EXCLUSIVE: CIA operators were denied request for help during Benghazi attack, sources say | Fox News

What the fuck is this shit????

EXCLUSIVE: CIA operators were denied request for help during Benghazi attack, sources say | Fox News

Corporate Villains?

     What if one day, your Visa card stopped working? Imagine a place where there are no gas stations, no grocery stores, no banks to hold your money. What if you couldn't get a loan to buy a car, a house, to get your child braces? It's amazing that America has come to vilify the ery companies that allow them to live their lives in such luxury.

     But to tell you the truth, it's not the corporate giants fault. If you buy a house, and you sign at the X for a cut throat sub prime mortgage that  screws you into a payment that you can't afford, then who is really at fault? The bank that wrote the mortgage, or yours, the person who didn't research the loan and just signed on the dotted line? You made your bed, now you must lie in it.

     If you fill up your car weekly with $3.79 a gallon gas, and you don't make any effort to curb your gasoline usage, whose fault is that? You willingly pay through the nose for gasoline when you could walk, ride a bike, or take public transportation. Yet you revile the company that spends billions of dollars on wells, infrastructure, taxes, fees, environmental studies, Superfund payments, and various other hoopla to get you your precious gasoline. Would you expect them to give their product away for free? For no profit?

     The plain and simple fact is that business is business. It isn't charity, goodwill, or for the good of the people. It's to make money. And lots of it. Now don't get me wrong...i think that the business world needs to have compassion and charity and all that too, but come on people........

     It's amazing how today we have villified business as this evil monster that bleeds the world dry, clubs baby seals, lets old people die, and murders innocent children, all the while clutching handfuls of money.

    Being successful used to be something good, now we all should strive for mediocrity, lest we be labeled the devil himself.........

Always remember.....

The words "never forget" seem so small in comparison to the magnitude of the events that transpired 11 years ago. The human language does not have words to fully convey the meaning of what I feel when I remember what I saw, what I felt, and what I know happened that day. "Never forget", to me, implies that something like that can be forgotten. But for this American, it never can be. Those images are burned upon my memory, they are forever part of me. The horror I felt when I saw those buildings fall, the men and women jumping to their deaths......the bravery of ordinary Americans who fought to steer an airliner into the ground........and later the images I saw of the firefighters, 343 of them, going up, when everyone else was running down........or the sight of the American flag next to the gaping hole in the pentagon.

I can't ever forget what I saw that day. It's impossible. It is burned into my memory. It's an indelible mark left on me until the day I take my last breath. I will always remember the bravery of those who responded, and are responding still. This American will always remember. Forgetting it is not an option, even if I wanted to. God bless those who lost their lives that day, God bless their families, and God bless all us Americans.

Four More Years?

So you think Obama deserves another 4 years? 

Let's examine this for a minute......

     Mr. Obama had something very few presidents have enjoyed in their first term as president. He had a super majority in both houses of congress. Obama had a full two years to pass anything he wanted. He could have tackled spending, regulation, the "unfair" tax code he decries on a regular basis, or even immigration reform. But he didn't. He chose to tackle social justice, while his country suffers exploding debt, the longest, highest unemployment in recent history, and rapidly increasing poverty.

     He passed stimulus, which by all accounts, created very few jobs, compared to the almost $800,000,000,000.00 "earmarked" for stimulus. By his own admission, there were very few "shovel ready jobs". It saved some jobs, increased food stamps, etc. No doubt it did some good, but that's what government tends to do, is "some good". Then, when stimulus didn't provide enough oomph, he pushed for MORE government spending. More of your tax dollars. More of your children's money beholden to a spend crazy government. More, more, more seems to be this POTUS's mantra. More government, more taxes, more spending. 

 He passed Obamacare, which does nothing to improve healthcare or reduce deficits or debt (notice when they talk about Obamacare, they say "access" to healthcare, not actually getting healthcare) they tout that kids can stay on their parent insurance until 26...... That’s good because new college grads can barely find a job to pay for insurance in the new Obama economy. To reform healthcare, the cost of practicing medicine needs to be addressed. Tort reform is essential. Let people shop for healthcare. There are numerous things that will make healthcare more affordable, and BETTER. But for crying out loud, don't come up with a 2,000 plus page bill (that is still largely unpopular with Americans) And shove it through congress without actually reading it. Common sense reform.......not government bureaucracy. 

