Help the Homeless

I was on my way to work one day and saw a homeless man standing on the side of the road. As I came up to him I could read a sign he was holding which read “just plain hungry.” I am openly opposed to giving money to the homeless simply because I don’t know what they’ll do with it (like buy drugs or alcohol), but I realized that I had a Sonic gift card for five dollars and decided to give it to him so he could buy food. After doing so I felt that I did a good thing and thus felt good about myself.

I thought a little more about this when I got home and came to realize that I will never do it again. Call me heartless. But first hear my argument.

God gives every person in a life choices. This person, at one point in his life made a bad decision. I am a forgiving person, but only to a certain extent am I a GIVING person. I am however willing to give second chances, but not by handouts. Everyone makes bad decisions but I believe that there is a better way to help this person get out of his “rut.” Do not give them anything! Not even food. Giving them food implies the same thing as giving them money or booze. If you give them money you’re encouraging the fact that this person can get pity money from strangers.

The same applies to food. By giving a homeless person food, he will think that he can live without working or finding a way to better himself. How does that help the homeless? Giving free-rides to people simply because they’re homeless? Do the RIGHT thing. Don’t give them anything. If they get no food or money from people, they are going to have to figure out a way to fill their stomachs. If illegal immigrants can do work to get a few bucks for food, why can’t the homeless? Leave it to the “poor white man” to be too stuck up to work to put food on the table. Do you know why he won’t work to eat? Because our society makes it possible so that he doesn’t have to work to eat!

Sure, giving a homeless man food will help him in the short run, but what about the encouragement that would help the man in the long run; his life? The only way to help the homeless in the long run is for them to realize that they have a God-given choice to make the decisions to better their lives. And the only way they will come to this realization is when they have no other choice than to work to better their lives.

So do the right thing…help the homeless by not giving them anything.

David Cooper

Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, or Pro-Progress?

Abortion is an issue that every American political candidate is asked about at one point or another. I don’t understand this, because abortion is such a minor issue in a post-9/11 world where there are so many other, more important, issues.

Often times Liberals blame Conservatives for being pro-life along with pro-death penalty which would, by definition, contradict the stance of “pro-life.” But you have to think of pro-life, not in literal terms, but in reasonable terms. Let’s look at an example. How can you be pro-life and support the death penalty? Let’s break it down: if an unborn fetus has no choice whether he will be born or not, then the mother must make a decision. Generally, except in the case of the mother’s health, incest or, arguably, rape, the mother should choose to have the baby. Because the fetus, a living organism that would become a human being, has NO say whether he can live or not, makes it murder to kill him. Now lets look at the death penalty. The person to be put to death has lived life. By choice, that person has committed crimes (usually murder) to put himself in that situation. A jury of citizens was presented evidence that proved the crimes of this person and he was seen so evil that he had been sentenced to death to prevent any other murders that would likely happen were he not dead. How are these instances the same? A fetus has NO choice whether to live or not, whereas the person sentenced to death willingly committed crimes against the law and knowing that there is a death penalty. He chose to commit the crimes that would lead him to the position of death. To me, they are two totally different things.

Moving on. When it comes to abortion there is a stalemate. Many people in this country feel that abortion should be outlawed, while many others believe that it should be the mother’s choice. To quote Dinesh D’Souza, whom I’ve quoted before, “hard-liners are fools. Because they want to outlaw ALL abortions, they refuse to settle for stopping SOME abortions; the consequence is that they end up preventing NO abortions.” (Letters to a Young Conservative p.192) This, to me, makes a lot of sense. Why prefer a stalemate over progress? One presidential candidate who stands for this (whom I disagree with on almost ALL issues) is Rudy Giuliani. Unfortunately for him, he hasn’t figured out how to say this correctly and only gives the impression that he is a Liberal pro-choice Republican, which is certainly not true. But the question is why not work hard preventing SOME abortions by encouraging adoption and what not, then push legislation to ban it when abortion is close to nil? Being hard-headed only causes a stalemate and no progress. Not to mention, if you tell people what they can and cannot do, they only want to do the opposite of what they’re told; it’s human nature.

