To quote Rush Limbaugh, the purpose of the military is to kill people and break things. That is how wars are won. That is how peace is preserved. And when it comes to killing people and breaking things, the United States has the best military in the whole world. Just the threat of U.S. military intervention is enough to make some people sit down and stop rattling their sabers. For 235 years, our military — starting with the states’ militias actions against the British on April 19th, 1775 — have been kicking ass and taking names in the war of liberty over tyranny. Countless Americans have faced overwhelming odds in their duty to their country; many received medals for their heroism and valor, and some perished in their actions.

Imagine, then, my amazement that the Obama military is now talking about a medal for “courageous restraint”. In other words, the Bad Guys are shooting at you from the middle of a crowd of civilians (as the cowardly terrorists tend to do) and you decide to excercise “courageous restraint” and not return fire because some civilians might get hurt.

Pardon my language, but what horseshit.

When the Bad Guys realize that they can hide among civilians and kill our troops without the threat of return fire, they’ll do it more. They’ll kill more U.S. troops. The civilians won’t feel the need to stand up against the Bad Guys because there are few civilian casualties, and the Bad Guys seem to be winning. Let’s face it: the civilian population just wants peace, so they’ll side with whoever seems like they’re going to win. Don’t want to be seen as siding with the losers… in that part of the world, that’s how tongues are cut out and your children are killed or raped with you watching on. So our intelligence information about Bad Guys dries up because the civilians think that we’re going to lose anyway. With less intel, our job of winning gets harder. We become less able to kill people and break things.

But then again, wimpifying the U.S. military is Obama’s objective, isn’t it? Why yes, it is. And as FiveBoxes reported int he past, it’s always been.

 

It’s no secret that Congress is spending money we don’t have like a drunken sailor on shore leave. In just two years, our current slate of politicians in Washington have run up over $3,000,000,000,000 in debt. Never mind that we didn’t want any of the things they spent our grandkids’ money on in the first place… they’ll figure out how to pay for it later. Or maybe they already knew how they were going to pay for their binge-spending. For instance, White House adviser Paul Volcker said that the US should have a European-style value-added tax (VAT), and Obama has said that a VAT is “still on the table“. A VAT would be like a national sales tax on everything you buy, to the tune of about an additional 5%, though likely growing to 15-20% within 20 years, if anything is to be learned of Europe’s history with VATs.

There are two huge problems with VATs, aside from the fact that they are economy killers.

First, they cater to special-interest groups because politicians can write loopholes for their favorite campaign contributors, and then slam supporters of political opponents with higher VAT rates.

Second, they are the total opposite of transparency. Why? Because right now, when you look at a receipt, you see how much you paid in sales tax. VATs, on the other hand, are charged at every step of the manufacturing process. These taxes are just passed along to the next person in the line of production, so the consumer just sees higher prices and we never get to see how much money the government is siphoning off our hard-earned dollars.

VATs have historically been used in other countries as a general “slush fund” for politicians to tap into whenever a special interest needs repaid for their votes, or to make solvent a government program or pet project that is bleeding money due to mismanagement, fraud, or plain old “this program was a bad idea from the get-go”.

Someone should ask the Germans and French and Brits how that’s working out for them, because the answer would be “no so well.” The result of the economy-crushing VAT in these countries has led to persistent double-digit unemployment, and gradual increases in the VAT over the years to pay for the increasing socialist programs these countries have instituted.

The solution to the debt we are hemorrhaging as a nation is for the federal government to stop spending money, not raise taxes.

My land is my father’s land. My grandfather’s land. My great grandfather’s land. My land has been protected for generations by a fence and signs that say “keep out”. That fence took thirteen years and the blood of many patriots to build. When the fence was built, it was thought that it would be enough to keep you out.

My land is fertile land. I work the soil and produce many fruits. I have a manicured lawn and flowering shrubs, a flower bed, and a statue of St. Francis that my mother gave me.

And uninvited, you came onto my property. At first you snuck over the fence at night, trampled my flowers, and kicked out chunks of sod from my lawn. Just to see if you could. I repaired the damage and hung a few more signs to tell you to “keep out” and “stay away.”

Then you got bold. Still uninvited and unwelcome, you smashed a big hole in my fence. You destroyed my flowers, tore up my lawn, broke my statue, and stole some of the fruits of my labor. The next morning I came out, shook my head, and began trying to repair what you had so quickly damaged. I planted more flowers. I seeded more grass. I glued the statue back together. I planted more plants and worked the soil.

I started to repair the fence, too, but it’s much more than a day’s work. And the next night, you smashed more of it down. Again, you destroyed my flowers. Again you broke my statue. Again you stole the fruits of my labor. This time, after eating more of garden, you left me a steaming pile of your excrement and a note that said I should be happy that you left me fertilizer. And again, I tried to repair the damage.

For years, you came by night to trample my flowers, to break my statue, to eat more fruits of my labor. And by day, I quietly tried my best to repair your damage.

But now, the fruits of my labor are not enough to satisfy your hunger. Now you raise your head and see my house. My home. My place of respite from the world. You are no longer content to stay in the garden. You are no longer afraid to come only at night, while I sleep.

So you approach my front door. Still uninvited. Still unwelcome. Still ignoring the signs that tell you to “keep out” and “stay away”. You edge closer and peer into my windows to try and see what I have inside that you can steal from me. Your hand reaches out and twists the doorknob. It’s locked. The only way in is if I let you in. Or if you break the door down…

Did you just hear that click?

It wasn’t me unlocking the door.

It was me taking the safety off my gun.

Will I pull the trigger?

Break down my door and you’ll quickly find out.