Like many people, I was shocked to hear, this weekend, about the murder of Chris Kyle. He was doing what he has spent most of his adult life doing - helping someone in need. I'm not going to recap his murder or any of his life story. Here's a link that will tell you many of the details of his remarkable life. I'm reading his book, American Sniper. Some reviewers on Amazon are disappointed in the book because Kyle doesn't detail his kills in Iraq, doesn't tell the distance, what kind of weapon he used, how he adjusted for wind, etc. Other reviewers have political or moral issues with the war and criticize the book on that basis. Still others claim that Kyle wrote for a paycheck and/or the glory (actually the proceeds from the book go to help returning veterans adjust to life after war, what Kyle was doing when he was murdered). What I found interesting in the book was his views and motivation. He truly was a patriot. He was at war to protect and defend his country. In fact one of the major conflicts he mentions in the book is that his wife did not agree with his priorities. He lists them as 1. God 2. Country 3. Family Obviously his wife and many others would find fault with numbers 2 and 3. One passage that really caught my attention today was his criticism of the Iraqi soldiers he was trying to train. He said they were worthless. They had very little motivation outside their family or possibly their village or tribe. Country meant absolutely nothing to them. Then he speculates on the reason for this.
I realize that a lot of the problem has to do with their screwed-up culture in Iraq. These people had been under a dictatorship for all their lives. Iraq as a country meant nothing to them, or at least nothing good. Most were happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein, very happy to be free people, but they didn't understand what that really meant-the other things that come with being free. The government wasn't going to be running their lives anymore, but it also wasn't going to be giving them food or anything else. It was a shock.
That should be a wake-up to all of us. We seem to be moving toward a dictatorship, by choice! We should know that government won't be able to give us everything, healthcare, security - both personal and national, 100% safe food, transportation, cell phones, etc., without at the same time running the rest of our lives. Gerald Ford is not known as a deep thinker, but even he got this basic fact. He said, "any government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything you have."
Read American Sniper and also Marcus Latrell's Lone Survivor. We all need to know the sacrifices these men are making for us. We need to see through their eyes what we are so casually throwing away.
I wrote over a year ago about how history is being changed. Even as a kid, I realized it was happening with the history of Davy Crockett. What many of us don't realize is how important our history is. What we learn of our history basically provides the lens through which we see ourselves. While so many of us were slow to realize the importance of history, others have known for years. They planned to change history to fit their world view. They haven't been very secretive in their plans, it's just that we don't pay attention, or don't take them seriously. The Obama campaign in 2008 told us that they planned to change history. Listen toMichelle Obama on the campaign trail, she doesn't speak of making history, she speaks of changing history. That's not a mistake, that is exactly what they have planned.
So maybe the revision of the Davy Crockett story was a test run? Just to see if we would buy it? Well, our education system sure did. Now, they are going big. They are going after our founding fathers. I have felt that Texas is one of our last hopes of regaining our country and our past. But did you know that right now, today, the Boston Tea Party is being taught in Texas as an example of terrorism. Now, reading the curriculum, it is possible that this lesson is being taught to teach students to reason, to read the information and see it from multiple angles. From the British perspective at the time, the Boston Tea Party was terrorism. Only through reading the causes of the revolution will a student learn that the American Revolution was justified. But is it being taught that way? Frankly I doubt it. If it were, why are parents being denied access to the lessons? The "Parent's Portal" to the online lesson plans offers information that differs greatly from the lesson plans being presented in class. If this is happening in Texas, what is happening in California? In New York? In Oregon?
Take a look at what is happening, and has been happening for over a decade with our knowledge of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson did own slaves. That is known. It has been taught since the textbooks published in the 1880's. What was taught before, but is no longer being taught is that he spent most of his life trying to abolish slavery. The Virginia Constitution made it illegal for a slave owner to free his slaves. After George Washington freed his slaves upon his death, Virginia even closed that loophole. It was illegal for a citizen of Virginia to free his slaves. Jefferson worked tirelessly to change that. Unfortunately that was one of the few instances that Jefferson failed. For a true view of Thomas Jefferson, through his own words and the words of people who actually knew him, who actually lived in Jefferson's time, read The Jefferson Lies, by David Barton. Barton uses Jefferson's own words, the original documents to clear up the lies being told about him. The interesting thing has been the response to the book. David Barton has been attacked from every directions by scholars pointing out the "inaccuracies" in his book. Their evidence of his inaccuracies comes from scholars writing more than 100 years after Jefferson's death. These scholars use each other as references, completely ignoring the primary sources - Jefferson himself and his contemporaries. One interesting chapter in Barton's book deals with Jefferson's supposed love child with his slave, Sally Hemings. Remember in the late 1990's when a DNA test was done using genetic material from one of Hemings' known descendants that "proved" Jefferson's affair with his slave. Interestingly enough this report came out just as the current president, William Jefferson Clinton was being impeached for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, making the point that infidelity in the White House was nothing new. Coincidentally, a retraction was released a few weeks after the initial report that the DNA tests actually concluded that with a 97% certainty, Hemings' child was NOT Thomas Jefferson's. The retraction did not receive the front page of Newsweek treatment that the original, erroneous report did.
Thanksgiving is a couple of days away. While the Thanksgiving story that children from my generation were taught is a little simple and doesn't give the complete story of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving, students are more likely today to learn the perspective of MSNBC commentator, Melissa Harris Perry who says that "European settlers brought violence, disease, and land theft to the indigenous peoples who were already in this land before it was discovered."
