OBAMA! GOVERNING OR CAMPAIGNING?

Authored by William Robert Barber

Have we Americans become so disconnected from the plain, simple, and obvious, the logical and deductive, that we can be influenced into believing that President Obama’s $447 billion jobs-stimulus bill is genuinely a presidential effort to promote job growth? Or is it that the Obama administration’s focus is on his reelection and the jobs bill is a tactical ruse, a means to a political end? Is it possible that this president, the superb elocutionist, after the results of his personally guided and endorsed legislative actions are measured; wherein the meaningfulness of such a measurement indicates anemic economic growth and high unemployment… Is this president going to win over the American people with his rhetorical sleight-of-hand? The president’s recent words, policies, and self-touting performances, inclusively mimicked by his progressive ducklings, are undeniably the dealings of a man and office striving for reelection. This looks and sounds like a man who conceitedly believes everything his vice-president and publicist convey.

The opening scene on the Obama campaign for reelection melodrama is a picture of all cheering his carte du jour of scurrilous slander, lies, deceitful exaggerations, and other such banal accusations. He is always choreographed standing with and encircled by the usual suspects that composite the Obama entourage: Public union bosses, their employees, progressive-ideologically inclined benefactors, civil servant bureaucrats, and empathic elected officials of the liberal progressive Democratic persuasion.

The president is professionally staged to be viewed by the populous as a leader wholesomely propagating the righteousness of his cause. He induces a call-to-arms (the repetitive Obama rant) attacking Republicans, specifically by name, to “straighten-up and fly-right,” and pass my jobs bill.

This is the very same ‘job bill’ defeated in the Senate by members of his own party.

Herein is the conundrum for Obama and his liberal progressives: Socialism whether European, Cuban, N. Korean, Venezuelan, or the current American style does not work. Aside from a nation fully committed to a war of survival, a nation therefore, willingly ceding constitutional guarantees for the perceived safety of martial law, the idea that the wise and the expert can accurately central plan the workings of a diverse domestic economy is a fantasy; a Wizard of Oz scenario that has been played out many times to the same failed result. The concept that the taxpayer funding of government largeness will inspire, catalysis, spawn, and electrify a substantial growth of private enterprise is absurd. Indeed funding government such as the Bush stimulus, TARP, or the Obama stimulus, an act ostensibly designed to stimulate the private economy, resulted instead, in supporting unions, sustaining the excessive cost of governing, aided and assisted in the corrupting of original intent, encouraged wastefulness, and enabled the status quo.

Not only is President Obama arrogantly disingenuous when promoting his jobs bill; he is in unison, ignorantly dismissing the palpable: The social and entitlement justice that complements the Obama ideal of how to engineer the American economy is not only impossible to profitably put into practice, the norms required for implementation is directly contrary to the required fiscal, cultural, and statutory environment to maintain a robust American style capitalistic system.

Prompted by the three branches of government, the feds, by means legal and extralegal, are operating beyond and outside of well-defined constitutional limits, the very premeditated concerns of the Founders have come into being, the pillars that established the legal basis of a nation of laws not of men is now, once again, in jeopardy. Liberal progressives manipulate, trounce, envelope, and ignore the meaningfulness of the words and spirit of the U.S. Constitution; regretfully, such contrivances are not limited to the Democratic Party, nevertheless, President Obama and his confederates have exponentially exemplified the discernible meaning of a liberal-progressive social justice conscious entitlement enriching government.

It is time get these buggers out of office…

THIS BLAME STUFF IS A WASTE… LET’S GO FISHING!

Authored by William Robert Barber

I have been, for the last week, on business in Ireland. Today after frisking about with the Irish people, gazing and stomping on their generously forested land of gently rolling green country-side, driving through narrow village streets dotted along the hill and dale; enjoying many a stimulating discussion intertwined with good food and ale. I am heading home.

Interestingly, the economic concerns of Ireland and indeed all of Euro-land, are about the same as they are in America. Everyone I met and every publication I scanned emphasized the painfully high unemployment, the lack of bank-funding, dismal economic growth, and the sad, bitter effects of the almost complete devastation of real-estate value.

Entertainingly, the blame-story is similar to what we Americans channel. When the marketplace puts money or even the illusion of putting money in peoples’ pocket, everyone is unquestioning and quite pleased. However, when money has stopped flowing in and in fact starts to flow out or not flow at all, well, fault is seeking a dance partner. The people negatively affected point the finger at any and all except their own blindly excessive spending indulgences. The Irish – just like us Americans – readily exclude their most recent willy-nilly mindless behavioral addiction to a belief and practice in nonrecourse consumption.

When specifying the present American financial and real estate downturn I suggest that one should review the fuel that created the economic boom-cheap money and debt. The collateral was a commodity known as real estate and equity market trades and holdings. When private enterprise is managing its own risk and the speculator-public accepts their own risk, individually, the winners and losers suffer or gain. But when government and their cohorts public-private unions gets in the middle to install a “fair playing field,” to “protect the worker or the investor,” or enact by law a third-party ideal of fairness, the taxpayer pays excessively for the governing service.

