The Brother on the Right: african-american

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Hillary gets dunked on!

Did you ever see Michael Jordan or Shaq go up for a dunk and right as they were getting ready to drill the ball through the basket all of the would-be defenders scrambled and ran to get out of the camera shot? Well that's because no one wants to be on a poster in some 12 year old's room as the guy that Jordan is dunking on. It's not nice and certainly doesn't say much for your legacy when kids remember you for being the pasty looking guy getting slammed on while MJ is wagging his tongue.

Well, that's about to happen to Hillary. With Barack's recent string of victories, he is about to reach a tipping point of momentum where the tide of Obama support will become so irresistable that Hillary will do her best to get out of the way before her legacy becomes "The Dem establishment candidate who couldn't beat the upstart from Illinois." I bet her spin team is working on the sound bytes now. They'll pledge their support to Sen. Obama, blah, blah, blah. They've even started now by planting seeds that anyone but a republican is a good thing for the White House.

You just wait. With a few more wins Obama will take a solid lead in the delegate count and then the momentum will build. The Dems are looking for someone to get excited about and Obama has not yet hit his peak. He will hit it soon and then the Clintons will stop showing up at black churches acting like they care about black folk.

The tide is turning and the dunk is coming...she's about to run out of the camera shot. It's going to be a thunderous rim-rockin' dunk too. May even break the backboard.

Here's Barack taking Hillary to the hoop! I mean MJ...sorry! Just watch the videos for fun!

"Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself."

Thomas Jefferson

Monday, January 21, 2008

Mr

On this the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I feel it is highly appropriate to launch the inaugural posting of "The Brother on the Right". The objective of this blog is to give a voice to many black conservatives who don't feel that there are enough of us out there to stand up and be counted.

In reality, there are many of us out here it's just that we are hidden among the numbers of liberals or progressives as they've gone to calling themselves lately. Since we are black, upwardly mobile, intelligent and articulate or to put it more simply, since we are "black" it is generally assumed that we are therefore democrat and of course liberal.

Wrong! In fact, my sense is that many more blacks (notice the absense of "African-American" I address that in the video) are actually conservative than they realize. That was how I came to realize that I was conservative after all. In fact, when you take my little quiz below I think you may also realize some seeds of conservatism in yourself as well.

Don't be afraid, the quiz won't hurt you or convert you. It's there to help you realize your own God given potential and your constitutional rights as an American born in the land of the free and the home of the brave. When you take the quiz, if you answer yes to 85% or more of the questions, you just may be a budding conservative. Don't be angry, rejoice and be glad! There is much to be happy about as a conservative!

What exactly does it mean to be a conservative? Well my quiz below will give some serious insight into that question. Let me first state what it does not mean. It does not mean that you are now a part of some mean spirited right wing that has no compassion for your fellow human being. It does not mean that you blindly follow the thoughts and opinions of any republican or conservative leadership. It does not mean that you see no need whatsoever for an efficient and effective federal government. It doesn't mean that you dislike all gays or homosexuals because of their sexual orientation. It does not mean that you dislike all people who are on government assistance or support.

We believe in a strong military that protects our interests all of the world as well as helps to protect the weak. We believe in promoting democracy as a form of government and not fascism, dictatorships, communism or socialism. We believe "In God We Trust" and that our country is at its best when we keep God included in our belief systems. We believe in lower taxes on all Americans and corporations as the best means to increase and sustain economic growth in this country.

Friends, like President Ronald Reagan, we look forward to the future with optimism and a spirit of enthusiasm. As conservative Americans we believe that we have the finest country that mankind has ever seen and it is worth defending the principles and values that made us the country that all other peoples of the world look to for answers and support.

I understand your dilemma however. As a black conservative you probably get a lot and I mean a LOT of angry looks if you even act like you support any conservative principles. I've lost a few friends because I dared to think independently for myself and not blindly subscribe to whatever radio talks show hosts or the good Reverends have to say. How dare I not agree with Jesse or Al? It's tantamount to moral blasphemy to disagree with our self appointed leaders who are supposed to do all of our thinking for us. They would have us believe that God gave them all of the collective black brain cells and that the rest of us are robots who should blindly follow their edicts from their radio shows. "What do you mean we don't need bigger government and more programs to get us out of this rut? Who do you think you are?" They'd have us believe that without them fighting for more programs us poor black folk couldn't do anything without them.

Friends, its time to think for ourselves. Realize that God gave YOU a brain and he gave it to you to use; not wait to hear what Jesse has to say. That's why Bill Cosby called us "intellectually lazy" and he was right. Dead on right.

So take the quiz. Give honest answers to the questions, and I think we may soon discover that we have a few black conservatives in the closet!

Do you favor lower taxes which means more $ in your pocket and less in the governments?

Who is more capable of making important financial decisions for your family? You or the government?

Do you favor a medical savings account that allows you to put aside money (in an interest bearing account) for unplanned medical expenses or do you need the government to solve your medical problems?

Do you favor broad tax cuts for corporations which will motivate them to invest in jobs and grow their businesses thereby strengthening the economy?

Should the USA run from terrorism or stand up to it as a strong undivided front?

Do you favor allowing the US to be pushed around by the international community?

Would you be willing to allow for oil exploration to reduce our nations dependence on foreign oil?

Do you want strong, effective border control or are you ok with anyone crossing our borders at anytime?

Should illegal aliens be allowed to put a strain on our infrastructure with no means of documenting them and taxing their income?

Are you ok with working harder and harder to make less and as the government continues rampant spending and tax hikes?