So why is it important to the president's backers to smear the reputation of our country's founders? Their view of the United States is that it was founded by rich white men who were only interested in making themselves more wealthy. The system is set up to benefit the rich white men. It is stacked against black Americans, immigrants(whether legal or illegal), women, Native Americans, against anyone not white and rich. The president himself says that rugged individualism, self reliance, and small government is "part of our DNA" obviously in reference to our founding principles. But then he goes on, "but it doesn't work, it has never worked" to the applause of his audience.
That is why it is so important, in the president's view, to change history. It has worked. When applied as our founders intended and as they stated in our Constitution, it always works.
We did lose the election earlier this month. But that defeat actually started when we lost the battle of truth about our history. To get back, we have to make truth matter again, and make history matter again.
Here's an interesting story about the importance of education and the average American's willingness to let the government take care of them.
A reporter went to Times Square on a weekday late afternoon, just as office workers were crowding the street to go home after a work day. He stopped 200 people at random and asked if they would favor the federal government either banning or strictly regulating the use of dihydrogen monoxide. Dihydrogen monoxide is a very commonly found chemical that, through simple inhalation, kills thousands of people per year in the United States alone. It's use by businesses and individuals is essentially unregulated. No licenses are required for its purchase or use.
As a former resident of Arizona, and frequent radio listener in the Phoenix area, I can tell you that the state ran public service ads hourly warning about the dangers of the chemical, especially to young children. The poll results? 70% of those questioned said the government should ban the chemical compound immediately. 15% said it should be strictly regulated. The remaining 15% were obviously libertarian nutjobs that protest government regulation of anything. After all who is not in favor of banning di(meaning 2) hydrogen (highly explosive, right?) mono (one) oxide (oxygen)? Or H2O. If you still don't get it, you must be a recent American high school graduate. It's water.
We not only allow, but encourage these people to vote! Change, yeah! Sign me up! Oh yeah, what are we changing to? Hope it's good. Got any water?
Read this book! Did you watch the Winter Olympics? Yeah, me neither. Well except for a short three and a half hour Saturday morning curling match (game? contest?)that is. I still don't quite understand, but I just couldn't stop watching. The fact that it was about 15 degrees below zero here in Gunnison probably increased my fascination with televised curling. That probably also explains the Canadian obsession with the sport.
I saw from the final medal count that the U.S. dominated the X-game-ified version of the winter Olympics. And that Russia had their lowest medal total ever. Predictably, Russia was very upset. I saw on the news yesterday that any Russian coach that doesn't resign will be fired. Losing is not acceptable in Russia. Beats the old Soviet Union response. Coaches and athletes disappeared after disappointing performances back then. Kind of a hyper-competitive response for a communist or socialist society, huh?
If our current President holds true to form, he will soon be apologizing for our winter Olympians' rude behavior during the Olympics. No, I haven't heard any stories about our hockey team trashing their hotel this time. I mean their greedy grab of all those medals. President Obama has tried his entire first year in office to right just this type of wrong. Now, on a world stage, here's all these boorish Americans acting so, so, well, American. You know, working hard and training for years, and finally performing better than anyone else in the world. And horror of horrors, being rewarded for it! It's just not fair, Americans collecting all those medals. No wonder Chavez hates us. How many medals did Venezuela get?
America's Declaration of Independence states that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." Created equal. Not that we live equal. Not that we have equal talents. Not that we work equally. Not that we finish equal. Not that we get equal rewards. Everyone doesn't get a gold medal. Everyone doesn't even get a medal. But that we are created equal. We have the same starting line.
Hopefully President Obama will be able to avoid this type embarrassment in the summer Olympics by proposing some rule changes to redistribute the wealth, I mean medals. The 100 meter dash will have a staggered start. Bolt will run 140 meters, the U.S. basketball team will have a 12 ft. goal and 4 players, some shot puts will weigh 5 lbs., others 10 lbs, and others 15 lbs., and of course Michael Phelps will have to wear a lead-lined Speedo. Gold medals for everyone! One big stage for the medal ceremony. How long will it take for all those national anthems to be played? What do you think the television ratings will be like for those Olympics? Wrong! They will be the same as all the other network ratings. Remember, everyone wins!
Actually if President Obama held true to form, he would just forcibly tax penalize top performers by confiscating their medals and giving them to those who didn't do as well. Now that's the Russiannew American way.
I've always enjoyed American history. I never have been able to get interested in world history too much. I guess I just don't have the imagination to be able to identify with Charlemagne, the Russian czars, or King Louis I-XXXIV, or whatever. But I love American history. I am currently reading A Patriot's History of the United States. Unlike a lot of history books, it is very readable. And very informative. Just a trivia note, I learned today where Cajun originated. At the beginning of King George's War in 1755, a group of colonists took it upon themselves to take Acadia (Nova Scotia) from the French settlers. At the end of the war, the British gave much of the conquered territories back to the French, but kept Acadia. They were concerned about having French loyalists in their Nova Scotia, so they deported them. A group of the deportees relocated in current Louisiana and were called Cajuns, a slurred version of Acadians. That also explains the presence of their French influenced dialect. Impress your friends at the bar with that little bit of trivia. One side note, I am reading this book on the Kindle Reader for PC. It seems that as I am getting older more mature, those evil publishers are printing books with smaller type. With the free Kindle Reader,I can download Kindle books to my laptop and read them in a slightly larger font. I can also read in a poorly lit room (i.e. any room in our built in the 40's house). Another advantage is that the Kindle version is generally cheaper than the hardback and I get it within seconds of ordering it. There are also a lot of free books available for the Kindle. The only downside is the fact that they aren't books. As a former bookstore owner, I really like the smell, feel, and look of a book. So I will probably end up buying hard copies of this one and a couple of others I have read on the Kindle.
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