Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has recently “laid down the law” to the several sovereign states, in the form of a Senate vote that singled out Texas, sending them a message that they’d better get back to doing what they're told by our nations capitol! And what brought this about? Well, the Governor of Texas, in accordance with the provisions of the 10th Amendment to the Bill of Rights, actually had the audacity to tell Washington “no.” Ignoring the “fact” that Sodom-on-the-Potomac is the source of all money and “we know best” wisdom, Texas said “no” to federal educational funding that comes with excessive strings attached. They said “no” to federal unemployment insurance funding that comes with similar strings. And they said “no” to federal interference with state authority to regulate gas and oil exploration. Apparently, as per our illustrious congress, we must jump when Washington says “jump”, but when we don’t… the powers that be along the Potomac will punish us by withholding federal funds. But where do they think those funds come from?
It’s surprising to me that so many Americans don’t understand how all this works. In days long past, local government (local [county] people) collected the taxes, allocating a portion of those funds to the state government. From there, the state handed a pittance to the federal government, which did not have the authority to levy taxes on the citizens. Additionally, the feds were allowed to collect import fees and such, which gave them enough of an annual income to function within their constitutionally defined limits, if they maintained a balanced budget and didn’t get carried away with foreign adventures. Our currency was based on the limited supply of gold and silver, which meant that the government couldn’t issue paper “fiat” money either. The national government did have the authority to borrow money when necessary, but the payments on that debt were required to come from the rather limited annual budget. The President could ask Congress for money of course, but the House of Representatives, as the direct representatives of the citizenry, held the purse strings and if they said “no”, the President had best figure out some other way to finance his bright ideas. The Senate got into the act as well, representing the best interests of the sovereign states, NOT the people therein, and if the House cooked up some wild scheme that might cause untoward national suffering, the “cooler and wiser” heads in the Senate retained the power to tell the House “no”, by refusing to vote in favor of whatever bill.
Overall the nation’s economy worked pretty well under the old system, although there were occasional up’s and downs, usually brought about by the “get rich quick” shenanigans of both homegrown and foreign bankers, assorted financiers, and the occasional corporate “Robber Baron”. Naturally, and as has happened throughout human history, the rich slowly got richer and the poor slowly got poorer. But still, if the rich guy made an error in judgment (and lacking federal “bailout” funds), his fortune could disappear overnight. If the poor guy decided that enough was enough, he could always load up the family wagon and head west where he could, with a little luck, make his own fortune. It was a boom time for a young “Rough and Ready” nation that believed in individual liberty, personal responsibility, and the freedom to do what you darn well pleased without government interference. Then came the Civil War… and the federal government’s appropriation of the power to extort taxes directly from the citizen. Used in an on-again off-again manner for years, it became permanent in 1913 with the 16th amendment. 1913 was a bad year for the country, as it also saw the adoption of the 17th amendment which allowed the direct election of US Senators. Coincidentally, the 1860’s were also the era in which the theories of socialism reared their ugly head in Europe, and promptly immigrated to the United States where it soon found a ready audience among the poorest inhabitants of our larger cities. Today our tax dollars are handed out to nearly everyone who thinks they have an social entitlement to the wealth of the nation (or might vote for leftist politicians), even if they didn’t do anything to earn it. (See what happens when you don’t control immigration…)
The thirteen American colonies separated from the British Empire in the course of a severe disagreement over taxes, specifically the question of “Taxation without representation”. Now, the descendents of those colonists are finding themselves burdened with excessive taxes and a skyrocketing national debt, that our representatives can’t seem to get a handle on. Even worse, government at all levels is making every effort to increase our taxes even more so they can provide the “services” and “entitlements” that so many unproductive Americans demand. Taxes that quite obviously come out of our pockets, and then are handed out to all sorts of unnecessary government agencies where the money inevitably ends up buying votes for liberally minded politicians. Since the days of the New Deal the federal government has used our tax monies to make state and local government (along with the American public) dependent of federal largess, and has used the threat of withholding those tax dollars to bend us to federal will, which is exactly what Texas is presently attempting to avoid. ‘Course nobody seems to realize that if those taxes were collected locally, and distributed locally, as was done in days long past, the overall tax bill would be a whole lot lower, and we’d all be ahead of the game… well, except for the Gestapo agents employed by the IRS perhaps.
The uproar in Texas has yet again brought up the question of secession. A question that has nearly everyone in the country upset it seems. The loony left is foaming at the mouth because if the Union broke apart they’d then loose their free ride at taxpayer expense, while the radical right is climbing the walls because they are sick and tired of being forced to pay for every crazy thing the left thinks up. Several states have already filed legal challenges to federal usurpation of the states constitutional authority, and many more are preparing to do so. All across America secessionist groups are forming. They are forming out of anger and out of desperation at the thought of America becoming just another footnote in history. They're not terrorists as the Department of Homeland security would have us believe, nor are they the radicalized militia groups the media so loves to hate; they’re Americans purely and simply, loyal to our constitution. Today they’re fragmented, each focused on their own cause. But sometime in the near future our government is going to do something really stupid, and these groups will finally come together. When that happens, the left will be in serious trouble, and our country is going to be plunged into economic and political chaos that’s going to last for quite a while.
So, is it time for the United States of America to dissolve? I would hope not, but I sure don’t want to be standing around when Washington DC tells the Texicans they have to bail out California’s failed social programs in the name of “sharing the wealth”!
Monday, August 16, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Experts
"A lie makes it halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its shoes on in the morning." - Winston Churchill
For most of my life I’ve had an abiding interest in the various sciences, and I’d like to think I have a fair understanding of the basics at least. Scientists are for the most part pretty sharp people, and usually are the undisputed experts in their respective fields. With that expertise goes fame and fortune, along with a good deal of public trust. Historically, scientists lived up to expectation, even if they did get into some real donnybrooks among their peers! (In particular I’m thinking of the 1870’s “bone wars” between paleontologists Marsh and Cope, over who first discovered what dinosaur.) None-the-less, scientists were pretty honest about their studies, findings, and conclusions. In recent times however, attitudes seem to be changing somewhat. Consider the thousands of scientists we’ve heard, weeping and wailing, as they discuss the threat of “global warming” and the outlook for humanity. All the problems, according to them, are the result of mankind’s dependence on fossil fuels. But if we check into their credentials we find that a very large percentage of them have absolutely no expertise on the realm of climatology or metrology, and were merely parroting the unsubstantiated work (some of which was deliberately falsified) of others!
Science is and must be precise, rigorous, and above all accurate. Science is after all about discovering laws of nature that have existed forever. Newton “discovered” (not invented) the laws of gravity, while Einstein discovered (not invented) the theory of relativity. The invention of the computer, of aeronautics, rocketry, or even of the internet, was not science, it’s nothing more (or less) than an expansion of technology and engineering. Most inventions however are based on prior scientific discoveries such as thermodynamics, electromagnetism, solid-state physics, abstract mathematics, Boolean logic, fluid dynamics and so on.
Like the soothsayers of old, scientists want to predict the future. To do so they have devised many a theory, many a mathematical model that provides some insight as to how things might work, allowing them to predict what will happen in the future. With that, it’s possible to predict the positions of the Sun, the Moon, and the stars for hundreds of years to come quite accurately. Yet an accurate forecast of the weather for the day after tomorrow is quite difficult. (I reckon that’s why we called the weather forecasters “Weather Guessers” back in the days when I was flying.)
.
Mathematics is the preeminent tool of science, providing the means to analyze, correlate, predict and express physical or natural phenomenon. Mathematic results are also very hard to fake, unless the input data is erroronious, either by observational error, carelessness, or in some cases deliberately to gain a certain result. For the soft sciences (human behavior, social interactions, “polls” and such), a branch of mathematics called statistics is quite useful, along with being one of the most misunderstood and misused forms of mathematics.
Twisted statistical data, and the suppression of key points leads to numerous examples of flawed reasoning. The “science” of statistics uses irreproducible experiments, disregards peer review, sometimes passes fiction as fact, and a number of other techniques, which are used in the promotion of the pseudo-science known as “public opinion polls”. (Pseudo-science looks like science and sounds like science to most non-scientists, but is purely “junk science” none-the-less.) The fallibility of statistics led to coining the phrase “Lies, damn lies and statistics”. Consider, a few years back, an analysis of traffic accidents showed that 70% of auto accidents happen within 10 miles of home. This led to the idea that people are more careless when they are close to home. While the statistic might be true, their interpretation was erroronious. The reason why most accidents happen close to home is that most of the time, people are close to home! Using the techniques of junk science, you can almost always prove that you’re right no matter what the claim. Consider that global warming is a plausible phenomenon, and there is evidence that the earth is warming, but there is no conclusive proof that global warming is real. (It’s a hypothesis, not a proven fact). However, environmentalism and flawed statistics have raised global warming to the arena of gospel truth, thus allowing Al Gore to make a lot of money from a movie (and collect a Nobel Prize)!
The science of statistics is also an effective tool in political propaganda and activism. If you want to promote socialism for example, merely run a study that shows socialism has wonderful advantages and effects, while the lack of socialism leads to hunger, famines, depravation and such. (You do have to conveniently ignore the experience of the socialist world over the last few decades though.) Such science is a dangerous yet convincing version of the scientific process. You may not read the journals every day, but if it is not peer reviewed, and tested by independent scientists, it can’t be relied on.
Such faulty "Junk science" is often used to advance special, and often hidden, agendas, as we see nearly every day. The mass media may use junk science to generate sensational headlines, while other members of the media use it to advance their social and political agendas. Personal injury lawyers often use such junk science to fool juries into awarding huge settlements, then use the verdict to extort even more money from businesses fearful of future cases. Social activists use such “science” to achieve their goals in environmentalism, welfare, and gun-control. Bureaucrats commonly use junk science to expand their authority and to increase their cut of the budget pie. As was done with global warming, politicians can use junk science to gain favor with assorted special interest groups or to be "politically correct." And finally it’s amazing how many “community activists” use such junk science to blame our free society for the problems of the poor and underprivileged, all over the world.
For most of my life I’ve had an abiding interest in the various sciences, and I’d like to think I have a fair understanding of the basics at least. Scientists are for the most part pretty sharp people, and usually are the undisputed experts in their respective fields. With that expertise goes fame and fortune, along with a good deal of public trust. Historically, scientists lived up to expectation, even if they did get into some real donnybrooks among their peers! (In particular I’m thinking of the 1870’s “bone wars” between paleontologists Marsh and Cope, over who first discovered what dinosaur.) None-the-less, scientists were pretty honest about their studies, findings, and conclusions. In recent times however, attitudes seem to be changing somewhat. Consider the thousands of scientists we’ve heard, weeping and wailing, as they discuss the threat of “global warming” and the outlook for humanity. All the problems, according to them, are the result of mankind’s dependence on fossil fuels. But if we check into their credentials we find that a very large percentage of them have absolutely no expertise on the realm of climatology or metrology, and were merely parroting the unsubstantiated work (some of which was deliberately falsified) of others!
