There is far too much subversion for a small Government to handle. The Administration needs to be protected no matter how high the cost.

Considering all the matters with which our grand and glorious Federal Government is forced to deal on a daily basis we need more, not less, of it. It cannot be expected adequately to respond to the many vicious attacks coming from the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy unless it expands sufficiently to deal with them. Here, for example, is a vile attack published by one member of that disgraced conspiracy, the Daily Pest Beast.

Following the attack in Benghazi, senior State Department officials close to Hillary Clinton ordered the removal of a mid-level official who had no role in security decisions and has never been told the charges against him. He is now accusing Clinton’s team of scapegoating him for the failures that led to the death of four Americans last year.

For shame! The jerk who did it, as well as the jerk who publicized it, need to be tarred, feathered and ridden out of Foggy Bottom on rails — harvested in an environmentally friendly way, using feathers plucked harmlessly from chickens (preferably from their right wings) and the tar on which does not worsen the already horrid threat of global warming. This must be done, quickly, before the jerk who did it attempts more atrocious poetry.

The web of lies they weave
gets tighter and tighter
in its deceit
until it bottoms out –
at a very low frequency –
and implodes…Yet all the while,
the more they talk,
the more they lie,
and the deeper down the hole they go… Just wait…
just wait and feed them the rope.

Robert Frost, rest in peace; you have not been bested. Neither have the Vogons.

Vogon poetry is of course, the third worst in the universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their poet master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem “Ode To A Small Lump Of Green Putty I Found In My Armpit One Midsummer Morning” four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging and the president of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived only by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos was reported to have been “disappointed” by the poem’s reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his 12-book epic entitled “My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles” when his own major intestine–in a desperate attempt to save life itself–leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain. The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex, in the destruction of the planet Earth. Vogon poetry is mild by comparison.

Former Secretary of State Clinton, the very soul of poetry, must respond poetically — after she recovers from her in Bosnia trauma and her other traumas arising from the Benghazi kerfuffle — with which she had nothing to do.

We have all heard outraged responses to various IRS scandals, Benghazi, Department of Justice wiretaps and the like. There is no way that our system of limited, constitutional Government can deal with these bimbo like eruptions unless it has more resources and more ideologically-correct employees to fight back against the Daily Pest and even more malicious reports from other voices of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. They must all be silenced. For example, Bryan Preston at PJ Tatler complained on May 20th that

Catherine Engelbrecht founded King Street Patriots and True the Vote to monitor and stop voter fraud. She and her husband, Bryan, operate a small manufacturing business outside Houston, Texas that employs about 30 people.

After Catherine founded the two groups, she soon found herself publicly accused by Sen. Barbara Boxer and other prominent Democrats of “suppressing” Democratic voters, though her actual actions involved training citizens to monitor polls on election day. I’ve witnessed True the Vote’s training sessions myself. There is nothing suppressive about them at all. …

• Her application was put through questioning similar to inquiries other groups have reported, including questions about her political aspirations, the groups’ Facebook posts, etc.
• She was subjected to four rounds of IRS questioning.
• Her family business was audited by the IRS, as were her family’s personal finances.
• Her business was subjected to Occupational Health and Safety Administration audits. OSHA found only minor problems, and subjected the Engelbrechts’ business to $25,000 in fines.
• Her business was subjected to an unannounced audit by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives.
• The Federal Bureau of Investigations inquired about someone who had visited one of Engelbrecht’s meetings, and subsequently called up the Engelbrechts just to ask “how they were doing.”

All of this, over the course of about two years, and all of it came after Mrs. Engelbrecht became politically active. Engelbrecht gained national attention after Andrew Breitbart became aware of her groups and spoke at one of its meetings (I introduced Breitbart at that meeting). It’s no secret that the Obama administration viewed Breitbart as one of its chief enemies, along with Fox News and the Tea Party.

Isn’t that the way it should be? Isn’t that the way it has to be if our free and democratic society is to survive? After all, the common good (properly defined as free stuff for Obama Administration supporters and whatever else it may be declared to mean) is more important to the well being of our nation than frivolous concerns about the Constitution — a bunch of dreary, ancient and therefore irrelevant scribblings by fortunately now long dead White males, some of whom even owned slaves. Ho, Ho Ho. The Constitution’s gotta go!

Government is the fountain of all prosperity and of everything else healthy and otherwise good. If you don’t believe me, just ask President Obama the next time you meet him on the golf course or at a fund raiser.

Without more employees and the appropriations needed to attract and pay them, the United States as we know them it cannot much longer survive. We must all demand that it happen and that the silly debt limit be eliminated. Our Government can afford to borrow all that it needs. The filthy undeserving Republican middle class rich must pay. That’s the Democratic way.

Oh well, let’s hope that these old fashioned Scots won’t make an appearance.

We simply can’t endure more nonsense like this.

Trust in President Obama and his dear ally, Big Bird, and all will be well.

The conventional wisdom in classical economics is that we humans are “rational actors” who, by our nature, make decisions and behave in ways that maximize advantage and utility and minimize risk and costs. This theory has driven economic policy for generations despite daily anecdotal evidence that we are anything but rational, for example, how we invest and what we buy. Economists who embrace this assumption seem to live by the maxim, “If the facts don’t fit the theory, throw out the facts,” attributed, ironically enough, to Albert Einstein.

But any notion that we are, in fact, rational actors, was blown out of the water by Dr. Daniel Kahneman, the winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize for economics, and his late colleague Amos Tversky. Their groundbreaking, if not rather intuitive, findings on cognitive biases, have demonstrated quite unequivocally that humans make decisions and act in ways that are anything but rational.

Cognitive biases can be characterized as the tendency to make decisions and take action based on limited acquisition and/or processing of information or on self-interest, overconfidence, or attachment to past experience.

Cognitive biases can result in perceptual blindness or distortion (seeing things that aren’t really there), illogical interpretation (being nonsensical), inaccurate judgments (being just plain wrong), irrationality (being out of touch with reality), and bad decisions (being dumb). The outcomes of decisions that are influenced by cognitive biases can range from the mundane to the lasting to the catastrophic, for example, buying an unflattering outfit, getting married to the wrong person, and going to war, respectively.

Cognitive biases can be broadly placed in two categories. Information biases include the use of heuristics, or information-processing shortcuts, that produce fast and efficient, though not necessarily accurate, decisions and not paying attention nor adequately thinking through relevant information.

Ego biases include emotional motivations, such as fear, anger, or worry, and social influences such as peer pressure, the desire for acceptance, and doubt that other people can be wrong.

When cognitive biases influence individuals, real problems can arise. But when cognitive biases impact a business, then the problems can be exponentially worse. Just think of the Edsel and the Microsoft Kin. Clearly, cognitive biases are bad for business. Cognitive biases are most problematic because they cause business people to make bad decisions.

In my corporate consulting work, where I help companies make good decisions, I have identified 12 cognitive biases that appear to be most harmful to decision making in the business world. Some of these cognitive biases were developed and empirically validated by Kahneman and Tversky. Others I identified and subsequently passed the “duck” test (if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it’s probably a duck).

Information biases include:

• Knee-jerk bias: Make fast and intuitive decisions when slow and deliberate decisions are necessary.
• Occam’s razor bias:  Assume the most obvious decision is the best decision.
• Silo effect: Use too narrow an approach in making a decision.
• Confirmation bias: Focus on information that affirms your beliefs and assumptions.
• Inertia bias:  Think, feel, and act in ways that are familiar, comfortable, predictable, and controllable.
• Myopia bias:  See and interpret the world through the narrow lens of your own experiences, baggage, beliefs, and assumptions.

Ego biases include:

• Shock-and-awe bias: Belief that our intellectual firepower alone is enough to make complex decisions.
• Overconfidence effect: Excessive confidence in our beliefs, knowledge, and abilities.
• Optimism bias: Overly optimistic, overestimating favorable outcomes and underestimating unfavorable outcomes.
• Homecoming queen/king bias: Act in ways that will increase our acceptance, liking, and popularity.
• Force field bias: Think, feel, and act in ways that reduce a perceived threat, anxiety, or fear.
• Planning fallacy: Underestimate the time and costs needed to complete a task.

Think about the bad decisions that you and your company have made over the years, both minor and catastrophic, and you will probably see the fingerprints of some of these cognitive biases all over the dead bodies.

You Can Fight Back

The good news is that there are four steps you can take to mitigate cognitive biases in your individual decision making and in the decisions that are made in your company.

1. Awareness is a key to reducing the influence of cognitive biases on decision making. Simply knowing that cognitive biases exist and can distort your thinking will help lessen their impact. Learn as much as you can about cognitive biases and recognize them in yourself.
2. Collaboration may be the most effective tool for mitigating cognitive biases. Quite simply, it is easier to see biases in others than in yourself. When you are in decision-making meetings, have your cognitive-bias radar turned on and look for them in your colleagues.
3. Inquiry is fundamental to challenging the perceptions, judgments and conclusions that can be marred by cognitive biases. Using your understanding of cognitive biases, ask the right questions of yourself and others that will shed light on the presence of biases and on the best decisions that avoid their trap.
4. Though brainstorming and free-wheeling discussions can be valuable in generating decision options, they can also provide the miasma in which cognitive biases can float freely and contaminate the resulting decisions. When you establish a disciplined and consistent framework and process for making decisions, you increase your chances of catching cognitive biases before they hijack your decision making.

Three Key Questions

Daniel Kahneman recommends that you ask three questions to minimize the impact of cognitive biases in your decision making:

1. Is there any reason to suspect the people making the recommendation of biases based on self-interest, overconfidence, or attachment to past experiences? Realistically speaking, it is almost impossible for people to not have these three influence their decisions.
2. Have the people making the recommendation fallen in love with it? Again, this is almost an inevitability because, in most cases, people wouldn’t make the recommendation unless they loved it.
3. Was there groupthink or were there dissenting opinions within the decision-making team? This question can be mitigated before the decision-making process begins by collecting a team of people who will proactively offer opposing viewpoints and challenge the conventional wisdom of the group.

In answering each of these questions, you must look closely at how each may be woven into the recommendation that has been offered and separate them from its value. If a recommendation doesn’t stand up to scrutiny on its own merits, free of cognitive bias, it should be discarded.

