Jasonw560 wrote:Rex B wrote:I think every kid should read "Atlas Shrugged" when they turn 16. Or at least give them a hard-bound copy when they graduate high school.
I think I will start doing that every time I get a graduation announcement.
Make it a gift bag, with the Constitution, the Declaration, Common Sense, the Federalist Papers, and "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat.
I buy this book in bulk and give it away to young people:
https://patriotpostshop.com/products/124
I have also bulk purchased and handed out this one:
https://patriotpostshop.com/products/1602
Also, if you're not already subscribed to the Patriot Post, you need to be:
http://patriotpost.us/subscription/new
It is free. I have exchanged emails with Mark Alexander, the publisher, and I am a great admirer of his. After the election, I had lost all hope. I still don't believe I will see this country return to its historical values in my lifetime, but maybe in my son's it will. I got this email from him, addressed to all of his subscribers in my email inbox yesterday. He gets it:
The Fundamentals
There will be much analysis about why a majority of Americans have, for a second time, been deceived by a "community organizer" who would be King. Apparently, however, "community organizer" really is the best qualification for a charlatan like Obama, whose election depends on 60 percent of his votes coming from those enslaved on urban government welfare plantations and dependent upon statist wealth redistribution.
Many will rightly conclude that the collective ignorance displayed Tuesday is the result of the dumbing-down of generations of Americans by government schools -- from K through PhD.
Not surprisingly, government schools are the Left's primary institutions for indoctrinating neglected children with the "Marxist Model." "The education of all children," as Karl Marx wrote, "from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense." Marx's disciple, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, concurred: "Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."
How's that working out for the Left? According to Pew Research last year, the 18-29 age group -- that third category of Obama's most loyal constituency which put him over the top -- had a more favorable view of socialism than of capitalism.
But government education is only part of the story. The real causal factor underlying the social and cultural degradation, particularly of urban centers, is tied directly to broken homes -- mostly fathers who have failed their families -- and now generations of fathers who know no better.
Functional fathering is the family foundation of Liberty. Democracy begins in the home.
Obama's father abandoned him as a child, and the resulting Narcissistic Personality Disorder forms his core identity that attracts tens of millions of his cultish adherents, who are themselves the products of broken families. For them, Obama is the provider they never had, and government is the safe haven they have always desired.
Wisdom From Afar
One of the first e-mails I received after Romney's defeat was from a Patriot named Stanislav in the Czech Republic.
He wrote, "It is now 95 years after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, allowing the Socialists to reduce that once great nation to an ash heap. I was very disappointed with Obama's reelection. The symbolism with today's win of Barack Hussein Obama is more than significant. I hope the U.S.A is strong enough to resist their continued assaults on the liberty. Socialists have intrinsic defects in character. They are liars. I have lived through the tyranny of socialist regimes, and the American people are staring one in the face. If you want a reflection of America in a few years, look at the bankrupt European socialists."
There is no stronger testament regarding the threat Obama poses to Liberty than that provided in this e-mail from a Patriot who has endured socialist oppression for many years.
I have a little personal experience with socialist regimes, having been arrested twice (call me a slow learner) in the former USSR while endeavoring to spread the seeds of Liberty among the Russian people. I was given house arrest in 1984 and jailed in 1987. (There was something about walking through seven heavy doors on the way to a deep pit in Moscow's central jail that helped shape my love for Liberty.)
From a small window in the location where I was confined under house arrest, I could see a main entrance to the Kremlin. All day there was a constant flow of polished luxury limousines entering and exiting, carrying the privileged members of the political class past those on the streets who couldn't find toilet paper or shoes.
I mention this because every time I see that populist potentate Barack Obama climbing aboard Air Force One for some taxpayer-funded junket, I see him through the lens of that small window in Moscow.
A Note About Prayers
I must confess that I consider the tone of the prayers that have been circulating in support of our nation to be, at best, understated. They are not imbued with the spirit of the fight. I have been humbly praying for our country as well, but the words I have chosen are predicated on the notion that unless we reverse the cultural, social and political trends in our country, we are nearing a time characterized by the words of George Washington's trusted general, Rev. Peter Muhlenberg. He took his famous Revolutionary sermon inspiration from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes when saying, "There is a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times have passed away. There is a time to fight, and that time has now come."
When writing prayers, we best consider whether our pens are mightier than the swords of our enemies.
"Father, I pray that you would provide us leaders in our families, in the church, in government and in enterprise, who fearlessly honor you as the one God above all men, and who love and respect our country and its people as You do. Please bless us with leaders who will uphold the Liberty "endowed by our Creator" in every quarter of our nation, and move to restore our country's standing as a Beacon of Liberty for all people worldwide. God, I pray you strike down evil and raise up good, and give us the courage to support and defend Liberty against all enemies. Please give us leaders who will free our countrymen from the bondage of dependence and servitude, encourage self-reliance, and help us to define our national and individual character through You. Please help us, as Your people, to have grateful hearts reflected by joyful spirits for all You provide. And in all we ask that Your will be done. Amen."
Words of Encouragement
Patriots, we were dealt an awful body blow on Tuesday, and the odds we face in our quest to restore Liberty and Rule of Law enshrined in our Declaration and Constitution may seem insurmountable. However, we can find strength and encouragement in the words from the most noble of Founding Patriots, George Washington.
In 1777, at a very dark moment amid a string of 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 also 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, faithful Patriots, 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."
I had hoped today's essay would be the shortest I had ever written, in celebration of a Romney victory. It was going to be two words: "Thank God!" At the end of the day, however, despite the Romney defeat, those two words still sum it all up.
Patriots, we have lost a battle -- but not the war. Hold your head high and redouble your courage and resolve. Remain steadfast in your devotion to Liberty and hold the line. As Paine wrote, "Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. ... 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."
Our fight for the eternal cause of Liberty, as "endowed by our Creator," ends only with our last breath.
On behalf of your Patriot Post Team, God bless our great nation and God bless each of you among our Patriot ranks!
Pro Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis
That letter humbled me, but it also put tears of gratitude in my eyes, because I was ready to quit. I don't know that I can do any more than I've already been doing, but at least I'm no longer willing to just throw in the towel and turn my back on the nation. I'm NOT going to lay down and roll over. I'm NOT going to shut up. I am NOT going to go away. Lord, may the curse of progressivism go the way of the curse of naziism. Sustain us always.