Science is and must be precise, rigorous, and above all accurate. Science is after all about discovering laws of nature that have existed forever. Newton “discovered” (not invented) the laws of gravity, while Einstein discovered (not invented) the theory of relativity. The invention of the computer, of aeronautics, rocketry, or even of the internet, was not science, it’s nothing more (or less) than an expansion of technology and engineering. Most inventions however are based on prior scientific discoveries such as thermodynamics, electromagnetism, solid-state physics, abstract mathematics, Boolean logic, fluid dynamics and so on.
Like the soothsayers of old, scientists want to predict the future. To do so they have devised many a theory, many a mathematical model that provides some insight as to how things might work, allowing them to predict what will happen in the future. With that, it’s possible to predict the positions of the Sun, the Moon, and the stars for hundreds of years to come quite accurately. Yet an accurate forecast of the weather for the day after tomorrow is quite difficult. (I reckon that’s why we called the weather forecasters “Weather Guessers” back in the days when I was flying.)
.
Mathematics is the preeminent tool of science, providing the means to analyze, correlate, predict and express physical or natural phenomenon. Mathematic results are also very hard to fake, unless the input data is erroronious, either by observational error, carelessness, or in some cases deliberately to gain a certain result. For the soft sciences (human behavior, social interactions, “polls” and such), a branch of mathematics called statistics is quite useful, along with being one of the most misunderstood and misused forms of mathematics.
Twisted statistical data, and the suppression of key points leads to numerous examples of flawed reasoning. The “science” of statistics uses irreproducible experiments, disregards peer review, sometimes passes fiction as fact, and a number of other techniques, which are used in the promotion of the pseudo-science known as “public opinion polls”. (Pseudo-science looks like science and sounds like science to most non-scientists, but is purely “junk science” none-the-less.) The fallibility of statistics led to coining the phrase “Lies, damn lies and statistics”. Consider, a few years back, an analysis of traffic accidents showed that 70% of auto accidents happen within 10 miles of home. This led to the idea that people are more careless when they are close to home. While the statistic might be true, their interpretation was erroronious. The reason why most accidents happen close to home is that most of the time, people are close to home! Using the techniques of junk science, you can almost always prove that you’re right no matter what the claim. Consider that global warming is a plausible phenomenon, and there is evidence that the earth is warming, but there is no conclusive proof that global warming is real. (It’s a hypothesis, not a proven fact). However, environmentalism and flawed statistics have raised global warming to the arena of gospel truth, thus allowing Al Gore to make a lot of money from a movie (and collect a Nobel Prize)!
The science of statistics is also an effective tool in political propaganda and activism. If you want to promote socialism for example, merely run a study that shows socialism has wonderful advantages and effects, while the lack of socialism leads to hunger, famines, depravation and such. (You do have to conveniently ignore the experience of the socialist world over the last few decades though.) Such science is a dangerous yet convincing version of the scientific process. You may not read the journals every day, but if it is not peer reviewed, and tested by independent scientists, it can’t be relied on.
Such faulty "Junk science" is often used to advance special, and often hidden, agendas, as we see nearly every day. The mass media may use junk science to generate sensational headlines, while other members of the media use it to advance their social and political agendas. Personal injury lawyers often use such junk science to fool juries into awarding huge settlements, then use the verdict to extort even more money from businesses fearful of future cases. Social activists use such “science” to achieve their goals in environmentalism, welfare, and gun-control. Bureaucrats commonly use junk science to expand their authority and to increase their cut of the budget pie. As was done with global warming, politicians can use junk science to gain favor with assorted special interest groups or to be "politically correct." And finally it’s amazing how many “community activists” use such junk science to blame our free society for the problems of the poor and underprivileged, all over the world.
We the People (again)
I recently watched an on-line video that I thought was quite impressive, certainly patriotic, and definitely to the point. I also understand that it has leftists, or at least a large number of them, literally foaming at the mouth. For anyone with a computer and who might be interested it can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVAhr4hZDJE, but I’d suggest that hard core believers in Mr. Obama’s vision for America give it a pass. Presented in the form of an open letter to “President Obama”, it starts with;
“We the People” have stated resolutely we reject your vision for our country. You claim you have not heard us.
“We the People” have assembled across America resisting your efforts to subvert our constitution and undermine our liberty. You claim you have not seen us.
“We the People”… While the left endlessly belabors the point in claiming to represent the majority of Americans, it is “we the people”, as in American citizens in large numbers, who oppose the “change” being forced upon us. If you follow the polls, something like 63.4%, or two thirds of the American people, do oppose Mr. Obama’s version of America, some quietly, and others quiet vocally. Granted that he did receive a majority of the vote in 2008, something like 52.9% to Sen. McCain’s 45%, we really should keep in mind that of an estimated 208 million eligible voters in this country, only 131 million voted in the last election. Then, considering how worked up the liberal left was over Mr. Obama’s candidacy, I rather think that the percentage of liberals who turned out to vote far exceeded the percentage of conservatives, skewing the numbers in their favor. This of course does not reflect well on the Conservatives who did not bother to vote for whatever reason. Certainly anyone who did not cast their ballot in the last election has no grounds for complaint if things aren’t going the way they’d like, or if the world seems to be falling apart around their ears!
“We the People” goes on to say: “Our greatest treasure is freedom -- the absence of restraints on our ability to think and to act. The corollary of freedom is individual responsibility. We believe in the power of the individual.” I can hardly argue that point! Every dictator, every tyrant in history, has engaged in a massive effort to control what subjugated people say, what they think, and how they act. But the ability to think for oneself, and hopefully act accordingly, is the single God Given right that no man can ever take away from us. It might become dulled through endlessly repeated lies and political propaganda, it might become misguided in those people who willingly believe everything they’re told, but the right to think for oneself can be ended only by death. With that ability to think goes individual responsibility. We are after all, individually responsible for our actions. (“The ‘debble made me do it” isn’t acceptable.) We might use the age old excuse of “but I didn’t think…” which seems to be getting more popular every day, but it makes no difference if an individual thinks or just follows the herd, he does have the ability to think, and is thus solely responsible for his action or inaction.
A few years ago President Bush said, “History moves toward freedom because the desire for freedom is written in every human heart.” Quite so… quite so… How many people through the centuries have risked all, even their lives, to escape tyranny? Remember the people trying to cross the Berlin wall? Strangely enough, many of those people escaped to this country, the United States of America! How ironic it is that many of their descendants now toy with the idea of rejecting freedom, in favor of liberal socialism, while so many others are “to busy” to defend that freedom!
Let us add that we will preserve it only as long as devotion to freedom is expressed in the heart of our actions. When President Lincoln dedicated Gettysburg National Cemetery he declared, “It is for us the living . . . to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus so nobly advanced.”
Abe was right of course, the cause of freedom is… and will always be… an unfinished work. No matter how long and hard we fight in the cause of liberty, there will always be those who would enslave us. And today we’re doing little more than muttering and grumbling, allowing the loony left to “… have expanded government, violated our constitution, confounded laws, seized private industry, destroyed jobs, perverted our economy, curtailed free speech, corrupted our currency, weakened our national security and endangered our sovereignty.
By compromising our nation’s cultural, legal and economic institutions, you are ensuring that our children will never achieve the same quality of life as we enjoy today. Through generational theft you are robbing the unborn of opportunity. This is not acceptable. Not in America.
I for one refuse to believe that America’s “golden age” of liberty is behind us, and all that’s left for us is nothing more than a miserable existence as just another third world country. We are an exceptional nation and exceptional people that should be leading the world into an era of peace and prosperity, not just “sharing” the limited wealth we presently have, and with that leading the way down the slippery slope to misery, want, communism and hopelessness.
If you have a problem with how the country is being run, don't just whimper and whine about it, GO OUT AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Do you really think politicians are interested in our arguments with each other?! We all gripe and moan about left wing - right wing politics, but when the truth of the matter is examined, they all play for the same team and they don’t care about anything but their assumed power and authority. Regardless of who's right and who’s wrong, it's not the government that will be our downfall, it's the division among American conservatives that will allow a runaway liberal government to destroy our freedom. Does anyone remember hearing the phrase "United We Stand, Divided We Fall"?
“NO WE WON’T” in 2012!! I can see November from my house, and if we act together, it’s all over for Obama.
“We the People” have stated resolutely we reject your vision for our country. You claim you have not heard us.
“We the People” have assembled across America resisting your efforts to subvert our constitution and undermine our liberty. You claim you have not seen us.
“We the People”… While the left endlessly belabors the point in claiming to represent the majority of Americans, it is “we the people”, as in American citizens in large numbers, who oppose the “change” being forced upon us. If you follow the polls, something like 63.4%, or two thirds of the American people, do oppose Mr. Obama’s version of America, some quietly, and others quiet vocally. Granted that he did receive a majority of the vote in 2008, something like 52.9% to Sen. McCain’s 45%, we really should keep in mind that of an estimated 208 million eligible voters in this country, only 131 million voted in the last election. Then, considering how worked up the liberal left was over Mr. Obama’s candidacy, I rather think that the percentage of liberals who turned out to vote far exceeded the percentage of conservatives, skewing the numbers in their favor. This of course does not reflect well on the Conservatives who did not bother to vote for whatever reason. Certainly anyone who did not cast their ballot in the last election has no grounds for complaint if things aren’t going the way they’d like, or if the world seems to be falling apart around their ears!
“We the People” goes on to say: “Our greatest treasure is freedom -- the absence of restraints on our ability to think and to act. The corollary of freedom is individual responsibility. We believe in the power of the individual.” I can hardly argue that point! Every dictator, every tyrant in history, has engaged in a massive effort to control what subjugated people say, what they think, and how they act. But the ability to think for oneself, and hopefully act accordingly, is the single God Given right that no man can ever take away from us. It might become dulled through endlessly repeated lies and political propaganda, it might become misguided in those people who willingly believe everything they’re told, but the right to think for oneself can be ended only by death. With that ability to think goes individual responsibility. We are after all, individually responsible for our actions. (“The ‘debble made me do it” isn’t acceptable.) We might use the age old excuse of “but I didn’t think…” which seems to be getting more popular every day, but it makes no difference if an individual thinks or just follows the herd, he does have the ability to think, and is thus solely responsible for his action or inaction.
A few years ago President Bush said, “History moves toward freedom because the desire for freedom is written in every human heart.” Quite so… quite so… How many people through the centuries have risked all, even their lives, to escape tyranny? Remember the people trying to cross the Berlin wall? Strangely enough, many of those people escaped to this country, the United States of America! How ironic it is that many of their descendants now toy with the idea of rejecting freedom, in favor of liberal socialism, while so many others are “to busy” to defend that freedom!
Let us add that we will preserve it only as long as devotion to freedom is expressed in the heart of our actions. When President Lincoln dedicated Gettysburg National Cemetery he declared, “It is for us the living . . . to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus so nobly advanced.”
Abe was right of course, the cause of freedom is… and will always be… an unfinished work. No matter how long and hard we fight in the cause of liberty, there will always be those who would enslave us. And today we’re doing little more than muttering and grumbling, allowing the loony left to “… have expanded government, violated our constitution, confounded laws, seized private industry, destroyed jobs, perverted our economy, curtailed free speech, corrupted our currency, weakened our national security and endangered our sovereignty.
