From the book, Pray for Our Nation from Harrison House publishers, p. 40:
Father, I pray in Jesus’ name that you would restore a social conscience to our nation.
I pray that we would again see the value of teaching our children the virtue of being good citizens — to not only live for the good of the individual but the good of others as well.
Dear Father, I desire to see our nation restored to godly integrity and excellence, so that our children and our citizens can be proud of their nation and proud to be called Americans.
In recognizing our duty to God and our country, keep us mindful to pray for our nation not only in our churches and our homes, but also in the quietness of our daily lives.
“Prayer covers the whole of man’s life. There is no thought, feeling, yearning, or desire however low, trifling, or vulgar we may deem it, which, if it affects our real interest and happiness, we may not lay before God. The whole burden of the whole life of every man may be rolled onto God and not weary him, though it has wearied the man.”
From the book, Pray for Our Nation from Harrison House publishers, p. 20:
Father, I desire to vote intelligently in all elections. I pray that you will bring to light the things I need to know so that I may vote in line with Your plan, will and purpose.
May things not only come to light for the Christian community, but may things be made clear to the unbelieving community as well. I pray that what is right would be so clear that even unbelievers would vote using wisdom, and demanding honesty and uprightness from their politicians.
Dear Father, in the name of Jesus, may the citizens of our nation become so weary of sin and degradation in our nation’s leaders that they will begin to seek out godly leaders to represent them on every level of government. Give such leaders favor with the public and the media.
Father, make our nation a fragrance in the earth, a force to be reckoned with, a hand extended to those in need.
If we work on marble, it will perish; if on brass, time will efface it; if we rear up temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and imbue them with principles, with the just fear of God and the love of our fellow men, we engrave on those tablets something that will brighten to all eternity.
Lt. Col. (RET) Allen West poses with my brother Ralph after an event in Deerfield Beach, Florida in August, 2009.
I took the opportunity to cast my votes for Rick Scott & Jennifer Carroll, Marco Rubio, Lt. Col. (RET) Allen West, Pam Bondi, George Moraitis (FL House) and Ellyn Bogdanoff (FL Senate) at Delray Beach City Hall, one of the designated early voting locations. Though I am an old-fashioned kind of girl who prefers to vote on Election Day, I had to break my rule this year in order to be able to poll watch at my precinct on November 2.
I’ll be observing the proceedings from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., making for a long day that will hopefully transition into a raucous celebration lasting well into the evening at the Boca Marriott, where I’ll be watching the returns with the West campaign and other South Florida volunteers.
In what I believe to be an excellent sign, I waited in line for 35 minutes among voters ranging in age from the elderly to the middle-aged. The general mood was friendly, upbeat and sociable, and although I did not specifically ask anyone as to their preferences, I did hear a lot of talk about getting things back on track, making a statement and expressing dissatisfaction with both parties. Having never early-voted before, it’s hard to know if today’s turnout was unprecedented but one woman told me her West Delray precinct had been so overrun with traffic that she and her husband decided to drive several miles east to vote at City Hall. Since east-west traffic in South Florida can be brutal, I am also taking that as a good sign for freedom.
However, with just two weeks to go, now is the time to accelerate our efforts and eschew complacency, even as we bask in the joy of increasingly positive polling results. We’ve worked ourselves ragged over the past two years (many of us longer, considering the push-back against amnesty, TARP & other abominations under the Bush administration), and soon we’ll see the fruits of our efforts. And while we deserve a party and a brief respite from the insanity on November 2, we know this is only Phase 1. During Phase 2, our efforts will be focused on holding the newly elected accountable as we move towards 2012.
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” — Tom Paine
The other day, after having attended the monthly REC meeting, I recorded a robo-call on behalf of Pam Bondi, Republican candidate for Florida Attorney General. Prior to heading out to precinct walk yesterday, Pam’s South Florida campaign coordinator called to inform me that they system would be sending my message out to several zip codes in Boca Raton, so I should expect a least a few return calls throughout the course of the day.
