Merry Christmas---Or Not

When I was in grade school we had a school prayer and  said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.  Although I remember why that stopped, I couldn't remember exactly when.  The pray was stopped, but we still recited the pledge every day and sometimes sang “My Country Tis of Thee”.  We still celebrated Christmas and sang carols in the halls.  It never occurred to me there was anything wrong with it.

Almost all the stores were closed on Sundays and holidays.  Going Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving was never even considered.  It's not so much that I have a problem with that.  It just seems unfair to the store employees that would like to be home sharing Thanksgiving with their families.

In those days Perry was predominantly a Christian community.  We went to church on Sundays and release time religious education once a week.  But with Christianity there are many denominations---Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Presbyterian, United Methodist, Free Methodist, Episcopal, and Full Gospel---and that's not even all within a few minutes of downtown Perry.  That's the beauty of the first Amendment of our Constitution.  It gives everyone the right to practice their religious beliefs in their own way---or not at all.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Ratified December 15, 1791”

The law doesn't say you can't say a prayer in public, or display a nativity scene on your lawn at Christmas.  If someone doesn't share your belief, they should at least respect your right to express it.  Considering how commercialized and materialistic Christmas has become with all the advertizing and gift buying, the whole reason for the holiday is almost buried in the back ground. People who don't share the religious beliefs that are the reason for the holiday, don't need to take offense if someone says Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays.  Whether or not one believes, when some one says Merry Christmas during the “holiday” season they are wishing you well.

In the doctors' office where I worked at Highland Hospital, one doctor was Catholic, one was Jewish and another was Hindu.  On Christmas the Jewish doctor covered for the Christian doctors, and the man from Katmandu said he liked all the holidays and enjoyed the Christmas festivities. We wished each other Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah and had Christmas decorations in the office.  No one took offense.

So if I wish you a Merry Christmas and you don't believe, that's your privilege.  I am simply exercising my right to free speech and religion.  You have a nice day anyway.

Chris Myers

Hillary Clinton for President? No Way!

I know some of my Liberal friends and family are hoping that Hillary Clinton will run for the Presidency in 2016.  I wish I could share their enthusiasm, because I would like nothing more than to see a strong, powerful woman become President. Hillary is a strong woman, but I can't get behind her candidacy.  The number one reason is Benghazi.

According to ABC News:

"Nov 12, 2013 1:13pm

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told cadets at The Citadel in South Carolina today that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be disqualified from being president because she did not provide “adequate security” to the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
“Her failure to provide our ambassador and his mission with adequate security should preclude Hillary Clinton from ever holding high office again,” Paul said Tuesday during a speech for The Citadel’s Greater Issues Series.
Without naming names, Paul said he believes the decision not to send reinforcement troops into Benghazi on the night of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack was made by a “politician,” not a military commander, and suggested that politician should not be allowed to serve as commander-in-chief.
“There were still people alive and fighting for hours upon hours, and there were some people in Tripoli who could have gone. I don’t think that decision was made by a military  person. I think it was made ultimately by a politician,” Paul said.
“We should never have a commander in chief who is unwilling to send in troops for reinforcement or in the six month period of time, did not send adequate security when it was asked for repeatedly,” Paul said. “To me, that should preclude you from ever holding high office.”  By Arlette Saenz
@ArletteSaenz
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According to a 39 page report by  the Accountability Review Board (ARB) for Benghazi called simply "Unclassified"

"The Board found that certain senior State Department officials within two 

bureaus in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington 

demonstrated a lack of proactive leadership and management ability 

appropriate for the State Department’s senior ranks in their responses to 

security concerns posed by Special Mission Benghazi, given the deteriorating 

threat environment and the lack of reliable host government protection. 

However, the Board did not find that any individual U.S. Government 

employee engaged in misconduct or willfully ignored his or her responsibilities, 

and, therefore did not find reasonable cause to believe that an individual 

breached his or her duty so as to be the subject of a recommendation for 

disciplinary action."

It alludes to incompetence of the personnel responsible for the security at the compound, and probably even in Libya although no one was blamed specifically.  The fact remains Hillary Clinton was responsible as Secretary of State.  Even with her lack of military experience, it should have been evident that any America in Libya was in constant danger.  The fighting in Benghazi went on for hours.  There were US assets in that country that could been sent.

Hillary was good at making nice with the governments of other countries but not with situations like what happened in Benghazi.  Both she and Obama lied about the cause of what happened in Benghazi.  There was no protest over some little known film defaming Islam.  This was a coordinated terrorist attack on an American diplomat to Libya.  They knew they were in danger and requested more security weeks before the attack.  Whether is was a mistake in leadership or circumstance, the fact remains that we were lied to.  Hillary promoted this lie along with Barack Obama.

It is clear they both have agendas.  I don't believe either is in the best interest of this country.  So, no.  I can't recommend Hillary Clinton as a candidate for President of the United States.  

Time to Wake Up

Our country is in trouble and most people don’t even realize it.  You don’t see and hear much about it on the news media.  I think part of the reason is that the liberal media is under governmental pressure not to make public things that our government is doing that are not in our best interests.  I don’t think a lot of people realize what political and governmental liberalism or progressiveness really means.

What it doesn't mean is a government that is concerned with protecting the sovereignty of your individual rights and freedom. It means just the opposite.  Young people who didn’t grow up during the cold war and witness the harsh realities of communism don't understand what they would be giving up.  Sure, it sounds really nice to have the government take care of your every need---a place to live, food, clothing, free cell phone, free medical care.  Under a communist regime, you could only expect the bare minimum and it would never get any better.  It would be like living on welfare for life.