Only by filtering out the cognitive biases that are sure to arise while decisions are being made can you be confident that, at the end of the day, the best decision for you and your company was made based on the best available information.

Here’s a simple inventory I developed to help you identify which cognitive biases you are most vulnerable to:

When He appears officially it is played. Who is the Chief? Of what?

Writing about Hail to the Chief here, I observed that President Obama is the chief only of the military.

The lyrics are not usually sung. Here they are:

Hail to the Chief we have chosen for the nation,
Hail to the Chief! We salute him, one and all.
Hail to the Chief, as we pledge cooperation 
In proud fulfillment of a great, noble call.
Yours is the aim to make this grand country grander,
This you will do, that’s our strong, firm belief.
Hail to the one we selected as commander,
Hail to the President! Hail to the Chief! (Emphasis added.)

We Some may have chosen him as the Chief for the Nation — probably thinking little about it — but he is not. He is the Chief only of the military. He is the Chief of the neither the legislative nor the judicial branches, two allegedly co-equal branches of Government. He seems to despise them (as well as the military of which he is constitutionally the chief, only) when they do what they are supposed to do and to accept them only when they do what he wants them to do for political purposes. There is a big difference and when they don’t, he obfuscates or lies about it all.

What a good little President! But be not concerned. Bo (aka FDOUS), the presidential canine companion, will lead the way. He could do a better job of it and probably should.

Inadequately covered females force male members in the Religion of Piece to react impurely. Ditto in the U.S. Armed Forces. That must cease, right now. No matter how hard the task may become, the rank and file must embrace Our Loving President’s creative solutions.

President Obama’s gracious embrace of Islamism and his own heroic assassination of Osama Bin Laden have brought peace to the Islamic World including even the United States. Because of his historic foresight in making it perfectly clear that “the future must not belong to those who speak accurately of slander the prophet of Islam,” we are no longer under threat of attack by Islamic terrorists extremists and instead face only sporadic and ineffective workplace violence such as (allegedly) engaged in at Fort Hood by the sadly misunderstood Major Hasan.

The video presents an apostate speaking of Islam. Please take the time to read the subtitles. Interestingly, he notes that many Christians have become complacent. So has our Government, but it appears to be more than complacency.

So let me ask you, does it appear a bit conspiratorial to you that Islamists are now in key positions in the US government, including the deputy chief to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, many of which Representative Michele Bachmann tried to warn America about? Does it make you a little unnerved that the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency is former assassination czar and Muslim convert John Brennan? Do you really believe that Islam is not a threat to the West? Perhaps we should look at what Islam teaches and what it does, not what the government tells us about it. After all, even when there was a Republican President in the office he would not call out Islam, but spoke similar to Allen West’s capitulation, and said Islam had been hijacked. No it has not. Islam is the enemy of America, freedom, Christians, Jews, and anyone else, along with their respective cultures. If you won’t take my word for it, take the Turkish Prime Minister’s. [Note: the source cited for the proposition that Director Brennan is a Muslim convert does not say that he is although there have been many suggestions and rumors that he is. Here is a rebuttal at American Thinker.]

Here’s another video by a Christian who converted to Islam and returned to Christianity.

But don’t worry. Be happy and carry on.

When our mistakes are not acknowledged and corrected, conspiracy theories predominate. We don’t need no stinkin conspiracy theories. Reality — when it can be discovered and presented — is sufficient. Until then, apathy will prevail.

Are we are to ignore the voices that warn against government tyranny, as the President admonished earlier this month? Everything presented here is representative of this administration’s tyrannical bent and indicative of a grossly engorged, out-of-control government machine in the latter stages of dismantling itself, the Republic or both. Understanding this comes close to “comprehending the incomprehensible,” as indicated here. Things were discovered and presented during recent months that had been disparaged by libruls as mere fringe conspiracy theories.

Despite President Obama’s game-changing initiatives, further steps are needed to redeem his Administration from its own characterizations as incompetents and idiots. Its steps to reform the military, probably not taken in honor of Armed Forces Day, are likely to distract attention from ameliorate many if not most difficulties and bring true peace to him for all.

Sexual abuse in the military is bad and getting worse.

Assuming his customary leadership position, president Obama recently referred to military sex abuse as a scourge.

“We will not stop until we’ve seen this scourge, from what is the greatest military in the world, eliminated,” he told reporters.

That we still have the “greatest military in the world” is a weighty problem, but President Obama hopes to change that. Yes He Can!

Senior military officers are speaking about the problem with increasing bluntness and expressions of regret. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Wednesday called it a “crisis” in the ranks, and on Thursday the Army chief of staff, Gen. Ray Odierno, publicly acknowledged his service’s efforts are “failing.”

Fortunately there will be ample time and funds to deal with this grave crisis because there are none other of greater or even comparable political importance. This is a crucial effort to end the vile Republican War on Women.

As a first step, a Review of military sexual abuse prevention is already under way.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday ordered the military to recertify all 25,000 people involved in programs designed to prevent and respond to sexual assault, an acknowledgement that assaults have escalated beyond the Pentagon’s control.

He said this step, which also applies to the military’s approximately 19,000 recruiters and must be completed by July 1, is one among many that will be taken to fix the problem of sexual abuse and sexual harassment within every branch of the military. [Emphasis added.]

At a news conference with Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hagel said he believes alcohol use is “a very big factor” in many sexual assault and sexual harassment cases, but there are many pieces to the problem.

Consumption of alcohol is prohibited by the Religion of Peace and must also be prohibited by our armed forces; the proper multicultural path to enlightenment, it is sure to work well. This time.

He and Dempsey spoke one day after all of the military’s leadership were summoned to the White House to discuss the sexual assault problem with President Barack Obama, who has expressed impatience with the Pentagon’s failure to solve it. …

Hagel signed a one-page memorandum addressed to the uniformed chiefs and civilian heads of each of the military services requiring that the credentials and qualifications of all recruiters, sexual assault response coordinators and sexual assault victim advocates be reviewed to ensure that they meet current standards. They also will be given refresher training on professional ethics and the impact of violations.

Secretary Hagel recognized that even more is needed.

Hagel says the step is one among many that will be taken to fix the problem of sexual abuse and sexual harassment within every branch of the military.

President Obama consistently demanded that all options be considered.

“Not only is it a crime, not only is it shameful and disgraceful, but it also is going to make and has made the military less effective than it can be,” Obama said after the meeting. “I want to leave no stone unturned and I want us to explore every good idea that’s out there in order to fix this problem.” [Emphasis added.]

All stones except for the ones under which the Obama Administration hides its own malfeasance must be turned over to permit full and fair examination of what is hidden beneath them.

New ideas (even if old) must be considered and new sex positions adopted.

My confidential source, The Really Honorable I. M Totus, has provided substantial information about a few of the historic initiatives soon to be announced by President Obama and his military minions experts. Consistent at least in part with President Obama’s hip meterosexual positions, his initiatives even seem to recognize a little bit of the World War II wisdom of General George Patton.

Not even Paris had moved them. Despite sex being “cheaper than chocolate”, they agreed with Isaiah Berlin’s assessment of the city as “hollow and dead, like an exquisite corpse”. Every soldier was issued with a guide to Parisian brothels. As General Patton put it: “A soldier who won’t fuck won’t fight.” The whores would gather at army truck stops, running their hands through a man’s hair to check for lice.

Fighting is a beastly, vulgar form of bullying and needs to be discouraged at all costs. This is not to suggest that the military no longer has its proper place in American history. It does.

Comfort persons

Following the audacious lead of human rights advocates in China, sex workers in the United States will no longer be penalized and will instead be asked to assume militarily correct positions in serving as comfort persons for personnel who would otherwise go astray. Unlike Japan, the United States military will recruit only residents of the United States. They will, however, be recruited and selected without regard to race, religion, national origin or sexual orientation.

Openness to, and encouragement of, all officially approved sexual orientations is necessary and compliant with current Administration-wide policy.

Our sources have provided Liberty Counsel an internal DOJ document titled: “LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers.” It was emailed to DOJ managers in advance of the left’s so-called “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month.” …

Following are excerpts from the “DOJ Pride” decree. When it comes to “LGBT pride,” employees are ordered:

• “DON’T judge or remain silent. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval.” (Italics mine)

That’s a threat.

And not even a subtle one.

. . . When it comes to mandatory celebration of homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors, “silence will be interpreted as disapproval.”

Are our librul friends trying to destroy the U.S. military? Is that even possible? Of course not!

What the heck! Our fighting forces of all approved persuasions must be encouraged to be themselves.

Burkas to be required 

Islam has long recognized that scanty and revealing garments turn females into objects of sexual fantasy and cause male lust. That had not previously been adequately recognized by the military leadership. Hence, the problem became worse as the Pentagon removed barriers across the board to women

and took action to mix the sexes more closely. Men and women share dorms and barracks in boot camp and at the service academies, and deploy in close quarters on ships.

The integration promises to become even more intimate in coming years as the Pentagon places women into training for direct ground combat jobs.

“The latest SAPRO report confirms that problems of sexual assault against both men and women are getting worse, not better,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “Pentagon leaders nevertheless are planning to extend these problems into the combat arms. Congress and the Pentagon first must do no harm. At a minimum, the Obama administration must not be allowed to extend complicated issues of sexual assault, which have increased by 129 percent since 2004, into direct ground combat infantry battalions.”

It being necessary to find and implement viable solutions without impairing combat effectiveness, all females on active military duty, as well as all female civilian employees in the military, will soon be required to wear burkas of militarily appropriate camouflage-design. Although current military policies on “mixed” barracks facilities have been successful in improving morale and are consistent with policies at our leading institutions of librul higher learning, something needs to be done. Hence, the requirement that females wear burkas will apply twenty-four hours a day, regardless of the nature of any activity in which they may be engaged.

Military activity will be halted during Islamic holy days.

The Department of Defense’s extreme and outdated jingoism still manifests itself in adherence to the notion that American females are commonly more sexually alluring attractive than those of other, more fortunate, nations. Since our Islamist colleagues may be offended by the sight of American females in close proximity — even when modestly clad in burkas — they as well as all other military personnel, male and other, will henceforth be confined to barracks during Islamic holy days. To show their appreciation for the respect thus accorded them, groups of moderate Islamic minstrels will likely provide suitable entertainment from outside their barracks.

In our modern age of tolerance, no longer will this type of un-entertaining, slapstick misogynistic trash be tolerated.

