I can only begin by borrowing or stealing - and that from the very best - past, wisdome so vey applicable to present poltical times,in order to drive home the urgency of my message. Please read what follows, for we should all, just before this most important of elections, be taking stock of every consideration:
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And also, I know not who said it, but it certainly true as well that "Now is the time for all good men" (and women as well) "to come to the aid of their country!"
We would all do well to read more of Thomas Paine, whose quotes and photograph follow:
So many reasons to love Thomas Paine
Posted on July 2, 2008 by rideronthet:
"Thomas Paine was, by some accounts, the most well-read Englishman ever to live. If you are reading this, regardless of who you are, or how many Nobel prizes you have won, you can rest assured that Paine’s education was more complete than your own. When you read his commentaries on money and the role of government, it is difficult to believe that Thomas Paine was one of the most influential members of the liberal movement. I have little doubt that, if Paine were to traverse time and visit America today, and observe the frail philosophy–if it can be called that–which now occupies the title of “liberalism,” he would promptly vomit all over Barack Obama’s shoes.
"Here I present Thomas Paine’s wisdom, in so many of his truthful quotes, based on nature and reason. From the spirit of revolution he carried to the American people through Common Sense in 1776, to his unwavering faith in God as expressed in his 1794 work, The Age of Reason, Paine was an indomitable figure in political history, and he would have died for his beliefs (and in many ruling minds of the time should have–he was held or tried for treason in France and England, as well as demonized worldwide for sharing his honest opinions); but Providence, it seemed, would not allow it. He was instrumental in inciting the two greatest revolutions of the Enlightenment (French and American), and worked with all his creative genius to expose both the beauty of Creation and the absurdity of monarchy, hoping through Rights of Man (1791) to incite a third revolution in Great Britain. In his words, which are relative today, as they always will be:
“There are habits of thinking peculiar to different conditions, and to find them out is truly to study mankind.” - Case of the Officers of the Excise
“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.” - Common Sense
“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.” - Common Sense
“Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.” - Common Sense
“The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.” - Common Sense
“It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to all examples from the former ages, to suppose, that this continent can longer remain the subject to any external power.” - Common Sense
“It is not in numbers but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world.” - Common Sense
“Can we but leave posterity with a settled form of government, and independent constitution of its own, the purchase at any price will be cheap.” - Common Sense
“Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavored to subdue us, is of all others the most improper to defend us. Conquest may be effected under the pretence of friendship; and ourselves, after a long and brave resistance, be at last cheated into slavery.” - Common Sense
“The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel.” - Common Sense
“As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith.” - Common Sense
“Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.” - Common Sense
“Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.” - Common Sense
“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.” - Common Sense
“Men read by way of revenge.” - Common Sense
“He who takes nature for his guide is not easily beaten out of his argument.” - Common Sense
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” - Common Sense
“Peace with trade is preferable to war without it.” - Common Sense
“Our plan is peace for ever.” - Common Sense
“Call not coldness of soul, religion; nor put the Bigot in the place of the Christian.” - Common Sense
“And here without anger or resentment I bid you farewell, sincerely wishing, that as men and Christians, ye may always fully and uninterruptedly enjoy every civil and religious right; and be, in your turn, the means of securing it to others; but that the example which ye have unwisely set, of mingling religion with politics, may be disavowed and reprobated by every individual inhabitant of America.” - Common Sense
“These are the times that try men’s souls.” - American Crisis
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.” - American Crisis
“Though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.” - American Crisis
“A right, to be truly so, must be right within itself: yet many things have obtained the name of rights, which are originally founded in wrong. Of this kind are all rights by mere conquest, power or violence.” - Public Good
“It seldom happens that the romantic schemes of extensive dominion are of any service to a government, and never to a people. They assuredly end at last in loss, trouble, division and disappointment.” - Public Good
“Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.” - Public Good
“Other revolutions may have originated in caprice, or generated in ambition; but here, the most unoffending humility was tortured into rage, and the infancy of existence made to weep.” - Letter to the Abbe Raynal
“Were it possible we could have known the world when in a state of barbarism, we might have concluded that it never could be brought into the order we now see it.” - Letter to the Abbe Raynal
