Sunday, August 12, 2012

Martial Law and Courts Martials - Military Service in the Age of Tyranny

When a man or woman makes the decision to serve his or her country as a member of the Armed Forces, it's a momentous decision. He or she is embarking upon a journey unlike any other ever experienced in his or her young life. It starts at a recruiting office where the uniformed equivalent of a used car salesman shows them all the POSITIVE aspects of military service, but omits the LESS than pleasant ones such as BOOT CAMP. Nonetheless, our military is the finest in the world and bears the awesome responsibility of protecting this country and its interests at home and abroad. An enlistee or officer is also writing a blank check to the people of this country for an amount up to and including his or her LIFE, and he or she is prepared to honor that check should the need arise.

Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines undergo rigorous physical and mental conditioning designed to increase their physical strength and mental toughness, but it also turns the individual from a self centered individual concerned only with himself, to a member of a unit, a part of something greater than themselves. For the Marines, it's the simple code of Unit, Corps, God, and Country. These are his or her priorities and it's drilled into their marrow as part of their training. All branches of the Armed Forces have similar indoctrinations. They also take an oath upon enlistment or commission to “support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign AND domestic, and to OBEY the ORDERS of the officers appointed over them” Orders given MUST be obeyed if they are given by a competent authority. For the average recruit, that authority is evidenced in the stripes on the sleeve or bars on the collar of the officer or sergeant giving them the order.

The military has it's own internal code of law and conduct in addition to the Constitution and laws of the State called the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ. This code contains laws of conduct applicable ONLY to members of the United States Armed Forces. These include the duty to follow orders. Disobedience is a criminal offense that, depending upon the degree of charge, can result in reductions in rank, forfeiture of pay, general or dishonorable discharge, or a sentence of incarceration. Every serving member is taught the basics of this code, but they are not lawyers, nor are the expected to have a lawyers understanding of legality when it comes to the military. They are not expected to analyze orders, but to OBEY them unconditionally. and this is driven home to them again and again. It's necessary to the good order and discipline of the military, but it also saves lives in the stress of combat, when there is not the luxury or leisure to discuss things in committee. As Jack Nicholson's character, Colonel Nathan Jessup in “A Few Good Men” put it, “We follow orders or people DIE. It's THAT simple.” And if you DISOBEY an order, there WILL be consequences.

Since the days of the Nixon Presidency, there has been a contingency plan for the declaration of marital law in this country. Nixon believed that the Viet Nam protesters were controlled by Russian communists and that they may at any time erupt into unfettered violence in an attempt to bring out revolution and the overthrow of the United States government. This idea seems far fetched to us now, with the hindsight of history. WE know that this did NOT happen, but at the time it was a very REAL possibility, and as the Venona papers revealed, such ideas HAD been considered by the Central Committee and Politburo of the former Soviet Union. So Nixon authored the plan to be executed in the event of a civil emergency, not unlike Hitler's VALKYRIE plan that nearly cost him HIS government when it was subverted by plotters seeking to overthrow the NAZI regime in Germany. Every President since Nixon has had access to this plan, and all have made various modifications to it, but NONE have ever admitted publicly the plan's existence or any role they may have played in it's evolution.

Today we're facing a federal government like NEVER before. Since Nixon's time, we've seen the PATRIOT Act, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, domestic spying and monitoring of our internet usage and email traffic, the NDAA which authorizes indefinite detention of ANYONE without due process or habeus corpus, etc. The government has become increasingly hostile and adversarial to the civil liberties of law abiding, tax paying Americans and it shows NO signs of loosening its grip on our freedoms in the foreseeable future. There's also evidence that our election processes are no longer fair or honest and that their results may be untrustworthy. Voter fraud was RAMPANT in the last Presidential and congressional elections and will only AMPLIFY in the coming one. The stakes are too high across the board. If people cannot trust elections, then can they trust the legitimacy of our GOVERNMENT itself? And what happens if they CANNOT? President Kennedy said it best when he said “Those who make peaceful transition impossible will make VIOLENT revolution INEVITABLE” and he was right. Given what transpired in Iran and Russia when THEIR elections were disputed or suspected of FRAUD, should the same thing happen here, a similar uprising is not inconceivable.

