"The Last Best Hope of Man on Earth"

"We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace -- and you can have it in the next second -- surrender.

Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face -- that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand -- the ultimatum. And what then -- when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us.

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin -- just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this -- this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits -- not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness."

-Ronald Reagan

Huckabee writing a Huckabook on his Huckabomb

Two weeks after the next president is elected, Mike Huckabee will publish a book sharing details on his failed bid for the White House and offering his vision for remodeling the conservative movement.

His vision for "remodeling the conservative movement"? From the guy who's campaign manager quite gleefully touted how he thought the Reagan Coalition was dead?

Mike Huckabee, go forth, run for the Senate, and leave us in peace. You were a populist, you didn't show yourself fluent enough in foreign affairs to guide us through the War we are in, and you had a penchant for driving away crucial members of our party (FisCons, Catholics, Mormons, etc.). Now you're going to write a book to prove...what? That you have new ideas to sustain us? Conservatism is just fine how it is. Reagan knew that, and so do we.

The Local Roundup

On possibly focusing on the wrong issue:
I'm only now gathering information on the city happenings, but just on the face of this I'm inclined to side with the property owners. "Restoring" downtown sounds fine and dandy unless it comes at the cost of downtown itself. I don't know why they're looking at image when it seems that they should trying to encourage growth. But as I said, I'm not very much into local issues...yet.

I sympathize with these people.
Enough said.

On running AGAIN:
Well...it's more or less an open secret that the Governor of Texas isn't exactly the most powerful guy on the block. Governor Perry has been ok for Texas, although that mess last year didn't really help him. One obvious benefit of his running for a third term is that it would keep good 'ol Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson from running. What I mean by that is that I think she should stay as an influential senior Senator in Washington instead of coming down here and being...well...a Governor. She'd be fine either way, but I'd rather have her representing Texas at the Capitol.

On people you didn't even know were in the Valley:
Huh, learn something new every day.

On newspapers and people with too much time on their hands:
I LIKE that post office. They're good workers. Sheesh, nitpickers...although maybe they should have seen if this guy would have taken it away for them. Not exactly a good day for the U.S. Postal Service.

Finally, on not just going away already:
The VMS Editorial does a fine job (note the Obama reference).

That concludes the Roundup for today.

"I Salute Thee, Hillary Clinton"

Now this is...interesting:



It could be asinine, but considering him...I don't care to give the man the benefit of the doubt.