Worth the Fight

Bringing the Heat                                                                        Source

Sarge is “In a Black Mood” and the other day he said “The political stuff leaves me gasping for fresh air”  So while he's out enjoying some fresh air for a day or two, I’m breathing some of the hot air that makes the political environment so intolerable.  More on that in a bit. By the way, that picture doesn't have much to do with the post, but those Warthogs are ready for a fight.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned that my son is autistic, and raising a special needs child had its ups and downs.  Nothing is ever easy and when it seems like you’re getting ahead, something will undoubtedly come up to keep you humble.  When it came to his education, we were often reminded to not become complacent, but also to count our blessings.  We learned that fairly early in his upbringing, not through failure, but by realizing a success.  When we moved from Bremerton Washington back to San Diego, we put him in the neighborhood elementary school for him to finish Kindergarten.  Being autistic, we knew it would be a tough transition for him, especially since it was a mid-year school change, so he wasn’t able to keep up.  They didn’t have a special education class though so we were advised by the wife of a former squadron-mate, an early intervention education specialist, to ask for an aide.  We did and he had a one-on-one aid for the rest of the year which helped.  A couple years later at a better school, one with a resource teacher and special education classes, the aide was still there.  We met the mother of another classmate who was well behind and falling further.  She asked us how we got the aide and we just said we simply asked for it.  They were of Mexican descent, there was somewhat of a language barrier, and so she had no idea that anything like that was possible.  The school district must to provide a child with the necessary accommodations, but we then realized that a kid would only get additional help if it was requested, assuming the parent knew what was available.  Even if it was written into their Individualized Education Plan (IEP),  a parent had to sometimes forcefully advocate for their child to get help.

My "wife" is on the right.  No resemblance whatsoever though.

From then on, my wife was a street fighter when it came to my son, and everyone else had one hand tied behind their back.  When I was able to attend the IEP meetings, I was always impressed.  It’s like she was sparring with a bunch of scrubs.  She not only knew our son, but she knew what services were available.  The IEP team was bringing a knife to a gun fight. 

So about that heavy breathing.  While Sarge waxes political only so often, it’s kind of my schtick.  I figured I could pick up a little slack around here since it’s been a while and sarge deserves a break from the heavy lifting.  So where was I going with that street fighter stuff?  Well, sometimes we have to fight for everything we get and it might get a little bloody.  Politics is often a fight, and it can be very tiring, but we have to keep going into the late rounds.  There are plenty of examples of the fight today- gun control, the war on women, abortion, fiscal responsibility.  Whoops, my bad, apparently NO ONE is fighting the fiscal fight.  The rest are being fought in the media, with a narrative being shaped and cultivated without the whole truth.  Look at the push to ban assault weapons.  I know those shootings are tragic, and I’m truly sad and sorry that they happened, but I am sure they won’t be stopped by banning a specific weapon.  Some people want to throw out the tired old trope- “But we have to do something!”  They think that that “something” must include an assault weapons ban.  I have a few problems with that: 

1.  The Constitution

2.  Guns aren’t the problem, culture and mental illness are (along with illegal weps)

3.  Logistics- How’s this going to work?  Will they demand we turn them in, go door to door to confiscate them, or is it just a ban on future sales?  If it’s the first two, see #1 above.  

Confiscation of over 150 million guns from American citizens is about as likely as deporting 20 million illegal aliens.  Presidential Candidate and Texan Robert “Beto” O’Rourke has flip-flopped on his previous position, doubling down on stupid:

At the Democratic-primary debate in Houston last night, Beto O’Rourke formally killed off one of the gun-control movement’s favorite taunts: The famous “Nobody is coming for your guns, wingnut.” Asked bluntly whether he was proposing confiscation, O’Rourke abandoned the disingenuous euphemisms that have hitherto marked his descent into extremism, and confirmed as plainly as can be that he was. “Hell yes,” he said, “we’re going to take your AR-15.”                                                                                                                                                     Source

To be honest, I sort of like his honesty.  It's a breath of fresh air to hear a politician not mince words, and say what they actually think.  I don't like the message at all, and it's political suicide to discount the beliefs of millions of voters, and the rights of all of them, but it's definitely a refreshing change of pace.  And while I appreciate his honesty, it's unconstitutional and it won't stand. 

But that's where the fight comes.  The left doesn't care one bit that what they want is unconstitutional.  The Constitution is supposed to be an institution, a "paragon of virtue" per se that is sacrosanct, that shall not be trifled with, but it is always under attack.  What is right and fair and constitutional is irrelevant if it gets in the left's way to achieving what ever it is that they want.  What is that?  I have no idea.  Chaos and anarchy?  Quite possibly.

We've seen the way they fight through the weaponizing of the IRS.  A former squadron-mate of mine had a very strong social media presence which focused on conservative values and the racism within the democratic party across the decades.  As a black man, he was noticed by people active in conservative politics and in 2011 or so, in the middle of Obama's first term, was asked to consider running for congress.  As soon as he filed paperwork, he was hit with three separate IRS audits.  This is a guy who never made more than $150K in a year and had absolutely nothing in his tax filings to warrant a single audit, much less three.

All over the country, the Pro-life advocate David Daedelin revealed the brutality and greed of Planned Parenthood through some undercover videos.  He was hit with one indictment after another, despite precedent showing that his investigations, like so many others before him, were perfectly legal.  Countless investigations into President Trump and his team, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars, all based on reports they knew were false, also shows the length to which they'll go to advance their agenda and shore up their power base.

Illegal campaign donations, election fraud, partisan FBI officials allowing investigations, audits, indictments, fraud, bogus news stories, etc.  These are all tools of the left to suppress the truth, to subvert their opponents, and maintain political pressure on Trump and suppress the truth.  They'll also use the courts, shopping for sympathetic judges who  order injunctions against his executive orders, or even standing law, as we've seen with the current border immigration/asylum crisis.  Precedent and standing law mean nothing to the left, with everything up for interpretation by liberal courts and judges.

For a party that preaches diversity and tolerance, they aren’t even tolerant to the members of their own party.  Candidate Marianne Williamson was recently caught on a hot mike talking about that-  “What does it say that Fox News is nicer to me than the lefties are?”  What it means is that they want what they want, and won’t stand for anyone or anything getting in their way, to include moderates, and the constitution.

The left doesn't actually care about you and me, whether or not we're their constituents.  They don't care about the constitution, what it means, what it stands for, what it says.  It's all just temporary fungible language that is open to not only constant reinterpretation, but able to be consistently ignored if it goes against what they want at the particular moment.  

My son would not be where he is today if my wife hadn't constantly fought for him.  She was only fighting for what might have been some limited special education resources, but the political fight is to preserve our inherent and God-given rights and freedoms.  Yes, it can be tiring, and those Facebook posts or rebuttals may not result in changing the opinions of the other person, but someone paying attention may be positively influenced.    

You've probably heard the saying- “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Source

I'm not doing nothing.  It doesn't have to be an aggressive fight, but it must be a consistent one.  The longer truth is suppressed, the more likely that uninformed minds will believe that the conservative values we know to be good and fair and true, are actually greedy, without compassion, and evil.  I fight back by being well informed, calmly discussing my points of view without personal attacks.   Sometimes it works.  Anybody up for a fight?  Who's with me?