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Question & Thought for Memorial Day 2016!

Question & Thought for Memorial Day 2016!
Good Memorial Day Morning from me!
1. Question – What does a military man or woman want from America?
2. Thought – What a honorable Day this is. So many have served and paid with their lives. So many live on. We honor them today and on Veteran’s Day. That’s a grand thing America!
I want to take a little different view on what I believe our vets want from America. I believe we would honor our vets by becoming the very best citizens we can be. I believe we would honor our vets by becoming the very best citizens we can be! (If you ask yourself this question: “How can I honor vets by being a better citizen?” I think you’ll know what you ‘ought’ to do.)
Perhaps, by being well read. By understanding our history. By knowing our Constitution. By voting not by heritage, culture or on emotions but by voting rationally and logically. And, even more so, holding those we vote for accountable.
I believe those who are serving and have served and who have passed on would want us to stop America bashing. I believe the vets would want Americans to be proud of their country. To know accurate history. To know we’ve made mistakes along the way. But to also know, we liberated many nations from oppression, put men on the moon, and continue to be the light in the world.
Often in the classroom I use a technique called ‘reciprocal thinking.’ Basically, it’s a thought process where if you don’t know what it is, you can define it by thinking about what it’s not. It works quite well. Think about this: What would vets not want from America?
  • Rioting over court decisions.
  • Riots at political rallies.
  • Political leaders always blaming someone else for their district, city, county, or state mess.
  • Cronyism.
  • Teachers & professors damning our nation.
  • Disrespect for our police.
  • A continuing sequester.
  • Immigration without American assimilation.
  • An unbalanced budget.
  • Marxism.
  • Biased media coverage.
  • Multiculturalism.
  • Downsizing.
  • Non-leadership.
  • Socialism.
  • Hands-tied warfighters.
  • Long wars.
  • Peace-keeping missions.
  • Changing retirement plans.
  • Communism.
  • Life-long politicians and military leaders.
  • Ambiguous objectives.
  • Non-Support.
  • Apologies for America’s wrongs without pride for America’s goodness.
  • Political Correctness.
I remember four people in history who brought us together as a nation.
  1. President Kennedy
  2. Neil Armstrong
  3. President Reagan
  4. President George Bush
If we keep America bashing up, I’m afraid we’re going to lose her.
“How can you honor vets by being a better citizen?”
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for February 15th, 2016!

Question & Thought for February 15th, 2016!
Good President’s Day Monday Morning!
1. Question – Just what do you know of our third president?
2. Thought – Thomas Jefferson was a lawyer, politician, revolutionary, the author of the Declaration of Independence, wartime governor of his native state, writer of epoch-making bills, American minister to France, secretary of state, vice-president for two terms, President of the United States, founder and directing spirit of the University of Virginia. He was an assiduous farmer in the extensive manner of big 18th century landowners…He was a great builder and creative architect, a manufacturer of nails, an enthusiastic gardener who gave much of his time to procuring plants and experimenting with them. He was a student of mathematics, a naturalist, a meteorologist who made observations year after year, a collector of records about the Indians. He assembled the biggest private library in America and possibly of his age, and gave much time to organizing and cataloguing. He wrote so many letters that those hitherto published fill a score of volumes; he estimated that in one year their number amounted to 1200. He was in addition, a devoted head of his family, paying much attention and dedicating much time to the minutiae of the education of its younger members. (Thomas Jefferson: American Humanist by Karl Lehmann)
“Those who have visited the camps in Europe, as I did 32 years ago, know the compelling need to remember what man has done – can do – to man.” (Kenneth L. Woodward)
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for November 22nd, 2015!!!

Question & Thought for November 22nd, 2015!!!
Good Sunday Morning!
1. Question – What did President Kennedy say about religious convictions?
2. Thought – In February 1961, PRESIDENT JOHN F.KENNEDY gave a speech in which he stated:
This country was founded by men and women who were dedicated or came to be dedicated to two propositions: first, a strong religious conviction, and secondly a recognition that this conviction could flourish only under a system of freedom.
​I think it is appropriate​ that we pay tribute to this great constitutional principle which is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution: the principle of religious independence, of religious liberty, of religious freedom. But I think it is also important that we pay tribute and acknowledge another great principle, and that is the principle of religious conviction. Religious freedom has no significance unless it is accompanied by conviction. And therefore the Puritans and the Pilgrims of my own section of New England, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the Catholics of Maryland, the Presbyterians of North Carolina, the Methodists and the Baptists who came later, all shared these two great traditions which, like silver threads, have run through the warp and woof of American history.
No man who enters upon the office to which I have succeeded can fail to recognize how every president of the United States has placed special reliance upon his faith in God. Every president has taken comfort and courage when told … that the Lord “will be with three. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Fear not – neither be thou dismayed.” While they came from a wide variety of religious backgrounds and held a wide variety of religious beliefs, each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God. Those who were strongest intellectually were also strongest spiritually…
The guiding principle and prayer of this nation has been, is now, and shall ever be “In God We Trust.” (The Founder’s Bible by David Barton)
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!” (President John F. Kennedy)

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rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Questions and Thought for Veterans Day 2015!

Questions and Thought for Veterans Day 2015!
Good Veterans Day Morning!
1. Questions – Military questions: What president urged Congress to build the navy? Who is the Father of the Navy? What was the first official war after America became a new nation? Do we acquiesce to the enemy today? Where did the opening line of the Marine Hymn derive from?
2. Thought – The treaties also required America to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in “tribute” (official extortion) to the Muslim countries to ensure they would stop attacking Americans. At the time, we had no navy and no standing army by which to defend Americans overseas, so the only way to save American lives was to pay protection money. This policy disgusted George Washington who lamented:
“Would to Heaven we had a navy able to reform those enemies to mankind – to crush them into nonexistence.”
 
By the last year of his presidency, 16% of the federal budget was being spent on extortion payments, so Washington urged Congress to build a U.S. Navy to defend American interests on the high seas. When John Adams became president, he vigorously pursued those plans, earning the title “Father of the Navy,” and when Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, his position was clear:
“I was very unwilling that we should acquiesce in the …humiliation of paying a tribute to those lawless pirates. I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace through the medium of war.”
​Jefferson withheld further payments, so Tripoli declared war against the United States and Algiers threatened to do so, thus constituting America’s first official war as a new nation.​ Jefferson selected General William Eaton and Commodore Edward Preble to lead the navy and marines overseas to defeat the terrorists, but when the offending nations found themselves confronted with American military might, all but Tripoli backed down.
So General Eaton led a successful military campaign against Tripoli, freeing the captured seamen and crushing the terrorist forces. After four years of fighting (1801-1805), Tripoli finally signed a treaty on America’s terms, thus ending their aggressions. Incidentally, it is from this conflict that the opening line of the Marine Hymn is derived: “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.” (The Founders Bible by David Barton)

 

​”Let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” (Thomas Jefferson)​

 

rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.