The Invention of the Airplane and the Spirit of Entrepreneurship

“We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate what ever aroused curiosity.”
Orville Wright

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American History - Bill Whittle - American Exceptionalism

Bill looks at how America is indeed exceptional -- a once-in-history success militarily, economically, scientifically and culturally.

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Daniel Greenfield - The Road to Oligarchy

Originally Published on the Sultan Knish blog

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Regardless of how many wars on poverty are declared and how often calls are issued to make the rich pay their fair share, neither the rich nor the poor will be going anywhere anytime soon. The question is what forces will keep the poor impoverished and where the rich will derive their wealth from.

The founder of Subway recently said that he could not have started up his company today. Similar messages have come from the founders and heads of other major companies. That isn't to say that companies will cease to exist. What we think of as business has been changing for some time.

In most countries, starting a business does not begin with a great idea. It begins with connections. Knowing the right people is still important, but in most places it's the most important thing.

Under the current American model, a company becomes successful and then begins to lobby Washington to gain a competitive advantage or to avert hostile lobbying directed at negating its existing competitive advantage. That is a perversion of free enterprise, but in much of the world companies begin lobbying first and then become successful. This is the model that has evolved under Obama. And it's a familiar model to anyone doing business in Russia or China. Political connections come first and then the business becomes feasible.

Oligarchy is the inevitable outcome of an economic climate where the governments acts as a gatekeeper to the country's customers. Measures that began as limited safety and fraud regulations have become a comprehensive political economic system that controls every aspect of every economic transaction.

The government creates markets. It creates companies and customers. It sets prices and taxes industries that it does not favor out of business.

Corporate lobbying isn't just about the proverbial 200 dollar screwdriver. It's about making it more expensive for some companies to make screwdrivers than others. It's also about forcing independent screwdriver manufacturers out of business. It's about government grants to make environmentally friendly screwdrivers and heavy taxes on companies that don't make environmentally friendly screwdrivers.

Tactics like these aren't new. The Esch Act eliminated white phosphorus matches through a punitive tax back in 1910. But a century later, the government wiped out the incandescent bulb industry, not for health reasons, but to comply with a trendy ideology. Microsoft, which had hardly bothered to lobby before, was dragged to Washington on monopoly charges that Google, the ultimate dot com insider, today laughs off. And Microsoft learned its lesson, investing in sizable amounts of lobbying capital.

The government is a bigger factor in business models for both large and small businesses than any other. Whether it's struggling against the mountains of paperwork or looking for ways to profit from the latest regulations, business has come to be defined by government. The tier of governments at every level have accumulated huge amounts of wealth and power. Government power is used to control how business is done while government spending makes political officials into the country's biggest consumers.

The fusion of business with government leads to oligarchy. The rich are not going anywhere, but wealth becomes a factor of their government connections, rather than skill or even inheritance. Government control over business began under the banner of combating monopolies only to end by creating government monopolies. The war against income inequality will end the same way and with the same results as the oligarchies in Russia, China, Mexico and everywhere else.

The future of Obamerica is a country full of corrupt government officials and tycoons. The future is an aristocracy of union bosses running their own guilds, corporate monopolies that change with each election and government officials with mansions and armed bodyguards.

Income inequality will be huge with oceans of poverty and small islands of wealth locked away behind gated communities. Populists will promise power for the people, only to make the system even more corrupt. One company or one boss will be brought down, only to be replaced with the favorites of another party.

Everyone will despise the tycoons and the government. The government will promise to protect the people from the tycoons, even as it works closely with them, and the tycoons will lavish money on certain areas in exchange for loyalty. Both the government and the tycoons will be closely tied up with organized crime which will launder its drug profits through the tycoons and use its political connections to gain protection and sanctions against rival organizations.

This three-sided war between government, tycoons and organized crime will involve members of all three groups using each other against their own rivals. The distinction between all three will be vague at best. Government officials will profit from their business connections and use their power to aid organized crime. Organized crime will have its own businesses and politicians. And the tycoons will run for office and have clean 'white' businesses, dirty 'black' businesses and 'gray' businesses.

Most of the money in the country is in the hands of one of these three groups. The tycoons control the white market. Organized crime controls the black market. Government controls the monetary supply and collects tribute from both markets, officially and unofficially. This is a closed system with very little room for dynamism except through outside intervention.

