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The Speech That Defined a Presidency

Jen Bricker 5 min

An Independence Day Prayer: Archbishop John Carroll

(photo from wikipedia)

Archbishop John Carroll (1735-1815), the first bishop of the United States, wrote this prayer November 10, 1791, to be recited in parishes throughout his diocese.

We pray, Thee O Almighty and Eternal God! Who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Thy mercy, that Thy Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of Thy Name.

We pray Thee, who alone art good and holy, to endow with heavenly knowledge, sincere zeal, and sanctity of life, our chief bishop, Pope N., the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the government of his Church; our own bishop, N., all other bishops, prelates, and pastors of the Church; and especially those who are appointed to exercise amongst us the functions of the holy ministry, and conduct Thy people into the ways of salvation.

We pray Thee O God of might, wisdom, and justice! Through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with Thy Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the President of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently useful to Thy people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality. Let the light of Thy divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety, and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty.

We pray for his excellency, the governor of this state, for the members of the assembly, for all judges, magistrates, and other officers who are appointed to guard our political welfare, that they may be enabled, by Thy powerful protection, to discharge the duties of their respective stations with honesty and ability.

We recommend likewise, to Thy unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of Thy most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.

Finally, we pray to Thee, O Lord of mercy, to remember the souls of Thy servants departed who are gone before us with the sign of faith and repose in the sleep of peace; the souls of our parents, relatives, and friends; of those who, when living, were members of this congregation, and particularly of such as are lately deceased; of all benefactors who, by their donations or legacies to this Church, witnessed their zeal for the decency of divine worship and proved their claim to our grateful and charitable remembrance. To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light, and everlasting peace, through the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

 

God Bless the USA - The Texas Tenors HAPPY FOURTH!

The Socialist Origins of America: Prager University

Courtesy of Prager University.

From YouTube:

Was America once socialist? Surprisingly, yes. The early settlers who arrived at Plymouth and Jamestown in the early 1600s experimented with socialist communes. Did it work? History professor Larry Schweikart of the University of Dayton shares the fascinating story. 

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) on MSNBC Defining Conservatism

Take a tour of new One World Observatory

Gary Kasparov: "American values created the greatest democracy in the world."

Gary Kasparov delivered the commencement address at St Louis University, on May 16, 2015.  The Wall Street Journal published parts of his address in the Notable & Quotable section today.

Here's the quote:

From the commencement address given by Garry Kasparov, the Russian opposition figure and former world chess champion, at Saint Louis University, May 16:

Every day we make choices large or small: individuals, companies, entire nations. Are those choices guided by the values we treasure? Are we loyal to the principles of individual freedom, of faith, of excellence, of compassion, of the value of human life? Or do we trade them away, bit by bit, for material goods, for a quiet life, and to pass the problems of today on to the next generation?

These moral values are also the values of innovation and the free market, by the way. It is no coincidence that these founding American values created the greatest democracy in the world and also the greatest economy in the world. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus urged his believers to be a “City on a Hill,” a shining example to the world, a phrase used to describe America by John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. I saw that America from the other side of the Iron Curtain and I can tell you that it mattered. And it matters still.

If America is to continue as a “light of the world” it will be up to you and to your generation to hold fast to these values and not to trade them away for a safe and stagnant status quo. Risk is not only for entrepreneurs. Risk is for anyone who will fight for these values in their lives and in the world every day.

CBS Embraces Truth. Where Have You Gone, Dan Rather?

If the rest of the main stream media embraces the truth about Mitt Romney - and about Barack Obama (which they have yet to do) - American Exceptionalism will once again manifest itself around the world.


H/T: jpa1948

Paul Ryan Makes the Case - With Clarity!

Paul Ryan, writing today at The American Spectator, makes his and Mitt Romney's case so clearly that even a Democrat should be able to understand it.  His essay is titled: "Who Built America?"  You can read the clear, concise and extremely understandable piece in its entirety by clicking on the link below.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/08/13/who-built-america

Economic freedom empowers entrepreneurs who have ideas and imagination, investors who take risks, and workers who hone their skills and offer their labor. Our exceptional country was built with the ingenuity, capital, and sweat contributed by individuals who risked it all to provide a brighter future for their families. America was founded on the shared belief that government's primary role is to safeguard our God-given freedoms, as individual initiative and a strong civil society are what make prosperity possible. America is exceptional for this very reason: No other country in the history of mankind was founded on such a powerful idea.

The president's policies have stifled this commitment to economic freedom, which has resulted in millions of Americans facing painful economic hardships. In the president's revealing rhetoric, we gain insight into why the economy remains so anemic and the future looks so bleak: Success is a function of government beneficence, not individual initiative.

Paul Ryan: American Exceptionalism and Moral Relativism

From HouseBudgetCommittee:

Uploaded by HouseBudgetCommittee on Jun 6, 2011

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin delivered the following remarks to the Hamilton Society on June 2, 2011.