     He tried to pass cap and trade (which was too toxic a legislation for even his base), which would have exponentially increased energy costs, as well as stifling oil exploration. It's a common myth that he has a hand in increased domestic oil production, as it is the states who have allowed drilling, not the white house. Just about all new oil exploration and production on federal lands came from leases approved during the BUSH administration, and has nothing to do with Obama. In fact he has stifled offshore drilling so much that deep water drilling rigs left for other countries after he placed a moratorium on drilling. (How’s that feel when you're paying $3.80 a gallon). Not to mention killing the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have created tons of jobs. He has chosen to invest in green energy, windmills, solar, etc. My truck doesn't run on wind or solar, and I'd be willing to bet neither does yours. Green energy is fine, but we run on coal, natural gas, and petro related fuels. The trucks who deliver our goods run on diesel fuel, and that diesel fuel costs twice as much as it did the day Obama took office. Sure, it's Middle East tensions, etc. etc. etc......but that's another lackluster performance from our POTUS that I'll save for another time. Energy is what drives America, and like it or not, that energy is fossil fuels. But somehow, it's more important to develop green energy than to develop the very fuel that powers our nation NOW. And all the while, we are subsidizing green energy, as in YOU and I are paying taxes to keep those windmills turning. To keep those solar panels pointed at the sun. Paying money so people can buy electric and hybrid cars. More government spending, more bureaucracy. But all government spending comes from us. It's our money, not theirs. Do we really want to pay for windmills and solar panels AND pay $3.80 cents a gallon for gas? Not to mention, $500,000,000.00 to Solyndra, a loan to the now failed company, which was approved under Obama's administration. Under Bush, that loan application was denied, stating it needed more work to be a viable endeavor. There are quite a few more "green energy" expenditures by our government that went belly up, I urge you to research them. 

     He dreamed up HARP and HAMP, two programs designed to help millions of foreclosure facing Americans. It has helped less than 1 million homeowners, and temporarily at that. I know from firsthand experience, the program is a red tape filled bureaucratic joke. It is incredibly difficult to navigate the program, and even more difficult to qualify for. Hundreds of thousands of people made it to the trial payment portion, and then were bumped out, only to have to start all over again. By most accounts, the program was a failure when measured against what it was supposed to do.

     He has sidestepped congress numerous times. Military action in Libya. His "mini DREAM act". His head start order. Deportation policies. He tried to sidestep congress in enacting his jobs bill (stimulus Jr.). He sidestepped congress in the appointment of several officials that normally would require input from congress. 

     He spent his first two years creating "social justice". Social justice does not provide jobs, nor does it pay down debt, or reduce deficit spending. Then when the economy didn't improve (because he had done nothing to improve it), and the republicans won the majority in the house, he started blaming them. Mind you, this president has not seen a budget pass his congress in about three years. Talk about punting....... 

     The economy should be the #1 topic of the day. But it's not. It's immigration. It's abortion. It's free birth control. It's entitlement spending. It's the "war on women". It's anything and everything BUT the economy. It's anything and everything BUT unemployment. It's anything and everything BUT the deficit and debt. It's everything BUT job creation. It's everything BUT transparency. It's everything BUT HIS RECORD. Why is that? Why are they dodging his record? Could it be that he has performed less than spectacularly? 

     I will say that Obama has done one thing well. Spin. And lots of it. Blame has been placed everywhere, Europe, China, the Banks, Wall Street, and even the American people. But the last place blame has been placed is squarely on the shoulders of the man in charge, the big man on campus. Mr. Obama, the President of the United States of America. When will he own it? When will he step to the plate and say "I am in charge, I own this lackluster "recovery"? 