In an oligarchy, walking in and starting your own business is not really an option. The first bar that any new business has to meet is that of connections. The second bar is the interests of the oligarchy. You don't start a car company if the oligarchy's titans have a lot of money invested in a buggy monopoly. The car company will be either burned out or legislated out of business. Conversely, if you pick your moment, you can get a monopoly on that new foreign automotive technology if you know the right people and spread the right amount of bribes around.

The oligarchy safeguards established interests. It is a mafia whose goal is to control and profit from all wealth. Even when it comes to power as the result of a revolution, it very quickly discovers its own established interests. Its members will knock each other off, but they all agree that the basic nature of the system should not change. What they fear most of all is the collapse of that system.

There is plenty of money to be made in an oligarchy, but there is very little forward motion. New things do not emerge out of an oligarchy of union guilds, politically connected tycoons and politicians who derive their power and influence from their connections to both. Once a new thing exists, then the oligarchy will find ways to profit from it and even improve it, but there is no progress from within the oligarchy.

There is also very little social mobility. Human ingenuity can allow people to become wealthy under nearly any set of circumstances, but it's a good deal harder to do it under an oligarchy. Oligarchies have enough instability that it is possible, but those individual stories of making it up from the slums are usually isolated incidents. The majority of slum-dwellers stay in the slums and become involved with a political faction if they want to improve their lives.

In the oligarchy the wealthy form a natural aristocracy, but it isn't an aristocracy of talent, it's the accretion of closeness to power. This aristocracy changes in composition with revolutions, but its nature remains the same. It is a collection of the people with the best lobbyists, the best bribes and the closest cultural ties to whoever is in power. Any member of the oligarchy can have his wealth and influence stripped away in minutes at the behest of the regime.

Even as American Exceptionalism declined, the remaining free enterprise aspects of the country kept the American Dream alive. For a while that American Dream, the ability to enter the country and move up the economic ladder became the sum of the nation. Generations of politicians reduced the meaning of the United States to a nation of immigrants where any new arrival could launch his own business and make money.

The rise of the oligarchy is foreclosing that dream leaving only the nation of immigrants struggling within a complicated political hierarchy for government handouts from a political movement that denounces some tycoons at the behest of other tycoons. It's the oligarchy at war for control of the dead present, even as it kills the past and the future to accommodate its plans.

It is the end of America and the rise of an Obamerica. Obamerica will still have great reserves of wealth, but on average it be far poorer and far less productive.

Obamerica will be known as a party country, a good place to buy the good things if you are one of the sons of the rich or are a tourist from a rich country. Obamericans will be described as sensuous and spontaneous pleasure-loving people. Obamerican cities will be violent, dangerous and exciting places full of decadence. Its slums will be full of drug dealers and child prostitutes. Most Obamericans will not believe in the future, but will cheerfully accept the misery of the present. They will hate the rich, but long to be in their place so that they can stomp on the poor. The old prosperous nation will be gone and in its place will be the oligarchy.

Daniel Greenfield

Visit Daniel's Blog Sultan Knish by clicking HERE

Daniel Greenfield is a blogger and columnist born in Israel and living in New York City. Daniel is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a contributing editor at Family Security Matters.

Daniel's original biweekly column appears at Front Page Magazine and his blog articles regularly appear at Family Security Matters, the Jewish Press, Times of Israel, Act for America and Right Side News, as well as daily at the Canada Free Press and a number of other outlets. Daniel has a column titled Western Front at Israel National News and his op eds have also appeared in the New York Sun, the Jewish Press and at FOX Nation.

Daniel was named one of the Jewish Press' Most Worthwhile Blogs from 2006-2011 and his writing has been cited by Rush Limbaugh, Melanie Philips, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Judith Klinghoffer, John Podhoretz, Jeff Jacoby and Michelle Malkin, among others.

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Herman Cain - The Greatest Country in the World

The Job Creators Solutions Truth Tour sent Herman Cain to the University of Michigan on Sept. 27 to tell the crowd of students to follow their dreams and help save free enterprise in the greatest nation on Earth. Some in the crowd didn't think they were living in the greatest nation on Earth. Cain brought them a dose of truth.

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Alfonzo Rachel - America the Victimizer: Why Obama Believes the US is an Undeserving Superpower

Obama does not think that the US is a nation of victims. He thinks it's a nation of victimizers. Hear why Obama holds the United States in such contempt on this ZoNation.

