling men and women are. What courage it must take to sit alone in a room behind a keyboard and spew viciousness toward any and all who do not meet their paltry definitions of liberal or conservative. I'm sure the country was founded on the blood of righteous folk like these. Yeah, these are the people I want defending my freedoms. Uh-huh. Sure.

And reasonable adults, what few of us still remain, wonder why America's going down the tubes. The answer lies in the comments, if they can even be called that. My nine-year-old has better manners. She can put together a coherent statement without degenerating into childishness when someone, even her mother, disagrees. Apparently, this is too difficult for many here at Townhall. More's the pity.

I think I expected some rationality to prevail here, some civility toward opposing viewpoints, but obviously, I expected too much. For some of the more immature here, the fifteen seconds of so-called glory far outweighs the effort to maintain some level of maturity, even online.

Yes, such courageous souls these--the childish, the irrational, the immature, the fanatical schoolyard name callers. Is it any wonder our country's gone to hell?

On this Thanksgiving, with so many SO thankful for so much, I'm going to tell you what I'm not thankful for.

I'm not thankful that I've been given the gift of "sight." This ability to see a much larger picture, to rise above even my own petty prejudices and sins and see what's down the road for this nation, is a curse, not a blessing. Why me, I don't know, but I have the ability, and frankly, it's killing me because aside from the Lord God and my daughter, I wholly love America.

From my lowly place here in the hinterlands, I watch the people of this once-great nation display the most intolerance, insensitivity, and outright hate toward each other of any country in the world and I'm sick. Because I can see the outcome if change doesn't come to the hearts of American men and women alike. To use a biblical reference, much like Ahab in the Old Testament, the hearts of Americans are hardening against the evil that is to come. This has nothing to do with who sits in the Oval office. It's been happening for some time. Where or when this hardening began doesn't matter. The fact that it is here and no one but a few see it is the root of my suffering.

What I wouldn't give to be ignorant of all this, you will never know. What's worse is knowing my daughter will have to fend for herself among America's bickering, hateful, whiny, me-me-me children in a sorry future where I cannot be there to help her. She may be the last honest, truly caring person left in America at some point if my example takes, but then the hate, the intolerance, the bigotry, the my-gang's-better-than-your-gang mentality of political parties and religions will surely get the best of her, just like it's already gotten the best of most of America. 

I would, this moment, lay down my life for America and a return to our Constitution, but none of you will listen, or look at yourselves, let alone fight alongside each other for a return to what's right for all of us. Because you're all too concerned with who, who is right versus what is right. And that will be America's downfall.

So, no, I am not thankful this Thanksgiving for this accursed sight I've been given. I'm not happy being one of the few small voices in this wilderness that Americans everywhere appear determined to totally ignore. Such is my cross to bear. Enjoy your bliss while you can for like all things good and bad in life, it will not last.

 

We Americans face a dilemma here, a crisis greater and more deadly than mere finances or economy. Religions can't solve this, mainly because a religion will not suffice for a total lack of conscience. Our leaders are a reflection of us and that being the case, we are without morals. I'm not talking about nitpicky details like whether homosexuality is right or wrong, but base values like honesty and good. Sure, religions breed fear and fear, as we well should know from studying history, drives people to all kinds of altars, good and bad, but fear cannot instill empathy, any more than love can solve the world's food shortages or end suffering. Most people don't know what love truly is any more. And the sad thing is that our children know less about love and conscience and empathy and compassion and fear than we do.

The dilemma is our morality, and not the so-called morality preached by religions around the world, but morality of a higher order. For me to sit in judgment on any other soul, living or dead, is wrong, a sin. To even presume I can do this would be me committing the sin of arrogance and pride. I have no right to tell another how they should live or whom they should love or not love, whether I agree with their choice or not. I have not the right to say to another woman, you should or shouldn't have an abortion, but neither should my government have the right to consign those who do choose to abort to back alleys and knitting needles and infections and death. Abortion is not something I would choose to do, but by the same token, in this country with the best medical facilities in the world, the government who would say to those who choose to abort that they must risk their lives in a back alley is not only evidence of archaic, sadistic thinking, but wholly immoral. Also, a very bad example of so-called Christian love, a love that, if you buy the marketing, should be big enough to advocate on behalf of the unborn child, but also embrace the mother who may or may not choose to abort. This is but one of the many reasons I am not and never will be a Christian. I'm absolutely sure, after having found God the Father in my life, that Jesus, in looking over the conduct of these modern Christians called by his name today, wouldn't call himself a Christian either.

