Citizen Kehoe

I don’t watch much talk TV, but I happened upon an interview the other night with a Senator who was recently and narrowly re-elected in a Blue State.  He was talking about the Bush Tax Cuts.   The interviewer asked two questions, and the senator revealed a tone deafness reserved only for those who live in Washington.

The first question was, “Why is $250,000 the definition of rich?”  The Senator took more than two minutes to answer the question.  This of course indicates that (a) he doesn’t know the answer, or (b) he does and the answer is so obtuse that providing it would make him seem the fool.  The bottom line answer – reading between his lines – was that the $250,000 number was determined in a process not too dissimilar from chimpanzees throwing darts at a spinning “Wheel of Annual Income”.

The second question was, “Is it a good idea to raise taxes?”  His response tells us all we need to know about politicians in Washington and why we are a long way from fixing what ails us morally and economically.  The Senator said that he had heard the electorate loudly and clearly and that “We the People” want him and the Washington royalty to “create jobs and cut the deficit.”

Ah, no Senator.  That’s not what “We the People” said.  Either you are hearing impaired, you’re as my friends in the South say “dumber than a stump,” or you have willfully misinterpreted the message.  Therefore allow me to convey once again more loudly and clearly the message.  We said:

1. Get out of our lives and businesses and stop making it impossible for us to make money and hire people.  “We the People” are far more capable of doing this job than Washington has ever been or will be.

2. Stop spending and borrowing. For starters implement pay cuts and spending cuts for government agencies and employees including yours, eliminate earmarks, reform state and union pensions, and repeal that brain dead Health Care bill.

P.S. Tax increases are definitely NOT on the table.

Are we clear now, or would it be better as an old and wise rock and roller wisely once suggested.

“Really don’t mind if you sit this one out.

My words but a whisper, your deafness a shout.

I may make you feel but I can’t make you think….”

… (And) our wise men don’t know (what it means)… to be thick as a brick.”

Jethro Tull

The people in Washington are thick as bricks.  We have to keep shouting if only to get them to stop doing things.  They are not helping.  The battle for our country is far from over, because the problem exists in the hearts and minds of those in Washington.

Trouble follows when man plays God and worse is in store when he denies his existence.  Our country forged from a revolution in part fought for religious freedom, is in fact founded on Christian moral principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and to this day found even on our money in the words “In God We Trust”.

Thanksgiving is a national holiday first proclaimed in 1863 by then President Abraham Lincoln as a day to thank the Almighty for the rich blessings of American democracy.  Lincoln was a man of God, as the text of his original Thanksgiving proclamation (reprinted at the end of this article) makes evident.

Yet as I sat in Mass yesterday morning it occurred to me that many in this country are actively engaged in expunging God from our country’s politics and economy.  Instead of God and belief in a higher moral authority, these people place man at the center of all things.  Many of these people argue that religion is the cause of all our great conflicts.  Yes there were the Crusades and the endless religious wars that occupied Europe for centuries, but the truly great conflicts were ignited by totalitarian God-abolishing states like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

Why would taking God out of the equation matter?  Replacing God with the State with man at its center begs the question which man out of all men will be the highest and best to rule?  Such a question cannot be settled without conflict, as all men of ambition will believe it is he.  And for the “he” who is the highest, what need has he of God or moral temperance since he is answerable to no one?

Today we are engaged in a great moral battle for the soul of the country, and to no small extent our American way of life.  This battle in many senses pits man centered atheists against god centered Christians.  This is daily evident in our politics, press, and institutions that belittle those who believe God is an important part of the American heritage and success.  For the past 300 years, totalitarian states have come and gone, but America (our Constitution older by far than any extant European country’s), remains a stable and vigorous state in no small part because of our belief in a power higher than man.

In mythology, Daedalus a master craftsman, fashioned wings of feather and wax for he and his son Icarus to escape their imprisonment at the hands of King Minos.  Before taking off, he warned his son not to fly too close to the sun. But overcome by the giddy power of flying, Icarus ignored his Father, soared too close, melted the wings and sealed his fate.  It is thus with President Obama and his kind playing God.  So giddy are they with power and their man-centered belief in that power, that ignoring the Father, they too will meet a similar fate as their doctrines and arrogance are the merest of feathers and wax.

Obama for all his arrogant self-comparisons to Lincoln, is no Lincoln.  Lincoln was a man of humility who understood he was a mere instrument in the hands of God in the furtherance and perpetuation of the principles enshrined in the Declaration.  Obama sees himself as a power above that document and the institutional document – the Constitution.  He plays God.  For those of us who believe in America and understand our founding, we can take some comfort in the knowledge that Obama is a modern day Icarus bound to crash, and because of this we will awaken from this modern day nightmare just as we did in 1865.