“The philosopher of one country sees not an enemy in the philosopher of another: he takes his seat in the temple of science, and asks not who sits beside him.” - Letter to the Abbe Raynal
“Our style and manner of thinking have undergone a revolution more extraordinary than the political revolution of our country. We see with other eyes; we hear with other ears; and think with other thoughts, than those we formerly used. We can look back on our own prejudices, as if they had been the prejudices of other people.” - Letter to the Abbe Raynal
“The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.” - Letter to the Abbe Raynal
“Of more use was one philosopher, though a heathen, to the world, than all the heathen conquerers that ever existed.” - Letter to the Abbe Raynal
“Freedom is destroyed by dependence, and the safety of the state endangered thereby.” - Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money
“To hold any part of the citizens of the state, as yearly pensioners on the favour of an assembly, is striking at the root of free elections.” - Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money
“Gold and silver are the emissions of nature: paper is the emission of art. The value of gold and silver is ascertained by the quantity which nature has made in the earth. We cannot make that quantity more or less than it is, and therefore the value being dependent upon the quantity, depends not on man. Man has no share in making gold or silver; all that his labours and ingenuity can accomplish is, to collect it from the mine, refine it for use and give it an impression, or stamp it into coin.” - Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money
“The only proper use for paper, in the room of money, is to write promissory notes and obligations of payment in specie upon.” - Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money
“When an assembly undertake to issue paper as money, the whole system of safety and certainty is overturned, and property set afloat. Paper notes given and taken between individuals as a promise of payment is one thing, but paper issued by an assembly as money is another thing. It is like putting an apparition in the place of a man; it vanishes with looking at it, and nothing remains but the air.” - Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money
“Money, when considered as the fruit of many years’ industry, as the reward for labour, sweat and toil, as the widow’s dowry and children’s portion, and as the means of procuring the necessaries and alleviating the afflictions of life, and making old age a scene of rest, has something in it sacred that is not to be sported with, or trusted to the airy bubble of paper currency.” - Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money
“The evils of paper have no end. Its uncertain and fluctuating value is continually awakening or creating new schemes of deceit. Every principle of justice is put to the rack, and the bond of society dissolved: the suppression, therefore, of paper money might very properly have been put into the act for preventing vice and immorality.” - Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money
“As to the assumed authority of any assembly in making paper money, or paper of any kind, a legal tender, or in other language, a compulsive payment, it is a most presumptuous attempt at arbitrary power. There can be no such power in a republican government: the people have no freedom, and property no security where this practice can be acted: and the committee who shall bring in a report for this purpose, or the member who moves for it, and he who seconds it merits impeachment, and sooner or later may expect it.” - Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money
“Of all the various sorts of base coin, paper money is the basest. It has the least intrinsic value of anything that can be put in the place of gold and silver. A hobnail or a piece of wampum far exceeds it. And there would be more propriety in making those articles a legal tender than to make paper so.” - Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money
“Nature has provided the proper materials for money, gold and silver, and any attempt of ours to rival her is ridiculous.” - Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.” - Rights of Man
“A single expression, boldly conceived and uttered, will sometimes put a whole company into their proper feelings; and whole nations are acted upon in the same manner.” - Rights of Man
“All the great laws of society are laws of nature.” - Rights of Man
“All the great services that are done in the world are performed by volunteer characters, who accept nothing for them.” - Rights of Man
“Are not conquest and defeat each of the same price, and taxes the never-failing consequence?” - Rights of Man
“By the simple operation of constructing government on the principles of society and the rights of man, every difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison.” - Rights of Man
“Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.” - Rights of Man
“For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it.” - Rights of Man
“From a small spark, kindled in America, a flame has arisen, not to be extinguished.” - Rights of Man
“Government is a beast.” - Rights of Man
“Governments now act as if they were afraid to awaken a single reflection in man.” - Rights of Man
“I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all. It is only those who have not thought that appear to agree.” - Rights of Man
“If the crimes of men were exhibited with their sufferings, stage effect would sometimes be lost, and the audience would be inclined to approve where it was intended they should commiserate.” - Rights of Man
“If the good to be obtained be worthy of a passive, rational, and costless revolution, it would be bad policy to prefer waiting for the calamity that should force a violent one.” - Rights of Man
