Battle of "The Bums"

During their mutual month-long August recesses, wherein public confidence in each has plummeted to record lows, the American Congress (“Our Bums”) is denouncing the Iraqi Parliament (“Their Bums”) as “do nothings.” Further, despite American military progress on the ground in Iraq, Washington claims Baghdad’s failure to meet political benchmarks will doom General Petraeus’ plan for victory.

The premise of this claim is absolutely backwards.

Along Iraq’s bloody path to freedom, the greatest obstacle has been the average Iraqi’s wary neutrality in the battle between the United States’ “Coalition of the Willing” and the insurgents. Today, a nihilistic insurgency has been revealed to offer average Iraqis nothing but subjugation and extermination; in stark contrast, General Petraeus’ counter-insurgency strategy is delivering both the eradication of the insurgents and localized reconstruction efforts – i.e., a palpable hope for security and prosperity. Consequently, the true measure of political progress in Iraq is NOT found in its national Parliament; the true measure of political progress in Iraq is occurring in local tribes, towns and provinces where Iraqis are choosing liberty instead of the insurgency.

This Iraqi “election for freedom” is not an intrinsically military development. It is fundamentally a political development complementing and speeding military progress; and hastening the day such individual and local “grassroots” political wins collectively dictate political progress in Baghdad.

Let us, as the sovereign citizens of our free republic, ever remember how in representative democracies Parliaments and Congresses do not dictate to sovereign citizens; sovereign citizens dictate to Parliaments and Congresses. Thus, in Iraq each citizen in his or her respective tribe, town and province must inform and consent to federal laws being enacted, implemented, and honored; and, when this consent is individually granted in sufficient numbers, Iraq will complete its transformational emancipation from tyranny to liberty.

Further, let us, as the sovereign citizens of our free republic, ever remember how we cannot abandon Iraq’s fledgling democracy – or any democracy – under terrorist attack. The War for Freedom must be won through ideological, political, economic, diplomatic and – as an ultimate resort – martial means. If the U.S. abandons Iraq’s democracy, we will also abandon our and the entire free world’s inherited legacy of and professed commitment to freedom. If this betrayal of ourselves and the Iraqis occurs, our enemies will be empowered and we will be ideologically disarmed in the face of the enemy. If not liberty, what political principle will a discredited and defeated U.S. promote to turn the Middle East’s oppressed away from Al Qaeda’s extremism?

Come September 15th then, Americans must focus on the true measure of political progress in General Petraeus’ initial strategic assessment – tribal, local, and provincial support for liberty instead of the insurgency; and we must do so cognizant of the truth expressed and proven by prior generations of Americans who, in times of national trial, preserved and promoted our nation’s revolutionary experiment in human freedom: The only way to ensure liberty for ourselves is to extend liberty to the enslaved.

Of course, it would help too, if the collective bums in both the Iraqi Parliament and the American Congress remembered all power in a democracy is vested in its sovereign citizens, not its subservient government.

United States Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter is the Chairman of the Republican House Policy Committee and one of “Our Bums”

Rep. McCotter tells Midwest peers: Start acting like Republicans

INDIANAPOLIS -- Making an unabashed case for "American exceptionalism," Michigan Representative Thad McCotter told a gathering of Midwestern Republicans that their party's congressional members must re-embrace bedrock Republican principles of limited government, lower taxes and expanding liberty.

Calling Democrats "the party of redistribution, regulation and retreat," McCotter said Republicans in Congress must "remember that they are Republicans and act like it." The Livonia Republican, who chairs the House Republican Policy Committee, spoke to activists from a dozen states on the final day of the Midwest Republican Leadership Conference here.
Comparing Americans today to those who suffered the Great Depression and won World War II, McCotter said the United States today faces similarly daunting challenges -- and unlike that previous generation, faces those challenges simultaneously.

The "greatest generation," McCotter said, faced the Depression, World War II, the rise of the Soviet Union and the need to extend civil rights to all Americans regardless of race. Today's challenges, he said, are globalization, the fight against extremist terrorism, the rise of "a communist Chinese super-state" and the question of whether "moral relativism and violent secularism" will undermine America's moral order.

"I believe, like previous generations, we will meet these challenges and overcome them," he said, encouraging Republican activists

He had tough words for China, saying during a question-and-answer session that "I don't think the communist Chinese are fooling anybody except the people making millions of dollars there."
And he got laughter and applause when answering a question about immigration policy. Calling illegal immigration a threat to U.S. sovereignty and the rights of American citizens, McCotter said, "The good news is that your House Republicans are very strong on this issue. Talk to your senators."

You can reach Gordon Trowbridge at (202) 662-8738 or gtrowbridge@detnews.com.