Happy Thanksgiving.  “Keeping the faith” has never been more right than it is now.

Reprint of Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In the span of a single generation – the length of time I’ve lived in California – the state has gone from being the envy of the nation, to the butt of its jokes.  The state once famous for its golden promise built on the shoulders of rugged “can do” WWII men and women, is now a lead balloon “run” by a collection of self serving hippie, eco-Nazi, granny state children.  Sadly, there is little hope of returning to that past glory, as there is no adult supervision in evidence anywhere.

How else does one explain the spectacular reversal in the state’s fortunes?  Did we go from first to last in business and wealth creation due to bad weather, lack of intelligent people, war, famine, or disease?  No, we went from the top of the class to the dunce seat because the children now run the asylum.

Am I wrong or is it as our politicians suggest that California is the future and is setting the standard for an America utopia grounded in compassion and equality for everyone?   Or is it as I suggest that their goals and approach are pure childish fantasy.  To be fair, let’s review the record.

We get illegal immigration in the persons of little thugs who act badly with impunity. Witness the mayors of LA and San Francisco declaring “their” cities as sanctuaries for the Mexican down trodden. This is an adult idea?

We get Global warming in the persons of eco-Nazi whiners who smash your toys if you don’t give them what they want.  Witness the Sierra Club and Appellate Judges complicit in the destruction of the Bread Basket of America because of a few smelts in a river delta. This is an adult idea?

We get Unions in the persons of gang bangers who will jump you in an alley if you mess with their turf.  Witness state workers retiring at age 50 with fat pensions and gold plated health care plans who never faced the threat of job loss. This is an adult idea?

We get sad Politicians in the persons of little sneaks and cheats who steal your toys and blame it on someone else. Witness the Bell city manager earning $1 million a year for a part time job. This is an adult idea?

This is only a small sampling of the sterling record of a generation of child like decision-making.  The state is a spoiled brat because no one has the guts and the adult common sense to say NO to these and 10,000 other silly ideas.  I have some experience in this area.  I raised a daughter.  She and her friends refer to me as Mr. No.  She has friends who were raised by Mr. Yes.  She works for what she wants and does so with very little whining.  I cannot say the same for 95% of her spoiled friends raised by Mr. Yes.

Spare the rod.  Spoil the child.  Spoil the child and suffer the consequences.  Like the children in “The Lord of the Flies,” this story will end badly requiring adults to rescue the survivors.  And until we get some adult supervision around here the state will become a second home vacation retreat for the wealthy (they are smart enough to domicile in low tax states) and a nursery school for illegals, welfare cases and state workers.  Middle class tax paying adults are leaving the state fed up with the spoiled brats who won’t grow up.

Compassion? It’s not compassion that drives California’s political agenda.  It is simple childish selfishness and narcissism that has bankrupted the state’s treasury and soul.  The ship of state is sinking fast, but who better to go down with it than the very guy who punched holes below the waterline in the first place – the child-in-chief Jerry Brown.  Isn’t it ironic?

Students, yes “students,” are rioting in London – destroying property not theirs and holding signs demanding FREE EDUCATION.  The irony is almost too rich to be real.  These “students” are smart enough to know an easy score when they see one, but dumb enough to believe that there is such a thing as a “free lunch.” What we are witnessing is not the result of the economic decline of capitalism, but the inevitable moral decline of once great democracies where the socialist entitlement chickens have come home to roost.

Now that the money is running out, Britain, France, Greece and ultimately, America are beginning to experience the mass tantrums of the unfed entitled.  After three generations of “free stuff” provided by increasingly socialized government, we have reaped precisely what any human behaviorist would have predicted – a sense of angry entitlement.  They are rioting in the streets in Europe for free lunches that the government cannot afford but the masses now expect as a birthright.  This is the end game of progressive liberalism – every man for himself.

Don’t think that this is not where America is headed.  The difference is that Ground Zero here won’t be on college campuses. Ground Zero here is every state where massive budget shortfalls pit the middle class taxpayer against government unions, the politicians they own and the constituencies to whom they ladle the “free stuff.” This battle won’t just be about money; it will be stoked by the brazen attitudes of the entrenched government class who cares little for the private sector middle class.