Obama invested TAXPAYER MONEY in:

Solyndra - BANKRUPT
Ener 1 - BANKRUPT
Beacon Power - BANKRUPT
Abound Solar - BANKRUPT
Amonix Solar - BANKRUPT
Spectra Watt - BANKRUPT
Eastern Energy - BANKRUPT
GM Volt - Solyndra on wheels.

All of these companies were Obama campaign contributors.

Romney's Bain Capital invested PRIVATE MONEY in:

AMC Entertainment
Burger King
Burlington Coat Factory
Clear Channel Communications
Domino's Pizza
Dunkin' Donuts
Guitar Center
The Sports Authority
Staples
Toys "R" Us
Warner Music Group

The Choice is CLEAR...Do you want a BUSINESSMAN who has GENERATED BILLIONS or A President who has WASTED TRILLIONS?

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Anne from PA - BOATLIFT, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience

Much has been written and said about September 11, 2001, on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, but one story much less known is the one about the band of boats that came together to rescue nearly 500,000 New Yorkers from the World Trade Center site on the day the towers collapsed.

It was the largest boatlift ever to have happened – greater than the one at Dunkirk during World War II. Yet somehow a story of such large scale became lost in all the rubble. But a new 10-minute documentary called Boatlift by Eddie Rosenstein captures the boat evacuations that happened on 9/11.

American Exceptionalism has little if anything to do with the Humans that make up our citizenry, because Americans come from almost every ethnic group found in the World.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.

This 'IS' American Exceptionalism!

"Though our president has labeled Americans as soft, I believe our people have toughed it out the best they can." Rick Perry

Anne from PA

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Boatlifters: The unknown story of 9/11 By: Katharine Herrup

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The Motto of the United States is 'E Pluribus Unum'.

E Pluribus Unum describes an action: Many uniting into one. An accurate translation of the motto is "Out of many, one".

We ARE the American People and WE WILL SURVIVE Barack Obama!

Remember Who WE Are!

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Lt. Colonel Allen West - The Balkanized State of America

Are Liberals trying to divide the country? FNC's Dave Briggs asks Colonel Allen West, Florida Congressman to weigh in on this heated topic. Also discussed: Americans need to preserve their freedoms, his thoughts on the 2012 Presidential Race, and the current level of unemployment in this country and what steps need to be taken to improve this situation.

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PolitiChicks - America's 4th Of July Declaration

For many, the Fourth of July is a day for barbecues, baseball and fireworks. The ritual ceremony performed in this episode of PolitiChicks is designed to help us remember every year what the Fourth of July is really about, and to remind ourselves how fortunate we all are to be Americans, free to celebrate of the birth of our exceptional country.

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Paul Ryan - A Perspectives On Leadership Forum

A fifth-generation native of Janesville, Wisconsin, Paul Ryan has represented the First Congressional District since 1998, carrying forth Wisconsin’s proud tradition of hard-working, reform-minded leadership in the House of Representatives. Serving as Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Paul is a leading voice for fiscal discipline and accountability in the federal government. He is also a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, where he has focused his efforts on making health care more affordable and more accessible, reducing the complexity and burdens of our federal tax code, and strengthening American jobs and competitiveness.

May 22, 2012

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Is America an Exceptional Country?

"I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
President Barack Obama

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Newt Gingrich - Speech to the NRA

Newt Gingrich addresses the NRA in a way that No Other presidential candidate has before in 24 yrs.

Newt Gingrich, a Lifetime Member of the NRA, asserted that President Obama is the most anti-second amendment president in history. "His judicial appointments, his anti-gun positions at the United Nations, his Justice Department's scandalous incompetence on gun issues all combine to make the Obama Administration the most anti gun rights administration in our history," Gingrich charged.

Protecting the right to bear arms is an essential part of American Exceptionalism Gingrich insisted. His new movie, "A City on a Hill" explores the unique historic origins of American freedom.

Gingrich will said we need an immediate and decisive return to defending and protecting the right to bear arms both in America and around the world.

Gingrich asserted that President Obama cannot succeed in passing gun control legislation through Congress because of the three million members of the NRA. So he is looking to international law and to the appointment of judges to weaken the second amendment.