By compromising our nation’s cultural, legal and economic institutions, you are ensuring that our children will never achieve the same quality of life as we enjoy today. Through generational theft you are robbing the unborn of opportunity. This is not acceptable. Not in America.
I for one refuse to believe that America’s “golden age” of liberty is behind us, and all that’s left for us is nothing more than a miserable existence as just another third world country. We are an exceptional nation and exceptional people that should be leading the world into an era of peace and prosperity, not just “sharing” the limited wealth we presently have, and with that leading the way down the slippery slope to misery, want, communism and hopelessness.
If you have a problem with how the country is being run, don't just whimper and whine about it, GO OUT AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Do you really think politicians are interested in our arguments with each other?! We all gripe and moan about left wing - right wing politics, but when the truth of the matter is examined, they all play for the same team and they don’t care about anything but their assumed power and authority. Regardless of who's right and who’s wrong, it's not the government that will be our downfall, it's the division among American conservatives that will allow a runaway liberal government to destroy our freedom. Does anyone remember hearing the phrase "United We Stand, Divided We Fall"?
“NO WE WON’T” in 2012!! I can see November from my house, and if we act together, it’s all over for Obama.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Crash!
I’m usually pretty flippant about end of the world predictions. To my mind, when I run out of Irish whiskey and cigars, that’s very definitely a “the end of the world” scenario, with anything else merely a minor inconvenience. Yet I’m constantly bombarded by quite serious news articles predicting assorted disasters in the news, often written by some pretty solid people who are neither prone to panic nor believers in conspiracy theories. It seems they are getting very concerned about the potential end of the world as we know it. Granted that there are plenty of options available, so take your pick I guess. We’ve nearly all seen the movie “2012”, or at least understand the claims about the foreboding end of the Mayan calendar cycle. Well, Hollywierd might wax hysterical about that one, but the Mayans don’t seem to be very concerned. Heck, our calendar runs out every year, and rather than the world ending, we just start a new calendar. And we seem to have survived Y2K as well. There are always the stories about incoming “planet killer” asteroids, but the last one to hit us happened 65 million years ago. The Yellowstone super volcano could blow up as well, but that last happened 640,000 years ago. Both of these are distinct possibilities (a case of “when it happens”, not “if it happens”), but there’s not much we could do about it, and neither is predicted for the immediate future. We also have the run-of-the-mill disasters, including floods, hurricanes, winter storms, oil spills, crime waves, riots and such, but they hardly rate as world threatening incidents. Terrorists with a nuclear weapon or two might rearrange the local real estate someplace, and the threat of Islamic bio-weapons are certainly a concern, but I rather doubt that they’d kill off the entire human population. The threat of a global thermonuclear war is still a rumble in the background, but things are reasonably quiet on that front. We also have the theoretical “heat death” of the universe in a few trillion years (unless the equally theoretical “big crunch” comes first), but again, I doubt that any of us will be around to see it happen. Finally we have the biblical “end of days”, but when that day comes about all anyone can do is stand quietly, hat in hand, and hope ‘ya haven’t done too many bad things in your life. (Bankers, Lawyers, Politicians and Corporate CEO’s beware!)
So what is it that concerns these solid citizens who are predicting “the end”? A much more mundane subject I’m afraid, as when Sen. Judd Gregg (R) of New Hampshire recently stated his fears that the United States is on a course for economic disaster. Gregg said that the overwhelming debt and exploding deficits will lead to "the financial meltdown of our nation.” Along with that comment, a large number of economists and financial experts are predicting pretty much the same thing. After all, what can happen when unemployment seems locked in at 10%, and Washington is loading down the taxpayers with huge new entitlement programs on top of huge old entitlement programs… and printing trillions of inflated dollars to pay for it all? Well, I would say that such a meltdown is a distinct possibility, along with probably being a whole lot closer than I care to think about! After all, we can’t keep spending money we don’t have. Despite the beliefs of the left, the United States is not swimming in wealth, and what wealth we do have is more a case of cash flow, not money in the bank. And we’ve been supporting most of the world since the end of WW II as it is. Considering that the entire western world has been swimming in a massive pool of debt, with many nations facing the imminent specter of bankruptcy, I rather do think we are facing the “end of the world”, or at least our old familiar world. Sure, humanity as a species will survive, the planet will still be here, along with the sea and the sky, but human civilization “as we know it” is due for a massive shake-up!
We all saw what happened to the Russians when the Soviet economy collapsed, and it wasn’t pretty. But we might remember that the Russian empire, vast as it was, is still a fairly limited part of the world, and besides, the western nations poured plenty of money and resources into keeping things from completely falling apart. Russia itself, with the resources of Siberia to draw on, is coming along fairly well nowdays. Most of the “Beserkistan” republics are still functioning, abit with lots of foreign help and their normal low standard of living. But what happens when a highly urbanized industrial nation such as the United States suffers an economic collapse, and drags the rest of the western world down with it? The worldwide grid goes down, that’s what happens! No work, no electricity, no telephones, no food deliveries, no “energy” available, the banks are closed, the factories are closed, and there’s no benign socialist Obama government to assist us! By Golly, we just might have to survive on our own! ‘Course a lot of folks claim that something like that really couldn’t happen to us… the gub’ment wouldn’t allow it. Ain’t wistful thinking grand!? Something just doesn’t smell right here, and that little alarm bell is ringing in the back of my head.
Naturally the first question that comes to mind is… what can we do about it? And the first answer is… load the old pick-up with groceries and head for the hills, a response that might be realistic under a full scale nuclear attack, but unless you happen to have an insane income your options are rather limited. Property “in the hills” is expensive, while farmers, ranchers, and Smokey Bear all get really upset when they find you squatting on their land. So, without a fully equipped and stocked vacation cabin off in the woods, that may not be your best bet… well, unless you live in a heavily populated urban area, in which case I’d say it’s probably time to “get out of Dodge”. Most of us have enough groceries stashed in the pantry to last for some time, but can you feed the family for a year, or even longer? And how do you plan to cook that food without gas, electricity, or whatever? How about heating the house through the winter? Not everybody has wood heat in this day and age. Water is a necessity of life, and what do you do when nothing comes out of the tap anymore?
Many individuals might have a lot of skills that are useful in a survival situation, and even I could handle most things in a pinch. But I’m not so great that that I could do all those needed things in a hurry! I’m a fair medic but I’m certainly not a surgeon. I could grow a garden if needed, but I’m not a farmer or gardener, and any food I manage to grow would likely be at a sustenance level more than anything else, leaving me to doubt that I’d have a lot of time to apply to other desperately needed projects. Consider, I used to know several wannabe pioneer type mountaineers that figured they could head for the high country and live off the land. Perhaps… but even the Indians didn’t try that one in the winter, and their survival skills were a whole lot better than ours are!
If you live in a small town, your best option may well be to stay home, and work on the “what do we do” situation within the community. After all, most communities have nearly every skill imaginable available to them, the infrastructure is already in place, as is the social organization. Most counties and some towns have an Emergency Management Office that does an excellent job of planning for, and handling, fires, floods, and Ice Storms. They also consider the really big possibilities, but… in a real crunch… and when no aid will be forthcoming from the feds or the state, I rather think those offices are going to find themselves overloaded, and we are surely going to be totally on our own. After all, can we realistically expect the County to stash away a years supply of groceries… for all of us!? So how about we, as individuals, follow the old Boy Scout motto of “Be Prepared”, and at least come up with a generalized community wide plan of of what we would need to handle the unthinkable?
So what is it that concerns these solid citizens who are predicting “the end”? A much more mundane subject I’m afraid, as when Sen. Judd Gregg (R) of New Hampshire recently stated his fears that the United States is on a course for economic disaster. Gregg said that the overwhelming debt and exploding deficits will lead to "the financial meltdown of our nation.” Along with that comment, a large number of economists and financial experts are predicting pretty much the same thing. After all, what can happen when unemployment seems locked in at 10%, and Washington is loading down the taxpayers with huge new entitlement programs on top of huge old entitlement programs… and printing trillions of inflated dollars to pay for it all? Well, I would say that such a meltdown is a distinct possibility, along with probably being a whole lot closer than I care to think about! After all, we can’t keep spending money we don’t have. Despite the beliefs of the left, the United States is not swimming in wealth, and what wealth we do have is more a case of cash flow, not money in the bank. And we’ve been supporting most of the world since the end of WW II as it is. Considering that the entire western world has been swimming in a massive pool of debt, with many nations facing the imminent specter of bankruptcy, I rather do think we are facing the “end of the world”, or at least our old familiar world. Sure, humanity as a species will survive, the planet will still be here, along with the sea and the sky, but human civilization “as we know it” is due for a massive shake-up!
We all saw what happened to the Russians when the Soviet economy collapsed, and it wasn’t pretty. But we might remember that the Russian empire, vast as it was, is still a fairly limited part of the world, and besides, the western nations poured plenty of money and resources into keeping things from completely falling apart. Russia itself, with the resources of Siberia to draw on, is coming along fairly well nowdays. Most of the “Beserkistan” republics are still functioning, abit with lots of foreign help and their normal low standard of living. But what happens when a highly urbanized industrial nation such as the United States suffers an economic collapse, and drags the rest of the western world down with it? The worldwide grid goes down, that’s what happens! No work, no electricity, no telephones, no food deliveries, no “energy” available, the banks are closed, the factories are closed, and there’s no benign socialist Obama government to assist us! By Golly, we just might have to survive on our own! ‘Course a lot of folks claim that something like that really couldn’t happen to us… the gub’ment wouldn’t allow it. Ain’t wistful thinking grand!? Something just doesn’t smell right here, and that little alarm bell is ringing in the back of my head.
Naturally the first question that comes to mind is… what can we do about it? And the first answer is… load the old pick-up with groceries and head for the hills, a response that might be realistic under a full scale nuclear attack, but unless you happen to have an insane income your options are rather limited. Property “in the hills” is expensive, while farmers, ranchers, and Smokey Bear all get really upset when they find you squatting on their land. So, without a fully equipped and stocked vacation cabin off in the woods, that may not be your best bet… well, unless you live in a heavily populated urban area, in which case I’d say it’s probably time to “get out of Dodge”. Most of us have enough groceries stashed in the pantry to last for some time, but can you feed the family for a year, or even longer? And how do you plan to cook that food without gas, electricity, or whatever? How about heating the house through the winter? Not everybody has wood heat in this day and age. Water is a necessity of life, and what do you do when nothing comes out of the tap anymore?
Many individuals might have a lot of skills that are useful in a survival situation, and even I could handle most things in a pinch. But I’m not so great that that I could do all those needed things in a hurry! I’m a fair medic but I’m certainly not a surgeon. I could grow a garden if needed, but I’m not a farmer or gardener, and any food I manage to grow would likely be at a sustenance level more than anything else, leaving me to doubt that I’d have a lot of time to apply to other desperately needed projects. Consider, I used to know several wannabe pioneer type mountaineers that figured they could head for the high country and live off the land. Perhaps… but even the Indians didn’t try that one in the winter, and their survival skills were a whole lot better than ours are!
