“Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.” —Thomas Jefferson
INSIGHT
“It is an equally awful truth that four and four makes eight, whether you reckon the thing out in eight onions or eight angels, eight bricks or eight bishops, eight minor poets or eight pigs.” —G.K. Chesterton
SELECT READER COMMENTS
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“The title of your essay said it all: ’Useful Idiots: Back in style!’ (http://PatriotPost.US/alexander/edition.asp?id=525) The story was icing on the cake. Where has American patriotism and pride gone? The liberal media is winning the war for the Taliban and the Iraqi ‘insurgents’ the same way they did in Vietnam. Can you imagine if this same kind of liberal bias reporting had gone on during WWII? My son said the Democrats need to hold up their American flag for the rest of the world to see. It would be all white!” —Dayton, Ohio
“Just because a bunch of loony leftists espouse the idea of a conspiracy behind 9/11 doesn’t mean there is no truth to it. Quite honestly, the conditions under which WTC 1, 2 and 7 fell were unprecedented. Any thinking person cannot help but at least question the events of 9/11. I’ve been suspicious about the WTC situation from Day 1, when I watched Tower 7 collapse without being hit by a plane (which is the conventional explanation for why Towers 1 and 2 crashed). The official explanation for what happened doesn’t cut it. Furthermore, have you even seen the 9/11 ‘propaganda’ film called ‘Loose Change,’ or the equally compelling ‘In Plane Site’? I humbly suggest that you view both of these films with an open mind before you call anyone a wacko. No rational person could conceivably accept the government’s pathetic explanation of why those buildings fell.” —Cheshire, Connecticut
Editor’s Reply: First of all, the conditions under which WTC 1 and 2 fell were unprecedented. No one had ever flown an airliner into a building before. As for WTC 7, we suppose no building has ever collapsed from fire and rubble before. Second, we have reviewed all the arguments for these theories and found them to be without merit. We reviewed them with an open mind, but as Winston Churchill once said, not so open that our brains fell out. Please review our essay on the Pathology of the Left (http://PatriotPost.US/alexander/edition.asp?id=295) for background on the phenomenon of believing conspiracies because it makes one more comfortable than the truth.
“I am a career Air Force officer (O6) and recently received copies of our founding documents from PatriotShop.US (http://PatriotShop.US/). Please accept my heartfelt thanks for those documents. I have been a subscriber (http://PatriotPost.US/subscribe/) and supporter (https://secure.PatriotPost.US/support/support.asp) for years, and enjoy each and every issue that I have read. I have shared your issues with no less than 75 other military officers of every branch of military service. There are insufficient words to describe how much inspiration I receive from The Patriot. Please keep up the excellent work.” —APO Europe
FAMILY
“Of course John Edwards is still running for president. Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, who announced last week that she has bone cancer, are ambitious, political people who have had their eyes on the White House for years. As their public statements have made clear, Elizabeth Edwards wants her husband to be president as much as he wants the job—and she is not going to let cancer get in her way. Critics ask: How can Edwards put his sick wife through a campaign? Please. A presidential campaign is such a grueling, vicious and all-consuming grind that most husbands would not put a healthy wife—or their children, or for that matter, themselves—under the harsh microscope of a White House bid. Political families are a different animal. For better and for worse, they look at every aspect of their lives through the lens of their political goals... Now Edward’s wife’s cancer is being used to bolster his candidacy. ‘One of the reasons I want to be president is to make sure every woman and every person in America gets the same kind of things that we have,’ John Edwards said... Edwards also told ‘60 Minutes,’ ‘Do not vote for us because you feel some sympathy or compassion for us.’ And he’ll say as much, every time a camera shows him talking about his wife.” —Debra Saunders (http://PatriotPost.US/opinion/entrylist.asp?source_id=27)
CULTURE
“Debates rage over the redefining of what marriage is despite centuries of the norm that it constitutes the bonding of a man and a woman. Communities try to eliminate the word Christmas or Easter from the celebration of holidays that reach back hundreds of years. The killing of the unborn, decades after a Supreme Court ruling, still enrages those for whom the sanctity of life lies at the heart of their beliefs. I submit that the day this nation abandons these debates and eliminates the prohibitions that represent our common definition of moral behavior is the day this nation will truly begin to lose its hold on our own and the world’s respect. So, Americans must continue to grapple with issues of moral decline and must decry the soft decay of our mutually held values. It is a good thing we debate these things. A completely secular society is one in which ‘everything goes’ and, when that occurs, the first thing to go will be the United States of America.” —Alan Caruba
