In case you didn’t know, this is my 100^th posting here at the Spade, and I felt that it deserved some recognition. So I have decided to make this a special edition---so to speak---and reflect on what it is that keeps me blogging strong.

To me, this blog---and all of the blogs at TH---are like the barbershop. When I go to the barbershop, I know that there will probably be a lively discussion about something going on there, with everyone that has an opinion weighing in. No topics are taboo, no opinions are stifled, and everyone gets his say. These blogs are the same way, everyone gets to speak, no one is silenced, and all opinions are welcomed.

Here at the Spade, I have the opportunity to discuss and debate foreign policy, elections, war, peace, immigration; you name it, we talk about it. I get new perspectives from a broad array of people from all over: I get the heartland sensibilities of Scottie and Husker Jeff, the tales of living in the People’s Republic of California from BrianR, and have had some eye opening conversations with my “neighbor” just up the road in Greensboro, Celtic Dragon. I have seen page views on my little blog from all over the globe and I wonder if they got anything from reading what I had to say. Hopefully they did, and hopefully they made their way back for my take on things.

I have enjoyed the discussions and debates that I have had on race relations with Jimmy Carter, the insightful and thought provoking questions from Philosophocon on all types of issues, and being visited by someone as thoughtful and creative as Cynewulf. It’s these interactions that make me want to keep doing this; this is building a community of people that I may never meet in person, but I feel like I know. That is the main reason I like blogging here so much.

Sure I like seeing my thoughts in print, but more than that I like seeing what my readers think of them. I like having the discussions here, I like having the debates, and I love getting the feedback on what I have written. As much as I do this to get my point of view out there, I do it almost as much to have the conversations that I get to have with all who choose to join the conversation. As I have said before---all visitors are welcome, and all comments are appreciated!

So thanks to everyone that has stopped by to read a post here, that has left a comment, or has engaged in a debate. I appreciate your time and your willingness to visit my little slice of the Net, and I hope it has been worth your time. You are the reasons that I have made it to 100, and you will be what spurs me to keep on pushing.

Thanks to all of you for your support and attention, it has meant the world to me!

Flagwaver

Official Flag of the Islamic Conference; click  for membership information

Peanut butter and jelly; sugar and spice; government and spending. Some things just go together, and no matter what you try you can’t separate them—they are forever linked.

Take communist economic theory and politics, for example. I had a professor whom I greatly admire try her best to split the two apart,  attempting to separate the one from the other. Try as she might, she was not able to convincingly isolate communist economic theory from communist political practice; she just refused to acknowledge that the one flows from the other and cannot be split. You cannot have an economy based on government domination of the means of production, the schedule and amounts of produced materials without having a government that, almost by necessity, dominates all parts of society. And this type of set up invites--- almost demands--- a government that is authoritarian at best and totalitarian at worst. But like the good liberal that she was, my professor could not let go of her delusion that a communist economy could work, if only attempted in the right place by the right people. You see, it is not the system or theory that is fatally flawed; it is the people attempting to implement it that have the problem.

We now face the same dilemma with the liberals in our midst that refuse to see that there is no distinction between ecclesiastical Islam and temporal Islam. They attempt to convince themselves and the world around them that the religion of al-Islam is different from the political aspect of the religion. Nothing could be further from the truth; like communist economic theory and communist political theory, religious and political Islam is one in the same. They are inextricably linked.

When Muhammad founded Islam c.622 A.D., he had no illusions that political power was to be exercised apart from the religion of al-Islam. Islam was to be the religious order of the region, spread by the blade of the sword if necessary; it was also to serve as the foundation of government in the areas where it predominated. The Koran and the Sunna from the start set out the rules governing both the social and communal life of Muslims; the Shari ‘a law has been a part of Islam from its founding.

What is perplexing is that liberals of all stripes continue to attempt to separate the two; they continue to delude themselves that the religious Muslims are not the same as the practitioners of jihad and the implementers of Shari’ a. It would be easier to split an atom with a butter knife than to split political and religious Islam from one another. There can be no separation of the two as they are one and the same—and the quicker our liberal friends realize that, the better off we will all be.

Once the liberals come to grips with the fact that Islam does teach the subjugation of all nations to the house of Islam, that it does preach jihad to it’s followers, that it is backward facing, that it is hostile to all religions, and that it does preach dhimmi status for all non-Muslims we can get about the business of defeating this threat.

When the liberals realize that they would likely be the first to be taken care of by a Muslim caliphate because of their support of homosexual rights, sexual license, and all manner of immorality maybe they will get on board for the effort to defeat an enemy that has sworn our destruction.

Because the only way we will be able to fend off the increasing attacks of the practitioners of jihad, to defeat our mortal enemy, and to secure our own future is to stand together. We have to be united in common cause for this to work, and for us to ultimately prevail in this war we find ourselves in. We have to be strong, united, and resolute.

We must be one thing above all.

Indivisible.

It seems that Hugh Hewitt’s favorite GOP presidential hopeful may be hearing the footsteps of Fred Thompson. While doing my Sunday stroll around the Web, I came across a couple of interesting columns at the American Spectator concerning Romney and Thompson.

The first story is one about Mitt throwing money around and rigging a straw poll by a local Young Republicans group; read more about it here. The second story is about the Romney campaign trying to cause Fred trouble with social conservatives by distributing discredited information on his alleged lobbying for a “pro-choice” outfit. Read more about it here.

It seems that Gov. Romney senses a threat is trying to play hardball. The only thing is that if you have to rig straw polls and spread lies to stay current, you may be headed the way of John McVain---out the door!

If churches are the most segregated places in America, then the most integrated place in America has to be the local traffic court! I know, because I just left my county’s traffic court---and let me tell you, it was something to see. People that would normally not speak a word to each other engage in conversations, share frustrations, and try to give each other encouragement---all while waiting in line to see the traffic ticket judge.

I had a nice looong conversation with a young kid who got ticketed for not having proof of insurance after he had a wreck on an icy road earlier this year, and I had a nice confab with a redneck an his wife who got ticketed because the person the inspected his car punched the sticker on the wrong year. He showed the police officer his receipt for his inspection, but he still got the ticket and had to show up for a court date even though he had done nothing wrong.

