SANDERS VS. CRUZ, SOCIALISM VS. CAPITALISM, SLAVERY VS. FREEDOM

This evening in a debate the likes of which America hasn't seen since the pre-civil war duels of Webster and Calhoun, Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) squared off battling over the fate of the Affordable Care Act. The stakes tonight are as high as they were in 1850. America stands at a precipice and the election of a Republican President in addition to the mandates given the House and Senate have provided a life line to pull us back from the brink of slavery's ugly 20th century iteration: Socialism. And as of tonight our nation is every bit as divided as it was 166 years ago.

Lanterns' Contributor KE Dean provided the highlights to our audience by Live Tweet.:

Bernie " US only country that doesn't give health care as a right." #Lanterns @lanternsbuzz #SandersCruzDebate

— KE Dean (@LegitKED) February 8, 2017

Senator Sanders introduced his interpretation of America's problem. That we don't consider healthcare (which is a service provided by healthcare workers and physicians) is a right. Yes, his argument is that we are legally entitled to the labor of other people. This in fact would place our medical practitioners into servitude to "the people" and the government.

Cruz " in 20 years FDA has only approved 3 child cancer treatments" #Lanterns @lanternsbuzz #SandersCruzDebate

— KE Dean (@LegitKED) February 8, 2017

In a staggering opening salvo Senator Cruz wasted no time identifying the fatal flaw of government healthcare regulation, it's brutal unflinching inefficiency at the cost of human lives.

Woman can't afford cancer screening due to Obamacare sanders says we need to be like Canada and other countries #Lanterns @lanternsbuzz https://t.co/sxS4VCl0EZ

— KE Dean (@LegitKED) February 8, 2017

Senator Sanders frequently referenced the Canadian and European National Healthcare systems as positive models that we should aspire to emulate to which Senator Cruz was quick to risposte clearly referencing the 2016 Republican Primary contraversy of his birthplace.

"I know quite a bit about Canadian health care.”

KE Dean couldn't resist the ascerbic remark and niether could I.

Cruz knows Canadian health care "I was born there." #Lanterns @lanternsbuzz #SandersCruzDebate

— KE Dean (@LegitKED) February 8, 2017

@tedcruz is #Savage! The hits keep on coming from @LegitKED #LiveTweetCrew for @lanternsbuzz #Lanterns https://t.co/RxRGCHILss

— TheHollowNet (@MattDHolloway) February 8, 2017

 As the debate waged on more references were made to the socialized systems abroad, specifically the Denmark plan to the point that CNN's Dana Bash had to re-direct..

"Senator sanders let's get back to America" even the moderator wants to get out of Denmark #Lanterns #CNNDebateNight @lanternsbuzz

— KE Dean (@LegitKED) February 8, 2017 

 The debate was very reminiscent of a bullfight, Sanders charging at Senator Cruz again and again with accusations of lost coverage and death approaching at the GOP's hands. The champion Harvard debator skillfully maneuvered past to land his final blows in the

Tercio de Muerte ("third of death") the final phase of the fight.

"How many of you have seen your plan canceled in the past 6 yrs?"Majority of audiences hands go up. #Lanterns @lanternsbuzz #CNNDebateNight

— KE Dean (@LegitKED) February 8, 2017 

 And perhaps mercifully the battle was over.

...Put you in charge of your health care with your doctor not the Govt." Cruz closes this blood bath with eloquence #Lanterns @lanternsbuzz

— KE Dean (@LegitKED) February 8, 2017 

 This was the debate America needed from the 2016 Presidential Election and didn't recieve. This is the conversation that America needs: will we continue to be the beacon of freedom in a world filled with over-reaching increasingly intrusive governments? Or will we descend to join them in collectivism, complacency and the slow death and soft discrimination of low expectations. Senator Sanders would relieve the American people of their liberty to direct their own health care. Senator Cruz suggests that as a nation of free people we have not only the right, but the ability to manage our own lives. Time will tell the path we choose, our children will write the story of how we stood, or surrendered in the coming days.