It has been estimated conservatively that our cost savings on ammunition, medical care and other combat related waste due to the Obama Administration’s new and daring sex positions will be sufficient to permit the resumption of military demonstration flights at any remaining domestic celebrations of a patriotic nature.

Implementation of these progressive ideas will have many other benefits.

To boost its declining ratings, possibly due to an excessive focus on boring political matters, MSNBC plans full coverage of the Obama Administration’s new and modern sex abuse positions as they are implemented by our modernized military forces.

Be of good cheer.

All is well and getting worse better in other sectors too. President Obama and his merry co conspirators minions have many faces and the more I read the more I think that Jimmy Buffett was and is a prescient optimist.

To end on a happy note, room simply has to be left in our lunatic asylum for fruitcakes. As long as they agree with me I shall welcome them. Besides, if there were nothing whatever to grumble at, life would be unbearably dull and flat.

President Obama, as usual, is blameless for any misfeasance and malfeasance of the Government he allegedly leads. Let’s make it easier for him by making it simpler and smaller.

Due to the complexity and multiplicity of scandals increasingly enveloping the Obama Administration, I became too bogged down with constantly emerging new stuff to write about it. Sadly, President Obama also has to rely on media reports, so I can easily understand his problems. Indeed, even this little bit about the Justice Department almost escaped me:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department failed to provide the names of some terrorists in the witness protection program to the center that maintains the government’s watch list used to keep dangerous people off airline flights, the department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday.

As a result of the department’s failure to properly share information, some in the witness protection program who were on the “no-fly” list were allowed to travel on commercial flights, the federal watchdog said.

“It was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade one of the government’s primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists’ movements and actions,” the report said.

At first, I wondered whether the Justice Department just needs more funding and more employees. That has been the traditional solution to our problems. Then, a better idea came to my attention. It involves a brilliant new solution that nobody had ever suggested before David Axelrod thought of it. As loyal subjects citizens, it behooves all of us to help President Obama and his friends out.

According to Mr. Axelrod on May 15th, things are far too complex these days.

“Part of being president is there’s so much underneath you because the government is so vast,” he added. “You go through these [controversies] all because of this stuff that is impossible to know if you’re the president or working in the White House, and yet you’re responsible for it and it’s a difficult situation.”

That must be the problem as well as explanation for all of the recent scandals and more that will arise unless we do something.

It is shameful – shameful — that no Republican or even conservative has ever suggested that the Government should cease growing and even be reduced in size and scope. It is doubly shameful that dear Mr. Axelrod had to be the first person in history ever to summon the courage to say it, but he did. His wise words should serve as game changers, helping Republicans and more vocal conservatives to recognize that they alone have failed us completely.

ObamaCare is probably the most inefficient, but therefore nevertheless most highly effective, expansion mechanism ever devised by Government. Why did no Republican or conservative bother to oppose it? What? There was? In 2010? But why has there been no opposition or even one effort to repeal it? Huh? Well, OK. But it must have been done incompetently.

Ditto enhanced borrowing and spending authority for the Government. Deafening silence. Wasn’t there? Oh. Yeah, there’s that but it’s probably our fault anyway. Besides, with Government growing as fast as it does, it obviously needs lots of horse manure yummy stuff from the ObamaStash to feed it; providing that is the President’s only principal job. Isn’t it? It takes a big brave man to nurture a monster of that size!

The ever growing nature of the Federal Government is, of course, not the fault of The Brilliant Light Bringer for whom we had long been waiting. His legacies of screwing medical care and helping al Qaeda to thrive have preoccupied him to the extent that he can no longer even come in out of the rain.

I missed a hole in one by just this much!

He had had difficulty with rain before, but now the paralysis has progressed and he can’t even manage to get the podium moved a few feet back under the overhang. In simpler times, a President could have managed that with just a whisper to one obtuse underling; no longer. There are too many of them. Now it would require drafts and multiple revisions of talking points and policy statements from and by many bureaus and agencies. Legal review by the diligent protectors of our laws and Constitution at the Department of Justice would be necessary as well. Their workloads are already overwhelming so it would take at least until after the 2014 elections to get the podium moved a couple of feet. President Obama has no choice but to stand in the rain for us, protected by a lowly Marine corporal.

We must all pitch in and help to get the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal under control. Should we fail, it might eat our beloved President and members of the Congress. How could the nation possibly survive without them? Surely, we need their vast wisdom and unparalleled experience to survive. Perish any thought of feeding the Beast!

Let’s all ask Big Bird for the help we so desperately need and which he alone can easily provide.

Big Bird for President in 2016!

This post is based in large part on an article titled Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill.

Is there a current tendency to consider those who cherish and seek to preserve our rights, including those under the First and Second Amendments, mentally ill for that reason? Interesting for the focused question it poses directly, the article should raise broader but similar questions about the current nature of academia in general.

I have had no direct contact with academia since my years in undergraduate school (1959 – 63) and in law school (1963 – 66). “Back in the good old days,” we were encouraged toward independent thought and away from authoritarian notions that discourage it.  

One of my favorite teachers at Yale, John Morton Blum, was an academic and a liberal (not a “librul” as I have come to use the word) in the classical sense. A student of both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, he had recently done much research at Hyde Park reviewing FDR’s papers and discussing them with his widow, Eleanor. On the day following her death, he asked whether we would object if, rather than cover his intended subject matter, he extemporized about Mrs. Roosevelt, whom he had got to know quite well. We approved and he did.

Mr. Blum’s twice weekly lectures on American political history were very popular and were therefore taught in the largest auditorium available. They were attended by several hundred students. We were divided into seminars of fifteen or so taught weekly by post doctoral teaching assistants. The TA who led my seminar, previously a labor organizer, once gave me a bad grade on an essay he had told us to write on “whether slavery was a good preparation for democracy.” A one word response, “no,” would not have served and it was evident that he wanted us to criticize slavery on the ground that it was not; I decided not to do so. Instead, I took and supported the position that it had not been intended for that purpose — much as an automobile, not intended for the purpose, would be an inadequate means of transport across the Atlantic Ocean. There were many valid grounds for criticizing slavery. That slavery did not fulfill a purpose for which it had not been intended was not among them. When I challenged him, he seemed initially hostile but nevertheless rethought the matter and within a day or two gave me a much better grade. I do not know whether he consulted Mr. Blum on what to do, but suspect that he did.

Others in various fields also sought to encourage independent thought. Brand Blanshard, for example, taught an undergraduate philosophy course. A rationalist, he “espoused and defended a strong conception of reason during a century when reason came under philosophical attack.” Reason is the antithesis of ideological conformity and of its beloved cousin, political correctness. Mr. Blanshard’s lectures were simultaneously entertaining and designed to encourage us to think independently. He retired at the end of the school year during which I attended his classes and we gave him a standing ovation. Emotionally overwhelmed or joking (I never knew for sure which), he walked off stage into a broom closet (where he remained until after we had left) rather than through the door he had customarily used.

My major field of study was economics. Authur Okun, my honors thesis adviser, adhered to the same traditions. He encouraged me to pursue the subject of my paper (impact of the Robinson-Patman Act on the automotive replacement parts market) without preconceptions as to where it should lead and seemed pleased that I had done so.

Viewing modern academia, including even public primary and secondary education —  only from a distance and mainly by reading — it strikes me that those who encourage the questioning of authority and independent thought may now be exceptions. Zero tolerance policies in primary and secondary schools — which themselves discourage rational thought by teachers and administrators in favor of reliance on overly broad applications of inflexible policies — may be symptoms of this decline. To the extent that their own rational thought processes are discouraged, might they be unlikely to encourage them in their students as well?

Toward the end of the article on which this post is substantially predicated, the author says

Why Mental Health Professionals Diagnose Anti-Authoritarians with Mental Illness? Gaining acceptance into graduate school or medical school and achieving a PhD or MD and becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist means jumping through many hoops, all of which require much behavioral and attentional compliance to authorities, even to those authorities that one lacks respect for. The selection and socialization of mental health professionals tends to breed out many anti-authoritarians. Having steered the higher-education terrain for a decade of my life, I know that degrees and credentials are primarily badges of compliance. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where one routinely conforms to the demands of authorities. Thus for many MDs and PhDs, people different from them who reject this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world—a diagnosable one. [Emphasis added.]

Please read the entire article.

Do comparable attitudes now prevail generally in other fields of academia? If so, are they recent phenomena or have they been progressing steadily downward for many years? It occurs to me that the now commonly sycophantic “legitimate media” acceptance and regurgitation of (currently) leftist or librul political talking points may have roots pointing downward to the education received by many journalists. (I used the passive word, “received,” rather than the active word, “taken,” purposely.)  The recent questioning — even by some in the “legitimate media” — of the Obama Administration Benghazi talking points is a refreshing change. I wonder how long it will last, how far it will go, in what directions with what consequences.

Many factors that the linked article suggests plague the study of psychology and psychiatry seem likely to operate broadly as well in the “social sciences” in general. They could provide fields for potentially fascinating research should anyone competent chose to pursue them.

Nor did the White House even suggest that any changes be made. Indeed, the White House never even read any talking points. Suggestions to the contrary by the partisan Republican obstructionists are damaging our very nation.

I just watched a YouTube video of Press Secretary Carney’s highly incendiary illuminating one hour long press briefing of May 10th. Instead of repeating himself interminably, shifting, dodging, dancing around — and in many cases stepping into — traps maliciously attempted to be laid by the faux media, he should have responded to all questions about White House involvement as follows:

I want to make it absolutely clear at the outset that the White House in no way, shape or form had any input whatever in preparing any talking points memo authored by the Intelligence Community. Nor did the White House demand, request or even suggest any changes. The White House had no ability to do anything of the kind, as should be obvious even to the most visually and cognitively challenged partisan Republican. The White House is a building.

However, the White House is not merely a building. Nor is it just one of the many important and beautiful buildings in Washington. It is also of greatest historical importance to the nation, dating back to the days when our very first President, Walter Washington — the great grandson of an American slave — resided there. When sequesters and other outrageous Republican partisan efforts do not interfere, it is frequently visited by our dear little children so that they can learn American history first hand and perhaps get a fleeting glance at our heroically transparent President and his charming First Lady. Attempts to deprive our children of perhaps their only opportunity to learn American history first hand is disgraceful. If it continues, our next generation will be greatly damaged by obstructionist Republican efforts to prevent our children from learning about our rich national culture and history as you and I were privileged to do.

