Support Our Troops
If the enemy isn’t engaged over there, he will soon be over here. This was the lesson we learned at Pearl Harbor and relearned on 9-11. High walls and vast oceans don’t keep us safe. Vigilance, engagement in the world and brave Americans willing to risk their life in countries that seem far removed from America, those have been the recognized the keys to a safe homeland for more than 70 years. Yet, in our country today we see a wide swath of Americans ready to sabotage our defenses and throw our frontline troops under the bus.
Our country is leading the war. If you read foreign publications many ask “Why isn’t our country doing as much as America?” Our diplomats are fully engaged in enlisting allies. Our leadership ,while a little slow in initial response, is now moving with all deliberate speed and we can look into the future and start to see the point where we’ll get ahead of the enemy which is still gaining strength but at a diminished rate of speed. These efforts need our support and yet it is currently fashionable to second guess and scoff at unity. Political opportunists seek to undermine our national defense to advance their pathetic careers and the responsible voices among us do not rise up in protest.
Maybe this is to be expected, but what is way beyond acceptable is the contemptible way our troops are being treated, the Americans who leave their homes and their families and put themselves in harms way. These fellow citizens who are risking everything to keep the enemy from our door come home to a country where many treat them like pariahs. Fox News can take credit for leading this mob, but it goes way beyond the usual suspects in the press. The parade of pygmy politicians is now taking up the cudgel against our front line troops.
At the end of last week two men who seem willing to do anything to become President banded together to announce that everyone of our returning heroes would be kept from their lives for at least 3 weeks as a punishment for their patriotism. Governors Cuomo and Christie said returning warriors coming into their states would be locked away to keep us safe. Think of it as officially adopting the old rule that, “No good deed will go unpunished.”
Kaci Hickox a young nurse who went to West Africa to battle ebola over there and and assure that it didn’t turn into a worldwide epidemic was the first victim of their pandering. The Cuomo/Christy plan locked her in a tent in a hospital parking lot. The message to our troops was clear, give up a month of your life fighting on the front line to make the world a safer place and then give up another month, locked away from your work and your loved ones: some incentive to serve.
Hickox, God bless her, did not go quietly into that cold tent. She reminded us that she is an American and while a thank you might be welcome, sacrificing her constitutional rights is not. Reminder for those who skipped the the Bill of Rights in school, in America you cannot lock up a citizen who is healthy and who has committed no crime because some peawit is worried about them.
So Hickox is headed home to Fort Kent, Maine, which for those of you who have never traveled north of Portland, is as far as you can go and still be in the United States. When the Town Manager was asked about how the small town would deal with this “danger” he said, “It will be O.K. This girl deserves to come home.”
The ultimate irony is that our cowering crowd of cowards are lead by people who call themselves the Tea Party. Dah, the people who participated in the real tea party were the brave ones. In December 1776 Thomas Paine began “The Crisis” with these words, “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 their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” He concluded in the final paragraph writing, “I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it”
We’ve been far too tolerant of our sunshine patriots. We’ve let our neighbors spout on about how our President wants to kill us all with ebola without calling them out for the traitors that they are. Here’s the lowdown, chickenshits. We are Americans. We are not victims. No Auntie Em, Franklin Roosevelt didn’t plan Pearl Harbor. George W. Bush didn’t conspire in 9-11 and Obama isn’t part of a ebola conspiracy. Each was or is the only leader we had at the time and as citizens we at least owed them the acknowledgement that they were doing their best to keep us safe.
So let us stop accepting hysteria as “an understandable response.” It might be understandable to run in the face of the enemy, it isn’t acceptable. There are obligations of citizenship.
In the movie “Airplane” a person becomes hysterical and starts screaming as the dangers of the flight come into focus. A passenger steps forward and slaps the woman in the face. Then all the other passengers line up to do the same thing. Figuratively speaking, this is how we must respond to the our sunshine patriots.
If the enemy isn’t engaged over there, he will soon be over here. This was the lesson we learned at Pearl Harbor and relearned on 9-11. High walls and vast oceans don’t keep us safe. Vigilance, engagement in the world and brave Americans willing to risk their life in countries that seem far removed from America, those have been the recognized the keys to a safe homeland for more than 70 years. Yet, in our country today we see a wide swath of Americans ready to sabotage our defenses and throw our frontline troops under the bus.
Our country is leading the war. If you read foreign publications many ask “Why isn’t our country doing as much as America?” Our diplomats are fully engaged in enlisting allies. Our leadership ,while a little slow in initial response, is now moving with all deliberate speed and we can look into the future and start to see the point where we’ll get ahead of the enemy which is still gaining strength but at a diminished rate of speed. These efforts need our support and yet it is currently fashionable to second guess and scoff at unity. Political opportunists seek to undermine our national defense to advance their pathetic careers and the responsible voices among us do not rise up in protest.
Maybe this is to be expected, but what is way beyond acceptable is the contemptible way our troops are being treated, the Americans who leave their homes and their families and put themselves in harms way. These fellow citizens who are risking everything to keep the enemy from our door come home to a country where many treat them like pariahs. Fox News can take credit for leading this mob, but it goes way beyond the usual suspects in the press. The parade of pygmy politicians is now taking up the cudgel against our front line troops.
At the end of last week two men who seem willing to do anything to become President banded together to announce that everyone of our returning heroes would be kept from their lives for at least 3 weeks as a punishment for their patriotism. Governors Cuomo and Christie said returning warriors coming into their states would be locked away to keep us safe. Think of it as officially adopting the old rule that, “No good deed will go unpunished.”
Kaci Hickox a young nurse who went to West Africa to battle ebola over there and and assure that it didn’t turn into a worldwide epidemic was the first victim of their pandering. The Cuomo/Christy plan locked her in a tent in a hospital parking lot. The message to our troops was clear, give up a month of your life fighting on the front line to make the world a safer place and then give up another month, locked away from your work and your loved ones: some incentive to serve.
Hickox, God bless her, did not go quietly into that cold tent. She reminded us that she is an American and while a thank you might be welcome, sacrificing her constitutional rights is not. Reminder for those who skipped the the Bill of Rights in school, in America you cannot lock up a citizen who is healthy and who has committed no crime because some peawit is worried about them.
So Hickox is headed home to Fort Kent, Maine, which for those of you who have never traveled north of Portland, is as far as you can go and still be in the United States. When the Town Manager was asked about how the small town would deal with this “danger” he said, “It will be O.K. This girl deserves to come home.”
The ultimate irony is that our cowering crowd of cowards are lead by people who call themselves the Tea Party. Dah, the people who participated in the real tea party were the brave ones. In December 1776 Thomas Paine began “The Crisis” with these words, “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 their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” He concluded in the final paragraph writing, “I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it”
We’ve been far too tolerant of our sunshine patriots. We’ve let our neighbors spout on about how our President wants to kill us all with ebola without calling them out for the traitors that they are. Here’s the lowdown, chickenshits. We are Americans. We are not victims. No Auntie Em, Franklin Roosevelt didn’t plan Pearl Harbor. George W. Bush didn’t conspire in 9-11 and Obama isn’t part of a ebola conspiracy. Each was or is the only leader we had at the time and as citizens we at least owed them the acknowledgement that they were doing their best to keep us safe.
So let us stop accepting hysteria as “an understandable response.” It might be understandable to run in the face of the enemy, it isn’t acceptable. There are obligations of citizenship.
In the movie “Airplane” a person becomes hysterical and starts screaming as the dangers of the flight come into focus. A passenger steps forward and slaps the woman in the face. Then all the other passengers line up to do the same thing. Figuratively speaking, this is how we must respond to the our sunshine patriots.