ARE WE AMERICANS SUBJECTS OF THE GOVERNMENT?

Authored by William Robert Barber

“Government is the problem,” recalling the quintessential conservative Ronald Regan’s famous line when advocating the righteousness of limited government. But as with President Jefferson, Reagan once elected went on to gainsay his own statement by enlarging and enhancing the power of the federal government. Today however it is not just political leadership crowing the cock-a-doodle-doo of populous sentiments. Today, a plurality of Americans, even those of conservative persuasion, view government as more than just a necessary utility, but a symbiotic dependency effectuating a guarantee for everyday essentials. For these citizens government is the reason, the cause, and the solution.

Subtly spread over a number of generations, the societal ideal that government can resolve the problem has taken firm root in the American psyche. Though this belief is opaque in contextual clarification, short on evidence, and often nebulous in form, the trust in government’s omnipotence has been ubiquitously disseminated and for the most part positively received. In an almost devilish sort of enchantment the idea that government knows best has captured the mind-sets of many citizens. Compellingly, a significant portion of citizens, from wide and varied demographics, to actually openly accept that government is or should be directly responsible for their liveliness.

Proportionate to this belief that government is the end-all solution to one’s life is the emergent cultural degeneration of American societal principles. Values such as self-reliance, work ethic, self-discipline and the acceptance of personal responsibility for ones actions are now, and increasingly so, the exception rather than the norm. The most outstanding results of this degeneration of once distinctly American societal principles are the attitudes, collective victimization complex, and the pervasive amongst the younger persons, a “you owe me” mentality.

The reasoning of such acceptance on or dependency for a government solution for what historically was considered common societal or individual aliments was the contrivance of liberal progressives; progressivism is an affiliate that flies under the flag of socialism. It was the post-WWII babies that grew up in the USA orb of plenty. It was this generation fueled by high-tech inventions that injected the concept of instant satisfaction. Inclusive was the benefit of instant communications seamlessly linked into a media industry that intensified not just the distribution of news but formed (for those too lazy to think) at-the-ready opinions of what is news-worthy, as well as, its meaningfulness. These children of WWII veterans were taught by the brethren of father FDR; they were taught that it was FDR and his progressive agenda that retrieved the nation from the despair of the “great depression,” and defeated the fascist in Germany and Japan. They were taught to believe in government. Interestingly, they were also schooled that Republicans were rich and Democrats worked in the interest of the poor and the middle class.

Their children those born in the 70’s and 80’s were led to believe that America is a nation of wrongdoers, often imperialistic in foreign policy, and that America had a long history of violently acting out its warmongering inclinations.

The latitude and longitude of government authority and its resulting imposition upon the populous has abated individual liberty and freedom; nevertheless, even when acting counter to the words if not the spirit of the constitution, government ignores and disregards lawfulness in favor of its power. The populous seem cheerfully willing to trade individual liberty and freedom for even the pretense of governmental guarantees. Disconnected notions such as blindly trusting government’s competency in lawmaking (considering the lawmakers rarely even read the bills presented) while idly permitting the ballooning of government pension obligations and blindly allowing the creation of an entrenched public service union bureaucracy to run rough shod over prudence, when such behavior is predominate it is likely that government has meandered over the abyss. When courts consider governing under the concept that the constitution is susceptible and wholly pliable to the whims of man or societal discretion, and when the governed believe government is the only true arbitrator of the public good. Our republic has, at that point, been transformed into an autocracy of progressive-elitist; a form of governing that Plato and Marcus Arilleus would consider advisable.

Quantitatively and disturbingly, (for me) government is a cell dividing multiplier. Government is a liberty and freedom eating monster. The idea of an ever expanding all-powerful government is allied with many elected representatives who believe governance is best when its grasps include every aspect of one’s liveliness. They also consider such governmental ingress an eventual constitutional right; i.e. sixteenth amendment.

The resilient once proudly existential traditional American has evolved into an American who increasingly relies on every level of governments as their raison d’être. A significant percentage of Americans are willingly, at least ostensibly, “in the land of the free and home of the brave,” to trade their individual liberty and freedom, for the sake of certain guarantees.

Well, we have federal guarantees for entitlements, social security, even public employee pension funds, including all of the military health, welfare, and retirement promises to pay. How has the government preformed on these guarantees? I wonder how those within the ranks of those who voted for and will continue to vote for liberal progressives feel about those guarantees.

Are we Americans now subjects of the government? Yes, increasingly so. I see and hear news stories wherein the protagonist notes that he or she is a college graduate, then the question: Where are the jobs? As if it is the direct responsibility of the elected or some government agency to secure a job for that college graduate.

