Charlie Daniels's blog

I can't speak for anybody else but my wife and myself have been immersed in the Summer Olympic games from London the last few days.

Of course the athleticism has been incredible, the best planet earth has to offer and whether seasoned veteran or rookie they gave it their all, even the athletes who came to the games knowing that their chances of winning a medal were about as likely as growing wings, left nothing on the field of competition with the exception of a couple of shameful examples of jockeying for position by intentionally losing a preliminary match.

I sometimes wonder how far some Americans are going to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that the policies Obama is putting in place will actually bring the American economy back to prosperity. I wonder if some people even really care about what we have already done to the generations to follow, what kind of future they will have, burdened with the debt being left to them.

I can't help but ponder why people are still gullible enough to totally blame the ruinous state of the economy on George W. Bush after three and a half years of Obama's total and abject fiscal failure even after holding power over the White House and both houses of Congress for two full years.

When you make your living in the public arena as I do and when you let your opinion be known as I do in mainstream and social media, you expect some criticism and this is as it should be, this being America where our very way of life is centered around free speech.

I don't mind the criticism and usually give as good as I get, respecting all comers, regardless of how far afield or how vehement I consider our differences to be, but lately I have been receiving a small amount of correspondence from people who resent the headway that, through the blessings of God and hard work, I have made in my life.

Mr. Obama,

You recently made a statement to the effect that, ”If you have a business you didn't build it, you had help" inferring that the federal government helped build our businesses by virtue of paving roads and building bridges and keeping the nation safe from foreign invasion.

First of all, Mr. Obama, if I'm going to take advice about business it will not be from somebody who has had absolutely no business experience like yourself.

On July 27 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, acting on behalf of the United States of America will sign an international treaty through the auspices of the United Nations that is known as the Arms Trade Treaty, which will be represented by the Obama Administration as being a way to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists and criminals and would have no effect on private gun ownership in America.

First of all, have you even heard about such a treaty, do you approve of an inept, corrupt, crooked, anti-American agency like the United Nations having anything to do with gun control in America or anyplace else?

I'm literally sick and tired of people - who instead of having anything constructive or even intelligent for that matter - to add to any conversation they disagree with, repeat what they've heard someone say on TV or read about in the newspaper as being the absolute truth and are not willing to listen to any other opinion, no matter how sensible.

I'm totally frustrated and out of patience with people who, if you say something about cutting entitlements, they say that you want to starve poor people, or if you say you’re tired of seeing money wasted on an educational system that isn't working that you don't care if underprivileged children get educated or call you a racist because you criticize the policies of Barack Obama.

I have lived in the United States of America for some 75 years. I’ve witnessed a World War, the nuclear age, segregation, the Viet Nam fiasco and 12 presidential administrations and I have never seen this nation as divided as it is today.

The divisions are not only along racial, financial and political lines but sexual, religious, and moral issues divide us as never before in history.

When I hire a new employee, whether it is a musician, a crewmember or a driver several factors come into play.

Of course, in the case of a musician, the first thing I consider is how well they play, how their style of playing goes with the band's music, and their stage presence. Another important factor for somebody becoming a member of The CDB is the respect they have for the heritage and reputation of a band that has been around for over forty years.

Let me preface this by saying that I really appreciate everybody's response on the soapbox every week, whether they be pro or con. I certainly don't expect everybody to agree with my opinion.

I rarely respond to the comments made unless I have, what I feel, is a very important and specific reason for doing so.

This weekend is Memorial Day Weekend when we remember, reflect and pay homage to all the men and women who have paid the ultimate price for the freedom and prosperity we call the American way of life.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day. It came into being after the Civil War as a day set aside to honor the Union war dead, but actually Southern ladies organizations and school children had decorated the graves of the Confederate dead even as the civil war was going on.

I am so sick and tired of people defending Barack Obama and the disastrous policies of the two years the Democrats had control of both houses of Congress. If anybody ever had a reverse Midas touch, it is this president. Everything he touches turns to debt.

I sincerely want anybody who wants to defend Obama to respond to this column, but I don't want to have even one response that mentions George W. Bush's name. The time for blaming America's problems on anybody else but Obama has long past.

In the words of that great American philosopher, Larry The Cable Guy, “WE GOT-R-DONE”!!!

Osama bin Laden sleeps with the fishes, and the best military on the planet has kept a promise President George W. Bush made to the American people almost a decade ago. He said, “I don’t know if it will be tomorrow, or next month, or next year, but we will get him.”

Mission accomplished.

President Obama is convinced that the only way the federal government can survive is to raise taxes and we're fixing to get an ear full of the old Democrat mantra decrying "tax cuts for the rich".

Now you may be thinking, "Why do I care if those rich people get their taxes raised? It won't affect me."

I keep wondering how long Its going to take the United States Of America to wake up to the fact that there is a rank, naive, incapable, idealistic novice at the wheel of the ship of state and that ship is steaming toward the rocks at 100 knots.

The other night I watched President Barack Obama make what I considered to be a very lame, uninformative, petulant and hypocritical speech concerning our recent incursion into Libya.

Lame because his reasons for going into Libya, in my humble opinion, were not valid.

In my lifetime I can’t remember an earthquake that caused as much damage as the recent one in Japan. The earthquake alone would have been devastating but it was exponentially exacerbated by a tsunami that looked like a scene straight out of an “end of the world” science fiction movie.

I know that all of you recognize the first line of the Marine Corps (pronounced “core,” Mr. President) Hymn. But did you ever wonder what the shores of Tripoli had to do with it?

Actually, it has quite a lot.

A few centuries ago there was a band of cutthroats operating in that part of the world who became known collectively as the Barbary Pirates, the Barbary Corsairs or the Ottoman Corsairs. They were based primarily in Tunisia, Algiers and Tripoli and operated mainly in the Mediterranean along Africa’s Atlantic coast and even South America.

I am not a sage, a soothsayer or even a wise man but it has been as obvious as the nose on my face, every since this upheaval in Egypt started that the country is going to end up in radical Islamic hands.

It may be less obvious, but never the less inevitable, that the rest of the Middle Eastern Muslim countries are going to follow suit sooner or later.

The situation that is unfolding in Egypt and the Middle East has such a potential of changing everyday, that anything I write about the current situation could well be yesterday’s news by the time you read it.

I don’t think that a lot of us understand the ominous volatility of what’s going on and unfortunately that reaches into the highest levels of politics in this nation.

Tunisia was the first pot to boil over with Egypt coming shortly thereafter and Jordan showing signs of following suit.

I remember the first time I ever saw any of the Westboro Baptist Church. It was many years ago and I can't remember where it was but I saw a bunch of people at a distance holding up day glow colored signs that said, "GOD HATES FAGS" and "THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS."

When you travel as much as I do, you see some pretty strange sights and tend to catalogue such things as the antics of a bunch of local kooks out to grab some headlines.