The thing is if the local traffic court is any reflection of how the system generally works, there is no surprise that there is a backlog of cases on court dockets! Take me, for example:

I was ticketed for having an expired inspection sticker about a month ago during a license check. I got my ticket, went and had my car inspected and waited for my court date which was for July 13, at 9:00a.m. Being the stickler for punctuality that I am, I arrive at the county courthouse at 8:40, just to make sure that I would not be late---the last time I was late for court, I ended up getting arrested on a bench warrant! So I get there, fully expecting to go to a courtroom, as was printed on my citation, and what do I see? I am confronted with a line of about 150 people snaking through the main lobby towards the Clerk of Court office! So, silly me, I ask a deputy there on duty where I can find courtroom 000B, since I’m supposed to be there at 9:00;he tells me to just get in line and wait---they don’t use the courtrooms for traffic tickets.

So there I stand, from 8:40 to 9:50 when I finally get to the front of the line. There are 3 people in front of me; the ADA helps the woman at the table out, and then announces that he will be taking a 15 minute break! So there I stand for another 15 minutes, wasting valuable minutes that I can never get back, while he goes off to have a snack and a cold drink. After 15 minutes he comes back and I finally get to the front of the line; he looks at my ticket, asks if I have gotten the car inspected, I give him my receipt, and he says “Well, you’re free to go”! I spent 1 hour and 35 minutes in line for a transaction that took around 30 seconds!

And what is really galling is that I passed 2 empty courtrooms that could have been used, instead of making us all stand in line. One of the empty courtrooms seats around 200, the other seats a little over 100; but we had to stand in line forever because they don’t use the courtrooms for traffic violations! Un-freaking-believable!

But I did learn one thing from my wasted morning: This must be how people feel at big city DMV’s!

When Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison, John Adams and the like founded this nation and created the bicameral legislature, they could never have foreseen the situation that this government finds itself in today. The aforementioned men waged their lives, liberty, and all they had to create a nation that was not ruled by a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a political oligarchy but was governed by representatives of the people of the nation.

Look back at the history that these great men have as public servants, and you will see a group of men that were serious about their service, but were also men who did not lust after power. George Washington served as President, helped to shape the course of the country and the office for all time, and then retired to his beloved Mount Vernon; content to go back to his life as a planter. Likewise, Thomas Jefferson served the country as a Cabinet member, and later as President, but when his term was over he retired willingly to his Monticello plantation, happy to be the scholar and planter he had always been.

These men realized that they were more than politicians, that they were first and foremost family men, scholars, or soldiers; even as they served in various capacities in our government they never forgot who, and what, they were. And it is safe to say that the vast majority of these men did not view themselves as professional politicians. So they never thought to place limits to the amount of time that people could serve as President, Senator, or Representative; they seem to have assumed that men would serve their term and go home to their real lives, just as the early leaders of the country did.

They could not have anticipated the state of the Congress today that is populated with professional politicians who have no desire to “go home” as it were, because this life is all they really know.

The rise of the professional politician has, in my opinion, been as dangerous as anything else to the proper functioning of our system. Professional politicians become involved in politics not out of a desire to bring needed change to the country, or to do the will of the people, or with the intention of representing the voice of their constituents in the halls of Congress. Professional politicians seem more interested in grasping, consolidating, and holding on to power simply for the sake of having that power. They spend more time getting themselves reelected than actually governing or legislating, because their longevity translates into power and influence.

Let’s take a look at a small sampling of the longest serving members of the Senate:

Ø  Strom Thurmond served from 1954-56 and 1956-2003 when he died in office!

Ø  Robert C. Byrd has served from 1959 to the present.

Ø  Edward Kennedy has served from 1962-present.

Ø  Daniel Inouye from 1963-present.

Ø  Ted Stevens from 1968-present.

Ø  Joe Biden from 1972-present.

Among the six men I have listed, they have served a combined 260 years in the Senate, have served an average of 43.33 years, and every one of them has been in the Senate for longer than I have been alive! Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and Daniel Inouye have been around longer than any of my siblings…and I have three older siblings!

It is this type of unchecked longevity that allows politicians to ignore their constituents and do as they please. Take the current immigration fiasco as a prime example; without the assurance that they are almost guaranteed a return to the Senate every 6 years, do you think the politicians would be so deaf to voter concerns? If they thought they were going to be turned out, or better yet, if they considered themselves to truly be servants of the public they would not ignore our voices. They would listen and see that the vast majority of the public, for whatever reasons, sees this current immigration bill as worse than no bill at all!

The Founding Fathers created a truly groundbreaking system of government and turned it over to us to keep as we could. We can find fault in their not mandating term limits for Congress or the President, but no too much. Those men, those historic titans, saw themselves as real “public servants”, elected to do the will of the people and to do whatever was in the best interests of the nation.

Too bad so many of our politicians today see “service” only as a road to power and glory for themselves. They have violated our trust on many occasions, and have ignored us when it suited their own narrow purposes, only to continue to serve. And for that, the blame lies squarely with one group.

We the people.

     

Tony Blair sure picked a fine time to leave us! We are embroiled in a war that we will be fighting for God knows how long against an enemy that is implacable, and totally bent on our destruction. We have other allies in the war against Islamic terror, but none has borne as much of the cost, or been stauncher in their support than the British.

When we decided that it was necessary to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power, even without the approval of the ever vigilant United Nations, it was the British who were with us from the start. It was Tony Blair who committed his nation to the fight, knowing that it would be as Donald Rumsfeld said: A long, hard slog. He came to the fight because he saw the enemy for what it is, and he knew that this enemy could no longer be ignored but had to be confronted and defeated. He saw evil and instead of allowing it to slowly creep over the land, joined our fight to push it back and wipe it out.

New Prime Minister Gordon Brown scares me, quite frankly. I am concerned that he is more of the politically correct European that Prime Minister Blair, and that his PC bent will affect his commitment to defeating the jihadists. And I believe that my concern is a valid one.

Take his actions in response to the terrorist attack and plot in Great Britain as an example. One of the first things Prime Minister Brown did in response to the terrorist action in Glasgow was to ban his ministers from using “Muslim” in connection to terrorism, in a sop to the self esteem of Great Britain’s burgeoning Muslim population. When your first concern is not necessarily dealing with the actual terrorist act or plot, but to tend to the tender feelings of the very community that launched the attack there is cause for concern about Brit resolve in this war.