There is an ancient adage that runs parallel to the biblical saying, “God helps those that help themselves,” inclusively, one cannot by edit nullify stupid or criminal behavior nor can government by legislation bind or mandate the practice of good sense and morality.

Of course these well-known adages do not stop the elected from their task of constant governmental interference. This is best evidenced by the government’s insistence on retaining an ambiguous federal tax code, enacting the excessively expensive regulatory dud Sarbanes-Oxley, the retention of duplicating departments and agencies, the persistence of continuing federal policies that bully risk-takers and reward losers. The systematically applied coercive pushing and pulling by several Congresses since the Eisenhower administration has driven private enterprise straight to attorneys, litigation, and bureaucratic discombobulating.

The liberal progressives in line with congress’ Barney Frank have for years forced private banks in the direction of mal-ginned imprudent lending practices. For the elected, evidence to the contrary of their ideal, be damned; the policy of government in their eye’s is as a matter of policy, to taxpayer finance a seemingly never-ending series of perverse societal contrivances that have, in the present, after decades of persistence, finally, impaired the nation.

When one combines such governmental action with a popular consumption frenzy stirred and prompted at every opportunity by a political leadership motivated solely to attain or maintain public office; the tangibles of sensible and pragmatic are pushed into the delete file in favor of the intangible and deceptive. These rascals, the elected Noblesse oblige, and their allies such as public employee unions, the New York Times, National Broadcasting Company, all liberal progressives, and labor lobbyist in general, are consistently remissive of applying prudent real-world principles to the issues and concerns of governing the peoples’ money. Either consciously purposeful, or permissively naïve, political leaders have, for many years, mislead the voting public as to the nation’s economic disposition. Experience has documented, the elected class will lie, cheat, and steal to and from their constituencies.

When reviewing the governing of particularly democratic-republics one is inclined to believe in the governing tenants of righteousness, particularly in these countries the predominately sane champions the irrational. Corruptive behavior in and by government is assumed to be spotty at best. After all, one is led to believe that in democratic-republics reason dominates the unreasonable, but low and behold, instead we find the non-sensible overwhelming good sense.

Upon surveying the historically documented factual pieces and parts that lead to the 2008 recession one could conclude that it was if the world of the otherwise prudent and rational was managed from the Emerald City by the hedge fund wonk, The Wizard-of-Oz.

Bloated property assessment permitted the government to tax and squanders more of the people’s money; equity pricing egregiously mismatch derivative to market value, and the wholesale of government policies explicitly designed to give away other people’s money. Could there have been another outcome? If governments’ print money, if fiat currency is forced into acceptance, if tax revenue lags behind governmental distribution of that revenue how could there actually be a functioning economy? No one with enough political juice considered the cost verses the benefit; everyone was chasing the butterflies, enjoying the rainbows, and receiving their pot of gold.

Captivatingly, the financially affected, withstanding the history of government stupidity, the government’s culpability in a total lack of sensible, rational, prudent, and reasonable governess, these persons, still contemplate government as the quick and easy solution. I am particularly astounded by the incredulous insistence of not just the financially affected populous but institutional leaders from bankers to insurance executives, economist, and broker-dealers they all create a novel wherein they write-in, admittedly, in degrees of measurable variance, governmental agencies and departments as the solution-protagonist.

The solution to our economic malaise is simple. Learn to find the bait, fancy the bait onto the hook, choose a line and pole; discover a place where fish are to be found, throw the baited line into the water, catch the fish, prepare the fish, cook the fish and eat it. Now all of this is to be done without paying a licensing fee, and entrance fee, a poundage tax, governmentally assisted learning, or some federal agency telling you how to eat the fish.

In other words, government shut up, do less, and stay out of my business…

PROFESSIONAL GUESSERS AND FEARFUL INVESTORS

Authored by William Robert Barber

As the stock markets of the world kinetically vibrate, setting a pace of newly found extremes for sell-off and buy-in, investors surrender to the bafflement of two offers: The first is to accept the blindfold, and the second is to stare-down the oncoming bullet as it races for the spot just above one’s nose.

Speculators of genuine risks are buying gold futures, coin, and billion by following the golden rule for speculation: Prices rise when buyers significantly outperform sellers — of course the opposite rings just as true.

Remember! The purchase of gold does not add capital to a company’s balance sheet; these treasures will not fund research of discovery or invention. An ‘investment’ in gold is a bet founded on the principle of hoarding.

King Midas regularly counted his gold; but he gained no material benefit from the gold until he made a purchase. Obviously, as soon as Midas transacted a purchase, he not only had less gold but the price of gold as a necessity of market dynamics depreciated. When one sells ones — gold which is a requirement in order to attain a product or service — one does so by a conversion to fiat currency. In other words, eventually one is going to sell gold for legal tender; otherwise, there is no benefit to holding on to gold. If I was a holder of gold I would want to be first in line on the selling side because if I am not in the front, the price of gold will be far less valuable to me standing somewhere in the middle of the sellers pack.

