SCREWTAPE HAD IT RIGHT! - THE GENIUS OF C.S. LEWIS

C. S. Lewis was one of the most brilliant thinkers and writers of the 20th century. He brought wisdom and common sense to his view of the human condition and was a staunch supporter of the Christian faith.


Lewis was from Ireland, and was a professor at Oxford University where he was great friends with J.R.R. Tolkin of Lord of the Rings fame. He married an American woman in 1956 and in died in 1963 on the same day as the assassination of John F. Kennedy.


Best known for his works the Screwtape Letters and The Chronicles of Narnia he wrote many other works as well often in defense of Christianity.


Courtesy of John Hawkins, I share here 25 of his greatest quotes. Enjoy.

25) Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

24) If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once. But, of course, when people say, “Sex is nothing to be ashamed of,” they may mean “the state into which the sexual instinct has now got is nothing to be ashamed of.” If they mean that, I think they are wrong. I think it is everything to be ashamed of. There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips.

23) Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

22) The world does not consist of 100 percent Christians and 100 percent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so.

21) The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.

20) A cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to Hell than a prostitute.

19) No man who says I’m as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority that the patient refuses to accept. And therefore resents.

18) You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred — like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.

17) There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell chose it.

16) God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

15) I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

14) What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.

13) A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word “darkness” on the walls of his cell.

12) To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

11) The safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

10) Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

9) All you then have to do is keep out of his mind the question, “If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?”

8) You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly. In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it “Bulverism.” Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father—who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — ”Oh you say that because you are a man.” “At that moment,” E. Bulver assures us, “there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.” That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.

7) You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society.

6) Whatever men expect, they soon come to think they have a right to: the sense of disappointment can, with very little skill on (the devil's) part, be turned into a sense of injury.

5) If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

4) We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.

3) If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

2) Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

1) Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

THE 'I' IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Well, we have another set of declarations from the Commander (well, strike that) Emperor in Chief Barack Obama on his wonder, his grandeur, his courage and above all his willingness to bless us mere mortals with his wisdom, and direct our petty lives.

Approaching the anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Obama political machine determined to make a political mile on the decision to let the Seals accomplish the long planned (before the Obama administration-during the time of Pres. Bush, who you recall caused each and every one of the Obama administrations problems) operation to take this terrorist killer off the planet.

As had a long string of prior press statements preceded with the words "I" or "My" his excellency spiked the ball claiming for himself complete responsibility, right to adulation, and greatness for making what was effectively a one word decision to implement a courageous, complex and technical action by the US military, particularly the Navy Seals. While they were on site, he was playing golf, and 20 minutes from the conclusion of the mission, when it appeared that all would proceed when planned he appeared in the situation room. Still in his golf clothes he posed for photos making him appear to be deeply involved in the process, and then went off to claim the credit.

We now learn that he had prior to the mission set up Admiral William McRaven with carefully lawyered notes which would absolve Obama if the mission went south. This assumption is supported by Michael Mulcasey, former Attorney General of the United States who examined the documents.

Those with experience with real heroes, and those who made really hard decisions uniformly decry the braggadocio of the exalted one as not the kind of conduct they see from real heros. Dwight Eisenhower, when commander of the D-Day assault in WWII wrote a letter before the mission, taking on himself the responsibility for whatever happened, praising his troops, and acknowledging that they were the cause should there be a successful result. US Senator John McCain, imprisoned in Vietnam as a prisoner of war for seven years is quoted as saying "I know real heroes. . .they don't brag".

The final word on this is best expressed by a former Navy Seal Benjamin Smith. As one who has earned his place in this elite group he is entitled to speak. These are his words on the subject:

"President Barack Hussein Obama - STOP using the Navy SEALS as a campaign ploy. Because with all due respect, (what little I have for you), you do NOT speak for me.

You have a movie about SEALS within the past year trying to identify with me, with the navy SEALS, and with anything that might improve your polling numbers...and yet it is all a sham to hide a weak un-American man desperate to claim the victories of others for his own.