Further, Mr. Brown has decided to drop the phrase “war on terror” from the vernacular of the British government. While “war on terror” is a phrase that could have been worked on some time ago, I doubt that Mr. Brown is doing this to come up with a better phrase. I think that this changing terminology may be a sign that he is not nearly as committed to winning the war against the jihadis as Mr. Blair was; it just seems to me that Brown is more under the sway of the European community and thought processes than Blair ever was. And if Brown is a dyed in the wool European, the question is not if he will declare victory and go home but when that time will come.

Maybe I am wrong about Mr. Brown, and for once I hope I am. For all of our sakes, I pray that I have misread the situation. Because if I’m right, we will find ourselves in a position that the Democrats and the world community have long maintained that we placed ourselves in.

Going it alone.

                                                                            
    

…he {the President} shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…” Article 2, Section 3 US Constitution

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”Article 2, Section 4 US Constitution

Make no mistakes about it, I have been a supporter of President George W. Bush through two campaigns and two elections and applaud some of the moves he has made. I applaud his tax cutting strategy, his stance against therapeutic embryo cloning, and especially his decision to take the fight to the terrorists and their supporters. I also appreciated that he at least made an attempt to reform and reshape the Social Security system, and that he had enough political courage to say publicly from the bully-pulpit that the system was broken and needed to be fixed. Most politicians would never have gone there, as Social Security has been treated as the third rail of politics; touch it and you’re in for a very nasty shock!

The Democrats, conversely, hate everything about G.W. Bush.  They hate the way he walks, the way he talks, the fact that he has confidence, and the fact that he will make tough, if unpopular, decisions and stand by them. They hate him because he is nearly the exact opposite of them; he does not let public opinion polls set the parameters of his administration. He has realized that in many cases public opinion is going to go strongly against what the right thing to do is.

And the Democrats have been howling for the past few years about bringing impeachment articles in the House against the President for his handling, or mishandling in their view, of the war in Iraq. They claim that he “massaged” the available intelligence to lead us into conflict with Iraq, and that he lied to the American people and to Congress in his attempt to make his case for war against Iraq. The things is, all of the charges they claim to want to bring would not pass the laugh test, since they were privy to much of the same intelligence that he was, and they willingly voted for the resolution to take the fight to Sadaam Hussein; they wanted to have a recorded voted in support of the war once it was won.

But if the Democrats really wanted to impeach President Bush, this whole immigration fiasco would be the perfect charge to bring against him. No one anywhere believes that on the immigration issue that the President has been doing the job as laid out in the Constitution. He has made no attempt to faithfully execute the laws that are in place that regard how to deal with the invasion of illegal aliens into our country; in fact he and his administration, specifically Justice and Homeland Security, seem bent on ignoring those laws at every turn.

We have witnessed a Justice Department that has allowed perjured testimony, made a sweet plea deal with an illegal immigrant drug pusher, and withheld exculpatory evidence in order to convict two Border Patrol agents for doing the job they swore an oath to do…secure our borders.

We have seen this administration ignore clear evidence that Mexican law enforcement and paramilitaries have not only crossed into our country, but have actually fired on American law enforcement in their attempts to protect the smugglers of drugs and persons into our country. In the face of clear evidence what has W done? Basically nothing! Not even a strongly worded message to the Mexican government that this type of action will not be tolerated; instead our Justice Department consults with the Mexicans on which of our Border agents we will prosecute next.

This administration has made no real attempt to enforce the laws against companies, or small business owners, who knowingly hire illegal workers. They make excuses about how hard it is to track an illegal SSI card number, but we know that is a lie; they can use my SSI number to find me for just about any reason, but they can’t find a fictitious number? Puh-leeze! They simply don’t want to find or punish the companies that engage in this illegality; because they don’t want to upset the Chamber of Commerce and put any crimp in future business donations to GOP candidates.

And recently we had the spectacle of Michael Chertoff basically proclaiming that since the Congress had not passed the new “comprehensive” immigration plan...aka AMNESTY!!!...he would not be making any moves to build the fence that Congress authorized last year. Imagine that, a high ranking executive official refusing to enforce or execute the laws on the books because he, and the President, did not like the outcome of a recent legislative battle! And the President of the United States stands mute as his hand-picked Homeland Security Secretary refuses to enforce the law, for political reasons. That is truly amazing!

But what is really amazing is that the Democrats are too stupid to move on this! They scream about impeachment, but when the President, the Attorney General, and the Homeland Security chief hand them a credible charge on a silver platter, they ignore it. The evidence is there in newspaper accounts, in television interviews, and court transcripts; there are real, live witnesses that could put the nail in the Bush administration coffin if it was actually pursued. But we all know that it will never come to fruition, because the whole cry of “impeachment” is just part of the game the Democrats play to get their kooky base fired up. They have no real plans to impeach the President, because it wouldn’t really help them all that much; sure it would get rid of G.W. Bush, but then they would have to deal with Dick Cheney and that scares them to death.

So I’m all for impeaching President Bush! I could surely live with a couple of years of a take-no-prisoners President Cheney having the executive reigns in Washington; I’d pay money to see that happen and see what changes President Cheney would make.

Hey, we all gotta have dreams!

Dear Mary,

Having read your latest missive that was ostensibly about Christopher Hitchens, I was struck by what I felt were your unwarranted attacks on most Bible believing Christians. You had some harsh words for those that read the “saccharine” “pastel covered” tomes in Christian bookstores instead of Milton and the like. You also had some very unflattering things to say on regards to those that read the Bible literally and insinuated that they are not well read, and that they are the one’s that give ammunition to the people like Christopher Hitchens to attack the Christian faith.

While I have no problem with your love of literature, as I am a bit of a reader myself, I do not see where the literal reading of the Bible is at odds with literature or scholarship. I think that you have fallen into the trap of intellectualism, in that you have the feeling that only those at your intellectual level are worthy of respect; if that is not your position, then you may need to check what you write and how you write it, because that is what I felt when I read your article.

