We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
For the founders or our nation, the preamble to our Constitution meant providing an environment where free men could strive and succeed, or they could also fail. In our modern day, that leads us to the question of entitlements. The U.S. Constitution (considered by many Leftists an annoying anachronism rather than the legal core of this Nation), contains the word "entitled" four times. Three of those refer to representation of the several States. Only one refers to individuals: “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” There is nothing said about free anything. And the Bill of Rights (Amendments 1 thru 10 for those who slept through class) enshrine our Civil Rights, but they also say nothing about entitlements. The only "entitlements" that I recognize are Social Security/Medicare, and only because we’re forced to pay into the system during our working lives, along with VA benefits, which are paid for in advance, all too often in blood. There are also municipal and state services that our elected representatives have instituted. Thus, if you don't want fire protection, start objecting at your city council meetings. As to access to health care, we are entitled to access I’m sure, but nothing says it’s got to be free. In fact, you’re completely free to charge whatever you want for your services. And if the customer doesn’t want to pay what you charge, he’s equally free to go elsewhere in search of that service. But it all costs money, and that’s where the rub comes in.
Money is defined as anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services. It’s nothing more than medium of exchange and a store of value. Essentially it’s an indicator of work, in that, if I do an hours work at something, I will receive an agreed upon amount of “money” in exchange. Then, I can trade that money for the fruit of someone else’s work. (In this day and age however, an awful lot of work doesn’t seem to go very far!) The concept of “money” immediately leads to “Debt”, or “that which is owed”, usually referring to some sort of assets owed to someone. Debt is a means of using future purchasing power before the work has been done and the money for that work is received. A debt is created when a creditor lends a value to a debtor, in expectation of repayment, usually including interest. Debt allows people and organizations to do things that they would otherwise not be able to do with the cash on hand. Most folks commonly use debt to purchase fancy houses, SUV’s, big screen TV’s, and many other things too expensive to readily buy with whatever cash they have on hand. Business often uses debt to enable business expansion. For both companies and individuals, the cost of servicing the debt (paying the interest) can grow beyond the ability to pay due to either external events (income loss) or internal difficulties (poor management). Excess debt normally causes both individuals and governments to reduce their consumption of products and services, and utilizing the available money to pay off that debt and its interest.
Then however we often find those folks that think money grows on trees, or at least in one way or another is inexhaustible. Sometimes those folks get control of the government, where they spend the national treasure on assorted hairbrained schemes, and then raise the taxes to generate even more treasure that they can spend, and completely forget that debt HAS to be paid off, one way or another. That said, about 40% of the people in this country believe they're entitled to health care, food, shelter, and clothing, and that the government should provide it whatever the cost to the nation. Wrong, they’re entitled to access those things, but whether that access is easy or difficult depends on their life style, where they choose to live, what work they seek, and how well they perform it. After all, once you're an adult, you are solely responsible for those choices.
Historically, debt was responsible for the creation of debtor’s prisons, indentured servitude, and in worst case situations, the debtor was sold into chattel slavery. More commonly the debtor became a “wage slave”. Wage slavery refers to a situation where a person is dependent for a livelihood on the wages earned, particularly when the dependency is total and immediate. When government gets too far into debt, really bad things happen. Governments can, and do, collapse economically, which leads to the fall of the government, civil wars, assorted foreign invasions, starvation, and a lot of death and destruction. Just ask the Romans.
Louis XIV's finance minister was once asked what to do about the severe national deficit, to which he replied, "Nothing, it's too serious." Well, history shows us that nothing got done, the deficit got worse, and ninety years later the French Revolution put an end to the problem… along with the French nobility and the government.
Our current leaders really need to recognize the one immutable law of economics, namely, the TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) law.
In the spirit of the season, I’ll wish everyone a Merry Christmas. If, due to “political Correctness”, you object to the word “Christmas”… tough. Have a Merry Christmas anyway.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Climategate
Surprise, Surprise, scientists are disagreeing on the severity, causes, and eventual outcome of what's now called "climate change", or even if it exists at all. The idea of “Global Warming” seems to be based on our apparent global climatic change, a lot of junk science, the wistful thinking of the far left gloom and doom set, and research data modified to produce the desired outcome. There’s hardly any agreement among scientists with some knowledge of global warming, or of humanity's possible role in producing it, but you wouldn't know that if you listen to the Obama administration. As the Climate-gate controversy continues to grow amid numerous charges of manipulating data and suppressing research by opposition scientists who challenge the theory, there is one often repeated “defense”, in that other data-sets all show the same thing. "I think everybody is clear on the science. I think scientists are clear on the science ... I think that this notion that there's some debate . . . on the science is kind of silly," claims Obama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, when asked about the president's response to the University of East Anglia dataset that’s being questioned. In fact, Mr. Gibbs seems to be mostly angry with the hackers who exposed the scandal, but not at the scientists who falsified the data his statements hinge on! Despite the ongoing scandal, Britain's National Weather Service claims: "we remain completely confident in the data. The three independent data sets show a strong correlation is highlighting an increase in global temperatures."
The three most relied-on data series used by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report came from the University of East Anglia, NASA, and the British Met Office. Even better, the Met Office apparently depends on the other two organizations to provide the hard research date they use, which is kept a deep dark secret from everybody else. Why are global warming advocates so secretive about their data? So far, the spotlight has been on the University of East Anglia and its refusal to release their surface temperature data, by far the most comprehensive long-term worldwide surface data available. Unfortunately, the problem of secretiveness is hardly limited to the UEA. Queens University in Belfast has amassed one of the longest-running data collections on tree rings, spanning 7000 years and covering 1,500 sites around the world. How much a tree grows each season can tell us a lot about temperatures and other climate related variables. You would expect that institute to be proud of all this data they have so diligently created, and expect them to share the data with anyone who is interested. Not so apparently, as some scholars have been trying for two-and-a-half years through the UK's Freedom of Information Acts to force Queen's University to release the data, all to no avail. Even NASA, which has been caught in other embarrassing “mistakes” regarding climate research, refuses to release its data so that others can figure out past temperature estimate inconsistencies. All that researchers really wanted from both Queen’s University and NASA, was the temperature data used in numerous papers that global warming advocates had already published. One of the most disturbing elements of the ongoing scandal suggests an worldwide organized effort to avoid sharing scientific data with critics. It is not clear if any data was destroyed, but at least two U.S. researchers have denied that suggestion.
The purloined e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. That raises a science ethics question because free access to information is important to other scientists who can repeat experiments as a part of the scientific method. "I believe none of us should submit to these 'requests,'" declared the university's Keith Briffa. The center's chief, Phil Jones, wrote: "Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them." When one skeptic kept filing FOI requests, Jones told another scientist, Michael Mann: "You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting FOI requests for all e-mails Keith (Briffa) and Tim (Osborn) have written."
NASA faces a particularly embarrassing situation. Steve McIntyre, who runs ClimateAudit.org pointed out in 2007 that thru serious math errors in NASA’s published work, 1998 was not the warmest year on record, 1934 was. And the third hottest year was 1921, not 2006. Instead of the 10 hottest years occurring since 1990, six of the 10 had occurred before 1940. NASA finally released the corrected temperature estimates, but later recalculated yet again and somehow 1934 is again reported to be cooler than either 1998 or 2006. As with all these “errors”, how many more might be lurking in other estimates made at these institutions? On the other hand, perhaps the latest NASA revision was a merely a statistical "adjustment," similar to what apparently happened at East Anglia. Nobody outside a small group at NASA knows, but given the leftist political advocacy of James Hansen, NASA’s top climatologist, we might be somewhat suspicious. OK, so they’re “adjusting” scientific data to fit a set of predetermined conclusions. In my rather crude and un-scientific manner, I’d call that “cooking the books”, and if ‘ya do that at home the IRS gets really upset!
So why all the insistence on human caused global warming, to the extent of apparently falsifying research data? We could make a real good “conspiracy theory” out of this one! Socialist political theory demands the existence of a “one world” planet wide government to be successful. (So does the UN, but that’s a different theory.) This means that more and more government control of the world’s population is required, which is exactly what the Copenhagen accord is all about. In the guise of handling the “global warming” problem, government can control our energy usage (coal, oil, gas, nuclear energy, and probably firewood as well), to the extent of regulating us back to a medieval sustenance type economy, where we can all share equally in the soon to be nonexistent wealth... with of course our socialist leaders being the Lord of the Manor and getting the lions share.
What does this have to do with falsifying scientific data? Well, most scientific research survives on government grants, and it’s always best to keep your employer happy if you like your comfortable high-paying job…
The three most relied-on data series used by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report came from the University of East Anglia, NASA, and the British Met Office. Even better, the Met Office apparently depends on the other two organizations to provide the hard research date they use, which is kept a deep dark secret from everybody else. Why are global warming advocates so secretive about their data? So far, the spotlight has been on the University of East Anglia and its refusal to release their surface temperature data, by far the most comprehensive long-term worldwide surface data available. Unfortunately, the problem of secretiveness is hardly limited to the UEA. Queens University in Belfast has amassed one of the longest-running data collections on tree rings, spanning 7000 years and covering 1,500 sites around the world. How much a tree grows each season can tell us a lot about temperatures and other climate related variables. You would expect that institute to be proud of all this data they have so diligently created, and expect them to share the data with anyone who is interested. Not so apparently, as some scholars have been trying for two-and-a-half years through the UK's Freedom of Information Acts to force Queen's University to release the data, all to no avail. Even NASA, which has been caught in other embarrassing “mistakes” regarding climate research, refuses to release its data so that others can figure out past temperature estimate inconsistencies. All that researchers really wanted from both Queen’s University and NASA, was the temperature data used in numerous papers that global warming advocates had already published. One of the most disturbing elements of the ongoing scandal suggests an worldwide organized effort to avoid sharing scientific data with critics. It is not clear if any data was destroyed, but at least two U.S. researchers have denied that suggestion.
The purloined e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. That raises a science ethics question because free access to information is important to other scientists who can repeat experiments as a part of the scientific method. "I believe none of us should submit to these 'requests,'" declared the university's Keith Briffa. The center's chief, Phil Jones, wrote: "Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them." When one skeptic kept filing FOI requests, Jones told another scientist, Michael Mann: "You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting FOI requests for all e-mails Keith (Briffa) and Tim (Osborn) have written."