If the protest is in the form of a TEA party, then the civil authorities have no worries, but if it's more of a VIOLENT protest or RIOT, the civil authorities may not have the capability to respond and military forces may be called in to restore order and enforce a declaration of martial law. If that force is resisted in any way, our troops may be called upon to do the unthinkable, open fire on their fellow American citizens. How will they handle themselves in that moment. For the troops facing the people, most if not all of whom will be unarmed, they will receive the order to open fire from either a sergeant or a junior officer. How they react in that split second will impact them for the rest of their lives, one way or another. Who are these men and/or women who have the power of life and death over political protesters, and how will they react? Will they open fire and slaughter American civilians, or will they refuse to follow these orders and risk reprisal from the military?

When soldiers take to the streets and are given the order to open fire, the ones holding the weapons will be kids only a year or two out of high school. The ONLY thing they'll have to go by is their moral compass, and their loyalty to their chain of command. They will NOT play issues of military or civilian law in their minds, and they will be hard pressed to disobey their orders. There are severe consequences to a member of the armed forces should they do so. They will not be thinking of the Nazis who answered for their crimes at Nuremberg with the defense that they were “just following orders” nor will they know or care that that defense did not work. The most conflict they will have will be MORAL conflict, if they were raised in a good Christian home, but even THAT can't be counted on these days.

For military enlisted persons, or commissioned officers alike, when an order to fire their weapons is given, there can be only one of three possible responses. They can OBEY the order and risk the consequences that may come of THAT at a later date, or they can REFUSE to obey the order, in which case they risk criminal prosecution for any number of infractions under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. They can lock their weapon, lay it down and step back, thereby refusing to obey and subjecting themselves to immediate arrest, they can take that weapon and run to join the people, thereby risking a charge of desertion, or they can encourage others to join them in their actions, thereby risking a charge of Mutiny or Sedition as well as desertion under fire, all of which carry the DEATH penalty if guilt is adjudicated by a courts martial.

While the UCMJ provides the defense that an order may be disobeyed if it is illegal or unlawful, the burden of proving that the order was unlawful in the first place falls upon the soldier who substituted his OWN judgment of legality for that of his chain of command. It is an uphill fight that MOST defendants lose, because the good order and discipline of the military depends on soldiers following the orders given. In combat situations, there isn't TIME to debate, and the man with the most stars or bars has to know that when he gives an order, it's followed.

If it is the intention of the Commander in Chief to use the Army as his own private police force, dissension in the ranks is a THREAT and will be dealt with VERY harshly so as to discourage OTHERS from doing the same. A soldier who refuses an order to fire can be charged with offenses ranging from simple disobedience, to Mutiny and Sedition, which are CAPITAL offenses. If YOU were in their place, would YOU risk that? Some will, but MOST will likely NOT. It's far easier to just follow the order. After all, there's a chain of command that will own the responsibility if it's the wrong order. And the men confronting protesters will likely not be combat infantry troops that have seen action in the field. They will more likely be Military Police battalions specially recruited and trained for just such an assignment.

There are growing calls across social media for the military to step in and remove an unlawful government, but there is no precedent in our law or history for such an action. The Founders wrote our constitution to prevent a tyrannical government from coming to power, but they could not foresee progressives, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, the Patriot Act, NDAA, or any of the things that have since come to pass in this country. They could not have known about SEIU, ACORN, Occupy Wall Street, the TEA party, the takeover by communism of Academia, the Media, the Courts, and the CONGRESS, either. We are living in dangerous times and there is no book or blueprint to get us out of the mess we're in. It ultimately took NAZIS to get communists out of Germany, and they just came HERE and set up shop in Columbia University. It's taken progressives nearly a CENTURY to wreak as much social, political, and economic havoc as they have in this country, and we're not going to clean it up overnight.

