"STAND AND DELIVER"

"STAND AND DELIVER"

          Stand and deliver...those words have struck fear in many a heart, when highwaymen were as common as fleas on a dog.   The vehicle, usually a stagecoach or some other horse-drawn conveyance, would be stopped by a man, or several, standing in the middle of the road.  Once the coach stopped, and the robbers were sure that they had the advantage of surprise, they would instruct the drivers and passengers to stand and deliver.  That meant whatever was worthwhile was to be delivered to the robbers.  That was then...this is now.

          Our very own band of highwaymen don't actually say those words...they don't have to.  Our robbers have a huge government agency, the Infernal Revenue Service(and no, that's not a typographical error) to order the public to stand and deliver.   The IRS, which can strike fear into the heart of even the most law-abiding among us, simply sends a letter to the subject of their attention.   The letter tells you when, where, and sometimes, how, you will deliver what that bunch of crooks demands.  Long I have remonstrated against the IRS, and their under-handed, Gestapo-like, machinations.  Of all the useless agencies that the government insists on propagating, and which should be eliminated, that's probably the one that should be at the top of the list...and the list is long, believe me.

          For some reason that escapes me at the moment, the American public seems to have been struck dumb.  It appears that, no matter the provocation, the twin devils of ignorance and apathy are alive and well.  Domestic or foreign, enemies of the country are working round-the-clock to achieve the goal of complete dumbing-down.  The school systems, apparently held hostage by foreign governments who provide huge sums of money to have their choice of textbooks used...and that results in altered history, outright subtraction of important events, and a highly slanted view of the world.

          Being an old man, and looking back on a life of rather uninspiring events, it struck me that this could be the twilight of my country.  What happened to "morning in America"?  Where did the exceptionalism go?  Could it be that we have taken the bait...hook, line and sinker?  Because one person, a man that I personally believe is not an American, says that every country is exceptional in its own way, we swallowed that lie?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Americans invent a few things that the rest of the world now takes for granted?  Didn't this country defeat some of the world's finest militaries, and save the rest of the world while they were doing it?   Why then, would we accept

being second-best at anything?  Would we have meekly gotten out of the stagecoach when they said to stand and deliver?  I don't think so.  We might have gone down, but we would have been fighting.

          Americans have always been fighters.  At the Alamo, beyond Pearl Harbor, even the horror of the War Between The States, which some might call the Civil War.  I’ve never understood that name because there was nothing, and never is, anything civil about war.   When war comes, as it does from time to time, Americans have always answered the call to arms, so why now, when we are threatened by several countries with unstable governments and leaders, are we thinning the ranks of the armed forces?   The gall of the government, to issue

pink slips to troops while they’re fighting!  What imbecile thought that was a good idea?

          Say, here’s a thought…when’s the last time you read a book?   With the

advent of television, computers, tablets, pads, and who knows what…nobody is reading books anymore.  The shelves in my office are packed with books, and you could trace the history of America by reading them.  One in particular, “How America Saved The World” by Eric Hammel is, probably, the best book that explains what mistakes America has made in the past and is repeating those very same mistakes now.

          It may come to pass, during my lifetime, that a different sort of highwayman may order the United States to stand and deliver.  What will we do then?  Roll over and play dead?  The current administration would prefer that to happen and, if I’m right, is following an agenda that will allow that to happen.  If

you think Saul Alinsky, Cloward and Piven, and the Communist Manifesto, you will have the plan right there, and it’s ominous.

          Stand and deliver, America!