Searchlight Shining

Finding America's Way Back Through the Dark Night

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done. - Ronald Reagan

This is a moment in American history where that statement rings true like never before. As the statist government marches on in defiance of the will of the people and they take over more and more of our private economy, Sarah Palin tells people to stay energized, be excited and believe we can take our country back. At a Tea Party rally in Searchlight, NV on Saturday, she said "America is going to be just fine — keep up the good work — if we stick to our principles." Palin's optimism in the face of what many see as the beginning of that thousand years of darkness was simply Reaganesque.

Research that I am doing to try to convince myself that we are really not headed toward becoming a European style socialist democracy is not convincing me. Instead, I'm finding serious clues as to how the Shadow Party, the radicals, the progressives and statists are taking steps to "fundamentally transform America." The European style socialist democracy they are manipulating us toward is only just a step. After that, it could be on to full blown Hugo Chavez style communism here in America if they are not stopped.

It's very dark in America right now as we struggle to extract our country from the hands of socialists, progressives and statists. Ronald Reagan showed us what "morning in America" looks like. Barack Obama shows us the middle of the night. Sarah Palin helps us find our way through that dark night.

Out of that darkness shines a light, a ray of true hope that searches for liberty. The light shines from the woman who was brutally "beaten" after losing her VP run in November. She was marginalized, smeared and forced out of office by Democrats who were trying to politically and financially bankrupt her. Thrown on the defensive, Palin rebuilt her public image by writing a book, giving speeches, using social media and becoming a Fox News contributor. On Saturday, Palin went on offense. After emerging from the smear campaign stronger, smarter and more politically savvy than ever, Palin reloaded and fired in the direction of Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

"We're sending a message to Washington. It's loud and it's clear, and in these upcoming elections we're saying that the big-government, big-debt, Obama-Pelosi-Reid spending spree is over. You're fired!" Palin told the crowd which was estimated to be somewhere between 20,000 to 25,000 people.

She also took the opportunity for a full frontal assault on the media which once tried to destroy her. “We’re not inciting violence," Palin said. "Don’t get sucked into the lame-stream media lies." Palin, who herself knows what it's like to be a victim of a smear campaign told the audience to stay energized and not be sidetracked by the "bunch of bunk... the media is trying to feed you.”

What struck me most about the speech was her undying optimism. She told us not to worry. She said “it’s nothing a good old-fashioned election can’t fix.” Smiling and breaking it down simply, Palin told us we can take our country back. "America is going to be just fine," she said. This calming effect she had on her followers was completely missed by the mainstream media who chose, of course, to focus on anything that they could spin into incendiary rhetoric.

Forget what the media says about her speech. Understand what really happened there. Average everyday Americans came out to share their feelings about what the government is doing to them. They could feel what Sarah was saying to them.

These are times again when I feel "it." I almost forgot what "it" was since "it" was only a memory of how I felt when Reagan spoke. It would be two decades before I would feel "it" again when Sarah spoke at the RNC in Minnesota and now again in Searchlight. When she speaks, it feels as if Reagan is with us, his spirit filling the air around her. Rachelle Friberg was there and she describes "it" perfectly on her blog Conservative Girl With a Voice:

As she spoke, five jets wrote messages in puffy, white smoke above in the crystal-blue sky. One of the messages read Thank you, Sarah Palin. Another read, God bless Sarah Palin. I learned later that night from a friend that Sarah looked up to the sky at one point and blushed, and I have a feeling she was looking at what was being written. She was overwhelmed at just how amazing the whole event was. It was during her speech that I developed shivers and had tears in my eyes.

Many of us feel that we stand on the precipice of history worrying that America may be taking that first step into a thousand years of darkness. And in that voice of hers, Sarah tells us "nah, that ain't gonna happen."


Writer's Note: Please visit The Other McCain to get a flavor of what the rally was like. The picture which appears on this post is courtesy of Robert Stacy McCain.

How's That "We're Not Retreating, We're Advancing in a Different Direction" Thing Working Out?

On November 4, 2008, Sarah Palin stood on a stage in Arizona with tears in her eyes after losing her bid to become the first female vice president in American history. On July 3, 2009, Sarah Palin explained to the people of Alaska that due to a grid-locking number of ethics complaints, she could no longer govern the state. During the period between November 4 and July 3, Sarah Palin was a target - out in the open for everyone to hit. Yesterday, she stood on another stage in Arizona a millionaire and the de facto leader of the loyal opposition in America.

Palin's resignation from her governorship doesn't sit well with the political textbook model types. But it does have an analogy to a military move that many have used in the past. Once a target is in the open, the opposition can hit it. The defensive strategy is to move out of the open, retreat possibly, and then come up behind the enemy and attack. Palin has done this.