Let me explain a little about those, who like me, read the Bible literally. We read the Bible literally because we believe that the Bible is the revealed Word of the Living God. We read it literally because we believe that the Bible needs no interpretation except where it so indicates, and I those places the Bible itself provides the interpretation. We see that when men attempt to interpret the Bible, many plain and precious truths are ignored while men search in vain for the “mysteries” that the Bible allegedly contains. We read the Bible literally because we have faith that God has given us his written Word to be our ultimate guide, to be our roadmap, to be the place where we van go to for truth and answers and not lean on the understanding of men who will “interpret” the Bible to suit their own narrow purposes.

You also had some criticism for those that would open up a Bible inspired theme park, or a creation inspired museum; you seem to think that these people supply ammunition to the atheists of the world to attack Christianity, so you launch your own sugar coated attack on them. I will gladly stand to defend them, because I understand what they are trying to do. In a world where violence, depravity, and sexual license is celebrated, even in children’s “entertainment” there are people that feel that Christians need a place where they are welcomed and their faith is celebrated and not under attack. A privately funded Creation inspired museum is certainly no worse than the multitude of tax-payer funded museums that present the theory of evolution as scientific fact, and a Bible inspired theme park is certainly no worse than a theme park where Christians have to schedule their visits so that they miss Gay Pride day, is it? And you should know that people like Christopher Hitchens need no other reason to attack Christians and their faith other than the fact that they exist.

As for your feeling that literalists like me are stupid hicks that belong to the “Jesus club”, and make those that don’t “know” Jesus feel like outsiders, there is a reason for that…and it is not us. I do not know if you know Jesus as your personal savior or not, but your comments make me think that maybe you don’t. When that woman asked you in the laundry room if you knew Jesus, she was not talking down to you or trying to make you feel like you were being left out of a “club”; she was most likely wanting to bring you into a personal relationship with Christ. She was probably trying to lead you to a place where you put your trust in Him and Him alone, she probably wanted to lead you to the peace of knowing that God does love you and wants to take care of you, to be your Friend, Counselor, Comforter, and Redeemer. The way you bristled at that suggestion indicates to me that you know about Him but do not really know Him for yourself.

But hey, if reading Milton is what gets you to read the Bible then that’s fine…whatever floats your boat. But please, please spare me the condescension that I detect in your writing, spare me the gratuitous insults about us stupid literalists that don’t read books “other than the Bible”. We do read other books than the Bible; we just keep it in its proper place as our primary text for living a Christian life. Milton’s works may be classics of literature, but there is only one Book that we ignorant Christians know of that can lead a man to salvation, and provide him a place to build his faith, and to renew his strength or the daily challenges that life throws at us. That is why we treasure the Bible and cling to its words, and not the spurious “interpretations” that the leading lights of the day have for it. We are adhering to the words recorded in Second Timothy 3:16-17 which read: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

But maybe that is just a bit more simplistic drivel from us Bible thumpers, which gives all of the intelligent Christians pause, and the intellectual atheist’s ammunition.

 

Do you ever wonder “What if…?” about things? It could be anything, maybe a ‘lost love’ or a major life decision, that gets you wondering “What if” and thinking how things may have turned out if you had done this thing, said those words, or went to a certain place. As you can tell, I do that at times and lately I have been thinking “What if John Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated?” That thought intrigues me, because I wonder how different our country would have been had Lee Harvey Oswald not been able to carry out his murderous plan on that sunny day in Dallas, Texas so many years ago.

I think that had Kennedy not been killed, the parties as we know them now may not exist in their present form. The GOP may not have a virtual lock on the ‘conservative’ label that it has done little to warrant lately, and the Democratic Party may not have drifted so far left that it is a virtual socialist enterprise.

I say that because I firmly believe that John Kennedy was more of a forebear of Ronald Reagan than he was of Bill Clinton, roguish behavior and charm notwithstanding. Look at Kennedy’s record as a politician and you make your mind up as to whether he fit today’s template of liberal or conservative.

On the military, defense, and intelligence Kennedy was way more hawkish than any modern Democrat save Joe Lieberman. While Kennedy made some bad decisions in how to get things done militarily, he at least saw the need for a strong military and for a functioning intelligence arm. The Kennedy administration saw some of the most ridiculous plots to off a revolutionary Communist threat this side of a Naked Gun movie, but we can at least see that he understood the threat that communist ideology presented to us, and he acted on it.

Contrast that with the Democrats of today, and you would have to say that Kennedy would definitely not fit in with little brother Teddy and his ilk. The Democrat Party of today sees no greater threat to the safety and security of this nation than Republicans, George Bush, talk radio, and anti-incumbent political speech. This is where their head is at, in a world where Al-Qaeda has sworn our destruction, Iran is feverishly trying to get a nuclear weapon in order to wipe Israel from the map, and Russia is being led ever so gently back into a state of despotism the Democrats see one of our greatest threats as Sean Hannity!

And I know that the line about Kennedy and Reagan has probably raised some eyebrows…and some ire as well…but I think it is a valid comparison. Look at the way both men thought of America, and how they spoke of it. Both saw America not as blight on the world, but as a shining example of what the world should aspire to. Both men saw America as a place filled with opportunities waiting to be grasped, of dreams begging to be fulfilled, and great destinies to be achieved; not as some lowly, oppressive, hell-hole that has nothing to offer but pain, misery, and despair.

And think of this, when John Kennedy ran for President against Richard Nixon he ran to the RIGHT of the sitting Republican Vice President…and it was authentic, not a put on! Kennedy believed that America was doing well, but that it could be doing great; he believed that America was strong, but could be stronger. That type of attitude would get Kennedy the Lieberman treatment from today’s Democrats for sure!

And I don’t think that a Kennedy led Democrat Party would have become the gigantic nanny party that I has morphed into, because I don’t see Kennedy as being a man that thought the government was supposed to run your life for you. I don’t think that “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” was just an empty slogan in his inaugural address. I firmly believe that Kennedy meant it, and we probably would never have seen the “War on Poverty” or the “Great Society” come to fruition on his watch; we probably would have seen a President that believed that social safety net programs were just that, safety nets, and not lifestyle programs!

Who knows, if John Kennedy had lived the Democrats and Republicans may have ended up 180 degrees out of phase, to steal a phrase from the Maha Rushie with the GOP giving in to its leftward leaner’s and the Democrats staying in the middle and leaning a bit to the right.