And as I hung clear plastic bags filled with candidate collateral on doorknobs, I simultaneously responded to at least a dozen or so calls on my cell phone. Most of the folks I spoke with were highly supportive of Pam, and one gentleman even asked for assurance that she was a “conservative” Republican, as it was important to him to have an Attorney General who respected both the Florida Constitution and the US Constitution.
When I assured him Pam was a staunch conservative with a proven track record as a tough prosecutor, he exclaimed, “Oh, she’ll definitely get my vote!” and remembered seeing Bondi supporters at his polling location when he voted in the primary back in August. And yes, he’d voted for her back then too, based on what he’d seen and heard, though he was excited to speak with someone who’d actually met Pam and was actively volunteering on her campaign.
Others who were not familiar with her promised to visit her website.
But the most memorable call of the day took place in the evening, when I returned a voicemail message from an elderly couple. The wife answered with a thick New York accent, and after listening to my brief introduction and solicitation for her support on November 2 inquired:
“Pam Bondi? What is she?” (Yes, you read that correctly. Not “Who is she? but What is she?”)
While I could’ve been sarcastic and retorted with something like, She’s an alien from outer space, I patiently explained Pam’s credentials. Undaunted, the woman persisted (did I mention her New York accent was obnoxious, no offense to my NY friends?):
“Yeah, but what is she?”
Realizing this was a lost cause, I noted that Pam was a conservative Republican. I might as well have told her Pam was a handmaiden of the devil who drowned kittens in her spare time — not that it would’ve made a difference. I could almost see the woman recoiling in horror as she yelled:
“Oh NO! God NO!” and promptly hung up on me.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, exemplifies one of the major differences between conservatives and liberals. Every other neighbor I spoke with wanted to know about Pam’s qualifications and accomplishments, and most asked for clarification of her website address so they could learn more about her.
This woman, on the other hand, was only interested in confirming her preconceived biases of liberals as good, conservatives as evil. Everything else was immaterial.
But this call was illustrative on a personal level, too. Instead of feeling angry and upset over her ignorance and the rude manner in which I’d been treated, I had a really good laugh. Of course, it helps knowing Bondi is going to win the AG race soundly on November 2. And visualizing the shattering disappointment on this woman’s face as the returns roll in on Election Night was pretty damn satisfying as well.
Ironically (although she doesn’t realize it), my elderly neighbor will be one of the beneficiaries of a Bondi victory because Pam will continue the fight against Obamacare — with its “death panel” rationing and soulless, cost-containment dismissal of old people whose lives aren’t worthy of valuable medical procedures.
This New Yorker, who in all likelihood was raised on FDR Kool-Aid, will have the “heartless” conservatives to thank when Bondi becomes Florida’s next AG.
Having been raised by conservative Republican parents who were both into activism long before it became a way of life for countless Americans in the months following Obama’s election, it’s probably not a surprise that I have been a registered Republican since I turned eighteen a few *cough* years back. And no, I didn’t opt to be an elephant versus a donkey just to make mom and dad proud, I actually did take the time to look at the platforms of both parties and ask myself why I wanted to join the GOP.
The answer?
The Republican platform (notice I typed, “Republican platform” not “Republican elected officials”) just made sense to me.
It reflected the concepts enshrined in the United States Constitution — that all rights come from a higher authority and that government exists mainly to provide for the common defense, support a criminal justice system and create a climate in which individuals and entrepreneurs have the opportunity to pursue their dreams in a free market that encourages healthy competition.
Long before both Bush administrations came to power, I was familiar with the term “RINO”. In 1976, my entire family reacted with heavy-hearted disappointment and anger when Ronald Reagan lost the Republican nomination to RINO Gerald Ford.
As a kid, I remember suffering through the insufferable Carter years with their long gasoline lines, seemingly endless malaise, foreign policy ineptitude and Iranian hostage crisis — until our sunny optimist finally won the Republican nomination in 1980 and subsequently, the White House.