The liberals and the media are stunned at how someone could take the kinds of vicious hits that Palin has taken and actually come out stronger than she was before. In gaming language, she is that monster on level 12 that you just can't beat.

We Palin supporters have been fighting the smears, taking on the mainstream media and finding ourselves sometimes in the crosshairs of liberal bloggers and certain MSNBC anchors whose name will remain anonymous (cough cough, Shannyn Moore, cough cough Keith Olbermann). Sarah Palin was on defense. Some of us saw Sarah as a victim.

She is a victim no more.

In fact, she is the one leading a head on charge. She has targeted 20 congressionial districts. Today, she's gunning (and in today's political climate I again must point out that this is meant rhetorically, not literally) for Harry Reid's head.

Sarah Palin is on offense now.

How does it feel, liberals, that that wild animal you were trying to kill is now running directly at you, showing it's teeth and there is nothing you can do about it? I'd use the imagery of a charging rhinoceros, but Palin is no RINO.


Palin on Offense:

Tea Party Gears Up for 'Showdown in Searchlight'

As Bad As Things Are, Sarah Tells Us To Keep Our Chins Up

She appeared on O'Reilly. She appeared on Hannity. She wrote two Facebook notes. The message:

Don't Get Demoralized.
Stand Tall, America.
Real Change is Coming.
November is Coming.

With a type, type, type, send, Sarah Palin made us feel good even when we felt lousy.

This is just the beginning of our efforts to take back our country. Consider yesterday’s vote a clarion call and a spur to action. We will not let America sink into further debt without a fight. We will not abandon the American dream to government dependency, fewer freedoms and less opportunity. Change is made at the ballot box. If we work together, we can renew our optimistic pioneering spirit, revive our economy, and restore constitutional limits.

It kind of makes you want to pick your tired bloodied body up off the dirt and march forward in a haze of inspiration and glory even as you are sickened by watching your country crumble around you. She tells us there's real hope. She tells us there can be real change. We believe her. We move on to the next battle.

The day before John McCain announced Sarah Palin to be his running mate, I was the most demoralized I had ever been since following politics as a teenager. I came of age during the Reagan years. I loved the shining city on a hill more than anything else in this world. My country was a beautiful place, a proud place. It gave me inspiration and it gave me hope. It made me strive to be the best that I could be in business and in life.

But that world was gone in August 2008. John McCain at best could be a bridge to the next era in America, I thought. He could stop the bleeding, maybe push back on the socialists a bit. But he was not the "great one" we had been looking for since Ronald Reagan's passing. The prospects of an Obama presidency loomed large in a political environment where a regular generic Republican was about to go up against a tide that was going against everything Republican.

I wish you could have been on the phone calls with my friends to get a sense of how down I was. I wish you could have heard the conversations about "idiocracy" and "going to hell in a handbasket." It would have been most depressing to hear me tell my friends "the best days are behind us."

On August 29, 2009, all of that changed.

From that moment, I knew we had found her. I knew we had a leader again. I knew Ronald Reagan's hard work and legacy was not for naught. She brought him back to us. She lives and breathes Ronald Reagan. It is as if he is here again, helping us save his shining city through her.

I've said it every day since Obama was elected. I could not fathom getting through the Obama years without Sarah Palin. This health care reform bill would have wrecked me. Where would I turn for hope? Who could I count on when the chips were down?

This health care reform makes me feel like crap. But it could be worse. Imagine if there was no Sarah Palin.


References:

Facebook:
Don’t Get Demoralized! Get Organized! Take Back the 20!
Out-of-touch Congress Sounds Our Clarion Call to Take a Stand
America – Be Heard or Brace for “Transformation”

Fox News:
Governor Palin on Hannity Reacting To Health Care Vote
Gov Palin Breaks Down ObamaCare on O’Reilly

Follow Liberty's Lamp Into November

Mine's a tale that can't be told, my freedom I hold dear.
How years ago in days of old, when magic filled the air.
T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor... -Led Zeppelin


In the darkest hour of the night, we sit momentarily defeated as we ponder the destruction now taking place in the shining city on a hill. We are exiles. We are creatures of a dark political night which knows nowhere to go but forward. We rely on freedom's light, the lamp of liberty at a time when destructive forces try to dim its shine.

The leftists tried to kill that light last night. And although they won this battle, the light still shines on. We hear the clarion call from Alaska and we heed it.

We’ve been reminded many times that elections have consequences. Yesterday we saw the consequence of voting for those who believe in “fundamentally transforming” America whether we want it or not. Yesterday they voted. In November, we get to vote. We won’t forget what we saw yesterday. Congress passed a bill while Americans said “no,” and thousands of everyday citizens even surrounded the Capital Building to beg them not to do it. Has there ever been a more obvious exhibition of a detached and imperious government?