The larger picture here, the problem many of us fail to see or address, is basic self-limitation. To keep that overpayment or return it, even if no one is looking. To lie or not lie, to steal or not, even if the risk of being discovered is practically nil. To examine the consequence of actions before, not after, we do them. These are bounds set by our personal morals, if we have any, that say I have no right to judge any but myself; I have no right to dictate any but my own actions; I have every right to let my conscience be my guide, but not at the expense of others. For those who have no conscience, and no idea of love, especially that unconditional love everyone's so fond of bandying about as if it were of some consequence to their actions, without morals there are simply no self-limitations. Thus you have no restraint on hate or intolerance, pointing fingers and calling names, and absolutely no limit on using political power to line the pockets nor any bound on legislation that seeks to control the masses by whatever means available, be that hook or crook, or fear. America has no moral center any longer, only pockets of self-righteous who peer out at all the others to point fingers and gnash the teeth and think to themselves that they are better than the rest who do not fall into their narrow line before their archaic altars. No moral center to stop anyone from lobbying an equally immoral Congress for laws that do not give the greatest freedom to the greatest number of people.

Greed is rampant because there are no men or women of any consequence, or conscience for that matter, who personally choose not to be greedy. Lying is a way of life for far too many, especially those in positions of leadership who should be setting the example for the rest of us to follow. But we have gotten what we pay for and, more importantly, what we're willing to give. I am complimented, praised even, for returning a dime too much in change to a store clerk because the honesty now is so rare an event. I wish this were not so, but it is. And do people look at themselves, do they ask themselves what the right thing to do in any given situation is? No, they point fingers at others to cloak their own lack of morals, dead certain they know what's best for everyone else. They presume the arrogance to think they have the right to sit in judgment on others who they, in their heart of hearts, deem less than themselves. They would take God's job because they obviously think he can't do it. This is the result of no morality. And this behavior, this thinking, is what we're teaching our children, if only by our own example.

Unconditional love requires you to embrace those differences that make us all human, not judge them from the tunnel vision of an increasingly narrow mind. Empathy asks only that you walk in someone else's shoes for ten seconds and actually give the exercise some effort, if only to enlarge your heart and, in turn, breed compassion. Conscience dictates that we treat each other as we would wish to be treated, whether we think anyone might catch us or not. Too often now, the secret question we put to ourselves is will I get caught, versus what is the right thing to do. And that alone is evidence of our moral dilemma, and the reason behind America's decline, and ultimate fall, if we do not reverse this by choosing today to change that which we can change, which is only each ourselves.




 

 

When making a list, all comedic assumptions aside, the most important items are generally found nearest the top.

Now, ask yourself what the framers of the Constitution truly intended by making freedom of speech number one on their list of amendments and the right of an individual to bear arms number two. This was not an unconscious decision. Freedom of speech was important enough to be at the very top of our forefathers' constitutional agenda, to be protected and defended, when necessary, by the right of individuals to bear arms. All other amendments come after, as required by their order of importance.

If the right to bear arms is ever taken from we the people, can our freedom of speech be far behind? Both inalienable rights have been assaulted, and continue to be assaulted, less than successfully so far by those "well-meaning" types who tend to "champion" causes that would take our freedoms in the "interest of the greater good" because they think they know what's best for us all. As if we were all children and incapable of responsibility for ourselves and to our fellow countrymen. At least, that's their story and they're sticking to it--generally as long as their "cause" continues to put dollars in their pockets, their names in the paper and/or their faces on television.

Until my weapon is pried from my cold dead fingers, I will keep and bear my arms in defense of everyone's freedom of speech against even my own government if need be because these inalienable rights were granted me by like-minded men, our forefathers, who so obviously understood that the order of importance of any list indicates the intent of the writer or writers. And I intend, as they intended, for all of us to remain free from tyranny, no matter what "well-meaning, for the greater good" cause or party platform might serve only to cloak our would-be oppressors.

There's my story and, by God, I'm sticking to it.