Rod’s Blog

America Is Not An Empire

by Rod D. Martin on 22 October 2011

The left and the libertarian portion of the right (a moniker they would strongly contest) agree on several things, but among the most significant is this:  that America has become an empire. Not all who espouse this position, of course, think that it is a bad thing.  The brilliant Niall Ferguson actively argues for it, [...]

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

by Rod D. Martin on 5 October 2011

The world has been changed many times over by the brilliance of Steve Jobs.  I could not begin in these short moments after his death to estimate his impact on me and mine.  But a few thoughts deserve jotting down. I first encountered Jobs in the pages of Fortune magazine, in 1982, wherein I first [...]

An Aging Hippie Meets Reality

by Rod D. Martin on 8 June 2011

Okay, I hate to refer to the great Steve Jobs as “an aging hippie”, but it is what it is, and after all, this is a man who put Al Gore on his board. So it was pretty amusing to see this tidbit buried in a story about Apple’s planned new campus in Cupertino. One [...]

Response to a Death Tax Supporter

by Rod D. Martin on 23 September 2010

Dear _______: There is a place for regulation, albeit not necessarily with the specific regulations under which we live.  Adam Smith himself said that never do two businessmen so much as meet together in a pub without their conversation turning to the restraint of trade; and so we institute governments in no small part to [...]

NFRA President Calls On RNC to Fire Steele

by Rod D. Martin on 22 April 2010

DESTIN, FLORIDA — Today, National Federation of Republican Assemblies President Rod D. Martin called on the Republican National Committee to immediately fire Republican National Chairman Michael Steele for comments he made Tuesday night to a student group in which he stated that African Americans “don’t have a reason” to vote for Republicans. The story concerning [...]

Response to the Passage of ObamaCare

by Rod D. Martin on 22 March 2010

Dear Fellow Patriots: Tonight, we learned beyond any remaining doubt that our country has two political parties:  the Socialist Party, and the American Party. President Obama’s “health care reform” is nothing of the sort:  it is entirely about concentrating unconstitutional and un-American levels of power in a central government which will now resemble nothing in [...]

Eric M. Jackson: The Moral Case for Capitalism

by Rod D. Martin on 2 November 2009

My dear friend and former PayPal colleague Eric M. Jackson gave a tremendous speech — despite being quite sick at the time — at the NFRA national convention last month, entitled “The Moral Case for Capitalism”.  It is a must-read (or must-watch:  we have both text and video), especially for the sort of Christians who [...]

NFRA President Condemns Tiller Murder

by Rod D. Martin on 31 May 2009

DESTIN, FLORIDA — National Federation of Republican Assemblies President Rod D. Martin today condemned the murder of abortionist George Tiller and called on his killer to turn himself in to police. “No genuine believer in the pro-life cause could possibly support, much less carry out, the cold-blooded murder of another human being,” Martin stated.  ”We [...]

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

by Rod D. Martin on 19 August 1997

by Rudyard Kipling |   As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. We were living in trees when [...]

Farewell Address to the Arkansas Federation of College Republicans

by Rod D. Martin on 8 December 1990

  (Delivered to the 1990 College Republican State Convention on behalf of outgoing two-term State Chairman Rod D. Martin by his First Vice Chairman)   Ladies and Gentlemen: I wish to make my deepest apologies for not being present among you today as you gather to choose the leadership which will carry you into the next [...]