Our fiscal policy and our foreign policy are on a collision course; and if we fail to put our budget on a sustainable path, then we are choosing decline as a world power.



If we continue down our current path, then a debt-fueled economic crisis is not a probability. It is a mathematical certainty. Some hear these facts and conclude that the sun is setting on America... that our problems are bigger than we are... that our competitors will soon outrun us... and that the choice we face is over how, not whether, to manage our nation's decline. It's inevitable, they seem to say, so let's just get on with it... Our fiscal problems are real, and the need to address them is urgent. But I'm here to tell you that decline is not a certainty for America. Rather, as Charles Krauthammer put it, "decline is a choice."



A world without U.S. leadership will be a more chaotic place, a place where we have less influence, and a place where our citizens face more dangers and fewer opportunities. Choosing decline would have consequences that I doubt many Americans would be comfortable with. So we must lead. ...a central element of maintaining American leadership is the promotion of our moral principles -- consistently and energetically -- without being unrealistic about what is possible for us to achieve.



A safer world and a more prosperous America go hand-in-hand. Economic growth is the key to avoiding the kind of painful austerity that would limit our ability to generate both hard and soft power. A more prosperous economy enables us to afford a modernized military that is properly sized for the breadth of the challenges we face.



Today, some in this country relish the idea of America's retreat from our role in the world. They say that it's about time for other nations to take over; that we should turn inward; that we should reduce ourselves to membership on a long list of mediocre has-beens... Instead of heeding these calls to surrender, we must renew our commitment to the idea that America is the greatest force for human freedom the world has ever seen; a country whose devotion to free enterprise has lifted more people out of poverty than any economic system ever designed; and a nation whose best days still lie ahead of us, if we make the necessary choices today.


President Obama Should Take This Walk

This is from Citizenlink.com.

H/T: edscis

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

The Declaration of Independence
from The U.S. Constitution: A Reader, pp. 5-9


With the War for Independence over a year old and hope for a peaceful resolution nonexistent, the Continental Congress appointed a Committee of Five—including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin—to draft a document “declar[ing] the causes which impel [the American colonies] to the separation.” Thirty-three-year-old Jefferson composed the initial draft, completing it in seventeen days. The committee submitted its draft to Congress on June 28, 1776, and on July 2, Congress voted for independence. Two days later, after numerous edits, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence by unanimous vote.

July 4, 1776
The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America


When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Maryland
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

© 2012 Hillsdale College Press. Please do not reproduce without permission.
The U.S. Constitution: A Reader is available for purchase at HillsdaleUSConstitution.com.

Trifecta: One Giant Step for American Exceptionalism

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=105&load=7013

Bill Whittle, Scott Ott, and Steve Green are ecstatic (as all Americans should be) over the latest outstanding, and classic American, achievement in space.  President Obama, albeit for all the wrong reasons, did the world a great favor when he decided we could no longer afford our space program (because he needed that money to buy votes for his reelection).  The exploration of space will henceforth belong to the private sector (at least in the United States), and just imagine how much red tape will not be needed to forge ahead to newer and newer horizons.  Even before Obama made Muslim outreach the number one priority of NASA, that government bureaucracy had lost its edge and could no longer be characterized as innovative.   So, the private sector has responded, and pretenders better get out of the way.  It's a triumph for something in which President Obama has never believed: American Exceptionalism. 

Memorial Day, May 28, 20012

Marines Taking Care of Marines

True story of the recovery of 19 US Marines Killed in Action on Makin Island in WWII and their return home to Arlington National Cemetery 58 years later. Story: Pat Mendoza. Music arranged by Pat Mendoza Trumpet: Steve Wiest. Singers: the Islanders and Pat Mendoza

One of the most moving videos ever posted on YouTube demonstrates how much Marines believe in taking care of their own.  God bless the U.S. Marines.

SEMPER FIDELIS!

H/T: edscis

President Reagan's Prayer for America

This video was posted on YouTube by a member of the Bel Air Presbyterian Church, who included this note:

Ronald Reagan's church put this together to commemorate the birthday of Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately the war against the evil of liberalism is still alive and well, and we fight it even at Bel Air Presbyterian. The liberal Presbyterians are doing all they can to pervert the church from the inside out. Fortunately the conservative Christians are strong at Bel Air. Ronald Reagan loved Bel Air Presbyterian as I do...Enjoy!

We'd like to add that a similar war is ongoing in the Catholic Church here in America, and we Traditional Catholics are winning.

H/T: maejean

National Day of Prayer: George Washington's Prayer for America

"HUMILITAS VERITAS"

Thomas Aquinas

Brian Mulroney on Ronald Reagan and Amrican Leadership

Brian Mulroney, the 18th Prime Minister of Canada (from September 1984 to June 1993), was interviews by Ginni Thomas, and the video was posted at The Daily Caller today.