I Refuse to Give Up This Republic Without a Fight

"...These [health care] negotiations will be on C-SPAN, and so the public will be part of the conversation and will see the decisions that are being made...” (Barack Obama, 1/20/2008)

...[I want] to repeal some of these tax breaks for these oil companies. But I want to do more than that. I also want to go after their windfall profits, take a segment of those profits..." (Barack Obama, 3/3/2008)

"...Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket..." (Barack Obama, 11/1/2008)

"...“I really do believe President Bush is the worst president we’ve ever had..." (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), 1/4/2009)

"...We will launch a sweeping effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government, and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars..." (Barack Obama, 1/28/2009)

"...Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards..." (Attorney General Eric Holder, 2/18/2009)

"...We don't believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem)..." (Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, 3/5/2009)

"...Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration..." (Department of Homeland Security report to Janet Napolitano, 4/12/2009)

"...in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn't quite worked out that way..." (Time Magazine, 7/2/2009)

"...right now drug companies are fighting so that they can keep essentially their patents on their brand-name drugs a lot longer... every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they've got." (Barack Obama, 8/11/2009)

"...When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”..." (CNS News, 8/23/2009)

"...the White House has been taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York..." (Washington Post, 2/11/2010)

"...But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what is in it..." (Nancy Pelosi, 3/9/2010)

"...[President] Obama and his health secretary staged a two-pronged attack Monday in a stern letter to health insurance chief executives and a speech in which the president castigated insurance companies 22 times...." (Washington Post, 3/9/2010)

"...once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely 'deem' that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway..." (Wall Street Journal, 3/16/2010)

"...I don't care about the Constitution when it comes to this [health care bill]..." (Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL), 4/2/2010)

"...The president's top counterterrorism adviser on Wednesday called jihad a "legitimate tenet of Islam," arguing that the term "jihadists" should not be used to describe America's enemies... The comment comes after Brennan, in a February speech in which he described his respect for the tolerance and devotion of Middle Eastern nations, referred to Jerusalem... by its Arabic name, Al-Quds..." (Fox News, 5/27/2010)

"...As solicitor general of the United States, Elena Kagan argued in front of the Supreme Court that the federal government had the constitutional authority to ban certain political pamphlets. She also strongly implied that some political books, if they were partisan enough, could also be censored..." (Reason Magazine, 6/29/2010)

"...The financial regulation bill that President Obama will sign into law on Wednesday is supposed to clean up Wall Street. But an obscure passage buried deep in the 2,300-page legislation... could have a broad impact [on] electronics companies..." (Washington Post, 7/2/2010)

"...The federal government filed a lawsuit Tuesday aimed at blocking a controversial Arizona law that requires local police and sheriffs to question and arrest anyone whom they suspect is in the country illegally..." (Politico, 7/7/2010)

"...Less than two months after the US Department of Justice sued Arizona over the state’s controversial immigration law, it has filed another lawsuit targeting immigration practices by Arizona authorities... the [DOJ] says Phoenix-area Maricopa Community Colleges (MCC) discriminated against almost 250 noncitizen job applicants by requiring them to fill out more documents than the law requires to prove their eligibility to work...." (Christian Science Monitor, 8/31/2010)

"The Justice Department's civil rights division on Monday objected to a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas because many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification... Texas is the second state in recent months to become embroiled in a court battle with the Justice Department over photo ID requirements for voters...

...In December, the Justice Department rejected South Carolina's voter ID law on grounds it makes it harder for minorities to cast ballots. It was the first voter ID law to be rejected by the department in nearly 20 years..." (CBS News, 3/12/2012)

You don't have to ride on a treacherous, unlit cow path from the north-side of Boston to Lexington as the King's Regulars attempt a surprise attack on the Sons of Liberty.

You don't have to board a frigate, sail for weeks across the Atlantic and then sack a city in Tripoli to rescue your imprisoned countrymen.

You don't have to kill a British soldier in a desperate, hand-to-hand struggle after leaping out of a boat on the beach at York during the War of 1812.

You don't have to hold the line against Pickett's desperate charge at Gettysburg as thousands of wounded men shriek bloody murder around you.

You don't have to resist a vicious attack by the Hun with fixed bayonets at Belleau Wood.

You don't have to survive a terrifying duck-boat run onto Omaha Beach as men around you are being chopped to bits by fortified Nazi gun emplacements.

You don't have to liberate the Nazi Death Camps, capping months of brutal fighting and desperate marching through the dirt roads of Europe.

You don't have to withstand a surprise attack by the Chinese 'People's Volunteer Army', fighting to hold the line in 35°-below-zero temperatures for days on end near the Chosin Reservoir.

You don't have to defend the city of Huế from a surprise attack by Viet Cong and PAVN regulars, fighting block-to-block as the entire country is set afire by the Tet Offensive.

You don't have to race across the desert, waiting for a chemical attack or a Scud missile to hit, baking in 130° temperatures, so that you can expel Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard from Kuwait.

You don't have to patrol a patch of hard-scrabble earth in Aghanistan or Iraq, waiting for the inevitable IED by the side of the road -- or signs that you've rolled right into an ambush by heavily-armed 'insurgents' equipped with Iranian RPGs.

You don't have to do any of those things. You just have to vote in November. You just have to take the time to rally your neighbors, your family members and your co-workers to vote for candidates who believe in the Constitution. You must marshal voters who will reject the out-of-control, free-spending government that has brought our country to the edge of bankruptcy.

Because if the Constitution doesn't mean anything, if all of the founders' sacrifices went for naught, if all of those American heroes who fought and bled and died for the flag mean nothing, if all your parents and grandparents gave you doesn't amount to a hill of beans, well, then our generation will be forever known as the weak-willed group that let the American dream slip from our fingers.

And we will be known forever as the generation that allowed American exceptionalism to be stolen from us by a radical leftist from San Francisco, a crooked, power-hungry weasel of a man from Nevada, and an Alinsky-trained community organizer who rose to the presidency without qualifications or even so much as a background check by the media.

You don't have to bleed for your country. All you have to do is rally our forces to vote in November. That is what we can do and that is what we must do to preserve this Republic for future generations.