Does this mean that I support abortion? No. Does this make me pro-choice? Absolutely not. I believe that abortion is the wrong thing for a soon-to-be-mother to do. I believe that it is immoral and we should do everything we can to prevent it, but me hard-lining against abortion gets nothing done. We should hard-line for encouraging adoption over abortion, which would make remarkable progress and make another family, that can’t have children, happy.

Some people will say, “Abortion is the number one issue for many religious people, and these people would never vote for a person who thinks that way (about abortion).” My answer: Christians who make abortion the number one issue which determines who they will vote for are idiots. If a candidate came up to me and said, “I will do everything I can to win the war on terror. I will close the border. I will have a tax reform. I will cut government programs. I will encourage Charter schools for competition. I will encourage individual health policies over universal health care. blah blah blah.” then said, “I will NOT try to make a federal ban on abortion (because it can’t be done), but rather try to reduce the amount of abortions that occur.” These hard-line Christians would be fools to overlook that!

I am a Christian. I am a Conservative. I am pro-life for progress. I guess that make me Pro-Progress.

Contemplations over the Draft…

I’ve been thinking about the subject of the draft for some time now and I thought I’d share my views with those who would like to read.

I have mixed feelings about the draft. On one hand I think the draft would be a good idea. If instilled in times of peace AND war, it would ensure people that the country isn’t just implementing a draft because they need military personell for a war, but that the country just so happens to be in a war and we’re lucky enough to have the military that we need. Also, (now this is just a thought) what if one had to give military service in order to obtain a special benefit in the future, similar to obtaining a college degree?

In addition, if we had a draft now, the war in Iraq would less likely be the problem that it is. We wouldn’t need to authorize “troop surges,” we would just have the necessary troops needed to fight the fight. Why not…we had a draft throught WWII, Korea, and Vietnam? (Vietnam, arguably, destroyed the likely-hood of having a draft again, but had we kept it through peacetime, it might be acceptable to people).

On the other hand, we are the most powerful nation in the world; we’re able to figure out a way to fill our military with sufficient soldiers without implementing the draft. The United States is smart enough and rich enough to recruit enough people through benefits and incentives. The great thing about this country is that we find ways to be the most powerful nation in the world without having a draft. What other great power in the history of the civilized world pulled this off?

Historically remarkable…

On a side note, I believe that women should not be included in the draft…if they want to be in the military, they should enlist. Femenists would argue otherwise, but…what don’t they argue about?

Anyway, what are your thoughts?

College professors: the new Gnostics…

First, let’s define who Gnostics are, or were. Gnostics were a religious sect during early rise of Christianity, who claimed to have a secret knowledge about Jesus. They didn’t consider themselves anything other than Christians, but were looked down upon by the orthodox.

You may have heard of these people and their writings. These are the folks who created the Gnostic gospels such as the Gospel of Judas, Gospel of Thomas, Infancy Gospel, and Gospel of Peter. These controversial texts contained themes that argued Judas as the hero for betraying Jesus and fulfilling prophesy, showed outrageous accounts of Jesus’ supposed conniving childhood, and random quotes that were said to be from Jesus in Thomas (similar to the Quran’s contents of Muhammad’s sayings).

The Gnostics believed that Jesus gave special knowledge to the disciples and left limited knowledge to the people by using parables. Well, we seemed to have figured out what the parables mean, but I guess that isn’t the “secret knowledge.” But I digress…Gnostics also felt that it didn’t matter what a person did to his body, because it was all about finding his “inner-self.” Consequently, there were Christian martyrs like St. Perpetua, dying for their faith, while Gnostics would sacrifice bulls to Roman gods one minute and go seeking their inner-self through “Christian” beliefs the next.

Obviously Orthodox prevailed and Gnosticism failed (if it didn’t and everyone became Gnostic, would it still be “secret knowledge,” which is the very foundation of Gnosticism to begin with?). Christianity may have been through a lot of problems, but today it’s certainly not the problem in the world. If anything, it helps keep the world a somewhat moral society. Now, I know you don’t have to be a Christian to be a moral person, but religion (Christianity included) certainly contributes to the morality that we see and retain today.