If you live in a small town, your best option may well be to stay home, and work on the “what do we do” situation within the community. After all, most communities have nearly every skill imaginable available to them, the infrastructure is already in place, as is the social organization. Most counties and some towns have an Emergency Management Office that does an excellent job of planning for, and handling, fires, floods, and Ice Storms. They also consider the really big possibilities, but… in a real crunch… and when no aid will be forthcoming from the feds or the state, I rather think those offices are going to find themselves overloaded, and we are surely going to be totally on our own. After all, can we realistically expect the County to stash away a years supply of groceries… for all of us!? So how about we, as individuals, follow the old Boy Scout motto of “Be Prepared”, and at least come up with a generalized community wide plan of of what we would need to handle the unthinkable?
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Alvin Greene
Bill Warner of Yucca Valley Calif. is hardly naïve, understanding that in the world of American politics, his little group — the Lincoln Club of the Morongo Basin — is hardly a drop in the bucket of political power and influence. Its purpose he claims is "to promote, educate and advance conservative principles of fiscal responsibility, small limited government, free enterprise, the rule of law, private property rights, and the preservation and protection of individual liberty." The group has only 25 members, and has raised around $10,000 to further its goals. "It's our way of doing what we can do," he says. Warner is 65 and soft-spoken, the kind who asks questions before making decisions, and doesn't consider himself either a rabble-rouser or "tea party-er." Yet in March, Warner packed up and drove to Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nev., to join thousands of others at a tea party protesting today’s big government.
Annamarie Miller is a schoolteacher with a love of history and ideas. Though hardly menacing, she is a renegade who refuses to take any authority figure's word at face value. That she says began during her student days at California State University, and "I became disillusioned by the revisionism of history. A lot of stuff they were teaching me twisted the truth." Inspired by campaign literature, she began to question the "truths" of authorities.
Two more or less ordinary people… neither are rich and famous, and neither are “powers in the land”. Both seem to be more or less ordinary citizens who are “fed-up” with the current political situation in our nation. Nor are they alone. It is this kind of action that helped tea party favorite Sharron Angle capture the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Nevada, who is now challenging Majority Leader Harry Reid. It helped tea party darlings Raul Labrador here in Idaho and Todd Lally in Kentucky win their congressional primaries. It helped libertarian Rand Paul beat out an establishment candidate in Kentucky. The tea party movement is after-all a loose knit coalition of individuals and groups who are somewhat upset by Washington’s continued spending, our constantly rising taxes, constant raids on our individual liberty, and the uncontrolled growth of government.
On the Sept. 7th 2008 broadcast of "Meet the Press", then Senator Obama was asked about his position on the American Flag by retired USAF General Bill Ginn, and explained that "The National Anthem should be 'swapped' for something less parochial and less bellicose. I like the song 'I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing'. If that were our anthem, then, I might salute it. In my opinion, we should consider reinventing our National Anthem as well as 'redesign' our Flag to better offer our enemies hope and love. It's my intention, if elected, to disarm America to the level of acceptance to our Middle East Brethren. If we, as a Nation of warring people, conduct ourselves like the nations of Islam, where peace prevails - - - perhaps a state or period of mutual accord could exist between our governments ."
“When I become President, I will seek a pact of agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity, and a freedom from disquieting oppressive thoughts. We as a Nation, have placed upon the nations of Islam, an unfair injustice which is WHY my wife disrespects the Flag and she and I have attended several flag burning ceremonies in the past".
"Of course now, I have found myself about to become the President of the United States and I have put my hatred aside. I will use my power to bring CHANGE to this Nation, and offer the people a new path… My wife and I look forward to becoming our Country's First black Family. Indeed, CHANGE is about to overwhelm the United States of America "
Well, I’m certainly overwhelmed! Mr. Obama wants us to “… conduct ourselves like the nations of Islam, where peace prevails”. Humm… yet in the “peaceful” Islamic nation of Iran, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, mother of two, has been sentenced to being stoned to death, for running afoul of Islamic religious law. The thought of Islam over running and destroying Israel, and the ensuing holocaust, leaves me cold as well.
But we, even as individuals, can change things. An unemployed 32-year-old black Army veteran with no campaign funds, no signs, and no website shocked South Carolina by winning the Democratic Senate primary! Alvin Greene defeated Vic Rawl, a former judge and state legislator, who had a $186,000 campaign warchest. Even with the deck stacked against him, Greene said that he wasn't surprised by his victory. "I wasn’t surprised, but not really. I mean, just a little, but not much. I knew I was on top of my campaign, and just stayed on top of everything, I just—I wasn't surprised that much, just a little. I knew that I worked hard and did," Greene stated in an interview. With that, the left has decided that Alvin Greene's “unplanned” victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary must be the result of a Republican dirty trick. Greene won, beating the establishment candidate despite having no job, home, campaign headquarters… or even a campaign! Other than a $10,000 filing fee which seems to have come out of nowhere, Greene put absolutely no effort into the race, which left Obama adviser David Axelrod saying that Greene was not a "legitimate" candidate, and called his victory "a mysterious deal."
Well, yeah, just how could a young African-American with strange origins, suspicious funding, shady associations, no experience, no qualifications, and no work history, appear out of nowhere and win an election?
Annamarie Miller is a schoolteacher with a love of history and ideas. Though hardly menacing, she is a renegade who refuses to take any authority figure's word at face value. That she says began during her student days at California State University, and "I became disillusioned by the revisionism of history. A lot of stuff they were teaching me twisted the truth." Inspired by campaign literature, she began to question the "truths" of authorities.
Two more or less ordinary people… neither are rich and famous, and neither are “powers in the land”. Both seem to be more or less ordinary citizens who are “fed-up” with the current political situation in our nation. Nor are they alone. It is this kind of action that helped tea party favorite Sharron Angle capture the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Nevada, who is now challenging Majority Leader Harry Reid. It helped tea party darlings Raul Labrador here in Idaho and Todd Lally in Kentucky win their congressional primaries. It helped libertarian Rand Paul beat out an establishment candidate in Kentucky. The tea party movement is after-all a loose knit coalition of individuals and groups who are somewhat upset by Washington’s continued spending, our constantly rising taxes, constant raids on our individual liberty, and the uncontrolled growth of government.
On the Sept. 7th 2008 broadcast of "Meet the Press", then Senator Obama was asked about his position on the American Flag by retired USAF General Bill Ginn, and explained that "The National Anthem should be 'swapped' for something less parochial and less bellicose. I like the song 'I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing'. If that were our anthem, then, I might salute it. In my opinion, we should consider reinventing our National Anthem as well as 'redesign' our Flag to better offer our enemies hope and love. It's my intention, if elected, to disarm America to the level of acceptance to our Middle East Brethren. If we, as a Nation of warring people, conduct ourselves like the nations of Islam, where peace prevails - - - perhaps a state or period of mutual accord could exist between our governments ."
“When I become President, I will seek a pact of agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity, and a freedom from disquieting oppressive thoughts. We as a Nation, have placed upon the nations of Islam, an unfair injustice which is WHY my wife disrespects the Flag and she and I have attended several flag burning ceremonies in the past".
"Of course now, I have found myself about to become the President of the United States and I have put my hatred aside. I will use my power to bring CHANGE to this Nation, and offer the people a new path… My wife and I look forward to becoming our Country's First black Family. Indeed, CHANGE is about to overwhelm the United States of America "
Well, I’m certainly overwhelmed! Mr. Obama wants us to “… conduct ourselves like the nations of Islam, where peace prevails”. Humm… yet in the “peaceful” Islamic nation of Iran, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, mother of two, has been sentenced to being stoned to death, for running afoul of Islamic religious law. The thought of Islam over running and destroying Israel, and the ensuing holocaust, leaves me cold as well.
But we, even as individuals, can change things. An unemployed 32-year-old black Army veteran with no campaign funds, no signs, and no website shocked South Carolina by winning the Democratic Senate primary! Alvin Greene defeated Vic Rawl, a former judge and state legislator, who had a $186,000 campaign warchest. Even with the deck stacked against him, Greene said that he wasn't surprised by his victory. "I wasn’t surprised, but not really. I mean, just a little, but not much. I knew I was on top of my campaign, and just stayed on top of everything, I just—I wasn't surprised that much, just a little. I knew that I worked hard and did," Greene stated in an interview. With that, the left has decided that Alvin Greene's “unplanned” victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary must be the result of a Republican dirty trick. Greene won, beating the establishment candidate despite having no job, home, campaign headquarters… or even a campaign! Other than a $10,000 filing fee which seems to have come out of nowhere, Greene put absolutely no effort into the race, which left Obama adviser David Axelrod saying that Greene was not a "legitimate" candidate, and called his victory "a mysterious deal."
Well, yeah, just how could a young African-American with strange origins, suspicious funding, shady associations, no experience, no qualifications, and no work history, appear out of nowhere and win an election?
McChrystal
I’m rather disturbed with the media firestorm generated by Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s somewhat inappropriate comments about the Obama administration. Disturbed, but not overly surprised. No military officer should publicly criticize his commander, and Gen. McChrystal is no exception. But the mainstream media is somewhat hysterical about McChrystal's apparent insubordination, published in (of all places) Rolling Stone magazine. They’re not concerned with the accuracy of the comments attributed to him, but rather they’re livid because he disagrees with, and apparently disrespects, the anointed one. I’ll note that this is a bit different from the reaction a few years ago when other military officers criticized President Bush’s Iraqi war policies. During Bush's time in office, active duty officers that spoke out against administration policy were “courageous whistleblowers”, and retired generals were sages of military policy. Now however, Gen. McChrystal is being treated as some sort of rabid dog that must be muzzled, and there are even calls to “change” the entire command structure of the US Military! However, Barry and his minions should I’d think, be held to the same standards to which they held President Bush. Since insubordination was considered a matter of competence when military leaders criticized Bush and Rumsfield, shouldn’t Obama welcome this independent strategic thinking? Perhaps the man with three Muslim names should acknowledge McChrystal’s concerns, and use them as a basis for re-evaluating his own strategy? Or as one pundit stated, “You know, live up to his promise of no ‘yes men’.”