Licensed professionals bandy about their theories and conjecture their forecast. All of these suit-and-tie personalities act as if they were/are the bona fide harbingers of repute, each exuding the confidence of an “I knew my horse would win” bettor; of course this is only after the horse race was over.

It is my belief that genius, like wisdom, and luck are results that can only be accurately measured in arrears. No one knows — one only guesses that one knows.

A hypothesis, a tentative explanation of a phenomenon, is a best guess effort to explain what we do not know for sure. I believe all of these professional guessers are sincere hypothesist striving to analyze and present a reasonable rational commentary on an event that quite possibly could be wholly unreasonable and irrational.

The statist that occupy the White House lament that the Stimulus was too small, not big enough because they miscalculated the enormity of the economic Bush debacle. Their premise of finding the economically viable light and the way has not moved one iota from their insistence that Keynesian economics is the answer to the woeful status of present US economic ills.

In keeping with that belief they also believe that the federal government can directly create private sector jobs. Well, the certainty is that the federal government cannot directly create jobs. Other than covertly enhance or overtly embrace governmental bureaucracy, possibly bedfellow, even more openly the unionization of America, government involvement in private business can only increase the cost of doing business, stymie productivity, and – when coupled with Obama’s resolve on super-regulating enterprise – government can only belay growth.

I have no idea why we need to relearn the simple and palpable over and over again. Capitalism is the most potent of economic methodologies/systems. Currently, the federal government is managed by progressive persons who depend on an ever-increasing manifest for governmental largeness; they depend on the viability of increase taxation as a matter of policy. Factually, liberal progressives could not sustain their raison d’être, their howl in the light of a full moon if government is limited in operational scope. Progressives require a big fat bureaucratically enriched government in order to inhale their brand of oxygen.

This American economy will overcome the Keynesian policy of where-for-naught as it intersects with the Obama administration’s design of social justice and class warfare; it will rise above the ills of the EU malaise, it will, with the aid and assist of the Supreme Court, withstand the costly breach of good sense by rescinding ObamaCare. All is to be rightfully settled in the election of 2012.

letter from a WASHINGTON POST staffer

Dear Bill,

I write today about the ever increasing pressure to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. A vote last week drove home the point that this is becoming more and more of a contentious issue. In a bill that was expected to fail by a longshot, the vote actually came to a close failure vote of 215-204, with 26 Republicans joining in the effort with all but eight of the Democrats. This was a significant step for the Democrats to step out against the President in opposition to his public stance. This bill essentially called for the Obama Administration to establish a plan this summer to accelerate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and to pursue a negotiated settlement with “all interested parties”.

This is a substantial shift as just one year ago Congressman McGovern suffered a much greater defeat with 98 Democrats going against a similar piece of legislation. After the heightened coverage surrounding Bin Laden’s death, Americans are more aware that as Congressman Hoyer observed, “Many of the terrorists against whom we are fighting are no longer located in Afghanistan but are in disparate locations, from Yemen to Somalia to Southeast Asia.” This is one factual point that has provided a basis for the sentiment that the U.S. troop’s ongoing mission in Afghanistan is in part a futile waste of U.S. time and resources.

Although the situation in Afghanistan is complicated and may be hard for those without military experience much less inside intelligence information to fully understand or appreciate, there are a few basic observations that can be made. First, there multiple obstacles preventing the U.S. from making progress as intended. Second, Obama has failed to present a clear strategy that people, even those within his own party, can unify behind. For any issue in politics, messaging is always key to rallying support. The problem is that the Administration has not determined a clear exit strategy and therefore, they are unable to communicate a vision of a withdrawal method to the taxpayers who are funding these efforts. It is natural for Americans to grow anxious about an exit strategy when it is clear our troops are not making significant progress in regards to the stated purposes of the mission, namely “nation building”. The white elephant in the room is the fact that the U.S. Government is conceivably not revealing the true purpose for remaining in Afghanistan. This of course is the geographic proximity to a growing threat to the U.S., Pakistan. This is a country in which the core leadership of al-Qaeda is now located in addition to their develop nuclear weapons. The U.S. would not want to vocalize this purpose as it would further strain the delicate relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan. However, there is logic in positioning ourselves in the region in a way that prevents the terrorist groups from growing in size and power. Since this purpose is still only hypothetical, I will just address the current challenges the U.S. faces in Afghanistan which are delaying an immediate exit.