I think Reagan had it right…we Americans had better get our act together and retrograde back to our ancestral traditions as such regress applies to a principled life wherein blaming, lamenting, and figuring how to take from the more to give to the less is discarded as un-American. Withstanding the question more government is hardly ever the answer and often enough never the solution.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CONCEPT OF LIMITED GOVERNMENT?

Authored by William Robert Barber

Contrary to popular and media insistence, neither government nor its leadership creates private sector employment. The why-fore of this readily believable stratagem that government can mandate or the sanguinely sage could legislate (private sector employment) is to believe a Navajo rain dance will bring about a deluge.

In the first cause, how in the world did the federal government position itself to suppose that it could create private sector employment? Well, to the detriment of a capitalistic economy, the steady, ever determined encroachment of central government power over what was once the sacrosanct concept of limited government is a great part of the answer. The federal government has taken on as principles of its own the liberal progressive manifesto that government is obligated to take from the mainstream of the self creating and financially sufficient worker bees and give these proceeds to the “needy.” In the process of ceding to those progressive principles government expansiveness has grown gargantuan in scope and substance. Correspondingly, taxes and fees of all descriptive have risen, divided, and multiplied; and so far there is no real end in sight to the federal government’s policy of ever-increasing taxation.

The American government of 1789 unambiguously divided power within its charter; it enumerated in Article 1 Section 8 the endowed authority of the central government. Withstanding, this definitive affirmation (of limited powers) when measured against the day-to-day utilization of federal governing over the last hundred years one must ask, “Does the government of limited and enumerated powers that the framers had envisioned still endure?”

Respectful of constitutional tradition and the cultural heritage of dynamic-individualism, there are those — particularly the fiscal, social, and politically disposed liberal progressive populace — that whole-heartedly believe that the States and the individual cannot be trusted with the right of sovereign respect. Instead it is the central government that is rightfully positioned to encapsulate the disposition of the judicious and trustful arbitrator. Therefore, in the interest of propagating, such fancifulness progressives have created the concept of a living, breathing, and relatively flexible interpretation of the Constitution. Within the context of that interpretive, a constitutional dictum such as the ‘Commerce Clause’ is exampled for expansive interpretation and engineered to fit into what progressives would call the modern era.

The justification for such redrafting of the Framers’ original is also prompted by some great malady, a crisis of stupendous magnitude, or the contrivance thereof. Usually the basis for alternating common practice in form or by statutory means is the discovery of some grave social or fiscal unfairness. The typical unfairness is always populous in style and scant in substance. Nevertheless, the unfairness is one that should have been attended to long ago. As the story goes, the nearly evil, opaquely defined, purposefully intended special interest, probably aligned with the wealthy, are actively working against the common welfare of the community so to enrich themselves or their baneful corporations.

Herein steps Obama the populist armed with promises of “change we can believe in.” Obama defines his political Krieg as between his acolytes, the moral positive, represented as the never politically motivated good-guys always working in the best interest of the common good contested against those of the immoral negative, representing the vilest and base of human instincts. The president has described these counter-to-Obama forces as the greedy and wealthy, oil and financial corporations, Republicans, and certainly, those far right radical Tea Party members.

All the documented evidence that government has some intrinsic sense of or for good judgment, business acumen, or even the sanity of consistent judiciousness points to the contrary. George the III imposed the Mercantile System, Napoleon the Blocus Continental, and of course this country’s trade tariffs, attempts at price controls, and the dogged determination of some presidential administrations and congresses to pervert the natural order of the capitalistic marketplace with protectionist embargos. All of these ‘government inspired schemes failed.

Recently, the Obama administration’s efforts to pick winners within the marketplace cost taxpayers at the very least multi-millions. Excessive taxation, burdensome regulation, and spending taxpayer monies with such blatant disdain is not an economic stimulus it is silly, disregarding of the facts, and seriously detrimental to the economic welfare of this nation.

I do wish I could simply blame the Democrats but the blame extends deep into the Republican ranks as well. I just do not understand this persistent inclination by those in power to always error on the side of big government.

IN MEMORIAM

Authored by William Robert Barber

There has sprouted up a stylish must-do, a societal nicety, a gesture that seems to beget other gestures of the identical meaningfulness, and frankly, juxtaposed with a bit of simpatico I do understand the why fore. Nevertheless, I take issue with its explicit and implicit implications.

Firstly, I best reveal the irritant: “Thank you for your service…” are the words uttered as they reach out either by hand or sentiment to congratulate the service member or former member. Normally, such a thank is extended from those fellow citizens that have not (for whatever reason) served in the armed forces.

