My ears have just deceived me: I thought that Mitt Romney just said that his inspiration comes from Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush.  Maybe this ICD has affected me in ways I did not previously notice.  And he has an Elvis song playing at his pep rally/victory party.  Well, it’s a remix of “A Little Less Conversation,” but it’s still Elvis...kinda.  Wow!  Nope, my senses are fine! 

Anyway, as far as who will win the Republican nomination, Huckabee won Iowa, McCain won New Hampshire, and now Romney has taken the state of his birth, Michigan.  Welcome to uncharted waters.  Now a lot more is riding on South Carolina.  My prediction is that Huckabee and Thompson will both do well there, but will soon start going at each other and McCain may even get some votes out of that, believe it or not.  Being a Southerner and an Independent Baptist, I honestly the “Mormon thing” will hurt Romney there, despite the endorsement of Bob Jones University and its president.  Advice to Ron Paul for South Carolina: You might be able to sit this one out, bud.

Now, on to my advice for my South Carolinian brethren.  Think of what will become of the nation and even the world as a whole.  Centuries ago, Rome ruled the majority of the known world and secured its sphere of influence.  So long as Rome was strong internally, the Empire and its populace, whatever their station, were secure and commerce flowed well.  This was the Pax Romana.  That was achieved by their strength.  Since the end of World War II, we have been in the middle of the Pax Americana, but we are not an empire, though it is by virtue of our military might.  Now stop with the empire-building rhetoric.  These people are not paying us tribute nor are we requiring that they install puppet governments like, say, China did in Korea or Russia did in Poland, Hungary, Romania, East Germany, Albania…  need I continue?  I don’t even see us making them design their flags to match Old Glory.  For those of you who doubt that we are spreading freedom, go look at Eastern Europe.  Those people were oppressed.  When they speak of “the heel of Soviet oppression,” they are speaking the truth.  Now, exactly how many people did we enslave during the Cold War?  Here’s a hint: mathematically speaking, dividing by this number is undefined.  That’s right, it’s zero, zilch, nada, pick your term. 

If we were an empire, just where are our “colonies” located?  Does Japan hate us for our military bases there?  I’m not seeing that.  How about Germany, since we are still there as well?  No, I kind of think they like having us there because they are indeed safer, even economically, with our large military presence.  How much does Italy hate us for removing their former dictator?  Funny, I don’t get a real “how-dare-you” feeling over the whole Mussolini thing from Italy – and I had a great-uncle who was mere feet from him when he was shot!  The last time I checked, we never goose-stepped our way into anyone’s hearts, but the Russians did. 

The United States military always went in one of two ways: as a liberating force, like we did in France, or as a reliable ally, fighting at the side of a friend, like in England.  Once the war was over, we prosecuted the guilty and started rebuilding that country.  Look at Germany.  We bombed the stuffing out of them in spite of very strong cultural ties to the Fatherland.  (I’m German on both sides of my family!)  But we helped bring them back to prosperity… at least the old Western part.   Same story in Japan.  We used two A-bombs on them.  Talk about damage.  But now they are an economic powerhouse.  Both Germany and Japan are now our reliable allies, Gerhardt Schroeder notwithstanding.  Didn’t Germany object to the war in Iraq?  If they were our colony, wouldn’t we have smacked them around a bit?  And why did we take any flack from France after we bailed them out twice within a few decades?  Don’t they pretty much owe us everything that makes them free?  They’d be Frankenland if it weren’t for us.  Can anyone over there not remember D-Day and the sacrifices that were made, mostly in American lives, so that France would be free?  I think that our new friend Nicholas Sarkozy does.

My whole point here is that only America can protect freedom worldwide.  America is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is by far the best force for freedom known to man.  And it is my firm belief that only a solid conservative can keep America strong.  The stronger America is, the safer the world in general is.  I will never, ever grow weary of reminding people of what Pax Romana taught us: peace through strength.  Our criminal justice system relies on the same principle.  Law enforcement must be stronger than offenders if order is to be maintained. 

I think Barry Goldwater said it best during his early Senate career: "To insist on strength is not war-mongering. It is peace-mongering."  Only when we are strong enough to defend against those who would do us or others harm can we truly be free and be at peace as well.  Do not get the wrong idea: I believe in diplomacy first.   Will Rogers was right, though: “Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.”  Should the doggie listen, one never needs the rock, but if the doggie doesn’t, one might need several.

I am not a military man, and that option has been permanently removed from my reality.  I respect retired U.S. Army General Norman Schwarzkopf a great deal and I have never forgotten his words on war: “A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers. All you have to do is hold your first dying soldier in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that his life is flowing out and you can't do anything about it. Then you understand the horror of war. Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar. And still, there are things worth fighting for.”  The general has been there and he knows these things better than almost anyone in the service, so he must be heard on this.  War should always be the last resort.  Violence is always expensive, monetarily, emotionally, psychologically, and almost any other scale we choose.  Both the aggressor and target must pay a price for it, but the victim will pay at a much steeper rate.

Since I am on a quote roll, I have to throw one more in here.  As Ann Coulter said, “Democrats always assure us that deterrence will work, but when the time comes to deter, they're against it.”  And that is exactly the problem.  The military rarely ever gets to do its job under liberals.  They feel guilty about using it, I think.  They fret and whine over what the rest of the world will think of us if we actually use the military.  What they still fail to realize is that our armed forces are the guarantee that we have our rights.  And we only have those rights for which we are willing to fight.  Conservatives understand all of this.  If we are to be respected by our enemies and trusted by our friends, we must back up what we say with action, even violent action.

For those who are operating under the “we-must-be-nice-so-they-will” fallacy, I have a suggestion for you.  Go to a playground and watch little kids play.  Eventually, some kid will want what someone else has, or will just be mean.  It won’t matter how nice the target is, the bully will not be nice in return.  An adult might step in and resolve it, but if the little brat continues eventually he or she will have to be punished in order to learn the lesson.  The bully wants, the bully sees, the bully takes.  The target is not a person to the bully; the target is merely an obstacle to wish fulfillment.  It’s just that easy.  The field of international relations isn’t much different.  Look at Libya.  “Colonel” Gaddafi was first brought to a heel by President Reagan more than twenty years ago and recently opened up to any and all who wanted to inspect his weaponry.  He had a taste of punishment and then saw what happened to Saddam.  No wonder he wanted to make nice. 

Let’s review for a minute.  As far as conservatives go, Ronald Reagan attacked Libya and launched an operation against Grenada.  George H. W. Bush went in and got Noriega and pushed Saddam out of Kuwait.  (And by the way, had Kuwait been “not nice” to Iraq before they were invaded?  Don’t think so.)  Our current President beat the crap out of the Taliban and is dragging Iraq into the “win” column and we have not been attacked since 9/11.  And did I mention that we are keeping the world safer because of terrorists being detained at Guantanamo?  What about the “moderate” liberal Bill Clinton, you ask?  He had “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the Bosnia quagmire, and a few half-hearted, “wag-the-dog” moments during the Lewinsky thing… oh, and the Blackhawk Down incident.  But that was before he started cutting military spending.  And we want to send his wife in now?  She is much more liberal and she is not pro-military.

So, South Carolinians, go put a conservative in on the GOP ballot.  Do it.  The nation and the world need it.  I give you Fred Thompson.  He will defend us whole-heartedly and he will prosecute this war effort fully.  Mr. Thompson realizes why we have a military and won’t shy from employing them in their proper roles.  He will negotiate, but he will know when the time is right to back from the table and start the bombing.