Personally I think the general made a mistake in publicly stating any of his personal views while still a serving officer, even though the comments were made by officers on McChrystals staff, not by the General himself. The Commander in Chief has the right to remove a general “any time he sees fit,” said General Omar Bradley. Dismissing a general is seldom done, and can sometimes provoke considerable controversy. Still, President Lincoln replaced the hugely popular George McClellan during the Civil War for being overly cautious. President Harry Truman replaced the equally popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Commander of United Nation forces in Korea, for gross insubordination. President Reagan fired Gen Schweitzer from his National Security Council staff job. Gen. Eric Shinseki was forced out of the service for publicly criticizing the Bush administration policies in Iraq (instantly earning the media’s approval), and was rewarded by the leftists with his present job, that of Secretary of Veterans Affairs, although I rather doubt such a fate will come Gen. McChrystal’s way. With no military knowledge or experience of his own, and with none to speak of among his staff, Mr. Obama is caught between the proverbial “rock and a hard place” by Gen. McChrystal’s defection, so to preserve his credibility and authority, Obama had to fire General McChrystal. But doing so isn’t going to make things easy. The champions of Gen. Shinseki now look like hypocrites for firing a commander for saying what he thinks. The troops in the field, who always regard civilian meddling in military matters with a jaundiced eye, will likely consider the firing of a commander, barely a year after the last commander was canned for disagreeing with the White House, as an indication that the civilian leadership is doing little more than stumbling around in the dark, and that’s not going to help moral much. This also brings up an important question… what sort of military commanders do we want serving our nation? Like Gen. George Patton during WW II, McChrystal has strong personal opinions, an enviable military record, and a habit of letting his mouth run away from his common sense. But both of these men were highly successful commanders, and in the military there is no substitute for success. On the other hand, politicians (and our tradition of civilian control of the military), demand obedient, pliable servants who readily bend to political decree. This is hardly the type of commander we could expect to win wars. So what do we want… hard charging warriors who can successfully defend our national interests… or parade ground soldiers in pretty uniforms?
Unfortunately for Gen. McChrystal, rather than rely on his military public affairs officer, he apparently accepted the advice of an inexperienced civilian, a “strategic communications” agent who arranged the media embed with Michael Hastings of “Rolling Stone”, a leftist entertainment magazine, and an unknown factor to the general and his staff. To make matters worse, Hastings was working on an alarmist-sounding feature entitled “The Runaway General.” As Hastings describes it, much of his interaction with Gen. McChrystal and his staff, was in relaxed settings – a Paris hotel suite and a nearby Irish pub. Knowing that McChrystal has a habit of pushing the limits of authority, allowing a virtually unknown reporter with whom they had no previous relationship was an appalling error on the part of the Generals staff. Or was it? If McChrystal has the low opinion of his civilian leadership that his reported comments indicate, he should have done the honorable thing, resigned from military service, and then spoken out. But how much media exposure would that have gotten? I somehow doubt that the press would have been sitting on his doorstep reporting his every word, and the reasons for his resignation would not have received much publicity. However, Gen. McChrystal has been in service for thirty-four years, and I suspect he’s been seriously considering retirement anyway. What better way to go out than with a bang, and this particular bang will likely shake the Obama administration to its roots, along with just maybe getting something done about the political stalemate in Afghanistan!
Now we have Gen. Petraeus back in harness, selected by his one-time archenemy Barrack Obama, to command in Afghanistan. No longer the whipping boy for candidate Obama, Petraeus is the administrations last, best hope for getting us out of Afghanistan with at least some slight vestige of honor. Ironically, since the guy they helped get elected has “rehired” George Bush’s General, MoveOn.org now has to repudiate their portrayal of Petraeus as “General Betray Us”. Irony however is not something understood by the rabid leftists at MoveOn. McChrystal’s relationship with the press contrasts with that of Petraeus, who is much more practiced in dealing with reporters and the civilian leadership. Petraeus's staff officers tend to have extensive Washington experience as well, and will likely never allow themselves to be caught in this type of situation.
I greatly respect Gen. McChrystal’s military record, and can sympathize with him for the situation he now finds himself in. But he of all people should well understand that even though everyone is entitled to their opinion, military officers should know that theirs are best kept private, and not aired in the media… particularly so if they seriously disagree with the senior levels in the chain of command.
Personally I think the general made a mistake in publicly stating any of his personal views while still a serving officer, even though the comments were made by officers on McChrystals staff, not by the General himself. The Commander in Chief has the right to remove a general “any time he sees fit,” said General Omar Bradley. Dismissing a general is seldom done, and can sometimes provoke considerable controversy. Still, President Lincoln replaced the hugely popular George McClellan during the Civil War for being overly cautious. President Harry Truman replaced the equally popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Commander of United Nation forces in Korea, for gross insubordination. President Reagan fired Gen Schweitzer from his National Security Council staff job. Gen. Eric Shinseki was forced out of the service for publicly criticizing the Bush administration policies in Iraq (instantly earning the media’s approval), and was rewarded by the leftists with his present job, that of Secretary of Veterans Affairs, although I rather doubt such a fate will come Gen. McChrystal’s way. With no military knowledge or experience of his own, and with none to speak of among his staff, Mr. Obama is caught between the proverbial “rock and a hard place” by Gen. McChrystal’s defection, so to preserve his credibility and authority, Obama had to fire General McChrystal. But doing so isn’t going to make things easy. The champions of Gen. Shinseki now look like hypocrites for firing a commander for saying what he thinks. The troops in the field, who always regard civilian meddling in military matters with a jaundiced eye, will likely consider the firing of a commander, barely a year after the last commander was canned for disagreeing with the White House, as an indication that the civilian leadership is doing little more than stumbling around in the dark, and that’s not going to help moral much. This also brings up an important question… what sort of military commanders do we want serving our nation? Like Gen. George Patton during WW II, McChrystal has strong personal opinions, an enviable military record, and a habit of letting his mouth run away from his common sense. But both of these men were highly successful commanders, and in the military there is no substitute for success. On the other hand, politicians (and our tradition of civilian control of the military), demand obedient, pliable servants who readily bend to political decree. This is hardly the type of commander we could expect to win wars. So what do we want… hard charging warriors who can successfully defend our national interests… or parade ground soldiers in pretty uniforms?
Unfortunately for Gen. McChrystal, rather than rely on his military public affairs officer, he apparently accepted the advice of an inexperienced civilian, a “strategic communications” agent who arranged the media embed with Michael Hastings of “Rolling Stone”, a leftist entertainment magazine, and an unknown factor to the general and his staff. To make matters worse, Hastings was working on an alarmist-sounding feature entitled “The Runaway General.” As Hastings describes it, much of his interaction with Gen. McChrystal and his staff, was in relaxed settings – a Paris hotel suite and a nearby Irish pub. Knowing that McChrystal has a habit of pushing the limits of authority, allowing a virtually unknown reporter with whom they had no previous relationship was an appalling error on the part of the Generals staff. Or was it? If McChrystal has the low opinion of his civilian leadership that his reported comments indicate, he should have done the honorable thing, resigned from military service, and then spoken out. But how much media exposure would that have gotten? I somehow doubt that the press would have been sitting on his doorstep reporting his every word, and the reasons for his resignation would not have received much publicity. However, Gen. McChrystal has been in service for thirty-four years, and I suspect he’s been seriously considering retirement anyway. What better way to go out than with a bang, and this particular bang will likely shake the Obama administration to its roots, along with just maybe getting something done about the political stalemate in Afghanistan!
Now we have Gen. Petraeus back in harness, selected by his one-time archenemy Barrack Obama, to command in Afghanistan. No longer the whipping boy for candidate Obama, Petraeus is the administrations last, best hope for getting us out of Afghanistan with at least some slight vestige of honor. Ironically, since the guy they helped get elected has “rehired” George Bush’s General, MoveOn.org now has to repudiate their portrayal of Petraeus as “General Betray Us”. Irony however is not something understood by the rabid leftists at MoveOn. McChrystal’s relationship with the press contrasts with that of Petraeus, who is much more practiced in dealing with reporters and the civilian leadership. Petraeus's staff officers tend to have extensive Washington experience as well, and will likely never allow themselves to be caught in this type of situation.
I greatly respect Gen. McChrystal’s military record, and can sympathize with him for the situation he now finds himself in. But he of all people should well understand that even though everyone is entitled to their opinion, military officers should know that theirs are best kept private, and not aired in the media… particularly so if they seriously disagree with the senior levels in the chain of command.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Stalin
Sixty-six years ago, on June 6th, 1944, “Operation Overlord”, the allied invasion of Europe began. The purpose of the invasion was to gain an allied foothold in France, from which allied forces could eject the Nazi armies from conquered Europe. Allied forces included the Free French, Free Polish, Free Belgian, Free Netherlands, Free Norway, Free Czechoslovakia, Free Greece, Australia, and New Zealand. The vast majority however were soldiers, sailors, airmen, and merchant seamen from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Approximately 160,000 soldiers were landed on French beaches from over 5,000 ships and landing craft, manned by over 195,000 allied sailors, and supported by nearly 12,000 military aircraft. By July 24th, when the invasion phase of the liberation of Europe had officially ended, the allies had suffered a combined total of 120,000 killed and wounded.
You might note that of the allied forces at Normandy, Russia was conspicuously absent. (Granted that the Red Army was rather preoccupied with the Eastern Front at the time.) Russia however was represented… by three “Ost-Bataillone” of the German Wehrmacht’s 716th Infantry Division. These Battalions were comprised of former Soviet prisoners-of-war who had volunteered to fight for the Germans rather than endure the conditions in German POW camps, and were of somewhat dubious loyalty. (At the end of the war, Russian POW's in German hands were executed by Stalin, so volunteering didn’t help these unfortunates much.)
Bedford, Virginia, is the location of the National D-Day memorial, where the United States honors those American’s who stormed the Normandy beaches on D-Day, in an effort to rid the world of Nazism. Yet on the 66th anniversary of D-Day, the memorial board quietly erected a monument to an even greater evil, a political system and a tyrant who murdered even more innocent people than the Third Reich ever thought of. Specifically, a monument to Iosif Stalin! Yes, Stalin and the Russians were a crucial part of the final victory over Nazi Germany, but Russian forces were not present at Normandy, and there is no reason to erect a bust of Stalin in the National D-day Memorial! FDR, Churchill, and several other Allied leaders certainly deserve to be there, but Stalin? To my mind this is tantamount to erecting a statue honoring Heinrich Himmler at the Holocaust museum!
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Lee Edwards, chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, minced no words about what he regards as this inexplicable addition: “Since the fall of the Soviet Union, statues of Joseph Stalin have been torn down all over Europe. The world is closer than ever before to a consensus on the evils of communism and Stalin’s primary role in the worst crimes of the last century.” Karl Altau, head of the Baltic American National Committee added: “No matter what they do to explain Stalin’s presence, it’s still going to put him on the same kind of level as the other leaders and their troops who were there at D-Day.” A plaque was finally added mentioning Stalin’s many crimes, as well as his role as a WW II ally, but critics still wonder what can justify the presence of a tyrant whose troops didn’t even play a role in the D-Day landings. William McIntosh, president of the D-Day Memorial Foundation, hasn’t been returning calls from reporters either, but had previously said that his group wanted to note Stalin’s role in winning the war. That “answer” isn’t likely to calm the uproar, and certainly doesn’t sooth my anger either!
Actually, Stalin’s addition should come as no surprise. Americans have forgotten what it was we fought, and our leftists have effectively rehabilitated the ideals of Socialism and Marxism. A Rasmussen survey of 1,000 American “Adults” conducted April 6-7, 2009, indicates that only 53% of Americans believe capitalism is better than socialism, and 20% disagree, saying socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) aren’t sure. Adults under age 30 are divided with 37% prefering capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% undecided. Adults over 40 on the other hand strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better. On the partisan side, Republicans favor capitalism by 11-to-1, while among Democrats 39% say capitalism is better, while 30% prefer socialism. As for those with no party affiliation, 48% say capitalism is best, and 21% prefer socialism. Interestingly enough, 15% of Americans say they prefer a government-managed economy.
