Obama Just Isn’t Liberal, Enough

Mark Noonan21 Comments

From The New Yorker:

…Of course, invoking the Fourteenth Amendment has always been a long shot, a last refuge. But Obama’s seeming refusal to hold it in reserve (“like the fire axe on the wall,” in Garrett Epps’s words) is emblematic of his all too civilized, all too accommodating negotiating strategy—indeed, of his whole approach to the nation’s larger economic dilemma, the most disappointing aspect of his Presidency. His stimulus package asked for too little and got less. He has allowed deficits and debt to supersede mass unemployment as the emergency of the moment. He has too readily accepted Republican terms of debate, such as likening the country to a household that must “live within its means.” (For even the most prudent householders, living within one’s means can include going into debt, as in taking out a car loan so that one can get to one’s job.) He has done too little to educate the public to the wisdom of post-Herbert Hoover economics: fiscal balance is achieved over time, not in a single year; in flush times a government should run a surplus, but when the economy falters deficits are part of the remedy; when the immediate problem is what it is now—a lack of demand, not a shortage of capital—higher spending is generally more efficacious than lower taxes, especially lower taxes on the rich…

And now the Carterization of Obama is complete…well, except that he hasn’t had his Killer Rabbit attack.  You see, I remember this – back in 1980 when I was gleefully reading over the liberal angst about Carter’s defeat, there were liberal opinions that Carter’s failure was that he wasn’t liberal enough.  Had he spent more, taxed more, cut defense more, negotiated with our enemies more…had he just gone full blown in to the most extreme liberalism possible, it all would have worked out.  There is a bizarre disconnect from reality in our “reality-based community”…the unwillingness to ever admit that liberalism can get it wrong, or even be unpopular.

One does have to wonder – that was written by Hendrik Hertzberg.  He’s a well-educated man:  at least, his credentials say so.  But does he really believe that there was in what FDR did a stark contrast to what Hoover did?  Does he further believe that what FDR did worked?  Hoover spent bags of money trying to fix the economy (little remembered is how in 1932 FDR ran on a balanced budget platform).  FDR just spent bags and bags and bags.  Hoover didn’t fix the depression, neither did FDR.  Yet here we are in 2011 and here is Mr. Hertzberg, certain that the lesson of the past is that you have to go flat out in spending…don’t do what Hoover did!  And Obama, in Hertzberg’s view, is being too Hooverish and not channeling his inner-FDR.  But Hoover did what FDR did and both FDR and Hoover failed utterly.  How do you get that ignorant about history and yet graduate from the Ivy League and become a commentator for The New Yorker?

Furthermore, a little blogger like me is supposed to stand in awe of all this…that I don’t have an Ivy League diploma and don’t have an editor to carefully review what I’ve written, and so I should accept as from on high such pronouncements.  But that is absurd – I can see what is plain as a pikestaff, Hertzberg, by the evidence in his article, would have difficulty finding the balls on a bull.  There is making a mistake – I’ve done that; I’ll do it again and again, too…but there is a huge difference between “mistake” and “obtuse”.

Never mind.  As long as liberals really think that it is a lack of liberalism which makes for liberal failure, it works out mostly to our advantage.  True, it came back to bite us in 2008 – never imagined someone as leftist as Obama could even get nominated, let alone elected…but everything, I guess, really is possible.  It is highly likely that we will correct 2008’s error in 2012…and Hertzberg and other liberals will then proclaim not a shift to the right to regain America’s trust, but a further shift to the left because those darn morons, the voters, just don’t know what’s good for them.  We should be able to keep the Democrats out of the White House for 20 years on that.

HAT TIP:  Commentary

The End of the Obama “Recovery”

Mark Noonan15 Comments

The demise of Obamunism, over at the Atlantic:

It’s hard to overstate how much today’s GDP report blew up our understanding of the recovery. The recession was deeper than we knew, and the economy is weaker than we thought. We weren’t making new jobs, because we weren’t making new things, period. The economy grew less than 1% in the first half of 2011.

Yesterday, analysts thought the economy was expanding by 2.5% a year. This morning, they learned GDP grew by only 1.6% in the last four quarters. This is a remarkable discovery. It’s the difference between thinking we’re expanding at a decent, if disappointing, pace, and knowing we’re growing around half our historical norm…

As I said waaaay the heck back in 2010, my guess is that when the history of this time is fully known and all the data analyzed, it will be judged that we never emerged from the recession which officially began in 2007.  Sure, some “growth” happened – goosing the economy with trillions in borrowed and printed money can do that – but there was no real, organic growth.  We didn’t, that is, start creating wealth – not in any sense faster than we were losing it.  Here’s a clue – only wealth can make you wealthy, and wealth is only (ONLY!!!!!) things you make, mine or grow.  What is killing us is that our tax and regulatory climate has made it almost impossible to create wealth in the United States…we’ve been killing the goose that lays our golden eggs.