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Click Link Below
Barack Obama's Record On Gun Control

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100 Years of Ronald Reagan

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."
Ronald Reagan

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Star Parker - Give Thanks for American Exceptionalism

The Pew Research Center has provided some timely food for thought as we enter our traditional holiday season.

According to a new report comparing attitudes in Europe and America, only 49 percent of Americans now feel that American culture is superior to others. This is down from 60 percent in 2002.

For those that may find this troubling, there is more reason for concern in that only 37 percent of young Americans, ages 18- 29, say American culture is superior.

What the study does not examine is what we mean by culture.

I happened to hear a discussion on one of the cable shows about this report, and the discussants were bewailing the prevalence of reality shows, Kim Kardashian, and Facebook.

But I think this is a misreading of culture. Culture is about the prevailing core attitudes of a society. And, when we look further into this same study, we find that American attitudes are distinctly different from their European counterparts and that these attitudes very much reflect what is uniquely American.

For instance, 58 percent of Americans feel that individual freedom is more important than government “guarantees that nobody is in need.” Only 36 percent of French and 36 percent of Germans feel this way.

Only 36 percent of Americans agree that success is largely determined by “forces outside our control.” But 72 percent of Germans and 57 percent of French agree with this.

And 50 percent of Americans believe religion is very important in contrast to 21 percent in Germany and 13 percent in France.

Americans are distinct from Europeans in our beliefs in the importance of individual freedom, of personal responsibility, and religious faith.

Can it be an accident that these values that are so prevalent in American culture today are in line with the principles stated in the nation’s founding document 235 years ago? That our Creator endowed us with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and “That to secure these rights Governments are instituted among Men.”

Distinctly American is our credo, but also that being American is defined by free choice and a set of principles rather than blind circumstance of geography or genetics.

But to point to the fact that American culture is distinct does not necessarily prove that it is better.

Is it?

Considering economic performance, there is little comparison between our nation and Europe. Per capita GDP of the US, the economic output per each individual in the country, is $47,200 in the US compared to $32,700 in Europe.

The average per capita GDP in the European Union is less than that of America’s poorest state, Mississippi ($32,764).

One hint that there might be something special going on here is that our problem seems to be limiting the number of people that want to come in, rather than preventing people from escaping.

According to the State Department, more than 5 million people are now waiting to immigrate to the United States in various family and employment categories.

Although American attitudes are distinct, they are changing and trending in the direction of Europe. So, if you think this is a problem, and I do, there is reason for concern.

I consider my own experiences and know that nowhere else in the world could I live the life I have been living.

Where else could a young black mother on welfare conclude she was on the wrong path, walk away from it, get her degree, build a business and a non-profit organization that includes on its board of advisors a former US Senator and Attorney General of the United States and a former Counselor to the President of the United States and US Attorney General?

My work is inspired by my conviction that America is truly exceptional and I pray every day that we do not lose our way.

Star Parker

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Star Parker is founder and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty, as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can do About It.

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Related Post: America was Founded on the Concept of Individual Freedom
Related Post: Bill Whittle - The Bridge in Your Mind

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Austin Hill - When Will the Economy Become a Moral Issue

“I only care about the moral issues.”

If I’ve heard that phrase once, then I’ve probably heard it a few hundred times in recent years. It’s a common response I hear when I’m among socially conservative faith-based groups and individuals, and questions about our economy arise.

As a writer and talk show host I covered the last presidential election cycle in detail. Hosting daily talk radio in Washington, DC back in 2008, it would become apparent when I was speaking with a faith-based or socially conservative caller to my show because such callers would frequently express concerns over some specific issues with the candidates. “I don’t think McCain is really pro-life” was a common concern. And “Obama says he opposes gay marriage, but I don’t believe him” was another.

To these types of statements about abortion and the definition of marriage, I would often respond with questions about economics, just to see where the discussion would go. “But what do you think of Senator Obama’s plan to raise taxes on rich people and to cut taxes for others – is that fair?” I might ask. Or “Do you think John McCain is right about the stock market crash when he says that it’s all because of ‘greed on Wall Street?’”

Generally speaking, my economic questions would bring these brief talk show conversations to an abrupt end. “I only care about the moral issues” was the response I’d usually hear – as though economic issues are morally neutral or of no moral significance at all – and then the caller would say goodbye.

That was in 2008. And today, as we close-out the year 2011 and prepare to elect a President again next year, I’m wondering if socially conservative faith-based America is now ready to regard economic matters as “moral issues.”

