Tides of Tyranny: Memorial Day 2018

Tides of Tyranny: Memorial Day 2018: As Americans, we have no more important holiday than Memorial Day, the holiday where we come together and honor those who gave their lives...

Memorial Day 2018

As Americans, we have no more important holiday than Memorial Day, the holiday where we come together and honor those who gave their lives in service to our country. It's the one holiday that makes all other holidays possible. For too many of us, Memorial Day has become just another day off work, or a day for grilling and beaches excursions, but for some families, it is a day to reflect on loved ones lost.

Memorial Day is personal to me. Several of my family members, to include myself have served over the years. One of them, my father, Sam Alano was an inspiration to me. He was an infantryman and took part driving across North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France and Germany culminating in VE Day. He received Purple Hearts for wounds sustained during the Normandy Invasion and Battle of the Bulge.

The story of American sacrifice has continued. From Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans whose sacrifices allow us to enjoy such a privileged life in a country we all love.

Allow me to provide some historic background as to the meaning of Memorial Day. First and foremost, Memorial Day is the day set aside to remember those men and women who perished while serving in our armed forces. Memorial Day began at the national level, May 30, 1868, as a Decoration Day, with a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery to honor fallen Civil War soldiers. Following World War I, Decoration Day became a day of remembrance of all soldiers, sailors, and Marines who died in the service to their nation, not just the Civil War. Following WW II that holiday was re-designated Memorial Day. Since the United States of America’s founding, more then 1.3 million men and women have died in service to our nation.

As President Ronald Reagan so eloquently once said of Memorial Day: “As we honor their memory today, let us pledge that their lives, their sacrifices, their valor shall be justified and remembered for as long as God gives life to this nation.”

These core tenets still provide a call to order for every American on this solemn day of remembrance. This being the case; this Memorial Day, let us pause, in a symbolic act of unity to remember and honor the men and women of the United States of America who have died in the pursuit of freedom and peace.  

Tides of Tyranny: Anatomy of a School Shooter

Tides of Tyranny: Anatomy of a School Shooter: How many people will die before the public, those who serve the public and those who entertain the public come to its senses? Did we not...

Anatomy of a School Shooter

How many people will die before the public, those who serve the public and those who entertain the public come to its senses? Did we not have Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Aurora, Parkland and now Santa Fe. When does it stop? Better yet, will it stop? It is this writer’s opinion that school massacres and other acts of violence will continue. Too many people seem unwilling to try to discover what's causing this obvious cultural decay, where some not only think it's acceptable, but act out their desires to cause the slaughter of others. 

There is no law, no President, no Democrat, no Republican that can be responsible for raising our children. I wonder, as others surely do, which news outlets, journalists and commentators will be unafraid enough to jettison the usual rhetoric or repartee and begin addressing the real issues at the center of these school shootings. 

As we prepare to hear more about the Santa Fe school shooting and the gun debate, it again occurred to me that guns are not a contagion or addiction. Guns do not cause or motivate a person to harm and murder. Where does this distain for life come from? Do you suppose it would behoove us to examine the provocation and ideology that say violence is all right? I do imagine the most clamorous voices will be those saying guns are the primary problem...as we continue to exhibit Political Correct tête-à-tête that always blame certain parts of society instead of the one pulling the trigger.

Let me add some fuel to the ideological firestorm which certainly will follow. I do believe we have overlooked the greatest contributor to acts of violence being perpetrated on the public. How about watching television? Is not violence there? You go to a movie, and violence is there. Can too much reality distort one’s world? If one lives in a fictional world, then the fictional world becomes their reality.

Anything that promotes something can be called indoctrination or propaganda. What we call entertainment is really indoctrination or propaganda for violence. If you are a producer of guns, you don’t need to promote a product to the public, because it is done by our entertainment industry. 

Is it not about time we acknowledge, that some individuals with mental health disorders are susceptible to dramatized violence. Are not some people naturally more vulnerable, because they are in the community, they are sick, and they may misinterpret somewhat? Studies have indicated, many mass shooters live or have lived in a pathological environment. Their lives center around violence, hence they watch violent movies, violent television and play violent video games. Hence, a small minority of the vulnerable act out the roles they have encountered through the medium of the media described.

Tides of Tyranny: Warriors Wearing Armor or Neophyte Attired in Frag...

Tides of Tyranny: Warriors Wearing Armor or Neophyte Attired in Frag...: Silent Body Armor wearing Warriors putting life and limb on the line every day for ours and other’s liberty. They do this while academi...