NASA faces a particularly embarrassing situation. Steve McIntyre, who runs ClimateAudit.org pointed out in 2007 that thru serious math errors in NASA’s published work, 1998 was not the warmest year on record, 1934 was. And the third hottest year was 1921, not 2006. Instead of the 10 hottest years occurring since 1990, six of the 10 had occurred before 1940. NASA finally released the corrected temperature estimates, but later recalculated yet again and somehow 1934 is again reported to be cooler than either 1998 or 2006. As with all these “errors”, how many more might be lurking in other estimates made at these institutions? On the other hand, perhaps the latest NASA revision was a merely a statistical "adjustment," similar to what apparently happened at East Anglia. Nobody outside a small group at NASA knows, but given the leftist political advocacy of James Hansen, NASA’s top climatologist, we might be somewhat suspicious. OK, so they’re “adjusting” scientific data to fit a set of predetermined conclusions. In my rather crude and un-scientific manner, I’d call that “cooking the books”, and if ‘ya do that at home the IRS gets really upset!
So why all the insistence on human caused global warming, to the extent of apparently falsifying research data? We could make a real good “conspiracy theory” out of this one! Socialist political theory demands the existence of a “one world” planet wide government to be successful. (So does the UN, but that’s a different theory.) This means that more and more government control of the world’s population is required, which is exactly what the Copenhagen accord is all about. In the guise of handling the “global warming” problem, government can control our energy usage (coal, oil, gas, nuclear energy, and probably firewood as well), to the extent of regulating us back to a medieval sustenance type economy, where we can all share equally in the soon to be nonexistent wealth... with of course our socialist leaders being the Lord of the Manor and getting the lions share.
What does this have to do with falsifying scientific data? Well, most scientific research survives on government grants, and it’s always best to keep your employer happy if you like your comfortable high-paying job…
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Another Surge
A man named Fehrenback once said that “you can fly over a territory, you can bombard it, you can blow it to hell, you can even sterilize it, but you don’t own it until you stand a seventeen year old kid with a rifle on top of it.” That statement is very true, and unfortunately it’s something that our nation’s leaders appear to have either forgotten, or that they never learned. As a result of that lapse, we’re today paying the butchers bill in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two days before Mr. Obama gave the speech at West Point in which he announced that we would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a Senate Committee report was released that blames an insufficient number of troops for bin Laden’s escape from American forces in 2001. The committee chairman, Sen. John Kerry, implied that it was a lack of soldiers under the Bush administration that was responsible for “laying the foundation for today’s protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan.” Yet it was our democratic Congress who repeatedly refused the troop buildup that would have given us the necessary soldiers today.
Increased troop numbers was Bush’s policy, and since we all know Bush was evil (just ask the mainstream media), the opposite policy must be good. The aggressiveness that we associate with President Bush is actually, in Mr. Obama’s hands, the righteous corrective to Bush’s evil actions. (Perhaps a Democrat can explain that one to me?) Mr. Obama is proving himself an expert manipulator of public opinion, capitalizing on the McChrystal and Eikenberry leaks to give the impression of deep deliberations over whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. He’s playing the old “good cop/bad cop” routine, with VP Joe Biden, who dutifully argued against more troops, overall a rather cynical act. And it’s almost uncanny to hear from the liberal Obama the same tales about nation-building and creating democratic institutions that led us into an undemocratic Iraq in the first place. Warlord-run Afghanistan is nothing like Iraq either, or any other civilized country for that matter. It’s more like warlord-run Somalia. Ahh… remember Somalia, with Bill Clinton’s hesitation to provide the military with the needed strength, and of course our rather hurried withdrawal? Today however the media is still using the word “surge” to describe the troop increase as if it’s only a temporary boost, when in truth it’s just another name for minimal “reinforcements”, which immediately brings to mind the image of a lost cause. Since the first day of combat action in Afghanistan we’ve heard calls for troop increases, with the latest being for forty to eighty thousand additional troops. Instead Mr. Obama decides to send only thirty thousand, with a large number of these being civilian contractors. One pundit commented, tongue-in-cheek I hope, that it’s too bad China isn’t in NATO, as their Army is big enough to stand shoulder to shoulder and march from Afghanistan to Iraq, cleaning up the whole mess! Quite so, but how do we get ‘em to go home afterwards?
Political writer Jacob Weisberg claims that one of Obama’s great accomplishments has been that, “after a much-disparaged period of review, he has announced a new strategy in Afghanistan.” But then, Weisberg praises Obama for “preventing a depression, remaking America's global image, and winning universal health insurance.” Never mind that unemployment is the highest it’s been in decades, and that any Democratic president with a Democratic majority in Congress could have passed a similar stimulus package. “Universal health care” is far from a done deal, and as for remaking America’s global image, well, images are made with actions, not words. But Obama is not Bush we are told, the people who dislike him are dreadful racists, the opposition is fierce, and, well, he’s the only game in town, etc, etc. No, Mr. Obama is not President Bush. If anything, he is solidly convinced that his radical liberalism is divinely guided, and that he holds “the truth” in his hands. Unlike President Bush however, Mr. Obama seems to withdraw into a blue funk whenever he fails to convince Americans that his is the truth of the ages.
It’s easy to say “pull out all the troops and let the Afghani’s deal with their own problems”. So if those issues spill over into America, what then? American troops cannot just pack up and leave with the snap of a finger. "Failure in Afghanistan would mean a Taliban takeover of much, if not most, of the country and likely a renewed civil war," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Taliban-ruled areas could in short order become, once again, a sanctuary for al-Qaeda as well as a staging area for resurgent militant groups on the offensive in Pakistan." (And Pakistan has nuclear weapons.) I'm sure that if we pulled out tomorrow, the people who strap bombs to themselves to blow up anyone who doesn't think that women are property, and that Jews and Christians should be wiped out, would happily join us in hammering our arms into plowshares. Ahh… our arms, not theirs.
But Obama has tied his decision ordering more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to a pledge that they'll start returning home in 2011. But he was rather quiet on his plans for the growing Afghan army, which still remains the best way to bring American soldiers home. As the 219th poorest nation in the world, Afghanistan simply can't afford to pay for a big military. Afghan forces today are largely slipshod and corrupt, professional U.S. officers say, capable of doing little more than basic operations. In fact, many U.S. officers say that Afghans have a "God-willing” mentality that "delays progress for all routine and major actions", and such tendencies “freeze subordinates into doing nothing until specifically ordered”.
One lesson we should learn from history is that soldiers seldom have much say in how their efforts are applied. Armed force is but a blunt instrument of politics, quite liable to do more harm than good unless aimed with exquisite precision. At best, all the military can do is buy time for the politicians to repair the political mistakes that left no choice but armed violence in the first place. Isn’t it nice to know that our man in the driver’s seat has absolutely no military experience, and apparently won’t listen to his advisors who do have that experience.
Increased troop numbers was Bush’s policy, and since we all know Bush was evil (just ask the mainstream media), the opposite policy must be good. The aggressiveness that we associate with President Bush is actually, in Mr. Obama’s hands, the righteous corrective to Bush’s evil actions. (Perhaps a Democrat can explain that one to me?) Mr. Obama is proving himself an expert manipulator of public opinion, capitalizing on the McChrystal and Eikenberry leaks to give the impression of deep deliberations over whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. He’s playing the old “good cop/bad cop” routine, with VP Joe Biden, who dutifully argued against more troops, overall a rather cynical act. And it’s almost uncanny to hear from the liberal Obama the same tales about nation-building and creating democratic institutions that led us into an undemocratic Iraq in the first place. Warlord-run Afghanistan is nothing like Iraq either, or any other civilized country for that matter. It’s more like warlord-run Somalia. Ahh… remember Somalia, with Bill Clinton’s hesitation to provide the military with the needed strength, and of course our rather hurried withdrawal? Today however the media is still using the word “surge” to describe the troop increase as if it’s only a temporary boost, when in truth it’s just another name for minimal “reinforcements”, which immediately brings to mind the image of a lost cause. Since the first day of combat action in Afghanistan we’ve heard calls for troop increases, with the latest being for forty to eighty thousand additional troops. Instead Mr. Obama decides to send only thirty thousand, with a large number of these being civilian contractors. One pundit commented, tongue-in-cheek I hope, that it’s too bad China isn’t in NATO, as their Army is big enough to stand shoulder to shoulder and march from Afghanistan to Iraq, cleaning up the whole mess! Quite so, but how do we get ‘em to go home afterwards?
Political writer Jacob Weisberg claims that one of Obama’s great accomplishments has been that, “after a much-disparaged period of review, he has announced a new strategy in Afghanistan.” But then, Weisberg praises Obama for “preventing a depression, remaking America's global image, and winning universal health insurance.” Never mind that unemployment is the highest it’s been in decades, and that any Democratic president with a Democratic majority in Congress could have passed a similar stimulus package. “Universal health care” is far from a done deal, and as for remaking America’s global image, well, images are made with actions, not words. But Obama is not Bush we are told, the people who dislike him are dreadful racists, the opposition is fierce, and, well, he’s the only game in town, etc, etc. No, Mr. Obama is not President Bush. If anything, he is solidly convinced that his radical liberalism is divinely guided, and that he holds “the truth” in his hands. Unlike President Bush however, Mr. Obama seems to withdraw into a blue funk whenever he fails to convince Americans that his is the truth of the ages.
It’s easy to say “pull out all the troops and let the Afghani’s deal with their own problems”. So if those issues spill over into America, what then? American troops cannot just pack up and leave with the snap of a finger. "Failure in Afghanistan would mean a Taliban takeover of much, if not most, of the country and likely a renewed civil war," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Taliban-ruled areas could in short order become, once again, a sanctuary for al-Qaeda as well as a staging area for resurgent militant groups on the offensive in Pakistan." (And Pakistan has nuclear weapons.) I'm sure that if we pulled out tomorrow, the people who strap bombs to themselves to blow up anyone who doesn't think that women are property, and that Jews and Christians should be wiped out, would happily join us in hammering our arms into plowshares. Ahh… our arms, not theirs.
