When winners win, that's Freedom; when losers win, that's Utopia ("No Place")

By Curtis Dahlgren

"I can live with the robber barons, but how do you live with these pathological radicals?" — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

"Our traditional two party system has become a three party system — Republicans, McGovern, and Democrats." — Ronald Reagan

WHO CAN FORGET ONE'S FIRST TIME? Last Friday was my first time at a Tea Party party. A good time was had by all. The very moment I arrived at the lakefront in Escanaba, Bart Stupak was on the radio announcing his retirement. He sounded more dogmatic on it than he has sounded for a long time on any issue. In fact, he sounded more decisive than Bret Favre ever sounded upon retiring. Stupak claimed that he could have won if he had chosen to run, but that's pathetic. Bret Favre came back because he thought he could still win, and he did. Stupak just simply retired. He knows that he couldn't.

Even my dog loved all the people at the Tea Party on the shores of Lake Michigan. Brandy is a black lab, and one guy commented that he looked like a "dark-skinned dog." I bought two books by black conservatives at the party, Lloyd Marcus and William Owens. I saw Jackie Robinson play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. I spoke with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s brother. I supported Alan Keyes in 2004 and 2008. Clarence Thomas is one of my Top 10 heroes of my lifetime. But the Chicago mob keeps playing the race card. Maybe they showed their hand too soon!

The Tea Party participants are about 35 percent "independents" and nearly 10 percent Democrats. The ghost of Ronald Reagan rides again! Although the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (nearly 400 miles by 120 miles) has only three percent of the population of the state of Michigan, we were treated to three stops by the Tea Party Express III. At the party on Friday, I walked past a couple of guys who were evidently traveling with the tour, and one of them told me I should "smile" at a Tea Party. I didn't know it showed. For a student of history such as myself, it was a bitter-sweet event, because everything about our President indicates that he sees himself as "presidente-for-life." Why would he be amassing such a mass of power in the Executive branch if he thought he would be turning it over to a Conservative/Republican anyway someday?

GOOD QUESTION, EH?

When his hero, Yugo Chavez became president of Venezeula, the good people down there thought that they could "take back their country." Even a lot of Cubans thought that they could "take back their country" someday when Castro came to power. Fidel "deemed himself" presidente-for-life. And that was that! There are times when we must "sieze the moment" or forever hold our peace. This is one of those moments!

My grandfather fought with the Socialists back in the late 1800s. I've been fighting socialism and communism since since long before we ever dreamed of having a [half] "black" President. I've been thinking about a speech I gave in 1975, when I was 33 years old. That speech was given on the very spot where my father's cow barn once stood, on the farm where we lived until 1946. That spot is now the main office of the headquarters of Sundstrand Aviation, a world-known maker of aircraft parts, in Rockford, Illinois.

Yesterday I transcribed the words of that speech which was given to group of close friends in a Toastmasters-type speech club. Here is that transcript:

Thank you, fellow Spokesmen. This may sound like heresy, but the next time I hear someone say this is a "dog-eat-dog" society, I think I'm going to scream. If you think it's bad when winners win, you haven't heard the latest; this is what society is coming to NOW:

I have in my hand here a sports article by Jim Murray entitled "A Loser's Paradise."

"The headline out of Acapulco made you want to bang yourself against the side of the head to be sure you were seeing right. The headline said, 'Napoles to need medical care 4 months after victory.'

"The story was equally paradoxical. The official decision was that the fight had been suspended bcause of the health of Napolez. Now here, you had to conclude, was a humane way to run a boxing match. Nothing like waking the winner up to tell him he won.

"As Jose Napolez was led stumbling and bleeding into an ambulance, someone must have wondered, 'What does the loser look like?'

"The loser, Amando Munoz, looked like he had just spent a week in the country. All he had lost was a little faith in his fellow man. Of course, he should have known better than to take on Napolez, the idol of Mexico, in Mexico. He had about as much chance of winning that battle as the Indians had of beating John Wayne.

"He was bucking the greatest odds since Battling Siki fought Irish Mike McTeague in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. Actually, when the physician stopped the fight because Napolez' health was in danger, he might have concluded from a look at the crowd that Munoz' was too.

"But the method and reasons for stopping the fight give a whole new dimension to the art of competition, and we may look forward to stories such as these on the wires in the future: 'Poughkipsie, June 1: The U. of California's 8-oarded shell crossed the finish line first in the storied regatta, but the U. of Mexico crew was declared the winner on the grounds that its boat sank.'

"'New York, July 1: Mohammed Ali was shorn of his heavyweight crown on the grounds that George Foreman was unconscious.'

