Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Reviewing the State of our Union and the Greatness we must strive towards

"It was the best speech he has given and if he can consistently use the discipline he showed last night, he will be on track for re-election." ~ Erick Erickson
Trump's second SOTU speech may have been his best thus far. Every topic, every highlight, whether delivered perfectly or with a few awkward segues, whether crossing a faux pas here or a caveat there (yeah, I know, his tie was jacked #facepalm), all spoke to one centralized ideal: Greatness. And Americans took note with networks choking back their rage at both CNN and CBS polls showing 76% approval ratings! Unapologetically, Americans got it, guys.

These speeches are so peculiar to watch sometimes. I get that opposition parties are going to disagree with policies and stances of the party or president in power. I get that there's a significant partisan divide driven by the political classes and passed down to the country's citizens. Yet it still baffles me that Democrats simply don't want the common sense idea of greatness for our nation or its people.

When discussing the successes of employment being way up and more Americans off the government dole, particularly with regard to minorities...nothing from Dems. Not even applause. One of the few times Democratic hubris mustered a genuine will to vigorously celebrate came with Trump's acknowledgement of the freshmen sorority and general success stories of working women as of late (which is something of note, having Dem women who've otherwise displayed hatred for the man actually on their feet to his congratulatory pronouncements of 58% of women filling the new workforce and a bunch of them winning Congress! Oh, sweet irony). Otherwise... Tax reform? Historic regulation cuts? A leading exporter in energy for the first time in 60 years? Nope. They'd seem to rather tie up Congress with meaningless investigations leading nowhere and further keep the country and its people suppressed from true progress. Nonetheless, that didn't stop the President from trying to unite the room with these ideals of greatness.
The President really did a great job of delivering an uplifting speech. It was made more so by his careful use of guests to tell stories.

The President reminding us all of the nation’s great accomplishments while also saying our best accomplishments are still to come was a great moment. He found moments of bipartisanship that made a very divided room come together.
Nonetheless, Democrats were determined to display a divided state. Just with the hotbed of illegal immigration, where Dems demonstrate united support for the lawlessness of unfettered and unprotected open borders, and the repercussions resulting thereof, over the citizenry or those legally immigrating to our nation, becoming productive members of society and upholding the rule of law, consider the President's compelling remarks on the topic:
No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s working class and America’s political class than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards. Meanwhile, working class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal migration — reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools and hospitals, increased crime, and a depleted social safety net. Tolerance for illegal immigration is not compassionate — it is cruel. One in three women is sexually assaulted on the long journey north. Smugglers use migrant children as human pawns to exploit our laws and gain access to our country. Human traffickers and sex traffickers take advantage of the wide open areas between our ports of entry to smuggle thousands of young girls and women into the United States and to sell them into prostitution and modern-day slavery. Tens of thousands of innocent Americans are killed by lethal drugs that cross our border and flood into our cities — including meth, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. The savage gang, MS-13, now operates in 20 different American States, and they almost all come through our southern border. Just yesterday, an MS-13 gang member was taken into custody for a fatal shooting on a subway platform in New York City. We are removing these gang members by the thousands, but until we secure our border they’re going to keep streaming back in.
These were compelling points by the President. They were not soundbites, but reasonable statistics and data that actually do back up his point. Then he made a reasonable compromise. It should be noted that when the President first suggested compromising, Nancy Pelosi leaned over to applaud as close to his ear as she could get. President Trump said
My Administration has sent to the Congress a commonsense proposal to end the crisis on our southern border. It includes humanitarian assistance, more law enforcement, drug detection at our ports, closing loopholes that enable child smuggling, and plans for a new physical barrier, or wall, to secure the vast areas between our ports of entry. In the past, most of the people in this room voted for a wall — but the proper wall never got built. I’ll get it built. This is a smart, strategic, see-through steel barrier — not just a simple concrete wall. It will be deployed in the areas identified by border agents as having the greatest need, and as these agents will tell you, where walls go up, illegal crossings go way down.
That bolded part is the President’s reasonable compromise. Instead of a coast to coast wall or a major expansion, he’ll just take what the border patrol says it needs and it has said, since the Obama Administration, that it needs more.
Yet, as compelling as those points are, you've still got leaders of the I-gotta-be-against-him gang finding disagreement with the President's words to instead side with lawlessness?!
President Trump should take this message to the campaign trail now to assure he'll have no problem running against and defeating Democratic candidates this radical.