Surely, by now the reader is befuddled by my peeve and a bit perplexed as to why. The answer is quite direct: Undertaking service to my country is nothing for my fellow citizens to thank me for. Service is an obligatory of citizenship and a common virtue that does not warrant adulation. Certainly, I am not suggesting that a citizen of this country must or even should serve in the armed forces — not at all; I am suggesting that if my fellow citizens believe that common virtue is extra-ordinary and deserves special attention, then the common denomination of virtue is directly abated.

I served the interest of my nation state in times of peace as well as war; I am proud to be a United States Marine. Withstanding, I am just as proud of those fellow citizens — whether they served in the armed forces or not — that pay their taxes, vote, harmoniously keep their families together, recognize and maintain their fidelity to community, obey the laws, and purposefully strive to strengthen the wherewithal of not only American values but also note their obligation to express responsibility for humankind.

This nation functions by fields and networks of symbiosis; one feeds upon and relies upon the other. Respective of the forces of counter, of the anti, and the converse we are all tied together in one effort. We are bound together as dependants and interdependent. Each individual is important to the whole. Indeed it is the idea of an individual’s value the make us so exceptional a nation.

Soldiers serve and like the police, fire, and many, many, other professions that are so very critical even dangerous they make their contribution. But I think, in the interest of every citizen, that the common denomination of citizenship should be extraordinarily high.

For me, my service was an obligation and a privilege; my countrymen owe me absolutely nothing, not even a thank you. I owe my country everything…for me it is an honor to call myself an American.

BIPARTISANISM???

Authored by William Robert Barber

Every day, informational sources validate a constant: That divisiveness is a commonality amongst humankind and that satisfaction is no more than a fleeting emotion. Amidst the divisiveness and fleeting satisfaction are the all too human temporal effects of pride, unfettered ego, and dishonesty. These effects are coupled to other human traits such as the waste of time, money, living things, and the preponderance of general bullshitski.

Thank goodness… those who know all things (die Hochstudierten) have singled out the problems, excogitated the issues of concern, and firmly placed the solutions before the populus. Interestingly, as if to reconfirm the palpable, it is predetermined by the recipients of these solutions that the presumptive of askance applies. In other words, even the process of defining the problems and offering the solutions is divisive.

Respective of – or maybe because of – our superior intelligence, we humans have firmly rejected the Tower of Babel concept as a doable possibility. We humans are so lustful in our divisive stubbornness that any effort to dissuade our predeterminations is often met with hostility. Empirical evidence that proves contrary to the presently held ideologically beliefs, mores, and affirmations of precedence will NOT prevail.

Nevertheless, the multimedia demands, or should I say points out (at every opportunity) that they represent the voting public, and the voting public demands that the Republicans get along with the Democrats. There’s a tone of caution expressed (by the media) to the GOP, noting that despite their 63 seat pick-up in the House of Representatives they should not consider such an elective victory a mandate; it is imperative, the multimedia strongly suggests, that Obama is met halfway. This of course is the same media that voted heart and soul for Obama; the very same media that overreached its role as a “free press” in reporting on the Obama campaign… hmm, they now have advice for the Republicans.

I think the idea or practice of congressional bipartisanism on material issues requires the intake of mind-altering drugs; Dr. Timothy Leary (LSD) would be the consultant and dispenser. Noting that for many of the liberal progressives and most of the media the effect of LSD is organic to their metabolism; therefore, requiring no synthetic Dr. Leary stimuli. Yes, I am making a funny…

But the point is that the contesting by the diametrically opposed is of greater advantage than the compromise of principles. The conflict of ideas should be limited to oral persuasion remembering that the object of the persuasion is to induce consensus. There is little need or believability of/for belief if it is not strongly held.

Politics require artfulness. Many observers of politicians and their politics may include caginess, deception, and craftiness as components of politics. Winning a contested election is the successful management of chaos. Kind of like a feeding frenzy amongst the brethren. Of course campaigning has nothing to do with governing but everything with promising. Governing, particularly for house members, has more to do with the retention of office than the interest of the nation — if the interest of the nation intersects with retaining office-super; but if not, then the retention of power is the value.

The preceding paragraph is the reality and power of personality. This force of personality has as much to do with governing as the statutory requirements thereof. It is not pretty. It is corrupt. It is far from perfect. It is the very best political system in the world; but it does not inherently necessitate bipartisanism.

If congress is to govern it must have a definitive economic model. As corollary political measures have economic consequences, no politician can legislate without engaging the opinions and advise of economist. Of course the economist engaged by the White House always seems to be aligned with the President’s ideological determination.

Politicians maybe charismatic, some are bullies, others sway easily to the beat of another’s drum. But economists have an entirely different persona; well, maybe façade is a better descriptive. By purposeful design, economist constitutes an illusion of pretentiousness; after all, they must present themselves as harbingers. They also have the advantage of an affable naissance; unlike politicians, just about the entire profession of quotable economists is distilled within the providences of academia.