By claiming, for gross partisan political purposes, that the White House did something bad in connection with our efforts to provide accurate information on what happened in Benghazi a very long time ago, the disloyal opposition gravely damages our nation, and not only domestically. They also cast her in an unfavorable light internationally — a situation that President Obama has from the first days of his presidency sought to rectify.

Thank you for being here and for representing the very best of the legitimate news media.

This concludes the press briefing unless there are important questions about what President Obama had for dinner last night.

Hearing none, thank you and have a pleasant day.

It has been reported by the Daily Pest Beast that

It was a scary day at the White House on Saturday—for about five minutes. Reports of smoke emanating from the West Wing, including the press area, led to a brief evacuation.

There is as yet no clearly established causal relationship between the smoke emanating “from the West Wing, including the press area” and yesterday’s press briefing by Mr. Carney. Nor has any clear connection yet been established with the unfortunate recent conflagration at a fertilizer plant in the small town of West Texas. However, a full investigation by the FBI is underway to provide clear responses to all potentially damaging troublesome questions.

Post script: After watching the House Oversight Committee hearings and reading yesterday’s media reports which likely brought about Press Secretary Carney’s briefing, I wrote a serious article about the Benghazi kerfuffle here. It seems likely that the press briefing did nothing to limit the damage to President Obama and former Secretary Clinton and that it may well have exacerbated it.

If verification is not seriously attempted, lies will go unnoticed. More lies will follow. That’s one difference Benghazi makes now.

What difference does it make?

On May 5th, President Obama delivered an address to the graduating class at Ohio State University. The following was included in his remarks.

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works.  They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner.  You should reject these voices.  Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted. (Emphasis added.)

As many have already noted, “tyranny is always lurking just around the corner” along with its handmaidens — lies, disinformation and cover ups.

That leads us to the Benghazi kerfuffle.

It is one more in a long series of governmental lies, too often reported by the “legitimate media” as the unvarnished truth when told and then, as little pieces of truth escape, reported as having been told initially due to something resembling the fog of war. That’s sometimes a good excuse — fog often does make it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. Often however, the fog is in the minds of those who find it difficult to distinguish what is true from what is politically convenient; they frequently select the latter as their talking points.

Benghazi is now being discussed with varying degrees of attention and animation in efforts to learn — or alternately further to conceal or at least to diminish in significance — what happened when and why. It has belatedly become publicly apparent that the Obama Administration made multiple efforts, long effective, to conceal and to spin the facts. An ABC News report, published on May 10th, is titled Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference. Persuasive, it relies heavily on versions of the talking points provided here in timeline form as well as White House e-mails. BBC World News has cited the ABC report favorably, as the first real news indicating that there was, in fact, a cover up. According to the BBC commentator,

This is the first hard evidence that the state department did ask for changes to the CIA’s original assessment.

Specifically, they wanted references to previous warnings deleted and this sentence removed: “We do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.”

There’s little doubt in my mind that this will haunt Hillary Clinton if she decides to run for president, unless she executes some pretty fancy footwork.

See also this article by Ron Radosh at PJ Media. Or was it just this, as claimed by Mother Jones?

[A] little bit of unseemly bureaucratic squabbling combined with the usual mushiness that you get when an interagency process produces a series of drafts of sensitive information for public consumption.

It strikes me as a (big) tad more than that; the White House now appears to be “circling the wagons.” According to Politico,

The White House held an off-the-record briefing with reporters on Friday afternoon to discuss recent revelations about the Benghazi investigation, sources familiar with the meeting tell POLITICO.

The meeting began around 12:45 p.m. and postponed the daily, on-the-record White House press briefing to 1:45 p.m. White House press secretary Jay Carney did not respond to a request for confirmation of the meeting.

The off-the-record session was announced to reporters in the wake of an ABC News report showing that White House and State Dept. officials were involved in revising the now-discredited CIA talking points about the attack on Benghazi.

Emails obtained by ABC News show that State Dept. spokesperson Victoria Nuland requested that the CIA scrub references to an Al Qaeda-linked group, which, Nuland told White House officials, “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings.”

As noted by Bryan Preston at PJ Tatler, also on May 10th, there were never serious reasons to conclude that the demonstrations in Cairo or, as claimed the attacks in Benghazi, had anything significant to do with the little watched YouTube video thought to have disparaged Islam.

For going on eight months now, we’ve pointed to one of our own posts as evidence that the Obama administration never should have believed that a YouTube movie had anything to do with the terrorist attack in Benghazi. That post, by Ray Ibrahim, pointed to a report in the Egyptian media published on September 10, 2012, that demonstrators would be converging on the US embassy in Cairo not to protest a movie, but to apply pressure and demand the release of Islamist terrorists who have been tried in American courts and/or are held in American prisons. Chief among them is Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Rahman is currently in federal prison in North Carolina, for his role in that first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York. (Emphasis added.)

The September 10 post, republished in its entirety here, was a warning regarding riots that would take place the following day in Cairo, Egypt.

Jihadi groups in Egypt, including Islamic Jihad, the Sunni Group, and Al Gamaa Al Islamiyya have issued a statement threatening to burn the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to the ground.

According to El Fagr, they are calling for the immediate release of the Islamic jihadis who are imprisonment and in detention centers in the U.S. including Guantanamo Bay: “The group, which consists of many members from al-Qaeda, called [especially] for the quick release of the jihadi [mujahid] sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman [the “Blind Sheikh”], whom they described as a scholar and jihadi who sacrificed his life for the Egyptian Umma, who was ignored by the Mubarak regime, and [President] Morsi is refusing to intervene on his behalf and release him, despite promising that he would. The Islamic Group has threatened to burn the U.S. Embassy in Cairo with those in it, and taking hostage those who remain [alive], unless the Blind Sheikh is immediately released.”

Bear in mind, we posted this on September 10. Neither the riot in Cairo nor the attack in Benghazi had happened yet. One of many warnings of attacks and threats in the Middle East, it went online with little notice.

The post constitutes proof that the Cairo riot was not about a YouTube movie. It was about jihadist groups organizing together to get incarcerated Islamist terrorists released from our jails. Those jihadists used the movie to stir up anger and turn out a crowd, but the movie was not the cause of the Cairo riot. (Emphasis added.) …

The warning regarding Cairo is salient to understanding the nature of the attack in Benghazi. If the Cairo assault had originated from a protest about a movie, then the attack in Benghazi could plausibly be believed to have a similar origin. But if Cairo itself had nothing to do with a movie, then the likelihood that Benghazi was sparked by a movie is drastically diminished.

According to career diplomat Greg Hicks, who assumed command in Libya upon the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens on the night of September 11, the YouTube movie “was a non-event in Libya” and had nothing to do with the pre-planned and organized terrorist assault on the US compound in Benghazi. In its talking points, the CIA agreed  — until political officials at the State Department had the agency change those talking points.

According to Peggy Noonan, writing at the Wall Street Journal,

The Obama White House sees every event as a political event. Really, every event, even an attack on a consulate and the killing of an ambassador.

Because of that, it could not tolerate the idea that the armed assault on the Benghazi consulate was a premeditated act of Islamist terrorism. That would carry a whole world of unhappy political implications, and demand certain actions. And the American presidential election was only eight weeks away. They wanted this problem to go away, or at least to bleed the meaning from it. …

Why couldn’t the administration tolerate the idea that Benghazi was a planned terrorist event? Because they didn’t want this attack dominating the headline with an election coming. It would open the administration to criticism of its intervention in Libya. President Obama had supported overthrowing Muammar Gadhafi and put U.S. force behind the Libyan rebels.

Now Libyans were killing our diplomats. Was our policy wrong? More importantly, the administration’s efforts against al Qaeda would suddenly come under scrutiny and questioning. The president, after the killing of Osama bin Laden, had taken to suggesting al Qaeda was over. Al Qaeda was done. But if an al Qaeda offshoot in Libya was killing our diplomats, the age of terrorism was not over.

The Obama White House didn’t want any story that might harm, get in the way of or lessen the extent of the president’s coming victory. The White House probably anticipated that Mitt Romney would soon attempt to make points with Benghazi. And indeed he did pounce, too quickly, the very next morning, giving a statement that was at once aggressive and forgettable, as was his wont. …

All of this is bad enough. Far worse is the implied question that hung over the House hearing, and that cries out for further investigation. That is the idea that if the administration was to play down the nature of the attack it would have to play down the response—that is, if you want something to be a nonstory you have to have a nonresponse. So you don’t launch a military rescue operation, you don’t scramble jets, and you have a rationalization—they’re too far away, they’ll never make it in time. This was probably true, but why not take the chance when American lives are at stake? (Emphasis added.)

Why, indeed, were the jets not scrambled and other steps not taken? When did it become too late and in view of the alleged prescience of the Obama Administration, when was that known as fact rather than as a convenient excuse to be offered later as needed?

What has been the nature and extent of President Obama’s role?

Note that Ms. Noonan refers to the Obama Administration and to the White House rather than to President Obama personally. Was he active or passive in trying to understand what was happening in Benghazi or in masterminding the cover ups? That remains to be seen, but this quote from Bertrand Russell’s 1950 Nobel Prize acceptance speech titled What Desires are Politically Important may suggest a pertinent question worth asking. The compulsion to gain and keep political power is the most important of all political motives. However, those with the most political power are not necessarily those holding political office.

Napoleon had, I think, no ideological preference for France over Corsica, but if he had become Emperor of Corsica he would not have been so great a man as he became by pretending to be a Frenchman. Such men, however, are not quite pure examples, since they also derive immense satisfaction from vanity. The purest type is that of the eminence grise – the power behind the throne that never appears in public, and merely hugs itself with the secret thought: «How little these puppets know who is pulling the strings.» Baron Holstein, who controlled the foreign policy of the German Empire from 1890 to 1906, illustrates this type to perfection. He lived in a slum; he never appeared in society; he avoided meeting the Emperor, except on one single occasion when the Emperor’s importunity could not be resisted; he refused all invitations to Court functions, on the ground that he possessed no court dress. He had acquired secrets which enabled him to blackmail the Chancellor and many of the Kaiser’s intimates. He used the power of blackmail, not to acquire wealth, or fame, or any other obvious advantage, but merely to compel the adoption of the foreign policy he preferred. In the East, similar characters were not very uncommon among eunuchs. (Emphasis added.)