Do you like having to get up and go to work everyday to support unmotivated individuals who don’t want to get up and go to work?

Are more and bigger government programs the answer or should we allow the capitalist system to do its job?

Do you favor a socialized health care system (similar to Canada and the UK) which means you may have to wait up to 6 months to see a doctor? (that you can’t choose).

Do you favor abortion over adoption?

Should members of Congress have term limits like the President does?

Should we continue our insatiable focus on identification of ethnicities and races in America?

Should we all just be Americans or do we need to continue to sub-identify ourselves as African-Americans, Italian-Americans, etc?

Who is more capable of determining your family’s future, you or an elected official?

Do elected officials, i.e. “The Government” know what’s best for you and your family?

Is the role of government to “set the stage for individual achievement”, “create the environment for success” or make sure that there’s a “chicken in every pot.” Be careful: one scenario sets us up for unlimited success as a nation and the other sets us up for mediocrity.

If you’re a minority do you attribute your success to Affirmative Action programs or to receiving God’s Favor and making the most of your God-given potential?

Would Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. support large government programs and redistribution of wealth or creating an environment where everyone is playing on a level playing field?

Should we restrict oil exploration so that we don’t inconvenience our furry friends? In other words should we pay higher prices at the pump and remain dependent upon Arab oil in order to keep things comfy for the squirrels?

Should the United States maintain a strong and active defense or retreat behind our oceanic borders and hope no one bothers us here?

Is the United States an active force for good in this world or are we the cause of the world’s problems and should be sorry for all that we’ve done?

Are we right to remove prayer from the schools, “Christ” from Christmas, scripture readings and verses from statehouse steps, and to attempt to disassociate our nation from all that is Godly?

Do you agree with a former Vice-President who is so concerned with global warming that he is compelled to fly around the world in a private jet and arrive by stretch limousine to tell us all that we are consuming too much fuel? Do you also agree with him when after all his globe trotting he goes home to a mega-mansion (heated by pine needles, I guess) to plan his next excursion?

Do our self appointed black leaders (no names here but their initials are Jesse and Al) know what is best for the black, oops African American community? Have all the government programs they say we need actually helped anybody? I guess we should thank them that there is less gang violence, black on black crime, drug use and teenage pregnancy…oh, that’s right there isn’t less, it seems like more to me!

As a minority, have most of the bad or disappointing things that have happened to you been as a result of your own lack of preparation or diligence or something that “The Man” did to you? Have the good things happened as a result of your preparation and hard work or because a government program did it for you?

Are you capable of thinking for yourself or do you need the government or Rev. so and so to tell you what to think?

31. Do you have an optimistic outlook for our future?

Wisdom of Our Fathers...Words We Need Today

A people... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything.
George Washington

The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.
George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789

There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.
George Washington

To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
George Washington

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
John Adams

Human government is more or less perfect as it approaches nearer or diverges farther from the imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government.
John Adams

I have accepted a seat in the [Massachusetts] House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and the ruin of our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare your mind for your fate.
John Adams

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
Benjamin Franklin

I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
Benjamin Franklin

It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they are to be had on no other terms than leaving her in the full enjoyment of her rights.
Benjamin Franklin

Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday and St. Tuesday, will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.
Benjamin Franklin

That wise Men have in all Ages thought Government necessary for the Good of Mankind; and, that wise Governments have always thought Religion necessary for the well ordering and well-being of Society, and accordingly have been ever careful to encourage and protect the Ministers of it, paying them the highest publick Honours, that their Doctrines might thereby meet with the greater Respect among the common People.
Benjamin Franklin

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
Benjamin Franklin

Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.
Benjamin Franklin

A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired.
Alexander Hamilton

Here sir, the people govern.
Alexander Hamilton

It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation.
Alexander Hamilton

The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.
Alexander Hamilton

The history of ancient and modern republics had taught them that many of the evils which those republics suffered arose from the want of a certain balance...Alexander Hamilton
[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.
Alexander Hamilton

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson

Although a republican government is slow to move, yet when once in motion, its momentum becomes irresistible.
Thomas Jefferson

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens....
Thomas Jefferson

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?
Thomas Jefferson

Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules.
Thomas Jefferson

Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people...
Thomas Jefferson

Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson

Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle.
Thomas Jefferson

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson

Experience having long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object, and the expediency of doing what good we can; when we cannot do all we would wish.
Thomas Jefferson

I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is the better for my having lived at all? I do not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing the following things; but they would have been done by others; some of them, perhaps, a little better.
Thomas Jefferson

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Thomas Jefferson

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.
Thomas Jefferson

I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office.
Thomas Jefferson

I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
Thomas Jefferson

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.
Thomas Jefferson

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson

If a nation expects to be ignorant — and free — in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.
Thomas Jefferson

If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.
Thomas Jefferson

In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson

In times of peace the people look most to their representatives; but in war, to the executive solely.
Thomas Jefferson

It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.
Thomas Jefferson

Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Thomas Jefferson

Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself.
Thomas Jefferson

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.
Thomas Jefferson

Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
Thomas Jefferson

One single object... [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.
Thomas Jefferson

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. Thomas Jefferson

Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reeactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free.
Thomas Jefferson

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.
Thomas Jefferson

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
Thomas Paine

A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.
Thomas Paine

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Thomas Paine

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
Thomas Paine

If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute.
Thomas Paine

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.
Thomas Paine

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
James Madison

Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.
James Madison

Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.
James Madison

Here sir, the people govern.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 17, 1788

If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last.... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.
Alexander Hamilton

It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation.
Alexander Hamilton

[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.
Alexander Hamilton

The Brother on the Right