I had the occasion to re-read Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” – in my mind an even better book than “Atlas Shrugged.”  The protagonist, Howard Roark, fights the battle we fight today between collectivism and individualism and their attendant virtues.  The overarching principle of collectivism is surrender – surrender to sameness.  The overarching virtue of individualism is aspiration.  In the end Howard Roark quietly triumphs over surrender and wins his soul.

There is no economic decline without moral decline and vice versa.  We are in a battle not only for our economic well-being, but also for our moral society.  So what will it be: surrender to liberal progressivism and the redistribution of wealth, or the aspiration of moral conservatism and the creation of wealth.

This is the battle and we all must choose sides.  Just as Howard Roark was unafraid of those timid surrendering souls of collectivism, so we must be firm in the present battle.  We, the American Middle Class possessing enormous common sense and uncommon values, are in the right.  There is no middle ground when it comes to man’s soul.  I am happy that it has come to this – a true choice.

California like an alcoholic choose the bottle again last night too weak or too addicted to foolish ideas and entitlement to admit it has a big problem.  We found out that government is not the problem here, but it is the people of California.

No one ever said quitting was going to be easy.  But one day the state – like Lindsey Lohan – will crash and damage itself and others.  And if the state is lucky it will hit bottom and decide to get off the bottle.

As for the rest of the country, the first shots in what promises to be a long revolution, have been fired.  Much work lies ahead for all of us.

By all means let’s get rid of the mortgage deduction, but let’s do it with some intellectual and moral honesty.  For starters let’s be honest and admit that the bi-partisan Deficit Reduction Commission is comprised of the very same kind of people who created the deficit in the first place.  Let’s also be clear that bipartisanship is not synonymous with – good (It’s not, I looked it up!). Finally let’s be honest and agree that this government is desperate for revenues and the mortgage deduction is an easy target.    If we agree on these points then let’s examine the intellectual argument first.

1.  If the mortgage deduction “is on the table”, then let’s be certain that the salaries, benefits, and expense accounts of Congress and government workers are “on the table” also.

2.  Let’s stop the “blame Bush” argument.  It simply does not stand up to scrutiny.  He did not create the current deficit, any more than Bill Clinton created the surplus in his last year in office.  Surpluses are the result of economic activity, which produces revenues collected in excess of expenditures.  This simple “surplus creation” equation is true even when running a dry cleaner.

3.  The current deficit is primarily a function of (a) decreased economic activity, (b) massive government spending over the past 24 months, and (c) a social welfare compact whose origins go back to the Roosevelt and Johnson administrations.  Obama has tripled down on their bad ideas at the same time the “obligations” of this social compact have become unaffordable. The Greeks, French and the British are dealing with this simple fact right now.

4.  Let’s also discuss whether it’s the government’s job to use tax policy and stimulus spending to run the economy.  If they are so good at it, why are Amtrak, the Post Office, Social Security, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac not running huge surpluses?  And if government spending were the answer, the Obama stimulus programs would have put people to work a long time ago.  The reality is stimulus spending is and has always been more about politics than economics.  Given this track record, it is easy to see why ObamaCare is such a good idea to these people.

5.  Wars do not and have never broken the budget – ever.  World War II consumed fully 50% of the national budget during the 1940’s.  Afterward, American prosperity kicked into full gear.  So please look at the math.  This year the budget is 3 trillion dollars – 60% of which goes to welfare programs, 20% to interest payments on our debt, and less than 20% goes to defense.

6.  As far as spending goes, the Constitution provides for three primary functions of the Federal government.  The first two are the protections of private property and personal safety – hence the tort and criminal justice systems.  Want to hazard a guess as to the third function? (Hint:  it is not social welfare).  Yes – national defense – hence the armed services (damned war makers).   This 20% of our budget also allows nations of Asia and Europe to “free ride” on us allowing them to spend on social welfare programs instead.  Even with this “free ride” the Greeks, French and the British will have to cut their welfare spending substantially.

7.  Big corporations and Wall Street are protected by Washington.  But they pay for that privilege.  They were the biggest donors to the Democrats and Obama in 2008.  In fact in 2009, these two constituencies contributed exactly 11% of the $2.6 trillion tax dollars collected.  Who paid the rest?  The primary payers were individuals, and to be accurate and specific, these taxes were collected from only 50% of these individual “taxpayers”.

So let’s put the deduction on the table, at the same time we incorporate all the above intellectual facts into the “discussion”.  Now for the moral argument; is it right to take from Peter to pay Paul as we have for the past 70 years?  Has this great transfer of wealth made people who get it better and more motivated people or has it simply, as human nature would predict, made them feel comfortable with, an entitled to the hand out.  And save me the arguments about compassion for the poor.  My mother worked for two decades in the NY State Welfare department.  What she witnessed day in and day out was depressing at best for a hard working person, and criminal at worst.