Watching President Reagan’s speeches and appearances on television with my family was much like watching an Eagles game (without the heartbreaking losses). We’d cheer, clap, jump up and down and shout with delight as Ronald Reagan unfailingly reminded us — in his bold, unapologetic and endearing style — of the greatness of America, the courage of our men and women in uniform and the exceptionalism of our system of government. With moral clarity and conviction, he made us proud and grateful to call ourselves American citizens.
Sadly, upon his departure from Pennsylvania Avenue after serving two distinguished terms, Reagan’s successor wasted no time in reverting the bully pulpit back to “Rockefeller Republican” mode, calling for a “kinder, gentler nation” (whatever that means), raising taxes and ultimately alienating conservatives. Enter Ross Perot in 1992 and — well, you know the rest of the story.
My point is — long before the beautiful Tea Party Movement got underway — I’d always supported candidates who espoused the principles of limited government, strong national defense, capitalism and personal responsibility. And yes, to my great consternation, there were way too many instances when I’d find myself holding my nose to vote for Candidate X because he or she was marginally better than Candidate Y.
By the way, I voted for Sarah Palin in 2008.
And long before the breath of fresh air from Alaska blew in, I read conservative blogs, railed against open borders and amnesty, criticized President Bush’s massive expansion of government and spending, called for the release of Ramos and Compean, supported the war against global jihad (not terrorism, which is a tactic) and objected to the rampant cronyism that defined the Bush years (Harriet Miers, anyone?).
So I was “Tea Partying” before there actually was a phenomenon known as the Tea Party.
Concurrently, I believe that the best way to save our country from socialistic decay is to reform the Republican Party from within. Not only is this the most efficient method, it’s already putting the establishmentarians on notice and yielding excellent results including, but not limited to Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, Christine O’Donnell, Pat Toomey and….Marco Rubio.
Of all the aforementioned candidates, Rubio best exemplifies the qualities of the Great Communicator, articulating conservatism with a genuine passion and conviction that has helped propel him to 50% in recent polling. Like other Tea Party Republicans, Marco defied the go-along-to-get-along Republican establishment (which immediately sought to destroy his nascent campaign by prematurely endorsing Obama-hugging, stimulus-loving Charlie Crist in May, 2009) with his heretical talk of spending cuts, deficit reduction, government reduction, and tax relief.
A charismatic embodiment of the American Dream whose parents fled Cuba for a better life for themselves and their children, Rubio quickly attracted a loyal following of constituents fed up with Washington games and hungry for the kind of leadership he espoused.
Crist, on the other hand, embarrassed the GOP (a richly deserved outcome) by showing his true self-serving colors and abandoning the party when he read the “tea leaves” and realized he didn’t stand a chance of beating Rubio in the Republican Primary. Thus, the sleazy opportunist who once invoked the greatness of Ronald Reagan and swore he’d never leave the GOP, threw all principle to the wind (if he even had any to begin with) to run as an “Independent”, emphasis on “I”, meaning “Me”.
And in a recent debate, ol’ Charlie found yet another way to disgrace himself by regurgitating a newspaper’s race-baiting, grievance-mongering claim that Rubio had “turned his back on his Hispanic family”, thus proving his Democrat bonafides, according to Ed Morrissey.
Which brings me to today. As a precinct committewoman, it is my obligation to walk precincts — my own and others — ahead of elections, to help get out the vote. This effort is complemented by the distribution of (gasp!) Republican Party-endorsed candidate literature. So it won’t come as a shock that among other candidates today’s goody bags included information on Marco Rubio.
However, it did cause some angst for a Facebook friend and self-described Tea Party movement member on the Gulf Coast, who chastised me in no uncertain terms that “not all Tea Partiers support Marco Rubio” and that I should “just remember that”.
I replied that as independent thinkers, I hardly expected all Tea Party members to be in lockstep on every candidate, but found her remarks sort of odd since Rubio stands for everything the Tea Party seeks to promote. I then reminded her that my precinct walking activity was a function of my membership in the Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee to which she snidely replied:
I’m so sorry for “lumping” you into the TEA PARTY MOVEMENT. Belive me, it will NEVER happen again…..