You Sir are trying to take the credit for what the American People have achieved in killing Bin Laden. Your use of the SEALs accomplishment as a campaign slogan is nothing less than despicable. I, as a former Navy SEAL do not accept your taking credit for Osama Bin Laden's death. The American Military accomplished that feat.

Yet now that it is useful, you Mr. President, continue to refer to the event as if it were YOU and you alone which accomplished the worthy task of slaying one of America's greatest enemies. You say "I directed", "I Continued", "My Intelligence Community", "My national security team", "I determined that I had enough....", "My direction..."

Yet reliable sources continue to report that not only did you attempt to stop or delay Bin Laden's demise, you did not even leave the golf course for the situation room until 20 minutes before SEAL Team 6 took out Osama Bin Laden. Even the clothes you wore in the situation room betray this fact. This is a Commander in Chief? A man who takes credit for actions largely taken while he was out golfing?

We men who have taken the oath, say ENOUGH. You do not speak for me, a former Navy SEAL, or any one of the league of men whom I have earned the right to be among. You are simply a man running for an office. Yet you behave as a glory-hoarding ruler. You campaign to be our leader, yet in reality you wish to be our Master.

 The American people are the ones who got Bin Laden... You did Not! We have fought wars and slugged it with Vast Terror Organizations to get to the man you say YOU killed. The United Sates of America has won you a title sir and you have spent the last three years trying to beg, borrow and bow as you GIVE IT ALL AWAY. You just happened to be president of the USA when WE THE PEOPLE got Osama Bin Laden. We do not see you as heroic or stoic, we see you as the guy who let America Go. We got fat and weak and you gave it all away. That is your credit - you bow to foreign leaders and pander to the press. You do not represent me as a Military Man. You do not represent me as a SEAL. 

You do not represent me as an AMERICAN!

You do not speak for me or any American military man because though you may now be Commander in Chief, you are not the man to whom we can point our sons and say "This is the American dream, this is American exceptionalism, this is what I wish for your future", because you Sir are NONE of these things. 

You Sir, are the antithesis of American Exceptionalism. Your idols are Saul Alinksi and Karl Marx and your revolutionary dreams and anti-American ideals poison your every policy. Your every action betrays the fact that in your soul you do not understand what it is to be an American, not what America truly is. 

Your agenda from the beginning has been to get rid of and kill everything that is and ever was American. You who so easily dismisses America's greatness and bows to foreigners... YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME. YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE NAVY SEALS. YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE MILITARY MAN AND you SHALL NOT claim as your prize that which you have not earned. The Navy SEALS are NOT a campaign slogan to be bantered about for play. Nor are our accomplishments, including the demise of Osama Bin Laden, yours to claim.

So you DO NOT speak for me. And I will not stand for your use and abuse of my brethren the SEALS."

For Liberty,

Benjamin Smith

This attitude of self aggrandizement was echoed again in the recent interview concerning his "evolved view" of gay marriage when Obama stated "When I think about-- those soldiers or airmen or marines or-- sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf-- and yet, feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is gone, because-- they're not able to-- commit themselves in a marriage." 

He doesn't mention soldiers fighting for their country, soldiers fighting for their fellow soldiers, for patriotic aspirations, but rather "on my behalf". His narcissism knows no limits.  

ENDS JUSTIFY RELIGIOUS ATTACKS FROM THE LEFT

That the political left knows no bounds when attacking opposition to obtain their ends is the issue.

Mitt Romney is now feeling that attack strategy as the left (ostensibly  with the blessing of the White House) repeatedly attacks his religion.

No, the left is not stupid, and the attacks are left to minions, but they are clearly Democratic strategy to discredit the opposing candidate who would dare challenge the "anointed one" for the presidency.

Larry ODonnell, a commentator on MSNBC makes the most outrageously false claims about the origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly referred to as Mormons because of the title of a second book of scripture they use with the bible which is entitled "The Book of Mormon". His allegations were little more than mud slinging and false innuendo attempting to argue that Mormons would have to be fools to adopt their faith.

Much of the mainstream (read liberally leaning) media has brought into question Romney's religion as it relates to his fitness to serve as president. Democratic pundits continue to raise this issue, now most recently attacking Ann Romney for her traditional (and church supported role) as a non-working mother.