  The President and Congress work for us. They work for "We the People". We built the offices you sit in daily. Everything you see around you is because of "We the People", not because of the government. It was paid for and built by the sweat of American brows, and the strength of American backs. It was our will, our hard work. It was your will, your hard work. Not government. Not the President. Not Congress. You. Me. Our mothers and fathers. The immigrants who came here and lived the American dream. We built it all Mr. President, everything you see in our great nation, down to the very house you call home. Us......not government.

    There is a choice you will make this November. It is not about Mitt Romney, or Barack Obama. It is about government involvement in your lives. It is about whether the driving force of all the things that make America great should come from "We the People', or "We the government". It's about your choice to have health insurance or not. It's about your choice to be in control of your own lives, or be subject to increasing roles of government in your life. It's about the success of our nation coming from "We the People", or from the government. It's about lifting people from poverty, or sustaining them with welfare. It's about allowing business to do what it does best, make money, and hire hard working Americans. It's about the notion of "For the People, by the People", or getting permission from government to live our lives. To decide what is best for our own course, or having someone else's idea of social justice imposed on you. It's about fostering success and not vilifying and punishing it. It’s about the notion that we are successful because of our hard work, not because of roads and bridges. That we Americans built those roads and bridges, we paid for them. That government didn't just make them out of thin air, or somehow bestowed a great gift upon us. WE paid for them. WE built them. They are ours. They belong to us. The hard work that made a small business successful is also the same hard work that built those roads and bridges. Government exists because of us. Not the other way around. And it's high time they realize that.

     You have a choice to make. Do you want welfare to be a hand up, or a hand out? Do you want our success to be measured by personal wealth, or government wealth? Do you want to have a nation that fosters job growth, or punishes success through taxation and regulation? Do you want a nation that values your money, or spends it like it's going to rot? Would you rather be in a place where government is for the people and by the people, or a place where the people rely on government to tell them when and how to get healthcare, to get higher education, to decide what your children should learn in school, to tell us what's best for us?  It's a choice you have to make. Choose wisely. Your children's future is at stake. Our nation's fiscal health is at stake. Our very country and the direction she will go is at stake. I urge you to think outside the box. Look at fact, not opinion. Learn about how our government is spending us into oblivion.

An uninformed choice is a bad choice. Empower yourself with KNOWLEDGE, and not rhetoric.

God Bless you, and God bless America. 

Some thoughts....

Not knowing where your next meal is going to come from is a sobering realization that something is wrong. So, as many Americans these days do, one will go online and apply for food stamp benefits. And unlike many "conservatives", I see nothing wrong with this. A hard working family who falls on hard times, and has been a productive member of society, has paid taxes, has some right to the "general welfare fund" they have paid into. But as we all know, it is not only those who "fall on hard times" that use these benefits. The system is ravaged with the typical welfare family, who is consistently poor, receives numerous welfare subsidies, and do nothing to improve their station in life. These are the people who are a drain on this society. Not the mother whose husband upped and left her high and dry with a few mouths to feed and no way to feed them. Nor the parents who got laid off  from their jobs because the economy tanked. And certainly not those who through physical or mental disabilities are unable to care or provide for themselves.

But the mentality of today that you are entitled to food, entitled to medical care, entitled to home ownership, entitled to a college education, is foolish at best. Nowhere in nature does an unproductive member of any hive, herd, pride or flock get to sit back and have others feed them or defend them. The queen bee, who is waited on hand and foot, is the sole reason for the hive in the first place. She produces value, the eggs she lays are the product she is paid for. The lion is paid with fresh kills for his role as the pride's protector, and they need his, well, DNA to propagate the pride  and species.But we human animals have negated this, and state that we defy nature, and each man woman and child born in this world is entitled to everything, regardless of their ability to produce it, or anything for themselves.

It is my notion that the very thing that was meant to help those in need, those who by no fault of their own, these programs have been abused and have actually contributed to the crisis we have today. I can't count how many times I have heard, why get a job, we have food stamps. Why get health insurance, we have medicaid. Why not have a baby, medicaid will pay the bills, WIC will provide formula, food stamps will feed us, Section 8 funding will put a roof over our heads, cash assistance will buy diapers and keep the lights on, and I'll figure out someway to claim disability to get my government check each month. So for those with no sense of self reliance, no force making them provide for themselves, why on earth would they?

