I have to be honest. Apart from the recognition of the tremendous sacrifices made by our Special Forces, I wasn’t particularly moved by the Restoring Honor event. I really didn’t hear much that I hadn’t heard before. I mainly attended because I like being around people with whom I share common values. That’s pretty much the reason most people attend events like this or the 9/12 march–not to see celebrities or hear a particular person speak. The turnout was huge and that made more of an impression on me than most everything that occurred on the stage.

I think my feelings are largely due to the fact that the part of me that wants to celebrate honor is less energized than the part of me that wants to root out and defeat dishonor. Beck bent over backwards to make the event non-political but I believe the larger part of me wanted it to be political. Without the politics, it felt like a big, watered down mega-church gathering.

The left-wing histrionics that broke out across Twitter and the blogosphere portraying the totally benign event as some racist or Nazi-like enterprise have ceased to anger me because that sort of thing has become pathetically transparent. Those people are trapped in a vicious cycle. They preach tolerance but they are so filled with hate for conservatives that they must project their own hatred on to the conservatives in order to rationalize it with the peace-love-and-harmony cover story they’ve sold themselves. Their tortured reasoning is simple bigotry. They believe that conservatives are deserving of their hatred because they hate conservatives. Like any bigot they lack the capacity for self reflection or the humility to consider another’s opinion before condemning it. As Chesterton said, “Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.” Any thinking person who read of the nonsense being said and compared it to what actually took place recognizes this to be true. I’ve long since ceased to care about the opinions of those who won’t, can’t or otherwise don’t think.

Speaking of people who don’t think, by a twist of fate I was still hanging out on the mall when the “reverend” Al Sharpton arrived with his marchers. I wasn’t close enough to see any of the signs they were carrying but I was able to hear some of their silly chanting. The chant’s included the following:

Glenn Beck doesn’t speak for me.

Clearly this one precisely captures the sentiments of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His “dream” was all about protesting radio talk show hosts who hold rallies about honor, faith, hope, and charity.

Frankly, Glenn Beck doesn’t speak for me either. Glenn Beck speaks for Glenn Beck. I speak for myself. My attendance at his event is not a tacit endorsement of everything he says. That these folks chose to follow Al Sharpton under the assumption that Glenn Beck speaks for everyone at the Restoring Honor rally leads me to believe that they feel that Al Sharpton does in fact speak for them. That tragedy speaks for itself.

The people

United

Will never be defeated

This one clearly leads a thinking person to wonder several things. Who are “the people?” The American people? Black people? White people? With whom are they “united” and who is trying to “defeat” them? At what endeavor are they not going to be defeated?

No justice

No peace

This one gets chanted quite often at left wing protests I’ve witnessed. On one level I agree that peace is difficult to attain without true justice. The chant however seems to be a threatening message of violence and civil unrest if the group perceives some “injustice.” Coming from people who let Al Sharpton speak for them, this sentiment is disturbing. What they may see as an injustice may not truly be an injustice (e.g. the Tawawna Brawley hoax).

Reclaim the Dream

This one is puzzling. Reclaim what dream and from whom? As I recall, the dream expressed by Martin Luther King Jr. was not the sole property of any one group of people. That was sort of his point. Unless someone has convinced these marchers that the “dream” is holding an event at which only one race is welcome, this chant–which was also the title of Al Sharpton’s event–makes little sense.

Having been there to witness the end of Sharpton’s march, I also happened to run across some of the nattily attired New Black Panthers with they’re sunglasses and berets. I was walking to the Metro station and three people who I believe were part of Sharpton’s march were walking in front of me. The New Black Panther guys were selling some sort of newspaper. They offered one to the people walking in front of me. The older gentleman in the group asked the price and was told “One dollar for you, black man.” Given my proximity and relative melanin deficiency, the comment seemed to be intended for me. I was briefly tempted to ask how much it would be for a white man but even though I was genuinely curious, I figured it would be taken as an insult so I just kept walking.

Poor Barbara Mikulski is “proud” of her efforts to waste more federal taxpayers’ dollars in Maryland instead of other states. If only she were proud of fighting for Marylanders’ right to keep what they earn instead of using it to buy votes with pork barrel projects.

Barb thinks fighting for Maryland’s “fair share” means taking more of our hard earned money and spending it for us on projects that will fill her campaign coffers.

The “vets” she tweets about would be far better off if she and her socialist buddies in DC took their boots off the neck of the private sector and let people invest in their own businesses instead of dictating winners and losers with taxpayer funded handouts. If cyber security jobs are needed so badly, the federal government shouldn’t need to subsidize anyone’s training. But handouts will buy votes and bring in campaign contributions for good old Senator Barb so she can stay in Washington and continue to act like the tin pot dictator that she is.