Our whole economic policy has been to reward the most those who make, mine and grow the least.  Whether its a welfare recipient, “too big to fail” bank, favored special interest or our increasingly regressive bureaucracy, the rewards have been going to people who just consume or who play around with money.  Until we start rewarding most those who farm, mine and manufacture, this situation will just continue to get worse.

An entire shift in our economic thinking is required.  We have to cut the size of government; eliminate huge swaths of regulations and the bureaucrats who enforce them; call a halt to “NIMBYism” and environmentalism which puts walls up against new farms, new mines and new factories; adjust our trade policies so we’re no longer allowing slave-driving tyrants to dump their exports on us; massively increase domestic energy production so that we’re no longer sending money over seas just to drive our cars and turn on our lights…and we need to tell those in America who are not working that they’d better show us a missing leg, or something…we’re not going to subsidize daytime talk show viewing.  Everyone who can work, works…or they don’t eat.  Welcome to the real world, everyone…the liberal fairy tale is over, and its time to get back to being Americans.

Boehner: “The Best We Could Get”

Mark Noonan40 Comments

From NRO’s The Corner:

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) told GOP members on a conference call Sunday evening that he had reached a deal with congressional leaders and the White House, but that it wouldn’t happen “unless we have membership on board.” It remains to be seen how many House Republicans will end up supporting the final package, but members on the call told National Review Online they thought it would ultimately pass with bipartisan support. “I’m not sure I’m going to support it but I think it will probably pass,” said freshman Rep. Dennis Ross (R., Fla.). Members described the tone of the call as overwhelmingly positive, with many praising Boehner’s efforts in the negotiations. Despite his concerns about the final deal, Ross said “leadership has done a very good job of getting it to this point,” and described a sense of relief among members, many of whom may not love the deal, but are nonetheless happy to be moving on to the next fight.

According to sources, Boehner said the deal was “the best that we could get.” In particular, he thanked the 87 freshmen members for their input, without which “we wouldn’t have gotten this far.” Ross concurred. “I think the freshman class has been very valuable to this process,” he said…

That last bit is really best translated as, “goodness, we didn’t fully realize until now that these TEA Party people are serious!”.  But, all in all, it is a good thing – this is the first time since the glory days of 1995 that a GOP House Speaker can count on a solid, conservative GOP caucus…one which won’t go all soft on him in return for campaign cash and other DC blandishments.  But it is not the best we could get – it is the best that the GOP could get using this strategy.

We need to think carefully not just about what we want, but how we want to get there.  We did not do a good enough job of forcing the Democrats to defend their disgusting Big Government liberalism – they were defensive, to be sure, but they were still defending the concept of using government money to be nice to people…we need tactics which will expose the fact that they really want to use government to reward liberal cronies.

A relentless drumbeat of just who among the rich and powerful are getting government money and just who they donate to (and speak and write in favor of) should be used in the next battle.  Show the American people that “food for the starving” really works out to “Cadillac for Nancy Pelosi’s crony-capitalist”.  These people on the left have been looting the Treasury for decades.  Sweat heart deals for government contracts, special tax and regulatory breaks:  things like that and the pols get, in return, campaign cash, investment tips and well paid corporate sinecures once out of office.  Show this to the American people…force the liberals away from defending charity and in to defending their greed for wealth and power.

We also need to win the class war – and my idea of a “wealth tax” is the best way to end that battle once and for all.  Democrats are endlessly harping on how we GOPers want to steal food out of granny’s mouth so we can give tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.  Do them one better – propose a tax which will won’t hit anyone except a millionaire or billionaire and watch the Democrats try to stop it…force them to reveal that their “tax the rich” rhetoric is really “tax the middle class, leave our rich donors alone”.

Still and all a good effort.  Big Government liberalism is firmly on the defensive – and Obama and his Democrats will have to defend their worthless, wasteful, immoral and un-American welfare State all through 2012.  We have them on the run – now, let’s push them over the edge, and take back our country.

NAACP Executive Convicted of Voter Fraud

Mark Noonan10 Comments

From the DC Caller:

…In a story ignored by the national media, in April a Tunica County, Miss., jury convicted NAACP official Lessadolla Sowers on 10 counts of fraudulently casting absentee ballots. Sowers is identified on an NAACP website as a member of the Tunica County NAACP Executive Committee…

…Sowers was found guilty of voting in the names of Carrie Collins, Walter Howard, Sheena Shelton, Alberta Pickett, Draper Cotton and Eddie Davis. She was also convicted of voting in the names of four dead persons: James L. Young, Dora Price, Dorothy Harris, and David Ross.