But to those calling for the violent overthrow of our corrupt government, be careful what you WISH for. You might just GET it, and then God help us! I would have NO objection at ALL to a military coup d'etat if I thought it would be led by a WASHINGTON and not a NAPOLEON as was the case in France and Spain. In THOSE cases, the CURE was worse than the DISEASE. But no citizen uprising can be successful without the military being on board. Only the MILITARY could have stopped HITLER before he destroyed Germany, and that lesson is NOT lost on our commanders. But they are SWORN to uphold the constitution and unless and until a competent authority tells them otherwise, that means they are subject to civilian authority, as long as that authority is constitutionally empowered. The military would likely require a finding of unconstitutionality by a Court of competent jurisdiction such as the Supreme Court before it would ultimately act, but it would be better if the military with its resources went against the GOVERNMENT than having it used by the government against US. We've seen what Quadhaffi did to his people (though not for long), what happened in Iran and Syria when THEIR people took on their military, and again in IRAN what happened to the SHAH when the military REFUSED to obey HIS orders to attack the civilians, so what OUR military will do when given such an order is a matter for speculation at best. We can only HOPE they will do the RIGHT thing.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Department of Justice vs. State of Florida - Nation of MEN vs. Nation of LAWS

The USA was founded to be a nation of laws, not a nation of men. Our Founding Fathers knew all too well the European style of governance where the will of the King was the law of the land and those laws were subject to the caprices of often mercurial monarchs. They did not want that here in their newly minted republic. They also wrote restrictions into the Constitution against bills or laws of attainder - laws that do not apply EQUALLY to everyone but target specific persons or groups in their enforcement. The Founders understood that in the hands of a corrupt official, such laws could be used as a weapon that would give an incumbent politician a major advantage over anyone else and they knew that men COULD be corrupted. To balance HUMAN nature, they made us a nation of LAWS that would apply equally to all. To ensure the uniform enforcement of Federal laws we have a Department of Justice, headed by the Attorney General of the United States and a similar legal hierarchy in each of America's FIFTY states. The Attorney General, though a political appointee in many cases holds a unique position. He or she may owe his or her position to a politician, but should that politician run afoul of the LAW, he or she is expected to investigate and prosecute that politician without passion or prejudice or appoint a special prosecutor in the event he or she is unable to do so without the appearance of conflict. In short, NO one is above the law - in THEORY anyway.

In REALITY, we have a "Justice" Department and Attorney General at the Federal Level who seems to be more about being a political ATTACK dog for his MASTER and his political PARTY than a WATCHDOG for the uniform and blind enforcement of Federal laws. Today we have more of an INJUSTICE Department, or Department of Obstruction of Justice and Eric Holder is like a Mafia Enforcer carrying out attacks and lawsuits against anyone designated by his CAPO or DON against anyone or any entity that is not towing the politically correct, ethnically pandering, party line. We've seen COUNTLESS examples of how the Attorney General and Department of Justice have attacked states attempting to legislate enforce their own laws within their own borders, some of which have NOTHING to do with Federal authority, especially laws that are designed to minimize Voter Fraud. Why would the Attorney General of the United States NOT want honest elections? Could it be that it's because HIS party generally BENEFITS the most from such FRAUDS?

Enter Governor Rick Scott and the State of Florida who are merely trying to ascertain which persons currently on the State of Florida's voter rolls may be DECEASED and therefore no longer ELIGIBLE to vote. Secretaries of State, the state officials responsible for conducting and overseeing elections in their jurisdictions, are charged with this responsibility and it is often done as a matter of routine. For SOME reason, however, Attorney General Eric Holder has mounted a personal CRUSADE against ANY state trying to minimize or ELIMINATE voter fraud in local, state, and national elections. We've seen multiple instances of states being attacked by the Attorney General and the Department of Justice for merely requiring registered voters to show an official form of photo identification before casting their ballots. Who exactly would that disenfranchise? Who does NOT carry SOME form of identification with them in modern America, as one is required to do just about ANYTHING. The only people who would NOT have valid photo identification would be people who are NOT who they claim to be and such people are usually either illegal aliens who do not have a legal RIGHT to vote, or people purposely committing voter fraud.