While these attackers are often quick to apologize, or retract their outrageous claims or allegations, they put them out, and clearly and calculatedly meant to raise these issues in support of Barack Obama.

The ultimate hypocrisy of this comes from the fact that Democratic leader and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is also an active Mormon. Yet, despite this fact there is never a word spoken of Reid's fitness being called into question because of his religion. Clearly a double standard in questioning this issue for Conservatives and ignoring it for Democrats.

Even more troubling when you consider Harry Reid, is that he has failed to come to the defense of his religion, when the attacks benefit him politically by attacking a Republican. Should he not be defending the Church and Romney from these attacks?

The bottom line to all this is that this will be a dirty tactics election especially on the liberal side which operates on the end-always-justifies-the-means policy. Is this who you want running the country?

THE MUDDLING OF MOM

With the recent attacks on Ann Romney, wife of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, based upon her stay-at-home-mom status, another battle on the cultural front has battle lines drawn between the liberal progressive side and the more traditional conservative side of our society.

Let me start out by saying that I certainly understand when financial necessity dictates that a mother leave the home and work to provide. There are some "must do" situations where there is not an option to not work-and still maintain your pride and avoid public assistance. 

The question that we have here is what if there is not financial necessity? What are the pros and cons of a woman choosing to work in the workplace for whatever her reasons are versus staying at home and being a full time parent to children in the home.

Traditionally, the husband went to the workplace daily, and the wife stayed in the home and took care of the children, the home, and supported the physical needs of the working husband. Since the fifties, that trend has slowly moved toward the nuclear family becoming less structured. Todays family may or may not include the ceremony of a marriage, and women are much more likely to work outside the home. What then are the effects of that change.

We are clear that single parent households are less successful in the outcomes of their children than two parent families. A look at the black urban communities in America clearly demonstrate that with a matriarchal society, which men have abdicated their responsibilities to provide for their families. Having multiple "baby mamas" has become a badge of honor to young black men who live on crime, identify with gangs as their families and rely on a racial identity which places them outside the mainstream of society and afoul of the law in vast numbers.

The working single parent is likely one who is working of necessity. But what of the two parent family? In the two parent family, the statistics are very different. Just the presence of two parent who are in harmony in a marriage greatly increases the chances of success for their children. The children achieve higher levels of education, often enter marriage themselves, and are more frequently judged "productive citizens".


So now, what of the choice to have a single working parent or both parents in the workplace. What are the pros and cons, and what are the impacts both to the individuals and to society as a whole.


Feminists often talk with disdain of the non-working mom. As if she is some kind of less worthy woman, since she doesn't juggle home, children, career and education as the working mother is required to do. For some working moms there is no choice, but the argument can be made for those with a choice, that perhaps it is more rational to not place yourself in that degree of stress which comes with that juggling act.


Women who stay at home have benefits often perceived as follow:

• A tremendous feeling of fulfillment, the thought of being important, needed
• Gratification they recieve from knowing they are giving their children a strong moral foundation
• It's a full time career with its own ample rewards
• Satisfaction of knowing that they are there when their children need them
• A pleasure of giving, as well as seeing their children grow, and being an integral part of their lives 

It could be summed up that the paycheck is the character of the children raised as opposed to a paycheck. Given the statistical outcomes, you could condemn the choice to work as self centered, and more about affording luxury. Sounds cynical doesn't it?

Reasons given to chose work over family include:

• Not having a sense of fulfillment, feeling their lives are limited, and they are trapped.
• Feeling that being at home makes them lose their sense of self.
• Not having a high self-worth.
• Feeling less appreciated at home that they did at work.

While there may be some truth to parenting being a thankless job at times, and while some may feel less appreciated, these really sound self centered, and not the thoughts or concepts of thinking that someone who has a strong sense of family would have.

This author will contend that the "pros" of working moms and the "cons" leveled against stay-at-home-moms are really just rationalizations and apologists excuses for what is clearly a less desirable choice. Secondly this choice is not issue of gender equality, but rather addressing the choice and consequences of this election of lifestyle.

