Thursday, September 17, 2009

America is still appreciated by some natives and immigrants (albeit not in D.C.)

Snopes.com says Pat Boone actually wrote this. Good for him!
The president without a country
posted June 06, 2009 © 2009
"We're no longer a Christian nation." – President Barack Obama, June 2007
"America has been arrogant." – President Barack Obama
"After 9/11, America didn't always live up to her ideals." – President Barack Obama
"You might say that America is a Muslim nation." – President Barack Obama, Egypt 2009
Thinking about these and other statements made by the man who wears the title of president … I keep wondering what country he believes he's president of.
In one of my very favorite stories, Edward Everett Hale's "The Man without a Country," a young Army lieutenant named Philip Nolan stands condemned for treason during the Revolutionary War, having come under the influence of Aaron Burr. When the judge asks him if he wishes to say anything before sentence is passed, young Nolan defiantly exclaims, "Damn the United States! I wish I might never hear of the United States again!"
The stunned silence in the courtroom is palpable, pulsing. After a long pause, the judge soberly says to the angry lieutenant: "You have just pronounced your own sentence. You will never hear of the United States again. I sentence you to spend the rest of your life at sea, on one or another of this country's naval vessels – under strict orders that no one will ever speak to you again about the country you have just cursed."
And so it was. Philip Nolan was taken away and spent the next 40 years at sea, never hearing anything but an occasional slip of the tongue about America. The last few pages of the story, recounting Nolan's dying hours in his small stateroom – now turned into a shrine to the country he foreswore – never fail to bring me to tears. And I find my own love for this dream, this miracle called America, refreshed and renewed. I know how blessed and unique we are.
Is Shariah law coming to a court near you? Get "Stealth Jihad" – Robert Spencer's expose about efforts to quietly establish the Muslim system in Amerca
But reading and hearing the audacious, shocking statements of the man who was recently elected our president – a young black man living the impossible dream of millions of young Americans, past and present, black and white – I want to ask him, "Just what country do you think you're president of?"
You surely can't be referring to the United States of America, can you? America is emphatically a Christian nation, and has been from its inception! Seventy percent of her citizens identify themselves as Christian. The Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were framed, written and ratified by Christians. It's because this was, and is, a nation built on and guided by Judeo-Christian biblical principles that you, sir, have had the inestimable privilege of being elected her president.
You studied law at Harvard, didn't you, sir? You taught constitutional law in Chicago? Did you not ever read the statement of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and an author of the landmark "Federalist Papers": "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers – and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation – to select and prefer Christians for their rulers"?
In your studies, you surely must have read the decision of the Supreme Court in 1892: "Our lives and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian."
Did your professors have you skip over all the high-court decisions right up till the mid 1900s that echoed and reinforced these views and intentions? Did you pick up the history of American jurisprudence only in 1947, when for the first time a phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson about a "wall of separation between church and state" was used to deny some specific religious expression – contrary to Jefferson's intent with that statement?
Or, wait a minute … were your ideas about America's Christianity formed during the 20 years you were a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ under your pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Is that where you got the idea that "America is no longer a Christian nation"? Is this where you, even as you came to call yourself a Christian, formed the belief that "America has been arrogant"?
Even if that's the understandable explanation of your damning of your country and accusing the whole nation (not just a few military officials trying their best to keep more Americans from being murdered by jihadists) of "not always living up to her ideals," how did you come up with the ridiculous, alarming notion that we might be "considered a Muslim nation"?
Is it because there are some 2 million or more Muslims living here, trying to be good Americans? Out of a current population of over 300 million, 70 percent of whom are Christians? Does that make us, by any rational definition, a "Muslim nation"?
Why are we not, then, a "Chinese nation"? A "Korean nation"? Even a "Vietnamese nation"? There are even more of these distinct groups in America than Muslims. And if the distinction you're trying to make is a religious one, why is America not "a Jewish nation"? There's actually a case to be made for the latter, because our Constitution – and the success of our Revolution and founding – owe a deep debt to our Jewish brothers.
Have you stopped to think what an actual Muslim America would be like? Have you ever really spent much time in Iran? Even in Egypt? You, having been instructed in Islam as a kid at a Muslim school in Indonesia and saying you still love the call to evening prayers, can surely picture our nation founded on the Quran, not the Judeo-Christian Bible, and living under Shariah law. Can't you? You do recall Muhammad's directives [Surah 9:5,73] to "break the cross" and "kill the infidel"?
It seems increasingly and painfully obvious that you are more influenced by your upbringing and questionable education than most suspected. If you consider yourself the president of a people who are "no longer Christian," who have "failed to live up to our ideals," who "have been arrogant," and might even be "considered Muslim" – you are president of a country most Americans don't recognize.
Could it be you are a president without a country? The following is an insightful and sincere analysis of what makes America special and collectivism so "Sovietish."
http://tinyurl.com/mkbs6g
The Perspective Of A Russian Immigrant By SVETLANA KUNIN //In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I was taught to believe individual pursuits are selfish and sacrificing for the collective good is noble...
Life in the USSR modeled the socialist ideal. God-based religion was suppressed and replaced with cultlike adoration for political figures. The government-assigned salary of the proletariat (blue-collar worker) was 30%-50% higher then any professional....They — engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers — earned a government-determined salary that barely covered the necessities, mainly food.****Here, lawyers will be exempted since they are part of the nomenklatura.****...It took four to six adults (parents and grandparents) to support a child....In the USSR, economic equality was achieved by redistributing wealth, ensuring that everyone remained poor, with the exception of those doing the redistributing...Government-controlled health care destroyed human dignity...Those who left Russia found a different set of values in America: freedom of religion, speech, individual pursuits, the right to private property and free enterprise....opportunities let the average immigrant live a better life than many elites in the Soviet Communist Party....descendants of those immigrants are now supporting policies that move America away from the values that gave so many immigrants the chance of a better life. Policies such as nationalized medicine, high tax rates and government intrusion into free enterprise are being sold to us under the socialistic motto of collective salvation. Socialism has bankrupted and failed every society, while capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system....Critics say that greed is the driving force of capitalism. My answer is that envy is the driving force of socialism...The slogans of "fairness and equality" sound better than the slogans of capitalism. But unlike at the beginning of the 20th century, when these slogans and ideas were yet to be tested, we have accumulated history and reality....When I came to America in 1980 and experienced life in this country, I thought it was fortunate that those living in the USSR did not know how unfortunate they were. Now in 2009, I realize how unfortunate it is that many Americans do not understand how fortunate they are. They vote to give government more and more power without understanding the consequences. Svetlana Kunin, Stamford, Conn.

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