Does President Obama rely on an eminence grise or several of them? If so, who are he, she or they and why? Valerie Jarrett? Hillary Clinton perhaps? She is well known and respected by many as a stellar political figure and as the probable Democrat presidential candidate for 2016. While not exactly fitting Lord Russell’s description, she seems a possible candidate. I don’t know who it might be or if President Obama even has one or more; but it would be fascinating to learn.

Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

After 1776, America became a free and independent republic. Historically, she was unique in many respects. She has lasted longer than many, probably even her founders, expected. Does anybody care whether she still a free and independent republic? If the Benghazi ball of twine lies, deception and cover ups and their successors are not unraveled the prospects are increasingly dim that she will remains so. Some are paying attention but not enough.

The nascent emergence of some of the legitimate media from their Washington Insider cocoon may augur that more will pay attention, perhaps even some “low information voters;” they tend not to pay much attention, at least until after their spirits have been aroused.

Might there be, somewhere, another Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519 BC – 430 BC) who represents the rejection of power for its own sake and the acceptance of public office only temporarily? As noted at Nebraska Energy Observer in an article by Jessica Hoff, a Brit, titled Civic virtue and the Republic,

Your American history has many such men, from the great George Washington, through Jefferson and Lincoln and into more modern times, a man like Eisenhower or Truman. These were men of almost Cincinnatan virtue. They were men who gave to the State and asked for little and ended by being loved by the people.  Has there been one such since Ike?  And if not, is that not a sign of something? …

I don’t recall Washington, Jefferson, Truman or Ike cashing in on their time in office; I can’t recall many recent presidents who haven’t once they retired.

The chances of another Cincinnatus emerging are very slim. Ike had been a career soldier before becoming President. Truman had been a career politician before becoming Vice President and then President. We have to do the best we can with what we have. Even without a clone of Cincinnatus, we should be able to do pretty well. Will we? Only if enough of us care enough. Whose land is the United States? Isn’t it up to us?

To give you a sense of the scope of the effect of technology on the psychological and emotional health of young people, I want to describe the results of an international study involving more than 1000 students from ten countries across five continents that asked students to disconnect from technology for 24 hours. The results and insights, I think you will agree, are startling, disturbing, sobering, and just a little bit hopeful. To give you a preview of the findings, the adjectives most frequently associated with this period of disconnection were addiction, failure, boredom, confusion, distress, loneliness, anxiety, and depression; not one feel-good descriptor in the lot.

Not surprisingly given the students’ seemingly unhealthy relationship with technology, a “clear majority” was unable to last 24 hours unplugged. The study revealed the indispensable role that technology now plays in young people’s lives. A Chilean student screams, “I didn’t use my cell phone all night. It was a difficult day…a horrible day. After this, I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT MEDIA!” As with many aspects of their lives, young people (and many adults, for that matter) seem to have lost sight of what “need” means. People may really, really, really want their smartphone, mp3 player, or tablet, but need is typically associated with more elemental requirements such as food, water, and shelter.  

Technology seems to be shifting from a tool that people use to, as the study suggests, something that is a part of who we are, an element of our identity and sense of self, almost as if we are becoming cyborgs without the implantation (though that seems a foregone conclusion at some point in the not-too-distant future). When separated from their technology, many students described themselves as feeling lost, incomplete, confused. A student from Lebanon said, “The idea of my phone kept jumping into my mind. I was not eager to message or call anyone, I was more eager to just ‘see’ my phone in front of me.”

Abstention from media revealed an unrecognized loneliness among the students who participated in the study. They not only realized how shallow their relationships were when mediated by technology, but that their deepest relationship was with the technology itself. “All I wanted to do was pick up my phone and become a part of the human race again,” said a U.K.-based student without realizing the irony in his statement.

The study showed how reliant young people were on their technology for stimulation and the degree to which they experienced boredom without it to amuse them. Their dependence on technology was illustrated by their lack of initiative and imagination to find their own ways—devoid of technology—to entertain themselves. Said another Chilean student, “I started to think about things to do without media, and found out that actually I couldn’t think of many.”

Just so I don’t end this post on such a downer note, there was a small ray of optimism that came out of this research. Many students in the study found the 24 hours of disconnection to be an eye opener and a wake-up call. Many were shocked to learn how much time they actually devoted to technology. They also noticed how the quality and depth of their relationships improved while unplugged. Wrote a Mexican student, “I interacted with my parents more than the usual. I fully heard what they said to me without being distracted.”

Others learned that they could actually enjoy life without the leash of technology. Said a U.S. student, “I’ve lived with the same people for three years now, they’re my best friends, and I think that this is one of the best days we’ve spent together. I was able to really see them, without any distractions, and we were able to revert to simple pleasures.” The one-day vacation from cyberspace also put its use in perspective. Another student from Mexico observed insightfully, “Media put us close to the people who are far away but they separate us from the ones who are nearby.”

On a further positive note, about 25 percent of the sample actually saw the benefits of unplugging. A number of students learned that they didn’t really need technology and could actually survive without it. In fact, some students experienced a transcendental moment in which, for that one disconnected day, they walked the path of quiet and calm and saw that there was much to be gained from unplugging from technology and plugging into life. Said another U.S. student, “I became more aware with my own thoughts. I realized that maybe it’s important to disconnect every once in awhile and let your brain remember you.”

Sorry, I meant Daily Beast. It must have been a Freudian slip. Or something.

There is an article on the Benghazi cover-up at the Daily Beast. It’s not badly done, but read the comments. They are hilarious, if one has a warped sense of humor. Many (perhaps most, but I have difficulty counting that high) support what they refer to affectionately as “our next President, Hillary Clinton” (may her holy mendacious name be praised) and take the position that their savior, President Obama, can do and has done nothing wrong.

No matter how diligently the RINO party tries to assemble a politically correct and hence diverse big tent, it cannot encompass such ideologies as evidenced by the Daily Beast readers who bothered to comment, without thereby excluding conservatives.  Here are two relevant articles at Nebraska Energy Observer: The Conservative Predicament and The wrath of the awakening Saxon. I agree.

Where should we go from here? Waking up seems as though it should a good first step. After, of course, we get rid of the body snatchers and snatchees.

It isn’t just Senator Rubio, as Bill Whittle points out quite effectively. As noted at The wrath of the awakening Saxon,

In the UK and the USA the old parties seem irrelevant – vehicles for career politicians who don’t care which team they drive for as long as it is the winning one. And out here, beyond the Thunderdome, we’re beginning to see that whoever else wins, we lose.

We The RINO Party must enjoy losing and does it with great competence.

Many things are possible between now and 2016. Will Dr. Carson become our next President? I hope so.

This post at Dancing Czars called to my attention an interview with Dr. Carson. It seemed that it might help to pull my spirits out of the pit where they had been trying to survive since last November so I watched.

It did.

I also noticed this new video at PJTV and also found it on YouTube. Presented largely by Bill Whittle, it covers some of the same ground but is no less inspiring.

Our presidential choices in the recent past have been, at best, mediocre and far from inspiring. On the wall of my study there is still a small sign, “Oh, Alright, Fine. Romney 2012.” Should Dr. Carson seek to become our next President, I shall quickly replace that small sign with one expressing far more optimism. Should he succeed, the likelihood is great that he will assist our nation in making changes that we can, want to — and should — believe in. Will he do everything I would like for him to do? Nobody would. Will he do lots of things that will turn out to have been wrong? I don’t think so but that’s possible, even though he has been quite successful thus far. Will he help to reunite our sadly divided nation? I think he has an excellent chance of doing so.

It seems clear that Dr. Carson — unlike the incumbent and unlike former “under sniper fire in Bosnia,” “what difference does it make now” likely presidential candidate Clinton, who again aspires to be our the President — loves the United States and wants the best for her. Based on what I have heard thus far, we want essentially the same things for our nation. True, he has no experience in governing; phrased differently, he has no experience in doing the same wrong things repeatedly. Perhaps lack of that type of political experience is good rather than the reverse. In view of the other choices, what have we to lose?

Will the Republican Party let him do what I sense he wants to do and is capable of doing? That remains to be seen. Is the Republican Party already so deeply immersed in its bad habits, and so far beyond doing what “we the people” want it to do, that there is no point in trying to push it to nominate Dr. Carson as its our candidate? Not yet, and even if it were we still have what Republican candidates want and need most of all — our votes.

Those of us who would like to see Dr. Carson as our next President had best get busy. The 2014 campaign season is approaching inexorably and it may well be useful for him to get some political campaign experience. Could he help conservative candidates with whom he agrees on important national issues to get elected to the House and to the Senate? Would he be willing to do so? It will likely be necessary to ask him in order to find out.

Well thought out red lines can be drawn, successfully. Ill conceived red lines can easily make a bad situation much worse. An article from Stratfor is republished following my initial comments.

My initial comments:

Great care needs to be taken to avoid drawing ill defined “red lines” which, if crossed, may result in solutions worse than the problem or in no significant action at all. The Obama Administration appears to have drawn its red line as to the use of chemical weapons in Syria with inadequate thought to the nature of any “something to be done if crossed” that would be viable militarily, economically, politically and with due regard to the probable consequences.

Sitting on the sidelines is not pleasant, particularly for a once mighty but now declining military power. Even when at our strongest, I doubt that we could have taken usefully successful action in the current circumstances.

However, getting involved in a serious conflict with achievement of ill-defined or impossible goals in mind can be much worse than sitting on the sidelines. Happy dreams of planting western style “democratic” government in Islamic lands where “freedom for all” is anathema are unrealizable; illusions of reality, based on the way we would like the world to be rather than on how it is, lead to disappointment and worse. We should have seen by now that the probability of useful success in Syria closely approaches zero.

Our most recent military effort that resulted in successfully planting Western style notions of democracy was in Japan, which the U.S. and to some extent her allies had only recently defeated severely in World War II. World War II against Japan was not begun with that goal in mind. Transformation of the quite homogeneous Japanese culture was stimulated economically by the Korean Conflict that began in June of 1950.  In consequence of U.S. — U.N. military efforts in Korea, millions of Japanese gained employment and many millions of dollars flowed into the Japanese economy. There seems to be little if any reason to hope for, much less to expect, any comparable circumstances in Syria.