        

• Both the quantity and quality of time spent with children are better when mom is at home.
• Children's values and morals can be guided and the children can be disciplined more consistently.
• Children feel more secure when mom does not work.
• Being able to watch one's child grow provides enormous gratification for a mother.

Advantage for Working Mothers-challenged assumptions.

• The money working mothers earn is advantageous to both their children and their families. While this may be true it doesn't address the balance of what is lost where the economic benefit is not a necessity to the family.
• Children who have working mothers are more likely to be independent and mature than children with full-time mothers.This assumption is clearly refuted in the criminal statistics and juvenile records which reflect the working mom household has a much lower rate of anti-social conduct by the children than the unsupervised home where mom is at work. This is especially true for older children in pre-teen and teen years.
• Working is better for a woman's personal growth. While this is a judgement call, it would appear that it is a opinion which asserts that there is no growth in being a good parent and raising successful children. It seems to say that only the working world can provide growth, a patently ridiculous claim.
• There is a feeling of satisfaction; it makes them happier as people, and therefore, better mother.This seems the ultimate justification. It fallaciously argues that working somehow make you a better parent, but how can that apply if you don't have the time with the children to manifest your better parenting skills.
• They feel they have to work for their own psychological well-being.

  Conflicts for Working Mothers

• Sadness of wanting to be with their children and knowing they can't.
• The hurt of having to leave a crying child.
• Missing out on an important event in the child's life.
• Sharing the role of motherhood with a stranger.
• Pain of having someone else seeing the joy of their child's "firsts".
• Anxiety and worry of if their children are adequately cared for.
• Neglecting the child's emotional needs.

The discussion above is that. It is a review of the questions raised by a family with the choice to have a mother work or not. I think the conclusions are that a family is better off to have a parent at home. There are of course exceptions, and we speak here in generalities. Society would be better served, crime rates would drop, marriage failures would decline, and many other societal malaise's would be lessened or cured by the nuclear family as described here. Liberalism and feminism argue against this, but the statistics reflect that since those views have gotten some traction in society (for right or wrong) the statistics on youth crime, divorce, and broken families and poor outcomes have increased.
 

A DIFFERENT VIEW OF THE OBAMAS

Consider this different perspective on the Obamas.


Why I Do Not Like The Obama's – A Black Man's Prespective.
The other evening on my twitter, a person asked me why I didn’t like the Obama’s? Specifically I was asked: “I have to ask, why do you hate the Obama’s? It seems personal not policy related. You even dissed their Christmas family pic.” The truth is I do not like the Obamas, what they represent, their ideology, and I certainly do not like his policies and legislation.

I’ve made no secret of my contempt for the Obamas. As I responded to the person who asked me the aforementioned question, I don’t like them because they are committed to the fundamental change of my/our country into what can only be regarded as a Communist state.

I don’t hate them per definition, but I condemn them because they are the worst kind of racialists, they are elitist Leninists with contempt for traditional America. They display disrespect for the sanctity of the office he holds, and for those who are willing to admit same Michelle Obama’s raw contempt for white America is transpicuous.

I don’t like them because they comport themselves as emperor and empress. I expect, no I demand respect for the Office of President and a love of our country and her citizenry from the leader entrusted with the governance of same. President and Mrs. Reagan displayed an unparalleled love for the country and her people. The Reagans made Americans feel good about themselves and about what we could accomplish. Could you envision President Reagan instructing his Justice Department to act like jack-booted thugs?

Presidents are politicians and all politicians are known and pretty much expected to manipulate the truth, if not outright lie, but even using that low standard, the Obama’s have taken lies, dishonesty, deceit, mendacity, subterfuge and obfuscation to new depths. They are verbally abusive to the citizenry and they display an animus for civility.

I do not like them, because they both display bigotry overtly, as in the case of Harvard Professor Louis Gates, when he accused the Cambridge Police of acting stupidly, and her code speak pursuant to now being able to be proud of America. I view that statement and that mindset as an insult to those who died to provide a country where a Kenyan, his illegal alien relatives, and his alleged progeny, could come and not only live freely, but rise to the highest, most powerful, position in the world. Michelle Obama is free to hate and disparage whites, because Americans of every description paid with their blood to ensure her right to do same.

