HOME SCHOOL DEBATE AND SPEECH CONTEST ++ PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

This posting s from January 16th.

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ HOME SCHOOL DEBATE AND SPEECH CONTEST
++ PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, January 18th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln Blvd. in OKC. I am often
asked if people may attend if they are not members? The answer is a
resounding YES, as many of those attending are not dues paying
members. Sometimes we even have enemies or spies attend. This
Wednesday our speaker will be Mr. Mike LeMay, a talk radio show host
at a Christian station in Green Bay Wisconsin. Mike is a Christian
apologist and watchman on the wall for spiritual counterfeits. He will
be speaking at the Clouds over America Conference about a 2 hour
interview he did with President Obama’s most recent spiritual advisor.
For our meeting he will be talking about the Fox Valley Conservative
Forum and the attempt to re-call Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. I
don’t think most people understand what an all out effort the left is
making in Wisconsin to stop the loss of power by organized labor in
America. They are in a political war beyond anything we have
experienced in Oklahoma.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

* TUESDAY EVENING - OKC AREA - The OKC area chapter of Oklahoma
2nd Amendment (OK2A) will meet this Tuesday evening, January 17th at
H&H Gun Range (400 S. Vermont Suite 110) in OKC. The meeting will
begin at 6:30 p.m. with the featured speaker being Dr. Tom Vineyard,
pastor of Windsor Hills Baptist Church. While serving as a missionary
in Africa, he was robbed and severely beaten at his home while unarmed
and in the process of trying to protect his family. His story is a
stark reminder of why we need to have the freedom to own and carry
firearms to defend our homes and families. In addition, Sarah
McKinley, the young mother from Blanchard who successfully defended
herself and baby on New Year’s Eve by shooting and killing a drug
enraged intruder will be in attendance to receive OK2A’s Courage
Award. I have to be at a meeting in Guthrie, but sure wish I could be
at this meeting to hear Tom and thank this young lady for her
courageous actions.

* THURSDAY EVENING - MOORE AREA - The Sooner Republican Assembly
will meet this Thursday evening at Earl’s Rib in Moore, with the
dinner starting at 6 and the meeting beginning at 6:45 p.m.. They have
invited all the mayoral and city council candidates in the Moore and
Norman areas to speak about their up-coming races. Please bring any
questions you may want to ask. This should be a great time to ask
questions about their understanding of Agenda 21 and its front name,
sustainability.

* FRIDAY AFTERNOON, EVENING & SATURDAY MORNING - CENTRAL OKLAHOMA
- Clouds Over America III will begin at 2:00 p.m. on Friday and run
to 6:00 p.m. There will be a 30 minute break and then from 6:30 to
7:30 a buffet dinner will be served. From 7:45 until 9:00 p.m. Dr.
Paul Jehle of the Plymouth Rock Foundation will speak along with Mr.
Art Thompson, CEO of the John Birch Society. Then the conference will
resume on Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. and continue until 12 noon.

The cost to attend the conference is $25 per person or $40 for a
couple. Students may attend for $10. There is no charge for senior or
full time pastors and their wives to attend. There is an additional
charge of $25 per person to attend the evening banquet and hear the
speakers. Senior or full time pastors and their wives attending for
the first time may attend the banquet without charge. Pastors who have
attended before may attend the banquet for only $10 and $10 for their
wives. In addition, if senior or full time pastors live outside of
Oklahoma County, lodging will be provided free. The deadline for
reservations is Wednesday evening at 5:00 p.m. Pastors please call
(405) 348-1745 on Tuesday or Wednesday. All others please call (405)
348-9991 to RSVP. Again, there will be 11 speakers with this being the
most substantive conference held in Oklahoma during 2012. Please make
every effort to attend.

++ HOME SCHOOL DEBATE AND SPEECH CONTEST

I had the opportunity and privilege to be a judge this past Thursday
and Friday evenings as well as Saturday morning for the Oklahoma-Texas
regional qualifier round for a national home school speech and debate
tournament. With somewhere over 200 students entered, it was an
amazing experience.