Now to my point: College professors are the new Gnostics. Ironically they call themselves agnostic (which means they have no knowledge and are seeking to figure out religious beliefs), but we all know what they really are – Liberals. These Liberals who call themselves agnostic, believe they contain a secret knowledge about humanity and politics that the rest of society doesn’t know because they’re too stupid. Granted, not all Liberals are secular, but in general they believe religion causes problems; especially for secular driven Liberal agendas. Although society is more secular than ever, Liberal college professors claim to stand up for some great cause for humanity against “right-wing-religious-fanatics.” The worst thing about it is that these Liberals are pretending to “teach” students; attempting to achieve liberalism and secularism worldwide. Luckily, there are some people who see through this, but there needs to be more legitimate instructors.

These professors just think they’re smarter than everyone else, but don’t let these Gnostic professors fool you. There are intelligent college graduates in the world that are Conservative. The thing is they pursue other endeavors like becoming businessmen or medical doctors or scientists. Perhaps I’ll be the exception. I want to be the teacher that teaches history and government from a legitimate angle, but if I have to be a right-wing fanatic in order to level-out the liberal education that students receive, then so be it.

David Cooper (C)

Omniscient God and our Free Will

This doesn’t have anything to do with Republican Strategy, but I thought I’d share my thoughts with you anyway. Anyway, I’m back after months of my MIA weblogs! I’m sorry that you have been deprived of my genius intellect, but I have been busy with my “un-educational” career of college that destroys the faith that so exists in young minds. Fortunately, my faith is still intact and strong; perhaps stronger now that I have studied Christianity and Islam simultaneously. Interestingly enough, the liberal “educated elite” has failed in the one job that they try so hard at acheiving…David = 1, Hippie-liberal-douche professors = 0.

Now that that’s said, here’s the new topic: If God is omniscient does mankind still have free will? This is a question that has only come up a few times in my life and I have thought about it. Unfortunately, my answer is purely theological and won’t appeal or make “logical” sense to you atheists or agnostics (who Stephen Colbert says are just atheists with no balls). Having said that, my answer is a valid philosophical premis and I think a good one at that. Here it goes:

God is infinite. Mankind is finite (less than). If God is infinite, then God is omniscient, along with other infinite attributes. This means that God knows everything that we are going to do and every decision we are going to make. Then the question comes: if God knows everything, do we still have free will? The answer: yes. Impossible right? For our finite minds, yes. But God makes it possible and we will never figure out how, because God is infinite and we are finite. If we could figure out how this is possible then that means that we could understand the infinite, in which case God would not be infinite, would he? If this were the case, there would be no God. But if there was no God, then you wouldn’t have to worry about this question right? But we are not infinite and God is, so we will never be able to understand some of the things that God makes possible.

What are your thoughts?

Liberal Media: Destroying The Will Of The People Since 1968

Here I go again; back to Vietnam. It’s interesting how many problems in this country started during the Vietnam War. *cough* hippies. What did hippies ever amount to than the liberal democrats that we see today? Anyway, the liberal media has destroyed the American way of life. Some may never admit that, but I think we can all agree that the liberal media has at least destroyed the American way of war. If we can’t all agree now, maybe this entry will change your mind.

Although the media has always played a major role in American wars it wasn’t until the conflict in Vietnam that it turned “anti-American.” Think about it. In all wars previous to the Vietnam War the media had been about continuing American patriotism. Always trying to band the nation together to win. But something changed in the 1960s. The media went from uniting the country, being patriotic, and supporting the military and the battles they fought to reporting that American soldiers were killing babies and innocent civilians, despite the United States being the most humanitarian, law abiding, military in the history of war. The media even went as far as flat-out LYING to the American people about the outcome of battles!

