Promise Keeper

The Colonel identifies with the middle American frustration explained in this article by Pat Buchanan http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=113463 Contrary to the inciteful blather of the hustlers who keep a race card at the ready up both sleeves, President Obama is fulfilling Dr. King's dream of an America where a man is judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. In this case, H's political character is clearly out of step with the constitutional republican (little r) ideals upon which this nation was founded. Even more frustrating to the Colonel is the fact that our President and his Congress are joined in their disdain for the Constitution by the majority of those who make up the Republican "opposition" in that Congress.

When the Roman Senate, two millenia past, strayed from the principles upon which the Roman Republic was founded, a military man rode a combination of his battle-winning popularity and the Senate's unpopularity to dictatorial power--and Rome's glory, stripped of the principled pride of the people by a succession of despots who pandered to the baser instincts of the masses, faded and contracted until Rome, once the greatest nation on Earth, finally fractured into feeble feudal city states at the mercy of the unchecked invasion of other peoples. The Colonel makes no racist rant here--I am nothing if not a student of the tides of history and the unbroken record of one people sweeping aside and supplanting another. When a nation weakens its resolve in "tolerant" compromise of its founding principles, and attempts accommodation of its trespassing neighbors, that nation loses its very soul. When a nation allows its political leadership to disregard its founding principles in order to alleviate the "suffering" of a current crisis, that nation takes the first (and difficult to reverse) steps toward dictatorship and greater privation.

To scoff at the notion of the possibility of these re-United States falling prey to the dictatorial ambitions of the proverbial "man on horseback" is to turn a blind eye to the multitudinous lessons of history. Rome itself had existed as a democratic republic for twice as long as our nation, with far greater traditions of enlightened governance than ours. And yet, at its zenith, Rome lost sight of its moral compass and fell prey to the pandering promise of increased prosperity--ironic, in that Rome's prosperity had no peer at the time.

Know this: the Colonel's oath to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," taken long ago in his youth, was not a temporary, conditional promise forsaken with the hanging up of the uniform. An oath is a life-long commitment. I will fight you--self-serving politician or self-proclaimed military messiah--should you decide to disobey our Constitution. No threat intended--I just made a promise I intend to keep.