I have a saying, that “the only reason a person hides things, is because they have something to hide.” No president in history has spent over a million dollars to keep his records and his past sealed. And what the two of them have shared has been proved to be lies. He lied about when and how they met, he lied about his mother’s death and problems with insurance, Michelle lied to a crowd pursuant to nearly $500,000 bank stocks they inherited from his family. He has lied about his father’s military service, about the civil rights movement, ad nauseum.

He lied to the world about the Supreme Court in a State of the Union address. He berated and publicly insulted a sitting Congressman. He has surrounded himself with the most rabidly, radical, socialist academicians today. He has fought for abortion procedures and opposed rulings that protected women and children, that even Planned Parenthood did not seek to support. He is openly hostile to business and aggressively hostile to Israel.

His wife treats being the First Lady, as her personal American Express Black Card (arguably the most prestigious credit card in the world). I condemn them because, as people are suffering, losing their homes, their jobs, their retirements, he and his family are arrogantly showing off their life of entitlement – as he goes about creating and fomenting class warfare.

I don’t like them, and I neither apologize nor retreat from my public condemnation of them and of his policies. We should condemn them for the disrespect they show our people, for his willful and unconstitutional actions pursuant to obeying the Constitutional parameters he is bound by, and his willful disregard for Congressional authority.

Dislike for them has nothing to do with the color of their skin, it has everything to do with their behavior, attitudes, and policies. And I have open scorn for their playing the race.

It is my intention to do all within my ability to ensure their reign is one term. I could go on, but let me conclude with this. I condemn in the strongest possible terms the media for refusing to investigate them as they did President Bush and President Clinton, and for refusing to label them for what they truly are. There is no scenario known to man, whereby a white president and his wife could ignore laws, flaunt their position, and lord over the people as these two are permitted out of fear for their color.

As I wrote in a syndicated column titled “Nero In The White House” – “Never in my life, inside or outside of politics, have I witnessed such dishonesty in a political leader. He is the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequalled. Using Obama as the bar, Nero would have to be elevated to sainthood…Many in America wanted to be proud when the first person of color was elected president, but instead, they have been witness to a congenital liar, a woman who has been ashamed of America her entire life, failed policies, intimidation and a commonality hitherto not witnessed in political leaders. He and his wife view their life at our expense as an entitlement – while America’s people go homeless, hungry and unemployed.” (WND.com; 8/8/11)

                                                                                                       Mychal Massie

                                                                                                      mychal-massie.com

Mychal S. Massie is National Chairman of the conservative black think tank, Project 21-The National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives; and a member of its’ parent think tank, the National Center for Public Policy Research.  In his official capacity with this free market public policy think tank he has spoken at the U.S. Capitol, CPAC, participated in numerous press conferences on Capitol Hill, the National Press Club and has testified concerning property rights pursuant to the “Endangered Species Act” before the Chairman of the House Committee on Resources. 

He has been a keynote speaker at colleges and universities nationwide, at Tea Party Rallies, at rallies supporting our troops and conservative presidents; and rally’s supporting conservative causes across the country.  He is an unapologetic supporter of our right to own and carry firearms.
Mychal is also a syndicated op-ed columnist; and former host of the top rated talk show on the Rightalk Radio Network – “Straight Talk with Mychal Massie;” he is a former self employed business owner of 30 plus years.  Mychal is a frequent inspirational / motivational speaker and a regularly featured guest on national and regional TV / talk radio programs.  The online version of his column is carried exclusively by WorldNetDaily.com and enjoys a loyal, supportive, readership around the world.

With appearances on The Glenn Beck Show, Bill O’Reilly’s “The Factor”, Fox News, Fox Business Channel, CNN, CNBC, Philadelphia’s “Sunday Live”, C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” MSNBC, “It’s Your Call”, NPR, Judicial Watch, The Michael Reagan Show, New York’s Regional News Network, WWOR/TV9, BBC News, and Focus On the Family; Mychal is recognized as one of America’s most articulate and outspoken Black conservative voices.