The State of Florida is attempting to remove DECEASED persons from its voter rolls so that no one can assume a deceased person's identity and cast a vote in their name. We know that many people have been caught in acts of deliberate voter fraud in the past several election cycles and this is one of the PREFERRED methods of casting illegitimate ballots. The State of Florida is within its rights to clean up its own voter registration rolls and minimize voter fraud. One MIGHT even argue they have a DUTY to do so. Sadly, our Attorney General does not think so and he's threatened legal action against the State of Florida if it continues in this pursuit. Thank goodness the State of Florida has REFUSED to back down to the Federal BULLY. I'm sure Florida's Governor, Rick Scott, and Attorney General, Pam Bondi, will vigorously defend their state's rights in Court and will be fully vindicated in doing so. Law enforcement is about ENFORCING laws, not in PREVENTING their enforcement. We do not HAVE to please the KING to follow the law in this country. Maybe the United States' Attorney General needs a REFRESHER course in basic jurisprudence. I'm sure Florida's Attorney General will be very HAPPY to give it to him. I'm EQUALLY certain an unbiased Federal JUDGE will, too.

Friday, May 11, 2012

O'Reilly vs. Kardashian - For the DEFENSE!





























Say the name Kim Kardashian and, depending upon the company you're in, the response may be either positive or negative. Love her or hate her, the one thing that's certain, we all know who she is. But it's WHY we all know who she is that's the REAL story here. She's famous, yes. But WHY is she famous? Unlike other celebrities, she has NO discernible talent that I am aware of. If she can sing, play an instrument, or act it's news to me. But she IS famous, mostly for being INFAMOUS and that is her BRAND which she has carefully and assiduously nourished over the years. Kim Kardashian has done what was before only a fiction in the advertising industry, branded and marketed a NON existent product. That was the premise of an old Doris Day movie about the advertising business in which a New York advertising executive created a marketing campaign around a fictitious product known only as “Vip”. When brought before the ad council on ethics charges he finally presented a hastily concocted product,  a candy that was made with REAL alcohol and was capable of inducing intoxication upon consumption.

Kim Kardashian is like “Vip” and LIKE the fictitious product "Vip", she too is capable of inducing intoxication, but merely upon exposure. How ELSE can one explain the legions of fans of all ages and genders who make it their “mission” in life to “keep up” with the Kardashians, particularly Kim Kardashian, herself.   In a self started and driven publicity campaign that would make even the biggest names in Madison Avenue advertisers blush with PRIDE, she's waged a one woman marketing campaign that, judging by its results, is worthy of a Clio award at the very least. She has demonstrated the skills of a publicist, a marketer, promoter, and adult film star in her rise to fame and success. And she has parlayed that fame (or infamy) into an enterprise that not only produces television shows, but an impressive array of other merchandise as well.

Kim Kardashian is an entrepreneurial success story in the FINEST American tradition. So, imagine my surprise when last week I hear none other than Bill O'Reilly remark that Kim Kardashian is an example of what's WRONG with America today. Is free market entrepreneurial capitalism what's WRONG? That sounds more like the mantra of the Occupy Wall Street flotsam, most of whom probably FOLLOW Kim Kardashian on Twitter or Facebook and leer at photos of her in various states of undress while sponging off their parents, squatting on public property and screaming “down with capitalism.”

So, shame on you, Bill O'Reilly. Kim Kardashian is not what's WRONG with America, but rather what's RIGHT with it. She took what could have just as easily been her “fifteen minutes” of ancillary fame when the cameras were following her FATHER, Attorney Robert Kardashian, during the O.J. Simpson homicide trial. We all remember Robert Kardashian, the swarthy and stylish gentleman with the leonine head of salt and pepper hair and stylish and well tailored suits sitting right next to O.J. Simpson at the Defense table day after day. The paparazzi and media couldn't get ENOUGH of the “dream team” and so it pursued them into their private lives. When they discovered that Robert Kardashian had a trio of exotically attractive daughters, they suddenly began the process that would later become known as “keeping up with the Kardashians.”

