Tackling Terrorism and Collectivism

Ten years ago, under a different president, on the day before the Space Shuttle Columbia would disintegrate and in the year beginning the infamous Iraq war, Judge William Young delivered a sentence that would go unnoticed by many people. The guilty party? One Richard Reid (for the remaining mentions of this human I will simply refer to him as the "defendant"). The crime? Terrorism. Specifically the act of attempting to set off a bomb hidden in his shoe while he was on American Airlines Flight 63. Yes, 10 years ago the shoe bomber was sentenced to 110 years in prison and fined $2,006,882.17. As extraordinary as this is, I really only want to point out what came directly before and directly after this sentencing.

Before the sentencing was read aloud, Judge Young asked the defendant if he had anything to say. As a true Islamic extremist, the defendant plead his guilt for the crime in question and went on to state his allegiance to Osama bin Laden, Islam and the "religion of Allah." When he was finishing his statement he said that he would not apologize for the crime and that he was a "soldier" at war with this country. Truly a chilling statement to make before being sentenced for the crime of terrorism, but, as I sit here listening to Toby Keith's deep voice resonate through the lyrics "We'll put a boot in yer ass, it's the American way," I have to say that I have no doubt that this chill isn't from the words of a deadman, but the words and spirit of every single American that were made audible by the voice of Judge William Young.

After reading the full sentence to the defendant, Judge Young had some words of his own to add. The full transcript, 8 and a half paragraphs, can be read here and I encourage everyone to read all of it. But I'd just like to take out a few choice phrases to remind people as to what the focus of this country should be.

Now, let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators...We are Americans... Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings, we reach out for justice.
It seems to  me, you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom.  It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom, so that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.
We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr.  Reid, is the measure of our own liberties... It is  yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our  freedoms.

The concept that seems to be most significant in Judge Young's statement is that of individual freedom. America was founded on this rather simple concept. This is not a country built upon the principle of collectivism. We have not been a nation focused on the group succeeding at the expense of one another. We are a union constructed so that the American Dream could be realized, the little guy could win through hard work and determination and the success of one man was attributed to himself rather than the success of an entire group of people with like-minded ideas.

I have seen this country change in the past few years. I'm not talking about presidents and elections, the up or down of the stock market or the number of jobs being created or destroyed. I'm talking about how certain sects of the country are taking an unhealthy page out of the playbook of many South-east Asian countries. We have black men being a credit to their race because they can shoot a basketball, women taking credit for what other women have accomplished in the areas of math and science and gay basketball players being congratulated because they came out of the closet and announced their sexual attraction to other males on national media. 

This is what collectivism is all about. Not only do people not receive the credit that they deserve for their personal abilities, but others take credit for things that they did not do but a member of the same sex did. We have people deciding that it is necessary to come out and tell people who they take to their bedroom and, even more disturbing, we have people who actually seem to want to know who other people are sleeping with. 

Our Founding Fathers did not fight for independence so that the country would develop into a culture of collectivistic, nosey, spoiled brats taking what isn't theirs just to make the playing field a little more even. Life isn't about making everything even, because it won't be, ever. Life is about playing the hand you're dealt and doing the best you can with the cards you can play. It takes hard work, determination and the willingness to do the best you can every day in everything you face.
Own your defeats, sufferings and setbacks and then push forward and accept that you did "build that," you did achieve that, you achieved that for yourself, not for a bunch of other people but for yourself. Be selfish in your accomplishments but don't forget that you didn't get there on your own, you most likely had help, so don't be a raging prat about your success either. It's a fine line, I know.

America is the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave and always will be. I'll leave you with one last quote from Judge William Young:

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. And it always will.