Throughout the Cold War we resisted a foreign power bent on the expansion of “scientific socialism”, and we won, or at least Soviet communism finally collapsed thanks to its own shortcomings and western pressure. Our victory has been short lived however, as it now seems we have lost the war at home. Only marginally softer socialists came to power in our schools, our churches, and our media during the 1950’s and 60’s. They worked long and hard to convince our youth that free enterprise is evil and corrupt. They did this by pressuring our government to pass laws and regulations that severely restrict capitalism. They then blamed our problems on the “failings” of capitalism! Now of course they teach people that they are entitled to a free ride as well. In actuality, they have created a system somewhat similar to that of the Nazis. Government policy, lawyers, and special interests have warped the system, and that is because government (courtesy of the Progressive efforts), can strangle any business that does not “cooperate”. Fascism worked much the same way, where private citizens could own and operate their own businesses, but they had to be operated in a State approved manner, and their markets were controlled by state central authority. While it’s true that large numbers of Americans oppose Obama’s steady destruction of free enterprise, the fact is that a large number of Americans favor government control of the U.S. economy, despite the failures of such economies throughout history and all over the world.
Socialism is on the ascendancy in America, which is why we probably shouldn’t be surprised to see America honoring one of the world’s most evil men.
You might note that of the allied forces at Normandy, Russia was conspicuously absent. (Granted that the Red Army was rather preoccupied with the Eastern Front at the time.) Russia however was represented… by three “Ost-Bataillone” of the German Wehrmacht’s 716th Infantry Division. These Battalions were comprised of former Soviet prisoners-of-war who had volunteered to fight for the Germans rather than endure the conditions in German POW camps, and were of somewhat dubious loyalty. (At the end of the war, Russian POW's in German hands were executed by Stalin, so volunteering didn’t help these unfortunates much.)
Bedford, Virginia, is the location of the National D-Day memorial, where the United States honors those American’s who stormed the Normandy beaches on D-Day, in an effort to rid the world of Nazism. Yet on the 66th anniversary of D-Day, the memorial board quietly erected a monument to an even greater evil, a political system and a tyrant who murdered even more innocent people than the Third Reich ever thought of. Specifically, a monument to Iosif Stalin! Yes, Stalin and the Russians were a crucial part of the final victory over Nazi Germany, but Russian forces were not present at Normandy, and there is no reason to erect a bust of Stalin in the National D-day Memorial! FDR, Churchill, and several other Allied leaders certainly deserve to be there, but Stalin? To my mind this is tantamount to erecting a statue honoring Heinrich Himmler at the Holocaust museum!
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Lee Edwards, chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, minced no words about what he regards as this inexplicable addition: “Since the fall of the Soviet Union, statues of Joseph Stalin have been torn down all over Europe. The world is closer than ever before to a consensus on the evils of communism and Stalin’s primary role in the worst crimes of the last century.” Karl Altau, head of the Baltic American National Committee added: “No matter what they do to explain Stalin’s presence, it’s still going to put him on the same kind of level as the other leaders and their troops who were there at D-Day.” A plaque was finally added mentioning Stalin’s many crimes, as well as his role as a WW II ally, but critics still wonder what can justify the presence of a tyrant whose troops didn’t even play a role in the D-Day landings. William McIntosh, president of the D-Day Memorial Foundation, hasn’t been returning calls from reporters either, but had previously said that his group wanted to note Stalin’s role in winning the war. That “answer” isn’t likely to calm the uproar, and certainly doesn’t sooth my anger either!
Actually, Stalin’s addition should come as no surprise. Americans have forgotten what it was we fought, and our leftists have effectively rehabilitated the ideals of Socialism and Marxism. A Rasmussen survey of 1,000 American “Adults” conducted April 6-7, 2009, indicates that only 53% of Americans believe capitalism is better than socialism, and 20% disagree, saying socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) aren’t sure. Adults under age 30 are divided with 37% prefering capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% undecided. Adults over 40 on the other hand strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better. On the partisan side, Republicans favor capitalism by 11-to-1, while among Democrats 39% say capitalism is better, while 30% prefer socialism. As for those with no party affiliation, 48% say capitalism is best, and 21% prefer socialism. Interestingly enough, 15% of Americans say they prefer a government-managed economy.
Throughout the Cold War we resisted a foreign power bent on the expansion of “scientific socialism”, and we won, or at least Soviet communism finally collapsed thanks to its own shortcomings and western pressure. Our victory has been short lived however, as it now seems we have lost the war at home. Only marginally softer socialists came to power in our schools, our churches, and our media during the 1950’s and 60’s. They worked long and hard to convince our youth that free enterprise is evil and corrupt. They did this by pressuring our government to pass laws and regulations that severely restrict capitalism. They then blamed our problems on the “failings” of capitalism! Now of course they teach people that they are entitled to a free ride as well. In actuality, they have created a system somewhat similar to that of the Nazis. Government policy, lawyers, and special interests have warped the system, and that is because government (courtesy of the Progressive efforts), can strangle any business that does not “cooperate”. Fascism worked much the same way, where private citizens could own and operate their own businesses, but they had to be operated in a State approved manner, and their markets were controlled by state central authority. While it’s true that large numbers of Americans oppose Obama’s steady destruction of free enterprise, the fact is that a large number of Americans favor government control of the U.S. economy, despite the failures of such economies throughout history and all over the world.
Socialism is on the ascendancy in America, which is why we probably shouldn’t be surprised to see America honoring one of the world’s most evil men.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Oil Spill
The Washington Times recently announced that the National Debt has now surpassed the 13 trillion dollar mark. The problem is that Congress barely passed a Bill raising the debt ceiling to 12.394 TRILLION dollars. Mr. Obama, master of everyone else’s checkbook, signed it into law on December 28, 2009. Now, barely 5 months later, we’re some $600 billion beyond that! At $13 trillion, the debt has risen by $2.4 trillion in about 500 days since President Obama took office, or an average of $4.9 billion each and every day. That’s about three times the daily increase of $1.7 billion under the Bush administration. So, every time someone tells you that Obama needs us to cut him some slack, and that he’s doing the best he can with what President Bush left for him to deal with, remember that Mr. O has extended our debt almost 5 billion dollars a day as he continues to fail the Country. The present administration can’t manage the Auto Industry, Wall Street, Health Care industry, or the Insurance industry. It certainly can’t manage the economy! It can’t handle foreign affairs or military action, and it can’t stop petty dictators from getting nuclear weapons or sinking the neighbor’s ships! But failure doesn’t seem to slow Team Obama’s desire to spend more and more of our money in the hopes of finally getting things right. We’ve seen none of our problems “solved” since he’s been in office… and no return on our tax dollar investment either. This has got to be the most inept and incompetent Administration in recent history! And now, the latest attempt to manage a crisis in the Gulf of Mexico only reinforces that impression of incompetence.
Obama formed his commission on the oil spill and stated his reason; “…so that the American people will have answers on exactly what happened.” That’s all well and fine, and a goal I can agree with. But then he tipped his hand with: “We have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth, and these are risks that are bound to increase the harder oil extraction becomes. We also have to acknowledge that an America run solely on fossil fuels should not be the vision we have for our children and our grandchildren.” Okay, here’s a minor technical point… The problem with the Deepwater Horizon well has nothing to do with the fact that it’s a 3-1/2 mile deep well. The problem is that it’s in water a mile deep! With that one sentence, Mr. Obama has combined deep-sea oil drilling with all oil and gas exploration. He’s also demonstrating his environmentalist leanings and that he probably wouldn’t know an oil well even if he fell into one! But, is it his intent to use this crisis to get Cap and Trade legislation back on the table?
In his latest appointments to the commission on the oil spill, Mr. Obama reveals that he’s going much further than finding out what went wrong aboard Deepwater Horizon and fixing it. The commission will include two more experts who have been global warming activists, and who will join former Florida Sen. Bob Graham and former Environmental Protection Agency chief William Reilly. The background of these panel members suggest the commission will be looking at much more than just what went wrong, and will probably include the country’s conflicting problems of environmental and energy needs. According to the AP, other new commission members will be Donald Boesch, president of the Center for Environmental Science at the University of Maryland, and former Alaska Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer, presently a University of Alaska chancellor. So what, pray tell, has Global Warming and Wildlife got to do with the cause of a mechanical failure at the wellhead? Failing to appoint a couple of engineering specialists indicates the purpose of the panel is purely political, and has nothing to do with what actually happened or what to do about it. It’s somewhat akin to appointing a hairdresser to determine what went wrong in a brain surgery! At least Mr. Obama gets a chance to put his Alinsky teachings to work, beginning with: “Pick the target [big oil], freeze it [big oil always bad], personalize it [BP], and polarize it.[green energy=angels, oil=Satan].” This will allow him to slip into campaign mode (which he apparently confuses with leadership), and where he is much more comfortable.
Mr. Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar have done their best to shift the blame for the Deepwater Horizon disaster to the Bush Administration, the Republicans, BP, and the supposed ‘cozy relationship’ between the Minerals Management Service who “turned a blind eye to the shenanigans of their oil and gas company buddies”. In reality offshore safety performance improved significantly throughout the Bush years, as did a greatly reduced blowout incident rate. Bush-era internal investigations led to a significant improvement in ethics throughout the organization. Bush also increased the offshore royalty rates for the first time in years. Still, there’s plenty of blame to spread around. BP is after all liable for the operational errors that led up to the explosion. MMS Director Liz Birnbaum, Mr. Obama’s choice of Minerals Management Service chief, has strong credentials… her qualifications include attending Brown/Harvard Law, a record as an environmental lawyer, and experience setting environmental policy. But experienced with oil and gas technology? Well… Her department heads were heavy on environmental activism as well, but rather light on oil and gas experience. Probably because ex-industry hands tend to develop ‘cozy relationships’ with the folks they’re regulating. Mr. Obama, who was quick to criticize President Bush for his appointment of lightly-qualified Michael Brown as FEMA director, has apparently learned little from his predecessor’s mistake.
Under Obama and Salazar, the Minerals Management Service has become little more than an instrument by which the government pushes its Green Energy/Green Jobs vision.
As to solving the problem, the Houston Chronicle reports that the Netherlands, a highly experienced oil producing nation, offered the United States help in dealing with the BP spill shortly after it started, but the Obama Administration turned them down flat. Additionally, the present “cap” on the well was the first thing BP wanted to attempt, but MMS officials refused permission. Now we have another bright idea from the White House, and I quote Mr. Obama; “I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick.” He’s talking to experts not to find out how to solve the problem but to find out whose ass to kick? Those are somewhat crude words from the President of the United States, but they are his own words. There is one well owned by one company leaking, and that was caused by the collapse of one oil platform owned by one company. Not only has Barack Obama overreacted and shut down every company’s offshore drilling, putting tens of thousands of people on the unemployment line, and he’s not talking to experts to figure out how to solve the problem, but to figure out who to assign blame to!?
That is not leadership!