Now wouldn’t that be crazy…me, a Democrat!

On a recent blog post of mine Philosophocon asked me a question about the immigration debate, but he wanted a view that doesn’t get heard a lot. He asked me about how Blacks felt about the immigration issue, and that got me thinking seriously about it. Keep in mind that I can’t speak for all Blacks in the country, but like I replied to Phil I’ll give it a shot!

As a student at Winston-Salem State University, a HBCU located in Winston-Salem, NC I have been privy to several conversations on this issue, and believe me it would surprise you what these young people are saying. Many of them feel that the influx of illegal immigrants is outing them in a financial bind; many of these students are on some type of financial aid and have jobs to make some personal cash. Many of them feel that illegal immigrants are locking them out of jobs that they would traditionally have, summer work like landscaping or construction is basically off limits to them because employers have access to incredibly cheap labor for the job openings that come available.

The students that I have talked to also feel that the influx of illegals has locked them out of what would be entry level jobs that they could have had a few years ago. Jobs like working at McDonald’s or a place like that are increasingly unavailable because they are being filled by illegal immigrants that have no real desire to move up, and are willing to work at minimum wage for long periods of time. The students that I have spoken with have looked at these as jobs that they could hold all through school, and have a chance to move up in before they left the company; now they feel as though the companies do not want to give them a chance to even get started.

But in the broader sense, the Black community is probably more conservative on this issue than one would expect. Blacks seem to see that increased illegal immigration threatens the economic stability of the Black middle class, and they want to see something done about it. Many Black small business owners are being directly affected by the influx of illegal workers, as they are being priced out of certain jobs because they cannot compete using legal workers. Because they have to pay their employees legally, and at wages above the minimum, the businesses that employ illegal immigrants are able to beat them on price. Also, the threat is very real for the reason I mentioned before: too many Black youth are being shut out of entry level jobs and are not having the opportunity to develop job skills. School is great and all, but kids need to have some real world experience before they go out on their own and right now they aren’t getting it, many times because there is a cheaper alternative available.

Politically, Blacks are starting to look askance at their “leaders” and at the Democratic Party over this issue. When the Hispanic/Latino population began to really grow in America, the politicians that had for so long claimed to be our friends began to ignore us; there was a new victim in town, and a new group to pander to. Democrat politicians still give lip service to the issues that Black “leaders” tell them are important, but their attention is with the growing Hispanic population and in trying to find a way to get their votes. Suddenly La Raza is getting as much attention from the Democrats as the NAACP, and many Blacks are getting their hackles up about it. Many are upset that the Democrats have left them like a jilted lover, while many more are starting to see that the Black community has been used not so much as a mistress, but more as a hooker that has been p*mped out by it’s leaders…and that spells trouble for both the politicians and the so-called leaders of the Black community.

And there is tension between Blacks and Hispanics, even if the media will never tell you about it. For years Blacks have felt that because of our status as America’s largest minority, and the power of our votes to determine many an election over the years that we were indispensible to the Democrats, and that the media would always treat us with a measure of deference. That has gone by the wayside as the Hispanic/Latino population has outgrown the Black population and they have become the group of choice for the political panderers to ply with their blandishments. Politically savvy Blacks have seen this coming for years, which is why you have seen many start to take a few tentative steps away from the Democrat Party leadership; they knew that the time would come when they would be thrown over for the new group in town. Consider it a political “7 Year Itch”, if you will. This competition for the attentions of the Democrat leadership has led to an understandable feeling of jealousy and mistrust between the “leaders” on both sides. And regular, everyday Blacks have long seen this push towards amnesty for what it is; a play by the Democrats to bring in another captive voting bloc to the Democratic fold, at the expense of the Black vote that has been solidly Democratic for as long as I can remember.

What the Black community will do is anyone’s guess; we may finally get ourselves out of Silky’s Cadillac and stand on our own feet, or we may decide that it’s scary making that type of change and scoot over for Silky’s new ho. But whatever happens, it will come with our eyes wide open and be a conscious decision that we enter into; we can’t claim to have been bamboozled on this one!

And that’s my take on the truth, in Black and …Brown!

                                                                       
                                    The Decider........   The Mouthpiece.... &....The Jester

Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. Proverbs 16:18-19 (NKJV)

Hubris (n): exaggerated pride or self confidence  Langenscheidt’s Pocket Dictionary (Merriam-Webster)

                       

In the last few weeks, we have been treated to some serious hubris on parade coming out of the nation’s capital. Everywhere we look, there is someone out there trying to sell us on the merits of the amnesty bill for illegal aliens that the Democrats and too many members of the GOP have conspired to cook up. While it is par for the course for the Democrats to want to make the immoral moral, or the illegal legal, what has been truly disappointing has been the actions of the Republicans in Washington, D.C. and their complicity in this “scamnesty”, as it has been so accurately called.

But what has truly been breathtaking has been the way the White House and it’s (few) supporters have taken in after the very people that put them in power in the first place…the conservative base of the Republican Party. They have stooped to the same tricks that the Democrats are known for when someone crosses them; name-calling, mud-slinging, and back-biting. They have leveled false accusations at people, and have taken to blaming talk radio for all their problems selling the scamnesty bill to the people.

Take President Bush, aka The Decider for example. He has been out there beating the…um...well, bushes for months trying to convince people that there is no other way on the immigration issue except to issue an amnesty bill and put all 12 million illegals on the fast track to legal status. He has tried to convince us that building the border fence isn’t quite “do-able” and wouldn’t be a good idea anyway. We are to believe that it is impossible for a country that can put a space shuttle up into orbit to fix a space station run by our friendly Russian cosmonaut friends….all things that were seemingly impossible when I was a kid…to build a fence along our southern border, or to find the 12 million illegal immigrants that are in country now. I have to wonder if The Decider actually thinks we’re that stupid, or if he’s just trying to convince himself that we’re that stupid!