Thursday evening I was judging biographical speeches. These speeches
had a maximum time limit of 10 minutes with the speeches having to be
prepared and memorized by the students. The first student did a 9
minute speech about Karl Marx and the effects that his ideas have had
upon the world over the past 160 years. I was particularly impressed
as I would guess 7 out of 10 people 25 and under who were educated in
the government schools have never heard of Marx, and then of the 3 who
might have heard of him, they couldn’t tell you much about him. Don’t
believe me? Start asking anyone you see 25 and under if they have ever
heard of Marx. Other speeches were about Sigmund Freud, Al Capone, one
young lady gave a compelling speech about her great grandfather who
was a heavy bomber pilot in WW II.

On Friday evening I was judging impromptu speeches which had a maximum
time limit of 7 minutes. The young people were given a list of topics
then they had 30 minutes to research and prepare a speech. They were
allowed to use notes on a 3X5 index card, but no electronic devices.
What were some of the topics chosen? One speech was about the question
of whether or not Japan was decommissioning their nuclear power
capabilities too quickly? Another was about Iran’s capabilities to
prohibit the flow of crude out of the Arabian Sea? Then there was a
speech about the possibilities of Iraq being able to prevent sectarian
violence without outside help? This is just a sampling of the type of
difficult speeches which had to be delivered. These kids did an
incredible job.

Then on Saturday, I had a brief orientation for judging debates.
Having never been a contestant or trained regarding formal debate
contests, my only hope is that the team I didn’t pick as a winner were
not thrown to the lions! Having been active in Toastmasters for about
3 years, I was very comfortable judging speeches, but a formal debate
was a challenge for me to accurately score such an event.

Bottom line, these young home schooled kids, I would guess they were
between 12 and 18, were an outstanding example of the good job their
parents are doing in the training-up of their children. Most of these
young people will go on the accomplish a great deal in life and make
outstanding parents and citizens. This was the first time this
tournament has been held in Oklahoma. Several OCPAC members served as
judges, if we are fortunate enough to have it in OKC again, I would
suggest as many folks as possible serve as judges. It will give you
real hope for the future.

++ PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

As this field shaped up several months ago, I said the only 3
candidates I was considering for my vote were Michele Bachmann, Herman
Cain or Ron Paul. I have had some level of disagreement with every
person in the race.

When a person has held office before and has a track record, I believe
it is more important to examine how they have governed rather than to
give priority to the words they as espousing now when they want our
votes. I do recognize that people can change their opinions, but the
principle of their past governance is generally more important.

I believe Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich are all
politically expedient flip floppers with Newt being the king of the 3
of them. I wouldn’t call Santorum a flip flopper, but rather a
professional deal maker and compromiser. His endorsement for Arlen
Spector (at first a Democrat, then a Republican & back to a Democrat),
perhaps the most liberal Republican to ever serve in the Senate, is
hard to forgive. At that time, Specter was in a close Republican
primary race against a more conservative Pat Toomey (just elected to
the Senate in 2010) when Santorum and then President George W. Bush
publicly endorsed Specter who eventually won the race. He stabbed
Pennsylvania conservatives in the back and they couldn’t wait to throw
him out in the next election. Santorum lost by 18 percentage points.
For me, he is a person that would be very hard for me to trust, given
his track record, though he is solid on social issues. I just can’t
get too excited about John Huntsman, someone President Obama selected
to be our Ambassador to China. I believe Gary Johnson has dropped out
and is running as a Libertarian, which is where is probably needs to
be.

Though people are telling me their thoughts, I can’t for the life of
me understand why Michelle Bachmann sank like a rock after the Iowa
straw poll. I liked Herman Cain regarding some issues, but became
convinced he wasn’t up to the task, especially with his needing to
frequently clarify himself and the people he selected caused a
question in my mind about his abilities. The high powered attorney he
hired to deal with all the sexual allegations didn’t do Herman any
favors with me when his statement about the alleged multi year affair
went something like this, “it was a consensual relationship and it is
none of anyone’s business.” Sorry, wrong answer for me.