Drawing a Syrian red line in such circumstances was ill advised because it has subjected — and it should have been expected that it would subject — the U.S. to creditable charges of dithering, ineffectual and otherwise incompetent bluster. Those charges have doubtless been heard — and credited with happiness if not relief — by the ruling powers in such rogue nations as North Korea and Iran, the former with an already at least modest arsenal of nuclear weapons and the latter nascently so. North Korea loves to bluster and its leaders may be sufficiently irrational to take their own bluster seriously — with dire consequences for them, their nation and for many others elsewhere. Iran’s blustering has thus far generally been limited to denying that it is seeking nuclear weaponry, with occasional threats to demolish Israel thrown in. If and when Iran does get such weapons, it will affect, adversely, whatever balance of power exists in the Middle East; the consequences will likely be worse than that.

The following article is republished here with the permission of Stratfor:

Redlines and the Problems of Intervention in Syria
By George Friedman, Founder and Chairman

The civil war in Syria, one of the few lasting legacies of the Arab Spring, has been under way for more than two years. There has been substantial outside intervention in the war. The Iranians in particular, and the Russians to a lesser extent, have supported the Alawites under Bashar al Assad. The Saudis and some of the Gulf States have supported the Sunni insurgents in various ways. The Americans, Europeans and Israelis, however, have for the most part avoided involvement.

Last week the possibility of intervention increased. The Americans and Europeans have had no appetite for intervention after their experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. At the same time, they have not wanted to be in a position where intervention was simply ruled out. Therefore, they identified a redline that, if crossed, would force them to reconsider intervention: the use of chemical weapons.

There were two reasons for this particular boundary. The first was that the United States and European states have a systemic aversion to the possession and usage of weapons of mass destruction in other countries. They see this ultimately as a threat to them, particularly if such weapons are in the hands of non-state users. But there was a more particular reason in Syria. No one thought that al Assad was reckless enough to use chemical weapons because they felt that his entire strategy depended on avoiding U.S. and European intervention, and that therefore he would never cross the redline. This was comforting to the Americans and Europeans because it allowed them to appear decisive while avoiding the risk of having to do anything.

However, in recent weeks, first the United Kingdom and France and then Israel and the United States asserted that the al Assad regime had used chemical weapons. No one could point to an incidence of massive deaths in Syria, and the evidence of usage was vague enough that no one was required to act immediately.

In Iraq, it turned out there was not a nuclear program or the clandestine chemical and biological weapons programs that intelligence had indicated. Had there been, the U.S. invasion might have had more international support, but it is doubtful it would have had a better outcome. The United States would have still forced the Sunnis into a desperate position, the Iranians would have still supported Shiite militias and the Kurds would have still tried to use the chaos to build an autonomous Kurdish region. The conflict would have still been fought and its final outcome would not have looked very different from how it does now.

What the United States learned in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya is that it is relatively easy for a conventional force to destroy a government. It is much harder — if not impossible — to use the same force to impose a new type of government. The government that follows might be in some moral sense better than what preceded it — it is difficult to imagine a more vile regime than Saddam Hussein’s — but the regime that replaces it will first be called chaos, followed by another regime that survives to the extent that it holds the United States at arm’s length. Therefore, redline or not, few want to get involved in another intervention pivoting on weapons of mass destruction.

Interventionist Arguments and Illusions

However, there are those who want to intervene for moral reasons. In Syria, there is the same moral issue that there was in Iraq. The existing regime is corrupt and vicious. It should not be forgotten that the al Assad regime conducted a massacre in the city of Hama in 1982 in which tens of thousands of Sunnis were killed for opposing the regime. The regime carried out constant violations of human rights and endless brutality. There was nothing new in this, and the world was able to act fairly indifferent to the events, since it was still possible to create media blackouts in those days. Syria’s patron, the Soviet Union, protected it, and challenging the Syrian regime would be a challenge to the Soviet Union. It was a fight that few wanted to wage because the risks were seen as too high.

The situation is different today. Syria’s major patron is Iran, which had (until its reversal in Syria) been moving toward a reshaping of the balance of power in the region. Thus, from the point of view of the American right, an intervention is morally required to confront evil regimes. There are those on the left who also want intervention. In the 1980s, the primary concern of the left was the threat of nuclear war, and they saw any intervention as destabilizing a precarious balance. That concern is gone, and advocacy for military intervention to protect human rights is a significant if not universal theme on the left.

The difference between right-wing and left-wing interventionists is the illusions they harbor. In spite of experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, right-wing interventionists continue to believe that the United States and Europe have the power not only to depose regimes but also to pacify the affected countries and create Western-style democracies. The left believes that there is such a thing as a neutral intervention — one in which the United States and Europe intervene to end a particular evil, and with that evil gone, the country will now freely select a Western-style constitutional democracy. Where the right-wing interventionists cannot absorb the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq, the left-wing interventionists cannot absorb the lessons of Libya.

Everyone loved the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. What was not to like? The Evil Empire was collapsing for the right; respect for human rights was universally embraced for the left. But Eastern Europe was occupied by Josef Stalin in 1945 following domination and occupation by Adolf Hitler. Eastern Europeans had never truly embraced either, and for the most part loathed both. The collapse freed them to be what they by nature were. What was lurking under the surface had always been there, suppressed but still the native political culture and aspiration.

That is not what was under the surface in Afghanistan or Iraq. These countries were not Europe and did not want to be. One of the reasons that Hussein was despised was that he was secular — that he violated fundamental norms of Islam both in his personal life and in the way he governed the country. There were many who benefited from his regime and supported him, but if you lopped off the regime, what was left was a Muslim country wanting to return to its political culture, much as Eastern Europe returned to its.

In Syria, there are two main factions fighting. The al Assad regime is Alawite, a heterodox offshoot of Shi’ism. But its more important characteristic is that it is a secular regime, not guided by either liberal democracy or Islam but with withering roots in secular Arab Socialism. Lop it off and what is left is not another secular movement, this time liberal and democratic, but the underlying Muslim forces that had been suppressed but never eradicated. A New York Times article this week pointed out that there are no organized secular forces in areas held by the Sunni insurgents. The religious forces are in control. In Syria, secularism belonged to the Baath Party and the Alawites, and it was brutal. But get rid of it, and you do not get liberal democracy.

This is what many observers missed in the Arab Spring. They thought that under the surface of the oppressive Hosni Mubarak regime, which was secular and brutal, was a secular liberal democratic force. Such a force was present in Egypt, more than in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya, but still did not represent the clear alternative to Mubarak. The alternative — not as clearly as elsewhere, but still the alternative — was the Muslim Brotherhood, and no secular alternative was viable without the Egyptian army.

The Difficulties of an Intervention

There are tremendous military challenges to dealing with Syria. Immaculate interventions will not work. A surgical strike on chemical facilities is a nice idea, but the intelligence on locations is never perfect, Syria has an air defense system that cannot be destroyed without substantial civilian casualties, and blowing up buildings containing chemical weapons could release the chemicals before they burn. Sending troops deep into Syria would not be a matter of making a few trips by helicopter. The country is an armed camp, and destroying or seizing stockpiles of chemical weapons is complicated and requires manpower. To destroy the stockpiles, you must first secure ports, airports and roads to get to them, and then you have to defend the roads, of which there are many.

Eradicating chemical weapons from Syria — assuming that they are all in al Assad’s territory – would require occupying that territory, and the precise outlines of that territory change from day to day. It is also likely, given the dynamism of a civil war, that some chemical weapons would fall into the hands of the Sunni insurgents. There are no airstrikes or surgical raids by special operations troops that would solve the problem. Like Iraq, the United States would have to occupy the country.

If al Assad and the leadership are removed, his followers — a substantial minority — will continue to resist, much as the Sunnis did in Iraq. They have gained much from the al Assad regime and, in their minds, they face disaster if the Sunnis win. The Sunnis have much brutality to repay. On the Sunni side, there may be a secular liberal democratic group, but if so it is poorly organized and control is in the hands of Islamists and other more radical Islamists, some with ties to al Qaeda. The civil war will continue unless the United States intervenes on behalf of the Islamists, uses its power to crush the Alawites and hands power to the Islamists. A variant of this happened in Iraq when the United States sought to crush the Sunnis but did not want to give power to the Shia. The result was that everyone turned on the Americans.

That will be the result of a neutral intervention or an intervention designed to create a constitutional democracy. Those who intervene will find themselves trapped between the reality of Syria and the assorted fantasies that occasionally drive U.S. and European foreign policy. No great harm will come in any strategic sense. The United States and Europe have huge populations and enormous wealth. They can, in that sense, afford such interventions. But the United States cannot afford continual defeats as a result of intervening in countries of marginal national interest, where it sets for itself irrational political goals for the war. In some sense, power has to do with perception, and not learning from mistakes undermines power.

Many things are beyond the military power of the United States. Creating constitutional democracies by invasion is one of those things. There will be those who say intervention is to stop the bloodshed, not to impose Western values. Others will say intervention that does not impose Western values is pointless. Both miss the point. You cannot stop a civil war by adding another faction to the war unless that faction brings overwhelming power to bear. The United States has a great deal of power, but not overwhelming power, and overwhelming power’s use means overwhelming casualties. And you cannot transform the political culture of a country from the outside unless you are prepared to devastate it as was done with Germany and Japan.

The United States, with its European allies, does not have the force needed to end Syria’s bloodshed. If it tried, it would merely be held responsible for the bloodshed without achieving any strategic goal. There are places to go to war, but they should be few and of supreme importance. The bloodshed in Syria is not more important to the United States than it is to the Syrians.

“Redlines and the Problems of Intervention in Syria is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

My further comments:

President Obama’s current position as to the red line is that we don’t know for sure whether it was crossed or, if so, by whom. That fallback position may be satisfactory for a short while. However, we are likely in the near future to have actionable and reasonably certain answers to both questions. If the answers are “yes” and “the Syrian government did it,” is there another fallback position? Perhaps the red line can be redefined as a broad pink stripe, so defined as to be as flexible as necessary no matter what may happen. The impacts on the credibility of the United States of drawing such lines are likely to be quite adverse.

This article by Luis Hershou contends that military action by the United States is fast approaching.

Obama is now faced with having to take action against the use of deadly gas by Assad forces.

