Outside the Perimeter

I'll stipulate ...

... that John Kerry was Rambo on a Swift Boat during this four months in Viet Nam. I was three years old when he was there, so I don't find myself in a position to be able to credibly say anything negative about his service. The question about whether others who served in Viet Nam with Kerry can credibly criticize is another issue. Those men, the Swift Boat Vets, have earned the right to tell their side of the story.

When I look at Kerry's record of leadership, only one thing matters to me: Has John Kerry shown leadership in the Senate? One way to tell is to see the bills that Kerry proposed and then had passed. It seems to me that IF John Kerry was any kind of leader in the Senate, he would have some type of major legislation that with his name on it (think Gramm-Rudman, or McCain Feingold). The natural question is, what are Kerry's legislative accomplishments in his 20 years?

The helpful folks at the Bush campaign (questioning Kerry's, uh, patriotism the Dems would have you believe), have listed them our for us:

Kerry's Five Bills That Became Law:

A Bill To Amend The Small Business Act With Respect To The Women's Business Center Program. (S. 791, Latest Major Action: 12/9/1999 Became Public Law No: 106-165)
A Bill To Redesignate The Federal Building Located At 380 Trapelo Road In Waltham, Massachusetts, As The "Frederick C. Murphy Federal Center." (S. 1206, Latest Major Action: 4/14/1994 Became Public Law No: 103-234)
A Bill To Authorize Appropriations For The Marine Mammal Protection Act Of 1972 And To Improve The Program To Reduce The Incidental Taking Of Marine Mammals During The Course Of Commercial Fishing Operations, And For Other Purposes. (S. 1636, Latest Major Action: 4/30/1994 Became Public Law No: 103-238)
A Bill To Authorize Appropriations To Carry Out The National Sea Grant College Program Act, And For Other Purposes. (S. 1563, Latest Major Action: 12/4/1991 Signed by President)
A Bill For The Relief Of Kil Joon Yu Callahan. (S. 423, Latest Major Action: 11/19/1987 Became Private Law No: 100-2)

Kerry's Four Resolutions That Became Law:

A Joint Resolution Designating The Week Beginning October 20, 1991, As "World Population Awareness Week." (S.J. Res. 160, Latest Major Action: 10/30/1991 Signed by President)
A Joint Resolution Designating November 13, 1992, As "Vietnam Veterans Memorial 10th Anniversary Day." (S.J. Res. 318, Latest Major Action: 10/24/1992 Became Public Law No: 102-518)
A Joint Resolution Designating September 18, 1992, As "National POW/MIA Recognition Day," And Authorizing Display Of The National League Of Families POW/MIA Flag. (S.J. Res. 337, Latest Major Action: 9/30/1992 Became Public Law No: 102-373)
A Joint Resolution Designating October 22 Through 28, 1989, As "World Population Awareness Week." (S.J. Res. 158, Latest Major Action: 10/25/1990 Signed by President)

I suppose Kerry is a leader in the area of "World Population Awareness", what ever that means. But a leader in the Senate on anything of rises to the importance of the economy, education, or national security? I don't think so.

No wonder everything always comes back to Kerry's four months in Viet Nam. He does not have a record of any significant accomplishment since then.

Nothing Like a Strong Leader

John Kerry is shaking up his staff because they would not let him go after the Swift Boat Vets:

Sen. John Kerry is angry at the way his campaign has botched the attacks from the Swift boat veterans and has ordered a staff shakeup that will put former Clinton aides in top positions. "The candidate is furious," a longtime senior Kerry adviser told the Daily News. "He knows the campaign was wrong. He wanted to go after the Swift boat attacks, but his top aides said no."

I suppose the buck stops somewhere down there. That brings up a question though. Who is going to be in charge of telling Kerry what to do if he is elected President? His wife? Jac Chirac? A Magic 8 ball? Please tell me not John Edwards.

I think you Dems have bought a lemon. It is too late to take him back. Hey, Jersey Democrats! I sure you could give your national leadership some tips on this.

(Orginal link - InstaPundit)

Blind Pig Manifesto

Responding to an email, I had cause to think about my core beliefs. I don't know how clear I can be about them, but I decided to flesh out the thoughts and at least try to explain them. Here goes:

I do not consider myself a Republican. There are several things that Bush does that I do not like: Not vetoing big spending bills, expanding Medicare, and advocacy of the FMA (not that the President has anything to do with Constitutional Amendments). However, I can also separate the man from the policy, as many on the left do not appear to be able to do.