Given what has happened over the course of the Obama presidency thus far, it should be apparent that America is now in the midst of an economic policy revolution. Faith-based individuals and groups can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines and pretend that economics is not a moral issue, nor can they assume that the various economic policies that get implemented at the federal, state, and local levels of government are all morally equivalent with one another.

Considering the severe mismanagement of private sector financial markets that helped lead to President Obama’s election in 2008, and the selfish and wasteful handling of tax-payer assets in Washington during these first three years of his presidency, the need for sound, moral understanding of the economy is as great as it ever has been.

One of the most important things that socially conservative faith-based Americans should be doing right now is thinking seriously, and critically, about people’s concerns and rejections of American capitalism. For example, one of the main reasons Americans cite for their dislike of capitalism is that they believe it is an idea based entirely on “greed.”

Just as Republican presidential candidate John McCain claimed back in 2008, there are many people today who still believe that our economic malaise was brought about simply by “greed on Wall Street,” and the solution to this all this greed is to simply empower politicians and government bureaucrats to place more governmental controls over bankers and “rich people.”

Faith-based Americans can respond to this by noting, first and foremost, that greed is a problem that impacts human individuals, and not specific institutions or economic systems. It is a “people problem,” and not a systemic problem.

From there, we can deduce that simply handing-over more control of economic resources to politicians and other government employees is not the solution to greed, because government employees are human beings and subject to being greedy as well (note the government entanglements with General Motors, Chrysler, Solyndra, and other for-profit corporate entities, and how in each of these cases public money is spent to advance the personal political interests of the politicians involved, the President’s included). Indeed, when employees of our government have the ability to control increasing portions of our wealth, along with the force of law on their side, their own greed flourishes, and we’re all worse-off for it.

Instead, faith-based Americans should be thinking more in terms of how we preserve our free market economic system, while at the same time exercising our freedom within that system more responsibly. “Greed” can be curtailed in the midst of our economic activities when businesses truly have to compete with one-another for clientele (and are thereby incentivized to treat their customers respectfully), and when each of us is truly free to both economically succeed AND to fail.

When people are allowed to experience the consequences of poor economic choices – they lose customers, homes, and so forth – rather than having their government “bail them out,” then they have an incentive to behave more wisely. And that makes for a better culture, and economy.

This is only one of many concerns that Americans face regarding our economy, and our economic system. Is the faith-based community prepared to begin addressing them?

Austin Hill

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Austin Hill is an emerging American voice, addressing culture-defining questions through books, talk radio, web, speaking, and interviews. His recent books "White House Confidential" and his new title "The Virtues Of Capitalism" show his range from whit-infused writer to thought-provoking expert on the intersection of philosophy, religion, politics & culture. Hill helps to make the complex seem simple when exploring capitalism, socialism, and other "Isms".

He is an editorial contributor to national publications such as U.S. News & World Report, a columnist with TownHall.com, and is a popular expert-host on radio from leading stations in Washington DC, Chicago, Phoenix and Los Angeles, and nationally with networks such as Fox NewsTalk Radio.  He hosts the "Austin Hill Show" weekday mornings at Fresno, California's Talk Radio 105-9 KMJ-FM,  and weekday afternoons at Boise, Idaho's Newstalk 580 K I D O radio.

Hill holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a Master's Degree in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola University in California.

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Bill Whittle - The Bridge in Your Mind

Why can Israelis look at a desert and see an orchard when their neighbors can only see, well, a desert? Bill Whittle thinks it may have something to do with the exceptionalism of Western thought. Find out the five characterstics of success on this latest edition of Afterburner.

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America was Founded on the Concept of Individual Freedom

An attempt to explain the genius of the United States of America and what we have to do to get back to the fundamental principles of protecting individual rights.
This video shows the attack the Obama administration is pursuing against our "inalienable" rights.


America was founded on the concept of Individual Freedom, self-determination, free markets and a Society based on the more useful to society you are, the more you are allowed to take from society, IOW, Capitalism.

American Exceptionalism

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Krista Branch - I Am America

The Motto of the United States is 'E Pluribus Unum'.

E Pluribus Unum describes an action: Many uniting into one. An accurate translation of the motto is "Out of many, one".

We ARE the American People and WE WILL SURVIVE Barack Obama!