Obama formed his commission on the oil spill and stated his reason; “…so that the American people will have answers on exactly what happened.” That’s all well and fine, and a goal I can agree with. But then he tipped his hand with: “We have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth, and these are risks that are bound to increase the harder oil extraction becomes. We also have to acknowledge that an America run solely on fossil fuels should not be the vision we have for our children and our grandchildren.” Okay, here’s a minor technical point… The problem with the Deepwater Horizon well has nothing to do with the fact that it’s a 3-1/2 mile deep well. The problem is that it’s in water a mile deep! With that one sentence, Mr. Obama has combined deep-sea oil drilling with all oil and gas exploration. He’s also demonstrating his environmentalist leanings and that he probably wouldn’t know an oil well even if he fell into one! But, is it his intent to use this crisis to get Cap and Trade legislation back on the table?
In his latest appointments to the commission on the oil spill, Mr. Obama reveals that he’s going much further than finding out what went wrong aboard Deepwater Horizon and fixing it. The commission will include two more experts who have been global warming activists, and who will join former Florida Sen. Bob Graham and former Environmental Protection Agency chief William Reilly. The background of these panel members suggest the commission will be looking at much more than just what went wrong, and will probably include the country’s conflicting problems of environmental and energy needs. According to the AP, other new commission members will be Donald Boesch, president of the Center for Environmental Science at the University of Maryland, and former Alaska Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer, presently a University of Alaska chancellor. So what, pray tell, has Global Warming and Wildlife got to do with the cause of a mechanical failure at the wellhead? Failing to appoint a couple of engineering specialists indicates the purpose of the panel is purely political, and has nothing to do with what actually happened or what to do about it. It’s somewhat akin to appointing a hairdresser to determine what went wrong in a brain surgery! At least Mr. Obama gets a chance to put his Alinsky teachings to work, beginning with: “Pick the target [big oil], freeze it [big oil always bad], personalize it [BP], and polarize it.[green energy=angels, oil=Satan].” This will allow him to slip into campaign mode (which he apparently confuses with leadership), and where he is much more comfortable.
Mr. Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar have done their best to shift the blame for the Deepwater Horizon disaster to the Bush Administration, the Republicans, BP, and the supposed ‘cozy relationship’ between the Minerals Management Service who “turned a blind eye to the shenanigans of their oil and gas company buddies”. In reality offshore safety performance improved significantly throughout the Bush years, as did a greatly reduced blowout incident rate. Bush-era internal investigations led to a significant improvement in ethics throughout the organization. Bush also increased the offshore royalty rates for the first time in years. Still, there’s plenty of blame to spread around. BP is after all liable for the operational errors that led up to the explosion. MMS Director Liz Birnbaum, Mr. Obama’s choice of Minerals Management Service chief, has strong credentials… her qualifications include attending Brown/Harvard Law, a record as an environmental lawyer, and experience setting environmental policy. But experienced with oil and gas technology? Well… Her department heads were heavy on environmental activism as well, but rather light on oil and gas experience. Probably because ex-industry hands tend to develop ‘cozy relationships’ with the folks they’re regulating. Mr. Obama, who was quick to criticize President Bush for his appointment of lightly-qualified Michael Brown as FEMA director, has apparently learned little from his predecessor’s mistake.
Under Obama and Salazar, the Minerals Management Service has become little more than an instrument by which the government pushes its Green Energy/Green Jobs vision.
As to solving the problem, the Houston Chronicle reports that the Netherlands, a highly experienced oil producing nation, offered the United States help in dealing with the BP spill shortly after it started, but the Obama Administration turned them down flat. Additionally, the present “cap” on the well was the first thing BP wanted to attempt, but MMS officials refused permission. Now we have another bright idea from the White House, and I quote Mr. Obama; “I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick.” He’s talking to experts not to find out how to solve the problem but to find out whose ass to kick? Those are somewhat crude words from the President of the United States, but they are his own words. There is one well owned by one company leaking, and that was caused by the collapse of one oil platform owned by one company. Not only has Barack Obama overreacted and shut down every company’s offshore drilling, putting tens of thousands of people on the unemployment line, and he’s not talking to experts to figure out how to solve the problem, but to figure out who to assign blame to!?
That is not leadership!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
More gun control
Those wonderful people who brought us rabid environmentalism, political correctness, the Stimulus program, and amnesty for illegal aliens are at it again. Once more we’re faced with the specter of “Gun Control” decreed by Washington. One of the leading mouthpieces for this is “Handgun Control Inc.”, who claims that it “only wants to keep handguns out of the hands of the wrong people”. Fine sounding words I suppose, if you’re a bleeding heart leftist. Really, these nuts all know that banning guns works to stop crime, and haven’t they told us that, time and again? I suppose we’re expected to ignore the fact that New York and Chicago have such high murder rates. Ignore the fact that Washington D.C. has strict gun controls and a murder rate of 69 victims per 100,000 population. Ignore the fact that Indianapolis, without severe gun laws, has a murder rate of only 9 per 100,000. Australia had a high profile mass shooting a number of years back that brought about a nationwide gun grab, yet their crime rate hasn’t declined... in fact it’s skyrocketed! Just last week in England, where all gun ownership is tightly restricted, a taxi driver described as "friends with everybody" went on a shooting spree killing 12 people and wounding 25 others. In America, rural areas with few gun restrictions have a surprisingly low crime rate, but urban areas with strict gun laws suffer the highest murder rates in much of the world! So the left claims that gun control works! But no, the feds are supposed to keep guns out of the wrong hands, so, leading with their usual left wing logic, if you are a law abiding citizen who happens to own a handgun, you obviously have the wrong hands.
Such logic further dictates that you can incapacitate an intruder with oven spray, but if you shoot him with a .357 magnum he will get angry and kill you. (Wanna bet!?) And of course a woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a live woman with a smoking gun in hand, and a dead rapist at her feet. The “evidence” often quoted by the left is from their usual line of impeccable sources, as we all know that the "New England Journal of Medicine" carries excellent articles on gun control, just as "The American Rifleman" carries such great articles about open-heart surgery. With all this, I guess we should consult Wall Street CEO’s about the nations economy, the loony left about our nations political problems, and Sara Brady for advise about firearms. We’re told that the Second Amendment to our Constitution, which was ratified in 1791, refers to the National Guard, which you might note, was created by Act of Congress in 1903, a mere 112 years later. Then of course logic tells them that “The "right of the people peaceably to assemble" and "the right of the people to be secure in their homes" refers to individuals, while "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers only to the state. Still, as most citizens cannot be trusted, we need strict firearms laws because we can trust our citizens to abide by them. The leftists don't get it -- criminals don't obey the law, only law-abiding citizens do. So how does denying the Second Amendment Rights of law-abiding citizens ensure that criminals won't have guns? Pardon me while I scratch my head and try to figure out all this.
Back in 2006, the UN adopted resolution 61/89, intended to develop an international treaty that would severely limit international trafficking in “conventional arms”. I’m sure that when this was first thought up, it actually was targeted at the international military arms trade. The Bush administration turned it down on the grounds that national controls would be more effective at limiting a very lucrative business, than would a rather broad based and difficult to enforce UN treaty. Now however, team Obama has reversed President Bush’s decision (why am I not surprised at that). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Oct. 14 last, that the U.S. would now support the treaty, as without U.S. support, the "negotiations would not have been conducted at a high political level". Now, representing the US, she’s signed on, and the “treaty” is due in 2012. If you are not familiar with most of this, you haven’t been following the firearms debate. Perhaps you haven’t been tuned in to the liberals who are trying to get their grubby hands on your shoot’in iron!
Essentially the treaty would include all weapons – all military, security and police arms, related equipment, ammunition, components, expertise, and production equipment. All types of transfer – including import, export, re-export, temporary transfer, transhipment, state sanctioned and commercial trade, plus transfers of technology, loans, gifts, aid, and all transactions including those by dealers and brokers, and those providing technical assistance, training, transport, storage, finance and security. This does not mean that weapons sales are outlawed, merely that any sale or transfer is required to have some sort of government permit that would be issued at the whim of… yet another federal bureaucrat! That would include your leaving Grandpappy’s old musket to the Grandkids! The plan is to develop a treaty that ensures no transfer is permitted if there is any risk that it is likely to be used in violation of human rights, act of genocide, or crime against humanity. Or, if it might facilitate terrorist attacks, gender based violence, violent crime or organized crime. The “violent crime” component instantly includes ANY sort of firearm, and I’d suspect knives, clubs, or a bow and arrow as well!
If the UN wants to limit international trade in tanks, artillery pieces, and machineguns, that’s understandable, and it might even be a good idea given the number of wars and assorted genocidal pogroms going on around the planet. But they can darn well keep their fingers off of my Constitutional rights! The 2nd Amendment of our Bill of Rights says that the people have the right to keep and bear arms. At the time the 2nd was ratified, that meant rifles, muskets, etc., as those were the weapons used by militias as well as for hunting and personal protection. As firearms technology expanded, the 2nd amendment expanded as well, to include weapons that are much more advanced (automatic weapons, high-powered rifles, "assault" rifles) than those used in the late 1700s. But there's also some limit on what arms the people are allowed to keep and bear. It's my opinion that at the time the 2ed amendment was written one of its functions was to insure that the citizenry had the ability to stop the government if it turned to tyranny. If that is the case, then the common folk would need weapons that could match the governments. The key here is that you have the right to keep and bear any arms, as long as you don't infringe on someone else's rights. My possession of any particular weapon doesn’t intrude on anyone’s rights, even though using it might be an infringment. (Launching an ICBM from my back yard might possibly cause major problems for the neighbors!)
As for me, I’ll keep my Constitutional Rights and my rifle. I will so inform my congressman of that fact… and he can have the change.
Such logic further dictates that you can incapacitate an intruder with oven spray, but if you shoot him with a .357 magnum he will get angry and kill you. (Wanna bet!?) And of course a woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a live woman with a smoking gun in hand, and a dead rapist at her feet. The “evidence” often quoted by the left is from their usual line of impeccable sources, as we all know that the "New England Journal of Medicine" carries excellent articles on gun control, just as "The American Rifleman" carries such great articles about open-heart surgery. With all this, I guess we should consult Wall Street CEO’s about the nations economy, the loony left about our nations political problems, and Sara Brady for advise about firearms. We’re told that the Second Amendment to our Constitution, which was ratified in 1791, refers to the National Guard, which you might note, was created by Act of Congress in 1903, a mere 112 years later. Then of course logic tells them that “The "right of the people peaceably to assemble" and "the right of the people to be secure in their homes" refers to individuals, while "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers only to the state. Still, as most citizens cannot be trusted, we need strict firearms laws because we can trust our citizens to abide by them. The leftists don't get it -- criminals don't obey the law, only law-abiding citizens do. So how does denying the Second Amendment Rights of law-abiding citizens ensure that criminals won't have guns? Pardon me while I scratch my head and try to figure out all this.