Fist, the U.S. has stated that our troops would be withdrawn when Afghanistan has a permanently stable and well-resourced government. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the Bush Administration made the decision to try to rebuild a relatively strong central government and to assist Afghanistan’s economy. Even at the January 28, 2010 “London Conference” and the July 20, 2010 “Kabul Conference”, two international conferences on Afghanistan, the focus was still on expanding and reforming the Afghan convernance.The problem with using this measurement as a prerequisite to exiting, is the fact that Afghanistan may never meet this objective. Current President Hamid Karzai’s failure to forcefully confront corruption within the government has caused a great loss of support by the people. The rife corruption has caused the Afghan citizens to even resent the Karzai government; completely undermining any faith they may have held that America could be trusted in their strategy of rebuilding stable governance. The two more recent corruption stories were that involving the Kabul Bank, and the U.S. sanctions imposed on the money trading firm New Ansari Money Exchange on February 18, 2011. In response to this, the Obama Administration and Congress have begun strategically urging Kazai to publicly confront government corruption. Karzai has in turn resisted these efforts and has become more suspicious of the U.S. motivations.

Secondly, there are several factions of conflicting governance currently controlling this country in various regions and capacities. Amidst the more organized, legitimate bodies, there are also individual “warlords”, local strongmen who wield personal militias and functionally destabilize the progress between the U.S. and Afghan officials. In newly released Defense Department reports in May 2011, they recognized the fact that our security efforts are being challenged by multiple armed groups. Until the U.S.-led offensives launched in 2009, the Karzai government was estimated to control about 30% of the country, insurgent’s controlled 4% officially and were considered to heavily influence or operate in another 30%, and finally local tribes and groups controlled the remainder. As of 2009, the Taliban had named shadow governors in 33 of 34 Afghan provinces. It is incredibly difficult for the U.S. to make progress when the citizens have such varied and divided loyalties to difference governing bodies. Certain regions continue to be potential safe havens for al-Qaeda forces, and therefore General Patraeus has stated the U.S. will not leave these areas. These threatening areas include Kandahar and Helman in the South and Kunar and Paktika in the East, along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, he U.S. has stated it would hand-over security responsibilities to Afghan Security Forces for seven areas of the country in July, even though there is no apparent solidified Security Force to hand off the baton to. The U.S. has failed to strengthen a central governing body that the citizens could coalesce behind. Unless a strategy to accomplish this is formed, the U.S. progress will continue at a sluggish pace at best.

Thirdly, there is the instability that is created by way of their drug creation and distribution, an issue that gets little media coverage. However, some consider the narcotics trafficking to be a core impediment to the U.S. missions. The trafficking of narcotics undermines the rule of law and provides large sums of money to the insurgency, which often times goes untraced. The Taliban makes between $70-$100 million per year off the trafficking of poppy or opium. As the Obama Administration has focused on developing and promoting alternative agricultural crops, the Afghans have turned away from the U.S. and instead to the Taliban for protection of their ability to earn income in what is one of the top industries for Afghans. This counter-narcotics approach has severely back-fired on the U.S. and given the Taliban more control among the locals.

The stated U.S. policy thus far has been to ensure that Afghanistan will not again become a base for terrorist attacks against the United States. The Obama Administration has asserted that it is pursuing a well-resourced and integrated military civilian strategy intended to pave the way for a gradual transition to Afghan leadership that is to be completed by 2014. To support this mission, an additional 51,000 U.S. forces were authorized in 2009 reviews to increase U.S. troop levels to 99,000. However, Obama has also said we intended to have a relationship with Afghanistan that will include military involvement long after 2014, an indication that the administration sees no foreseeable end to our presence.

Amidst the tension over this issue, is the continual increase in Government funding for expanded efforts. The House Appropriations Defense subcommittee just released their Pentagon budget bill for FY 2012 which contained $119 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. government continues to spend a substantial portion of our defense budget in a country where there is a lack of clear vision for efforts moving forward. It is now time for the Administration to communicate their intentions to the American people, in a way that is nonthreatening to our security. At some point we will have to determine whether it is worth the billions of dollars and other resources spent to remain in a region when we continue to take one step forward, two steps back.

Sincerely,

Hill Observer

THE SOLUTION FOR IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY

Authored by William Robert Barber

The constituents of this nation of ours are crying out for congressional action regarding illegal immigration and border security. Therefore, in an effort to relieve congress of an obligation it will not address I have decided to solve the US border/immigration problem with our neighbor to the South. Sound a little hubris? Well, if President Obama with little regard for truthfulness willfully exaggerates his administration’s successes along the border and make fun of those constituents that populate the border as never going to be satisfied no matter if he constructs a moat inhabited with alligators. Then surely I can put forward a ‘new approach’ or solution to a seemingly everlasting problem.

What Spanish speaking country financially benefits from its willful albeit illegal exportation of it citizens into the United States? That’s about as hard a question as who is buried in Grant’s tomb.

Well, clearly Mexico the sovereign nation benefits, and obviously, Mexicans benefit, if not, multimillions over these many, many, years would not trek north. The very fact that Mexican citizens, seeking financial surety and all of its derivatives must leave their home, by usually dangerous and certainly illegal measures, is a negative indictment of the Mexican government’s veracity of governing competence.

Multi-millions of US Dollars are sent by illegal Mexican immigrates to Mexican banks for a repatriation service fee. All of this income flowing into Mexico is prompted solely by the successful illegal export of its citizens into America. This exportation of Mexican citizens are premeditated, willful, contrived, and supported with a wink and a nod by the Mexican government and its private affiliates.