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

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Mike Adams - Alphabet Soup for the Conservative Soul

It isn’t always fun being a conservative activist. There are some days I want to throw in the towel and find an easier job – like selling flannel shirts at Indigo Girls concerts or booking campus speeches for Noam Chomsky. Just a few weeks ago, I had one of those days.

It all started when I took a long road trip to try and resolve a First Amendment issue with a university attorney. That was a big mistake. I not only failed to resolve the issue but had to sit and endure personal insults from someone bent on defending the indefensible, simply because he knows the burden of losing the case will be shouldered by the taxpayers. University officials are like that. They do stupid things because they are shielded from the consequences of their stupidity.

To make matters worse, I started itching unbearably during my “discussion” with the statist employee – Oops! I meant the “state” employee. I wasn’t sure what that was all about until I got home and changed clothes – only to discover I was covered with rashes. I had gotten into poison ivy again. Just another reason I should have joined the Boy Scouts instead of picking up that third sport in grammar school.

So, instead of going to bed at a decent hour, I was headed to the Medac to beg for a steroid shot. Steroids have never made me huge. In my experience, they’ve only made me into an insomniac. I knew it was going to be a sleepless, itchy night. I was completely miserable and dejected about the future of our constitutional republic, too. That’s a pretty bad combination. So I decided to take some advice I had given my readers a few years before. Living in accordance with your own teachings is a good way to avoid being called a hypocrite by liberals who can’t be hypocrites because they don’t believe in anything.

The advice I followed was simply to make a list of things for which I should be grateful. Actually, my advice required making a list of 26 things for which I should be grateful – one for each letter of the alphabet. I got started on “A” because that’s the first letter in the alphabet. I only know that because I went to public school in Texas. My list looked something like this:

A: I thank God I was born in America where I have the right to criticize public officials who can only insult me because they can’t send me to summer camp in Siberia during the middle of the winter.

B: I thank God for Glenn Beck who flew me to New York City to let me criticize hippies who broadcast anti-corporate musings on their I-pads. Oops, sorry, they had I-pad 2s. That’s the cool thing about America, though. Stupid people also have a right to speak. And that gives the smart and humble people something to talk about on Glenn Beck TV.

C: Back in the 1990s, Coral Ridge Ministries used to broadcast anti-ACLU sermons by Dr. James Kennedy. When I was an atheist, I used to watch Dr. Kennedy on TV – swearing and shouting at the TV screen every Sunday morning. Dr. Kennedy later helped found the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). After I converted to the right side, literally and figuratively speaking, my employer tried to strip my weekly opinion column of First Amendment protection. I appealed and won a unanimous decision before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. I was represented by none other than the ADF – co-founded by the pastor I used to curse on Sunday mornings. What a blessing to be reconciled with the Truth. I was also blessed when Dr. Kennedy’s former ministry flew a film crew up from Florida to interview me on the topic of anti-Christian bias in higher education. I understand the phenomenon well. I used to be Saul for it. Now, I find it a Pauling.

D: David French is a good friend and a great First Amendment attorney. That victory in front of the 4th Circuit never could have happened without him. David Noble, president of Summit Ministries, is another great David who slays Goliaths. He changed my life when he asked me to join the Summit faculty in 2008. Of course, there’s also my Dad. He gave me my passion for refusing to accept non-sense and refusing to tolerate foolishness. Plus, he gave me all my wild hand gestures that help distract the audience whenever I lose my train of thought in a speech. What was I just saying?

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S: I’ve found that when you get to the Wheel of Fortune part of the alphabet, counting your blessings gets pretty easy. I’ll take an “S”, please. And I’ll take time to thank God for my American Vintage 1962 Fender Stratocaster. Enough said.

T: I am also thankful for my American Vintage 1952 Fender Telecaster. Enough said. I really mean it this time. The people over at Gibson Guitars might take exception.

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Z: I almost had to thank God for ZZ Top but I was fast asleep with pen and paper in hand before I finished my exercise in gratitude. It was fitting that the exercise really did end with ZZs – badly needed sleep for which I could be grateful.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: Gratitude and self-pity make for bad neighbors. When they move into your neighborhood they are never content with their initial property lines. They both have a tendency to grow like confederate jasmine. They consume everything in sight. They cannot coexist so we have to choose between one and the other.