In the weeks to come, we can expect them to try to change the subject, but we won’t forget. Don't let them move on to further “transformational” steps while forgetting what Congress just did against the will of the people. Though Obamacare will inflict billions in new taxes on individuals and employers, at least it creates some jobs: the IRS might have to hire as many as 16,000 new employees to enforce all the new taxes and penalties the bill calls for! And that doesn’t include all the other government jobs from the 159 new agencies, panels, commissions and departments this bill will create. As the private sector shrinks, we can count on government to keep growing along with the deficits needed to keep it all afloat. (Is this the kind of “change” Americans asked for?)

In the end, this unsustainable bill jeopardizes the very thing it was supposed to fix – our health care system. Somewhere along the way we forgot that health care reform is about doctors and patients, not the IRS and politicians. Instead of helping doctors with tort reform, this bill has made primary care physicians think about getting out of medicine. It was supposed to make health care more affordable, but our premiums will continue to go up. It was supposed to help more people get coverage, but there will still be 23 million uninsured people by 2019.

Though they’d like us to forget, we will remember the corrupt deals, the corrupt process, the lack of transparency, the deceptive gimmicks to game the CBO score, and the utter disregard for the will of the American people. Elections have consequences, and we won’t forget those who promised to hold firm against government funding of abortion, but caved at the last minute in exchange for a non-binding executive order promised by the most pro-abortion president to ever occupy the White House.

All along we’ve said that we want real health care reform, but this isn’t it. We mustn’t be discouraged now. We must look to November when our goal will be to rebuke big government’s power grab, reject this unwanted “transformation” of America, and repeal dangerous portions of Obamacare that will bury us under more Big Government control.

This is just the beginning of our efforts to take back our country. Consider yesterday’s vote a clarion call and a spur to action. We will not let America sink into further debt without a fight. We will not abandon the American dream to government dependency, fewer freedoms and less opportunity. Change is made at the ballot box. If we work together, we can renew our optimistic pioneering spirit, revive our economy, and restore constitutional limits.

Stand tall, America. November is coming!

- Sarah Palin

Blinded By The Light

Sarah, ...Peace through strength - as the man whose torch you now carry - is the answer. - Ron Devito

There are some who just don't see it yet. Yesterday, on Hannity, Bob Beckel uttered the worn out complaint of the left: Sarah Palin has no policy positions and no substance. He couldn't be more wrong.

Sarah Palin had more policy substance written on the palm of her hand in Nashville than Barack Obama could ever squeeze on to a teleprompter. If you don't believe me, just read her Facebook Page and listen closely to what she says during speaking engagements. It's so simple, it might just fly right over your over-educated mind. Like someone who stares at the manual while fixing a car, sometimes you just need someone to say "just tighten this bolt right here." Is that it? That's it.

Domestic policy:

Energy Independence (creates jobs)
Lower Taxes (reduce the size of government)
Lift America's Spirits (Ronald Reagan optimism)

Foreign policy:

Peace Through Strength

Those who look for bold messianic statements bloviated off a teleprompter won't see it. Those who think the Republican party needs to elect RINOs won't see it. Those who think Palin is unqualified because she's a woman or didn't get the right degrees or go to the right college, won't see it. They are simply blinded by the light. They are in denial.

From The Wizard of Oz:

DOROTHY
Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?

GLINDA
You don't need to be helped any longer.
You've always had the power to go back to
Kansas.

DOROTHY
I have?

SCARECROW
Then why didn't you tell her before?

GLINDA
Because she wouldn't have believed me. She
had to learn it for herself.

If America doesn't believe Sarah Palin then she will have to learn it for herself. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Those old enough to remember know what home is like recall that it's a shining city on a hill. Tap those slippers together and repeat after me: "there is no place like home." It was morning there once. It will be morning again. Those who have not yet been there are in for a treat.

Believe the one who carries the torch now and follow the light of liberty's lamp.

Palin Articulates Her Political Philosophy

In Orlando, Sarah Palin joked about what she wrote on her hand. But that is her political philosophy and that is her plan for taking back America - Energy Independence, tax cuts and lifting America's spirits. Sarah Palin is now defining herself.

In his first inaugural address, delivered on January 20, 1981, Reagan said with the nation in an economic recession, he declared that "government is not the solution to our problem." Instead, he proposed to remove "the roadblocks that have slowed our economy and reduced productivity," reawaken "this industrial giant," get "government back within its means," and reduce "punitive tax burdens."

It worked before; it will work again.