It's Just an Echo Heard 'Round the World Thing

Dear America,

so talk about disturbing...

over the weekend, my in-box was assaulted.  

Yeah, "Paul Ryan" sent me two emails -- both within thirty minutes of each other -- the first, titled "My Vision" and the second titled, "Time to Get to Work."

now, when you stop laughing, please let me know so we can continue.

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Granted, it wasn't really a personal attack from Mr. Ryan -- it was more a group affair, courtesy of the National Republican Congressional Committee.  They were fishing for donations.

...................

But here's the brand spanking new Speaker, speaking Friday:

“To me, the House of Representatives represents what’s best of America,” he said. “The boundless opportunity to do good. But let’s be frank, the House is broken. We’re not solving problems, we’re adding to them. And I am not interested in laying blame. We are not settling scores. We are wiping the slate clean...”

“We are the body closest to the people. Every two years, we face the voters and sometimes face the music. But we do not echo the people, we represent the people. We are supposed to study up and do the homework they cannot do. So when we do not follow regular order, when we rush to pass bills that a lot of us don’t understand, we are not doing our job. Only a fully functioning house can truly represent the people,” he said.

[thank you, Breitbart, here]

and of course, I begin to wonder about that vast ocean between "echo" and "represent."

So here we go.

To "echo" is "any repetition or imitation of something, as of the opinions, speech, or dress of another,..one who imitates another."

To "represent" is "to stand for, symbolize...to serve as the official and authorized delegate or agent for; act as a spokesman for."

So by deduction, the new Speaker is a spokesman.  According to THE SPEAKER, he speaks NOT to ECHO the people, but merely to stand as a symbol of the people; in other words, he REPRESENTS for show --  simply to portray "the people," but not necessarily in substance, to speak and act for the people.

I loved the part about "to do the homework they cannot do" --  as if we are all fifth graders pouting about common core economics...but I digress.

When going to the dictionary for the official...representative...well studied academic back up on definitions, a discovery was made:  Echo, in Greek Mythology, is "a nymph whose unrequited love for Narcissus caused her to pine away until nothing but her voice remained."   And I had to laugh...

For it nails it; it's perfectly representative of all I have left -- my voice.

And more important, the Speaker has it entirely wrong and backwards.

For the house, of all places, IS to ECHO! --- In substance, in action, in integrity!  --- It's designed to ECHO the actual voice and opinion of the people!  ----  And believe you me, it IS working if this government comes to a screeching halt!

For a little levity -- from Jonah Goldberg, albeit going all the way back to 2012:

And that’s a point worth keeping in mind. The merits of compromise depend mightily on direction. If my wife and I agree to move to Chicago, then the opportunities for compromise are limitless. When we move, where we live when we get there, even how we get there: These are all reasonable subjects for negotiation. But if I want to move to Chicago and she wants to stay in Washington, D.C., splitting the difference and moving to Cleveland would be absurd. But it would be compromise.

And again to Jonah -- speaking compromise on a day more current, as in about 4 days ago,  here (in video! watch! Comes courtesy of "The Daily Signal" produced by The Heritage Foundation).

THIS liberal, leftist, progressive president has been gifted everything he wants!  What is left to give him other than total leniency for full amnesty, a single-payer healthcare system, the unconscionable extinguishing of  [certain religion... namely Christianity] and the "free exercise thereof," all topped off with another trillion dollars added to our national debt???  [That last link, btw, is really good...and it's found on The Patriot Post, and written by Arnold Ahlert.]

Seriously.  How much more can the "representation" of the right side of this fine country give in and give up without a fight -- even if that fight looks an awful lot like a fight between the people and the "republican" representation itself!?   

Now moving on to something a little more frightening -- as if it couldn't get much worse -- let's take a look at where the president has compromised, and compromised badly, to the extent of putting the United States, Europe, all of the western world basically, directly in harms way...

...on America's Foreign Policy and the finest military in the world.

Because of Barack Obama's intent on getting all boots off the ground in the Middle East -- in order to right the wrongs of his predecessor, George W. Bush, and angling to prove his ideology and policy superior to the W -- Obama compromised the safety of the world!  

Digging his heels in deep, he was so determined to get our boys and girls out of Iraq, home from Afghanistan, keeping at an arm's length in Libya, and hands completely tied against Assad, etc.etc.etc.  the western world might as well have dug our own grave.  And it's all due to the unfettered compromise of a sort -- the de-militarization of the greatest armed forces in the world coming in conjunction with "negotiations" (i.e. total capitulation) with terrorists (in Iran), telegraphing our intent to keep boots at home, come hell or high desert, no matter what, and thereby leaving the entire region, for all intents and no good purpose, utterly defenseless. [Call me silly, but telling the enemy we will not be dragged into another war pretty much tells the enemy, go for it...she's all yours.]

It wasn't Bushie who left the region vulnerable and ripe for the taking, it was President Obama.

Compromise after compromise after compromise.

But wait.  There's more!

After years of saying what sounds a lot like  "no boots on the ground" -- guess what he's doing now -- granted, about a thousand days late and a few thousand troops short?    Boots meet Ground.  [again, call me funny, but a half-assed strategy in war leaves us short, as in we are only half way involved, half way in, half way committed, but leaving us totally screwed.]

Cue The Patriot Post once more, for a nice, neat, little drive-by of a compilation of a compromise in Syria, here. Funny stuff, huh.   And for another quickie, go here.

For added research -- on your own time --  

Another good read is The Naked Communist, by W. Cleon Skousen.  There are innumerable sections to highlight, but allow me to point out how compromising (scroll a bit up on this link...if you will) on our commitments is very, very bad.   As in, "what he did not know [General MacArthur]....the Chinese had already been assured by their intelligence agents [spies] that the diplomats in Washington, London and New York [U.N.] were NOT going to allow MacArthur to retaliate with the U.S. Air Force.  MacArthur was going to be restricted to "limited" warfare."  ....MacArthur was later relieved of his command for basically committing acts of insubordination -- ergo for speaking up and violating a presidential gag order...  The book also quotes a Senator Robert A. Taft, saying "The United Nations serves a very useful purpose as a town meeting of the world....but it is an impossible weapon against forcible aggression."   An Armistice in Korea was really only achieved by accident....Stalin died...But that's really a whole 'nother story. 

Now, the last thing to read is rather long; but what can we say -- there are days when an uncompromising level of strength is not asked of you, but required!  So on that note, go to Hillsdale's Imprimis for a real treat.  Senator Tom Cotton (AR) responds to the times like a diplomat, a statesman, a learned, accomplished, and decorated war Veteran and American -- and blows any opposition out of the water with logic, law, a grasp of history and current affairs clarity, in a speech given on a day celebrating our Constitution.

.......READ IT NOW.  I will wait........

The thing is, little g is finding herself wishing on a morningstar -- and wishing a guy like this was Speaker of the House.  For a guy like this -- Senator Tom Cotton -- truly ECHOS a belief system aligned in principle, and in action, with America's foundation and Constitution, and it's uncompromising!   

What a breath of fresh air, considering the rampant suffocation of the average, conservative voice in the general (eh hem mr paul-compromise-or-bust -ryan)..... and especially.....

.....my voice, in the specific.  

echo 

echo 

echo 

(Thank God I can blog about it, right.  Tee Hee)

Make it a GOOD day, G