Bravo!

It is, truly, sad that this is what it has come to.

I don't make excuses for the current liberal-leadership in America (and indeed, the entire Western world), but I can blame much of this on the "conservative" movement losing its way and focusing far too much on the paltry and petty details of political life rather than on the fundamentals of what made the United States great in the first place.

The resistance that the Left is feeling right now... and it is growing resistance, I think... stems from the "in-your-face" direct contradiction that the conservatives of this country (GOP or otherwise) are taking to heart in light of the radical nature of much of what Obama and the Congress are pushing down our throats. That contradiction was non-existent in the years before 9-11, and I can say that with a clear conscience because I VOTED FOR Al Gore in '00... and for Clinton in '96. I liked Bob Dole... I honestly did, and I very nearly cast my vote for him in light of the Lewinsky disaster... but the focus for "Main Street" America was so far from the fundamentals that made the nation great that I didn't see the trend that was mounting behind the Clintons in '96. I saw only the "opposition politics" that both the Conservative Coalition and the DNC were playing on a daily basis back then. I saw only that the perfectly functional and wildly successful "Pay as you Go" Act that Clinton DIDN'T veto worked beyond anyone's dreams, and that helped to reinforce the illusion that both compromise politics and "compassionate conservatism" also worked.

Once again, I say onto all of you that what this nation lacks, more than anything else... is a functional perspective on history. So many of us today want to see compromise work, but can't relate that compromise to the historical examples of Hoover and his failure to stop Japan from invading Manchuria in '31, or Chamberlain surrendering the Sudetenland in '38, or Carter failing to end the Iranian crisis or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

So many want to see diplomacy win where armed conflict has failed, but can't recall the reasons why Hitler and the Nazis gained power in Germany through the FAILINGS of diplomacy within the League of Nations, or the "diplomacy" that led the US to allow half of Europe, the Korean peninsula, all of mainland China and most of southeast Asia to come under the iron grip of Stalin's communism, or the "diplomacy" that led to the over-throw of the Shah and the instillation of a fanatical regime that has plagued the free world for more than 30 years, or what "diplomacy" gained the US when it was employed in lieu of armed conflict in apprehending and detaining one Osama bin Laden AFTER his first attacks on American interests and allies... but BEFORE his attacks on 9-11-01.

So many want to see a government that can "give" the people all they need, but can't understand what is meant by those that question what will be "taken" or "lost" in the process. They ignore the utter lack of historical examples of EXTANT nations and governments that provide all the standards and means for its citizens, and focus on the Utopian dreams that are not only unrealistic, but patently contrary to fundamental human nature and individual liberty.

So many want to see a government that imposes no rules, restrictions or reservations on personal conduct or moral behavior, but fail to see that history is replete with examples of societies where such goals did nothing more than to remove utterly all ETHICAL behavior from the very government itself... and, in fact, ushered in a period of repression and overly-restrictive judgmental bias in subsequent governments.

Those that promote a diplomatic course with nations like Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela do not do so because it is the RIGHT thing to do, but because it was something BUSH and the GOP didn't do. It is promoted as a means of opposition politics, and nothing more. It furthers an agenda that those who opposed the former Administration began and are now forced to follow... or they will be seen to be even more "wrong" than those they initially opposed.

Those that support a reduction in our strategic nuclear forces do not do so because "nukes are bad", but because Bush & Co. refused to do so and they feel that making THEM look bad is more important than learning from the mistakes we can clearly see resulting from such past examples as the SALT I and II treaties, or the Treaty of Washington, or the Munich Accords. No possible weight can be seen to the argument that the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved SOLELY on the conviction that the US was better able to survive and win a nuclear exchange than the USSR, or that the unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese military to the Allies resulted from the sure and certain knowledge that, unless they did so, Japan would systematically be reduced to fused glass one bombed city at a time.

Those that cry out against the greed and corruption of a free market economic system do not do so because they have seen a more equitable or fair means of providing for the needs and wants of our society, but instead do so because by making the "national standard of living" as low as its lowest common denominator through the implementation of socialist economic wealth redistribution and Marx's "labor theory of value" they assure themselves the same kind of economic and social CONTROL that the Soviet-style socialists of eastern Europe enjoyed from 1945 until 1999... when THEY finally got the message and adopted a free-market system of their own and now are the fastest growing economies in Europe.

No, this is more than sad... it is truly tragic.