"' Los Angeles, Oct. 1: The L.A. Lakers, trailing 108-70 with four minutes to play were declared the winner on the grounds that its entire starting five had fouled out.'

"' New Orleans, Jan. 12: The Minnesota Vikings were crowned winners of the Super Bowl because their starting backfield was held to minus yardage by the Pittsburgh Steelers who were leading 81-0.'

"Besides that, we might have girls declared winners of beauty contests because their teeth were bucked.

"Horse races will be stopped and the slowest horse declared the winner. And of course, auto races will be won post-humously.

"Prize fighters will start training for fights by learning how to get cut. Because if they're going to start awarding victories to guys whose health is in danger, the race may not go to the swiftest but surely to the sickest." [end of quote]

And — I might add — if it has now come to this, we can no longer make any objective comparisons between the socialist countries in the world and the rest.

C'mon now — let's get serious.

My purpose tonight is to make a semantical study of the word 'competition' and show that the people who say we should abolish competition don't mean what they're saying; they hadn't better mean it anyway, because they don't know what they're saying!

There is "good" weather and there is bad weather, but you cannot outlaw "weather"!

There is "good" health and there is bad health, but you can't abolish "health."

There are "good" economic conditions, and "bad" economic conditions, but you cannot obliterate "economics" — nor the natural laws of economics.

There are "good" politicians and there are not-so-good politicians, but you cannot make (quote) politics (unquote) disappear (since the word simply means "government" and the science thereof).

By the same token, there is "good" competition and there may be some bad competition, but no way can "competition" be told to "shoo, go away."

Weather, health, economics, politics, and competition can all be classified as "good" or "bad" depending on the specific circumstances, but they are still nevertheless as much of God's Creation as the sun, moon, and stars — or gravity or electricity and inertia.

No amount of 'scapegoating' is going to make them go away. Do you realize that the very molecules that bind your body together, including your brain right now, are being held together by "competition"?

The atom itself is made up of tiny particles orbiting around other tiny particles in the nucleus. The electrons orbiting around the outside are going so fast that they would fly off in all directions except that the particles in the nucleus excert an opposite pull on them, and it is the competition between inertia and the opposite pull that holds the atom together.

Just like the competition between the sun's gravitational pull and the earth's inertia. But people will tell you that we must destroy "competition." God could say, OK — but there goes the earth right into the sun.

Probably 99.9 percent of all the "competition" that exists in the universe was created by God Himself for the good of the human race, so I'm not impressed by people who try to make competition a swear word.

Here the universe itself is kept running by competition between opposites such as gravity and inertia, evaporation and condensation, etc., yet people would like to do away with competition — especially in economics and in politics and in Academia.

I'm telling you that the biggest problem in society is not too much competition but that we have decided to stop competing [and call dissent "divisive vitriol"].

[Continuing to quote the speech] -

I don't know if you realize the significance of what I'm saying, but for one good example, Americans [in 1975] have stopped competing with the Japanese and Germans in building sensibly priced cars, and this is the main factor in the present high unemployment rates.

If Americans want other Americans to buy American cars, then Americans will have to start competing on the level of Japanese wages. I wonder how many cars Chrysler has exported to Japan last month? Stop looking around for scapegoats. Some people can tell you more than they know even, and those are the one who say that the problems of the American people aren't the fault of the American people but a handful of financial people or "capitalists." Oh, horserubbish.

It's just more fun to point one's finger at one's supposed "persecutors" than to say right out that we are getting what we deserved. . . Every country gets the kind of rulers it deserves. [END OF SPEECH, 1975]

CONCLUSION?

This brings us back to our 2010 dilemmas. The radicals now have their ducks in a row. The President is amassing power like a man who never intends to give it up. Why would he "transform" the White House into such a powerful entity if he thought a Republican or other Conservative might someday be running it? Yes, WHY??

Could it be because, like Yugo Chavez, he intends to be Presidente-for-life? All "competition" is to be outlawed? When "partisanship" is outlawed, only outlaws will have Power! Monopoly of thought is the deadliest monopoly on earth.

President Oboma isn't the first man on the planet who wanted to ban dissent and label it "racist" or otherwise verboten!

"When Hell freezes over," Americans used to say. Well, the Arctic Ocean is freezing over again. "Man-made Global Warming" was a flim-flam scam. So are most of the other "reforms."

Is it too late for us to wake up and take back our Heritage from the people Senator Moynihan called "these pathological Radicals"?

Time will tell.

More to come.

© Curtis Dahlgren