LIBERTY
“It has been said that a child who is made to earn a toy most often takes better care of it than a child who was simply given the toy. Well, our nation has become a nation of children who have been given, not a toy, but the gifts of freedom and a Constitutional Republic with which to safeguard that freedom and we are abusing these gifts with our relentless apathy and ignorance. Because it is impossible to understand the value of something without knowing its worth, our society has become estranged from the value of freedom. We toss around the saying ‘freedom isn’t free’ but we hardly understand the price of attaining and maintaining that freedom. The majority of us have never actually fought for our liberties and we most assuredly have never lived under the tyranny of oppression, although the delusional Progressive-Left would argue otherwise. We have become soft, self-centered and egotistical and our country is a worse place for it.” —Frank Salvato
THE GIPPER
“A number of years ago a President of this country declared that we have a rendezvous with destiny. In a world where terrorism spreads and the innocent die we must fulfill our destiny. If not us, who? If not now, when?” —Ronald Reagan (http://Reagan2020.US/)
OPINION IN BRIEF
“With an unintentional irony that might even tickle the Prophet himself, a new book called ‘Killed Cartoons’ killed a cartoon. Not because it was bad, but because it was just too good. The book... features political cartoons that other publications considered too hot to handle. Except for one... by Doug Marlette that sparked Muslim outrage a few years ago. I know it’s shocking that Muslims were outraged, but try to stay focused. The cartoon depicted a jihadi driving a Ryder truck with a nuclear bomb in back with the caption: What Would Muhammad Drive?... As the world knows by now, some Muslims have no tolerance for irreverence when it comes to their Prophet. When Marlette... drew the cartoon in 2002 for The Tallahassee Democrat, the paper pulled it from its Web site and kept it out of print editions after several thousand e-mails and death threats jammed its server... Many doubtless would agree with [the publisher’s] decision, figuring that the possibility of mortal threat is a pretty good reason not to publish a controversial cartoon. But, in fact, it is the very reason to publish. Not to be gratuitously in your face, but to be purposefully in your face. To make clear that free speech—even drawn opinion—not only trumps special interests, but also requires a bold and sometimes insensitive defense.” —Kathleen Parker (http://PatriotPost.US/opinion/entrylist.asp?source_id=49)
GOVERNMENT
“Most debates about proposed amendments concern whether the amendments are necessary or would be beneficial. Debate about the [Equal Rights Amendment] has always concerned what it might mean. For example, would it forbid treating the sexes differently in pension and insurance plans because of actuarial data about sex-related differences regarding health problems and life expectancy? Presumably, judges would, over time, tell the nation what it had ratified. All amendments generate litigation, but the ERA’s purpose is to generate litigation. It is a device to get courts to impose social policies that supporters of the policies cannot convince legislatures to enact. ERA... supporters, being politically lazy, prefer the shortcut of litigation to the patient politics necessary to pass legislation. If [Ted] Kennedy and like-minded legislators think the condition of American women needs improvements, they should try to legislate them. Instead, they prefer to hope that liberal judges will regard the ERA’s language as a license to legislate. But, then, support for the amendment testifies to the supporters’ lack of confidence in their ability to persuade people to support such policies.” —George Will (http://PatriotPost.US/opinion/entrylist.asp?source_id=50)
RE: THE LEFT