“If we examine, with attention, into the composition and constitution of man, the diversity of his wants, and the diversity of talents in different men for reciprocally accommodating the wants of each other, his propensity to society, and consequently to preserve the advantages resulting from it, we shall easily discover, that a great part of what is called government is mere imposition.” - Rights of Man
“In the representative system, the reason for everything must publicly appear. Every man is a proprietor in government, because it affects his property. He examines the cost, and compares it with the advantages; and above all, he does not adopt the slavish custom of following what in other governments are called LEADERS.” - Rights of Man
“Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.” - Rights of Man
“Instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a Nation should apply itself to reform the system.” - Rights of Man
“Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretences for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey, and permits none to escape without a tribute.” - Rights of Man
“It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that excessive revenues are obtained.” - Rights of Man
“It is a general idea, that when taxes are once laid on, they are never taken off.” - Rights of Man
“It is time that nations should be rational, and not be governed like animals, for the pleasure of their riders.” - Rights of Man
“Laws difficult to be executed cannot generally be good.” - Rights of Man
“Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind.” - Rights of Man
“Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow.” - Rights of Man
“Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of government.” - Rights of Man
“Man will not be brought up with the savage idea of considering his species as his enemy, because the accident of birth gave the individuals existence in countries distinguished by different names.” - Rights of Man
“Man, were he not corrupted by governments, is naturally the friend of man, and human nature is not of itself vicious.” - Rights of Man
“Nations can have no secrets; and the secrets of courts, like those of individuals, are always their defects.” - Rights of Man
“Nations, like individuals, who have long been enemies, without knowing each other, or knowing why, become the better friends when they discover the errors and impositions under which they had acted.” - Rights of Man
“Nothing is to be looked for but what has already happened; and as to reformation, whenever it come, it must be from the nation, and not from government.” - Rights of Man
“Only partial advantages can flow from partial reforms.” - Rights of Man
“Principles must stand on their own merits, and if they are good they certainly will.” - Rights of Man
“Public money ought to be touched with the most scupulous consciousness of honor. It is not the produce of riches only, but of the hard earnings of labor and poverty.” - Rights of Man
“Reason and discussion will soon bring things right, however wrong they may begin.” - Rights of Man
“Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.” - Rights of Man
“Taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but wars were raised to carry on taxes.” - Rights of Man
“That there are men in all nations who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.” - Rights of Man
“The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax.” - Rights of Man
“The greatest of all ridiculous things are acted in governments.” - Rights of Man
” Commerce needs no other protection than the reciprocal interest which every nation feels in supporting it.” - Rights of Man
“The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.” - Rights of Man
“The most unprofitable of all commerce is that connected with foreign dominion. To a few individuals it may be beneficial, merely because it is commerce; but to the nation it is a loss. The expense of maintaining dominion more than absorbs the profits of any trade.” - Rights of Man
“The name of the Creator ought not to be introduced to witness the degradation of his creation.” - Rights of Man
“The probability is always greater against a thing beginning, than of proceeding after it has begun.” - Rights of Man
“The right of war and peace is in the nation. Where else should it reside, but in those who are to pay the expense?” - Rights of Man
“There is existing in man, a mass sense lying in a dormant state, and which, unless something excites it to action, will descend with him, in that condition, to the grave.” - Rights of Man
“What at first was plunder, assumed the foster name of revenue.” - Rights of Man
“What inducement has the farmer, while following the plough, to lay aside his peaceful pursuit, and go to war with the farmer of another country?” - Rights of Man
“Whatever is my right as a man, is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee, as well as possess.” - Rights of Man
“When governments are at war, the attack is made on the common stock of commerce, and the consequence is the same as if each had attacked his own.” - Rights of Man
“Why do men continue to practice themselves the absurdities they see in others?” - Rights of Man
“Wisdom degenerates in governments as governments increase in age.” - Rights of Man
“It is a dangerous attempt in any government to say to a nation, “thou shalt not read.” - Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation
“The principles of and conduct of any government must be bad, when that government dreads and startles at discussion, and seeks security by a prevention of knowledge.” - Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation
“It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.” - Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation
“Principles have no connection with time, nor characters with names.” - Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation
“It is only in governments founded on assumption and false principles, that reasoning upon, and investigating systems and principles of government, and showing their several excellencies and defects, are termed libellous and seditious. These terms were made part of the charge brought against Locke, Hampden, and Sydney, and will continue to be brought against all good men, so long as bad governments shall continue.” - Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation
“If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy, and every species of hereditary government–to lessen the oppression of taxes–to propose plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support of the aged and distressed–to endeavour to conciliate nations to each other–to extirpate the horrid practice of war–to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce–and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; –if these things be libellous, let me live the life of a libeller, and let the name LIBELLER be engraved on my tomb.” - Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation
“I have written a book; and if it cannot be refuted, it cannot be condemned. But I do not consider the prosecution as particularly levelled against me, but against the general right, or the right of every man, of investigating systems and principles of government, and showing their several excellencies or defects.” - Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation
“Whatever the rights of people are, they have a right to them, and none have a right either to withhold them, or to grant them.” - Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation
“A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is a species of vice.” - Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation
“If you now enjoy freedom and happiness, you should be conscious of the reasons for your contentment.” - An Essay for the Use of New Republicans in Their Opposition to Monarchy
“A person educated in the belief that he has a right to command others is inevitably bound by his surroundings to lose all sense of reason and justice.” - An Essay for the Use of New Republicans in Their Opposition to Monarcy
“Why assume an evil solely for the purposes of providing a remedy?” - An Essay for the Use of New Republicans in Their Opposition to Monarchy
“It is our duty as legislators not to spill a drop of blood when our purpose may be effectually accomplished without it.” - Reasons for Preserving the Life of Louis Capet
“I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.” - Age of Reason
“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” - Age of Reason
“It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.” - Age of Reason
“The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention.” - Age of Reason
“That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime), is what I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to believe it, and they would have believed anything else in the same manner.” - Age of Reason
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel.” - Age of Reason
“There is not, throughout the whole book called the Bible, any word that describes to us what we call a poet, nor any word which describes what we call poetry. The case is that the word prophet, to which latter times have affixed a new idea, was the Bible word for poet, and the word prophesying meant the art of making poetry. It also meant the art of playing poetry to a tune upon any instrument of music.” - Age of Reason
“Had it been the object of Jesus Christ to establish a new religion, he would undoubtedly have written the system himself, or procured it to be written in his life-time. But there is no publication extant authenticated with his name. All the books called the New Testament were written after his death. He was a Jew by birth and by profession; and he was the Son of God in like manner that every other person is–for the Creator is the Father of All.” - Age of Reason
“Do we want to know that God is? Search not the book called the Scripture, which any human hand might make, but the Scripture called the creation.” - Age of Reason
“As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me a species of Atheism–a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God.” - Age of Reason
“Wealth is no proof of moral character; nor poverty of the want of it.” - Dissertation on First Principles of Government
“When all other rights are taken away the right of rebellion is made perfect.” - Dissertation on First Principles of Government
“The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy.” - Dissertation on First Principles of Government
“There are cases in which silence is a loud language.” - Letter to George Washington
I must thank Mr. Paine, and the author who condensed and presented the above, for a elucidating true liberalism – not the current besmudged term of our day as depicted by right wing wack-os of the conserative far right.
I thus I am in debt to the above for a wealth of Paine wisdom.
For, yes, the time is at hand for Americans to select the men or women who will determine our future for four - perhaps eight - years!
"We have righteous wind at our back," announced Senator Obama, yesterday, November 2nd here in Pueblo.
That "righteous wind" impels us to command change in our nation as well as in our world!
This election is not merely a popularity contest or a referendum on two parties, but a demanding task to determine our nation's course in times to come, and a challenge to earnestly effect change all over this planet of ours.
"Avànti" we Italians would say - "Forward, charge!"
The Presidency, of course, stands as the single most critical decision we must make.