Hence it is not the individual alone that is liable for breaching US immigration law. The government of Mexico is the real culpable indispensable accomplice.

Therefore, for conspiring and committing a breach of US law it is the Mexican government in addition to the individual Mexican that is the violator. This ameliorated new approach (of mine) to viewing an old problem once thoughtfully contemplated reveals itself as axiomatic and sensible. The governing Mexican administrations, both present and past, for years have been aiding and abetting the willful violation of US law. Mexico is the prime offender; and is, consequently, the first cause of liability.

Let me be absolutely clear, I am stating, unequivocally, that the Mexican government is directly liable for its citizens’ contravention of US immigration laws.

Ok, well, so what! The “so what” is a strategic realignment not just of culpability but of subsequent judicial recourse. Nevertheless, the United States can offer to Mexico a means to end their participation in breaching US immigration law or face the consequences of lawful recourse. Interestingly, the elimination of the problem is not only costless but readily implemental.

The USA offers to open its borders by issuing 6-months work permits, with some obvious restrictions, terms, and conditions to all able boded Mexicans. The work permits are authorized by the federal government but issued for a fee by the particular state the worker agrees to work within. Any violations of the covenants by the individual will have a financial penalty including deportation and permanent exclusion. The secondary financial guarantor of this transaction is the Mexican government. All applicable taxes due are collected; any none applicable taxes (possibly social security) are exempt.

Any and all “paths to citizenship” remain within current US law. Those illegal persons already within the USA must apply for year-to-year work Visas or face deportation. For those who have resided in the country for more than 5-years, speak English or will attend a formal sponsoring school to learn the language and have no criminal record (standard to be noted) will be eligible for a very specifically issued resident status. Special attention will be dedicated to those children brought by their parents illegally into the United States when they were under preschool age and have been attending an academic program throughout their obligatory schooling period.

For a permanent solution to this illegal immigration problem:

If the Mexican government would permit US firms the right of majority ownership in Mexican domiciled business, private property, and adopts an equal status for investment in Mexico as the US affords to Mexicans in the United States. In less than a generation at the high and within ten years at the low, citizens of Mexico will have less cause to legal or illegally live and work in the United States because US firms with minority owned partners will blossom in Mexico. The border will be gleefully overrun by a global tourist boom, businesspersons, and investors.

I am very skeptical that this permanent solution will ever take place but I do believe by holding the Mexican government legally and financially accountable for their citizens are the proper approach to the issue of present concern.

However, Mexico is now and has been since its inception a nation fearful of Yankee dominance. After losing Texas, California, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona to the United States plus being invaded by US forces they certainly have a good cause for fearfulness. Notwithstanding the other urgent drug-gangster mayhem that is perverting the normalcy of transaction in Mexico our neighbors to the South do have a deep-seated latent problem with corruption at almost every cultural, civil, and governmental level.

In the interest of brevity I have dumb down my solution to the single initiative of holding the Mexican government lawfully responsible for the immigration problem. There is so much more to my solution…any questions or request for more detail just send me a comment.

OBAMA’S IDEAL OF CHANGE

Authored by William Robert Barber

The working suppositions of the Obama government are that more regulation is better than less, increasing the taxes of those who have more is not only a requisite to social justice but a moral initiative worthy of any confrontation, increasing the power of the federal government is the willfulness necessary to instill a liberal progressive policy, and that all of the these working suppositions are not only the very thesis of liberal progressivism but essential to the Obama scheme for meaningful change.

In the Obama world of ‘Change One Can Believe In,’ patriotism is a low priority. While Obama’s idea of social-economic fairness is a high priority, a greater, more powerful bureaucracy in partnership with unions is the essential engine that will power the doctrine of social-economic fairness.

The location of power within the United States preceding the progressive era was founded on the idea that decisions should be taken as close as possible to the people it affects. Hence the states, counties, and cities played a much larger role in governing. But over time, and particularly since the rule of FDR, power has been ceded to the distant federal source. Now evidence demonstrates that although this transference of power has been going on enthusiastically for many years, this administration has far greater ambition than simply growing the size and scope of the central government. Obama insists on a transfer of sovereignty to the United Nations; he wants European integration wherein the United States would be part of a united Europe.

Let’s look at the evidence: European-style healthcare, welfare, carbon taxes, day care, college education… he even acts as a European espousing a Brussels-like foreign policy, mimicking a European approach to nuclear disarmament, and his reluctance to deploy US troops in a leadership role is a direct reflection of his ideal Euro-America.

Obama and his progressive confederates possess dangerous ideas. Their ideal America would abate growth, increase taxes (not exactly compatible factors), surrender America’s superpower standing, and trade our exceptionalism for the common denominator of being the same. Of course the Europeans might think of us more kindly; we might become more popular, the Russian and Chinese would gladly welcome us into their sphere of influence. I, of course, do not believe America’s role is one of subordination — indeed, the antithesis is true.

