Newspaper Columnist Deserves Treason Charge

I know one of the reasons why print newspapers are having a tough time with a business model built more than 200 years ago. Online news is dominating the industry and I – like many others – prefer to get my news online. It’s faster and I can tailor my viewing using RSS feeds and such.

There is another reason why subscriptions are down. Like when Chris Satullo – former editorial page editor turned columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer – writes that this July 4th weekend, we don’t deserve to be proud of our country. He thinks we are evil and should be ashamed. You’re wrong Satullo, and you should be brought up on treason charges.

Satullo writes the following.

Put the fireworks in storage.

Cancel the parade.

Tuck the soaring speeches in a drawer for another time.

This year, America doesn’t deserve to celebrate its birthday. This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement.

For we have sinned.

What a load of crap. My bet is that you’re going to leave the office early today and start a long weekend with your family celebrating. Are you not going to enjoy the fireworks your paper promotes? Heck, I bet your paper is sponsoring some events this weekend too. Hypocrite, you should be brought up on treason charges. (Yes, I’ve written that twice)

BlackFive – who I have just added to my blogroll – slams Satullo’s column better than I can. He’s got more readers too, so my guess is that Satullo’s rant will get some wide coverage.

Our founders were great men, who knew the value of life and what it meant to spend it in the pursuit of the goal that all men should be free. They also knew what evil lay in the hearts of men and that laws were no good unless backed by some force of good to administer them. They knew what would happen when they signed the Declaration of Independence. They also knew how hard they would have to fight in order to achieve what they sought.

The notion of “rights” was important to them and they understood that the recognition of rights involved cooperation in the social contract and mutual cooperation and recognition of one another and that each was equal.

There are many of us today that know that as well. The foreign fighter I capture in a walled compound in Stogana is not the inheritor of those rights we hold so dear, because he would not grant us the same quarter. His notion of rights is that of an animal. He would enslave you and I Chris. Without so much as a thought about it.

Read the full post by DEEBOW at BlackFive. He’s provided Satullo’s e-mail address so you can tell him what you think. Be nice, but firm.

Then go read Rush H. Limbaugh Jr’s (Rush’s dad) speech The Americans Who Risked Everything. Here’s an excerpt, and if you’d like to read the entire thing, let me know and I’ll get it to you if the link does not work.

What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and who, by their signing, committed an act of treason against the crown? To each of you, the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock and Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words. Most of us, however, know nothing of the other signers. Who were they? What happened to them?

I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere.

Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were under 40; three were in their 20s. Of the 56 almost half – 24 – were judges and lawyers. Eleven were merchants, nine were landowners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians.

With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of substantial property. All but two had families. The vast majority were men of education and standing in their communities. They had economic security as few men had in the 18th Century.

Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it. John Hancock, one of the richest men in America, already had a price of 500 pounds on his head. He signed in enormous letters so that his Majesty could now read his name without glasses and could now double the reward. Ben Franklin wryly noted: “Indeed we must all hang together, otherwise we shall most assuredly hang separately.”

Fat Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts: “With me it will all be over in a minute, but you, you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone.”

These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging. And remember, a great British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor.

Update: Stop the ACLU has a great review of the crap spewed by the idiot of the weekend.

God Bless America.

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

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