How do I know this? Because I have seen it first hand. I have sat in the WIC office listening to the angry mothers that WIC didn't provide more formula for their babies, that it didn't provide more cereal, more fruit, more juice. They would yell at the case workers, saying "How do you expect me to feed my baby on 11 cans of formula a month. It ain't enough" or  " What right do you have to tell me what kind of juice I use my WIC check for, it's my bay, not yours" I chuckled hearing that one, and the thought of beggars can't be choosers ran through my mind. Or when I was sitting at a Career Central employment center (a state run employment office primarily for workers on unemployment)  listening to a few guys standing outside smoking, saying how they "won't get out of bed for less than ten dollars an hour", or that "they expect me to come here once a week to try to find a job just so I can get my unemployment check....it's bullshit" Then there's the time we were sitting at the county Health Department, watching and listening to the people get angry at the workers because they couldn't get this test or that procedure done, and how dare they not provide these services to them. That it's their right to have their pap smear done, or their teeth looked at, or their STD treated, and that it's the governments job to take care of it. Im not kidding.

And there I was, sitting in those places, unaware of the welfare culture. Of the lowest of the low, the rotten people who literally mooch their way through life. Who won't get a job because it's easier to work the system to get stuff for free. Who think that it's societies responsibility to look after them. That they don't have to put one ounce of effort into their lives, because it's their right to have food, clothing, medical care, shelter, and money. And here I was, suddenly thrust into this world after losing both incomes, after literally destroying my lower back to take care of my family, paying ungodly amounts in taxes, and trying my hardest to never rely on these programs to which now I was relying.

I listen to people condemn welfare programs, condemn those who are on them. I don't and I never have. And I never will. What I will condemn is those who abuse it. Those who make no plan or action to improve themselves, their lives, and their children's lives. Not those who have fallen on hard times, and were productive members of society before they got laid off, truly disabled, etc.

It is those people who will find jobs again, and rebuild there lives , becoming self reliant once more. But when your parents have relied on welfare, and you rely on welfare, and neither has made a move to improve their lives, what reason do those people have to start being self reliant? They don't, and they rarely won't. They will raise their children that it's okay to be on welfare. That it's their right to have food when they don't at least even try to put it on the table. That it's their right to have kids when they won't even attempt to do the things necessary to provide for them. Welfare used to be a family's dirty little secret. No one wanted anybody else to know they were getting food stamps. Now, it's the in thing. It's their right to get food stamps, because they are an American Citizen. That it's  okay to sit back and collect and make no effort in your own care, yet be taken care of. Because it's your right.

Now you may think that all this is meaningless. But I assure you it makes all the difference in the world for our future generations. If you teach by words or example that it's okay to not work for your own survival, then the children that result will usually be less inclined to work hard, to look after one's self. That it is their right to eat, have shelter, to have their runny noses looked at, but that they needn't bother with a job, because it's their government given right to those things. When one child is taught that, its a shame. When 10,000 are taught that, it is a tragedy. When an entire generation is taught that, it's a catastrophe. An entire generation of children taught that it's their right to healthcare, food, and shelter.... not a privilege earned through work and productivity. You then have an entire generation  of people who don't create the next big thing, who take the easy way out, who stand for nothing but fall for anything.

It is morally wrong to sit back and collect a check just because of who you are. It is not the American way. What if George Westinghouse or Thomas Edison sat back and just waited for a check, or if Henry ford just decided that hard work and innovation was just too darn hard?

Will replacing the tax code fix the economy?

Simply restructuring the tax code will not fix the economy. Nothing will except us becoming a nation of producers rather than consumers. Is there any correlation to the rise of foreign made products and the slow death of our economy? Yes there is.

This one will shake the "gold standard" people a bit.......