I politely informed her that A.) Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, DC Works For Us and various 9/12 groups in South Florida all endorsed Rubio; B.) It was very possible for one to simultaneously hold membership in both the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party; and C.) if the status updates I posted on MY wall offended her, she was free to either ignore them or delete me.
Personally, I hope she goes with the last option. Facebook has a friend limit and ever since attaining the milestone of 5,000 friends last year, I’ve had a waiting list a mile long.
Very thankful to be in the company of tireless, dedicated patriots here in South Florida.
The last meeting before the do-or-die 2010 midterm elections was held the other night in West Palm Beach. At my friend Steve Rosenblum’s suggestion, all candidates in attendance were afforded an opportunity to speak first before attending to other business. I am so proud of everyone running and can only say that after listening to their presentations, I more excited than ever about next month’s elections. Florida has an excellent slate of candidates, and I am thrilled to support them via precinct walking, robo-calls (in the case of Pam Bondi), blog posts, social media and every form of activism available to us in the 21st Century.
One of the most dynamic, passionate and gentlemanly among them is Bernard Sansaricq, an intelligent, articulate voice for American freedom who is running against impeached judge/thug Alcee Hastings in Florida Congressional District 23. Bernard exuberantly announced Newt Gingrich’s recent endorsement of his campaign, to the delight of the entire audience, before noting that Belle Glade — Hasting’s place of birth and the poorest area of the state — is suffering with 42% unemployment.
At a recent Belle Glade debate reported on by my friend and tireless patriot Yomin Postelnik, Hastings threatened Sansaricq after challenging him to a debate in which the statesman noted:
“I have visited Belle Glade 20 times since the beginning of the campaign and I intend on being YOUR Congressman. And I won’t tell you that you need to hire a lobbyist when you need something from me. That’s because your congressman is elected to be your lobbyist!
Belle Glade has a 42% unemployment rate. You can be sure that when elected, I won’t hire some girlfriend and pay her $160,000 of the people’s money when those funds can be used to hire eight people in Belle Glade. I also won’t take trips to Europe with that girlfriend on the taxpayer dime. I will remain here and have a presence in the district, fighting for you.”
Alcee’s response, in full earshot of all of the assembled elderly residents of the no longer Quiet Waters, “You’d better travel safe! You’d better travel safe! You’d better travel safe!”
For those who don’t understand thug-ese, that’s a desperate threat (albeit an empty one) on Bernard Sansaricq’s life. — Yomin Postelnik
In case it’s not perfectly clear from that short excerpt, Florida CD-23 is in desperate need of strong, principled leadership — and Bernard Sansaricq is the perfect man to deliver it. Please visit his site and donate anything you can.
In fact, take a look at each of these great candidates and do whatever you can to help. Our freedom depends on it.
Still processing all of the videos, but these three offer pretty good insight as to the mood of the crowd and the tenor of the debate between Tea Party Republican candidate Lt. Col. (RET) Allen West and Liberal-Democrat-turned-born-again-fiscal-conservative Ron Klein (pay no attention to his 98% pro-Pelosi agenda voting record, Ron is really a “middle-of the-road” kind of guy).
One of the many things that irked me about Klein’s performance — aside from the blatant lies about West — was his dig at pro-life Americans, as indicated by his “Terry Schiavo issues” remark. I suppose it was a deliberate attempt to remind spineless independents and pro-choice Democrats about the “extremism” of Republican Floridians who believed their state courts committed a grave and fatal injustice against an innocent, disabled woman based on the testimony of a conflicted witness. It was a cheap shot from a desperate, pathetic politician who knows he’s in the fight of his life against a strong, popular and principled challenger.
Having had the pleasure of meeting Ellen Snyder on Facebook two years ago and developing a close friendship shortly thereafter, I am thrilled to announce the impending launch of a new site for fabulous conservative females everywhere: The Conservative Diva.
A mutual friend conceived the idea for the website sometime after I’d “christened” Ellen with the nickname several months ago, due to her passionate devotion and tireless efforts in the cause of freedom. Kathy (aka Lilly Joy), another wonderful female patriot I met through volunteering on the Edward Lynch campaign, completes the trio. Her highly talented husband, Woody, designed our logo which depicts our collective purpose and individual roles within a single image (not to mention, makes us all look mah-velous!).