But Obama has tied his decision ordering more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to a pledge that they'll start returning home in 2011. But he was rather quiet on his plans for the growing Afghan army, which still remains the best way to bring American soldiers home. As the 219th poorest nation in the world, Afghanistan simply can't afford to pay for a big military. Afghan forces today are largely slipshod and corrupt, professional U.S. officers say, capable of doing little more than basic operations. In fact, many U.S. officers say that Afghans have a "God-willing” mentality that "delays progress for all routine and major actions", and such tendencies “freeze subordinates into doing nothing until specifically ordered”.
One lesson we should learn from history is that soldiers seldom have much say in how their efforts are applied. Armed force is but a blunt instrument of politics, quite liable to do more harm than good unless aimed with exquisite precision. At best, all the military can do is buy time for the politicians to repair the political mistakes that left no choice but armed violence in the first place. Isn’t it nice to know that our man in the driver’s seat has absolutely no military experience, and apparently won’t listen to his advisors who do have that experience.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Plague
“Realpolitik” is defined as the belief that a pragmatic pursuit of self-interest and power, backed up by force when convenient, is the only realistic option for a great state. The term was coined in 1859 to describe German chancellor Bismarck’s policies. “Practical politics” are those based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations. That term comes from H.L. Mencken's definition: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." OK, I’ll agree that not all threats exploited by political leaders are imaginary, with a number of them being quite real, but generally they’re blown all out of proportion to where they become caricatures of reality. The current "public health crisis" over the prospect of a swine flu "pandemic" appears to fall into that category.
Although eight years have passed since 9-11, we need no reminder of the shock value of mass terrorism on the American population. 9-11 left us shocked and enraged, but it was still incidental to the everyday concerns of most Americans. It was an atrocity that didn't threaten the existence of American society, despite the efforts of political opportunists to describe the attack as apocalyptic. However, our political leaders have drawn tremendous political valuata from that attack, in that a major (and completely unnecessary) revolution in American political, legal, and strategic affairs was brought on by that one incident. Ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable that today’s mass media and our politicians would accept the idea that the President of the United States has the quasi-medieval authority to issue orders that have the effect of law, to lock-up people at will, and even have them tortured. But because of the practical politics of post-9/11 America that is what we now see. The possibility of nuclear annihilation is difficult to make real to the individual, unless it's part of a larger picture such as a war between superpowers, or the prospect of nukes in the hands of terrorists. With that said, The Bomb has little to offer in terms of "practical politics." The same can be said of the practical political value of environmentalism or “the collapse of the global biosphere” through various sorts of contamination. The “revenge of a poisoned planet” might make interesting science fiction stories, but other than that it’s little more than a certain political career crowned by the Nobel Peace Prize. Relatively few people other than those most likely to profit from it share Gore’s insistence that saving the environment should be the "central organizing principle" of human society. And despite the fact that they would force the rest of us to live like medieval serfs, they're willing to sacrifice none of the goodies that give them a huge "carbon footprint." Unlike the above threats, the prospect of a plague is completely terrifying in a personal sense. We all have memories of what it feels like to be sick and helpless, and likely have witnessed death from disease at one time or another. So, as a weapon of practical politics, microbes are far more serious than nuclear weapons. All of this should be kept in mind as we evaluate the seriousness of the "public health emergency" declared on April 26 by the UN's World Health Organization and shortly thereafter by the Obama administration over what is being described as the potential swine flu pandemic. Considering that over 30,000 people die in the US every year from the flu, it’s rather amusing to see all the panic over a relative handful of deaths. Still, most "public servants" are in jobs that thrive on alarmism, so we really shouldn't expect any sober risk assessments from them. It’s quite likely that what concerns the medical community is the genetic makeup of this new H1N1 virus that carries swine, avian, and spanish flu DNA. The question is, where did it come from? It is extremely unlikely that three different strains of flu virus could accidentally share genetic material without some sort of outside help in the process. Two strains perhaps, but I’d seriously doubt three. This leaves us with the possibility that the H1N1 virus, which, according to several well-credentialed medical experts appears to have been synthesized in a laboratory, and was deliberately released on the public. This would not necessarily have been the work of the US government; as it could have easily been carried out by any one of numerous other parties. I think the medical community is honestly concerned as they still don’t know what will happen if swine flu reached China and India, "where populations are so dense and health infrastructure is still insufficient.” The "Spanish Flu" epidemic of 1918 killed 583,000 Americans (approximately one tenth of one percent of the American population), and an estimated 20-50 million people worldwide, an overall figure that rivals the Black Death of the 14th Century. The virus causing the 1918 outbreak was quite similar to the H5N1 virus, better known as the "Bird Flu", and has been the center of a multi-billion-dollar international effort of development and store of what is hoped to be an effective vaccine.
Well, how many of these do you remember? The Oil Crisis (70's), the New Ice Age (70's), the Killer Bee invasion, the Ozone hole, Mad Cow Disease, SARS, Avian Flu, Y2K, Global Warming ... and now Swine Flu. The result is always the same - ever growing Statism. How many billions of dollars have we spent on these non-events? How many more billions are we going to spend on this latest event, and how much more freedom are we willing to lose?
Whatever else may occur we can expect the Obama administration to assume greater control over the emergency medical system. In the event that this emergency does turn into a legitimate pandemic, the “Obamatrons” will have the justification to mobilize Homeland Security. A memo issued by the DHS notes that "The Department of Justice has established legal federal authorities pertaining to the implementation of a quarantine and enforcement. Under approval from HHS, the Surgeon General has the authority to issue quarantines." Quarantine of course means disarming the public as we saw happen in New Orleans, and "isolating" us in our new confinment centers.
When the government’s involved, always ask yourself: qui bono? Who benefits?
Although eight years have passed since 9-11, we need no reminder of the shock value of mass terrorism on the American population. 9-11 left us shocked and enraged, but it was still incidental to the everyday concerns of most Americans. It was an atrocity that didn't threaten the existence of American society, despite the efforts of political opportunists to describe the attack as apocalyptic. However, our political leaders have drawn tremendous political valuata from that attack, in that a major (and completely unnecessary) revolution in American political, legal, and strategic affairs was brought on by that one incident. Ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable that today’s mass media and our politicians would accept the idea that the President of the United States has the quasi-medieval authority to issue orders that have the effect of law, to lock-up people at will, and even have them tortured. But because of the practical politics of post-9/11 America that is what we now see. The possibility of nuclear annihilation is difficult to make real to the individual, unless it's part of a larger picture such as a war between superpowers, or the prospect of nukes in the hands of terrorists. With that said, The Bomb has little to offer in terms of "practical politics." The same can be said of the practical political value of environmentalism or “the collapse of the global biosphere” through various sorts of contamination. The “revenge of a poisoned planet” might make interesting science fiction stories, but other than that it’s little more than a certain political career crowned by the Nobel Peace Prize. Relatively few people other than those most likely to profit from it share Gore’s insistence that saving the environment should be the "central organizing principle" of human society. And despite the fact that they would force the rest of us to live like medieval serfs, they're willing to sacrifice none of the goodies that give them a huge "carbon footprint." Unlike the above threats, the prospect of a plague is completely terrifying in a personal sense. We all have memories of what it feels like to be sick and helpless, and likely have witnessed death from disease at one time or another. So, as a weapon of practical politics, microbes are far more serious than nuclear weapons. All of this should be kept in mind as we evaluate the seriousness of the "public health emergency" declared on April 26 by the UN's World Health Organization and shortly thereafter by the Obama administration over what is being described as the potential swine flu pandemic. Considering that over 30,000 people die in the US every year from the flu, it’s rather amusing to see all the panic over a relative handful of deaths. Still, most "public servants" are in jobs that thrive on alarmism, so we really shouldn't expect any sober risk assessments from them. It’s quite likely that what concerns the medical community is the genetic makeup of this new H1N1 virus that carries swine, avian, and spanish flu DNA. The question is, where did it come from? It is extremely unlikely that three different strains of flu virus could accidentally share genetic material without some sort of outside help in the process. Two strains perhaps, but I’d seriously doubt three. This leaves us with the possibility that the H1N1 virus, which, according to several well-credentialed medical experts appears to have been synthesized in a laboratory, and was deliberately released on the public. This would not necessarily have been the work of the US government; as it could have easily been carried out by any one of numerous other parties. I think the medical community is honestly concerned as they still don’t know what will happen if swine flu reached China and India, "where populations are so dense and health infrastructure is still insufficient.” The "Spanish Flu" epidemic of 1918 killed 583,000 Americans (approximately one tenth of one percent of the American population), and an estimated 20-50 million people worldwide, an overall figure that rivals the Black Death of the 14th Century. The virus causing the 1918 outbreak was quite similar to the H5N1 virus, better known as the "Bird Flu", and has been the center of a multi-billion-dollar international effort of development and store of what is hoped to be an effective vaccine.
Well, how many of these do you remember? The Oil Crisis (70's), the New Ice Age (70's), the Killer Bee invasion, the Ozone hole, Mad Cow Disease, SARS, Avian Flu, Y2K, Global Warming ... and now Swine Flu. The result is always the same - ever growing Statism. How many billions of dollars have we spent on these non-events? How many more billions are we going to spend on this latest event, and how much more freedom are we willing to lose?
Whatever else may occur we can expect the Obama administration to assume greater control over the emergency medical system. In the event that this emergency does turn into a legitimate pandemic, the “Obamatrons” will have the justification to mobilize Homeland Security. A memo issued by the DHS notes that "The Department of Justice has established legal federal authorities pertaining to the implementation of a quarantine and enforcement. Under approval from HHS, the Surgeon General has the authority to issue quarantines." Quarantine of course means disarming the public as we saw happen in New Orleans, and "isolating" us in our new confinment centers.
When the government’s involved, always ask yourself: qui bono? Who benefits?
Sunday, November 29, 2009
ADC
“COLORADO SPRINGS — The commander of military forces protecting North America has ordered a review of the costly air defenses intended to prevent another Sept. 11-style terrorism attack, an assessment aimed at determining whether the commitment of jet fighters, other aircraft and crews remains justified. Senior officers involved in the effort say the assessment is to gauge the likelihood that terrorists may succeed in hijacking an airliner or flying their own smaller craft into the United States or Canada. The study is focused on circumstances in which the attack would be aimed not at a public building or landmark but instead at a power plant or a critical link in the nation’s financial network, like a major electrical grid or a computer network hub.”