He is quoted by America’s most popular program hosts and on the nation’s most listened to programming including Brit Hume, Neil Cavuto, Neal Gabler, Focus on the Family, Rush Limbaugh, Fox and Friends, and Rev. Pat Robertson to name but a few.  He has successfully debated Congressman Melvin Watt, D-NC, Geraldo Rivera, Rev. Al Sharpton and Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.  He appeared in the docu-movie “What Black Men Think.”  He also made and appearance in the independent motion picture “Life Fine Tuned.”  His positions on a colorblind society, civil rights, educational reform, self sufficiency, individual responsibility, family, the judiciary, abortion, limited government, reparations, homeland security, immigration and war (both past and present) are forthright and unyielding. 

A provocative, outside the box, visionary thinker, he has been called the “Black male Ann Coulter” by liberals who condemn him; and “George Will on steroids” by conservatives who love him.  Al Sharpton has referred to him as “fearless.”
 
In February 2011 Mychal hosted an “empty chair debate” at the National Press Club, after Al Sharpton, Marc Morial of the National Urban League and former Congressman and co-founder of the Congressional Black Congress Walter Fauntroy, refused to debate him on the merits of their accusations of racism, directed at Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally.

While a recipient of numerous awards, he is most proud of the awards received August 9, 2006.  At that time the Marine Corps League – Bob Swanson Det. 1102 awarded Mychal with Honorary Membership in the United States Marine Corps League, the United States Marine Corps League Distinguished Citizen Award, the United States Marine Corps League Distinguished Citizen Award Medal, and the United States Marine Corps League Certificate of Appreciation, for amongst other things his exemplary service in the interests of the United States Marine Corp and The Marine Corps league.  He is the recipient of the prestigious “Conservative Man of the Year Award” for 2008, presented by the New York State Conservative Party.  In December 2011, he was recognized as one of the top 20 most influential black Republicans in the nation.

In addition to having hosted his own top rated talk show, Mychal has hosted regional and national talk shows, including Joe Farah’s “WorldNetDaily Radioactive” in the Nation’s Capital, WWRL’s Afternoon Drive in New York, the Rick Jenson show in Wilmington, Delaware and WHP 580 Clear Channel Broadcasting in Harrisburg, Pa.

A charter member of Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson’s New Black Vanguard, Mychal holds degrees in education, business/real estate, theology, and pastoral counseling.  He began his writing career in 1999 shortly after becoming an editorial board member at a suburban Philadelphia newspaper.  He wrote the forward for the re-release of Booker T. Washington’s autobiography “Up From Slavery,” released spring 2010.  With two book manuscripts in process and a third being studied, we can expect him to make a strong debut on the literary scene in the next year.

THE REAL COST OF OIL

Have you ever considered the economic impact, and the sociopolitical impact of the oil which the United States purchases from the middle-east countries, Latin American countries and OPEC?

Let me just share some numbers with you. Ostensibly, due to our failure to develop our oil and natural gas resources, and our failures to work with our neighbor countries Mexico and Canada to import nearby oil we don't have enough to meet national needs.

These failures are tied directly to the Obama government's ideological decision to not support the fossil fuel industry, and the "czar" of the energy department saying that he would like to see high oil prices to force citizens to alternative power sources. From those decisions we have gotten government investments such as Solyndra in which half a billion dollars were lost on a shaky investment pushed by the White House despite warnings from the auditing branches of government not to make the loan. Beyond that all Americans are now feeling pain at the pump as prices have climbed to record highs, approaching $5 per gallon in some areas "while Rome (make that Washington) burns.

There is a potential impact which American's can make to help with this problem.
 

The U.S. Currently imports 5,517,000 barrels of crude oil per day from OPEC. If you do the math at $100 per barrel, that's over $550 million PER DAY ($200 BILLION per year!) handed over to OPEC, many of whose members are our confirmed "enemies"! It won't stop here-oil prices could go to $200 a barrel or higher if we keep buying their product.

The following gas companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell......................................205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco....................144,332,000 barrels
Exxon/Mobil..........................130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway.............117,740,000 barrels
Amoco.....................................62,231,000 barrels
Valero....................................(no barrels number but they obtain 46% of their oil from the Middle East and South America. Also CITGO oil is imported from Venezuela who's Dictator HUGO CHAVEZ hates America and openly avows our economic destruction!