I believe that Obama and his acolytes are internationalists who have accepted the concept of a Brussels-led union wherein the ruling doctrine is that the nation-state must transcend individualism, freedom, liberty, and democracy, and the American rule of law in the interest of servicing policies that are inextricably tied to social justice.

All I see in Europe is a burgeoning bureaucracy, more spending, higher taxes, slower growth, and rising unemployment. This has been the European experience for the last forty years. It is clear to me that American capitalism will win the day… unless the liberal progressives kill the hand that feeds them. And they are trying real hard with fiscal stimulus, nationalization, bailouts, quantitative easing, more regulation, and the stubborn insistence on taxing “the rich,” to snap off the very hand that feeds them.

I was inspired to write this blog-topic by Daniel Hannan, a member of the European Parliament…

WHAT EXACTLY IS OUR PROBLEM?

Authored by William Robert Barber

We have an economy larger than China and Japan combined — and we still need to sell debt instruments to foreign entities in order to meet our spending requirements?

Let’s think about this self-imposed conundrum… This nation protects the trading interest, the physical properties, and lives of millions of people who reside within the “providence” of the Free World. We are a very real martial hesitation for any aggressor; in fact, we, along with Canada, England, and Australia are the only true deterrent to any overt military threat whatsoever.

We are the largest consumer nation that has ever existed and withstanding our fiscal issues and unsustainable national deficit, we are still the transactional envy of the world.

If all is as I describe, how did this nation put itself in the position that it finds itself in 2011? How could we have so tangible a resource and yet be so very dependent on foreign nations purchasing our debt? Presently our national debt is 1.6 trillion dollars. Imagine the interest payments! The people of this nation are consuming benefits by borrowing money from foreign sources. We are caught up in this fiasco of counter-intuitive intercourse because we lack the managerial wherewithal or fiscal discipline to reduce our spending while living within the means of our tax revenue.

The grand question is: How in the hell did this happen? Why is it that America lacks the managerial wherewithal and fiscal discipline to straighten out its mess?

Over the last hundred years we have allowed the illogical influence of socialists, progressives, liberals, Epicureans, sophists, academia recluses, and the ideologically naïve into convoluting the very ethos of American governing tradition. The result is a legislative approach that champions a doctrine that government knows best, a presumption wholly void of empirical evidence.

As a nation we have traded leadership for a benign-sort of followship. Wherein legislators blend, compromise, affiliate, and with purposeful intent have collectively deduced that it is much safer (reelection considerations) to hide within the majority of opinions than to step forward and be distinguished. Because there is a human empathy for the commonality of behavioral dysfunction, tragedy, financial inequality; a differing of social and cultural upbringing. Many of the elected, in the interest of buying votes, have decided that government should fund entitlements, grants, and loans as well as all sorts of social, educational, and economic development programs to right any and all wrongs that could possibly be attributed to anyone not born into a financially functional family.

Obama has just put forth his budget; he has chosen to follow instead of lead. Rather than addressing the issues of the day he is playing the political game of 2012 reelection. He is the quintessential follower posing as a leader — he is a spokesperson, a representative of a political ideology — nothing more. Leadership is a distinctive trait; one knows it when one sees it. A leader embodies confidence, takes all the responsibility, and knows he or she has just one obligation, and that is to be right. Obama and his confederates are lost in the ‘wilderness of wish-it-was-so;’ they are the weight around the ankles of self-determination, self-reliance, and values that aggregate to form American exceptionalism.

We do need to rid this nation of the Obamas of the world; the election right around the corner, opportunity is nearby… but conservative principled leadership is required!

TRUSTING IN GOVERNMENT IS NOT SENSIBLE

Authored by William Robert Barber

The citizens of this nation have a serious behavioral problem which has developed into an ever repeating, never resolved quandary. We learn, we forget, we relearn, and then we forget again. This pattern is particularly evident in the application of our principles of self-governing.

The framers of the constitution built in a system of checks and balances within the federal government for a reason. It is my presumption that they knew that when defining government, one is actually defining not so much the structure but the application — and the application of governing is implemented by persons; government is people-managed. Therefore, trustworthiness is counter-sensible. Trust is not an inherent tangible of governing… quite the contrary!

History validates that government, regardless of edifice and withstanding its constitutional means, will always feed itself first. Therefore and as a consequence of being people-managed (an intrinsic ever-present defect), government will always choose the enhancement of its own power at the fare or disregard of its citizens’ individual liberty and freedom. Although evidence of government’s steadfast encroachment on individual liberty and freedom is apparent, we Americans are always relearning the same lesson over and over again. We never seem to remember that the nature of government is to act omnipotent, repressive, and coercive. Crises, perceived or real, always result in the abatements of individual rights while government entrenches itself in depth and girth into American business and society.

I believe that humankind, from a behavioral perspective, since the beginning of record keeping has demonstrated that mankind has a predominant predisposition, a discernable fondness for the most bane of human distinctiveness. Indeed, certain specific actions of humankind could be classified as clinically dysfunctional, possibly psychotic. The conundrum created by my analysis of human behavior is formed in this question: How is it possible that any citizen could take at face value the words of any elected official?