“The conundrum faced by the baby Democrats came down to this: what if the only way to increase their political power was to allow citizens more individual freedom? Given this hellish no-win situation for liberals, would they choose the practical need of feeding their appetite for power, or would they choose to feed their basic emotional need of micromanaging the misguided wards of the Nanny State? Let’s examine this fascinating congressional experiment in more detail. Liberal need number one, power, was represented by the surrogate dishonestly known as the ‘D.C. Voting Rights Act.’ This blatantly unconstitutional monstrosity has been a long-standing ambition of Democrats in Congress. It seeks to turn the nation’s common capital into an illegal pseudo-state less than 5% the size of Rhode Island, so that the tiny District—no more than the downtown area of one medium sized city—can have its own voting delegation in Congress. Why do Dems want to do something this ridiculous? Because they believe that, since 27% of the District’s population work for the federal government and another 15% are on food stamps, the District’s voters make natural Democrats! Essentially, the act is an attempt to pack the Congress with an extra Democrat or three so that the Democrats don’t have to worry so much about the will of the people of the states in future elections.” —Mac Johnson
POLITICAL FUTURES
“A national poll of likely voters by independent pollster John Zogby found nearly half (46 percent) said they couldn’t vote for the former first lady under any circumstances... [A]nother number was even more disturbing to senior advisers in her campaign. Mr. Zogby found that among likely Democratic voters, 18 percent said they ‘would never cast a vote in Mrs. Clinton’s favor.’ That such a large percentage of overall voters would flatly express an aversion to electing her president was troubling enough to top Democratic officials. But that she appeared to be losing support within the base of her own party set off alarm bells among her high command.” —Donald Lambro
FOR THE RECORD
“The jump in ethanol use certainly didn’t come about because of a groundswell of popular demand; it came about, like so many bad ideas, because of a government mandate. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 required that 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel (mostly ethanol) be added to the gasoline supply last year. It goes up to 4.7 billion this year and to 7.5 billion in 2012. But ethanol lowers fuel economy—according to the Department of Energy, a gallon of ethanol contains only two-thirds the energy content of a gallon of gasoline. And you’re actually paying more for less performance. It’s difficult... to transport ethanol from its Midwestern home base to far-off markets, and that adds to the price you pay at the pump. Ethanol can’t be sent in an energy-efficient way through pipelines like gasoline can, because it would be contaminated by moisture along the way. Ethanol must be shipped instead by trucks, barges and railroads. And that brings us to ethanol’s environmental impact. After all, shipping by truck, barge or rail uses... well, fossil fuels. So the more ethanol we move, the more fossil fuel we use—which, Al Gore and Company tell us repeatedly, spews the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. In addition, all that extra corn farming means more fertilizer and pesticide use, along with increased irrigation. More diesel fuel will be needed to run the tractors and the harvesters. In the end... ethanol may wind up putting about as much carbon dioxide into the air as it takes out. So, from an environmental perspective, we’ll be paying more to more or less maintain the status quo.” —Rebecca Hagelin (http://PatriotPost.US/opinion/entrylist.asp?source_id=41)
THE LAST WORD
“The Bush administration is embroiled in the most ridiculous non-scandal scandal in human history—set off when the administration stupidly apologized for firing its own employees. U.S. attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president... Democrats have the breathtaking audacity to claim that Bush’s replacing his own political appointees is ‘politicizing prosecutions.’ They say this as Sandy Berger walks free after stealing and destroying top-secret national security documents—but Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby faces decades in prison for not outing a covert agent. (Let’s hope he’s learned his lesson!)... They say this while Sen. Teddy Kennedy is still at large (and getting larger)... The president has absolute authority to fire U.S. attorneys, hold investigative hearings and grant pardons. What’s he worried about? That the media will be hysterical and Democrats will call him names? Constantly apologizing doesn’t seem to have worked out too well for him either. How about doing something for the Americans who elected him? Ah, but I see he has! As we go to press, news comes across the transom that Bush has withdrawn the nomination of Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium because Democrats are upset that Fox gave a donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. There’s no hope.” —Ann Coulter (http://PatriotPost.US/opinion/entrylist.asp?source_id=45)
Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who have died in defense of American liberty, while prosecuting the war with Jihadistan.)
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