http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

At a time when the body politic is abuzz with the utter nonsense of such things as etch-a-sketches and as the sheer abject folly of the primary season seems to captivate and enthrall the media, it is perhaps a fitting time to turn our attention to a matter of true national importance.

To wit:

There are many worthy charities that need to be supported by the public at large. There is currently running a series of commercials promoting the cause of the Wounded Warrior Project. The one that created the impetus for this blog post featured Trace Adkins.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

The charity is focused solely on helping returning disabled veterans and their families cope with the adjustments inherent with a disability coupled with the stresses related to the rigors of war inflicted upon the mind and body of our returning veterans.

The website address is being repeated throughout this blog to show support and solidarity with their intended mission.

That being said, and speaking as a United States Navy veteran, the fact that this organization was created out of a need to fill a void should be an embarrassment upon the military bureaucracy specifically entrusted with the care of our veterans, and should be an outrage to the electorate at large.

It is a disgrace that in the United Sates of America our veterans need to have an organization outside of the military ask for funds to help with their transition back to civilian life, to say nothing of asking for financial support to aid in their adaptive needs for a war inflicted disability.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

There is constant dialogue throughout the nation that we must “support the troops even if we disagree with the mission”, one of the hard learned lessons at the expense of our Vietnam War veterans: a true national disgrace whose wounds we are hopefully beginning to heal by acknowledging the treatment of those particular veterans and doing all we can to guarantee that such treatment of our military is never repeated.

It is crucial to understand that there is absolutely not one infinitesimal bit of daylight between the Madison Conservative and the wonderful folks at the Wounded Warrior Project.

The issue here is that there should never be a need for the private sector to provide anything of substantive necessity for our veterans and their needs when they return from battle. The men and women of our all voluntary military provide the protection and safety that allows us to become enraptured with the absurdities of any number of inconsequential matters, such as the current national political electoral theater.

The members of our armed forces choose to fill the role of protector, and their families bear the emotional and financial burdens of that decision. They should never be placed in the position of having to ask  any private enterprise for help in providing whatever support – physical, emotional or financial – the veteran and their family may need as they acclimate back to a civilian life  while coping with a injury suffered in defense of American liberty and freedom.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

If we break the explicit and implicit social contract with our soldiers, seamen, marines and airmen, America will no longer be the home of the brave and land of the free.

We will be too busy having telethons to raise money for guns, and asking corporations to help with a ‘buy a bullet’ campaign.

The Wounded Warrior Project is truly a charity that speaks to our higher ideals; but it should fall onto the American people through the military bureaucracy to insure that no veteran should ever need to ask a private entity for help.

We as a people are better than that.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

The NAACP & The United Nations Human Rights Council

The merits and salient issues relative to the recent adoption of so called “Voter ID“ legislation  in states across the nation will be discussed in a future blog post, but it is crucial that before any such discussion can be intelligently engendered, the stance of one party to the discussion must be presented and understood.

To wit:

The NAACP this week presented its request to the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate and to intervene as it claims state governments in America  are colluding to "block the vote" for minority communities ahead of the 2012 election.

The first amendment to the United States Constitution includes specific language that provides that each and every citizen has the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The premise that any American organization would consider it appropriate to circumvent the Constitution for some manner of political advantage is curious, but one must accept their claims on face value, and protect their right to employ whatever mechanism they believe proper. The supposition of nefarious intent would merely cloud the issue with political obfuscations and hinder the opportunity to shed light upon an issue that many consider itself an assault upon the intent of the framers and founders.

Once the merits of the argument are accepted as viable, the core issue of requesting United Nations oversight provides the true context of this debate.

The United Nations has a revolving membership of committees and councils; the belief was that such a rotating format would preclude a monopolization of any such committee or council.

The real concern here is that the NAACP chose to request the Human Rights Council to be the instrument to handle their concerns, and therein lies the most troubling aspect of the entire affair.

Consider for a moment some of the current members of the United Nation Human Rights Council:

The Syrian Arab Republic is currently engaged in the wholesale slaughter of its people in defending the Assad government, proposing that any violence is being fomented by ‘outside terrorists’.

Sudan is currently allowing its population to starve; actor/activist George Clooney was this week arrested outside the Sudanese embassy for protesting the actions of the Sudanese government.

Saudi Arabia has decided that women in their country will have the right to vote – in 2015. The female population of Saudi Arabia is still unable to drive, or to travel abroad without the permission of a male guardian.

North Korea continues to isolate itself under worldwide sanctions for the choice to pursue nuclear weaponry at the expense of its people.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a publicly stated policy to remove Israel from the face of the map. Its leadership questions the occurrence of the Holocaust during World War II. It is currently pursuing nuclear weaponry and refusing to allow United Nations weapons inspectors to enter their country to determine the intent of their nuclear program.