Every now and then we must also catch ourselves and make sure we recognize our blessings instead of mistakenly labeling them as curses. No man can win a culture war all by himself. But that is actually good news. It also reminds us that no man is strong enough to subvert God’s will for another man’s life. That includes your own.

Our great constitutional experiment may occasionally be plagued by setbacks. But freedom is a process, not a result. It wouldn’t be worth defending without the prospect of losing. Just being a part of the fight is among life’s greatest blessings.

Mike Adams

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Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus.

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Doug Giles - Entitled Americans Vs Cuban Cigar Maker

Once again this spring my daughter Regis and I were fortunate to spend two weeks hunting bears in Alaska with four Purple Heart recipients. As God would have it, three out of the four warriors were able to let the air out of some beautiful black bears and, thankfully, we got the majority of these hunts on film for our upcoming PETA petrifying TV show. Delicious.

Before splitting for Alaska and joining the best of the best for a black bear smack down, the Padrón Cigar Company in Miami gave my friend Oscar a box of cigars to bless our guests for putting their lives on the line for our freedom, families and flag. Muchas gracias to the Padrón Family. Rest assured, Señor Padrón, they welcomed and enjoyed the cigars immensely. The gentlemen who roasted these bad boys during the trip told me to tell you, “Thank you very much!” So, thank you very much.

I have long been a big fan of Padrón cigars. I love their entire lineup of smokes from the Family Reserve, to their top shelf 1926 series, to the 1964 anniversary edition, to their Padrón series, especially the 7000. I have never had a bad Padrón; their cigars have always rocked my world, and that’s why they will have a permanent place in my beautiful humidor.

Aside from Padrón’s generosity in giving cigars to our nation’s finest during our hunt and apart from being impressed time and time again with the quality of their smokes, I was also duly impressed by the story of how Padrón cigars came to be—especially in light of the fact of how many whiners in our nation have become giant, wet-diapered entitlement clowns. Not so with José Orlando Padrón. Check it out in José’s own words:

In 1962, I arrived in Miami, an unknown city in a foreign land. I had to start from zero. At first I received $60 monthly as government aid given to Cuban refugees. I was thirty-six years old, strong and in good health. Every time I cashed that check, I felt like a burden on the country that had taken me in. For many days, I looked for a job and did not find one. Every night, I went home and thought of the future. I was determined to do something so that I could support my family.

One day, Raul Fernandez, a friend who worked in the Cuban Refugee Office, asked if I had any carpentry skills. I said I did. He gave me a gift—a small hammer—which he asked me to put to good use. The hammer made me feel I had the necessary tool to become self-sufficient and not depend on government hand-out. During the days, I worked as a gardener. At night, I did carpentry work with the hammer.

My dream was to save enough money to open a factory to make great cigars, like the ones we used to smoke in Cuba. Through a lot of sacrifice and hard work I managed to save $600—money I made working with the hammer. With that, I made my dream come true and opened Padrón Cigars in 1964.

I still have the hammer as a reminder of how it all started. More than forty years later … the hammer is still here, and so is Padrón Cigars, the brand the hammer helped build.

Now, compare José’s story of sacrifice and success to the drivel you hear from the entitlement babies who think life and our government owe them something.

Padrón said he “felt like a burden” every time he cashed a $60 monthly check? Wow. Many of Obama’s supporters feel elated when they’re banking check after check after check as they do jack squat on the taxpayer’s dime.

With vision, determination, a responsibility to provide for his family and a little hammer, José Orlando Padrón pounded out an immensely successful top quality cigar line.

If America is going to continue to be the great experiment in self-governance then we need the Padrón persistence injected into the American mix—as in, in a big way. As in right now.

Get a hammer and get busy, folks.

Doug Giles

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Doug Giles’ new book “If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going!" is now available. Ann Coulter says "Doug Giles is a substantive and funny tour de force for traditional values.” Doug’s talk show and video blog can be seen and heard at www.ClashRadio.com.

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Glenn Beck - What Makes America Great - May 26, 2011

America is the greatest country the world has ever seen, bar none. Why? Because the Constitution restrains the government from inflicting itself on the people and keeps the people free to make their own choices. Are there problems facing America today? Of course. But it seems all we ever hear are the complaints about what is wrong with America. But if we want to fix our country…we should be asking the question “What makes America great?” Plus, more on Israel and the situation in the Middle East. And, much more on Israel and the Restoring Courage event.

Glenn Beck on O'Reilly May 26, 2011

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