The Conservative Diva will encourage, inspire and inform women and men nationwide (though we’re starting with a focus on Florida) to get active in their local communities, support commonsense conservatives and step out of their comfort zones. We also hope to demonstrate that — while critically important — activism can also be fun!
Tonight we’ll be interviewing Pam Bondi, Republican candidate for Florida Attorney General, at the grand opening of her Boca Raton office. That video will be featured, along with others, when the site goes live within the next few days. In the meantime, join our Facebook page here. We’ll have profile on twitter shortly, too.
When a Canadian couple learned their surrogate mother was carrying a fetus that was likely to be born with Down syndrome, they demanded an abortion.
The surrogate didn’t want to abort the child, according to the National Post, and so the child’s fate became about the surrogacy contract.
As more people turn to a third party to carry their babies, sticky situations like this are challenging the ethics of surrogacy. When all three people involved in a surrogacy aren’t on the same page, what should happen?
The ethics of surrogacy: What happens when the fetus has a defect?
According to the couple’s agreement with the surrogate, if the surrogate birthed the child, the biological parents wouldn’t have any legal responsibility for the child.
But many legal experts are saying that if this situation had been brought to court the surrogacy contract would have been disregarded. Instead the court would draw from family law requiring the biological parents to support the child.
It’s hard to know what would have happened because a surrogacy contract has never been contested in a Canadian court, according to the National Post, and the surrogate in this case never filed a lawsuit and decided to have an abortion in the end.
Warning: If you can actually watch this without experiencing visceral anguish, anger and outrage, you might be an Obama-bot. In all seriousness, it is extremely graphic. To all of my conservative-in-every-way-but-social friends who believe that if a child isn’t going to be born into “perfect” circumstances (e.g. a two-parent home with financial stability) that this kind of slaughter is justified, perhaps this video will cause you to reconsider. I can’t imagine any of you wish to be aligned with the grotesque worldview of people like Virginia Ironside and the global warming alarmists.
That the last bit would surprise anyone is perplexing. As an avid, active Tea Partier here in South Florida since Tea Party Fort Lauderdale set up its weekly gatherings at the corner of US 1 and Oakland Park Blvd in February of 2009, I can report that the overwhelming majority of participants are pro-life, pro-gun, pro-military, pro-war on Global Jihad, pro-limited government and pro-personal responsibility and freedom.
Posing with Danita Kilcullen, one of the founders of Tea Party Fort Lauderdale.
If pro-abortion advocates had their way, many of the world’s greatest achievers and contributors would never have been afforded the opportunity to leave an indelible mark upon civilization due to the less-than-ideal circumstances surrounding their births and physicality (not to mention the whim of their mothers). After all, Winston Churchill had a speech impediment. Abraham Lincoln was born into poverty. And Leonardo da Vinci was the illegitimate product of an unwed mother.
Not too long ago, I attended a BBQ at the home of a close friend. In the midst of the merriment, the conversation somehow digressed into an impassioned abortion debate as we sat around the kitchen table, in one of those strange progressions where a simple, innocuous inquiry like “How is your family?” segued into a heated argument over whether life begins at conception.
Ok, that’s quite a stretch, so let me explain.
The friend in question’s family is still dealing with the ramifications of losing a very young child to an aggressive, destructive brain tumor a few years back. Later that day, she was going to attend a family dinner commemorating what would’ve been his eighth birthday. (Having been deeply involved with the family during the horrific, 10-month ordeal in which every instinct of the grieving, heart-broken parents centered around how to best comfort, love and ease the child’s pain, I find Virginia Ironside’s comments that much more repugnant and offensive).
Somewhere in the mix of lingering grief, heartache and anger, she launched into an understandable tirade about the unfairness of it all, especially given the fact that the boy had two loving parents who provided a good home. Up until that point, I agreed with everything she’d stated.