In Vietnam the United States had pretty much contained the insurgency (Viet Cong) in South Vietnam after 1969. In fact, the North Vietnamese had few, if any, successful strategic or operational attacks on U.S. troops. For example, In 1968 the North Vietnamese Army organized a mass attack on South Vietnam called the Tet Offensive. The plan of the North Vietnamese was not only militarily, but diplomatically and psychologically as well. The idea was to invade South Vietnam during a sacred Vietnamese holiday while many South Vietnamese soldiers were on leave. It was supposed to be a surprise invasion by the North Vietnamese simultaneously with an uprising of all of the insurgent Viet Cong in South Vietnam. The diplomatic side was to take advantage of the weak South Vietnamese government and convince them to give in to the Viet Cong and surrender to the North Vietnamese. The psychological side was to destroy the will of the American people, where the war was already so unpopular. To keep things brief, the Tet Offensive orchestrated by North Vietnam was a complete failure and a huge win for South Vietnam and the U.S. military. While the plan was executed perfectly by the enemy, the U.S. was ready for it and fought well in the 136 towns and cities that were attacked simultaneously. The U.S. had less than 1,540 KIA while the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong had up to 40,000 KIA. In addition, the Viet Cong was destroyed and didn’t really exist in South Vietnam. Also, the South Vietnamese government never got discouraged and didn’t give in to the Viet Cong. The North Vietnamese expected all of the South Vietnamese people to join with the insurgency and fight the U.S., but little did North Vietnam realize, the South Vietnamese people didn’t want to. They generally supported the U.S. involvement.

This all sounds like a great victory doesn’t it? Well, militarily it was. But while the battle was victorious, the war was lost. The most powerful weapon was used by North Vietnam…destroying the will of the people. But we ask ourselves: “How was the will of the people destroyed by such a victory?” The answer: The media. THIS IS FACT! No liberal or journalist (what’s the difference?) can argue this. It’s in all the history books. The press lied! They reported U.S. casualties without reporting the North Vietnamese casualties. They reported that there was a huge mass attack on U.S. forces, but reported the outcome as a loss. One journalist involved in this…atrocity is, yep, our very own Walter Cronkite, saying “the war is lost.” *gasp* Those are the exact words Senator Harry Reid used to describe the war in Iraq! tsk tsk tsk…Reid, think of something original.

Can it be that the same thing is happening now? What if the press took the stance that it did during WWII? Would this war in Iraq look more successful than they make it seem? What would happen in Iraq if the American people joined together to fight a more total war? WE NEED PATRIOTISM! Don’t let the media convince you that “the war is lost.”

Iraq vs. Vietnam

Lately I have heard the left socialist liberals comparing the war in Iraq to the war in Vietnam. I pondered this for a while and, being a history major, realized that it is simply not true. In NO significant way is the military effort in Iraq related to the war in Vietnam.

Before I explain the reasons why, we need to have a small history lesson. After World War II, the United States inherited a new responsibility to fight for democracy and capitalism and against communism. It did take a while for the U.S. government to realize this and they found themselves unprepared for the fight in Korea…but I digress. During the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s he sent advisors to Vietnam, as did many other European nations, to see what was going on in French Indochina (Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam). After years of fighting between North Vietnam and France, the French decided that it was not worth the effort to try and contain Vietnam. After careful analysis of the situation, Britain decided that it wasn’t worth the effort either. Unfortunately, the U.S. had the Policy of Containment and wanted to try to stop the spread of communism and so felt that it was important to continue having advisors in Vietnam. When Kennedy took office, he sent more advisors to Vietnam despite having NO allies to help support them. Some people believe that Kennedy had plans to withdraw the advisors, but no one will ever know for sure because Kennedy was assassinated. When Johnson preceded Kennedy, he sent a marine brigade to South Vietnam to help guard an air base and hence the start of American forces in Vietnam. That’s the chronological events leading to the war in Vietnam in a simplified version.

The important thing to note about the brief history is that the U.S. had no allies to help support the war effort in Vietnam. Was Vietnam a mistake? Maybe, but that’s beside the point. The point is that while there was no support for the U.S. military effort in Vietnam there is overwhelming support from U.S. allies for the front in Iraq. Supporters include Australia, Britain, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, and Spain. Although not every supporter physically has troops in Iraq, they still support the movement.

Then the arguments come: “Well if the United States has so much support, then why did the UN deny authorization to invade Iraq?”

Here’s the answer: In the UN there are five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States). No matter what the UN votes on, any one of these five members can veto the proposal. Since one or more of the members of the Security Council vetoed the idea of invading Iraq, naturally the United States took matters into its own hands without the approval of the UN.