Think of it like this. If we were on a gold standard, where gold was the currency of the nations......if we continue to consume and not produce, we would be sending our gold to countries overseas, for things like energy, televisions, cars, you name it, it's not likely to be made in the USA anymore. So if we produce nothing, yet continue to send our gold to other countries, who in turn buy nothing from us because we have no products of value to be bought, where does that leave us? Broke and forced to borrow our money. It's as simple as that. Gold is a finite, paper money is faith, which is proven to be infinite. We can't make more gold, but we can print cash like it's going to rot. Hence the downfall of the gold standard, our government knew they couldn't regulate business to death (as well as finance progressive or wasteful spending measures that have increased spending seemingly exponentially) and remain on the gold standard. It's impossible. Our only major export is cash, lots of it. And we aren't being paid for it either. Walk into any retail store. Look at the copious amounts of products that come from foreign countries, and tell me that you see no relation. We are bleeding our economy dry, one transaction, one credit card purchase at a time. You wonder how China got the money to raise their population from poverty? From us. Mr and Mrs Chang now has a TV, electricity, and internet because our government regulated business to death. We artificially created wealth without doing the work necessary to earn it. We printed money that was not earned, is backed by nothing but faith, and has lost it's value several times over. And the standard of the currency that created our nation is now traded as a commodity on the open market, without regard to actual value, but perceived value. Currency is not an investment, it is the value by which everything is determined.

Now the next question is why has industry left the US? Why do we import steel, food, energy, etc. when we have all those things here? It is because government has regulated capitalism to the point of near non existence. They tell us how we can explore for energy, what and how products are made, and how we must hire our employees, how we must pay them. The government guarantees that no matter how worthless you may be, you are guaranteed a minimum wage. These things are all part of the economy, things that affect how business is done. and that is the power of the government over the economy. It's not taxes, it's nothing but the 81,000 pages of rules and regulations regarding business operations mandated by the government.

If we produce nothing, we have nothing to sell. If we have nothing to sell, we can not make money. If we can not make money, we can not employ people. If we can not employ people to make products to sell, then the economy fails. It's that notion that is the truth of the matter. Until government allows the return of capitalism, our economy is doomed. America was the creator of true capitalism, and it will be it's murderer.

Atlas Shrugged

It took me 32 years to read the book Atlas Shrugged. While the actual reading of the book only took 4 days, I have spent 32 years looking for what I found in those pages. Who would of thought that a Russian born woman who died three years after I was born would have taught me so much through a work of fiction? Certainly I would have never thought it. I see in those pages the culmination of the ideas about life that have nagged me since I was a child. The idea that we truly are the masters of our own destiny. That, as Sarah Conner said in Terminator, "there is no fate but what we make". While this book is a work of fiction, the meanings of it certainly are not. The characters leap from the pages, larger than life, brashly, egotistically, almost over inflated. But they must be this way, to show the whole picture. To show that people like that did and do exist. People like the Wright Brothers, Gottleib Daimler, James Watt, Thomas Savery, Rudolf Diesel, the list goes on and on and on. These great men sought to do something better than the world had seen so far, to invent something completely new and untested; to break from the norm and do the other things. Not because they were easy, but because they were hard. I had lived my 32 years in the belief that what I had was what I had, and somehow, my station in life was just that, the station where I sat.....waiting for something to happen. Never did I go chasing the thing in my dreams, the ideas I had, the thoughts of new things, not yet heard of before. I sat in my station of my own laziness, of my own apathy created by my acceptance of the world around me, looking at life not through rose colored glasses, but through a fog. A fog made of the thoughtless and irreverent devotion to the status quo. Never once did I act on the ideas for the improvements on existing water treatment equipment, the ideas I had for distributing phone, data, and television through the nations already existent power grid. Would they have worked? Who knows. I never acted on them. I may never know. I accepted the fact that I was powerless to change the world, to improve it, to make my mark. 