Applause and Push

In the White House's Fact Sheet entitled "U.S. Support for Strengthening Democratic Institutions, Rule of Law, and Human Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa," the White House has officially stated that they are in full support of Kenya's new "Yes Youth Can's" campaign My ID My Life.
This is a campaign in Kenya that allows the youth of the country to obtain national identification cards, a requirement for voter registration in Kenya. Approximately 500,000 Kenyan youth were able to receive a National ID prior to the March, 2013 elections.
"Yes Youth Can" is an organization started by Mercy Corps in 2011 to ensure peace and stability in Kenya. As their website points out:

Kenya was rocked by post-election violence in 2007, when armed groups of young people stirred up by local politicians killed more than 1,500 people across the country... Yes Youth Can engages Kenyan youth in community outreach and small business creation, empowering them to transform their lives and their country. They are actively involved in finding productive solutions to the issues they face.

This is an amazing organization and one that should be applauded by the President and the American people. However, since we are going to applaud them, why don't we take a page out of their playbook?
When people bring up the idea of voter ID's, the first reaction from dissidents is that it is racist. That somehow making people prove citizenship and legal voting age is racist. Lower class citizens, mostly of minority races, won't be able to pay for these extra IDs.
So it's racist to force people to have IDs for buying alcohol and tobacco, get on a plane, open a bank account and work for most businesses? This isn't an argument about race, it's an argument based around the integrity and importance of every single vote. We are a society that is fine with IDs to get behind the wheel of a car, be a government employee or enter a nightclub, but we will move mountains in order to stop people from having to prove citizenship in order to do their duty to the country.
These IDs would be given, free of charge, to each citizen that applies to vote and can prove their citizenship (Certified Birth Certificate, U.S. Passport, Naturalization Certificate or Certificate of Citizenship etc.).
We need to start protecting the one thing that every single adult citizen of these United States is called to do by their government; vote. And one way that we can do that is by driving the point of these voter IDs into the minds of our friends, relatives and Congressmen.
Applaud Kenya and push for the same requirements in your country. Now, go!
Here is the list of House members, simply enter your Zip Code. Here is the list of Senators, you can find them simply be using the drop down menu at the top of the page that says "State."

Opposing the Left Side of Life

To all the liberals who believe in the “right to choose" because we can’t put someone else’s morals onto another person or ‘I’m personally pro-life but I know some people aren’t so I won’t make you live by that’, I have a little note for you. Your “live and let live" mentality doesn’t work. Your “I don’t believe that that action is moral, but I’ll let you do it because you might see it as moral" viewpoint is asinine.

This creates a world of complete acceptance, which at first sounds really nice: “You don’t agree with gay marriage? Well you don’t have to get one, so it’s all good. We aren’t gonna force you to smoke weed, but why can’t these other people smoke it if they want? Ya know what, you don’t have a uterus so you can’t have an opinion on this topic so why don’t you go ahead and not worry about abortion. You can talk it out with your partner." However, this ENTIRE community is destroyed the second a single person decides to kill someone else. You are then faced with an ultimatum: do you allow this person to continue killing because they feel it’s moral or permissible OR do you stop them and implement your first law (murder is a crime and will not be tolerated)?

If you allow the man to continue killing, he can severely harm this community by force. However if you implement a law against murder you infringe on someone’s moral viewpoint. This is a lose-lose situation for the community because you are being forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

Now let’s relate this directly to abortion:
Do we simply allow for the killing of babies because another person may not see the baby as a baby (harm an entire community) OR do we take a stand and implement a law against this killing (step on this person’s beliefs because we see it as murder)?

I for one am taking a stand.

Introducing the Man behind the Plate

Hey there! Thanks for visiting my blog.

The name's Nate and this is my first time using Blogger. I'm a college student at Saint Louis University. I am currently pursuing a degree in Journalism & Media Studies. I've written for the University News as a sports writer for the past year. I hope to continue writing for the next few years and become a journalist. I also have a passion for politics and have many views that I feel should be shared instead of kept inside my head. Which is where we come to the point of this blog.

If you didn't guess by the title of the blog, I'm a conservative and most of these posts will either be conservative focused pieces or specific sports pieces that I feel are relevant to current events. I am completely open to suggestions on topics to write about and would even encourage that! I will be trying to keep this blog as professional as possible but I also want to make sure that it's easy to read and understand and it stays relaxed, so think "Casual Friday" blogging.

Thanks and I look forward to the experience! Let me know if you have any suggestions or anything at all to say.