In the trial, forensic scientist Bo Scales testified that Sowers’s DNA was found on the inner seals of five envelopes containing absentee ballots…

This is why we on the right want people to show ID when voting and why we want voter rolls purged of dead, moved or invalid voters.  Doing so would make it exceptionally more difficult for a criminal like Sowers to operate.  Naturally, our liberals are opposed to this for that very reason – if we make voter fraud difficult, it will impinge upon liberals’ ability to cheat.

It is my contention – backed up by the amount of research Matt and I did in writing Caucus of Corruption – that voter fraud is endemic to the Democrat party.  It is not a bizarre event; it is not something which some times occurs in the heat of political battle…it is carefully organized and done in such a way that whenever a vote comes close, Democrats can count upon a pool of bogus votes to put them over the top.  I believe that in all voting districts where Democrats have any sort of control, the cheating is systemic…even in areas where they are sure to win as a sort of “just in case” assurance.

This first came to my attention in 2000 when I got down and dirty in to Florida precinct returns and noted a bunch of precincts which had 90% or better turn out with 90% or more of their votes going for Al Gore.  In the normal course of events, this just doesn’t happen…90% of any group more than a 20 simply cannot make it to any event (you’ll note this each time you set up a dinner party at your house) and you don’t get 90% of the votes going one way except when you’re cheating; there simply isn’t that level of unanimity in politics.  You might get 90% voting in favor of motherhood (and that is a “might”), but outside of that sort of thing, people tend to disagree.  This told me that a certain percentage of the votes being cast were bogus…and then I just paid attention since then, and noted it more and more often.

Dead voters, multiple registrations, illegal voters, ballots being “discovered” by Democrats in just sufficient numbers to put their guy over the top.  Absentee ballots have become an especially strong tool for fraud (in my view, only active duty military, police, firefighters and emergency responders should be allowed absentee ballots…everyone can just get to the polls, or don’t vote).  This conviction is just the very tip of a gigantic iceberg – quite honestly, we should investigate every race where the margin of victory was less than 1%…doesn’t matter who won, just investigate it…place the balloting under the microscope.  I bet you’ll find questionable votes throughout the system, and I’ll bet almost all of them will eventually be traced to liberal persons and groups.

We must bring an end to this – and here’s how we do it:

1.  Require all voter registration be done in person.  No mail in registration, no people sent out in to the streets to collect registrations.  If you want to register to vote, get yourself to a voter registration office, present your ID and some sort of proof of address, and register.  Yes, this is a bit difficult…but voting is a responsibility as much as a right, and if you wish to exercise the right you’ll have to take the responsibility to get your registration done.  All voters must register at least 6 months in front of election day in order to ensure that there is time for random registration checks to be done by election officials.  All persons registering to vote must swear to their legal ability to vote and the correctness of the information provided on penalty of one year in jail for lying.

2.  Require all voters to present their picture ID before voting.  Once a person has voted, have them dip their right index finger in blue ink.

3.  Voter rolls must be purged every other year.  The voter registration bureaucrats must send out letter requiring a response from all registered voters.  All letters returned or un-answered will result in that person being purged from the voter rolls.  All voter rolls must be bounced against lists of convicted criminals and anyone convicted of a felony must be purged.  All voter rolls must be bounced against a registrar of deaths since the last election and all deceased persons must be purged.

That would do it – we would ensure that almost all votes cast in any election would be legitimate.  Do not tax me with whines about how this would be unfair to this or that voting group…first off, I don’t buy the liberal-racist view that ethnic minorities aren’t smart enough to register to vote and present a picture ID.  Secondly, we must ensure that only those allowed to vote participate in our elections and that no illegal votes are counted.  If we are to be a democratically governed republic, the security of our vote is an absolute requirement…and the need for integrity in voting trumps every other consideration.

Enough of this liberal voter fraud.

Debt Deal Done, Fake Crisis Averted

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Hot Air has the details – it mostly works out to a defeat for the left as it looks like they didn’t get tax hikes, didn’t get as much new debt ceiling as they wanted and were prevented from gutting defense.  The deal was done because, in the end, Obama saw his approval rating cratering and wanted to stop the bleeding – some times you do have to let a crisis go to waste.  Especially when you made one up out of whole cloth.

The real budget crisis comes in 2015 or so if we don’t significantly cut spending by then.  While Obama is President, we won’t be able to do that – so the whole solution to our real budget crisis is to get Obama out of the White House in 2012.

