http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html

Such ordinary, every-day qualities include the will and the power to work, to fight at need, and to have plenty of healthy children. The need that the average man shall work is so obvious as hardly to warrant insistence. There are a few people in every country so born that they can lead lives of leisure. These fill a useful function if they make it evident that leisure does not mean idleness; for some of the most valuable work needed by civilization is essentially non-remunerative in its character, and of course the people who do this work should in large part be drawn from those to whom remuneration is an object of indifference. But the average man must earn his own livelihood. He should be trained to do so, and he should be trained to feel that he occupies a contemptible position if he does not do so; that he is not an object of envy if he is idle, at whichever end of the social scale he stands, but an object of contempt, an object of derision. In the next place, the good man should be both a strong and a brave man; that is, he should be able to fight, he should be able to serve his country as a soldier, if the need arises. There are well-meaning philosophers who declaim against the unrighteousness of war. They are right only if they lay all their emphasis upon the unrighteousness. War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity. But it is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is a war. The choice must ever be in favor of righteousness, and this is whether the alternative be peace or whether the alternative be war. The question must not be merely, Is there to be peace or war? The question must be, Is it right to prevail? Are the great laws of righteousness once more to be fulfilled? And the answer from a strong and virile people must be “Yes,” whatever the cost. Every honorable effort should always be made to avoid war, just as every honorable effort should always be made by the individual in private life to keep out of a brawl, to keep out of trouble; but no self-respecting individual, no self-respecting nation, can or ought to submit to wrong.

Attributing to Ryan that he is a “man in the arena” is a kind of praise, as well as defense and castigation of his critics.

Commented just now on another forum about how sick I get of those who have never entered the arena, but stand on the side lines and throw offal at those who do.

An indirect criticism is still a criticism. It goes back straight to you.

But if a man’s efficiency is not guided and regulated by a moral sense, then the more efficient he is the worse he is, the more dangerous to the body politic. Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for that man’s own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships these qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as to the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no difference whether such a man’s force and ability betray themselves in a career of money-maker or politician, soldier or orator, journalist or popular leader. If the man works for evil, then the more successful he is the more he should be despised and condemned by all upright and far-seeing men. To judge a man merely by success is an abhorrent wrong; and if the people at large habitually so judge men, if they grow to condone wickedness because the wicked man triumphs, they show their inability to understand that in the last analysis free institutions rest upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration of evil they prove themselves unfit for liberty. The homely virtues of the household, the ordinary workaday virtues which make the woman a good housewife and housemother, which make the man a hard worker, a good husband and father, a good soldier at need, stand at the bottom of character. But of course many other must be added thereto if a state is to be not only free but great. Good citizenship is not good citizenship if only exhibited in the home.

The Tea Party tried to do exactly that, but the IRS nuked them. While people like you, Old, started talking about your old generational values. That doesn’t exactly work in the new era.

Frog, have your say. I would not think of depriving you of the opportunity, even if I could. However, I also reserve the right to comment on comments. For instance, who knew that Ryan was just a “small bully”, and was an anti-constitutionalist?

I didn’t think you did like Lennon. I was teasing you.

Neo: I didn’t like Lennon then, or now!

Then, when asked about it by media, say ” I could say how bad Planned Parenthood, but instead let me show you. Here’s a video.” [play vidoeo and put it for the camera] “I don’t think your org has shown this video, has it? Why don’t you tell the truth about Planned Parenthood? Have you seen the video? And you support these terrible human fetus killers, don’t you?”

“You know, when you close your eyes to the truth, it’s no wonder you don’t know why they’re terrible. You don’t want to know. You don’t want to see, so you close your eyes, you don’t show the videos, you don’t show the truth.”

With all due respect, you puzzle me. You seemingly equate Rubio’s appeal with that of bho; but you sing praises for Ryan. Google his 2011 budget proposal in depth and tell me where you find a tiny slice of reality in his projections.

BTW, I do not whine, bitch, or moan. I am what I am and that is all that I am and I call it like I see it. I have no grudge against Ryan, on a personal level I am sure he is the perfect neighbor. I simply see him as a disciple of Kemp; a well intentioned person with a head in the clouds and barely a little toe on the ground.