Cpl. Benjamin S. Kopp
21 years old from Rosemont, Minnesota
3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment
July 18, 2009
Ben Kopp has been a fighter since the day he was born. When he was born his mother was given morphine to stop her labor so the doctors could deliver him via a cesarean section. But it caused his heart rate to slow and when he was born he wasn’t breathing. But he recovered to the amazement of everyone. “Ben has always been up for a challenge,” said his mother, Jill Stephenson. “He came into the world a fighter.”
On July 10, 2009, Cpl. Benjamin Kopp was wounded in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. He was hit in the popliteal artery in his knee and the loss of blood caused him to go into cardiac arrest on the operating table at a battalion surgical center. As a result of his injuries, Cpl. Kopp developed swelling in his brain and was put into an induced coma to try and save his life. But he died on July 18.
But his service didn’t end with his passing. Upon his death, by his own desire, his organs were donated to people in need, saving their lives.
“Please continue to say prayers for all of the men and women who so proudly serve our country,” Stephenson wrote online. “Ben had a deep love of country and has just left a legacy of heroism for all of us to cherish. Be as proud of him as I was as his mother.”
You can read much more about Cpl. Benjamin S. Kopp here.
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero. We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
Team Obama started off the first year of the Obama administration with an attempt to diminish Rush’s influence by scapegoating him.
If you remember, a full scale assault spurred on by liberal think tanks, and directed by the White House was tripped by Rush’s brutally frank comment that he hoped Obama would fail to enact his Socialist policies. The Democrats thought that they had struck gold and used the “I hope he fails” remark to demonize Rush, and paint him as the leader of the Republican party. Attack ads were created, as well as a DNC sponsored contest to find an anti-Rush slogan for a billboard, the winner of which turned out to be the very definition of FAIL.
Was it smart politics and good policy? No. For one thing, it gave the lie to Barack Obama’s talk about ending “the political strategy that’s been all about division” and “the score-keeping and the name-calling.” The West Wing looked populated by petulant teenagers intent on taking down a popular rival. Such talk also shortens the president’s honeymoon by making him look like a street-fighting Chicago pol instead of an inspirational, unifying figure. The upward spike in ratings for Rush and other conservative radio commentators shows how the White House’s attempt at a smackdown instead energized the opposition.
Did it do any good with voters not strongly tied to either party? I suspect not. With stock markets down, unemployment growing, banks tottering, consumers anxious, business leaders nervous, and the economy shrinking, the Obama administration’s attacks on a radio talk show host made it seem concerned with the trivial.
Fast forward to today. The Democrats are persistent critters. They know that if they repeat a lie often enough…and just keep hammering away at it, they can create a narrative, and shift public opinion. So they’re doubling down on Rush, using obviously fake quotes that have appeared on the internet, and attributing them to him.
That is where we stand, today, and here is why this latest attempt to diminish Rush will fail:
Nobody keeps an audience as large as Rush Limbaugh’s by being a racist. When these confused lefties accuse Rush of being a racist, they are also impugning his audience of approximately 20 million listeners per week. This is as scurrilous and obscene as the attempts to discredit the tea partiers as racist rednecks. It convinces no one, and it will backfire, as every attack on Rush eventually has.
I’ve listened to Rush since 1990. He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, but he’s not afraid to rock the boat, and he’s not cowed by political correctness. That is what has endeared him to so many over the years.
MORE:
Here is an example a left wing site used to expose Limbaugh’s racism:
Here’s more supposedly “vile” racism:
Rush’s thoughtful discussion of a race baiting movement that has “trained young blacks to hate their country” is what is determined to be vile, and racist. The young turks ridicule what Limbaugh says, but are unable to factually dispute any of it. Rush mentioned Stanley Kurtz’s research of Obama and Ayers in Chicago. What in particular about Kurtz’s extensive research of the Annenberg project, which pushed radicalism on schools, do the race baiters dispute? Calling his work stupid, and crazy and racist doesn’t count as an argument.
Robin of Berkeley, a recovering liberal, and psychologist writes forthe American Thinker about some horrifying examples of reverse racism, seen at schools in recent years as a result of this America-hating movement to blame whites for everything.
Innumerable people attended schools that were racial minefields.
It wasn’t the black or the white kids’ fault. High minded liberals were culpable for hatching up grand plans without an iota of thought about how it would play out in real time: that if you create a nightmare situation for black children by removing them from their neighborhood and their friends, you traumatize them. And if you then turn them loose and give them carte blanche, some will be out for blood.
Forced busing ended years ago in most places. But over the decades, liberals have concocted new plans, and subjected later generations to fresh trauma.
Meet Julie, age 24, a survivor of public schools in Boston. She now has such severe anxiety that she cuts her arms to relieve the tension.
What did she learn at school? Blame Whitey.
Every day she was shoved and cursed at and threatened. She knew that if she complained, she’d be labeled a racist. Then she’d be like raw meat to vultures.
The lack of any voice, any way of defending herself, damaged her as much as the punches. Now, she continually puts herself in harm’s way by being unable to say no.
Or take Joe, a local boy, now 20 and struggling to get through college, given his psychological problems and learning gaps. He attended one of our many leftist indoctrination camps (i.e., Bay Area urban public schools).
Being one of the few white kids, Joe had two choices: keeping his nose to the grindstone and being jumped every other day; or joining a gang, which is what he did.
But being from a moral, caring family, Joe is now wracked with guilt about what he did — burglaries, robberies, slashing tires, hurting innocent people. He also has post traumatic stress disorder after two of his friends were killed for wearing the wrong color.
I could go on and on. I could tell you about Rose, a 24 year old survivor of local public schools, who can read Ebonics but not Shakespeare. She told me about Slave Days, where the white kids played the slaves and the blacks the masters.
One example of many.
You can see the trend in that awful video of the white kid getting beaten up by black kids on the school bus in St. Louis.
Robin cites Ayn Rand’s word’s from 40 years ago:
The altruists are now. . . struggling to induce racial guilt — by proclaiming that people must suffer and pay for the (alleged) sins of their father.
There is no such thing as collective guilt. . This country has no guilt to atone for in regard to its black citizens. Slavery was an enormous evil. But a country that fought a civil war to abolish slavery has atoned for it How can an individual be held responsible for the views of others, whom he has no power to control? What can make him responsible for them? The answer we hear is: The fact that his skin is of the same color as theirs. If this is not an obliteration of morality, of intellectual integrity, of individual rights, of the freedom of man’s mind, of the First Amendment, you take it from here; I can’t — it turns my stomach.”
Yes it’s stomach turning to pit racial and ethnic groups against each other; to make children hate themselves; to disregard people’s character and behavior.
…how Rush treats people — in the Martin Luther King aspiration that the content of one’s character is what matters, not the color of one’s skin. Yet, in the media narrative, he’s somehow the one who’s got a race issue — and the guys who trade on race, live and breathe it 24/7, are held up as our public conscience. The Left calls this “progress.” I call it perversion.
There’s only one way this nonsense ever goes away: When we say “enough!” and tell the race-baiters their time is up. It’s too much of an industry, so it probably won’t happen tomorrow. But the Sixties ideal is crashing and burning before our very eyes, and I think it’ll take a lot of its warped obsessions down with it.
The liberal media and the Left have been attempting to silence Rush and other conservatives for years. Make no mistake about it, their latest bogus “Rush is a racist” campaign is another stealth attack on our freedom of speech. It is extremely important that lovers of freedom rally around Rush Limbaugh. Silencing Rush would be a major victory in their quest to silence and control us all.
Nice Deb 