Of the 8 years I spent in the Air Force, ‘bout three quarters of them were in ADC (Air Defense Command), primarily assigned to fighter interceptor squadrons. Admittedly I was never a “senior officer” (actually I was little more than a mid-grade NCO), nor an expert on the subject, but I do tend to think that I have a fair working knowledge of intercepting intruding aircraft. A good many people will remember the Cold War days of the 1950’s and 60’s when the US air defenses consisted of radar sites scattered all over the country (there was one such site on Cottonwood Butte), and couple of thousand jet fighters in nearly a hundred fighter squadrons all across the nation. The Navy added to the effort with radar picket ships and planes on the high seas, while the Army had numerous anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-air missiles sited around every vital target they could think of. Established in March of 1946, ADC became Aerospace Defense Command in 1968 (reflecting the new emphasis on guided missiles), and was finally deactivated in 1979 as a cost cutting measure due to the steadily decreasing likelihood of a mass Soviet air attack. NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) is a joint venture of the United States and Canada that still exists, but today is primarily concerned with space operations. The fighters are gone, the anti-aircraft guns and missiles are gone, the radars have been taken over by the FAA (and are mostly gone). ADC cost us billions of dollars through its lifetime, but I’d say it was money well spent… or at least I never heard of a Soviet bomb falling on Kalamazoo, and I have no doubt the Soviet’s would have tried if they had ever thought they could get away with it. In comparison, only 14 aircraft at seven bases nationwide were on alert status before 9-11.
Today our air defenses are nearly nonexistent, consisting of little more than FAA radars that don’t cover the entire country, can’t see anything flying at less than 15,000 feet or so, and can’t even see an airliner if he’s got his transponder turned off! I understand that our fighter defense presently consists of a dozen or so National Guard F-16’s assigned a defense role in addition to everything else expected of them. Yet 9-11 aptly demonstrated that this country CAN be attacked from the air, and statistics provided by NORAD show that there were more than 1,000 “suspicious” air incidents in 2008, of which more than 200 actually required the scrambling of jet fighters. Yet in order to “save money” we’re considering eliminating even that miniscule effort!?
Granted that high-jacking an airliner today might be a bit more difficult than it was in 2001, and that terrorists are really quite ingenious at finding other ways to kill people, an assault by air is still one of the best means to do something in a spectacular manner. Remember that just about every Muslim country in the world has its own national airline, and most of them fly to the US on a regular basis. A 747, loaded to the ‘gunnels with explosives, and flown by a suicidal crew would make a jim-dandy kamikaze if it hit New York, Washington, Boston, Miami, or Los Angles. What might happen if one were targeted at one of the Columbia River Dams… or perhaps Hanford? Even worse would be one loaded with chemical or biological agents flying over one of our major cities. Smaller corporate jet aircraft are easy to come by, quick and agile, can fly to nearly anywhere, and generally carry a pretty fair payload. A nuclear artillery shell (if terrorists could steal one) can even be carried by the proverbial Piper Cub, and detonated by a suicidal pilot! Of course the next question is, how to get something like that into the country? Well… we don’t seem to be having much luck in stopping the flow of illegal drugs… or illegal immigrants…
If we must have a “stimulus program” handing out a trillion dollars or so (and probably Stimulus II as well), I’ll suggest that part of the money would be much better spent rebuilding a national air defense capability rather than just handing the money out at random. At least we’d have something to show for it. Nor do we need the $150 million each F-22 Raptor multi-role stealth fighter in an “at home” air defense role. In a purely air defense situation the 1980’s designed (at $15 million a copy) Northrop F-20 Tigershark air superiority fighter would be much better suited to the role. Perhaps we don’t need a system quite as extensive as that of the Cold War, but events have proven that we definitely do need the ability to defend ourselves from air attack, irregardless of whether or not the Generals want to spend the money. Of those two hundred aerial incidents that demanded a response? It only takes one… Are you listening Congress?
Of the 8 years I spent in the Air Force, ‘bout three quarters of them were in ADC (Air Defense Command), primarily assigned to fighter interceptor squadrons. Admittedly I was never a “senior officer” (actually I was little more than a mid-grade NCO), nor an expert on the subject, but I do tend to think that I have a fair working knowledge of intercepting intruding aircraft. A good many people will remember the Cold War days of the 1950’s and 60’s when the US air defenses consisted of radar sites scattered all over the country (there was one such site on Cottonwood Butte), and couple of thousand jet fighters in nearly a hundred fighter squadrons all across the nation. The Navy added to the effort with radar picket ships and planes on the high seas, while the Army had numerous anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-air missiles sited around every vital target they could think of. Established in March of 1946, ADC became Aerospace Defense Command in 1968 (reflecting the new emphasis on guided missiles), and was finally deactivated in 1979 as a cost cutting measure due to the steadily decreasing likelihood of a mass Soviet air attack. NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) is a joint venture of the United States and Canada that still exists, but today is primarily concerned with space operations. The fighters are gone, the anti-aircraft guns and missiles are gone, the radars have been taken over by the FAA (and are mostly gone). ADC cost us billions of dollars through its lifetime, but I’d say it was money well spent… or at least I never heard of a Soviet bomb falling on Kalamazoo, and I have no doubt the Soviet’s would have tried if they had ever thought they could get away with it. In comparison, only 14 aircraft at seven bases nationwide were on alert status before 9-11.
Today our air defenses are nearly nonexistent, consisting of little more than FAA radars that don’t cover the entire country, can’t see anything flying at less than 15,000 feet or so, and can’t even see an airliner if he’s got his transponder turned off! I understand that our fighter defense presently consists of a dozen or so National Guard F-16’s assigned a defense role in addition to everything else expected of them. Yet 9-11 aptly demonstrated that this country CAN be attacked from the air, and statistics provided by NORAD show that there were more than 1,000 “suspicious” air incidents in 2008, of which more than 200 actually required the scrambling of jet fighters. Yet in order to “save money” we’re considering eliminating even that miniscule effort!?
Granted that high-jacking an airliner today might be a bit more difficult than it was in 2001, and that terrorists are really quite ingenious at finding other ways to kill people, an assault by air is still one of the best means to do something in a spectacular manner. Remember that just about every Muslim country in the world has its own national airline, and most of them fly to the US on a regular basis. A 747, loaded to the ‘gunnels with explosives, and flown by a suicidal crew would make a jim-dandy kamikaze if it hit New York, Washington, Boston, Miami, or Los Angles. What might happen if one were targeted at one of the Columbia River Dams… or perhaps Hanford? Even worse would be one loaded with chemical or biological agents flying over one of our major cities. Smaller corporate jet aircraft are easy to come by, quick and agile, can fly to nearly anywhere, and generally carry a pretty fair payload. A nuclear artillery shell (if terrorists could steal one) can even be carried by the proverbial Piper Cub, and detonated by a suicidal pilot! Of course the next question is, how to get something like that into the country? Well… we don’t seem to be having much luck in stopping the flow of illegal drugs… or illegal immigrants…
If we must have a “stimulus program” handing out a trillion dollars or so (and probably Stimulus II as well), I’ll suggest that part of the money would be much better spent rebuilding a national air defense capability rather than just handing the money out at random. At least we’d have something to show for it. Nor do we need the $150 million each F-22 Raptor multi-role stealth fighter in an “at home” air defense role. In a purely air defense situation the 1980’s designed (at $15 million a copy) Northrop F-20 Tigershark air superiority fighter would be much better suited to the role. Perhaps we don’t need a system quite as extensive as that of the Cold War, but events have proven that we definitely do need the ability to defend ourselves from air attack, irregardless of whether or not the Generals want to spend the money. Of those two hundred aerial incidents that demanded a response? It only takes one… Are you listening Congress?
Monday, November 23, 2009
Freedom Lost
Do you like living free? Oh? And just how free have you felt over the last few years?
We can't just sit back and allow the loss of our freedoms… or can we? We elect the government, and it works for us, or at least that’s the theory. Remember the famous phrase “Of the people, by the people, and for the people”? We are the government after all, and government is not supposed to be a mob of radicals (either far left, or far right) sitting in Washington giving every appearance of being completely disconnected from reality, and quite happily forcing their wishes on the rest of us. As we watch Obama’s plan for health care being rammed through an uncaring Congress despite overall public opposition, we can only ask how our government got so arrogant that it now presumes it can dictate how we live our personal lives. The House of Representatives voted (by only a five vote majority you may have noticed) to have the federal government manage the health care of every American. If this bill passes the Senate and becomes law, the federal government will be legally able to force you to buy medical insurance you might not want, or may not need, or cannot afford. If you don’t purchase what the government tells you to buy, if you don’t do so when they tell you to do it, and if you don’t buy just what they think is right for you, the government may fine you up to a quarter million dollars, and even put you in jail for five years. I’ve often said than anyone who drives down the street without auto insurance is out of their mind, and in this day and age medical insurance is much the same. But I strenuously object to the government telling me the “what’s, where’s, and how’s” of insuring my little corner of the world! It is after all my corner, and MY choice! Actually this entire runaround is a good example of the socialist elite style of governing, “do what we tell you or go to jail."
In the aftermath of 9-11, the Bush administration hurriedly pushed the “Patriot Act” through a panicky Congress, and soon presented us with the Department of Homeland Security, all in the name of fighting a war on terror and thus making us “safe”. With that, our government can declare anyone who disagrees with the official line a terrorist, spy on them, strip search them at the airport, search their home without permission or a search warrant, lock them away for an indefinite period without charges, restrict any financial dealing they might have (if they have any money left that is), restrict their travels, and even interfere with the enjoyment of various (potentially terrorist oriented I assume) hobbies! It restricts immigration and naturalization of those who would like to become American citizens, but doesn’t seem to have had any effect on the illegal immigration problem. It hasn’t had much effect on terrorism either, at least none that I can see.
Although I haven’t seen it yet, I understand there’s a provision in the upcoming “cap-and-trade” bill that will require you to have an EPA permit to sell your house, that’s intended to make sure that your home meets all the latest government energy standards. Anyone who has ever dealt with the FHA or VA should understand all the hoops that will require you to jump through.