Next, during the time of the Vietnam War, there was an active selective service (draft) to fill the military. I do believe a draft would definitely help win the war in Iraq, but at this point in time we have a VOLUNTEER MILITARY! We always hear Speaker Pelosi talk about how “we are sending our boys into harms way” but she NEVER mentions that they are all volunteers. So until the draft is active again, Liberals should stop acting like they are sticking up for our troops in Iraq and saying that they had no choice to be in the military.

Most importantly, the political objectives between the wars in Vietnam and Iraq are vast and relate to the outcome of the two wars. The political objective in Vietnam was simply to defend South Vietnam and stop the spread of communism. It was strictly defensive strategy. The best thing a country can do on the defense is not lose the war. In order to win a war a country must go on the offense, which the U.S. did not. On a side note, the reason the Vietnam War was “lost” was because the North Vietnamese would enter South Vietnam through the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and Cambodia. Once the U.S. troops attacked the invading North Vietnamese they would escape back to Laos and Cambodia where the U.S. military was ordered NOT to follow. Another contributor to the “loss” in Vietnam is the will of the American people. I would argue that one of the reasons the U.S. has problems in any war is because the American people (mostly the liberals) are too impatient thereby destroying the morale of the troops fighting. In Iraq, the U.S. is fighting a defensive and offensive war. It’s defensive strategy in the sense of maintaining a stable society within Iraq, it’s offensive in finding terrorists and searching for insurgency. Vietnam did have insurgents (Viet Cong) but U.S. forces were also defending against the attacks of the North Vietnamese. In Iraq, the U.S. is not defending one nation from the attacks of another. Also, despite Liberal efforts, the morale of the troops in Iraq is NOT destroyed. They know what they are fighting for, and generally agree with why they are doing it. While some soldiers may or may not agree with certain strategies set forth by officials, they do agree with the overall stances and efforts given.

By and large, In contrast to the war in Vietnam, the war in Iraq CAN be won. Despite the efforts and comments of top Democratic officials, the war is not lost. Hell, if liberal journalists for the New York Times can admit that the war can be won, it must be true. Frankly, I hope and pray that in September General Patraeus is able to give positive reports regarding the troop surge. Maybe then, the American people will see that it can be done.

David Cooper

Do African Americans only support Obama because he’s black?

To get things straight right away, I am not racist. Just because I’m conservative, it doesn’t mean that I’m racist. I believe that the conservatives that are racist give the average conservative a bad name (not to mention a stereotype for Republicans). The following is a prime example of what took place in a political science class at school:

While sitting in my government class at college, my instructor started talking about different issues that young students are involved in. He asked everyone if we talk about politics with our friends. Obviously, not many raised their hands, but me and a few others did. One person, who happened to be African American, raised his hand. The teacher asked him what he talks about. He responded with, “We talk about how Barack Obama would make a good president.”

Further into class, we started discussing other topics. Something came up about health care. The teacher then asked, “are there any pre-med students here?” Only two raised their hands, one of which was the African American man from before. The guy then blurted out that he wanted to be an MD because he felt that it would be a decent way to make a good amount of money while helping people. After hearing this, I agreed that being an MD is a good way to make a living. They make a lot of money.

Later, the teacher was talking about guns. He asked the class, “who, in here, owns a gun?” Once again, the same African American from before raised his hand while shouting excitedly that he just bought a shotgun the week before and was really stoked about it. At this point I had had enough. I raised my hand and said directly to the man, “excuse me, but you say that you’re a supporter of Barack Obama, but I don’t know why?” He asked, “what do you mean?” I answered, “well, you talk about how excited you are about your new shotgun, but Obama continually votes to have restrictions of guns. Also, you say that you’re in the medical field “for the money,” but that’s ironic because Obama supports a universal health care program which would mean that MDs are paid by the government. If the government pays MDs, you aren’t going to make more than 60 to 80 thousand dollars a year. To me that’s not very much money for a Medical Doctor. So I don’t know why you support Obama.”

Needless to say, the class was dead silent. After a long pause the man responded with, “Well, he [Obama] knows what it’s like to be a minority.” More African Americans in the class murmured in agreement. Feeling that it was hopeless to make him think otherwise, I responded with, “Oh, ok.”