It is an amusing mix, the politician with the economist; each searching for symbioses, but acknowledging their pins and needles reality. Usually, it is the politician’s ideological inclination that selects the economist whose duty requires numbers, words, and ambiguity to coincide with the politician’s design. If the economist is wrong, such as the recent declaration of 8% unemployment, the politician sidesteps to counter any responsibility.

Once again, divisiveness and fleeting satisfaction are the feckless continuum; to ask for bipartisanism amongst the elected is wistful, even counterintuitive to the interest of the nation.

WE AMERICANS HAVE BEEN SO NAIVE

Authored by William Robert Barber

From about the turn of the 1900’s we Americans have taken upon ourselves to expend our blood and treasury in Cuba, Nicaragua, the Philippines, China, the Mexican border skirmishes, France, and Belgium. Now, fast-forward another twenty years and into the present to include Germany, Italy, North Africa, Korea, the Pacific islands, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other distant lands that five minutes of research could verify. Thousands upon thousands of Americans have died directly from battle wounds and thousands more from disease, shock, sorrow, and starvation as a consequence of their engagement.

I do believe that the two World Wars not only killed, murdered, and maimed millions of humans. But in fact, the devastation inflicted upon humankind by their fellow humans was/is to a large part caused by the naive, imprudent foreign policy, exercised by this nation’s leadership. The list of such naïve and imprudent policies initiated by former American presidents consists of certainly more than the two noted below.

However, Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt are perfect leadership models of this nation’s credulously unwise policies.

Wilson was an international idealist. A liberal progressive leader, serving as president before and during World War One. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a liberal progressive who grew to favor an oligarchic-socialist form of governing, he too was also president prior to and during the last World War.

Both leaders utilized the reason of present danger and economic emergency to dramatically enlarge the qualitative size of government power. Interestingly, in proportion to the enhancement of government in general, specifically, so grew the power of the executive branch. Irrespective of the growth of their domestic and international power, both of these leaders, Wilson as one of the victors of The Great War allowed the United States to be bullied and ostracized by his wartime allies. The other, with the atom bomb exclusively within his arsenal, the largest American Army ever station and at the ready in Europe, withstanding, Roosevelt does not protect the Europeans from Stalin. As if stymied, unable to comprehend the obvious and connect the dots. Ignoring the advice of Churchill, to the detriment of a democratic Europe, Roosevelt’s naive policies worked in favor of Soviet dominance; when challenged by a totalitarian regime, this American president faltered and failed to secure the peace. Roosevelt’s inaction serviced the Soviet Union as if the west was a Stalinist ally. In the grand game between a totalitarian dictatorship and a democratically elected republic, the good guys suffered an ignominious defeat. Roosevelt, the leader of the free world, ceded his Queen for fear of the opposition’s many pawns.

The Traité de Paix de Versailles and the Potsdamer Konferenz set the stage for future wars by creating (or allowing to be created) issues, concerns, and situations that preempted the next violent engagement. Versailles created draconian reparations upon Germany’s citizens; Potsdam ceded Eastern Europe to Stalin’s Russia. And if that was not enough, idiocy western leadership agreed on a divided Korea.

In 1912 Woodrow Wilson was elected president. In 1913, progressive income tax was legislated with the Revenue Act. This one law in short order would empower the federal government beyond the scope of the founder’s intent; this law debilitated state’s rights from its origin; this one law moved America from a republic to a government of and by federal mandate. This law was preceded and post-ceded by the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission, Clayton Antitrust Act, and the Federal Farm Loan Act. This progressive president, with the enabling of a Democratic congress, was the original “change you can believe in”… Woodrow Wilson was the presidential precursor to Barrack Obama.

He narrowly won the reelection in 1916 with the promise of keeping America out of “that fracas” in Europe. Of course that lasted until Germany sank the ‘Lusitania’, and by 1917 American soldiers and marines were in France. Wilson proceeded to form the War Industries Board, promoted labor unions, took over railroads, and enacted the Lever Act. This Lever fellow was an elected representative, of course a Democrat, who, at the prodding of President Wilson, decided it would be a very good idea to control food and fuel — hence the Lever Act. Sounds familiar? This legislation empowered a “Food Administrator” to oversee the working of this new government agency. The act also banned the use of “distilled spirits” from any produce that was used for food — the agency even tried to set the price of wheat. I trust one can visualize the resemblance between the Wilson administration and Obama’s.