Finally, is it not reasonable that the 50% of “taxpayers” – who have little representation (save the Tea Party) and are an easy tax target for politicians and their funding sources – should be a little upset?  And since they have no voice in the process, is it not a huge surprise that they need to yell to be heard?

So by all means do away with the deduction, but at the same time introduce a fair flat tax, re-visit the social welfare compact and reduce its enormously wasteful spending and moral depravity, and make it a law that only those who pay taxes have the privilege of voting.

Judging by the number of stringy haired 20-year olds in baggy clothes hanging around outside the “medicinal marijuana clinic” near my motorcycle shop, there must be a raging epidemic of AIDS, cancer, or terminal illnesses savaging our young people in Southern California.  So by all means let’s legalize marijuana and get “medicine” to these “patients” as fast as we can.  Any denying them their “prescriptions” would be coldly inhuman , not to mention un-hip.

Legalizing pot is a silly idea whose time has come as a predictable and direct result of progressive liberal thinking.  This issue’s evolution mirrors so many others in the sense that we are slowly convinced that what was once intolerable behavior is now to be tolerated in the interest of compassion and practicality.  But the practical economic arguments for legalization never take into account the practical cultural and behavioral implications.

Here are the arguments in favor.

• If you can’t stop it why not tax it.  Really?  I’d hate to see that argument extended to other assorted vices.
• It will save the police time and money.  Really?  I’m willing to bet that 90% of the small pot busts are literally stumbled upon by the police during traffic stops and domestic disturbance investigations.
• Alcohol is legal so why not pot.  OK.  But if you were interested in bad, then you’d make both a misdemeanor.  This is the classic liberal progressive “bait and switch” – never discuss the merits of an idea, compare it to something else and change the subject.

The practical cultural and behavioral argument against it is quite simple and reflects human nature.  A simple ladder metaphor will do to explain this.  On the top rung of the ladder there is behavior we call exceptional.  A rung down behavior we refer to as desirable.  A rung down from that acceptable.  Once you get below the acceptable rung we have behavior we label tolerable and the bottom rung – unacceptable.

The Behavior Ladder of Human Nature

• • Exceptional
  • Desirable
  • Acceptable
  • Tolerable
  • Unacceptable

Climbing to the top of the ladder is hard, requiring spine, responsibility, sacrifice, and grit.  Getting to the bottom is easy and fast.  Perhaps most important, it’s a short step from tolerable to unacceptable.  That is the practical cultural and behavioral “reality”.

So save me the fake argument that we should legalize pot because it is harmless.  If some stringy haired twenty-something is smoking three doobs a day of good stuff for pain and stress, he is worse than useless and I can make the argument dangerous in a car, at work and to the people that depend upon him.

And save me the poor souls compassionate plea.  Oh, you argue, it’s easy for you to say, you don’t suffer from pain.  In fact I do every day with a bad back.  And for those unfortunate souls afflicted with AIDS, cancer and other painful conditions I pray to God that if there is nothing else to slake their suffering that pot brings them peace and relief.

But for the 45% of those who have pot prescribed to them in California for “chronic pain”, “stress” and every other fake and imagined affliction, I say “wrong”.  Wrong because tolerating this behavior behind the façade of medicine is a short step from tolerating any number of things we once referred to as unacceptable.

If we continue to go down this path of tolerance, human nature being what it is, we are truly going to pot.

The patient is in the final stages of the disease and the death struggle has begun.  When denial turns into delusion the end is near.  According to Democrats, the Tea Party victories this summer and fall are good news for them and bad news for Republicans opening the door for their November victory.  Only a delusional politician who rarely ventures outside Washington DC could possible connect those dots and reach that conclusion.  But then delusion is a disease of isolation, ego, fear and obsession, and politicians see everything in terms of spin, political parties and winning or losing elections.  They actually think the Tea Party is a political party craving power and position as they do.

Abraham Lincoln saw and understood in 1860, as we in the Tea Party movement see and understand now, that the nation is irrevocably divided.  At his Cooper Union speech in February 1860, Lincoln captured this truth when he said that a nation divided could not long stand and that America could not exist half slave and half free.  It would have to become, as he explained, all of one or the other – either fully slave or fully free.  He understood that there could be no political solution to a problem of principle.