Mr. Obama has proposed to double the national debt within one year, a debt that has taken us more than two centuries to accumulate, and additionally proposes to double the debt yet again within the next 10 years. Sen. Reid on the other hand is reportedly planning to cover the estimated $1.2 trillion dollar cost of Obamacare with increased payroll taxes on “the rich”. Just how many “rich folks” do they think we have in this country, and if their taxes keep going up, just how long will they remain that way?!
Strangely enough, the United States has more proven oil reserves in the ground than does Saudi Arabia, yet half-baked environmental regulations don’t allow us to extract or use that oil, effectively keeping us in economic thralldom to foreign nations. Environmental laws deny us the use or enjoyment of our own public lands. “Political correctness” determines what I can say, where I can say it, and even how I can say it.
Things were not supposed to be this way. Our founders determined that we would elect the government, and that it would work for us. How did things get so removed, so unbridled, that government thinks it can now tell us how to live our lives? “Freedoms lost” rarely comes upon us in one fell swoop, and liberty is rarely lost with one stroke of the pen. It happens gradually over time, through the years and decades. A little stretch of the rules here, a little oversight there, and powers are slowly taken from the states and the people. Before you know it, we have one massive government that recognizes no restraints, and claims the power to regulate any activity, tax any behavior, and demand conformity to any standard it chooses. Our nation’s founders did not give us the government we seem to have today. The government enacted by our Constitution was strictly limited in its powers, was to guaranteed individual liberty, preserved the free market, and on private matters was supposed to keep its nose out of our business. When writing our Constitution, our nations Founders built in a series of checks and balances. If the Congress got out of hand, the states could restrain it. If the states stole our liberty or property, Congress could rein them in. If the President tried to become king, the Supreme Court would prevent it. And today?
So what can we now do about the loss of freedom? As Fox News commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano says, “For starters, we can vote the bums out of their cushy federal offices! We can persuade our state governments to defy the Feds in areas like health care -- where the Constitution gives the Feds zero authority. We can petition our state legislatures to threaten to amend the Constitution to abolish the income tax, return the selection of U.S. senators to state legislatures and nullify all the laws the Congress has written that are not based in the Constitution.” Sounds like good advice to me, as we sure can’t just sit back on our behinds and let government walk all over us.
I’m told that Americans are the freest people on Earth. If that’s the case, and looking back at what we’ve lost over the last thirty years, the rest of the world has my deepest sympathies!
We can't just sit back and allow the loss of our freedoms… or can we? We elect the government, and it works for us, or at least that’s the theory. Remember the famous phrase “Of the people, by the people, and for the people”? We are the government after all, and government is not supposed to be a mob of radicals (either far left, or far right) sitting in Washington giving every appearance of being completely disconnected from reality, and quite happily forcing their wishes on the rest of us. As we watch Obama’s plan for health care being rammed through an uncaring Congress despite overall public opposition, we can only ask how our government got so arrogant that it now presumes it can dictate how we live our personal lives. The House of Representatives voted (by only a five vote majority you may have noticed) to have the federal government manage the health care of every American. If this bill passes the Senate and becomes law, the federal government will be legally able to force you to buy medical insurance you might not want, or may not need, or cannot afford. If you don’t purchase what the government tells you to buy, if you don’t do so when they tell you to do it, and if you don’t buy just what they think is right for you, the government may fine you up to a quarter million dollars, and even put you in jail for five years. I’ve often said than anyone who drives down the street without auto insurance is out of their mind, and in this day and age medical insurance is much the same. But I strenuously object to the government telling me the “what’s, where’s, and how’s” of insuring my little corner of the world! It is after all my corner, and MY choice! Actually this entire runaround is a good example of the socialist elite style of governing, “do what we tell you or go to jail."
In the aftermath of 9-11, the Bush administration hurriedly pushed the “Patriot Act” through a panicky Congress, and soon presented us with the Department of Homeland Security, all in the name of fighting a war on terror and thus making us “safe”. With that, our government can declare anyone who disagrees with the official line a terrorist, spy on them, strip search them at the airport, search their home without permission or a search warrant, lock them away for an indefinite period without charges, restrict any financial dealing they might have (if they have any money left that is), restrict their travels, and even interfere with the enjoyment of various (potentially terrorist oriented I assume) hobbies! It restricts immigration and naturalization of those who would like to become American citizens, but doesn’t seem to have had any effect on the illegal immigration problem. It hasn’t had much effect on terrorism either, at least none that I can see.
Although I haven’t seen it yet, I understand there’s a provision in the upcoming “cap-and-trade” bill that will require you to have an EPA permit to sell your house, that’s intended to make sure that your home meets all the latest government energy standards. Anyone who has ever dealt with the FHA or VA should understand all the hoops that will require you to jump through.
Mr. Obama has proposed to double the national debt within one year, a debt that has taken us more than two centuries to accumulate, and additionally proposes to double the debt yet again within the next 10 years. Sen. Reid on the other hand is reportedly planning to cover the estimated $1.2 trillion dollar cost of Obamacare with increased payroll taxes on “the rich”. Just how many “rich folks” do they think we have in this country, and if their taxes keep going up, just how long will they remain that way?!
Strangely enough, the United States has more proven oil reserves in the ground than does Saudi Arabia, yet half-baked environmental regulations don’t allow us to extract or use that oil, effectively keeping us in economic thralldom to foreign nations. Environmental laws deny us the use or enjoyment of our own public lands. “Political correctness” determines what I can say, where I can say it, and even how I can say it.
Things were not supposed to be this way. Our founders determined that we would elect the government, and that it would work for us. How did things get so removed, so unbridled, that government thinks it can now tell us how to live our lives? “Freedoms lost” rarely comes upon us in one fell swoop, and liberty is rarely lost with one stroke of the pen. It happens gradually over time, through the years and decades. A little stretch of the rules here, a little oversight there, and powers are slowly taken from the states and the people. Before you know it, we have one massive government that recognizes no restraints, and claims the power to regulate any activity, tax any behavior, and demand conformity to any standard it chooses. Our nation’s founders did not give us the government we seem to have today. The government enacted by our Constitution was strictly limited in its powers, was to guaranteed individual liberty, preserved the free market, and on private matters was supposed to keep its nose out of our business. When writing our Constitution, our nations Founders built in a series of checks and balances. If the Congress got out of hand, the states could restrain it. If the states stole our liberty or property, Congress could rein them in. If the President tried to become king, the Supreme Court would prevent it. And today?
So what can we now do about the loss of freedom? As Fox News commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano says, “For starters, we can vote the bums out of their cushy federal offices! We can persuade our state governments to defy the Feds in areas like health care -- where the Constitution gives the Feds zero authority. We can petition our state legislatures to threaten to amend the Constitution to abolish the income tax, return the selection of U.S. senators to state legislatures and nullify all the laws the Congress has written that are not based in the Constitution.” Sounds like good advice to me, as we sure can’t just sit back on our behinds and let government walk all over us.
I’m told that Americans are the freest people on Earth. If that’s the case, and looking back at what we’ve lost over the last thirty years, the rest of the world has my deepest sympathies!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
A Third Party?
American political parties aren’t dead, but they’ve both been doing a pretty creditable job of simulating just that for several decades now. The trouble with the Democratic Party is that they’ve been chasing after social theories and reading Marxist books instead of studying human nature. ‘Course the Republicans have been equally busy chasing after a centralized government since the first day they were organized. Both parties seem to have forgotten that the United States of America was founded on the precept of a maximum of individual liberty, and a minimum of government interference. Now, with both parties advocating big government, big spending and globalism, they have effectively merged in all but name. And both face a perhaps insurmountable challenge. Third party candidates are shaking things up in quite a few political races, and the success of those candidates is a warning shot across the bow of the “Republicrats”. Fired by voters angry and disillusioned by politics as usual, this points to an anti-incumbent, anti-establishment sentiment that could become quite serious by the 2010 congressional elections. "What it says is the public is looking for less self-interested parties and candidates who can reflect the needs of a very frustrated public," said Douglas Astolfi, a history professor at Florida's St. Leo University. "We have two wars and we're in a recession that neither party seems to address in any positive way. There's a deep sense that government has abandoned the common man. People are frustrated and angry." A recent news poll found that trust in government is at a 12-year low, and half of all Americans now support the creation of a new political party, even though we already have over two hundred registered parties in the United States. Nine of those splinter parties are registered as Communist/Marxist, and I often think the loony left ought to officially join that list! There are six Right wing parties, four centrist parties, six Left wing parties, five Libertarian parties, and a whole herd of small special interest groups.
Since the formation of organized political parties in the 1830s, this country has had a two party system in which the “winner take all” Electoral College makes “sharing” the governing power as we see in a Parliamentary system nearly impossible. Secondly, it’s extremely difficult for a third party to raise the funds needed to seriously challenge the primary parties. Ballot access laws make it very hard for third party candidates to even get on the ballot in all 50 states. Still, it can be done, and the candidates can make an impressive showing as was demonstrated by Teddy Roosevelt with his “Bull Moose” party, George Wallace and the American Independent Party, and most recently in 1992 when Ross Perot ran as an Independent. Although third parties never win nationally, and rarely win locally, they can certainly have an effect on elections. Third parties can draw attention to issues being ignored by the majority parties, and depending on voter response, one or both of the major parties may adopt the issue. Also, a third party may be used by the voter to cast a protest vote. Third parties may also help bring more people to the polls. Third party candidates at the top of the ticket can help to draw attention to other party candidates down the ballot, helping them to win local or state office. Most effectively, they act as “spoilers”, in that they draw off much of the voting strength of one or the other primary party. We saw that when Ross Perot drew so many voters away from George Bush in 1992, that he effectively handed the election to Bill Clinton.
At present the concern in this country is not an existing third party, but rather the potential splitting of the Republican Party into its conservative and moderate wings, which would be a blessing for the Democrats. In New York, a candidate chosen by GOP leaders was forced out of the race by a Conservative Party candidate. In the New Jersey governor's race, an independent has gone from afterthought to player in a contest pitting an unpopular incumbent against a Republican challenger. In numerous contests next year, conservatives furious at the Republican establishment are mounting even more challenges against mainstream candidates favored by the national party. On the other side of the street, Democratic strategists worry that progressives, disgusted by the bank bailout and disillusioned with Barack Obama's apparent lack of fight might keep many people from voting. That could cost Democrats a few seats across the ballot. And both parties ignore such sentiment at their peril.