Also published on Lanterns.buzz

Photo Credit: Screen-capture from CNN.com

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Insane Troll Diplomacy

How do We Proceed Now that 21st Century #Diplomacy has Devolved into Trolling on a National Scale

Does anyone else miss when the Russians were the cold, humorless bad guys in 1980s movies? I mean I'm trying to whip up to a patriotic fervor of righteous indignation about this tweet... but it's objectively hilarious. #WellPlayed Russia, well played...

As Americans of course we must set the standard, and oh how we do with the original Tweeter-in-Chief himself Presidentent-Elect Donald Trump. Trolling entire governments has become standard fare as we enter 2017.

Use of hashtag diplomacy has not been confined to the President-elect though nor is it new. In fact the initial overtures to restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba were carried out via Twitter by the outgoing Obama administration. Twitter has even been weaponized by the U.S. Government against the Castro regime according to AP.

The days of plenipotentiary Ambassadors in austere Embassy buildings and cryptic negotiations seem behind us now in a world where social media trends dominate International conversations, establish talking points for leaders and set legislative priorities.

The practical end of this is that the Diplomatic machine moves much faster now. The terrifying aspect of that is that this machine works in both directions: toward peace and toward War. 

Will we be carried Aloft by the social media vehicle of International dialogue? Or crushed beneath the treads? With the increasing irrelevancy of the United Nations: who is behind the wheel? Only time will tell.

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I met the alt-right before Milo Yiannopolus did.

 U.S.C.  §4. Pledge of allegiance to the flag; manner of delivery The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”(Added Pub. L. 105–225, §2(a), Aug. 12, 1998, 112 Stat. 1494; amended Pub. L. 107–293, §2(a), Nov. 13, 2002, 116 Stat. 2060; Pub. L. 113–66, div. A, title V, §586, Dec. 26, 2013, 127 Stat. 777.)

I first encountered the Alt-Right on Wednesday, July 16th 2014 at the Church of Joy in Glendale, Arizona. I didn’t realize I had at the time; in fact I don’t even think we called them the “Alt-Right” back then. That evening in July was the West Valley Gubernatorial Forum, leading up to the highly contentious Arizona Primary in August. It was during this Primary that Arizona voters would elect now Governor Doug Ducey as the Republican Nominee.

I remember entering the building, the excitement was palpable. I had only become active in Arizona politics earlier that year. I suppose the birth of my first son was the catalyst for that.  During the forum I thought that Ducey made some great points, but I was honestly enthused for the prospect of Christine Jones’ candidacy, either way I figured poor Fred DuVal didn’t have a prayer. I had the luck to shake a few hands that night, Ducey and Jones among them along with Fmr. Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett.

The moment I remember, so clearly as if it were last night was during the reading of the pledge of allegiance. It is customary at Republican party functions that the evening begin with a benediction and the pledge. Typically, either a veteran reads the pledge or an active member of the Military, this night was no different. The moment frozen in my mind came at the end of the pledge with the final lines “one Nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all”. It was then that from the very furthest right of the room (how appropriate) came two additional words shouted defiantly by perhaps a dozen or so people. Those two words were “American Citizens”.

I was stunned that these people, my fellow Republicans and by virtue of being Arizonan presumably Conservatives, had seen fit to surreptitiously modify the pledge. The inscription of the Statue of Liberty reads:

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Perhaps someone missed the memo. Our nation needs to solve the illegal immigration and border security issues that plague us but this seemingly petty moment shed a light on an even larger, more insidious issue.

That evening in July I realized that there is a sickness in the Republican Party just as there is a sickness in the Democratic Party. The DNC is deeply ill with the cancer of socialism, and the RNC similarly has become tainted with populism, and the politics of the angry and disenfranchised. Both parties must look within and grip the mirror tightly, examining the causes of their deterioration. The current partisan structure of American politics must be re-imagined or it may fracture resulting in the emergence of a coalition system that abandons principle for expediency and values for popularity.

I saw what would become the alt-right that night; I saw it before Milo Yiannopolus did. The difference is that I denied it, and ignored it, Milo embraced it. I like so many other conservatives just thought I was seeing the fringe of the party and a small one at that… but that was two years ago. Yesterday we were debating whether flag burning is protected speech, a question that was settled, or so it seemed almost 30 years ago.

In forty-eight days Donald J. Trump will swear in as the forty-fifth President of the United States, carried on the wave of populist outrage by a plurality demanding to be ignored no longer. How many of us saw this coming and did nothing? How many frogs notice the water is now boiling?