Then there’s Tony Snow who has the task of taking the President’s position to the media and trying to sell it to the people out in TV land. Now, I can’t say if the White House position on amnesty is the same as Mr. Snow’s views but from the way he has been acting I have to assume that it is. Take Mr. Snow’s very recent turn on The Sean Hannity Show this week. When Mr. Snow was challenged by Hannity on the merits of the bill and on the particulars as well, Snow went into Mouthpiece mode. He told Hannity that he, and others on talk radio, were giving the public false information and trying to mislead them on the merits of the amnesty bill. I don’t know about you, but on this issue I trust Rush, Sean, Laura, Lars, or Levin to tell me the truth way more than the White House; mainly because the talk show hosts don’t have a dog in the fight and because they actually listen to the people on this issue. And when Sean challenged The Mouthpiece to present one…ONE!..fact that he had wrong, The Mouthpiece couldn’t give him one and said he would send him a list of his mistakes. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that list to be forthcoming though, because Sean had his ducks in a row and has made no untrue or misleading statements about the bill        ; he has simply put out in public what the politicians want to hide!

Finally we come to Trent Lott, the Jester. Senator Lott has been very vocal lately about the ills of talk radio, and how they “run the country” presumably by shaping public attitudes. What I don’t remember, however, is Trent Lott bashing talk radio when he let his loose lips get him into trouble a few years back; which, by the way is probably what caused him to dress up in that ridiculous outfit in the photo. Back when Trent was being excoriated by the press for allegedly being a supporter of segregation…when he was about 9 years old…it was talk radio that rode to his rescue. It was talk hosts like Laura Ingraham that pointed out how two-faced the media was being in their treatment of Lott when they had a former Klansman in the Senate being lauded as the “conscience of the Senate”. It was Sean Hannity that pointed out that Lott was not in any position to support or oppose Senator Thurmond’s positions on segregation at such a young age. And it was Rush Limbaugh that pointed out that while Lott was being ripped to shreds for saying something nice to an old man at his birthday party, the Democrats had supported for President a man whose biggest political idol was an avowed segregationist J. William Fulbright.

And what is even more curious, is that The Jester is throwing in with a President and administration that was less than supportive of him in his time of need. There were no strong words of support for Sen. Lott when he was being forced to issue apology after apology, and being stripped of his place as Senate Majority Leader. For him to go to the mattresses for this administration on this issue is beyond the realm of my comprehension for two reasons: 1. The White House abandoned him in his time of need, and 2. this is an issue that is a total political loser because the vast majority of Americans oppose it. But Sen. Lott has chosen this issue to how his loyalty to the President on…simply unbelievable!

Maybe all the clowns in Washington trying to shove this down our throats need to stop, step back, and reassess the situation. This is something that liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and moderates have all made known they oppose. Yet the politicians in Washington keep talking about how good this is for the nation…what chutzpah!

This is truly hubris on parade!

                                               

Here is another article from Charles Davenport on why there is such enthusiasm for a Fred Thompson presidential run. Enjoy!

p.s.: There will be another The More Things Change article forthcoming about the environmental movement, so be on the look out for that as well!

Thompson pleases the Republican base

--From the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record of Sunday, June 10, 2007

Last year’s electoral success for Democrats was the direct result of disenchantment and malaise among conservatives. The Bush administration and the formerly GOP-controlled Congress have disappointed the Republican base on several issues paramount to the traditionalist Right—most conspicuously, on immigration. Meanwhile, the current field of GOP presidential candidates has elicited from culture-cons a yawn of indifference because no candidate is considered both conservative and electable. According to a New York Times/CBS poll, 57 percent of Republicans are “dissatisfied” with the present field.

The conservative countenance brightens dramatically, however, at the mere mention of one name: Fred Thompson. His candidacy, likely to be announced next month, quickens the pulse to a degree reminiscent of November 1994 and the Gingrich revolution. Justifiably so. Thompson, a “Law & Order” star and former senator, is indisputably conservative and eminently electable.

On the latter point, even Democrats agree. Strategists and campaign managers on the Left have forthrightly expressed their fear of a Thompson candidacy. John Fund, writing in The American Spectator, brings to our attention the opinion of prominent Democratic strategist Bob Beckel. A Thompson candidacy, he says, “scares me.” Beckel believes Thompson’s communication skills and broad appeal would make him a formidable opponent. Long-time Clinton staffer Lanny Davis concurs, writing of Thompson: “I hope he isn’t the GOP nominee because he would be very difficult to beat.”

Fred Thompson’s conservative credentials were firmly established in the 90s, during his tenure as a senator from Tennessee. His voting record earned him a rating of 86 from the American Conservative Union. (Senator Clinton’s rating is 12, Obama’s an 8, and Edwards’ a 10.) Although there are other GOP candidates with higher ACU scores, they are relative unknowns, and probably unelectable.

In recent months, Thompson has rejuvenated the Republican base with a series of red meat-laden speeches, articles and television interviews. When liberal filmmaker Michael Moore challenged him to a debate on health care last month, a cigar-chomping Thompson responded with a stinging, deliciously sarcastic video clip on the Internet. The applause from conservatives was deafening.

Pro-lifers, given the opportunity, will storm the voting booth in droves to support Thompson. His Senate record on the issue is excellent, as evidenced by his 0 rating from NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League. He considers the Roe v. Wade decision “bad law and bad medical science” that should be overturned.

Although Thompson embraces tolerance, he rejects “special rights” for anyone. He opposes gay marriage, for instance, but believes the states should decide the question of “civil unions.” Marriage, he says, is the exclusive domain of “a man and a woman.” Federalism is a key component of Thompson’s belief system, across the board. His nod to the Tenth Amendment will appeal to advocates of lower taxes and limited-government—in short, the Republican Party’s base.

Conservatives will also be delighted with Thompson’s position on gun contol: he opposes it. His voting record is friendly to Second Amendment enthusiasts and, specifically, to owners of firearms. He also favors school choice.

But the issue likely to propel Thompson to the top of the GOP heap is immigration, on which his views are identical to the conservative rank-and-file (and 70 percent of the electorate). In the good-natured, congenial way that he speaks of most issues, he blasts the GOP establishment’s position on immigration.

The immigration bill currently before Congress, for instance, Thompson considers a “phony bill of goods on border security.” The American people, he believes, will not be duped again by promises of enhanced border security and workplace enforcement provisions in exchange for amnesty. Of stricter enforcement, he says merely “putting it on a piece of paper does not convince the American people.” Thompson believes border security must be in place before we even consider the status of the 12-20 million illegal immigrants (or “undocumented workers”) already here.