When the trial ended the media spotlight could easily have faded away had Kim Kardashian not taken it upon herself to keep that light pointed and focused in HER direction, and to achieve this she gave us quite a show. It was that show that she parlayed into a media career first in modeling, then reality television, and later into a merchandising enterprise. There's NOTHING wrong with that. Sure, she had a privileged upbringing and she got her initial opportunity by happenstance, but she CHOSE to make the MOST of it and took ACTION to make it happen.  As a result of choices she made and actions she took, she has succeeded and on her OWN terms. That USED to be a GOOD thing, Mr. O'Reilly. Personally I think it STILL is.

In my opinion,  the people that Bill O'Reilly and other commentators and pundits are REALLY referring to as the problem in America are the legions of "lemmings" who care more about keeping up with a Kardashian than they do about what's happening in the REAL world, such as the war in Afghanistan, or the upcoming Presidential election. But there's an old saying about which is the bigger fool, the fool or the fool who FOLLOWS her? Kim Kardashian is not the problem here. It's the people that are obsessed with keeping up with her for all the wrong REASONS that are the REAL problem. 

These days it seems ANYONE can become a “celebrity” if they're willing to show enough skin, or make a fool of themselves on YouTube. Gone are the days when you had to find Lana Turner working the soda fountain in a Hollywood drug store, or the next big musical act playing to the dinner crowd in a spaghetti restaurant in Eerie, Pennsylvania. Celebrities are now more often than not plucked from obscurity on either a reality based contest show, or just by the sheer number of views their videos get on YouTube. If they get enough views it's called “going VIRAL", and it's the video equivalent of self publishing.

It is much easier to self promote these days than it was back in the nineties when Kim Kardashian first started grabbing for the spotlight, but she made the effort and that effort has paid off in a HUGE way. There's even rumors she's planning to back and star in her own SCRIPTED sitcom on a major television network in addition to her other reality shows on the cable entertainment channel. Some may say she doesn't “deserve” that as there are many more qualified “real” actresses out there, but if she's backing the show with her own cash, why NOT let her do it. We KNOW she brings EYES which translates to RATINGS which means MONEY for the network, and if she can DO it, more power to her. If she can't, she'll FAIL and that's all right, too. It happens to the best of us sometimes. Just ask Oprah Winfrey whose OWN cable network enterprise is struggling, But don't hate her for doing what she does. She earns major BANK for doing it, pays her TAXES, and in the process creates more JOBS than any Washington politician can honestly claim to have done.

There are only two possible “reasons” to “hate” Kim Kardashian, and they go to the old “sour grapes” psychological term rationalization; or, as Aesop put it in his "Fox and Grapes" fable - "It's EASY to DESPISE what you CANNOT get."  If you're a woman hating on her, it's because you can't BE her and have her LIFE;  or, your MAN is fantasizing about being with HER instead of with YOU. If you're a MAN hating on her, it's because you can't be WITH her. But these are superficial reasons at best that reflect human nature at its WORST. 


 In the case of Bill O'Reilly, I believe his scorn is misdirected. Or maybe it's that he's “just not that into her.” I suspect the feeling's MUTUAL on her part, too. But even if it's not, and Kim Kardashian is a regular “Factor” viewer, she's also a successful entrepreneur and media mogul deserving of our respect, if not our admiration. And thank God for the internet, as I'm sure there's a copy of her sex tape floating out there somewhere. If you're a MAN, you gotta love that. And, if you're a woman still hating on her, you can find her video and compare how she looked THEN to how she looks NOW. Maybe you'll find some minor flaw or sign of aging you can point to and feel all superior, if only for a moment. God BLESS America, land of opportunity. And to borrow a line from a James Bond theme, when it comes to being “famous”, “nobody does it better” than Kim Kardashian.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Holy WARS - The Battle for the SOUL of the Conservative and Libertarian Republican

When Henry VIII was King of England, he found himself with a problem not unfamiliar to men today, but with very different ramifications for him and his dynasty.  He had a menopausal WIFE and no SON to succeed him on the throne, i.e. the family business.  Now for men today, this is no problem at all.  You file for DIVORCE, but back in Henry's day, divorce was not only FROWNED upon, but in the case of a KING, even the ATTEMPT could start a global WAR, especially when your WIFE was a blood relative to a King who had a lot more men under arms and the wealth of two continents, as well as the EAR of the POPE and the title of Holy Roman Emperor.