Warriors Wearing Armor or Neophyte Attired in Fragile Mesh

Silent Body Armor wearing Warriors putting life and limb on the line every day for ours and other’s liberty. They do this while academia inspired neophytes choose not armor but a fragile mesh of emotion, infatuation, adulation and reverence for liberalism and its pedagogues which enables the thoughtless and unwary to function as “Snowflakes” and "Wallflowers,” to flee not to the sound of distress but the seclusion of designated “Safe Spaces.” Furthermore, progressives are akin to a Mealy Machine. They are subject to limits whose output values are determined both by one’s state of mind, to another in response to some external input. That input is liberal ideology foisted upon young impressionable minds by a progressive ideologue employed by a majority of post-secondary Institutions of higher learning.

Does not freedom come at a cost? How much depends on which side of freedom's fence one stands or hides. Victor Hugo once said that "People do not lack strength; They lack will." I ask you, the reader to look deep within your soul and prove to America first, then the world, liberalism will not rob this nation of its will to be free, nor the courage to carry the torch of liberty to wherever freedom beckons. I am certain of one thing. It is the warrior not the progressive preceptor or pedagogue that, with God's grace will carry the day against liberty's adversaries. It is the warrior within all of us that must put on the armor of truth to safeguard America's will to be free and the courage to carry the standard of liberty against all foreign and domestic foes. Last word: Beware of wolves dressed in sheep clothing.

Tides of Tyranny: America's Divine Heritage

Tides of Tyranny: America's Divine Heritage: Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1781: “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction ...

America's Divine Heritage

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1781: “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

President Ronald Reagan stated June 16, 1983: “We’re a nation under God, a living and loving God. But Thomas Jefferson warned us, ‘I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.’ We cannot expect Him to protect us in crisis if we turn away from Him in our everyday living. But you know, He told us what to do in II Chronicles. … He said, ‘If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.'”

President Dwight Eisenhower stated in his farewell address, Jan. 17, 1961: “This evening I come to you with a … farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my country. … We face a hostile ideology – global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. … As we peer into society’s future, we … must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.”

As for this writer, Samuel Alano, I mean to stand upon the Constitution. I need no other platform. I shall know but one homeland and one God. The ends I aim at shall be my America, my Christian Faith,  and my historical heritage. I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American, free from the shackles of secular geopolitical tyranny.

Tides of Tyranny: Alfie Succumbs to a Faceless, Unaccountable, Massi...

Tides of Tyranny: Alfie Succumbs to a Faceless, Unaccountable, Massi...: In view of the fact this recent event hit an emotional nerve, I feel it necessary to provide background of specific events: Brit...

Alfie Succumbs to a Faceless, Unaccountable, Massive Healthcare Bureaucracy

In view of the fact this recent event hit an emotional nerve, I feel it necessary to provide background of specific events: British hospital authorities claimed the patient, 23-month-old Alfie Evans would expire within minutes of life support removal. In an act of hubristic belief in their own self-proclaimed genius or arrogance, UK officials pulled the plug on the child and stood by for five days until death mercifully took the child. Think about it; five days with no nourishment or fluids. Contrary to the parent’s desires hospital officials withdrew life support and expected the child to die quickly. After all, the British courts had formally and decisively ruled that the child’s condition was hopeless, and that he could not live without a ventilator. 

In my eyes, government bureaucrats and an unsympathetic judicial system is as culpable as the healthcare officials in the child’s death. Did not the British government deny numerous applications by Alfie’s parents to take the ailing toddler to the Vatican for a second opinion and a last-ditch effort to save his life? Court officials went even further by ordering the 2-year-old be removed from life support after hospital administrators determined that extending his life was a futile effort. The British government, it’s judiciary, as did hospital officials expected Alfie to expediently expire shortly after the British Court of Appeal’s final ruling; Yet the child doggedly hung on to life without the assistance of a ventilator, aided only by his parents manually breathing air into his lungs to ensure that Alfie had a healthy supply of oxygen. Their problem: Alfie did not die. The boy started breathing on his own, and for five days continued breathing until his death. Perhaps hospital officials may have been accurate in assessing Alfie’s condition as terminal. The results being what they are, I am of the view, UK’s National Health System and those actors associated with its decision-making process acted in an egregious manner in denying Alfie’s parents the right to try alternative medical treatment. 

 The ignominious Alfie Evans chronicle holds larger lessons for all of us.  If you give government officials control over your healthcare, you give them control over your life. If you reduce medical judgments to political or bureaucratic decisions, you can expect haughty and inhuman, often callous and leaving much to be desired decisions or outcomes. Finally, if you assume that the laws of the state are superior to the laws of God, then, for all practical purposes, your God is the state. If there is no higher law over the power of the state--natural law, as Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke and Thomas Jefferson would describe it, then, logically, state power is absolute. Welcome to tyranny. And yes, it can happen here.