While I often think I’d prefer having a third choice, considering the realities of the American political system a third political party really isn’t a viable solution. We’d be much better served if our existing parties (particularly the Republicans) would get off their respective high horses and work together for a change. Jacobin political policies have always been the curse of America. Now political operatives are keeping an eye on independent voters, an important and growing group that often decides elections. Both parties would do well to consider the wishes of those Independents as we enter a midterm election season and our nation considers who will be granted the honor of leading us in the days ahead. The Independents would do well to remember that the times in which we live demand that we choose wisely.
A few of those qualities desperately needed in our public leaders would include the courage to make hard decisions, along with the character and core values that would merit our trust. With those core values we could also expect to see a modicum of self discipline. A clear vision for the future and the flexibility to learn, improve and adjust is something we seldom see anymore, but none-the-less is sorely needed. A track record of placing the good of the people over personal ambition is a trait sadly lacking in most of our elected officials, and were it a required qualification for office would probably eliminate about 95% of the members of Congress. Finally, having the patience of Job and the Wisdom of Solomon would help I’d think.
Nations survive on the ability of their leaders. The quality of our leaders is dependent on us.
Since the formation of organized political parties in the 1830s, this country has had a two party system in which the “winner take all” Electoral College makes “sharing” the governing power as we see in a Parliamentary system nearly impossible. Secondly, it’s extremely difficult for a third party to raise the funds needed to seriously challenge the primary parties. Ballot access laws make it very hard for third party candidates to even get on the ballot in all 50 states. Still, it can be done, and the candidates can make an impressive showing as was demonstrated by Teddy Roosevelt with his “Bull Moose” party, George Wallace and the American Independent Party, and most recently in 1992 when Ross Perot ran as an Independent. Although third parties never win nationally, and rarely win locally, they can certainly have an effect on elections. Third parties can draw attention to issues being ignored by the majority parties, and depending on voter response, one or both of the major parties may adopt the issue. Also, a third party may be used by the voter to cast a protest vote. Third parties may also help bring more people to the polls. Third party candidates at the top of the ticket can help to draw attention to other party candidates down the ballot, helping them to win local or state office. Most effectively, they act as “spoilers”, in that they draw off much of the voting strength of one or the other primary party. We saw that when Ross Perot drew so many voters away from George Bush in 1992, that he effectively handed the election to Bill Clinton.
At present the concern in this country is not an existing third party, but rather the potential splitting of the Republican Party into its conservative and moderate wings, which would be a blessing for the Democrats. In New York, a candidate chosen by GOP leaders was forced out of the race by a Conservative Party candidate. In the New Jersey governor's race, an independent has gone from afterthought to player in a contest pitting an unpopular incumbent against a Republican challenger. In numerous contests next year, conservatives furious at the Republican establishment are mounting even more challenges against mainstream candidates favored by the national party. On the other side of the street, Democratic strategists worry that progressives, disgusted by the bank bailout and disillusioned with Barack Obama's apparent lack of fight might keep many people from voting. That could cost Democrats a few seats across the ballot. And both parties ignore such sentiment at their peril.
While I often think I’d prefer having a third choice, considering the realities of the American political system a third political party really isn’t a viable solution. We’d be much better served if our existing parties (particularly the Republicans) would get off their respective high horses and work together for a change. Jacobin political policies have always been the curse of America. Now political operatives are keeping an eye on independent voters, an important and growing group that often decides elections. Both parties would do well to consider the wishes of those Independents as we enter a midterm election season and our nation considers who will be granted the honor of leading us in the days ahead. The Independents would do well to remember that the times in which we live demand that we choose wisely.
A few of those qualities desperately needed in our public leaders would include the courage to make hard decisions, along with the character and core values that would merit our trust. With those core values we could also expect to see a modicum of self discipline. A clear vision for the future and the flexibility to learn, improve and adjust is something we seldom see anymore, but none-the-less is sorely needed. A track record of placing the good of the people over personal ambition is a trait sadly lacking in most of our elected officials, and were it a required qualification for office would probably eliminate about 95% of the members of Congress. Finally, having the patience of Job and the Wisdom of Solomon would help I’d think.
Nations survive on the ability of their leaders. The quality of our leaders is dependent on us.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Preventive Detention
As inevitably happens following nearly any political campaign, we expected a number of broken promises. But now it seems that we’re getting ‘em in spades! The hopes and expectations following Barack Obama's inauguration had many people thinking that perhaps he could “pull us together again”. Unfortunately, his performance over the last few months makes Bill Clinton look like the ideal of integrity and follow-through! From healthcare to torture, from the economy to the war, Mr. Obama has backed off on a wide assortment of the nearly 500 campaign promises he made.
Certainly I wasn’t all that happy with many of President Bush’s programs, or his way of doing things, but at least I could understand the “what and why” of most of what he was attempting. Some of his failings could be blamed on simple bureaucratic failures and others on a totally partisan congress. Many were pure and simply his own darn fault. Still, during his first-term, President Bush was unwilling to go to Congress to get expanded presidential powers, even where Congress would have been happy to give them to him; during his second term, Bush, like Obama today, was more than willing to allow Congress to rubber stamp his proposals, hence, the Military Commissions Act, the Protect America Act, the FISA Amendments Act, etc. and etc. ad nauseaum.
Mr. Obama travels overseas (at taxpayer expense) to apologize to our enemies for being the richest and most powerful country in the world. He apologizes to Muslim nations because we’re a Christian nation. He apologizes to Marxist dictators because Americans believe in liberty. He apologizes to Africa over a slavery situation that occurred a hundred and fifty years ago. What’s next, will he apologize to Germany for the Normandy invasion?! He’s reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, apparently in fear of annoying the Turkish government. He’s reneged on his campaign promise to allow a period of public comment before signing Bills presented by Congress. We are currently engaged in two comparatively “small” wars in which our military is terribly overextended and taking an unnecessary beating. The Generals are begging for troops to prosecute those wars and save American lives, and Mr. Obama now wants to cut our faltering military strength by 25%! He appoints “Czars” to handle everything under the sun, bypassing the normal federal bureaucracy. The only qualification necessary to be a Czar is an avowed belief in Marxism! He runs the federal deficit up to astronomical numbers in the name of “sharing the wealth”, but it seems the only people getting a share are corporate campaign contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists, and assorted corrupt politicians! He won’t (or can’t) even prove that he’s legally qualified to hold office! Obama apparently knows nothing about economics, diplomacy, the military, or national affairs. Effectively he’s useless. Worse than that, he's dangerous, which is why he ought to resign before he drags us even further down the path to destruction.
The latest pronouncement from the anointed one is “preventive detentions.” Essentially, Mr. Obama wants an "entirely new chapter in American law". With this latest bright idea, if a cop or any other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, they can arrest you or anyone else right off the street, and hold you indefinitely in what’s called "prolonged detention." Media reports imply that this new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, any potential “sorta-kinda thinking about terrorism” types. Of course the authorities also get to define just what that potential terrorism is, which would likely include what George Orwell called "thought-crime" in his book “1984”. (If Congress buys into this plan, please don’t annoy anyone in authority!) Preventive detention under whatever name is a classic characteristic of any dictatorship, because a dictatorial regimes top priority is self-preservation rather than improving the people's lives. They worry about the one thing they can't control, individual thought that just might lead to rebellious activity. Independent thoughts are potentially dangerous to a totalitarian regime. (Vietnam vets will remember Charlie’s habit of torturing and killing anyone who might ever become a threat to communist control.) Locking people away who haven't done anything wrong is not only un-American; it’s a direct attack on the basic principles of law. It’s also contrary to the notions of human decency. What kind of monster do we have sitting in the White House, who would even consider promoting such an offense against civilization itself! And even if you’re comfortable with Mr. Obama having this sort of power because you trust him not to abuse it, are you comfortable with the idea of some future President having the power of indefinite "preventive detention"?
The New York Times pontificated that "Prolonged detention” would be inflicted upon "terrorism suspects who cannot be tried." Ah… Okay, and just why can’t they be tried? What they mean of course, is that the hundreds of men and boys imprisoned at Gitmo and the thousands of "detainees" the Obama Administration apparently anticipates arresting in the future cannot be convicted of any actual crime. Much like the Soviet Union, where putting enemies of the state on trial wasn't enough, conviction had to be guaranteed, or there would be no trial, just a long time in “detention”. The Soviets had their Gulag… and now we get “Detention Centers”. Obama stated that "Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted." If we follow the law, any terrorist suspect can be tried. Rightfully, anyone can be tried for committing any crime, within a specific jurisdiction. But consider that there is a Somali teenager sitting in a New York prison, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where U.S. law has no legal jurisdiction. Anyone accused of committing a crime can be tried. However, where the legal system still works it’s assumed that people against whom there is a "lack of evidence" are innocent. They walk. Where the rule of law prevails, in places free of leaders whose only concern is staying in power, "tainted evidence" is not even considered evidence. If you can't prove that the defendant committed a crime--an actual crime, not a thought crime—the last I heard you have to release him. Mr. Obama is a Law Proffessor 'fer 'th luvva Pete, and he dosen't understand that!? It’s amazing that after all the illegal things the Democrats accused President Bush of, they don’t understand these basic rules either. Obama's White House Counsel described him as "The first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law". Well, technically that is a form of change I guess, but probably not what many Obama supporters expected.
It’s ironic that the man who campaigned on “transparency in government” is less transparent than the president he attacked for excessive secrecy. At least Bush and Cheney believed they had the constitutional right to act in any way they saw fit, regardless of what the public understands about Constitutional law. Bush declared "I'm the decider" and he definitely meant it. This administration apparently believes it has the same right, and just pretends otherwise.
Certainly I wasn’t all that happy with many of President Bush’s programs, or his way of doing things, but at least I could understand the “what and why” of most of what he was attempting. Some of his failings could be blamed on simple bureaucratic failures and others on a totally partisan congress. Many were pure and simply his own darn fault. Still, during his first-term, President Bush was unwilling to go to Congress to get expanded presidential powers, even where Congress would have been happy to give them to him; during his second term, Bush, like Obama today, was more than willing to allow Congress to rubber stamp his proposals, hence, the Military Commissions Act, the Protect America Act, the FISA Amendments Act, etc. and etc. ad nauseaum.