Such was Henry's dilemma when he met and fell in love with the vivacious Anne Boelyn, a first rate social climber complete with sycophantic family looking to get RICH and POWERFUL in the ONLY way open to them at that time, the FAVOR of the KING.  The Boelyn family had already pimped out ONE daughter to horny Hank, but he had his fun and left her, pregnant and DISGRACED, called "The Great Prostitute" by all the nobles and courtiers in England.  Sir Thomas Boelyn vowed his younger daughter, Anne, would NOT suffer the same fate and would be QUEEN of England.  To this end, he instructed his daughter to tempt and seduce the King at every opportunity, but to REFUSE his attentions until she got the ring and the crown.  Anne Boelyn, ever the dutiful daughter, and the headstrong social climber in her OWN right, dutifully obeyed and so Henry was a man with a wife he no longer desired and a mistress who would not comply.  It's enough to drive a monarch MAD.

The solution to BOTH Henry's problems was a simple one on the surface.  He would get RID of Catherine of Aaragon, his longsuffering WIFE, and marry Anne Boelyn, his younger and reputedly more FERTILE girlfriend, enabling him to have to the desired son and heir, as well as a lot more fun in the royal bedroom.  However, in the affairs of KINGS, nothing is EVER simple.  His wife, Catherine, REFUSED to go quietly, and appealed to both her powerful nephew, and the Pope for help.  The nephew, King Charles V of Spain, basically told Henry that any disrespect to his aunt could be conceived as an act of WAR, and Charles had the larger army and treasury.  Charles also drove the point home to the Pope by having a mercenary army invade Rome and the Vatican and take the Pope prisoner, just in case he was tempted to comply with the King's request for nullification of his marriage or an alternative divorce.  Undaunted, Henry convened an ecclesiastical court which he attempted to RIG, but the Pope sent his personal emissary to be part of the proceedings, which stymied and frustrated Henry's goals in EVERY way.

The solution seemed to avoid the King and his sexual and political frustrations increased.  Enter a LAWYER named Thomas Cromwell, a personal friend of and employee of Thomas Boelyn with some books by William Tyndale, a writer and avowed disciple of Martin Luther, the excommunicated catholic monk who believed that the Borgia Papacy had rendered the entire catholic church corrupt beyond redemption and in "Protest" of this, he initiated the PROTESTANT reformation and started the LUTHERAN Church.  Unknown to Henry at the time, both his intended wife and her FAMILY as well as Thomas Cromwell, were devout LUTHERANS, a heresy punishable at that time by BURNING at the STAKE.  However, Cromwell seized upon Tyndale's book "The Obedience of the Christian Man" which stated that it was the KING who was the rightful ruler in his own kingdom and NOT the Pope.  This fed right into Henry's wheelhouse and ego and he sought to have himself declared Supreme Head of the Church in England.  After bribing, threatening, or executing members of parliament who opposed this power grab, Henry got his law and the protestant reformation and revolution in England was under way,

This battle for English SOUL continued unabated through the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, "Bloody Mary" Tudor, Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I and was at the heart of the English civil war.  Not unlike "conservative" and "libertarian" Americans today, they knew they were no longer practicing Catholics, but as Henry had merely SHATTERED the Catholic church, but FAILED to replace it with a single orthodoxy and made the Bible and New Testament available in the ENGLISH language, every man in England suddenly though he heard GOD telling him how to reform the church and so the protestant faith continued to fracture and subdivide.  There are many more protestants in the world today than there are catholics, but unlike the catholics who are UNITED, the protestants are factioned and fractured.  It's pretty much the same with the non communist Americans today.  We know we're NOT communists, but since the republican party has been so infiltrated with communist progressives, the message of REAL Republicans has gotten lost in the collectivist rhetoric and deeds of the "establishment" republicans.