As president, Thompson says, he would remind Mexico’s Felipe Calderon that a “sovereign nation loses that status if it can’t secure its own borders,” and that the U.S. will enforce immigration law. Calderon is mistaken, Thompson believes, in his belief that it is this nation’s responsibility to “make citizens of his constituents.” Furthermore, perhaps Calderon should rethink Mexico’s “left-of-center” policies which have created an economy that depends “on the export of its own citizens.”

Fred Thompson has neither declared his candidacy nor spent a dime on advertising, yet he consistently places second and third in national polls. Unlike any candidate in recent memory, Thompson inspires and motivates the Republican base. Consequently, upon announcing his candidacy, he will leapfrog the rest of the field.

Charles Davenport Jr. (www.cdavenportjr.com) (daisha99@msn.com) is a freelance columnist who appears in the News & Record on alternate Sundays.

We hear a lot about the plight of men in the society of today and rightly so. If there is one group that can be picked on, made fun of, ridiculed, or mocked it seems to be men. They are the group that everyone seems to think it is okay to malign, to humiliate, and to devalue.

Masculinity is seemingly always under attack in the popular media. Behavior that once was seen just as boys being boys is now characterized as dangerous, violent, or hateful. When I was a boy, my brothers, cousins, and various family friends played football, basketball, cowboys…the whole gamut of boyhood games. And no one thought it strange, no one said we were doing anything wrong, and when we left the girls out no one said we had to let them play with us. We even organized our own wrestling promotion, complete with contracts, home made belts, ring names and entrances, and on family gatherings we had our “supercards” where all the titles were up for grabs. We did it up first class…for a bunch of kids…and our parents smiled, told us not to hurt each other, and left it at that. Just boys being boys.

As we got older, we started to chase after girls a little bit, since that was the natural progression expected of boys as they became young men. We had our little schoolhouse romances, got our first kisses, and even snuck around and copped the occasional feel of our little girlfriends behinds. They would tell us to stop, we would, and that was that. There was no need to tell your parents or call the cops, because it was expected if not accepted that this is what boys at a certain age do. Boys will be boys, after all.

Now things have radically changed. The things that were fun for us as kids are now frowned upon by society. Roughhousing is no longer expected, but is grounds for mandatory anger management counseling; trying to kiss your little girlfriend or feel her up is now the impetus for sexual harassment counseling and in some cases for the involvement of the police. That’s right, what was innocent for the most part in my day is now criminal; do what we did and you might find yourself appearing on sex offender website!

And it gets no easier as men, as the popular culture is inundated with images of men as dimwits, slow-coaches, or brutes. A man that is forceful and commanding is characterized as a brutish bully, bent on intimidating all those he comes into contact with. If not bullies, men are the punch line to life’s jokes; men can’t express themselves, can’t deal with emotions, can’t connect with their children, can’t talk to their wives, can’, can’t, can’t….the list is endless.

Now there are authors and advocates that are challenging this trend, and are getting the word out about it. They are trying their best to rescue the image and reputations of men from the distortions that modern society has made in that image. But as bad as it sometimes seems to white men, the same is happening to black men. But for blacks there is a double whammy that makes this problem even worse for us.

While we get lumped in with the “dumb” man jokes and all that, we face the extra slap of being treated as useless, irrelevant, or criminal…and worst of all unnecessary. Society sees us as the criminal class, the media treats us as second class, and our own communities have started to see us a nearly unnecessary impediment to black women. This attitude towards, and treatment of, black men has its roots in the Great Society scheme that Lyndon Johnson and his Democrat cronies dreamed up in the 1960s.

The Great Society was supposed to be a set of programs that gave financial help to the poor, but in the black community it morphed from a war on poverty to a war on black men. When the government began to give unmarried mothers money to feed their children, house, and clothe their children that was the beginning of the end for black fathers in many communities. The government became the very thing that fathers had always been, and stripped black men of some of their authority. The government was the provider, instead of the black man, and suddenly it became more profitable for black women to raise their children alone than with the help of a man. Look at it as our own little “women’s lib” moment, if you will.

And from that start sprang the current conditions that face many black men today; they are distrusted by many in the wider society and are discounted in their own communities. I can hardly count the times that I have seen or heard, in media or in person, the sentiment that black men are basically worthless. How many times have I seen in movies the image of the black man as one who runs out on his responsibilities, leaves his children fatherless, and will not do what it takes to be a man? That theme is one that comes up over and over again, and while there may be some truth to it, it is not all there is to the story.

Let me give you a real life example of what I am talking about when I say that the stereotype does not necessarily hold true. I have a cousin, more like a brother actually, who is raising his three kids on his own. He and his wife had some serious marital problems and eventually divorced; he fought tooth and nail to gain custody of his children in a system that was quite obviously stacked against him. He got custody of his two older children first and continued to fight for custody for his youngest until she was able to come live with him. He works a full time job and has a small business on the side, yet he never misses any activity that his kids are involved in. He makes sure that they are involved in after school activities, to keep them away from the temptations of the streets, and he makes sure that they value their educations and bring home good grades. He has set high goals for them and he pushes them to achieve them because he has made the commitment to them to make sure they have a chance to succeed in life. He puts the welfare of his children above all else, and they are much the better for it.

I say this not just to pat him on the back, even though he well deserves it, but as an illustration that the stereotypes are just that…stereotypes. My brother is not the only black man out there doing right by his kids and his community; it happens all the time all over the country. It’s just not the story that the media wants to tell; they are still stuck on pretending to be our friends while stabbing us in the back.

But in spite of all that, we will stand strong as men, and as black men. We know that we have much to offer and that we are important to our families, our communities, and our nation. We know that we are more than the punch line to another weak attempt at humor and that we are necessary to the correct functioning of our society. And we take solace in the fact that even in the midst of all of the scorn, ridicule, and attacks there are those that value us and fight for us.

So as we come into the upcoming Father’s Day celebration, let me be the first to wish all of the fathers reading this a happy Father’s Day. I salute you all.

As men.