Mr. Obama travels overseas (at taxpayer expense) to apologize to our enemies for being the richest and most powerful country in the world. He apologizes to Muslim nations because we’re a Christian nation. He apologizes to Marxist dictators because Americans believe in liberty. He apologizes to Africa over a slavery situation that occurred a hundred and fifty years ago. What’s next, will he apologize to Germany for the Normandy invasion?! He’s reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, apparently in fear of annoying the Turkish government. He’s reneged on his campaign promise to allow a period of public comment before signing Bills presented by Congress. We are currently engaged in two comparatively “small” wars in which our military is terribly overextended and taking an unnecessary beating. The Generals are begging for troops to prosecute those wars and save American lives, and Mr. Obama now wants to cut our faltering military strength by 25%! He appoints “Czars” to handle everything under the sun, bypassing the normal federal bureaucracy. The only qualification necessary to be a Czar is an avowed belief in Marxism! He runs the federal deficit up to astronomical numbers in the name of “sharing the wealth”, but it seems the only people getting a share are corporate campaign contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists, and assorted corrupt politicians! He won’t (or can’t) even prove that he’s legally qualified to hold office! Obama apparently knows nothing about economics, diplomacy, the military, or national affairs. Effectively he’s useless. Worse than that, he's dangerous, which is why he ought to resign before he drags us even further down the path to destruction.
The latest pronouncement from the anointed one is “preventive detentions.” Essentially, Mr. Obama wants an "entirely new chapter in American law". With this latest bright idea, if a cop or any other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, they can arrest you or anyone else right off the street, and hold you indefinitely in what’s called "prolonged detention." Media reports imply that this new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, any potential “sorta-kinda thinking about terrorism” types. Of course the authorities also get to define just what that potential terrorism is, which would likely include what George Orwell called "thought-crime" in his book “1984”. (If Congress buys into this plan, please don’t annoy anyone in authority!) Preventive detention under whatever name is a classic characteristic of any dictatorship, because a dictatorial regimes top priority is self-preservation rather than improving the people's lives. They worry about the one thing they can't control, individual thought that just might lead to rebellious activity. Independent thoughts are potentially dangerous to a totalitarian regime. (Vietnam vets will remember Charlie’s habit of torturing and killing anyone who might ever become a threat to communist control.) Locking people away who haven't done anything wrong is not only un-American; it’s a direct attack on the basic principles of law. It’s also contrary to the notions of human decency. What kind of monster do we have sitting in the White House, who would even consider promoting such an offense against civilization itself! And even if you’re comfortable with Mr. Obama having this sort of power because you trust him not to abuse it, are you comfortable with the idea of some future President having the power of indefinite "preventive detention"?
The New York Times pontificated that "Prolonged detention” would be inflicted upon "terrorism suspects who cannot be tried." Ah… Okay, and just why can’t they be tried? What they mean of course, is that the hundreds of men and boys imprisoned at Gitmo and the thousands of "detainees" the Obama Administration apparently anticipates arresting in the future cannot be convicted of any actual crime. Much like the Soviet Union, where putting enemies of the state on trial wasn't enough, conviction had to be guaranteed, or there would be no trial, just a long time in “detention”. The Soviets had their Gulag… and now we get “Detention Centers”. Obama stated that "Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted." If we follow the law, any terrorist suspect can be tried. Rightfully, anyone can be tried for committing any crime, within a specific jurisdiction. But consider that there is a Somali teenager sitting in a New York prison, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where U.S. law has no legal jurisdiction. Anyone accused of committing a crime can be tried. However, where the legal system still works it’s assumed that people against whom there is a "lack of evidence" are innocent. They walk. Where the rule of law prevails, in places free of leaders whose only concern is staying in power, "tainted evidence" is not even considered evidence. If you can't prove that the defendant committed a crime--an actual crime, not a thought crime—the last I heard you have to release him. Mr. Obama is a Law Proffessor 'fer 'th luvva Pete, and he dosen't understand that!? It’s amazing that after all the illegal things the Democrats accused President Bush of, they don’t understand these basic rules either. Obama's White House Counsel described him as "The first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law". Well, technically that is a form of change I guess, but probably not what many Obama supporters expected.
It’s ironic that the man who campaigned on “transparency in government” is less transparent than the president he attacked for excessive secrecy. At least Bush and Cheney believed they had the constitutional right to act in any way they saw fit, regardless of what the public understands about Constitutional law. Bush declared "I'm the decider" and he definitely meant it. This administration apparently believes it has the same right, and just pretends otherwise.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Alienated
“If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.” –Candidus in the Boston Gazette, 1772
I’ve commented several times in these pages that when I joined the armed forces of this nation I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. I’ve also stated that even now, in my declining years, I still consider that oath binding. The one question that always arises is, who is the enemy, and who has the authority to make such a declaration? Back in the “old days” that really wasn’t much of a problem, as the “enemy” was whoever the President and Congress jointly said they were. A few things have changed in the intervening years however, and have added quite a bit of confusion to the issue. The President of the United States is considered to be the supreme command authority by the armed forces, and by all federal agencies, and there are strict constitutional restraints placed on his exercise of power. But nowdays, it seems the President can determine that we have an enemy, without the advice and consent of Congress.
With the sole exception of habeas corpus, the Constitution does not allow the suspension of any of its provisions during a national emergency, yet with the “War and Emergency Powers Act of 1933”, Congress placed the United States under a “state of emergency” (and effectively suspended the Constitution), that has never rescinded that act. With this act, the President now has a variety of extraordinary powers to use in response to crisis or emergency circumstances threatening the nation, and they are not limited to military or war situations either. Some of these emergency powers are continuously available, while others exist on a standby basis and remain dormant until the President formally declares a national emergency. Under those dormant powers, the President may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize control of transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, and restrict travel, all within the United States, thus controlling the everyday lives of United States citizens. With this, if the President (not Congress) determines that a State of Emergency exists for whatever reason, he can immediately assume dictatorial powers. On top of that, we have Executive Order 11921, which states that Congress may not review any presidential emergency action for a period of six months! (After six months of a complete dictatorship, would we even have a congress?)
In the brief time Mr. Obama has been in office, we’ve had "truthers," "birthers," Tea Party activists and town-hall dissenters disturbing the loony left’s peace of mind, and I’ll bet causing more than a few ulcers. Now we have the "Oath Keepers", causing a few more sleepless nights at the White House. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oath Keepers, depending on your view, are "either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia." Recently formed, “they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders.” Thus, if the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate our Second Amendment rights by disarming the people (in obedience to Executive Orders), Oath Keepers say they will not obey. "The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," says founder Stewart Rhodes, an ex-Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.” "We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you." The establishment's reaction to the Oath Keepers will be interesting to watch. Particularly so as our political and media elite seem to have lost touch with the nation, and are locked into a socialist vision of America that is totally divorced from reality. If you think the Pelosi-Reid branch of the loony left went ballistic over town-hall protesters, you can imagine what they’ll do with the Oath Keepers! The credo of this group is expressed in their “Declaration of Orders We Will NOT Obey”, which states in part…
1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.
2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people
3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control."
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.
10. We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.
(The “Oath Keepers” can be found at: http://oathkeepers.org/oath/ )
One pundit wrote: “This sounds all well and good, if you do not obey the orders you will be relieved of duty, court-martialed, and thrown out of whatever service you are in. There is not enough of you to make a difference or to stop the government from doing what they want, or enforcing whatever law they decide to make against the American people.” He is in all likelihood correct as to their numbers, but their mere existence should give the government pause for thought. These are the same Americans who dedicated their lives to the defense of the nation and the American people. As to a Court-Martial, well… if they’re no longer in military service, they’re not subject to the UCMJ. If they are in military service, they’re duty bound not to obey illegal orders. And what can you do to a disobedient Cop… other than fire him? And I also noticed that they don’t say anything about starting the rebellion either.
Liberals are the people who cannot comprehend that Middle America distrusts its burgeoning liberal/socialist government, yet we’ve seen these folks many times before. They were Perot supporters in 1992, opposed NAFTA in 1993, blocked the Bush-Kennedy-McCain amnesty in 2007, and supported Ron Paul in 2008. America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right.
I’ve commented several times in these pages that when I joined the armed forces of this nation I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. I’ve also stated that even now, in my declining years, I still consider that oath binding. The one question that always arises is, who is the enemy, and who has the authority to make such a declaration? Back in the “old days” that really wasn’t much of a problem, as the “enemy” was whoever the President and Congress jointly said they were. A few things have changed in the intervening years however, and have added quite a bit of confusion to the issue. The President of the United States is considered to be the supreme command authority by the armed forces, and by all federal agencies, and there are strict constitutional restraints placed on his exercise of power. But nowdays, it seems the President can determine that we have an enemy, without the advice and consent of Congress.
With the sole exception of habeas corpus, the Constitution does not allow the suspension of any of its provisions during a national emergency, yet with the “War and Emergency Powers Act of 1933”, Congress placed the United States under a “state of emergency” (and effectively suspended the Constitution), that has never rescinded that act. With this act, the President now has a variety of extraordinary powers to use in response to crisis or emergency circumstances threatening the nation, and they are not limited to military or war situations either. Some of these emergency powers are continuously available, while others exist on a standby basis and remain dormant until the President formally declares a national emergency. Under those dormant powers, the President may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize control of transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, and restrict travel, all within the United States, thus controlling the everyday lives of United States citizens. With this, if the President (not Congress) determines that a State of Emergency exists for whatever reason, he can immediately assume dictatorial powers. On top of that, we have Executive Order 11921, which states that Congress may not review any presidential emergency action for a period of six months! (After six months of a complete dictatorship, would we even have a congress?)