Therefore, through the process of elimination I am left with only one
candidate and that is Ron Paul. I don’t necessarily disagree with his
ideology of non-interventionism regarding foreign affairs. However, I
don’t know how to get to that posture after intervening as the world’s
policeman for the past 120 years or so. I don’t know how to unravel
that web of entanglement overnight without giving encouragement to
those who now hate us?

I would love for Ron Paul to be a U.S. Senator, but as the President
and Commander in Chief, that concerns me. I also believe he
underestimates the threat of Radical Islam, both here and abroad. In
addition, his flip flop on illegal immigration really bothers me,
especially his opposition to building a fence. I believe an effective
fence along the full border with Mexico is one of the highest spending
priorities in America. The funding should come out of our military
budget. It is a higher priority than keeping troops in any nation
anywhere else in the world. While it is technically true, that fences
can keep people in as well as out, it is a silly argument as no one is
suggesting people should not be able to travel outside the U.S.. I am
also not so sure that Paul sees our trade deficit as the serious
problem it is and I don’t know that he knows what to do about it. I
was very disappointed the Donald Trump debate didn’t happen as I
believe the trade issue would have been the focus of that debate. If
we don’t fix that issue, we can’t have a REAL economic recovery.

What I do like about Ron Paul is that I believe he and Bachmann are or
were the only 2 candidates really committed to the kind of spending
cuts needed to pull us back from the brink of the debt disaster.
Though I believe both of them were wanting to get that done too
quickly. I also appreciate his understanding of the evils of the
Federal Reserve and his fight to eliminate it and replace it’s fiat
federal reserve notes with gold and silver backed currency.

I also appreciate that he is probably the only candidate in the race
that would work to get the U.S. out of the United Nations and the UN
out of the United States. I also support his efforts to eliminate
foreign aid, even to Israel. I personally am a supporter of Israel and
believe in their right to live in the land that God gave to them,
which is especially difficult when they are surrounded by irrational
aggressors who want to see them destroyed.

What most Americans who support Israel don’t understand it that the
aid to Israel has been the leverage used by the United States to
interfere and pull Israel back every time they have been on the verge
of delivering a crushing blow to their aggressor neighbors. My idea of
supporting Israel would be to sell them the military weapons they need
and trade with them as much as possible. Also, there is nothing to
keep Americans from sending financial aid to Israel through private
efforts, but it should not be through our government.

Of course the strongest aspect of Ron Paul is his fight for liberty.
He really understands what our founders fought for and why we must
strive toward liberty over dependency. We must also lean toward
prudent risk taking over the temptations to prohibit or severely limit
risks in the name of safety or the illusions of peace. Ever increasing
safety regulations are one of the greatest risks to our liberties as
well as making us soft as a nation.

I guess you could say, I am willing to roll the dice on the things in
which I disagree with Ron Paul in favor of supporting him on the
things in which he is right. While the greatest need in our country is
a Spiritual awakening toward Biblical Christianity, the manifestations
of that need are our rotting culture and the growing tyranny of the
state and more particularly the federal government.

While Ron Paul may not be the best leader for a Spiritual awakening,
he is the person willing to fight the tyranny of excessive and immoral
government. I will be voting for Ron Paul, regardless of whether or
not he has a chance to win! Many will disagree and that is fine with
me. Citizens tend to make their minds up on a Presidential election
based on their own research rather than the endorsements of others.
That is because there is so much opportunity to evaluate a candidate
on their own. If Romney wins in South Carolina, I believe he will
probably be the Republican nominee, not that South Carolina does such
a good job at picking the candidate, they don’t. Other than Ronald
Reagan, they chose George H Bush, Bob Dole, George W Bush and John
McCain. Other than Reagan, what a bunch of establishment Republican
moderates.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows