ACLU vs. American Legion, VFW and millions of veterans

I've been praying that God will take action against the Anti-Christian Lawyers Union ever since that ridiculous case in Florida where the ACLU got two school administrators charged with a criminal offense for the heinous act of saying grace over a meal at a school boosters club meeting.

The administrators had those charges dismissed when the case got to court, but that really ticked me off and I've been praying for the Lord to take action against the ACLU since. Now it seems that another ridiculous ACLU fracas might just be their comeuppance, a solitary cross on top of a hill in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The ACLU sued, forcing veterans to cover the cross with a plywood box while the case drags on in the courts. And now the Supreme Court has agreed to consider the case. Townhall columnists Joseph Infranco and Rees Lloyd explain the significance of the case.

The object at the center of the case is a small, unadorned cross sitting in a remote part of the Mojave Desert Preserve in Southeast California. A veterans' group erected this memorial cross on private land in 1934 to honor the dead of all wars.

Driving by this secluded location today, however, you'll see a curious-looking plywood box hiding the memorial, the way someone might cover a condemned building. That box is there because one person filed suit, with the help of ACLU attorneys, claiming he was "offended" by the memorial cross. One offended man has somehow trumped the wishes of millions of veterans.

If a federal appeals court has its way, the box and the memorial soon will be gone forever. Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court will review the ruling at the request of the Department of Justice, and in this case, millions of veterans, speaking through The American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, have added their voices in support. In fact, the American Legion Department of California and the Alliance Defense Fund have joined forces and filed a brief in support of the Department of Justice, asking the Supreme Court to dismiss the lawsuit.

So why such a fuss over a cross in the middle of the desert?

However, as bad as this case is, veterans know much more is at stake in this case than one memorial in the California desert.

Military memorials commonly use the cross as part of a display to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to defend our nation. While the cross is a religious symbol, the military has also used it as a symbol of courage, sacrifice, and honor. For example, the nation's second highest military award is the Distinguished Service Cross. Visitors to the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery can see several commemorative crosses, like the Canadian Cross of Sacrifice, a gift from former Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King that was dedicated at Arlington in 1927.

If the Supreme Court does not overturn the appeals court, religious symbols that have graced monuments for many decades may become a thing of the past. Memorials to military veterans, police officers, firefighters, and other heroes will be whitewashed, covered up, or torn out to appease the politically correct agenda of intolerant extremists.

Veterans are being asked to surrender to the thin-skinned sensitivity of an individual who has managed to be offended by a small memorial, literally in the middle of a desert. Is this truly an offense worthy of a lawsuit? Apparently, the fanatical agenda of the ACLU to expunge religious symbols has really come this far, and now the Supreme Court has the opportunity to weigh in.

One person's offense should not diminish the sacrifice made by America's heroes and their families. Why would we not wish to allow the men and women who have served and defended this nation to choose how they wish to honor their dead?

Why indeed. The heart of the matter is the ACLU wants to outlaw all forms of Christianity, even a simple cross to honor our war dead. Of course, their pious response is they support our troops they just don't support the wars they are fighting. That's like saying you support the baker and enjoy eating his bread, but you don't support his "mission" because bread is really bad for you.

The ACLU would no doubt call themselves patriots, but I beg to differ. In other words, hogwash!

Carter-Clinton Redux: 'The Hollow Superpower' returns

Mark Steyn, a Canadian journalist, is becoming the Elijah of our times, warning America of our pending collapse, our fall from grace, our twilight as we become 'The Hollow Superpower."

Steyn draws an uncomfortable paralell between the decline of GM and the decline of our nation.

As recently as last summer, General Motors Corp.'s filing for bankruptcy would have been the biggest news story of the week. But it's not such a very great step from the unthinkable to the inevitable, and by the time it actually happened, the market barely noticed and the media were focused on the president's "address to the Muslim world."

As it happens, these two stories are the same story - snapshots, at home and abroad, of the hyperpower in eclipse. It's been a long time since anyone touted GM as the emblematic brand of America - what's good for GM is good for America, etc. In fact, it's more emblematic than ever: Like GM, the U.S. government spends more than it makes and has airily committed itself to ever more unsustainable levels of benefits. GM has about 95,000 workers but provides health benefits to a million people. It's not a business enterprise, but a vast welfare plan with a tiny loss-making commercial sector. As GM goes, so goes America?

But who cares? Overseas, the coolest president in history was giving a speech. Or, as the official press release headlined it on the State Department Web site, "President Obama Speaks To The Muslim World From Cairo."

Let's pause right there: It's interesting how easily the words "the Muslim world" roll off the tongues of liberal secular progressives who would choke on any equivalent reference to "the Christian world." When such hyperalert policemen of the perimeter between church and state endorse the former but not the latter, they're implicitly acknowledging that Islam is not merely a faith, but a political project, too...

At a stroke, the administration has endorsed the view of "the Muslim world" of those non-Muslims who find themselves within what it regards as lands belonging to Islam: The Jewish and Christian communities are free to stand still or shrink, but not to grow. Would Mr. Obama be comfortable mandating "no natural growth" to Israel's million-and-a-half Muslims? No. But the administration has embraced commitment of "the Muslim world" to one-way multiculturalism, whereby Islam expands in the West but Christianity and Judaism shrivel remorselessly in the Middle East.