Right after the First World War, President Wilson’s vision to guarantee the prophesy of “war to end all wars,” was to engage the United States in a global community of nations, an entity named The League of Nations. Although congress rejected the membership, President Wilson won a Nobel Peace Prize for his outline of “Fourteen Points”, a formula to entice Germany’s surrender while blueprinting a world order after the war. Wilson, as with Obama, visualized the world as they wished it to be; they both fail(ed) to see the world for what it truly is.

Not unlike President Obama, President Wilson’s experience was either public service or academia; he lacked the understanding of a world wherein persuasion was not a matter of finding a podium to exercise his rhetorical sensibilities. He just could not grasp that persuasion in the world of nation states is a matter of martial power. Either the direct use of such power or the indirect threat of power; this was the world of England, France, and Italy, his allied partners. In the finality, Wilson’s foreign policy concepts died an ignominious death; retributions ruled the Treaty of Versailles and while still looking for the cheese, the spring on the mousetrap was set; the next war would be even more brutal than the last.

Wilson, Roosevelt, and Obama all attended Harvard; none of them ever ran a private enterprise. Interestingly, they all shared the oneness of socialistic economic principles, large governments, and the belief that they could, by the power of their intellect or the coercive power of government, bend spoons in midair. And if they failed at that — surely they could bend any person or institution to their will.

Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1932 and passed away April 1945, in office. When he died away, thousand wept. He had been president longer than anyone. Indeed, so long that after his death congress passed an amendment to the constitution prohibiting a president’s term of office past two terms.

This is the man that took the nation off of the gold standard, favored deficit financing, unprecedented concessions to labor, created Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, and most outstanding, after his reign government could legally regulate the economy. We have all heard of his attempt to stack the Supreme Court and the invalidation of a few of his government’s programs.

Roosevelt is credited by many as saving the American people from the ravages of The Great Depression; of course there are those who feel FDR’s economic policies enabled the depression instead of abating its effect. But all will agree that he was a strong wartime leader. Of course this is also the president that detained Japanese Americans in internment camps for the duration of the war, deprived them of their property, liberty, and citizenry rights. This president was a liberal-progressive with strong socialist-like inclinations; he reminds me of President Obama’s political, economic, and social preferences.

I do believe that because this nation’s leadership decided to judge worldly events through the distortion of a liberal progressive’s naïve predeterminations, the continuum of violent conflict was and is a constant liability. Note that when this nation was confronted by a declaration of emergency, whether it is formed by domestic or foreign influence, government is enlarged and power-enriched to the few. Fear has been the wherewithal of liberal progressives to gain power and extend their ideological agenda.

In every instance of rule by an emergency agenda, personal liberty and individual freedom is being abated.

When will we Americans ever understand that weakness begets aggression? That peace is not a reasonable foreign policy goal? That the preservation of the ‘American Exception’ is in fact an intrinsic necessity, a value of worldwide priority? America cannot continue to win the war and lose the peace. The bona-fide relationship between the world’s nation states is founded on self-interest and without physical reality, omnipotent American power, Russia and China will fill the vacuum. The cost for liberty and freedom is always materialized into blood and gold; the fare is prohibitive. Leadership must reconcile the difference between the worlds as we wish it to be and as it truly is. This is no place for idealistic fantasies…

THE ELECTION OF 2010

Authored by William Robert Barber

The fat lady sang. Despite populous efforts to the contrary and zero Republican votes, the process of reconciliation won the day for the socialist and their brethren of leftist ideologues. The liberal progressive enriched Congress has legislatively turned the ship of state onto a sharp 270 degrees to port; the Democrats have won a great victory. Of course these proponents of “change we can believe in” or in other words, the congressional majority, the very ones that have not read the ‘Healthcare Law of the Land.’ At best they can only guess at the unfolding of subsequent possibilities or the ramifications of unintended consequences; of course the only certainty is more government, hence more union employment and higher taxes.

If rescission of the healthcare law is the political focus of us conservatives and such is our “Remember the Alamo”, we have an almost impossible task. Withstanding the recently levied against the “feds’” multi-state lawsuits and the probability of a Supreme Court review, Obama has done his bane upon the efforts of conservatives. Repealing this legislation will be very, very difficult. Nevertheless, such is the sole recourse of counter-Obama opportunity; there is no other alternative but to throw all of these liberal progressives out of office. In other words, the majority control of congress is not sufficient; we will need a super majority to overcome the inevitable presidential veto.

Obama the centrist has finally been exposed to the American people as the liberal progressive socialist of unmitigated origin. With the 15 recess appointments that boldly define the favoritism of union appeal, ‘card check’ legislation so to enable union expansion by disabling the heretofore anonymous voting rights, and the clear appointment of persons’ of leftist credentials.