She really should consider holding a town hall meeting in Hagerstown or Frederick. She might learn something about what most of the country thinks of politicians like her. Her partner in crime Senator Ben Cardin at least had the cojones to do that prior to perpetrating Obamacare on the American people. His performance and reasoning at that meeting were embarrassing to put it mildly, but at least he came and faced the music which is more than anyone can say for dear old Senator Barb.

Barb doesn’t have the guts to show up at something like this. She never shows up in Western Maryland unless she’s got a bucket of federal money to shower on some unnecessary project in front of a hand-picked audience. She’s better suited for taunting conservatives with semi-coherent tweets from her Blackberry…which the taxpayers probably bought for her.

If Barb is actually “proud” of being the meanest hyena tearing at the carcass of the American economy, then it is long past time for her to go. Vote for Jim Rutledge in November.

Poor Senator Barb is puzzled. Why on earth would anyone be grouchy about a politician who continually boasts about how much of our money she manages to get wasted in MD instead of other states? If Barbara Mikulski is truly puzzled, it is just another sign that she, like most of Congress, has completely lost touch with the American people.

I mean, the national debt is only approaching $14 trillion. The economy is tanking. Much of Maryland has double digit unemployment. A massive tax hike looms on the horizon. The congress just rammed through a government health care law that most of the country didn’t want. Really, what is there to be grouchy about? Is this Senator really surprised that people are grouchy about her and her colleagues’ performance?

And let’s face it. Accusing the right of having no ideas is laughably transparent political hackery. The only way for a lock step socialist like Mikulski to deal with ideas from the right is to claim that they do not exist. The ideas of the left are failing before our eyes, so the best she can do is pretend that no one else has any ideas. It’s sad. Mikulski is a rubber stamp for any big government spending program that anyone proposes as long as she can scarf up some money from it to buy votes in Maryland.

The only idea that Babs has ever come up with is to be the first and greediest pig at the federal trough so that she can gobble up enough slop to buy another term in the Senate.

Conservatives, watch these two videos and ask yourself who is the right candidate to face off with Barbara Mikulski in November.

The differences are self evident. Jim Rutledge is clearly the superior candidate. He’s prepared to do what needs to be done to put this country back on the right track. Please share this on your blogs and encourage conservatives, patriots, tea party supporters to help Jim Rutledge win the Republican Primary in Maryland on September 14.

If you’re outside Maryland, we still need your help. Donate to the campaign if you can. Endorse Jim Rutledge. Encourage your Facebook friends to support his campaign. Retweet this blog post.

Maryland and America deserve better than Barbara Mikulski who is just a rubber stamp for any big government nanny state program that gets proposed. 34 years in Washington is long enough for anyone. It’s time for real change. Lower taxes, Constitutionally limited government and strong national security. The time is right. Jim Rutledge can bring another conservative vote to the U.S. Senate with your help.

Update: (via Scott Strzelczyk)

Let me point out… go to the 1min10sec point in the wargotz video. Listen to what he says about his record for the next 5-7 seconds.

Wargotz specifically says “he has cut government overall”. The 2006 QA County budget (year before Wargotz took office) had $87 million in spending. In four years under Wargotz spending has now reached $110 million.  That is a 26% increase in government spending over 4 years.  Please explain how that is cutting government overall.

And, Wargotz conveniently left out that he increased recordation fees by 50%. Fee, tax, whatever you want to call it… it’s money out of your pocket and into government.

From Americans for Prosperity

With his poll numbers dropping rapidly because of his big government agenda, the President is now making shrill, desperate attacks on Americans for Prosperity and our 1,200,000 AFP grassroots activists across the nation.

Dear leader wants to protect you from…well…you.

Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates all across the country.  And they don’t have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are.  You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation.  You don’t know if it’s a big oil company, or a big bank.  You don’t know if it’s a insurance company that wants to see some of the provisions in health reform repealed because it’s good for their bottom line, even if it’s not good for the American people.

Remarks by the President at a DNC Finance Event in Austin, Texas

Of course, no one need worry about who or what is driving Obama’s pet special interest groups like SEIU and the various other incarnations of ACORN.

Jim Rutledge’s campaign for U.S. Senate is a grassroots effort with hundreds of volunteers statewide. Door to door campaigning, yard sign distribution, phone canvassing–it’s all being done by enthusiastic volunteers who believe in the cause of freedom. Now the “Campaign for Freedom” is announcing a video contest. Supporters are encouraged to create their own political ads for the campaign and post them on Jim Rutledge’s facebook fan page.

Charley Rangel, the tax evading/law breaking former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Rygel XVI, the helium farting deposed Dominar of the Hynerian Empire (from Farscape, a highly underrated SciFi show, in my opinion.)

From 1945 to 2010