And so it goes. Like GM, America is "too big to fail." So it won't, not immediately. It will linger on in a twilight existence, sclerotic and ineffectual, declining into a kind of societal dementia, unable to keep pace with what's happening and with an ever more tenuous grip on its own past but able on occasion to throw out impressive words, albeit strung together without much meaning: empower, peace, justice, prosperity - just to take one windy gust from the president's Cairo speech.

There's better phrase-making in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, in a coinage of Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Gelb is a sober, judicious paragon of torpidly conventional wisdom. Nevertheless, musing on American decline, he writes, "The country's economy, infrastructure, public schools, and political system have been allowed to deteriorate. The result has been diminished economic strength, a less vital democracy, and a mediocrity of spirit."

That last is the one to watch: A great power can survive a lot of things, but not "a mediocrity of spirit." A wealthy nation living on the accumulated cultural capital of a glorious past can dodge its rendezvous with fate, but only for a while. That sound you heard in Cairo is the tingy ping of a hollow superpower.

Steyn is the author of the surprise Noo Yawk Times best-selling book America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It.

I hope he's wrong, but I lived through the "hollow military" of the Jimmy Carter administration and the "peace dividend" military and defense spending cuts of the Clinton administration, so it's not a stretch to see we're entering into even more perilous times with Obama in power. If it had not been for the Reagan years of restoring America's power in between Carter and Clinton, our nation might well have not survived those two downturns in security. And now comes Obama and we start the same sorry cycle all over again, cut defense and buy voters with socialism.

Closing Gitmo and turning the terrorists loose on American soil is just the opening act for his reign. After all, they're no longer terrorists, they're just poor misunderstood Muslim "victims."

And while I'm quoting one of the few wise heads in today's media, Victor Davis Hanson is another. He writes there's one sure way to tell when Obama lies. His lips will be moving.

When our President talks about his relatives’ war experiences, his own family’s Muslim connections, or anything much about the past, I expect it to be flat-out ahistorical, misleading, or contextualized by an aide over the next two months. So yes, I do not believe that any of this relatives liberated Auschwitz or knew those who freed Treblinka. I do not believe any of his numbers concerning, or analysis about, Muslims in America. I do not think he has a clue about the Renaissance and its relationship to the flight of Greek-speaking scholars to Western Europe from the fear of Turkish Muslims, or the Enlightenment’s interest in a Greece suffering under the yoke of an oppressive Ottoman fundamentalism.

And how can I quote wise men and leave out Sir Charles Krauthammer? In this Fox News clip, he sums up Obama's foreign policy adventures thus far, turning Iran loose to build its nukes with no fear of intervention and doing more to delegitimize Israel than any president in history.

God help us and save us from Obama.

Seeking answers for our nation: American Solutions

Did you sign the "Drill Here, Drill Now!" petition, like I did? If so, you're part of a countrywide movement led by a group called American Solutions. Here's a video of what they're about.

From igniting the energy debate with the Drill Here, Drill Now petition, to developing the Platform of the American People, to pushing a message of education reform at the Republican and Democratic Conventions, to colloborating on solutions for the economy during the second annual Solutions Day, we've worked hard to be your voice this past year.

In 2008, American Solutions grew to 1.7 million members and we wouldn't be here today without your help and support.

Take a moment to watch one of our members of Louisville, Kentucky tell the story of 2008:

Barry H. Obama: All-American

The Noo Yawk Times (AKA Obama campaign PR department) says Democrats plan a magic trick of David Copperfield proportions at their upcoming convention, transforming their “candidate with a most unusual background” into the All-American boy next door. The plan is For Convention, Obama’s Image Is All-American

Democrats face a number of imperatives at their convention, none trickier than making more voters comfortable with the prospect of putting a candidate with a most unusual background — the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia — and his family in the White House.

… Through four nights there will be testimonials from family members like Mr. Obama’s wife and sister who will tell his “very American story,” … there will be appearances by lesser known “Americans from all walks of life, from across the country” speaking about their support for Mr. Obama. Combined with a film featuring the candidate in all-American scenes by Davis Guggenheim — the director of “An Inconvenient Truth”… aides to Mr. Obama are using the convention to tackle what members of both parties see as his greatest vulnerability with undecided voters: his “otherness.”

If Guggenheim can sell Al Gore’s Chicken-Little, the-sky-is-falling global warming theory, maybe he can sell Barry H. Obama, All-American Boy.

The introduction of a candidate is a task facing every presidential campaign, but one that carries unique challenges for Mr. Obama because of his race and questions about his patriotism, values and faith that Republicans have already vigorously sought to raise and exploit.

So there’s the plan. The fella who wears the now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t flag lapel pin; whose values and voting record are more liberal than anybody else in Congress, including avowed Socialist Bernie Sanders; whose faith record consists of 20 years of listening to the openly racist sermons of the not-very-rev. Jeremiah Wright ranting about “whitey” and “G—D--- America!” All that goes down the memory hole, like Alice’s rabbit. Presenting the new, improved Barry H. Obama, All-American Boy! And if you’ll buy that, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Arizona…