Welcome to the API Chief

Dear Senior Chief Petty Officer, "Chief"

Welcome to the American Patriot Institute. You have been unanimously and enthusiastically accepted by the current membership. We welcome you Brother. Your experience and wisdom will certainly be quite an asset to our organization.

If you have a picture of yourself in uniform, either your graduation picture or another, please post it on your website. One of us will capture it and add it to the image map, which will link directly to your blog or website. As a Resident Scholar, we ask that you capture the logo from one of our sites and post it on your blog, along with a link list to the other Scholars. Feel free to copy the link list from any one of our sites.

As someone who has spent his entire life dedicated to our cause, your insight and wisdom will not only be greatly appreciated, but sought after by those of us who lack your experience as a career Military Man.

Welcome aboard, Sir.

Respectfully yours,

deuddersun

What is an American Patriot?

The title of this post is something I have asked myself several times since being invited by Moderate Man to join the American Patriot Institute, and again now that Deuddersun has invited me to contribute here.

I'm not sure what it means to my fellow members; only what it means to me. I used to think it was just because I served my country in the Marine Corps. Then I would think that no, that doesn't make me a "patriot" per se, just a military member. These back and forths inside my head would get to be pretty annoying and I would just file the question away in my brain housing group for recollection another day. The dictionary definition of Patriot is as follows:

pa·tri·ot n. One who loves, supports, and defends one's country.

Looking at that definition, I figured I definitely fit at least 2 of the criteria. I love my country. As a veteran I can say that I served my country and was willing to defend it if the need arose. But ever since I took up blogging, I've had a hard time saying that I "support" my country. Truth be told, I don't support my country. Now before any extreme right-wingers say "See, I told you them Libtards hate America!", let me clarify that statement: I do not support the actions of our government as it relates to the War in Iraq among other policies adopted by President Bush.

I started my first blog, Unpopular Opinions, as a means to speak out against the War in Iraq and its effect on my older brother's service in the National Guard. If you go back to my site, The Bulldog Says... and check my archives, you'll see my very first post was my outrage about Road Rage's stop-loss. You see, he was a good and faithful servant of this country for 20 years and was waiting to retire when 9-11 came around and then our desert fiasco, Iraq. That had me fuming and so I began to write. Now the tagline that deuddersun placed up there says to "...defend the Constitution against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic". Notice that last word there, domestic. Well, that's what I started writing about and continue to do today. Domestic enemies as I see them. In my view, our current President and his Cabinet could very well be called domestic enemies. In my view, they have trampled the Constitution, shredded our civil rights, and invaded a sovereign country just because they wanted to.

So am I a patriot? After all is said and done, all my internal arguments for and against, I believe I am. I am doing my part, however small it is, to defend my country even now. I feel it is my obligation to speak out against actions taken by our government to subvert the will of the people and destroy the Constitution. This is an obligation I take very seriously. So ask yourself the same question: Are you a Patriot?

Update

So far Moderate, KWW, scroff and Spadoman have answered the invites and now have Admin rights. Since I will be gone all week, they can grant admin rights to whoever answers next. Just click on the settings tab then the permissions tab, (you can find the settings tab when you click on "new post".).

While I said earlier that this site should be all API, there may be room for posts like KWW did on Winter Soldier, or perhaps a weekly round up of topics related to API causes we all support. I don't know, what do you think?

Take care of each other. See you in a week.

d.

Help Wanted!

As soon as you get your invite and respond you will have Author's privileges. So far Moderate Man, Spadoman and deuddersun have full admin privileges. Once you have answered the invite, one of us can authorize you for full admin status. Once you have that, well....

We are building something here and it needs a lot of work. A counter would be cool, one that tracks visitors and logs IP's, so long as it's free. At this point, why spend money on things we can get for free? A link list to other relevant sites would also be great - Vet's sites in particular are important, especially those that deal with the Fiasco in Iraq (IAVA, VVAW, etc) and sites that offer aid to Veterans. It's your blog, what do you think we need here?

While we all maintain our own separate and distinct personalities on our own sites, this site is our "Band of The Hand", where we work together to achieve our mutual goals. So dig in!! This is our collective public "face", so grab yer make-up crayon (sorry Ladies) and get busy!

d.

Welcome to The American Patriot Institute

This is my lame attempt to establish a blog for the API. Here, we can deal with votes, action alerts and other business pertaining to the API without having to travel to each other's blogs. All members of the API will have full privileges.

I have sent out e-mail invitations to those members whose e-mails I had. If you didn't receive one, it's because I don't have your email, simple as that. Please send me your email at 52hammer@gmail.com and I will add you to the Admin list. Also, feel free to change or add anything here, it's a we thing folks, and at some point it will grow into something we are all proud of. Please limit posts to API business or alerts, however, since that is the inherent nature of this blog, (as I see it, if you disagree, please say so).

Anyway, here it is. Let's work together to make it something great.

Thanks,

deuddersun

From The Moderate Man:

The American Patriot Institute needs you! We're a group of Veterans, some old, some younger, who believe in our country, our Constitution, and our honor. We're sickened by this administration's handling of everything...from the economy...to the environment ...to...and most importantly, perhaps...the illegal war in Iraq. We're disgusted with the powerful who feel it's their right to buy and sell our lawmakers to enrich themselves and their friends. We try mightily to restrain ourselves when those who have never worn the uniform, much less seen action, continually promote war , seeing it as a game fought by underlings rather than themselves or their children. We don't always agree on everything...who does...but we agree that this government is not the one we supported when we proudly put on that uniform. If you'd like to join us...let one of us know. It's not hard. These are a great bunch of guys...and a superior woman. Give us a shout!

Kitchen Window Woman
Bulldog
deudderson
Fixer
Gordon
Scroff
Spadoman
Moderate...well...that's me, isn't it? (Moderate Man is the Founder of the American Patriot Institute.)

Peace !

Moderate Man

If you are a Veteran of the Armed Forces of The United States of America who shares our views, why not check us out.