At this stage – and even later – it is fair to assume that no massive American  ground operation will occur.  Instead, special forces for dealing with the WMD depots there will be used.

It’s also a fair assumption that the US Air Force will be soon felt in the skies above Syria.

I doubt that we are headed in the direction suggested in that article, but it is certainly possible.

Can’t we just wait for heroes to save us? That’s easy but won’t work.

A fascinating article titled The Good Guys are Not Coming to Save Us was posted on April 23rd at Free-Man’s Perspective. The first paragraph observes,

A lot of Americans know that the US government is out of control. Anyone who has cared enough to study the US Constitution even a little knows this. Still, very few of these people are taking any significant action, and largely because of one error: They are waiting for “the good guys” to show up and fix things.

The article provides much food for thought. Please read it.  

The indifferent

There are many low (no?) information voters who generally neither pay attention to what’s happening nor care. Indifferent, they won’t until they find a major need to pay attention, immediately, either when emotionally aroused or when things seem to get very bad for them. That’s when a benign Government, now seen as the principal supplier of all that they need, comes in. It furnishes what they claim they need, so they needn’t even bother to become more than temporarily distracted from their customary pursuits.

Just take your Electronic Benefits Transfer card to pay for booze and other pleasures at a nice strip joint. That must be the card’s purpose, a few State legislatures to the contrary notwithstanding. On April 26th the Florida legislature acted to ban such use.

The money on Florida Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards is meant to help needy families cover rent and other basic living expenses.

But in a review of 30 months of EBT card withdrawals, which first aired in 2011, 9 Investigates uncovered almost 700 withdrawals at stores with either “beer” or “liquor” in the name.

There were 200 at stories with “tobacco” or “smoke” in the name.  And 9 Investigates even found $60,000 withdrawn inside the Miccosukee Indian Casino near Miami.

Now, Orlando-area State Sen. Andy Gardiner has introduced a new ban that would prohibit EBT cards from being used in liquor stores, strip clubs, dog racing tracks, mega casinos, strip mall casinos and other gaming establishments.

It is said that fish rot from the head down. Why, since our CongressCritters get many lucrative benefits, including (but “not by way of limitation”) insider corporate information obtained by virtue of their employment — financially useful to them and their accomplices friends — should the poor little folk not enjoy their EBT cards as they please? It’s just peanuts. Or something.

Does anyone read or listen these days to poetry such as that of Robert Burns?

Those who care

There appear to be several reasons why those of us who want “our” (whose?) Government to revert to constitutional basics look for heroes to take care of the our problems for us. Just as most of us take our broken cars to mechanics rather than try to fix them ourselves — cars (like “our” Government) are far more computerized and otherwise more complex and difficult to understand than they once were — we try to do the same with our Government. That does not always work very well with our broken cars, but at least we try to select mechanics thought to know what they are about and who try not to impair whatever reputations for competence they may have. I get the sense that politicians are often less competent at their jobs and less concerned about their reputations than are auto mechanics. I also get the sense that many voters are less picky in selecting their politicians than in selecting their auto mechanics, and I wonder why. Beyond that they consider their cars more important, perhaps it’s because it soon becomes evident whether the efforts of an auto mechanic worked or didn’t. The effectiveness of politicians in doing their jobs is usually less readily and less quickly apparent; there are no guarantees.  Mechanics also tend to be more approachable than most politicians (except when seeking votes or financial support), often need the work and to survive in their chosen fields of endeavor need to do a fairly good job.

Functioning at the State level

We should have more impact at the State and local levels than at the Federal level. However, as the linked article at Free Man’s Perspective points out, State and local governments have been undergoing a species of chemical financial castration for many years. It has been and continues to be done via Federal subsidies granted as bribes for accepting Federal control in areas such as education. That is probably the most important area for the Federal Government to gain as much control as possible, because education guides future voters to avoid or to perpetuate our errors of the past.

Such castration is also accomplished via other feel good legislation, also often accompanied by bribes. It frequently has comforting titles beyond which few bother to read. Frequently, those who do read legislation before enactment include those who work in the Federal agencies to be authorized to implement it and often include others who have “special” interests. After enactment, bureaucrats gain vast powers to implement legislation that they helped to craft to accomplish what they want, due to massive grants of authority to those agencies. Often legislation has such permissive language as “and other implementing actions as determined by the Administrator.”

A year ago, even Congressman West supported a small monster with the pleasing title The Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection Act, a.k.a the STANDUP act. How could any sane person not “stand up” for safe driving? However, buried in the (not very long) bill was the following language at the end of a recitation of the bill’s purposes:

Any other requirement adopted by the Secretary of Transportation, including learner’s permit holding period at least 6 months; intermediate stage at least 6 months; at least 30 hours behind-the-wheel, supervised driving by licensed driver 21 years of age or older; automatic delay of full licensure if permit holder commits an offense, such as DWI, misrepresentation of true age, reckless driving, unbelted driving, speeding, or other violations as determined by the Secretary. (Emphasis added.)

Significant Federal funding was to be provided to urge passage of the bill and to encourage States to implement it. As I argued in my linked article,

Federal funding is and long has been a powerful inducement for the states to do or to refrain from doing things. Often it is so appealing that it cannot be resisted. Worse, it is an addictive inducement because once states become accustomed to receiving federal funds they tend to become dependent upon and reluctant to forgo them — even when the rules that need to be followed to continue to receive such funding cease to be compatible with their needs.  The process often occurs slowly but inexorably and as it happens the sovereignty of the states is diminished. The ability of the Secretary of the Treasury to promulgate new requirements — quite common in such legislation — exacerbates this problem. We have seen that progression in many fields. Education is one of them, health care is another.

That bill eventually died. However, it was neither the first nor will it be the last effort of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a.k.a. “Our” Government) to increase the subservience of the States. ObamaCare is the most notorious recent example. Passed with little understanding by the CongressCritters who voted for it of what it said, what it intended and how it might be implemented, it served as a basis for the creation of many thousands of pages of implementing regulations by multiple Federal agencies; more are still being written and the whole mess has become a deservedly unpopular disaster.

The present “Gang of Eight” “Immigration Reform” legislation (“Immigration needs reform; therefore reform legislation must be good, per se“) appears to resemble ObamaCare in many respects, including grants of what would once have been seen as unparalleled discretion to Federal bureaucrats. Yet there has been a push on to pass it “right now,” principally (I think) to garner “Hispanic” votes for the next and future elections. Much misinformation and disinformation have been pushed even by such Republican luminaries as Senator Marco Rubio. Power Line pointed out some rather serious “misstatements” here.

During his appearance on Levin’s program on April 17, Rubio referred four times to the creation of a commission led by border governors. This statement is typical of how he described the commission and its role:

If, in five years, the plan has not reached 100 percent awareness and 90 percent apprehension, the Department of Homeland Security … will lose control of the issue and it will be turned over to the border governors to finish the job … which is not a Washington commission, made up of congressmen or bureaucrats. It’s largely led by the border state governors, who have a vested local interest in ensuring that that border is secure … and there’s money set aside in the bill for them to do it.

But when Byron York read Rubio’s bill, he found that if the 100 percent and 90 percent goals are not met, the job of the commission is almost entirely advisory, i.e., to make “recommendations to the President, the Secretary, and Congress” on how to meet them. The bill provides that the commission shall write a report “setting forth specific recommendations,” send it to the Government Accounting Office, and then go out of business in 30 days.

Additional claims by Senator Rubio et al contradict or are at least unsupported by the legislation.

With increasingly vague legislation, and broad grants of Congressional authority to agencies to legislate promulgate nearly whatever regulations they may deem fit, our courts can’t and don’t do much to prevent administrative abuse. They generally look only at whether any given administrative action falls within broad parameters of discretion — even then they grant substantial deference to the alleged expertise of the various agencies.

The content of the Gang of 8 Immigration Reform legislation continues to be challenged, but what difference does it make? Piffle! That’s just technical language. We need reform right now! We Can’t Wait! Senator Rubio is (was?) thought to be one of the good guys.

There are other prongs of the problem and one of them is mission creep. As observed in an article titled Government as Entropy,

The USDA was founded on a relatively simple set of principles: promote American agriculture. That was it; that was pretty much its whole raison d’être. In one hundred and fifty years it apparently learned a few new tricks, the least of which is teaching people how to live off the public dole. The USDA now boasts an Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, an Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, and an Economic Research Service, to name a few of its bureaucratic functions; it manages offices of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Tribal Relations, Communications, Nutrition Policy and Promotion, the Executive Secretariat, and many others; it hath pronounced on the “Harmonized Tariff Schedule” and “International Phyosanitary Standards” and lots of other fascinating topics.

How much of this is “useful information?” about agriculture? How much of it is regulatory folderol?

The author cites several other, equally horrendous, examples of mission creep and then observes,

Why belabor the point? These multi-tiered government mammoths aren’t going anywhere. But it is still indicative of a painful reality: creating a government agency is like ringing a dinner bell. People are going to come from all over to try and get a piece of the action; and as this happens, the agencies will grow, the offices will become more numerous, and the positions and occupations will become more uncountable and unaccountable.

While helpful, becoming active in State and local politics is not a complete antidote for what’s going on with “our” Government. It can help, but the main venues for important legislative efforts that affect us all — often adversely — are the Congress (legislation), the White House (Executive Orders), the multiple Federal agencies and the courts which interpret it all (eventually, if asked to do so by someone with “standing“).

Our Constitution provides for the best type of Government yet devised

Too many — generally those fettered by them — are unhappy with the Constitution’s checks and balances and other means of limiting governmental action. They have for years been industrious in minimizing them. There has been little effective opposition. It strikes me that many if not most who seek political office seek power and eventually want more. Many devote their entire careers to government “service” and become wealthy in the process.

Whenever there is a popular crisis, the “We Can’t Wait!” choir sings and many join their emotional chorus. By the time that a crisis du jour has passed, other matters have become old stuff and few care about them.  Anything that diverts attention is useful, but a monumental crisis du jour is not always necessary if news has been filtered through the “legitimate media” (tip of the hat to Vice President Biden for the phrase) for long enough. As former Secretary Clinton remarked on January 23, 2013 about whatever may have happened in Benghazi and why,

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. If it was because of a protest or if it was because guys out for a walk decided to go kill some Americans. What difference at this point does it make?”