In addition, these current members of the United Nations Human Rights Council recently issued a report that valiantly attempted to make the claim that the Libyan regime of deposed dictator Gaddafi was a shining example of positive human rights policies in action.

Quotes from member nations contained within the report of the council included the following commentaries on that premise:

--“Qatar praised the legal framework for the protection of human rights and freedoms.”

--“Sudan noted the country’s positive experience in achieving a high school enrollment rate and improvements in the education of women.”

--“The Syrian Arab Republic praised the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its serious commitment to and interaction with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms. It commended the country for its democratic regime.”

--“North Korea praised the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its achievements in the protection of human rights.”

The fact that this is the body that the NAACP has chosen to help provide governance on their complaints against certain states in America seems to defy logic and strains credulity that they are truly interested in voter right protections.

A serious partner in what should be an internal national debate should not look for allies that currently comprise the United Nations Human Rights Council; it makes intelligent dialogue impossible and the NAACP should reconsider its position.

Happy Birthday

This week we celebrate the birthday of our namesake. We felt it appropriate to provide a thumbnail sketch; the following is courtesy of his official biography at whitehouse.gov.

At his inauguration, James Madison, a small, wizened man, appeared old and worn; Washington Irving described him as "but a withered little apple-John." But whatever his deficiencies in charm, Madison's buxom wife Dolley compensated for them with her warmth and gaiety. She was the toast of Washington.

Born in 1751, Madison was brought up in Orange County, Virginia, and attended Princeton (then called the College of New Jersey). A student of history and government, well-read in law, he participated in the framing of the Virginia Constitution in 1776, served in the Continental Congress, and was a leader in the Virginia Assembly.

When delegates to the Constitutional Convention assembled at Philadelphia, the 36-year-old Madison took frequent and emphatic part in the debates.

Madison made a major contribution to the ratification of the Constitution by writing, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the Federalist essays. In later years, when he was referred to as the "Father of the Constitution," Madison protested that the document was not "the off-spring of a single brain," but "the work of many heads and many hands."

In Congress, he helped frame the Bill of Rights and enact the first revenue legislation. Out of his leadership in opposition to Hamilton's financial proposals, which he felt would unduly bestow wealth and power upon northern financiers, came the development of the Republican, or Jeffersonian, Party.

As President Jefferson's Secretary of State, Madison protested to warring France and Britain that their seizure of American ships was contrary to international law. The protests, John Randolph acidly commented, had the effect of "a shilling pamphlet hurled against eight hundred ships of war."

Despite the unpopular Embargo Act of 1807, which did not make the belligerent nations change their ways but did cause a depression in the United States, Madison was elected President in 1808. Before he took office the Embargo Act was repealed.

During the first year of Madison's Administration, the United States prohibited trade with both Britain and France; then in May, 1810, Congress authorized trade with both, directing the President, if either would accept America's view of neutral rights, to forbid trade with the other nation.

Napoleon pretended to comply. Late in 1810, Madison proclaimed non-intercourse with Great Britain. In Congress a young group including Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, the "War Hawks," pressed the President for a more militant policy.

The British impressment of American seamen and the seizure of cargoes impelled Madison to give in to the pressure. On June 1, 1812, he asked Congress to declare war.

The young Nation was not prepared to fight; its forces took a severe trouncing. The British entered Washington and set fire to the White House and the Capitol.

But a few notable naval and military victories, climaxed by Gen. Andrew Jackson's triumph at New Orleans, convinced Americans that the War of 1812 had been gloriously successful. An upsurge of nationalism resulted. The New England Federalists who had opposed the war--and who had even talked secession--were so thoroughly repudiated that Federalism disappeared as a national party.

In retirement at Montpelier, his estate in Orange County, Virginia, Madison spoke out against the disruptive states' rights influences that by the 1830's threatened to shatter the Federal Union. In a note opened after his death in 1836, he stated, "The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated."

Equality, then and now.

The excerpt below from Dr. Kings’ speech, now universally identified as his “I Have A Dream” speech delivered August 28^th, 1963, is presented here for what the Madison Conservative believes it to be: the definition of the aspirations of all Americans to find the true sense of equality that generations of Americans have held as the ideal vision of America.

Please read it through; there are comments following the transcription excerpt, but they need to be read directly after Dr. Kings’ speech.

And so:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

There can be little added that would speak to the hopes and dreams of all Americans to make Dr. King’s eloquent vision of true equality become the reality all Americans should strive toward. The American electorate and body politic as a whole should demand of their elected officials to do all within their power to move America forward on this goal.

That all being said, it should then alarm, outrage and sadden the American people that President Barack Obama recently launched a new re-election campaign project entitled “African-Americans for Obama”.

The cynicism and cold political calculations involved in such an enterprise go beyond the ability to merely condemn within the confines of this blog.

It is hoped that Dr. King’s dream will not go quietly into that goodnight.