It really made me think, though. I want to believe that people support candidates for the issues that they stand for, not for their ethnic background. I want to believe that there are African Americans that don’t like Obama because he’s a left wing socialist. I want to believe that people aren’t voting a certain way, because peers are voting that way. Unfortunately, there are people out there that don’t know anything about the issues that the candidates stand for. All they know is “he’s black, I’m black, he’s got my vote” or “she’s a woman, I’m a woman, she’s got my vote.” If you agree with being a bleeding heart socialist and can explain why, then you have my respect. But if you agree with a bleeding heart socialist and have no idea why, then you are a sad person and only fall into the category of being American sheep manipulated by media and peers. You need a herder!

The Only Way To Win in Iraq

Understanding “Winning in Iraq” requires an understanding of the Unites States’ political objectives. When the United States committed military forces in Iraq, six political objectives were introduced:

1. A stable Iraq, with its territorial integrity intact and a broad-based government that renounces WMD development and use, and no longer supports terrorism or threatens its neighbors.
2. Success in Iraq leveraged to convince or compel other countries to cease support to terrorists and to deny them access to WMD.
3. Destabilize, isolate, and overthrow the Iraqi regime and provide support to a new, broad-based government.
4. Destroy Iraqi WMD capability and infrastructure.
5. Protect allies and supporters from Iraqi threats and attacks.
6. Destroy terrorist networks in Iraq. Gather intelligence on global terrorism and detain terrorists and war criminals.

Whether you agree with the war or not, these were the political objectives for Iraq. Unfortunately, political objectives can change according to the ground operations and conduct of the war. For example, in Korea the United States employed the political objective “Restore South Korea.” With the major victory at Inchon there was a major turning point in the war. Since the invasion was so successful, the United States changed its political objective to “Unify the Korean Peninsula and Roll Back Communism” and US forces crossed the 38^th parallel. Upon near defeat of the North Korean Army, the Chinese intervened and forced the US X Corps and 8^th Army back South, nearly defeating the United States Military. Finally, after General Ridgway was given command of US forces, they moved back up to the 38^th parallel where the political objective was changed yet again to “Restore South Korea.” Forces never crossed the 38^th parallel again. These were the political objectives of the Korean War in a nutshell. Now, looking back at the political objectives did we actually win the Korean War? I would argue, “yes,” but that’s another debate in itself.

Whether you feel that we should be in Iraq or not, I would argue that we still have not completed all of the political objectives set. In particular, number six; Destroy terrorist networks in Iraq. It may not be an easy task and may also be long and grueling, but I believe that winning in Iraq would be a result of completing political objective number six.

My assumption is that the United States cannot win the war in Iraq without a change in course. (No, I don’t mean troop withdrawal either!) There are terms called Total War and Limited War. Total war requires the will of the people. The American people have not had a total war since World War II. I don’t think that America will ever have another Total War, because the country is too divided. No, we resort to Limited War. Limited War is war where the government and military alone determine whether or not we go to war. It is the idea of keeping the American people out of war in order for Americans to go about their regular lives. The only problem is that America doesn’t really win Limited War. According to John Shy of Michigan, it’s not the American way of war. Americans do not understand the conduct of war. Americans want to see territory gain, a huge blood count of the enemy, and see it all happen in a short amount of time. The media has big play in determining the outcome of war, unfortunately. Especially, since all we hear about is how American forces die, but they fail to mention that 2 Americans died, while 50 enemy insurgents died. It’s pathetic. People complain about how “we are sending our boys to a blood bath,” but they don’t hear about the guy who lost his leg in Iraq, but is working on rehabilitation and a prosthetic leg to go back (yes, guys actually want to go back to Iraq to fight; I know two personally).

Also, we need a change of course, because American people cannot stand war that lasts more than four years. Think about it. Civil War – 4 years involvement, WWI – 2 years involvement, WWII – 4 years involvement, Korea – 4 years involvement, and then…uh oh…Vietnam 8 to 10 years involvement and the United States’ first loss. Then, Desert Storm – what…4 or 5 months of actual combat? God forbid a war that lasts over four years! The United States needs a change of plan to rally the American people again. THE UNITED STATES WILL NOT WIN THIS WAR IF AMERICANS CONTINUE TO FIGHT EACHOTHER! Although the war is not quite lost, we are well on our way. We can still win, though. We just need to fight a more Total war… that’s the only way.