There is no difference between me and those great men I listed earlier, save two things: want, and will. As in the book, Henry Rearden had an idea for a metal to beat all metals, and it was aptly named Rearden Metal. He spent ten years of his life devoted to the thought that he could make the worlds best metal. Stronger, lighter, and more corrosion resistant than anything the world had ever seen. But this is fiction right? In one light yes, Henry Rearden is a fictional character, but replace the name Henry Rearden with Rudolf Diesel, and change the name of the invention from Rearden Metal to the Diesel engine, and it's not fiction anymore. It's a reality in all forms. But it's a reality that I didn't see. I thought that the age of great men was over. That I could never be one of those men. But now I see that I can. That whatever I choose to do can be done, if I so choose to do it. But choosing to do something great is not merely making a decision, it is a realization. A realization of the old saying "give me a lever large enough, and Ill move the world" means that the lever is not given, it is created by will, by wanting it, by doing the work to make it happen. Such a simple thing it would seem, this realization. But I can assure you, it is not. It took me 32 years to pay it more than lip service, to go beyond what is told to you as a child, that "of course you can be whatever you want when you grow up. The sky is the limit". For my entire life, I paid merely a pittance of thought to that saying, never actually gave it any more than a fleeting glance. I sat back, apathetic, riding through life waiting for the next train, the train that would take me to where I wanted to go in life. But, I lacked the ticket to actually get on this train. No amount of money could purchase it, it could not be given, bartered, traded, or stolen. It's purchase price must be paid with something more valuable than gold; the will and want, the work. So I was left at the station each time the train would come, and yet I blamed everything else, when the blame lies squarely on my shoulders. I thought that by having great ideas that the rest would just magically fall into place. That each great man who did great things started with an idea; on that account I was right. But I never looked at the rest of the picture. I would have a revelation as I call them, an idea on how to do something better, or make something new. I'd play around for a few minutes, jotting my ideas down on scraps of paper, maybe draw a pretty picture of it, then for whatever reason, I'd let it go. I'd resign this next best thing to the depths of my mind, never to be thought of again. It's a hard realization when you know that in your eyes, you have failed. You have failed where others succeeded, because you were too lazy to put in the work to produce that idea into reality. Henry Rearden wasn't. Neither was Rudolf Diesel. They didn't waste their time trying to circumvent the work to produce their great inventions, they just did it. They worked at it, long hours, sleepless nights, to build the better mouse trap so to speak. I see it clearer now. I see that, maybe one day, I'll have an idea, and I'll go ahead and get my train ticket, and climb aboard.

It is through this work of fiction that opened my eyes to the non fiction, the real life stories of great men who did great things. Who stood up for morality, not a twisted faith based morality, but a morality of reason. A set of rules that guided them to their great inventions and ideas. That what they were doing was the culmination of what they wanted, what they dreamed of. Not their neighbor, wife, children or government. It's what they wanted to be, what they wanted to do with their life. They had dreams of inventing, of problem solving, of getting rich. Because they themselves wanted it. Greatness comes in many forms. Great is the man who produces value, who goes to the brink and brinks back something new. I envy those men. So does everyone else. It is those men who power the motor of the world.

This book, as I have found out since reading it, has changed the minds of many people who have read it. Some have revelations, some just look at life a little differently. The core of Ayn Rand's philosophy was what she called Objectivism. I don't know enough about it to say whether I agree or disagree with it. But I will say this, it surely makes one think about how they view life. No doubt about that. For whatever reason, the ideas propositioned in this book make sense to me.







There are a few things she said that intrigue me greatly:

"I trust that no one will tell me that such men I write about don't exist. That this book has been written - and published - is my proof that they do."

"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone."

And these two are my favorite:

"Show me your achievement, and the knowledge will give me courage for mine."

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours."

A is A

       A is A. The facts are the facts, and those facts are the undeniable truths of our lives. No political, social or moral view will change those facts. Need is need, want is want, and success is success. You can not change them by changing the yardstick by which they are measured. Nor will changing that yardstick change the value or worth of a person, only that person can decide where they will measure at on the yardstick that has been set by evolution, by the past achievements of man, by the worth he gives himself. We must all decide, through our morals, our minds, our actions here in this life what our measurement will be.