On the other hand, there are things his does that I do like, such as lowering taxes. I also think President Bush is a good man and a moral man. I regret how President Bush is treated by some. That treatment reminds me of the treatment of the last President to deal with a divided nation. He was also demonized by his opposition. He was called a "half-witted usurper" and other such things by the press.

His name was Abraham Lincoln, and I admire him as I admire President Bush. History forced conflict upon both men. And both men rose to the challenge.

My hot button issue is the War on Terror. I have two kids and I want them to be able to go to New York City without the chance some Islamic terrorist is going to start blowing things up or increasing radiation levels. I want them to live in a world where Islamic extremism is a thing of the past, just was done with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

I am in complete agreement with President Bush in forcing Saddam Hussein to prove he was no danger to the US or to face the consequences. I too am angry at the deaths of our soldiers in Iraq. But I am not angry at Bush. I am angry that the obdurate nature of Saddam Hussein made the invasion necessary.

I do believe that Bush has made the country and the world safer. Is there a chance that terrorists will attack us again? Sure. This is a war. Like any war, each side tries to damage the other. Sometimes the bad guys win a battle.

But that does not mean that we should give up or that we should be afraid. We do, however, have to be aware. We do have to keep fighting them. We do have to push to destroy those who would destroy our way of life and who would kill millions of us if they could.

There does not appear to be a place for someone like me in the Democratic Party. Witness what is happening to one of my own United States Senators, Zell Miller. I have seen the unjustified anger directed at him by some Democrats. I find it ugly, unnecessary, and demeaning to the Democratic Party.

I don't support John Kerry because I think he is a bit of a Baron Munchausen. He certainly seems to be someone who tacks with the wind, more often picking the expedient course. He has no center and no core beliefs that I can discern.

I don't understand why Kerry picked John Edwards to be his Veep. How is Edwards supposed to be useful in the War on Terror? Is he going to file a class action suit against Al Quada? Or will UBL be inspired to do no more evil by a slick stump speech from Edwards? Seriously, what is the point of Edwards?

I regret the tone this election has taken. The turning point for me into activism was seeing F9/11. I decided that if the mainstream media was going to embrace a canard-fest like that, then the gloves were off.

I am extraordinarily upset with obvious media bias. For example, the way the mainstream media has treated the Swift Boat Vets has been shameful. These men fought and bled for their country and have the right to speak about their experiences. It seems to me that the major media has been deliberately looking for excuses to first ignore them and then to denigrate them. Shameful.

I don't regret that my local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is a liberal newspaper. I regret that they deny their problem in the same knee jerk way a drug addict would deny his.

During my day at the protests, I did get into several good conversations with some on the other side and I thought we did some good. No, I don't think we changed any minds about who should be President. But I thought at the very least some of us could stop demonizing each other, put aside our anger, and try to understand each other's point of view.

If I had to pay the price by being yelled at, attacked, and otherwise abused - I think it was worth it. I think it was worth because of those moments of calm and thoughtful discussion I was able to have with some of those on the other side.

More Pictures for PW in NYC

Click here to view a few more Protest Warrior pictures.

Thank you Instapundit!

Welcome Instapundit readers! Thank you, blogfather, for the link. You are an inspiration to all of us!

When Anarchists Attack!

You can find my video of an attack by anarchists on the Protest Warriors at Sunday's march in New York City. You can find the the video by clicking here (5.3MB, 2MB, and 700KB Windows Media or 20MB MPEG), here (20MB MPEG), or here (20MB MPEG). Enjoy.

Update (9/2/04): According to my site meter, it looks like over 14,000 people have checked out this video. I particurlarly thank Jason, Mark, and OverTaken By Events for helping to share the experience of some of the PWers in NYC on Sunday. To my fellow conservatives, please continue to speak up. You can see what we are up against, and it's not pretty. I invite everyone to do something. Make a contribution, write a letter to the editor, or simply put a bumper sticker on your car. Everyone can help and every bit of effort, no matter how small, is needed.

Update: As my bandwidth limit has been blown past, please try one of the links listed below. These are MPEG files, so they should play on pretty much any system, though they are larger than the orginal, jerky, Windows Media files. The video is not work safe (course language). so watch it at your own risk.

Mirror 1: Thanks to Jason of jasonn.com and Political Brief for agreeing to host an MPEG version of the file. Click here to open a page where you can download this version.
Mirror 2: Click here for another mirror. Thanks to Mark for helping us out!
Mirror 3: Thanks to Overtaken by Events for agreeing to host the file. Click here for the post on his blog where you can download the file. Update: Jason now has posted smaller Windows Media versions of the file (5.3MB, 2MB, and 700KB).