However in the next breath, she began railing against pregnant teenagers, unwed mothers and even young married adults who willingly reproduce (i.e. choose life) long before they themselves have reached a certain level of maturity and financial security. Now I certainly don’t condone teenagers having babies, or even partaking in the activity that leads to their creation; in an ideal scenario, everyone would wait until marriage, or at least until their 20s (when the chances of emotionally maturity are much higher) before having sex — and when they did, they’d take proper precautions if not ready to care for the needs of an infant. And in a perfect world, if they did actually use birth control, it would never fail. Not ever.Not even once.
But as I said, we don’t live in a perfect world. Does that somehow designate unplanned life as disposable?
Pro-life advocates who walk the walk like Briston Palin don’t think so. And as someone who knows how difficult it is to practically abide by one’s belief in the sanctity of human life, she’s actively reaching out to teenage girls in an effort to help them prevent pregnancies until securing a better future for themselves, one that hopefully includes a loving, devoted spouse and father.
Having said that, let’s take a look at the issue from the “ideal circumstances” standpoint.
In a side-by-side comparison, if a married couple in their 30s with stable careers, and two 16 year-old high school sweethearts lacking two nickels to rub against each conceive a child, is the life of the former couple’s unborn child somehow more worthy than that of the latter, though neither unborn creation had actually been given a choice — so to speak — about their conception?
Using my friend’s logic, the answer would be yes. She’d flatly stated that since young people are “too selfish” to give up their babies for adoption, they should abort them if they cannot adequately provide for their material needs. Of course, if we didn’t live in a “hook up” culture that glamorizes meaningless, casual sex, devalues God and preaches moral relativism, there would be far fewer unplanned pregnancies to deal with in the first place. But that’s a discussion for another post.
I can and often do agree to disagree with friends, for the sake of the relationship. In this case, the woman in question is a wonderful person for whom I’d do just about anything. What was frustrating to me on that particular day though, was her unwillingness to let me put forth my point of view; every time I tried to make a counter-argument she’d cut me off. It didn’t help that our other female friend kept interjecting hard luck stories about her boyfriend’s childhood to support the financial wealth justification — notwithstanding the fact that he’d gone on to achieve great success after growing up a poor kid in a large Irish-Catholic family.
It was kind of like being a guest on The Factor: Before I could complete a sentence, one of them would cut me off. Or, they’d immediately shoot down my premise. For example, when I mentioned that I was once an unplanned pregnancy and as such, was also very grateful that my parents were pro-life, my statement was dismissed because after all, my father was a doctor:
Me: “Yes, that is true but at the time my dad was struggling to get his surgical practice going, barely paying the mortgage on our two-story colonial, which he couldn’t afford to fully furnish.”
Friend: “Bah! Your parents knew that once he got his career off the ground, the money would come in.”
Me: “Fair enough, but suppose God forbid, my dad had been in some kind of accident, leaving him incapacitated and unable to perform surgery while my mom was still in the first trimester. Would that have then justified an abortion? Or what if it had happened years down the road, forcing my mother to take over as breadwinner. She’s a pretty smart lady, but in all likelihood, would never have been able to replace my dad’s income, which would have taken us down quite a few notches on the economic scale — maybe even into borderline poverty. We would then be in the dire financial circumstances that according to your premise, justify abortion.”
My point again: there are no guarantees in life. Even if a child is born into a near-perfect situation, it could all change in the blink of an eye before he or she is out of diapers. When you get right down to it, innocent human life is innocent human life. Either we believe it is sacred — flawed though it may be — or we don’t. There is no in-between.
And whether it’s Hitler or Stalin committing mass genocide against the handicapped and entire races of people they deemed inferior; government bureaucrats determining whether it’s cost-effective for your 75 year-old mother to have her recommended hip-replacement surgery; or well-intentioned people buying into abortion based on a subjective quality of life argument, all have one thing in common: a deliberate rejection of the laws of God and nature in favor of some Utopian pie-in-the-sky ideal. I can think of 50 million reasons why that is just plain wrong.
Daria Anne DiGiovanni, Inc. 