He continued stating that the people would have to choose and that that choice had to derived from principle – politics had not and could not provide the solution.  At Cooper Union he concluded saying,

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored – contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man – such as a policy of “don’t care” on a question about which all true men do care – such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance – such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

He was right and the Republicans swept into power for the first time in history. The American people clearly see the choices in front of them:  slavery under the hard hand of overblown government or freedom under the guiding hand of the founding principles and market commerce.

The Democrats are dead.  They are on the wrong side of history, the people and natural law.  This November, the people will cast out the socialists, Pharisees and the court jesters.  Even in a three-man race where the Tea Party is bleeding votes from the Republicans, the Democrats will lose decisively because the people are not voting for parties this time, they are voting for a principle.  And since the Democrats have little to offer in the way of humane principles save slavery, they will be crushed.  Somewhere in this country right now in their infrequent lucid moments, some Democrats actually understand this.  They know that not even the promise of a free Happy Meal and a ride to the local polling place will make a difference this time.

I get calls from businessmen everyday wondering what they should be doing.  I am a business consultant.  I work with privately held small to mid cap companies who employ 50 – 400 people. These calls are from self-reliant and successful businessmen, who are in a panic because the strategies they have successfully employed for decades are failing them now.  They literally don’t know what to do in this “new economy” and are worried about the survival of the businesses they worked so hard for so long to build.  In twenty-five years of consulting I have experienced nothing that compares to these times.

The combination of falling demand and prices, restricted credit and bone-headed government policy are pushing them to the financial and mental brink.  The threat of tax increases specifically targeted at these “rich” people, increased health care costs as a result of Obama Care, and the overwhelming sense of loss of the American Way of life is reducing their appetite for risk, as well as their profits.

This is bad news for America.  We need these people to be successful.  While Wall Street and the Fortune 1000 are experiencing “recovery,” the bloodbath in the largest hiring sector of our economy is about to begin. This is what happens when you punish success in the pursuit of income redistribution.

Our politicians haven’t a clue what is happening in this sector of the economy.  They are non-business people insulated from this world confusing the soap operas of Washington with reality.  Most have never so much as run a candy store and as a result their “job creation” legislation shows no connection to reality.  Their economics are laughable and punish the very people who have always created the largest number of jobs. We need small businessmen more than ever and instead of punishing them we should be giving those still willing to take risks a Congressional Award.  It’s enough to make a grown man cry.

On a related note, my wife and I joined a hundred people at a 9/11 memorial this past weekend. Many in the crowd were local small business people.  In my long experience working with thousands of these people, I have discovered that they are exactly the kind of people who attend such events. They are to me the most spiritual and patriotic people I know – salt of the earth.  I genuinely like these people.  For one hour I had the privilege of spending time with them listening to a few speeches, a dedication and several songs.  The last song was America the Beautiful – sung by the entire gathering.  It was more than enough to make a grown man cry.

OK.

Enough.  Let’s be factual regarding this “religious freedom” tripe.  Liberals have worked feverishly for years to:

1. Take prayer and God out of our schools

2. Ban Nativity scenes and anything related to Christ in Christmas

3. Remove crosses from far away desert hills

4. Ban the Ten Commandments from being displayed on any property

Now they lecture, hector and demean anyone who would dare stand in the way of building a mosque on a most sensitive site because we are “to honor America’s most cherished heritage of religious tolerance”?  There you have liberals in a nutshell.  They are people without the slightest sense of irony which simply makes them dull, insipid and dreary people.  They are people without the slightest sense of “the other”.  They claim they are compassionate and conservatives are cold.  They of course have it backwards.  But then again did I mention they lack irony.  What they do have however is an out-sized sense of righteousness commonly equated with egoists, megalomaniacs, and narcissists.

To set the record straight, here’s the conservative mind.  Muslims have the privilege of coming to this Christian country and building their church.  We allow this even knowing no reciprocity would exist in their country of origin were it a Christian church being built.  We invite them to become Americans – as they are immigrant guests – with the expectation that they will assimilate and still, if they so desire, practice their religious beliefs.  We think it is the height of insensitivity to abuse that guest status and build a church on the grounds of an open wound inflicted upon our country by their brothers.  It would be as if the Japanese decided to build a Shinto temple on top of the watery remains of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor.  There are some things that any guest should be aware of and sensitive to.  Finally, in the interest of fair play we want the dreary liberals to “shut up” about rights and realize what we mainly enjoy here are privileges, and start preaching (since that is what they love to do) and defend our right to;

• Keep God in our schools
• Erect Nativity scenes at Christmas
• Build a lonely cross on a far away desert hill
• Post the Ten commandments, if we so choose, as our Muslim brothers choose to do, where ever we want.

Class dismissed.