Here are some large companies to support that DO NOT import Middle Eastern oil:

Sunoco.........................0 barrels
Conoco.........................0 barrels
Sinclair..........................0 barrels
BP/Phillips......................0 barrels
Hess..............................0 barrels
ARC0.............................0 barrels
Maverick........................0 barrels
Flying  J.........................0 barrels
CAMurphy Oil USA*.......0 barrels

*Sold at Wal-Mart & SAMS, gas is from South Arkansas and fully USA owned and produced.
Not only that but they give scholarships to all children in their town who finish high school and are legal US citizens.

All of this information is available from the U.S. Department of Energy and each company is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

We as American consumers should vote with our wallets and purchase only domestic oil. As as footnote, I have contacted Costco and Fred Meyer (popular vendors in my area) to see who they buy their gasoline from. I will update the article when I have responses. Until then, if you can - Buy American.

ARE WE SUNSHINE SOLDIERS? CHOOSE!

Another thought to share today from Benjamin Smith (no relation) on the direction our nation is going. Read on.

 

OUR COLD CIVIL WAR

By Benjamin Smith

On the heels of NDAA, ObamaCare, Stimulus, Son of Stimulus, Patriot Act, takeover of auto, energy, media and movie industries, and the relentless implementation of Agenda 21… the Obama regime running our country into the ground has issued an updated Executive Order which suggests the probability of impending MARTIAL LAW.

We are left to scratch our heads and ask……… Why now?

The only possible answer is…

America is in fact, right now, in the vicious throes of a Cold Civil War.

Cold as in non-violent and Civil as in nationwide; an attempt to force a new government-controlled ideology upon an unwilling public.

And the forces implementing this agenda are relentless.

The National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order is nothing more than a blatant attempt to stir trouble of the highest intensity. The regime is looking to see who jumps and to see the movement that happens amongst the most vocal defenders of our rights, (you and me). They are poking us to see if we will go over the edge and do something so stupid that there will be a crisis… it will be our fault… and if any of our number are provoked enough to rise to the proverbial bait — they will finally lower the hammer… all in the name of “national security and public safety.”

These are classic Soviet style tactics designed and implemented in an effort to make us react, get us to either flinch and shut up, or overreact and get suppressed. It is also an exercise so they can gather intel on who is who and who has pull.

Many of us are trained. We know this game.

But we cannot stand down. We cannot be silent. We MUST stand together as one…WITHOUT VIOLENCE, for there is no going back from that; we MUST speak out with the conviction and the authority granted by our unalienable rights and the United States Constitution!

Remember Martin Niemöller and his immortal wisdom about the failure of courage in speaking out; “Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”

The regime is limiting our speech on a daily basis, so speak up while you still can. But be smart about what you say. Do not be tempted to phrase your words in terms of violence. For this is the way of the enemy and we should never stoop to their low and bloody tactics, whether in word or deed.

Keep preparing for rough times ahead. Stock your pantry in preparation for lean days, even as the regime attempts to make such things illegal. Focus your mind on liberty, that it should never die.

I cannot tell you exactly what is coming but I know, as do you, that something unprecedented in American history, perhaps even all human history, is coming soon.

This is the common theme in most of all the conversations that I hear… there is something coming, no one really knows what it is; they just know that whatever it is, it will be momentous. The discussions range from quantifying this “something” to describing what we will do after “IT” happens. I even hear serious open conversation of the Biblical “End of Times.” People, even those outside the grassroots Tea Party movement, feel it in their bones.

Speculation runs rampant as people ponder the feeling in their gut. It could begin with something as simple as personal unemployment. It may be the 2012 general election — or NOT. Or it could be any number of events that will trigger Martial Law and the now legal occupation of America by her own troops, under the un-Constitutional NDAA.

Those types of events are limitless and terrifying. It could be a full scale crash of our economy and dollar. It could be a new World War launched by Israel attacking Iran, or vice versa. It could be the launch of the rumored North Korean EMP attack designed to hurl America 100 years back into pre-electronic time. It could be Islamic jihadists succeeding in a catastrophic terrorist attack. It could be the enemy within if the Obama Administration’s aided and abetted “Occupy” movement transfers and escalates the violence witnessed in Oakland to the rest of the country.

