Kathy Kist -- July 14, 2008
"Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy ‘accommodation.’ And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy one, but a simple one—if you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based upon what we know in our hearts is morally right... [E]very lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face." —Ronald Reagan

In this election year, again we must remember the words of President Reagan and the lessons of history. Bullies don't stop bullying when they are ignored or placated; they stop when they are confronted. The difference between our candidate and theirs is stark on this issue: appeasement versus continued strength--on the ground and in negotiations. Obama promises to cut missile defense just as Iran launches a missile capable of carrying a nuclear weapon that could send an electro magnetic pulse (EMP) across America, disabling our power grids and sending us back to the 19th century. That one statement alone would keep us up at night if this was our only home.

Because of Bush's aggressive anti-terrorist actions, we have had no more terrorist attacks on America's soil since 9/11. By contrast, the terrorist group Hamas has gone on record supporting Obama for president. (Click here for video) We fought the cold war for 50 years in this country, and we won because of the strength of men like Ronald Reagan and the good resolve of everyday Americans. And we had no attacks on our country while we did it. That's the kind of steady hand it will take to send the Islamic forces back to the Middle East where they come from. We must work to elect John McCain. I remember when Reagan was elected after Jimmy Carter and Iran sent back our hostages before Reagan took office because they did not want to deal with him. Let's elect another strong man to deal with the national security challenges America faces today.

--Kathy Kist, July 14, 2008

January 1, 2008 - Year of the Dark Horse
Like many of my fellow Republicans, I spent much of this fall in sincere angst over who to support for the Republican nominee for president.

Although strong on defense, pro-choice early frontrunner Rudy Guiliani is obviously not my conservative choice.

Fred Thompson talks a good game in his policy statements, but when I examine his senate record, I don’t see the evidence of a true leader.

Mitt Romney may have had a change of heart on many issues as he claims, but I want to see the fruit of his conversion before I place my trust in him.

Mike Huckabee seems genuine in his faith, his pro-life and his pro-family convictions, but I am concerned about his stances on illegal immigration, taxes and spending, and dependence on government-oriented answers.

So much for the front-runners.

With no one capturing a majority of Republican votes, this may be the year of the dark horse, with the nominee chosen at the convention. Who else is running?

John McCain lost my support when he limited free speech with the now infamous McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. His pro-life record is also suspect.

Tom Tancredo got us all talking about illegal immigration, but he is no longer on the ballot.

Ron Paul is a wild card, a true fiscal conservative and uncompromising defender of the Constitution, but his non-interventionist foreign-policy stance concerns me in light of international Islamo-fascists bent on Muslim world domination.

I would not mind seeing conservative Duncan Hunter as the Republican nominee. I met him at an Eagle Forum Leadership Conference and was impressed with Hunter’s California fence-building results, but I am not sold on his ability to lead our party and country.

So I was left with not one exciting candidate.

Until this weekend.

The last weekend of the year, my best friend called from Iowa: “Pack your bags! Alan Keyes is speaking at our church this Sunday.” With a virtual media blackout on his campaign, Alan Keyes is running for president again.

I became a political activist 12 years ago out of admiration for the principled determination of this man. A Harvard PhD in Governmental Affairs and former Reagan appointee to the UN, Ambassador Alan Keyes is an intellectual heavyweight often barred from the debates that showcase his acumen, his forthright conservative answers, and his call to a return to America’s creed as stated in our own Declaration of Independence. Just a small contrast: Mike Huckabee wasn’t sure what the important pro-life Mexico City Policy was; Alan Keyes negotiated it.

As I ate lunch with Alan Keyes Sunday, my angst dissolved into joy. Let this be the year of the dark horse, and the year Republicans return to their roots of fiscal restraint and moral resolve.

--KATHY KIST, January 1, 2008

May 28, 2007 -- Essay on 2nd Amendment
Olathe Northwest Senior Christian Kist won a savings bond from the Fleet Reserve Association for his essay on the topic "The Bill of Rights and Me." Written after the Amish school shooter tragedy and before the Virginia Tech shootings, Christian's essay gives his answer to the recent rash of school shootings.

Essay -- "The Bill of Rights and Me"
"Amendment II: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The second amendment does not refer to the right to hunt and to defend one's family against bears and cougars. The second amendment refers to the people's right to carry firearms in order to defend themselves and their families from any threat including those from their fellow man. The recent rash of school shootings has brought to the public eye the fact that something has to change. We have tried gun control. Simply making guns harder to get means that those who already break the laws are the one who are armed and dangerous.

The solution is not to continue along the same path and put more restrictions on law abiding citizens. On the matter of school shootings, a possible solution would be to issue hand guns to the teachers and have them kept in safes in their rooms. This solution frightens many people, but if you had a choice of invading a school with over a hundred armed adults or a school with maybe two School Resource Officers, which would you choose? Obviously, criminals today have made their choice. Now it is time for us to make the choice not to leave our children unprotected.

As a student, I would feel safer knowing that my teacher would be able to protect me in the case of an armed intruder. I feel this would be a much more effective strategy than hiding in a corner and hoping the intruder simply leaves, which is the current school policy. I would also feel more secure knowing that my girlfriend would be safe if a man like Charles Carl Roberts IV, the Amish school shooter, invaded her school with the intent to attack and kill girls.

The second amendment is clearly as applicable today as it was when it was written, if anything more so since there are more threats to our families and our country. Christian Kist
age 18

Some thoughts on the impact of the Partial-Birth Abortion Decision
Posted by Kathy Kist -- April 20, 2007
In the midst of my rejoicing over the long-awaited and much-anticipated Supreme Court upholding of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, I contemplated the nature of government, especially in its relationship to morality. We have all heard that one of the tenets of our society is that my rights end where another’s begin. Certainly, the high court upheld that principle today. A doctor does not have the right to deliver a viable baby, except for her head, and then kill her. He is violating that person’s rights and will go to prison for two years.

Another principle Americans have lived and died for is Abraham Lincoln’s contention that “no one has a right to do what is wrong.” In today’s politically correct world, I doubt the media would have let our first Republican president get by with such an opinionated statement. Surely, Lincoln was insensitive to the differing values of the slave-owners and the abolitionists. Indeed, Lincoln believed that absolute truth and justice existed and God will judge our nation for our actions. In this belief, he echoed that founder of the Democrat party, Thomas Jefferson who said he “trembled for [his] country when [he] remember[ed] that God is just.” Both men were talking about the injustice created when one human being completely controls the life and death of another.

We saw a blow to that injustice today.

What made women believe that we have carte blanche over another human being? I believe partly we were misled by the rhetoric of the abortion industry, led by eugenicist and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. We do not hear repeated today Sanger’s statement that “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." (Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race. Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923) Instead, today the abortion industry couches its argument in the heavily patriotic terms of “choice” and “rights.”

Another reason women bought the lie of abortion is that we as a nation no longer believe we can teach our children right from wrong. At least, we cannot teach anyone else’s children right and wrong. Most children attend a secular government school that prohibits teachers’ free speech and freedom of religion in the name of “protecting” the students.

Under the guise of offending no one, we teach no one.

Even Plato said that the goal of education was to ennoble men, asserting “the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life” (The Republic, Book 4). Instead of teaching our children that they are noble creatures “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” we treat them like animals in heat that have no control over their sexual impulses, and then wonder why the teenage pregnancy rate skyrockets. The pre-Christian Plato understood, “Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil?” (The Republic, Book 4)