Certainly, government will always be managed by people; I am not suggesting some newly developed software will replace people. I am stating that we must finally learn that these of the elected class must not ever be trusted. The wise has said that government is a necessary evil. Lord Acton, “all power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely,” I can rightfully suggest that any power managed by any government, including the Vatican, needs the constancy of distrustfulness and monitoring.

Presently, our president is acting like a centralist. He is saying positive things about private enterprise. Cutting the rising cost of government, seeking the means and ways to compromise with the Republicans, irritating his leftist brethren… this entire episodically designed New-Obama, is supposedly a translucent effort to… hmm — something do with some future thing.

With the election of 2012 looming, moderate Republicans are leaning right and left, leaning Democrats are leaning moderate. Whatever happened to mean what you say and say what you mean?

Now, what did I say about trusting government and their elected underlings? Oh yes, keep the pressure on, we conservatives must insist on the downsizing of government in scope and regulatory power, stop this constancy of impetuous federal spending, stop the collateralizing today of federal revenue into the foreseeable tomorrows, stop throwing away more taxpayer funds into ill-effective entitlements, encumber our elected representatives, find a solution to illegal Mexican immigration, secure our southern border, legislate an initiative to utilize our nation’s fossil fuel resources, and insure that the federal government understands our demand of laissez-faire.

THE SHAM

Authored by William Robert Barber

When one recalls the foreign policy actions of this nation over the last sixty-five years or more, documentation suggests that the policies enacted or attempted to be enacted resulted in a discombobulated maelstrom of more befuddlement than sensibility. Starting with allowing the Russians to attack Berlin during WWII and then ceding Stalin Eastern Europe, the preceding policies up to the present were naïve, even silly, with a mêlée of slapdash governess added just for hue.

As the architects of our own foreign policy design we were and are all over the board of probabilities to possibilities. Often our efforts seem rudderless. At times we have more sail on our ship of state than the objective would require; at other times, despite the palpable of purpose and all through the wind is at our fantail the pinions are bare. I do wonder how we could do so much stupid all the while remain the richest, most powerful, and acclaimed nation on earth. I can only assume that the other nations on earth are worse and/or that our reign of the most powerful is coming to an end.

We have Americans’ blood literally gushed and spread all over the world while this nation’s taxpayers are indirectly and directly giving away billions of dollars in foreign aid. We actually have given aid to our enemies; some policy implementers believe we are presently aiding the very Philistines that only want to do us harm. And what do we receive in return? The recipients clamor for more cash as they treat us with disaffect and disgust. Now, who exactly are the designers of this sort of befuddled foreign policy format?

This nation’s foreign policymakers lack the will to steadfastly point true north; we meander about in the afternoon trying to put out fires started in the morning, we are defending and reacting instead of anticipating and invoking. The elected and appointed bandy with prideful assurance meaningless verbiage, mistaking such nonsense as statecraft.

I suggest a meaningful realignment of underwriting criteria when analyzing risk to this nation’s interest. I would start with reassessing the prompts that effectuate an administration’s response to a particular international cause or incident. The response should be guided by a predetermined strategy. This strategy, at a minimum, must envelope tactical flexibility, a constancy of prudent processing, as well as achieving a consensus derived course of action so to enable a policy of oneness and conclusiveness.

The art and science of creating and implementing such a predetermined strategy is founded on objective principles of engagement. This strategy must infuse behavioral sensitivity to the challenge of an ever changing terrain and situation; therefore, the merit of a viable strategy is founded, in part, on its inherent flexibility.

Clearly, information gathering is a critical max factor in the extraction of intelligence and good actionable intelligence is critical when forming policy. But solid-timely intelligence, though imperative to success, will always fall short if our foreign policy initiatives are bungled because of poor management. Bungling is the fault of leadership. This fault of leadership is traced to leadership’s inability to define, much less uphold, any basis of substantive principles. Our rhetoric does not match our conduct. Our deeds are subject to murky interpretation and inexplicable clarification; and we wonder why our counter parties are miffed.

One of the reasons leadership poorly manages the affairs of foreign policy in form and implementation is that leadership lacks a basis of and for substantive principles. The administration talks of American-like values while operating to the contrary. A part of our continuum of blundering resides in the hyper-fluidity of our virtues; our inability to steadfastly adhere to the values and convictions expressed in our founding documents. It is our suppleness that erodes our conviction to objective principles. Over time such degeneration of belief in our founding principles abate the behavioral acceptance of what heretofore was the mores of norm.

Could it be that the textual of our policy is synonymous and guided by amoral Machiavellian persuasion? After all, Machiavelli did advise the prince to use hypocrisy whenever expedient to gain and maintain power. When the differing between the façade of moral intangibles are confronted by the amoral reality of application, there is no contest. The bureaucratic procedure of favoring precedents mandates amorality as its reality, and morality sits on the wayside, awaiting another opportunity to deceive.

