WHEN PENGUINS FLEW AND WATER BURNED This is the true memoir of one US Air Force navigator’s journey from the schoolhouses of Air Training Command to the nuclear alerts of the Cold War to combat in a 35-year-old anachronism called the B-52. It is a first-hand account of life during the last days of Strategic Air Command, the early days of Air Combat Command and the ensuing military drawdown of the 1990s. From peacetime training exercises across the globe to combat operations in Desert Storm, Jim Clonts takes the reader inside the cockpit where life and death are seconds apart. Often comical, sometimes heart-pounding, other times tragic, WHEN PENGUINS FLEW AND WATER BURNED takes you into the world of military aviation, a crucible where warriors learn the true nature of character, conscience and mortality.

Friends of Liberty VOL 55
by Jim Clonts, 2010

06/03/2010

Recently I was reading a biography of John Adams and I found something very interesting. Adams was in Philadelphia (the nation's capital at the time) for George Washington's second inauguration on March 3rd, 1791. After the ceremonies were over he decided to return home to Quincy, Massachusetts, since Congress was not scheduled to reconvene until November. The author stated this matter-of-factly, as though he did not realize the impact of the statement. The Congress of the United States did not convene for a whole eight months? Of course, they would also adjourn for the holidays, so most likely they only met for a few weeks that year.

How could this be? How could the United States have survived this perilous time without the Congress's steady hand on the tiller of the nation, writing laws and increasing control over our lives and property? Could it have been that the Congress of that time felt the United States had the laws it needed already in place? But society was not perfect, was it? People still had problems. How is it these elected officials did not realize it was their responsibility to remove all the risk and pain of daily life from the people? How could these senators and representatives abandon those people, leaving them to take care of themselves? How did we survive?

I tell you this. The Legislative branch of this government does not operate remotely close to what the Founders intended. First, the elected officials were intended to be citizens first and congressmen second. It was intended the common man would be elected, serve and return to his true life's work, not remain as a lifetime politician. Second, Congress was never intended to socially engineer the fabric of the country. Laws are supposed to be passed with great care and prodigious reflection, since even the Founders knew that laws are limits to liberty.

The Congresses of the last one-hundred years have spent nearly all their time and efforts in the redistribution of wealth, attempting to re-engineer society and control the People's lives. Today, Congress rushes from agenda item to agenda item in an effort to pass as many laws as possible, laws written by lobbyists, political action groups and consultants. The laws are thousands of pages long and the lawmakers themselves do not even read them. They even admit this fact, as Representative John Conyers (D) Michigan indicated when he was asked if he had read the healthcare bill.

Friends of Liberty, if Congress did not pass another bill for ten years, can you really say we'd be worse off as a nation? At a time when Congress must release the chains holding down our economy, do we really need the added weights of Cap and Trade, ObamaCare, Card-check, increased taxes, salary caps and financial reform added to our burden?

Dry Powder fact of the day: Vice President John Adams' decision to base his travel plans on Congress' schedule was due to his role as President of the Senate. He often chaired the Senate, since this was a duty of the VP as enumerated by the Constitution. (After Adams' term as VP, the practice of the VP presiding over Congress was mostly ended due to the fact Adams' VP was Thomas Jefferson, a member of the opposition party and not an advocate of his President's agenda.) When Sarah Palin said as Vice-President she would take a more active role in the Senate proceedings, she was mocked by the Democrats and the Media for not understanding her role as VP. You know---the VP goes to State funerals, stuff like that. The truth is she was right and, frankly; I'd like to see all VPs take that active role. Most notably, I'd like to see Joe Biden preside over the Senate. With his tremendous wit and wisdom the American People will really get to see the genius they've elected and be entertained in the process.

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