This is the direction Obama is driving our country.  By increasing the number of people dependent on welfare and social security disability, he won a second term in office by only 3% of the vote.  People dependent on the government, worried they could lose their benefits voted for Obama.  Most of these people have no idea that this is all part of Obama’s plan to destroy the economy to implode our socio-economic system.  It will make the Great Depression of the 1930s seem small.

But it was the Great Depression that gave rise to Nazism and Hitler’s  totalitarian single-party state. I have come to believe this what Obama has in mind.  His Affordable Care Act commonly known as Obamacare has already done a great deal of damage.  People are losing their health insurance, losing their jobs or having their hours cut. In stead of cutting back on government and spending, he is expanding government and spending more.

The Tea Party is not our enemy.  Conservatives are not the enemy.  They are the ones who believe in individual freedom---truth, justice, and the American way.   I believe that if we don’t help them rebuild a government that is of the people, by the people, and for the people, all our freedoms will be gone and our lives will be like 1984---the book.  We are already on our way there, so it’s time people wake up and smell the coffee.  cm

I actually stayed up to watch Ted Cruz's guest appearance on The Tonight Show. Leno tried to throw him off a couple times but he stayed right on point. Washington wants you to believe the Tea Party is responsible for all the problems in our country. Not true, they are the ones trying to turn it around.

We don't need more welfare programs or socialized medicine. We need to build up our economy and create more jobs in the private sector and train the unemployed and those on welfare to do the jobs so they can make their own living. Obamacare and increasing the number of welfare recipients is not going to do it. Pretty soon, their won't be enough working people in the country to support those who won't work and those who can't work.

Of course we can't just cut welfare and cut people off. We have to build the economy and teach those who are able to work how to work and show them that there is a better way to earn a living. We need more men like Ted Cruz to help us get there.

Obama is gutting our military and his foreign policies are turning hard won allies against our country. Many of you aren't old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis during Kennedy's presidency. I was a child at the time , but I remember the ominous fear that Russia would blow up our whole country and those left alive would become communist subjects. In the back of my mind I can't help but think that Obama and whoever is pulling his strings are trying to bring down this country to turn it over to the Islamo-Nazi's who want to rule the world.

We can't even trust the new to tell us what is really going on anymore.  If they were telling us the truth about Barack Obama from the beginning, he would never have been able to get past the primaries let alone get elected.  I certainly wouldn't have voted for him---but I only made that mistake once.  I suspect that he is probably the most anti-American president we have ever had.  Why he has not been impeached already is beyond my understanding. 

He is not defending the constitution. He has abused his power by-passing the Congress to make laws that are unconstitutional.  Obama has a history of drug abuse, he is collaborating with the Muslim brotherhood, and destroying our economy and our very way of life.  It's time to wake up America and win our country back.

I actually read the Constitution this week. There is nothing in there that should allow the lawmakers to tell us what kind of health insurance we have to have and how much treatment or at what age we should be denied treatment. I sincerely don't believe the founders ever mean for government to have regulations on regulations.

Before you trash the Tea Party Conservatives read it and read the Declaration of Independence. Just Google it and you can find it. These are the beliefs on which our country was founded---that government should not be limiting individual freedoms granted by the constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Obama is doing just that with his mandatory Obamacare plan.  And he lied over and over again about people being able to keep their doctors and health plans. Then there's the lie that it wouldn't increase the national debt... and the lie that it would save families $2500 a year. I heard the words myself.

There was a time when I thought such a plan might be a good thing.  Now I realize that this is not about health care, but about control.  All of our medical records will be accessible by the government.  Even more worrisome is they will also control what care you can have or not---and at what age you may not have certain treatments that could mean life or death.

In addition, about 96 million people will have their current health insurance cancelled because it does not meet Obamacare requirements which Obama knew all along.  He's been lying all along.  Why?  One reason is to force more people to buy into Obamacare, a plan that will force everyone to pay for services that many won't use to pay for other subscribers that will.

I think it is part of a bigger plan to collapse the economy so he can declare martial law and become dictator and chief.

I only hope we can turn back the tide before it's too late.

A Little Background

I grew up here at Silver Lake and lived here most of my life.  We had a big, old, ugly gray shingled house here on the street where I live now and my great grandparents lived across the little cross street that bisected mine.  Great Granddad was Reverend Almeron Everett Matthews, a retired Methodist minister. I was raised in the Methodist Church and we went to Sunday school almost every Sunday.
I went to Perry Elementary and Perry Central High School K-12.

Pledged allegiance  to the flag---one nation under God indivisible with Liberty and Justice for ALL.  And we said our school prayer.  I learned about the history of our great country the American Revolutionary War  in which we won our independence from Great Britain, the Declaration of Independence and the development of our constitution and the amendments

For most of most to my adult life, I didn't pay much attention to politics and voted for whoever sounded like he/she would run the country, state, or county who would run the government responsibly.  I never really understood the difference between Republicans and Democrats and Liberals.  Then last year, I happened on Facebook posting of the Mark Levin radio show.  There was a caller claiming there would be death panels to decide who gets treatment and who doesn't.  The caller claimed to be a neurosurgeon.  That was later disproved, but I looked up Mark Levin and started listening to his radio show via podcasts which I downloaded to my MP3 player.  I learned more than enough to know that voting for Barack Obama a second time would be a big mistake. The fundamental changes that he had in mind for this country were not what I thought---that and a lot more.  He does not stand for truth, justice, and the American way.  The Mark Levin Show

This is my favorite place in the whole world.  This is the place where I always used to go when I needed to sort things out in my mind and de-stress.   I don't get down there as often as I like these days, but its the place I go in my mind when I feel the need.  It didn't used to have an American Flag but it's a welcomed addition to the lake shore. Now when I hear The Star Spangled Banner I will think of this place.  Madison Rising's Star Spangled Banner Challenge