Photo By OFFICIAL LEWEB PHOTOS - Milo Yiannopoulos, Journalist, Broadcaster and Entrepreneur-1441, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44722425 

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The Long Night is Over

Photo Credit Jim Emeray http://www.jimemery.com/wallpaper/images/sonorandawn_wp.jpg

The sun is rising over Arizona. The long night has finally come to a close, the long night of eight years of progressive rule, the long night of derision and marginalization, the long terrible night of the 2016 Presidential Election.

In the early hours of November 9th in the year of our Lord 2016 Donald J. Trump announced the concession of Fmr. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the end of the most ugly, divisive, vitriolic campaign in the history of our nation. To quote President Ronald Reagan “It’s morning in America again.” As I watch the sun crest the peaks of the Superstition Mountains and paint the sky a vibrant deep blue, I know that the time has come for reconciliation.

This is the hard part and the most crucial part of our culture and our political system: laying down arms. In the film The American President Michael Douglas’ President Andrew Shepard said “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve got to want it bad.” Every four years our nation undergoes a bloodless revolution, the battle is always hard fought and exhausting, taxing the heart, mind and soul. I call out to my fellow Americans to embrace your “advanced citizenship”.

We must remember today that our political opposition are our brothers and sisters, co-inheritors of the America our founders struggled for to their last, the America we seek to restore. Look to Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. This is a warning and it is as true as it was thousands of years ago. We’ve succeeded in the revolution of 2016, now we must bind up not only our wounds but those of our countrymen. We must continually remind each other that we are respected adversaries not enemies, while we are in opposition we can find harmony.

Today we must reach out a hand of love and brotherhood to our liberal family: not in condescension, not in boast or braggadocio, but in true familial love and respect. On talk radio we laugh at those who said they would leave this nation if President-Elect Trump won his race. To those who gave such a statement my response is: stay. E Pluribus Unum, out of many: one. We need our opposition, we always have. Our founders built America on the notion that there is room here for everyone who has a love of this nation. It’s facile to say that the Democrats hate America, no one who hated a nation so much would fight so hard to move it to the best design they can imagine. Our vision of that design differs from theirs, and that’s okay. Unpack your bags and come back to the table. The Statue of Liberty says “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” She mentions nothing of political affiliation.

Together, as conservatives and liberals we must join hands and ready ourselves for the longer harder battle ahead: The battle to save America in a world gone mad.

-Originally Published on LinkedIn on 11/15/16

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A letter to the Republican Party in response to my families "Past Due" Notice received 9/12/15.

A letter to the Republican Party in response to my families "Past Due" Notice received 9/12/15.

Mr. Reinhold Reince Priebus,

My family received on 9/12/15 a notice that our Membership in the Republican Party has "Lapsed" and that our we have a "Past Due" account with you.
Please, allow me to respond to this.
Mr. Priebus, I nor my family, nor any member of the Republican Party owe you a DAMN THING.

As a duly elected Officer of the Republican Party, you work for me. I along with every other donating, voting, registered member of the Republican Party are in fact YOUR EMPLOYERS. You are irrevocably and undeniably indebted to us for not only your salary, but for the continued existence of your position.

Furthermore Sir, allow me to elucidate precisely the nature of your debt:

You owe us:
- A full repeal of Obama Care.
- An impenetrably safe border.
- A complete shutdown of the Iran deal. ‪#‎BadIranDeal
- Complete Defunding of Planned Parenthood . ‪#‎DefundPP
- A complete audit and/or elimination of the Federal Reserve System‪#‎AuditTheFed
- A total rollback of Common Core. ‪#‎StopCommonCore
- Full investigation and reform of the VA. ‪#‎SaveourVets

And that is just for starters..

Mr. Priebus, this notice is a shamefully, manipulative document. A donation request that is masquerading as a past due bill? It isn't funny and it isn't cute. It is a frigging insult to the good conservative republicans you have failed and are continuing to fail.This is an embarrassment to the Grand Ol' Party.

Quit screwing around and get to work, and don't you ever send us a damned bill again. Otherwise, the next document I want to see is your resignation.
Regards,

Matthew Holloway

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