Obama has taken the glove and slapped the conservatives across the face. “Pistols or swords” is Obama’s offer. I think we should aim for the heart of their socialistic agenda and choose both, pistol AND sword. For the cause of conservative principles, inclusive of personal liberty and freedom, the winning of the forthcoming electoral duel is critical. In this 2010 voting event we must not simply gain a majority — we must demand a super-majority. Anything less than such is, for those of conservative principles, an unsustainable intolerable with political consequences of damning proportion.

Surely we can expect the Democrats to pull out all resources to thwart any and all efforts to replace their majority; and as a prelude to Obama’s reelection in 2012, liberal-media stunts will be the order of the 2010 election period. At stake is simply everything…

THE OBAMA BIDEN LEGACY OF LEFT ANGLE REMARKS

Authored by William Robert Barber

The deliverance by Obama and Biden that the stimulus is and was a good thing, inclusive of other such instances of delusional disingenuousness, has finally pushed me into wondering if these guys have any hold whatsoever on even a semblance of reality. Frankly, I thought that Biden was more or less acting out of fidelity to the President and that Obama was adhering to his political ideology. But after the continuum of empirical evidence that blatantly contradicts the words that leave their mouths, I am now questioning their competence.

This mind-numbing questioning of mine is a burden of recent and now intense encumbrance. My concern is directly pointed to the administration’s veracity. I have cause to doubt the administration’s comprehension of clear and relevant economic, as well as political, events. My wonderment is now at a crescendo causing me some bafflement and confusion. The most recent actions and supporting rhetoric of Obama leadership is counter intuitive, bordering on downright stupid.

Logical deduction normally discerns the distinction of success or failure; a leader, (normally) when confronted with any material objective, changes the strategy or tactic if failure is the prevailing result. Indeed, followers need to believe in the leader’s ability to discern and adjust the effort if such preceding effort does not produce the desired result. But not this president or his team of political/economic advisors: Instead, they double down on their insistence that either the message was not delivered succinctly or that a variant of counter-parties distorted the truth of their appeal.

I am close to diagnosing the Obama administration with a not-so-rare, but nevertheless lethal, behavioral disease, known as “Bataille de Verdun”; the first know exposure was in 1916. Before it was contained it had caused an estimated 700,000 casualties.  It seemed that British soldiers could not adapt their traditional tactics to the new technology. Therefore, despite the deadly effect of German machine gun fire, one battalion after another repeated the linear shoulder-to-shoulder charge — respective of the utter failure of advancement. Thousands of warriors stepped toe-to-toe without changing their tactics; obviously, the result was a devastating loss of human life. I conclude that the flower of the British Empire was lost on the fields of Verdun. Considering Obama’s first year in office and his reluctance to stop, reevaluate, and change so to adapt to a new empirical reality, he is marching shoulder-to-shoulder in linear formation, pushing forward his all but soundly rejected agenda.

The Obama government actually does much more than simply doubling down on their precedence. Actually, for the political purpose of prevailing, they are participating in a Kabuki dance of their own design. They are choreographing this dance minute-by-minute and day-to-day. There is little time for rehearsal and as a result a certain amount of disagreement among the dancers is evident. The administration’s dance is calculated to win the debate. To forthrightly distort the truth by means non-explicit or explicit is just the price of winning. Confederating with those of media simpatico, the Obama staff purposefully misdirects the message with half-truths, almost the truth, and implicit exaggerations. The Obama advisors lamely excuse their original forecast of limiting unemployment to 8% with the shrug that the recession was much harsher than understood at the time. Of course the old (wearing thin) stand by of blaming George Bush for everything is still high on their list of the reasons for their failures.

Recently, Biden took arrogant disregard to a new level by unabashedly affirming to an international television audience that the success in Iraq was a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s example of sound-positive governmental stewardship.  For such idiocy in the face of evidence to the contrary Vice-President Biden deserves the Medal of Audacious Impertinence.

When it suits them they are harbingers, mind-readers, and the very essence of viable interconnectedness in understanding the rational means to a justifiable end. They are the a priori of super-intelligence as to resolving the nation’s economic, social, fiscal, and foreign policy issues. Otherwise, if things don’t go as forecasted, they are the innocent provocateurs of justice, governmental transparency, moral righteousness, and the very ethos of Americana tradition. Yes, they have a super majority in the House and until Mr. Brown’s victory, controlled the Senate; but still, in the face of their super-intelligence, the Obama democrats are stymied by a Republican party of no.

It is a hard cruel world for Obama and his band of innocent provocateurs.