Like the Protestants of England, only the coronation of Mary Tudor and the Catholic MASSACRES of protestants, regardless of sect, was enough to bring them together.  So, too, MUST it be that the assault of COMMUNIST Democrats and their socialist minions in the Unions, Media, Academia, etc. will bring those of who do NOT self identify as either Communists or Democrats.  By all accounts, self indentified "Liberals" (aka progressives or communists) make up only TWENTY FIVE percent of the population.  That means WE outnumber THEM by a ratio of three to one, but the difference is that THEY are UNITED and WE are DIVIDED.  Til we recognize that and come together with linked arms and in lock step, THEY will continue their progressive "march to the SEA" and like Sherman, leave nothing but SCORCHED America in their wakes.

What we the "Conservative" and "Libertarian" MAJORITY must accept is that ideological purity in a political candidate is a MYTH, especially when dealing with a POLITICIAN.  Politicians are by DEFINITION, compromisers and LIARS.  They will SAY anything they need to say to get elected, and if you bring up a voting record that runs contrary to their rhetoric, they will either make an excuse for that vote, or claim to have "changed" since it was taken.  We cannot know a man's mind or heart.  We can only know his HISTORY, which has a NASTY way of repeating when we stop paying ATTENTION to it.  That said, ANY of the republican field, and YES, I said ANY, would be an improvement over the current "Apologist and THIEF" if we want America to continue to remain a sovereign and FIRST world nation.  If you value your freedoms, including the right to speak your mind, the right to own a gun, the right to grow tomatoes in your own back yard, etc., then you MUST vote AGAINST the Communi-Crats in November.  If you do NOT, you may as well vote FOR them.  Even if we screw up and elect another globalist who thinks we can bomb anyone at anytime, that person can be IMPEACHED and REMOVED if we get the CONGRESS back, but picking the wrong presidential candidate can put THAT at risk as well.  A candidate with high NEGATIVES can turn off the moderate and independent voters and send them scurrying back to the Democrats which affects OTHER races down the ticket.   America is a CENTER right country, not a HARD right country.  That's the mistake the hard LEFT made in 2008.  We cannot AFFORD to make it again.

One final thought here, as in the English Reformation, the rhetoric was heated and vicious and led to beatings, lynchings, burnings, or other forms of atrocities.  Let's dial back the rhetoric, especially on OUR side.  Leave the HATE to the LEFT.  Let THEM engage in "reductio ab adsurdem" with their overuse of RACISM against anyone who disagrees with them.  We are NOT them and THAT needs to stand out in clear contrast to the rhetoric being spewed by the left and their media puppets.  If we run around like Howard Beale, ranting and raving about how MAD we are, that's the caricature that they will stick to us with SUPER glue.  It's already being applied to ONE of our candidates.  If we can't' build up our candidate without tearing someone ELSE'S down, then we must NOT have MUCH of a candidate.  And even if we don't, come November, the choices come down to "Winkum, Blinkum, or Nod" on OUR side; and, NERO on the OTHER.  Nero believed Rome had become too crowded and unsanitary by the time he became Emperor, so he decided it wouldn't be the worst thing if it burned away.  History doesn't show that he SET the fire, but history DOES show that when it was finally out, he built a HUGE palace over the ruins of MANY people's homes and shops.  And if we truly ARE a Christian nation, we DEFINITELY don't want to become a MARTYRED one.

These are the choices facing our country, and we may only have this ONE last chance to get it right.  If we are to remain the United States of America and not the United Socialist States of AmerKa, or just a STATE in the United NATIONS, we cannot AFFORD to get this one WRONG.  When it's all said and done, the primary elections are for voting your CONSCIENCE, but if the guy you LIKE can't WIN, it's not going to matter in the general election and its aftermath.  As we've seen all too CLEARLY of late, elections have CONSEQUENCES, and if you want an Imperial President who rules by regulatory FIAT, then vote Democrat.  If you want a REPRESENTATIVE government instead of an IMPERIAL one, vote REPUBLICAN.  Rule of LAW must be restored, because rule of MAN is KILLING us. We on the right  may very well need a NEW party and relegate the GOP to the scrap heap of history like the WHIG party it replaced, but that's an issue for NEXT time.  In THIS election, we're trying to SAVE our country.  If we fail to do THAT, the REST is moot.  2012 is not just an ELECTION, it's a federal government RESTRAINING order.