Update: Want to help Protest Warrior in their fight against the left? Then please visit the Protest Warrior Web site and make a donation. We are determined to show the hypocrisy of the left, and you can help. If you want to "Slop the Pig", please support this site by using clicking on the PayPal link on the left and send in your donation to writetothepig@hotmail.com

Also, be sure to visit the site of our associated group, Communist for Kerry. Warning - Sense of humor required!

Funny, but these were pretty much the only "Pro-Kerry" signs I saw all day.

Update: I have modified the orginal post a couple of times to reflect the location of the video files.

PW in NY

I was in NYC yesterday with my fellow Protest Warriors, the counter-protest group to which I belong. It was an interesting time, what with being attacked by anarchists and all. I got in late last night, so this will be a very brief recap:

We started out yesterday morning, with over a hundred of us carrying signs some of which you can see at the Protest Warrior web site. I was taking video and some stills.

(PW gets ready to move)

The group moved from headquarters to the site the NYPD had picked for us on the parade route. The NYPD was fantastic, staying with us most of the way. After we moved through the streets, we took up our designated location. The interesting thing was the reaction of the leftist protesters as they moved past us. The could not help but stop and stare, trying to understand what we were all about. Perhaps our message is a little too nuanced for some. Some of the people who did get it were very angry, and we had a few birds and "Fuck Yous" directed our way.

(I think our message was a little too "nuanced" for the leftists)

But, freedom of speech being our thing, we were not content to stay on the sidelines, and left in small groups to join in the "peaceful" protestors.

We had broken up into smaller groups of about 15, and my group made our way around and into the big crowd. It took the "peace" protestors a few minutes to figure out that there was something not quite right about our message. Several people were fairly angry with us, but that was nothing until a group of anarchists notice us.

They started yelling at us, and one of there guys got directly in the face of one of our protestors. Not content to try to shout us down, the anarchist grabbed our guy's signs and their group started to tear it apart. At one point they were calling us fascists. I remember replying yelling something back like "Freedom of speech is not fascism, you moron."

Over the next few minutes, thing got a little more chaotic, as the anarchists started going after our signs. Me and couple of other guys had to pull our protestors back more than once, as they were assaulted by the leftists. We had many signs ripped down, and some cheap shots on some of our guys.

I was trying to video and also keep our team calmed down. Later, an annoyed lady in her fifties got very angry at us also, and she was trying to grab signs and tear them up.

Eventually, after we went about 3 blocks, the whole procession came to a standstill. As the crowd around got more unruly, the NYPD apparently had enough. They pushed us our onto a side street, and we were out of the protest.

My group had become separated from the rest, and the NYPD would not let us push back through the protest route to rejoin the main group. So we set back up on a side street, still getting a lot of attention for the leftists as they passed. There was a reporter from the Washington Times who started interviewing some of us at this point. He makes mention of Protest Warrior in his article on the protests.

(Kicked out of the protest, my PW group makes a stand on one of the side streets of the parade route. Rob, a combat medic and vet of the Iraq war, salutes the symbolic coffins that pass by during the protest. Rob resented his fellow soldiers and friends being used as a political prop by leftists. So he remembers his comrades in his own way, standing and saluting in tribute to their sacrifice.)

The leftist group 1000 coffins (link above), brought up the tail end of the protest. (Though the gay pride groups, in a symbolic gesture of their importance to leftists, was at the very end). The coffins symbolized the soldiers who died in Iraq. For some reason, they were not carrying coffins to symbolize all the people who died on 9/11 in NTC, not do they carry coffins to symbolize the hundreds of thousands who were killed by the Hussein regime. But then again, they probably don't have enough members to carry that many coffins.

We finally were able to make it back to our official protest area and rejoin the rest of the group. There, we were on a barricade, and got into some heated discussions as the rest of the leftists passed.

I have some great video, but I am going to have to capture it, and then I will post some excerpts from it. I have watched parts of it are a little hair raising. Still, no one in our group was injured, and all of us from the Atlanta chapter (5 of us went up) were in good shape and spirits afterword.

I'll be back with more, probably this evening or early tomorrow. Right now, I am going to have to take a nap.

Special thanks to the wonderful men and women of the NYPD. They did a great job under difficult circumstances, and helped keep us safe. They did do the expedient thing in kicking PW out of the march, but I don't blame them for that. It was very scary. I talked to Rob, our Iraq vet and combat medic about what he thought about our infiltration. He told me he had never been more scared in his life.

And I was certainly scared. But I would (and will do) it again.

Freedom of speech is for everyone.