The Newtown, Connecticut shootings of December 14, 2012 were still much in the news and provided the rallying point for feel good gun control legislation that would not have been effective in preventing the Newtown or most other massacres. Perhaps recognizing that, President Obama said on February 4, “if there’s just one life we can save, we’ve got an obligation to try.” Although not cited by Secretary Clinton, Newtown too was a reason (marginally better than the one she offered) for “What difference at this point does” Benghazi make? We the Schmucks may never know.

We seem to have reached the point at which few think anything makes much of a difference. Perhaps they are right.

Following the November election debacle, I wrote several articles bemoaning what had gone wrong and suggesting steps that might yield better results in 2014 and 2016. I have not noticed anything significant happening, beyond nods of approval from some other conservative bloggers. While personally gratifying, rather more is needed from many others. Where is (are) the Vox Populi?

Perhaps as long as the Government of Free Stuff For the People, From the People and by grace of  God “our” generous Government continues to provide for our needs and wants in ever increasing varieties and quantities, nothing significant will be done. Even then, it may well be too late because a cancer has been metastasizing for decades.

Perhaps I am overly sensitive to a cancer metaphor. In early 1998, I noticed a small lump inside my neck. It caused no discomfort or other symptoms and we were then in Aruba, where medical care is inadequate. A physician there prescribed an antibiotic and, when it didn’t work, shrugged his shoulders and had nothing further to offer. Shortly thereafter we were on our sailboat back in Bonaire.  A retired surgeon from Missouri (a fellow scuba diver) strongly suggested that I have the lump checked out, promptly, by an ear nose and throat specialist. My wife and I flew the next day to Caracas (which then had the best nearby medical facilities) for that purpose, and an excellent ENT physician examined me. He suggested that I fly, immediately, to the States for further diagnosis and treatment. Jeanie and I did and were there for about six months. A malignant mass was surgically removed, along with lots of lymph nodes, musculature and other yucky affected stuff. Then I had radiation therapy for five weeks. At the end, the radiation oncologist gave me a twenty-three percent change of five year survival. My surgeon gave me an eighty percent chance. That was fifteen years ago; there has been no recurrence and I expect none.

Had I delayed getting competent medical treatment on the theory that since there were no apparent symptoms everything was probably peachy, I am likely by now to have died painfully and to have been dead for many years. Prompt action and competent physicians saved me. There are already many symptoms of our national cancer — obvious to anyone who pays attention and cares — and I hope it is not yet too late for our nation to recover, survive and resume operation as she was designed to do, but am losing hope that she will.

On April 26th, I wrote Freedom can be Taken. When Inherited or otherwise Given, does it Last?  The article was depressing to write and probably to read as well. I of course hope that our freedoms will survive (revive?) and gain momentum in a much better direction. To that end, I shall continue to do the only things I can (pretty much limited to writing articles for my blog) for as long as I can in hopes that my minuscule efforts may help her to do so. Still, her chances seem less than even twenty-three percent at this point.

This is not an adequate solution:

Still, things could be worse. Maybe we should just wait for the worst to happen.

If taken at great cost, it often lasts for quite a while. If inherited, not that long. If given, it is even more readily perishable.

The United States gained their freedom, by force and at great cost, from those who used military might to prevent them from having it. Even many in the United States who inherited their freedom seem to have forgot how and why those from whom they inherited took it and the costs they bore. Those “given” freedom should know by now that it does not long endure unless cherished and defended, by force if that is the only viable option. Do they realize it? Do they care?

This article did not begin as a pitch for the Rutherford Institute, but I received an e-mail this morning that seemed well worth excerpting here.  

Dear Dan,

The world is a far different place today than it was ten—twenty—even thirty years ago. Freedom, once greatly prized, has become something of a luxury, easily traded for phantom promises of security and material comforts. Likewise, human life, once valued highly, has become a cheap commodity, easily discarded and abused by those entrusted with protecting it.

We see this played out daily, not only in the government’s heavy-handed approach to “governing” but in its view of the citizenry as disposable, inhuman, and incapable of directing our lives, caring for our children, overseeing our health and welfare, and managing our financial affairs.

For all intents and purposes, the so-called nanny state being erected around us is really little more than a police state sold to the American people in the guise of security, safety and convenience. Yet with every law passed, every piece of technology adopted, and every freedom stripped of its life force, the government’s true objectives become clearer—absolute control, domination and dehumanization of people into impersonal things.

Here is a link to The Rutherford Institute blog, which highlights some of the issues it addresses, principally through litigation. Please contribute if you can.

I receive frequent e-mails from Orgiastic for Obama Organizing for Action as well. It presents Candidate Obama’s pitches for money and support now that he is The President. Here’s the text of one dated April 22:

Friend –

When I last emailed you a few months ago, I told you about my dad, Reuven, who was killed this past September in a mass shooting in Minneapolis.

Since then, I’ve been fighting every single day to reduce gun violence, so no one else ever has to grieve like I did.

When the Senate defeated a bill that would expand background checks last week, I just couldn’t believe it. Something that 90 percent of Americans support should be a slam dunk.

Right now, we might be witnessing the greatest disconnect between Congress and the American people in our history.

This is why Organizing for Action’s job is so important. Together, we can make sure that no one in Washington ever gets away with ignoring the voices of the people who sent them there — no matter how powerful the special interests.

Add your name — say you’re ready to keep on fighting.

I can’t get over the fact that those 45 senators cast their votes against background checks while family members of the victims of Newtown, Tucson, and Virginia Tech watched from the Senate gallery.

Could those senators even look those families in the eye and explain themselves?

The truth I’m finding is that the gun lobby has got decades worth of money and organizing behind them, and they know how to stir their supporters into a frenzy.

But 90 percent of this country is on our side, not theirs. If we all step up, we will be heard. And we will win the next vote.

This past weekend, thousands of OFA supporters got together at 45 targeted events across the country to thank the senators who stood up for us, and to tell the senators who caved to the special interests that we’re not about to give up this fight.

That’s the kind of action I’m talking about. Join in — let’s make sure that Wednesday was the most powerful the gun lobby will ever be in Washington.

Add your name right now: 

http://my.barackobama.com/Keep-Fighting

Thanks. Now back to work.

Sami

Sami Rahamim
Minneapolis, MN

Bill Whittle, at PJTV’s Afterburner, today presented a video titled “Enemies of the State.”

Are we “enemies of the state?” Many on the left appear to view us in that light. Might I suggest that they are pawns of the state and enemies of freedom?

Here are links to Power Line articles from yesterday. Each has a valid point and each is relevant. Please do read them all (I have modified the titles; please read them for their substance).

Cover up on the Boston Marathon kerfuffle.

ObamaCare all except those sitting on the Throne of Congressional Power?

California’s proposed Deadbeats’ rights bill.

Welfare for those who would slaughter the rest of us.

CAIR, human rights organization.  How about human rights for non-Islamist humans? We apparently don’t matter.

An interesting albeit frightening article titled “When Will Enough be Enough” at Freedom Outpost presents these thoughts:

I cannot recall in my lifetime when our government has been so corrupt, so filled with lawless individuals who only think of themselves and not what is truly best for Americans.

America has a government that is slowly strangling the liberty out of its citizens and even though there are plenty of conservatives who rail against it, work to change it, and understand what is coming if we fail, the difficulty is that those in our government (aided and abetted by the media) do what they want to do anyway, often in total disregard for the rule of law.  It’s not only maddeningly frustrating, but it goes against the very core of the Constitution.

Another article at Freedom Outpost is titled Inherited Freedom. It begins,

I have been contemplating for several months why 60% of the people don’t seem to care about the state of the nation. About 39% care some but do nothing, I ask myself why? I believe it must be that our freedom and liberty was inherited. Less than 1% of us have fought for our country.

Those of us now living inherited or were otherwise given our freedoms in the United States. Although many now living fought overseas — in World War II, in the Korean Conflict, in Vietnam and in the Middle East, for example — we seemed to have had little if any need to fight for our freedoms domestically. Do we value our freedoms as those from whom we inherited them did? Those freedoms are diminishing, but few seem to be much concerned. Perhaps that they were given rather than hard won is a reason: free stuff tends to be less valued than what we, ourselves, have earned.

Our own fighters in the cause of domestic freedom are now long dead, like those who fought for Irish freedom. Are they often remembered? Are our own? Infrequently and sometimes less than fondly.

Scotland?

Freedom seems not to have lasted very long even there.

When will we see her likes again? Where? In the United States? That seems rather a long shot. Can we make it happen anyway? I hope that we can and will.

Britania no longer rules the seas, or much of anything else.

Londonistan? Yesterday, twenty-five thousand Islamists gathered in our Mother Country to demand that defamation  (i.e., mentions of reality) about Islam be criminalized.

Up to 25,000 British Pakistani men, women and children from across the UK gathered in Aston Park here to express their love for Hazrat Muhammad (peace be upon him) and to call on the British government to introduce legislation that bars Islamophobes from insulting Islam under the garb of the freedom of speech.

Who does/will rule the seas? China, perhaps? Are we accepting that?

Instead of paying attention to what’s happening, we have a President for whom many (so called “low information” voters, and “single issue” voters) apparently voted because of this sort of emotional, orgiastic urging. Are they concerned about nothing else? Even they are losing their freedoms and will lose more of them. Will they notice? If so, will they care?

Is that the bottom of the pit into which we have been descending? Does it have a bottom? Where might the bottom be and how might we climb out of it? Will we bother?

It has been a long time since the United States gained (took by force of arms) her freedom from (formerly) Great Britain. If we look — and many don’t — we can see our freedoms dribbling — perhaps even gushing —  away. How long will it take for them to disappear? How long for them to do so? Will freedom eventually be beyond the remembrance of those now living, let alone those yet to be born?

I don’t know; it has been a gradual process but thus far an apparently inexorable one. As it continues, the pace increases.  Will we “do something” or simply let it slide by? I wonder. Will the “Legitimate Media” come to our rescue? I would not count on it. Has the Declaration of Independence, written by a bunch of old dead White males, vanished into irrelevance? Has the Constitution? Has the time come for another Civil War to defend them both? I hope it does not come to that, but it may unless we take other steps very soon.

How long can a nation of low (no?) information nuts and fruitcakes survive? Are they our future? Is that what we want?

Perhaps we have all gone insane. Does it matter? Being crazy seems not to have immunized us.