You have to admire the President.  His ability to change a serious discussion into a journey through the looking glass is truly remarkable.  Last week's trip with Alice involved the President's views on Stand Your Ground laws.  The concept underlying Stand Your Ground laws is that the individual being attacked doesn't have a responsibility to retreat when threatened with serious potential harm.  Alternatively President Obama believes that if you can safely retreat, you have an obligation to do so.

Just last week when the Zimmerman trial created a great opportunity for a truly serious discussion of the problems surrounding black young men in America, Mr. Obama viewed the national landscape and determined one of the critical lessons to be learned was that we needed to look at Stand Your Ground laws. There is a certain humorous irony in arguing that a case involving a guy laid out flat on his back on the ground is somehow related to standing or retreating.  Lying down is evidentially the new standing.  I suspect when Trayvon Martin was sitting on Zimmerman and "raining down blows," George would have loved the option to stand or to retreat. Of course, the Stand Your Ground law had nothing to do with George Zimmerman's self-defense claim, but why let that truth get in the way of a good argument. 

This week's journey through the looking glass also finds our Campaigner-in-Chief once again invoking the Stand Your Ground argument.  This time he is accusing the Republican legislators of also being guilty of standing their ideological grounds and blocking Obama's agenda.  Of course he promises that if we only spend a little bit more or tax a little bit more, with him defining little, every thing would be rosy instead of the slow death that a lack of good jobs and ballooning debt is causing.  Give up standing you ground you recalcitrant Republicans and a new age will shine on us all.

If only the Republicans' motto were Stand Your Ground! In just the last year, the Senate Republican's covered themselves in glory with their fine showing of character on the Amnesty Bill Immigration Bill.  Earlier in the year, the House Republicans were able to negotiate one of the largest tax increases in history, much larger than had previously said they would agree to.  If this is Stand Your Ground Republicanism I shudder to think what retreating Republicans would be like.   

Since Bush the Elder burned the "read my lips" bridge with the obvious results, the great Republican unwashed have yearned for a King Leonidas and his brave 300 at Thermopylae.  The unwashed want someone, anyone, to stand for their core beliefs at the pass, even if the results are similar. Of course according to the elite media all Republicans, other than celebrated cavers like McCain and Rubio, are unwashed knuckle draggers.  The concept of actually standing for something, like low taxes, small government and personal freedom, is widely ridiculed by the intellectually enlightened.  Their treatment by the Republican elites has only been slightly better. 

Add Tea Party to your name and a belief in concepts based on the founding principals and everybody from John McCain to the IRS will go after you.  Real Stand Your Ground Republicans need not apply.  Dealing is better, even if you give up your core beliefs and the Democrats don't.

Retreating Republicanism has got us a sick economy, a mountain of debt, and regulatory state that is strangling growth and destroying freedom. It may be time, or way past time, that Republican's actually stood their ground.

So as Obama kicks off another road show saying bad things about the Washington Republicans, before you retreat remember King Leonidas and the Spartan 300 at Thermopylae.  It didn't work out so well for them but they saved Western Civilization which ultimately led to all the jobs the Washington Republicans currently hold.  Even if you take some hits, you could save the country because the current threat is as great as the one Leonidas faced and we remember him 2000 years later.  Maybe John Boehner could be the true Spartan king of this age.

Besides, no one is going to spear you, unless you let them.  All you have to do is vote.  Show some backbone and Stand Your Ground and maybe knuckle-draggers across the county will come out in droves to vote for you in 2014.         

Walt Ughes is the pen name of a Libertarian blogger and historian who fervently believes in American exceptionalism.  While leading demonstrations opposing American involvement in what he believed was an unconstitutional war, as a lover of freedom and the constitution, he volunteered for military service.