Back in 2006, the UN adopted resolution 61/89, intended to develop an international treaty that would severely limit international trafficking in “conventional arms”. I’m sure that when this was first thought up, it actually was targeted at the international military arms trade. The Bush administration turned it down on the grounds that national controls would be more effective at limiting a very lucrative business, than would a rather broad based and difficult to enforce UN treaty. Now however, team Obama has reversed President Bush’s decision (why am I not surprised at that). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Oct. 14 last, that the U.S. would now support the treaty, as without U.S. support, the "negotiations would not have been conducted at a high political level". Now, representing the US, she’s signed on, and the “treaty” is due in 2012. If you are not familiar with most of this, you haven’t been following the firearms debate. Perhaps you haven’t been tuned in to the liberals who are trying to get their grubby hands on your shoot’in iron!
Essentially the treaty would include all weapons – all military, security and police arms, related equipment, ammunition, components, expertise, and production equipment. All types of transfer – including import, export, re-export, temporary transfer, transhipment, state sanctioned and commercial trade, plus transfers of technology, loans, gifts, aid, and all transactions including those by dealers and brokers, and those providing technical assistance, training, transport, storage, finance and security. This does not mean that weapons sales are outlawed, merely that any sale or transfer is required to have some sort of government permit that would be issued at the whim of… yet another federal bureaucrat! That would include your leaving Grandpappy’s old musket to the Grandkids! The plan is to develop a treaty that ensures no transfer is permitted if there is any risk that it is likely to be used in violation of human rights, act of genocide, or crime against humanity. Or, if it might facilitate terrorist attacks, gender based violence, violent crime or organized crime. The “violent crime” component instantly includes ANY sort of firearm, and I’d suspect knives, clubs, or a bow and arrow as well!
If the UN wants to limit international trade in tanks, artillery pieces, and machineguns, that’s understandable, and it might even be a good idea given the number of wars and assorted genocidal pogroms going on around the planet. But they can darn well keep their fingers off of my Constitutional rights! The 2nd Amendment of our Bill of Rights says that the people have the right to keep and bear arms. At the time the 2nd was ratified, that meant rifles, muskets, etc., as those were the weapons used by militias as well as for hunting and personal protection. As firearms technology expanded, the 2nd amendment expanded as well, to include weapons that are much more advanced (automatic weapons, high-powered rifles, "assault" rifles) than those used in the late 1700s. But there's also some limit on what arms the people are allowed to keep and bear. It's my opinion that at the time the 2ed amendment was written one of its functions was to insure that the citizenry had the ability to stop the government if it turned to tyranny. If that is the case, then the common folk would need weapons that could match the governments. The key here is that you have the right to keep and bear any arms, as long as you don't infringe on someone else's rights. My possession of any particular weapon doesn’t intrude on anyone’s rights, even though using it might be an infringment. (Launching an ICBM from my back yard might possibly cause major problems for the neighbors!)
As for me, I’ll keep my Constitutional Rights and my rifle. I will so inform my congressman of that fact… and he can have the change.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Memorial Day
Dateline Memorial Day, 2010. (As often happens, I’m running a bit late in getting this weeks column ready for press.)
I’ll start with reminding everyone that “Decoration Day” was begun by a group of Confederate women in Mississippi who, in the midst of our Civil War, while caring for the graves of their husbands and sons that had been killed in combat, noticed that the nearby graves of Union soldiers had been completely ignored and were being overgrown by brambles and weeds. Realizing that those Union soldiers had also left wives and sweethearts behind, the Confederate Ladies began caring for the Union graves as well. That kindness quickly spread to the North, and soldier’s graves across the nation were cared for, often by complete strangers, who understood what those soldiers had fought and died for. Following the war, Lt. Gen. John Logan, then commander of the Union veteran’s organization “The Grand Army of the Republic” issued the document that semi-officially made Memorial Day a national holiday. It reads in part;
The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
General Logan’s order was posted to veterans of the Civil War, and was soon adopted by nearly all Americans across the land. Observed on the last Monday of May (May 31 in 2010), it was intended to commemorate U.S. soldiers who died while in military service, and was enlarged following WW I to honor American soldiers from all wars. A day of remembrance of those who answered the call, served their country in a most honorable manner, and who all too often didn’t get to come home again.
Mr. Obama’s relationship with the military is on somewhat shaky ground, so his decision to take a vacation with his family in Chicago rather than pay his Memorial Day respects at Arlington National Cemetery is somewhat hard to understand. Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Orson Swindle said of that decision; “The President seems to demonstrate almost weekly just how, at least to me, little he cares about this country and our history and our heritage,” “He seems almost to resent it, which is the most mind-boggling thing in the world, because without a country like America Barack Obama could not be President. He seems to dislike our institutions… and that’s a sad, sad thing.” Swindle is a decorated Vietnam veteran, and was Sen. John McCain’s cellmate in the Hanoi Hilton.
I’m not going to disparage Mr. Obama’s decision, even though it does seem rather strange to me. Rather than Arlington, he visited the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery south of Chicago (conveniently close to his vacation site), where the memorial ceremony was quickly cancelled due to rain showers. Still, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and advisor to Presidents Ford and Carter, Mr. Steven Hess said that “Presidents go to Arlington for three reasons, one is tradition, obviously when there’s a tradition, one prefers to follow it rather than break it.” Then, “The second would be just the size and importance of it, the number of veterans from all wars that are there and that’s significant. And the third is a rather practical one, it is very convenient. Presidents go across the bridge and there they are. Their time is valuable, I don’t mean that that’s much in their minds but it’s probably somewhat in the minds of their schedulers. I don’t know of previous Presidents doing what Obama’s done.” It happens that nearly every region in the country has a veterans cemetery, so Mr. Obama didn’t break with tradition all that severely I suppose. Still, David Corn, former editor of the ultra-liberal magazine “The Nation”, wrote that “So what the hell do these conservatives want out of Obama? And does it matter if Obama throws some leaves on a tomb?” Well Mr. Corn, perhaps Memorial Day matters to the families of the soldiers whose names appear on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, and even more so to the families of servicemen who were killed in action and whose remains have yet to be identified and returned. Or ask the living Mr. Corn, ask the old vet standing at attention and holding a salute while Taps is being played. Or perhaps you might ask the young soldier proudly standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Those “leaves” you speak of, Mr. Corn, are placed there in respect for their sacrifice. Why Arlington you might ask? Well, consider… Of all the stones standing silent watch in these dangerous times, one modest white-marble slab on a green hillside stands out. On it is engraved:
I’ll start with reminding everyone that “Decoration Day” was begun by a group of Confederate women in Mississippi who, in the midst of our Civil War, while caring for the graves of their husbands and sons that had been killed in combat, noticed that the nearby graves of Union soldiers had been completely ignored and were being overgrown by brambles and weeds. Realizing that those Union soldiers had also left wives and sweethearts behind, the Confederate Ladies began caring for the Union graves as well. That kindness quickly spread to the North, and soldier’s graves across the nation were cared for, often by complete strangers, who understood what those soldiers had fought and died for. Following the war, Lt. Gen. John Logan, then commander of the Union veteran’s organization “The Grand Army of the Republic” issued the document that semi-officially made Memorial Day a national holiday. It reads in part;
The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
General Logan’s order was posted to veterans of the Civil War, and was soon adopted by nearly all Americans across the land. Observed on the last Monday of May (May 31 in 2010), it was intended to commemorate U.S. soldiers who died while in military service, and was enlarged following WW I to honor American soldiers from all wars. A day of remembrance of those who answered the call, served their country in a most honorable manner, and who all too often didn’t get to come home again.
Mr. Obama’s relationship with the military is on somewhat shaky ground, so his decision to take a vacation with his family in Chicago rather than pay his Memorial Day respects at Arlington National Cemetery is somewhat hard to understand. Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Orson Swindle said of that decision; “The President seems to demonstrate almost weekly just how, at least to me, little he cares about this country and our history and our heritage,” “He seems almost to resent it, which is the most mind-boggling thing in the world, because without a country like America Barack Obama could not be President. He seems to dislike our institutions… and that’s a sad, sad thing.” Swindle is a decorated Vietnam veteran, and was Sen. John McCain’s cellmate in the Hanoi Hilton.
I’m not going to disparage Mr. Obama’s decision, even though it does seem rather strange to me. Rather than Arlington, he visited the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery south of Chicago (conveniently close to his vacation site), where the memorial ceremony was quickly cancelled due to rain showers. Still, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and advisor to Presidents Ford and Carter, Mr. Steven Hess said that “Presidents go to Arlington for three reasons, one is tradition, obviously when there’s a tradition, one prefers to follow it rather than break it.” Then, “The second would be just the size and importance of it, the number of veterans from all wars that are there and that’s significant. And the third is a rather practical one, it is very convenient. Presidents go across the bridge and there they are. Their time is valuable, I don’t mean that that’s much in their minds but it’s probably somewhat in the minds of their schedulers. I don’t know of previous Presidents doing what Obama’s done.” It happens that nearly every region in the country has a veterans cemetery, so Mr. Obama didn’t break with tradition all that severely I suppose. Still, David Corn, former editor of the ultra-liberal magazine “The Nation”, wrote that “So what the hell do these conservatives want out of Obama? And does it matter if Obama throws some leaves on a tomb?” Well Mr. Corn, perhaps Memorial Day matters to the families of the soldiers whose names appear on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, and even more so to the families of servicemen who were killed in action and whose remains have yet to be identified and returned. Or ask the living Mr. Corn, ask the old vet standing at attention and holding a salute while Taps is being played. Or perhaps you might ask the young soldier proudly standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Those “leaves” you speak of, Mr. Corn, are placed there in respect for their sacrifice. Why Arlington you might ask? Well, consider… Of all the stones standing silent watch in these dangerous times, one modest white-marble slab on a green hillside stands out. On it is engraved:
Michael Joseph Mansfield
PVT U.S. Marine Corps
Mar 16 1903
Oct 5 2001
Private Mansfield did not fall in battle like so many soldiers whose last post is at our National Cemetery. Mike was fortunate to have lived to know his grandchildren, and he died at age 98, at Walter Reed Medical Center. In these days of greed and stolen honor, he ordered that his headstone disclose nothing more than that he shared a singular honor with millions of other Americans, that of holding the lowest rank in the US Marine Corps. Not that he had been America's ambassador to Japan, or that he was a United States senator from Montana. There’s no mention that he was our longest serving majority leader of the Senate, through unpopular wars, terrorism, battles for equal rights, filibusters and financial furies, mushroom cloud nightmares, clashes of church and state, guns and taxes, and even Watergate.
What's tragic is that at the end of his life Mike saw the America he'd fought for in a civil and respectful fashion, turn into sound-bite nastiness, TV slogans, Internet smears, blind faith ideology, and tempered by "gimme" power grabs. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of the U.S. troops in Afghanistan led the memorial service for the troops stationed there. "The fact that people are willing to stand up and do what's difficult, they're willing to stand up and do what's frightening, and they're willing to stand up and do what often costs, really is the measure of not just a person, but of a people." Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, urged that we all "take time today to think about those who made their freedom possible."
As for me, following Monday’s Memorial Day ceremony here in Grangeville, I went with another “old veteran” to hoist a glass, “To times long past, places far away, and friends who won’t be with us today”. And we both shed a tear for those long ago friends who gave their young lives to the nation that we all held so dear.
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