Will we allow the Republican politics of fear to prevail? Will we send to Washington and the Oval Office a neophyte woman Governor from a state with a population far less than the City of New York, along with a Bush crony, rapidly aging, Republican Senator? Or will our hope for change be better expressed and accepted in the Obama and Biden ticket with their promised of "the change we need?"
Senators, and Congressmen as well as Congresswomen will come and go. But the leadership at the top matters the most!
So, in record numbers, citizens will be at the polls to express what change they desire.
The effort at democratic self determination figures most significantly as the penultimate 2008 national and internaional issues facing Americans. They seem in some instance like brick walls, unscalable without difficult consideration of thei complexity - both as a congregate nation and as individuals.
There's many an immigrant American, or children of them, who worry over the course of the United States in the years to come. Also, the elderly must decide in whose hands Social Security and Medicare can best be entrusted. Privatization scares the wits out of many a voter, myself included.
Do not all citizens have a right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in the form of lives secure, and ensured by the best of medical care and insurance plans to be halthy and productive?
For others, in the world of commerce and all business, the unsteady stock market and the safety of their Individual Retirement Accounts comes into question. Just what will happen if the stock market is not shored up and interest rates not grounded at adequately low rates?
Will educational issues decide the vote?
Possibly. We've too few competent teachers, and too many students deficient in the sciences, the primary learning ability to write, and the arts!
With two theater degrees in the theater arts, I've witnessed colleges, in the Reagan era, run like businesses, instead of educational institutions!
In that time, few were the freshmen and sophomores who could adequately compose in our English, and even spell in it!
But now we seek out talented teachers with renewed zeal, and it appears that a more urgent search for such talent becomes a primary priority.
I thank God for it all! This phenomenon is a political nativity we've long awaited, as did the Jews the Messiah. Mind you, we're not going to, by any means, inaugurate a king, of this world or the next - but rather install leaders of a distinguished republic which represents mankind's best and most noble hopes!
Church and state must still be separate, all things considered. Our founding fathers did not risk life and limb in the new world for the right to worship freely, merely to lose it to neo-fascist, twenty-first century politically paranoid ideology and policies!
Yet such despicable totalitarian measures appear distinctly in the Patriot Act. Anyone can be subjected to wiretapping or whisked off to parts foreign for torture on behalf of the United States.
So we now bear witness to a new phase in the evolution of international war, trade, and technology.
Have we learned no lessons from a long historical parade of bellicose behavior? First came the French and Indian war, followed by the Revolutionary War and that of 1812, then the Civil War, skirmishes in Texas, Mexico, and Cuba. After that came "The War To End All Wars" of the early 1900s, and from the Second World War the Japanese internment and the holocaust with its concentration camps, the dastardly "Cold War" with its Berlin wall, Viet Nam and Cambodia, and later Panama and South American skirmishes that brought on the Iran-Contra fiasco, and Bosnia Herzegovina.
And all of these were to be topped by the Lockerbie crash, the World Trade Towers collapses, and, in short, still more atrocities leading up to the current sordid deeds in Dar Fur and Russia's neighboring Georgia.
As a true sign of the times, activism has at last arisen like a Phoenix from our own apathetic ashes -as we languish in blood and debt in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And for these reason, among many others, volunteers for the Obama - Biden campaign have surged steadily! Looking about us, we conclude we cannot abide longer our present course.
Up until the last possible moment in this election, millions of phones ring, neighborhoods are canvassed, and signs appear everywhere!
With so much at issue: education both qualitatiatovely and quantitatively; the haggard and trembling economy; interest rates; a Stock market in confusion from a business ethic built upon greed; equal rights for all without distinction of race, creed or sexuality; health care and insurance rates; the world wide threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorism; and, lastly, porous borders and the needed assimilation of Hispanic Americans - we cannot at this juncture merely bury our heads in the sand.
Yes, something must be done, and it is up to a hopefully energized electorate to draw the line and move across it toward peace, economic salvation, and a rehabilitated Ameican image abroad.
Indeed, there comes a time to not merely consider,k but actually accomomplish such meaningful change - and now is it!
So, since the time has come, let us all come to the aid of our country!