THE PEOPLE’S INQUIRY

Authored by William Robert Barber

Office holding politicians, particularly the Democrats, cannot comprehend the prevailing message: The American people are angrily frustrated with the leadership, as well as followship of congress.  The citizenry are resentful of this ‘I know better’ elitist approach by the elected to the governing of the people. Additionally, disingenuousness, lies, distortions, and purposeful, politically motivated directives aimed to distort the truth for the sake of the moment also add wood to the fire of governmental distrust.

The people want the truth — the good, the bad, and the ugly truth. These are the wishes of the people. Instead, the Obama administration, Pelosi’s House majority, and Reid’s Senate majority insist on managing the Democrat-led government by presuming that the people are ignorant of what’s good for them; therefore, enlightenment of the masses is the obligation of every liberal progressive. After all, only through such practice can those who know and understand less be lead by those who understand so much more.

The very fact that political leadership for years — not just at the federal level — have managed to pay Paul with Henry’s money (the very definition of a Ponzi scheme); such behavior is a testimony of not simply pure unadulterated governmental mismanagement, but also the perfect example of what happens when constituents take their eye off the ball of political involvement.

The goal is not about trusting government; indeed, a sound responsive populous should never trust government. Nor is trust a factor in government transactions or affairs; this is particularly true as to the elected. Trust is not in the dictionary of political or governmental intercourse. However, mistrust is the guiding line of reason when auditing all aspects of governing.

No person living today, as with those persons of the past, has the constancy of either righteousness or truthfulness. Every person is blinded by one’s own predetermination of what is right or correct. Wisdom is only accurately measured in arrears. We are all guessers. The result of deductive logic is only as reliable as the veracity of the information imputed.

When legislation is rushed, it is only prudent to believe that mistakes will be made. So why rush legislation? Well, we all, despite our presumption of ignorance, know why legislation is rushed. Either because the congress is changing the name of an airport, or because the measure debated is politically significant and one party or the other would rather not stand the test of scrutiny.

I do believe that the American people have had their full of politics as usual. Certainly, congressional nonsense has risen to the top of the glass and has spilled over onto the floor. Enough of the useless political bickering (by the elected and the wannabe elected); the country is financially busted. It is time to spread the burden of sustaining the cost of governing, not emphasizing the spread of wealth. It is time to objectively, vigorously, lower the cost of governing at every level of government.

Remember, the author of “Utopia” lost his head…

MR. PRESIDENT, STEP AWAY FROM THE ECONOMY

Authored by Andy Matthews   —   February 1, 2010

“The country has had enough of your fixing, thank you”.

The conventional wisdom has it that President Obama’s most egregious error during his first year in office was his decision to focus the bulk of his attention on health care, rather than on “fixing” the economy.

“At the exact moment the public was announcing it worried about jobs first and debt and deficits second,” conservative columnist Peggy Noonan wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, “the administration decided to devote its first year to health care, which no one was talking about.”

Nebraska Democratic Senator Ben Nelson, he of Cornhusker Kickback infamy, lamented to the Fremont Tribune that “it was a mistake to take health care on as opposed to continuing to spend the time on the economy.”

This misplacement of priorities, we are told, explains the precipitous drop in the president’s poll numbers over the past year. Now, a course correction is needed if Obama wants to a) salvage what’s left of his presidency, and b) do right by the country.

The White House got the message. In his State of the Union speech last week, the president told the nation that “jobs must be our number one focus in 2010, and that is why I am calling for a new jobs bill tonight.” Obama referred to “jobs” 26 times in his speech, more than twice as often as health care or health insurance.

And so it’s agreed: The administration has seen the error of its ways, and from now on, fixing the economy and creating jobs will be Priority One for Team Obama.

Now, not to rain on this fun, bi-partisan agree-a-thon, but isn’t this just about the worst thing we could ask for right now?

If memory serves, the guy who’s telling us he’s now gearing up to “fix” the economy is the same guy who, way back in the year 2009, gave us the historically massive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was supposed to … fix the economy.

For those who missed it, Obama’s first take at playing economic Mr. Fix-it didn’t exactly work out as we were told it would. That $787 billion “stimulus” package bought us double-digit unemployment and deficits as far as the eye can see, but that’s about it. Should Americans really be salivating for another helping? Didn’t this guy do enough damage the first time?

Actually, the stimulus debacle did produce two things of enormous value: a teachable moment regarding the administration’s sheer ignorance of all things economic, and the opportunity to watch modern-day liberalism fail so completely and publicly that it may now have been discredited for a generation.

The way to jumpstart a sluggish economy — as anyone who didn’t sleep through the entire 20th Century understands — is to remove governmental barriers to private-sector-driven economic growth. That this point is either entirely lost on or irrelevant to the administration becomes clear when one considers that the stimulus package did the exact opposite: It grew government at the expense of the private sector. The dreadful results were all too predictable. And the ideological rigidity behind the stimulus is exactly what ensures that future attempts by this administration to address our economic challenges will prove no more effective. The only policy solutions with any real hope of succeeding are, by default, kept off the table.