Today I am going to do something that I have never done before, I am going to turn the Spade over to a guest writer. Charles Davenport Jr. is a columnist whose work appears in on my local papers, The Greensboro News & Record and he is a solid conservative. I usually read his articles that appera in the paper, and while i don't always agree with his viewpoints, I can always respect them. That is what seperates us from the liberals, we can disagree on some points without being drummed out of the movement....but I digress.

The article that I am about to post eals with the issue of aboton and the recent SCOTUS decison on partial birth abortion. I reprint it with Mr. Davenport's permission because he is able to express many of the feelings that I have on the issue, but have been unable to adequately express. So enjoy the article, as I did, and feel free to leave any comments you may have.

A victory for the defenseless

From the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record of Sunday, May 27, 2007

Critics of last month’s Supreme Court decision on abortion have portrayed the ruling as an assault on women’s “constitutional right to choose,” and a dangerous precedent that could open the door to additional restrictions. In truth, the Court has prohibited only one, particularly vicious type of late-term abortion, a method pro-choice activists call “intact dilation and extraction.” Critics of the procedure prefer the term “partial-birth abortion,” which is inflammatory, but dreadfully accurate. Consider the testimony of a nurse who witnessed the method performed on a 26-week fetus and described it to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

"Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the arms--everything but the head...The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby went completely limp." For the sake of comparison, Jamie and Jennifer Brannock have graciously contributed an ultrasound of their 20-week fetus, Jordan Lynn, who is due September 15.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion in which she criticized the Court for weighing the “moral concerns” of partial-birth abortion. Likewise, in a Counterpoint feature earlier this month, Greensboro’s B.J. Weatherby expressed “outrage” over the Court’s utilization of “moral norms.” The author, who refuses to use the term “partial-birth abortion” (“a vile, gruesome name designed to make everyone shudder”), asks readers, “whose norms” should determine matters of “privacy and individual rights.”

If a procedure is vile and gruesome, the term used to describe it should be vile and gruesome, unless of course, one’s intent is to conceal the nature of said procedure. An explicit description of intact dilation and extraction (or whatever we call it) should make everyone shudder—or at least, everyone with a conscience. The Constitution says nothing about a “woman’s right to choose” the taking of an innocent life; it certainly does not condone the killing of infants in a fashion mere inches and seconds away from infanticide.

Justice Ginsburg expressed dismay over the Court’s utilization of “moral concerns” in prohibiting partial-birth abortion, and Weatherby demanded to know whose “moral norms” should prevail. But morality is the cornerstone of law. The collective conscience dictates that robbery, rape, and murder are morally wrong, therefore illegal, and punishable by law. Civilized societies condemn barbarism. Behavioral and moral norms, as reflected in the collective conscience, are enforced by law.

Would defenders of partial-birth abortion argue that a prohibition on rape or murder is an unacceptable “imposition” of someone else’s morality? Intellectual consistency would lead them to such conclusions; but no, they are selective about when the imposition of morality is acceptable. In this case, the collective conscience (the moral norm) has declared partial-birth abortion cruel, inhumane and, contrary to the claims of its defenders, unnecessary.

Nevertheless, virtually every prominent Democrat has condemned the Court’s decision. Former Senator John Edwards called it “ill-considered,” a “hard right turn” that reminds us of how much is at stake in the 2008 election—meaning, of course, “a woman’s right to choose.” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said the ruling is “a departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that recognized the importance of women’s health” and an “erosion of our constitutional rights.” In the 90s, President Clinton vetoed a ban on partial birth abortions. Twice. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned it as “a significant step backward.”

While researching this topic, I stumbled across an editorial on the death penalty that appeared in these pages two months ago. The irony of one sentence from the editorial board’s closing paragraph is staggering: “Physicians are trained to treat every life as valuable, and government should not try to use its power to undermine the moral underpinnings of the practice of medicine.” Inversely, when physicians do not treat innocent life as valuable, when the practice of medicine has abandoned its moral underpinnings, doesn’t the government have a responsibility to enforce the collective conscience?

Charles Davenport Jr. (www.cdavenportjr.com) (daisha99@msn.com) is a freelance columnist who appears alternate Sundays in the News & Record.

As Fred Dalton Thompson gets ever so close to stepping into the Presidential race, the GOP's conservative base is getting nearly giddy with excitement. Here is the man that we have put all of our Reagan wish fulfillment fantasies in; the strong, authoritative, articulate conservative that is uabashedly conservative. There is not even a hint of any "compassionate conservativism" in anything he says or does. He is what we claim to have been looking for for the last 8-12 years, and now he has arrived.

But I don't think that Fred Thompson's anticipated entry into the race is at all a reason for giddiness; I am looking at this as he point where the GOP is now going to have to finally take a stand. Is the GOP in line with the principles of the base, which is overwhelmingly conservative. Or is it, as I have long suspected, filled to the brim with country club elitists who do not embrace conservatives but merely tolerate them in their ranks.

How the GOP reacts to the anticipated Thompson candidacy will say volumes about where the Party sees it's future. If the Party poers and pundits, including some here at Townhall, continue to push a Guiliani or McCain nomination at us on the grounds that these two are "electable", we will know where the GOP has staked its future. It will have become a Party that is totally bereft of any principles, save one...winning elections; just like it's cousin, the Donkey Party. If it embaces Thompson, there may be some hope yet that conservative values are still a core part of the GOP and its future.

I am not saying that any opposition to Thompson is opposition to conservatism, but the nature of that opposition will be. How many, and how quickly will the power players of the GOP will rush to label Thompson as a captive of the "religious right" or the "far right"? And how many will try to tell us that all that matters is the "electibility" of the more "moderate" candidates? That will speak volumes.

No, this is not a time for dancing in the streets, for patting each other on the back, or for jubilation. This is a time for the conservative base to let it be known, by our words, actions, and votes that we are the backbone of this Party. It is a time for the conservatives in the GOP to watch closely what the party does: Will it support Guiliani over Thompson as it supported Specter over Toomey? This is a time for clarity of thought, and steely eyed determination to reclaim the Party from the "moderates" who embrace everything, while standing for nothing.

And if the Party chooses to ignore the base...again...and ignores our voices, it will be time for something else entirely. It will be time to call the Party to account.

It will be time for a reckoning.