An integral element, as well as a moral and ethical imperative, of greatness should always be Life. For without Life first, there can be no liberty, property or pursuit thereof. One would think that a cultural celebration of life in its most innocence would be a defining component of a successful society. The President attempted to bring the chamber's members together in this positive realization towards an agenda of Greatness. Unfortunately, Dems are still resistant to such an agenda. Why in hell would you not want to be Great in the celebration of Life together with Liberty? As my brother-in-law so succinctly stated, they can't celebrate life and liberty while murdering children at the same time. And make no bones about it: the utter insanity that the President called out with regard to NY and VA officials can no longer be sanitized with the mere coinage of 'reproductive rights' or even the word 'abortion'. This is infanticide. This is murder. And it is evil.
President Donald Trump gave a clear and forceful message on pro-life issues during the State of the Union Address.

He slammed the governors of New York and Virginia for promoting abortion up to birth and infanticide. And he called for Congress to pass a ban on late-term abortions on babies who are capable of feeling pain.
There could be no greater contrast to the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child than the chilling displays our nation saw in recent days.

Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth. These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and dreams with the world.

And then, we had the case of the governor of Virginia where he stated he would execute a baby after birth. To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.

Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life.

And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth — all children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.
Along with Erickson (and I'm certain Levin and a host of others), I applaud the President's strong stand on Life and calling out both that NY legislative abomination and VA Gov. Northam’s absurd remarks. Giving the Democrats’ infanticide position maximum exposure was paramount. We must seek to be a culture that cherishes innocent life!

Related links: Levin rips Virginia’s ‘murder bill’: ‘Murder is murder … call it what it is!’
76% of Americans Have a Positive View of Trump’s Pro-Life State of the Union Speech
House Republicans move to force vote on Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

There are of course many other moments to discuss, but one final point I wanted to highlight was the President's unequivocal repudiation of socialism, to the chagrin of Bernie's mug...
President Donald Trump took on socialism in his State of the Union address, noting its failure in Venezuela and promising America that our country will stay free.
“Here in the United States, we are alarmed by the new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence, and not government coercion, domination, and control,” Trump said. “We are born free, and we will stay free.”
The cameras seemed to have purposefully kept their lenses off the freshman kook Ocasio-Cortez of the straight jacket brigade during the applause, but Noonan and Malliotakis took note...

Seriously, though. Trump's address of these socialist efforts and encroachments needed to be addressed and compared to the continued failures that the world demonstrates time and time again when a culture embraces the primary tenants of socialism. It's a disaster for them, and it would be a catastrophe for the United States.

President Trump ended his speech with an elegant request for unity towards Greatness, in liberty, freedom and exceptionalism...
Everything that has come since -- our triumph over communism, our giant leaps of science and discovery, our unrivaled progress toward equality and justice -- all of it is possible thanks to the blood and tears and courage and vision of the Americans who came before.

Think of this Capitol -- think of this very chamber, where lawmakers before you voted to end slavery, to build the railroads and the highways, to defeat fascism, to secure civil rights, to face down an evil empire.

Here tonight, we have legislators from across this magnificent republic. You have come from the rocky shores of Maine and the volcanic peaks of Hawaii; from the snowy woods of Wisconsin and the red deserts of Arizona; from the green farms of Kentucky and the golden beaches of California. Together, we represent the most extraordinary Nation in all of history.

What will we do with this moment? How will we be remembered?

I ask the men and women of this Congress: Look at the opportunities before us! Our most thrilling achievements are still ahead. Our most exciting journeys still await. Our biggest victories are still to come. We have not yet begun to dream.

We must choose whether we are defined by our differences -- or whether we dare to transcend them.

We must choose whether we will squander our inheritance -- or whether we will proudly declare that we are Americans. We do the incredible. We defy the impossible. We conquer the unknown.

This is the time to re-ignite the American imagination. This is the time to search for the tallest summit, and set our sights on the brightest star. This is the time to rekindle the bonds of love and loyalty and memory that link us together as citizens, as neighbors, as patriots.

This is our future -- our fate -- and our choice to make. I am asking you to choose greatness.

No matter the trials we face, no matter the challenges to come, we must go forward together.

We must keep America first in our hearts. We must keep freedom alive in our souls. And we must always keep faith in America's destiny -- that one Nation, under God, must be the hope and the promise and the light and the glory among all the nations of the world!
So again, I'd repeat myself: President Trump should take ALL of these quintessential messages (National Sovereignty, Life, Liberty) onto the campaign trail NOW, demonstrating the Greatness they exemplify as he did last night, to both invigorate the American People and to insure the defeat of these unAmerican Democratic radicals who continue to flush the nation down a cesspool of fundamental transformation, resembling something we were never meant to be, nor ever should.

Related links: SOTU review: The 6 big domestic policies Trump proposed
SOTU review: Trump’s top 8 foreign policy themes
Newt Gingrich: Trump's State of the Union changed history on Tuesday night – Here's what Pelosi must've felt
Posted by an ebb and flow at 4:00 PM