So to say that Obama would have enjoyed a more successful first year had he focused more on the economy misses the point. Any president who so fundamentally misunderstands the reasons why some societies prosper while others remain stagnant is predestined to fail on economic matters. Given this president’s faith in government intervention as the necessary starting point for solving all of society’s problems, anything he touched in the economic realm was destined to go badly — and anything he touches in the future will meet a similar fate. In short, we’ve seen what “focusing on the economy” means to this crowd. And it ain’t pretty. The State of the Union speech — chock full of ideas for new, big-spending initiatives — only confirmed the President’s commitment to his failed strategy.

And so when the president tells us he’s now shifting his focus to the economy, there’s only one serious way to take it: as a threat.

To be sure, President Obama will, through this recalibration, score some short-term political points. By shifting his emphasis to jobs and the economy, he is sending a message to Americans that is sure to be warmly received: Your priorities are my priorities.

But the President’s dogmatic commitment to his statist ideology gives the ending away. Barring a complete reversal of his philosophical bearings, we know that his next attempt to “fix” the economy — and the one after that, and the one after that — will involve increasing the size and scope of government while choking the private sector. As night follows day, things will again get worse, not better.

And the public will begin to long for the days when the president was bogged down in his ill-fated attempt to reform health care.

Andy Matthews is vice president for operations and communications at the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

PAX AMERICANA

Authored by William Robert Barber

America is the world’s guarantor; the only super power in the world with the means to indemnify against any hostile action anywhere on the globe. American forces are dispersed on every continent, in every seaway our ships and submarines are present. Many nations depend on the presence of US forces as the additional surety that their much needed resources will reach their ports; world-wide commerce, to some material effect, would be jeopardized if not for the force of US arms.

The effectiveness of US arms is not only important for commerce. For example, how much of a deterrent would NATO be to aggressor forces without America? Would the UN even bother to meet without American participation? Would the world be safer without America’s lead in its military alliances? Since 1945, the world is safer not because of America’s force of persuasion; but, because of its force of arms. Obviously, a show of force is never enough; it must be coupled with a willingness to commit such forces to combat.

The American military insures that oil arrives in Japan, Korea, China, and on to its shores. New York and Miami represent the international business city of choice for Europe and all countries south as Texas; Los Angeles is the gateway to the Pacific and Asia. America is the largest consumer nation that has ever existed; it also has the most lethal sophisticated, combat experienced armed forces in the world. Only America’s martial forces are distributed all over the globe; unlike any other nation in the world, America is ideally suited to enforce peacefulness.

Since history has been recorded, warfare has existed. Violence is the addition of humankind. For reasons unreasonable, even irrational, there are nation states that are hell bent on creating chaos to merely service their wanting. Nation states are prompted into the compliance of peacefulness not by some internationally accepted moral obligatory but by the use of power. Power is used to compel.  The power to compel must provoke the counter party into compliance; anything short of abrupt and immediate compliance is simply diplomatic gimmickry.  There are alternatives to military intervention that may compel a belligerent nation to peacefulness; nevertheless, tradition has proven, without the unilateral willingness to use military intervention, other forms of persuasion are no more than an ineffective ruse.

North Korea survived the Korean Conflict because America lacked the will to complete the task. Today Korea has nuclear weapons. Iran is positioning itself to evangelize the Middle East with its branding of Shiite hegemony. Soon, Iran will have the nuclear capacity to deliver an atom bomb. Syria is eager to control Lebanon.  All did, do now, and will continue to support America’s enemies; such support certainly includes Israel’s nemesis Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian militant factions. Iran has reached over as far away as Venezuela so to embarrass the United States. At its pleasure, Iran by military and political means, strives to destabilize Iraq.

Selling to the same consumers, China is in competition with India over labor pricing and manufacturing. India fears Pakistan and their ambitions in the Kashmir. Pakistan is fighting a war to keep the Taliban at arm’s length. Pakistan is a nuclear armed nation that has no respectful regard for US interest; factually, the country is politically unstable and its people are ambivalent to American aid and assistance.

Russia is managed with an iron hand by Putin and company. The ideal for Mother Russia is to control their historical sector of influence. Their interest is not restricted to former members’ countries of the Soviet Union but the ultimate prize of prizes is to manipulate the European Union; this manipulation, in their mind, is achievable through the controlled distribution of natural gas and oil.

The only country on earth that can effectively counter these threats to peacefulness is America.