In the brief time Mr. Obama has been in office, we’ve had "truthers," "birthers," Tea Party activists and town-hall dissenters disturbing the loony left’s peace of mind, and I’ll bet causing more than a few ulcers. Now we have the "Oath Keepers", causing a few more sleepless nights at the White House. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oath Keepers, depending on your view, are "either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia." Recently formed, “they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders.” Thus, if the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate our Second Amendment rights by disarming the people (in obedience to Executive Orders), Oath Keepers say they will not obey. "The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," says founder Stewart Rhodes, an ex-Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.” "We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you." The establishment's reaction to the Oath Keepers will be interesting to watch. Particularly so as our political and media elite seem to have lost touch with the nation, and are locked into a socialist vision of America that is totally divorced from reality. If you think the Pelosi-Reid branch of the loony left went ballistic over town-hall protesters, you can imagine what they’ll do with the Oath Keepers! The credo of this group is expressed in their “Declaration of Orders We Will NOT Obey”, which states in part…
1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.
2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people
3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control."
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.
10. We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.
(The “Oath Keepers” can be found at: http://oathkeepers.org/oath/ )
One pundit wrote: “This sounds all well and good, if you do not obey the orders you will be relieved of duty, court-martialed, and thrown out of whatever service you are in. There is not enough of you to make a difference or to stop the government from doing what they want, or enforcing whatever law they decide to make against the American people.” He is in all likelihood correct as to their numbers, but their mere existence should give the government pause for thought. These are the same Americans who dedicated their lives to the defense of the nation and the American people. As to a Court-Martial, well… if they’re no longer in military service, they’re not subject to the UCMJ. If they are in military service, they’re duty bound not to obey illegal orders. And what can you do to a disobedient Cop… other than fire him? And I also noticed that they don’t say anything about starting the rebellion either.
Liberals are the people who cannot comprehend that Middle America distrusts its burgeoning liberal/socialist government, yet we’ve seen these folks many times before. They were Perot supporters in 1992, opposed NAFTA in 1993, blocked the Bush-Kennedy-McCain amnesty in 2007, and supported Ron Paul in 2008. America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Destabilization
I read Kathy Hedberg’s recent column about tech-challenged folks the other day, and had to laugh quite a bit. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only person in the world that has trouble with computers and all these other new-fangled gadgets. Not that I’m computer illiterate you understand, just severely impaired. Our local computer guru considers me to be one of his steadiest customers, and a call to my place is his idea of the next best thing to a low-cost coffee shop. Strange as it may seem however I’m really not a total stranger to technology either. I used to be a radar and computer technician of sorts… back when the US Air Force had some of the biggest radars and the best computers in the world, even if they were the size of a very large barn, and took the greater part of Hoover Dam’s total output to power ‘em up. That of course was long ago and far away, back in the days when I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kid, and was proudly wearing the uniform of my countries armed forces.
Back in those days almost every kid was expected to serve a hitch in the military if he was physically qualified. Why? Well, among other things we were taught that as American citizens we had certain civic duties that included respecting our parents (and Mom’s apple pie), obeying the law, and defending the nation as needed. Those duties even included silly little things like being informed voters, although that was somewhat difficult at times. We somewhat reluctantly went to school, and even attended church on a semi-regular basis. In school we learned things like American history and how our government worked (well, how it used to work), and about a concept called patriotism, although I understand that in our modern day and age those subjects are considered propaganda and are very much out of favor with politically correct “educators”, while attending church taught us morality, and how to tell right from wrong. Christianity also seems to be somewhat politically incorrect nowdays as well. Some of us enlisted in the military directly out of high school, others went to college first, and quite a few went to work and waited for the draft to catch up with them, but eventually all of us had a chance at becoming soldiers.
It’s an old American tradition to avoid military service during peacetime, stemming I believe from our long distrust of large standing armies. Yet those same folks who avoided the military like the plague in peacetime were the first in line to enlist whenever war was forced upon us, and they proved to be pretty darn good soldiers. Most of us were imbued with the ideals of “Duty, Honor, Country”, (which just happens to be the West Point motto), irregardless of whether or not we realized that fact. Yet it seems like a lot of younger folk of today take the view that even wartime military service is only for fools and incompetents. Where, might we ask, after two hundred years of American dedication to the defense of our lifestyle and our country, have we lost that proud tradition?
Back in the 1950’s there were numerous books published that stressed the dangers of communism. The authors came from a very wide range of anti-communist zealots, people who had extensive experience with communism, and were very well aware of the threat. One fact constantly stressed by all was the threat of ideological subversion or “psychological warfare”, which is essentially a means to change the targeted person’s perceptions of reality. Most of us have heard the quote “if you tell a lie often and long enough, people will believe it”, and that is quite true. In the early 1800’s, many political thinkers observed the unfairness of the then almost feudal social/economic system existent in Europe, and began looking for a better way to do things. The ideas they developed were later described by Karl Marx in his rather turgid “Communist Manifesto”, were rapidly adopted by the socialists of the era, and were taught as gospel to their students. In America, philosophers (who were largely educators) were quick to follow the lead of their European brethren, and began teaching the glories of socialist theories to their students (a practice that continues to this day). Following the revolution, Russian communists under Lenin found a ready made following in the believers of American socialism, jumped to their aid, and soon began the subversion of the worlds leading capitalist country.
Essentially, communist subversion is divided into several stages, the first being Demoralization. Generally it takes about 15 to 30 years to demoralize a nation, because this is the time needed to educate one generation of students. Today, after being exposed to Marxist socialist ideology for three generations, with none of it being counter-balanced by morality and basic American values, is it really any wonder that so many of America’s youth are totally confused and lack any direction? Stage two is Destabilization. With a fragmented, demoralized people who have no idea of what or who they are, it only takes a few years to destabilize their economy and wreck their foreign relations. The nest stage of course is Crisis. It may take only a few weeks to bring the country to the verge of an internal crisis, as we often see happening in the third world. And after crisis with its violent changes of power, structure, and economy, you have so called period of normalization. Normalization is what happens when the following dictatorship assumes absolute power.
The Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight, and aptly demonstrated that Marxism is an unworkable political system. Still, once the demoralization of a nation has begun, it continues by its own inertia, and needs no further aid or direction from outside. Wannabe “Benevolent dictators” get themselves elected and will promise people all kind of goodies in order to continue destabilizing the nation… they will try to eliminate the principle of free market competition, wreck the economy, and will endeavor to put a Big Brother Government in charge of nearly everything. Once a dictator comes to power, all these fuzzy headed people who believe in a free lunch and who preach socialism are no longer needed, they will probably be lined up and shot. For an example of that we have only to look at the French revolution and the ensuing mass executions of the “Terror”.
Back in those days almost every kid was expected to serve a hitch in the military if he was physically qualified. Why? Well, among other things we were taught that as American citizens we had certain civic duties that included respecting our parents (and Mom’s apple pie), obeying the law, and defending the nation as needed. Those duties even included silly little things like being informed voters, although that was somewhat difficult at times. We somewhat reluctantly went to school, and even attended church on a semi-regular basis. In school we learned things like American history and how our government worked (well, how it used to work), and about a concept called patriotism, although I understand that in our modern day and age those subjects are considered propaganda and are very much out of favor with politically correct “educators”, while attending church taught us morality, and how to tell right from wrong. Christianity also seems to be somewhat politically incorrect nowdays as well. Some of us enlisted in the military directly out of high school, others went to college first, and quite a few went to work and waited for the draft to catch up with them, but eventually all of us had a chance at becoming soldiers.
It’s an old American tradition to avoid military service during peacetime, stemming I believe from our long distrust of large standing armies. Yet those same folks who avoided the military like the plague in peacetime were the first in line to enlist whenever war was forced upon us, and they proved to be pretty darn good soldiers. Most of us were imbued with the ideals of “Duty, Honor, Country”, (which just happens to be the West Point motto), irregardless of whether or not we realized that fact. Yet it seems like a lot of younger folk of today take the view that even wartime military service is only for fools and incompetents. Where, might we ask, after two hundred years of American dedication to the defense of our lifestyle and our country, have we lost that proud tradition?
Back in the 1950’s there were numerous books published that stressed the dangers of communism. The authors came from a very wide range of anti-communist zealots, people who had extensive experience with communism, and were very well aware of the threat. One fact constantly stressed by all was the threat of ideological subversion or “psychological warfare”, which is essentially a means to change the targeted person’s perceptions of reality. Most of us have heard the quote “if you tell a lie often and long enough, people will believe it”, and that is quite true. In the early 1800’s, many political thinkers observed the unfairness of the then almost feudal social/economic system existent in Europe, and began looking for a better way to do things. The ideas they developed were later described by Karl Marx in his rather turgid “Communist Manifesto”, were rapidly adopted by the socialists of the era, and were taught as gospel to their students. In America, philosophers (who were largely educators) were quick to follow the lead of their European brethren, and began teaching the glories of socialist theories to their students (a practice that continues to this day). Following the revolution, Russian communists under Lenin found a ready made following in the believers of American socialism, jumped to their aid, and soon began the subversion of the worlds leading capitalist country.
Essentially, communist subversion is divided into several stages, the first being Demoralization. Generally it takes about 15 to 30 years to demoralize a nation, because this is the time needed to educate one generation of students. Today, after being exposed to Marxist socialist ideology for three generations, with none of it being counter-balanced by morality and basic American values, is it really any wonder that so many of America’s youth are totally confused and lack any direction? Stage two is Destabilization. With a fragmented, demoralized people who have no idea of what or who they are, it only takes a few years to destabilize their economy and wreck their foreign relations. The nest stage of course is Crisis. It may take only a few weeks to bring the country to the verge of an internal crisis, as we often see happening in the third world. And after crisis with its violent changes of power, structure, and economy, you have so called period of normalization. Normalization is what happens when the following dictatorship assumes absolute power.
The Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight, and aptly demonstrated that Marxism is an unworkable political system. Still, once the demoralization of a nation has begun, it continues by its own inertia, and needs no further aid or direction from outside. Wannabe “Benevolent dictators” get themselves elected and will promise people all kind of goodies in order to continue destabilizing the nation… they will try to eliminate the principle of free market competition, wreck the economy, and will endeavor to put a Big Brother Government in charge of nearly everything. Once a dictator comes to power, all these fuzzy headed people who believe in a free lunch and who preach socialism are no longer needed, they will probably be lined up and shot. For an example of that we have only to look at the French revolution and the ensuing mass executions of the “Terror”.
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