Whatever the trigger might be, we are about to get the education of a lifetime on what it is to struggle. It will either make us more committed Americans, earning the Latin communitas – or it will literally tear us apart. I believe that the source of this struggle springs from the complex sublimity of global despotic tyranny – ultimate oppression.

Our culture is in the midst of a moral dilemma where bad is now good and what was deemed originally American by our Founders is now un-American. The Founders are all but outlawed because soon, unless those who hate freedom are halted, after the regime finishes destroying the Bill of Rights they will also totally erase the Founders from the educational curriculum. They will outlaw the works of our Founding Fathers and destroy their very existence, burning books and erasing American liberty from history. It will be done incrementally and they will transform our history into one that aligns with their totalitarian views.

Every single day we have now turned to reacting to what the regime is putting out instead of looking to where they are taking us. The powers pulling the levers of tyranny are every day more draconian and daring in scope as they usurp our institutions and drain the power from our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Most all of the stories that are important and should be seen are buried by the complicit media at the end of the weekly news cycles and under the cloak of darkness.

In Quantum Theory there is a concept called a singularity or a black hole. Just as a black hole cannot be seen in space, the actual truth and facts of the world situation and the intentions of the U.S. government must be judged by the influence exerted on the objects around it — extortion, manipulation, intimidation, czars, fascist over- regulation designed to purposefully strangle an economy and legislate away your right to defend and provide for yourself — all in an effort to force you into their food line dependency and powerlessness!

The gravity of a black hole is so monumental that even light collapses upon itself. And in the same way, the lights of liberty are also collapsing upon themselves as media, government officials and useful idiots corrupt our understanding of American Exceptionalism so we can never really know the nefarious plot that seeks to turn our good country into an empty carcass they can declare the “failed” American Experiment. Their answer to the great philosopher’s question, “Can man govern himself” will surely be no.

It must be noted that this current Administration is not the only perpetrator. A long history of Administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have eaten away at our freedom. This Obama Administration, so fatally attacking our liberty, is just the one closing the noose. The broad strokes of true Communism were tightly woven into the ObamaCare and Stimulus bills, yet most Americans had no clue.

The technocratic, lawyer-istic drool contained within those bills made it even harder to comprehend that Soft Tyranny was the true intent. And Soft Tyranny always ends in Hard Tyranny — a horror not yet experienced by Americans never exposed to adversity and real stress — where tyrannical forces purposefully separate us from each other, turn us against each other (compulsory service, Ready Reserve, NDAA and the coercions in 5201 of ObamaCare) and control every aspect of our lives… lives which then become CRUEL because YOUR life will now be totally and completely ruled by THEIR choice.

IF THEY WIN, even the passion to be free and ultimately the reality itself of being free will be as if these blessings have never existed. Tyranny can never allow such powerful ideas to remain in the collective consciousness.

They will burn our books and they will attempt to erase our God. Because without the concept of freedom codified in books by the brilliant minds of Cicero, Locke and Montesquieu; without the inspiration and institutions from our Founders; without the guidance of God to the understanding that there is a higher power than the government, there would never have been our nation “conceived in liberty.”

But while I believe this struggle in which we are engaged is the struggle of the century, nay, the struggle of all centuries, I also believe in American Exceptionalism.

I believe that the heart and soul of America is strong and vibrant and that we shall not falter in our commitment to liberty.

We live NOW in the times that will try men’s souls.

CHOOSE NOW!

Are you a Summer Soldier, a Sunshine Patriot only to speak out when times are easy and there is no risk? Or are you an American Exceptionalist who will STAND with me, RIGHT NOW to preserve our liberty, our beliefs and the American Way?

About Benjamin Smith:
Former Navy SEAL, Benjamin Smith took an oath to defend our Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic. That oath has no expiration date. As a writer, speaker, political strategist and ardent Constitutionalist, Benjamin Smith continues to battle tyranny and defend the freedoms that enabled American exceptionalism.