This country’s foreign policy has taken the course of many powerful nations. Wherein leaders have forgotten the basis of their raison d’être, their founding a priori has been perverted, redirected, and possibly abandoned. Befuddlement and oral discombobulating are the result of such straying from the founding values that are encased within The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of The United States, the Federalist Papers, and the tradition of American ethos.

I suggest this nation returns to our founding principles and utilizes such as the basis of our foreign policy.

CONGRESS 111…

Authored by William Robert Barber

Chicanery seems to be the natural behavior of a congress full of politicians; nevertheless, this “Lame Duck” session, this of this particular congress, this one is audaciously emblematic for its arrogant disregard. In other words, these progressives are bound and determined to enact their agenda. In their world view, skipping over or enveloping the clear message delivered by the voters in the last election (the loss of 63 congressional seats) is not an obligatory consideration of concern. Instead this congress regards the recent electoral results as the actions of ignoramuses and as a consequence the Democratic shellacking should NOT apply to these elected politicians. These “Lame Duck” participants, progressives all, are two-thirds of the three monkeys, one is hearing-impaired, the other is blind to the obvious, and the last monkey just cannot keep form putting its foot in its mouth. This congress is the very essence; the exact definitive of a government managed by officialdoms whose purposeful intention is the development and application of chicaneries.

Noticeably, this congress has finalized the Obama compromise; President Bush must have had a giggle over that. Withstanding President Obama’s repeated declarations of unfairness as to the effect of the Bush tax cuts, his reluctance to embrace Bush policies has made an abrupt U-turn. Now it seems the populous will benefit and jobs will be created…

The ringing concerns of Obama the candidate has been geared down to the reality of Obama the governor of a federal administration. Thus, Obama’s U-turn has a continuum of energy that will bend the political left turn into a conservative right; the president has acknowledged that the left turn was an economic dead end.

Note the clutter of nonsense created by the liberal progressives: Guantanamo is still open despite the passionately delivered pre-as-well-as- post election proclamations as to its closing. This inability to close Guantanamo flies in the face of Democratic leadership’s decisive conclusion that the existence of Guantanamo was unequivocally aiding the world-wide recruitment of Bin Laden style terrorism. That conclusion has been sidelined into the waste-basket of formerly held, but now accepted, as mostly rhetorical nonsense. Bush era tax-cuts reinstated. Terrorist are still being flown by CIA operatives to autonomous destinations for enhanced interrogation. The Afghan war is still being waged by drone and infantry. All of these Obama policies persuade me to wonder if Bush actually won a third-term in the name of Obama.

History is full of dead ideals and idealist. Every once in a while there is a phoenix of socialistically inspired dictums. This affection for what has been previously abandoned is often incased within a moral premise of fairness. I.e. Obama’s first two years of governing. This naively emotive approach traversing a dynamic ever existing contest normally leaps over the requirement of empirical evidence in favor of addressing the detrimental treatment (prompted by the rich, the republicans, and all persons, institutions, or inhibitors of liberal progressive policies) of the poor, the disenfranchised, and of course, the favored of the modern day socialist evangelical: The ever dwindling in numbers & influence middle class. Obama and his liberal progressives ostensibly address all challenges of governance with one prerogative of evaluation: How does this particular policy safeguard the interest of the poor and middle class? After all these progressives understand how important it is to buy their vote with special promises of favoritism.

As with all proponents of autocratic governorships who by logical deduction is also inclined to espouse a preferential elitist mentality. Their narcissistic component presumes and deduces that Descartes’, “Cogito ergo sum,” was specifically meant for them and indeed is the perfect purpose of their raison d’être. Clearly, the liberal progressive movement considers that these words of Descartes were written to declare and define their intellectual superiority. This assumption therefore must mean that the others that populate the nation state do not think; or surely, do not think as well. As such is taken as a fact, it logically follows that this assumptive reasoning (by the liberal progressives) must also serve as the underlying principle or basis of and for their intellectual preeminence.

The elitist of liberal progressive ideology are by explicit definition few in numbers. The very meaning of the few possessing intellectual superiority requires that the many or the common to be intellectually inferior. Since the few manifest sublime intelligence and the many clearly do not it is incumbent upon the few to lead the many. The presumption of elitist must be that voters are similar to domesticated animals wherein the many and the common do not know enough to understand what is best for them. So as a matter of virtuous regard the elite must harbor and safeguard the common.

But sometimes, in keeping with the example of domesticated animals, the common are hesitant and at times down-right noncompliant; this reluctance to comply with what has been decided by the elite as to what is in their best interest forces coercive techniques. A perfect instance of where the common simply do not know what is best for them is ObamaCare.

Obama and his confederates are shameless practitioners of the Machiavellian doctrine, “the end justifies the means.” This dedication by the liberal progressives to their agenda is always going to be a real and present threat to our constitutional republic. There can be no compromise with those of such political-economic differing.

Well, the 111th Congress is on their way out. I am looking forward to the 112th.