Colorado School Comes Under Fire For Hanging Saudi Flag Higher Than American Flag | FoxNews.com

Colorado School Comes Under Fire For Hanging Saudi Flag Higher Than American Flag | FoxNews.com:

'via Blog this'

So, let me get this straight: An elementary school, here in the United States of America, lowered Ol' Glory to make way for a Saudi flag? I find that disgusting. Not because it happened near the tenth anniversary of 9/11, or because it was the flag of some of the terrorists who committed that atrocious act.....it is mostly because this is America, and for a little over 235 years brave men have spilled blood and given their lives to ensure that a foreign flag is never raised on American soil. This sort of thing is unacceptable. I was glad to see that the principle of the school remedied the situation quickly. But for someone to even do it in the first place is just plain disrespectful. This is America, we speak English, and we fly the American flag. You want to fly the Saudi flag? Do it on your own property, not on public school property where American kids are forced to see Old Glory sitting backseat to another country's flag. I just find it deplorable, disrespectful, and certainly in bad taste. Maybe I am over reacting, but in today's PC world, even the small instances of PC bullshit just set me off.

image courtesy of http://www.greeleygazette.com

Look at us now......

       Around a century ago, our country was nearing completion on one of, if not the greatest, civil engineering projects man has ever undertaken. The Panama canal was a marvel of engineering, a grand masterpiece, a tour-de-force of American will and ingenuity. Our dreams were melted in the furnaces of our strength and will, and cast into the shape of one of the greatest accomplishments man has ever made. We were the masters of our destiny, bending the very earth beneath our feet to our will. Great men said and did great things nearly a century ago.....

       Fast forward a few years, and we were in the trenches in Europe, in one of the greatest wars man had ever seen. We sent our sons to die in the mud to secure freedoms for those who lived half a world away. We defeated evil the same way we had done every other great thing, with shear will and determination. And we won the great war, just as we had accomplished everything else we ever set our mind to. After all, it was the American way.

       In 1929, we suffered the greatest economic downfall that we had ever seen. It certainly was one of America's darkest hours, seeming as though our great country had experienced something that we could not recover from. But, alas, recover we did. We rebuilt our economy, our pride, and our will. We were Americans, and nothing was impossible.We did things like build the Hoover Dam, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and brought electricity to nearly every home in the nation via the TVA and the hydroelectric projects in the west and mid west. We just decided to, and we did. It was that simple.

        In 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and we entered the Second World War. We assembled the largest army that has ever walked this earth, and we built more tools of war than has ever been created before or since. The United States was called on to send our sons to defend the world from tyranny, and we did, again. We fought a hellish war on two fronts, and just like everything else we set our minds to, we succeeded.

        In the 1960's, we decided that we should put a man on the moon. And we did. In less than a decade, we went from having a nearly non-existent space program, to flying three men to the moon, walked (and drove) around a bit, put up a flag, and flew back. You know why? Because we could. Because we are Americans, and if we can dream, we can do it.

       The year is now 2011, and I am 32 years old. The only way I know that America is capable of great things is because I read about them in books, or watch it on TV. I do not have any first hand knowledge of any of the great accomplishments that our country has achieved, because their haven't been any in my life time. No bending the very earth to our will, no great victories from tyranny. I believe that America has lost faith in herself, that unless you continue to do great things, you will forget that you are capable of doing them. And, I don't see any great things on the horizon for our country. What does that mean for our children? Will their generation be so eager to learn and remember the awe inspiring accomplishments that our nation is capable of? Or will they slowly lose faith in our country and her people, as so many have today?  Are we ever going to have another moment like the final spike in the trans continental railroad, the first ship to pass through the locks on the Panama Canal, or watching Neil Armstrong descend the ladder and step foot on another world?

       I look at the accomplishments that we as Americans have made, and I am proud. We are the greatest nation in the world. We have accomplished so much in our short 235 year history. We've done more than any other nation or people on earth, and many have been around for over a millennium.  Is this not enough to instill American Pride in today's generation? To love their country, and to strive to overcome greater challenges than ever before? To build bigger, to fight harder, and to travel farther than we ever have? It used to be said that if the American people set their mind to something, no power in the world could stop them. But, now we know the one thing that can stop us............losing faith in ourselves as a nation. We owe it our future generations to get our faith back, our will and our mighty ingenuity. Now let's go build bigger, travel farther, and do it faster than ever before. Because,well, it's the American way!


Yours Truly,
Ian