Syrian Army Crushes Rebels

Mark Noonan11 Comments

From Bloomberg:

Syrian soldiers stormed Hama and other flashpoints of unrest, leaving at least 121 dead, an activist said, as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces sought to reassert control on the eve of Ramadan, when protests are likely to intensify.

Tanks shelled Hama, Syria’s fourth largest city, where at least 100 people were killed today, said Mahmoud Merhi, head of the Damascus-based Arab Organization for Human Rights.

Three people died near the city of Daraa, and fighting in other areas raised the toll to 121, Merhi said…

Why is the Syrian government doing this?  Because they know that the one nation on earth which can enforce decency won’t act…or, even if we did act, then under Obama we would act with sufficient speed and power to affect the outcome.  Get used to this boys and girls – because Obama has abdicated America’s leadership role, the world now belongs to whomever is willing to be the most evil.  This massacre in Hama is just a slight foretaste of what is to come.  Tyrants around the world are watching events and getting ready grab what they can and settle scores…all in the knowledge that Obama is more likely to condemn a US ally than an enemy.

The world is becoming a very dangerous place…and to help you sleep better, the word is that the Democrats want 50% of all spending cuts to come out of defense, alone.

 

Budget Deal in the Works

Mark Noonan61 Comments

From the AP:

Officials say the White House and Republican leaders in Congress are making significant progress toward a last-minute agreement to avoid a default threatened for next week.

These officials say the two sides are discussing a plan to raise the debt limit by about $2.4 trillion and enact spending cuts of a slightly larger amount in two stages.

The deal under discussion would also require Congress to vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, but not require its approval.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the discussions.

Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air surmises that, finally, Obama is actually willing to state what he wants – what he will sign.  In other words, we’re finally getting a White House plan for the debt.  All this time we’ve been pretty much working in a void because Obama never indicated what was actually acceptable to him…and it seems that Reid had actually  signed on to the GOP plan, at Obama’s behest, only to be told at the last minute by Obama that he wouldn’t sign it.

My feeling is that Obama was hoping that the looming crisis (which is entirely fake, by the way) would force the GOP to cave and they’d go ahead and either give him a “clean” debt ceiling increase through 2013 or, at least, go along with some tax hikes.  As it became clear that GOP would give him neither of these things – and as Obama’s approval rating has cratered through this mess – I think that someone finally got Obama to realize that he had to defuse this manufactured crisis…make it go away before the worst of all things happened:  Tuesday arrived and the world didn’t end.

For our side, we’ve done well – we’ve laid down the marker for future budget negotiations and demonstrated conclusively that the GOP – at least in its TEA Party element – will not back down from a fight.

“Never let a crisis go to waste” was Obama’s watchword from day one…even if he had to make up a crisis.  But now Obama has learned that dishonesty can only carry you so far.

The Tea Parties, the Future of Liberty and Liberal Intentional Slander

tiredoflibbs90 Comments

After Barak Obama (the obAMATEUR to realists) became president in January 2009, he signed the infamous “stimulus package”, worth $787 billion, of liberal dream spending with virtually no Republican support (and rightfully so).  As it was rammed through with little reading or debate, we were told that it was “necessary”, “to keep unemployment under 8%”.  Practically overnight as one of its highest priorities, the federal government became the “Home Depot” by weatherizing government buildings and housing projects (excuse me “housing developments”).  Streets and highways with little or no need of repair would be broken up and repaved.  The DOT and other government agencies would spend millions on signs advertising the supposed benefits of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  I saw one of those signs first hand in Washington DC.  It stated that the park on Roosevelt Island would be receiving a generous “grant” to facilitate the involvement of local youth in the removal of “non-indigenous plants”.  To put it simply, local kids would be weeding the island.  This was going to save the economy and the country??

Then there were several “projects” and “studies” also financed by the ARRA.  One project, numbered 1R01AA01658001, titled “Malt Liquor and Marijuana: Factors in their Concurrent or Separate Use”.  This grant of $400,000 to a professor at New York State at Buffalo has the following official abstract: “We appreciate the opportunity to refocus this application to achieve a single important aim related to our understanding of young adults’ use of malt liquor, other alcoholic beverages, and Marijuana, all of which confer high risks for experiencing negative consequences including addiction.”  Wow, $400,000 to study something we already knew???  Other such “grants” followed, to ACORN, to the study of porn, to the study of fish migrations and mating habits of certain animals, etc. etc.

The cost of the stimulus was later revised to $862 billion (an underestimate of 10%).  If a private business made such a blunder in outgoing funds it would most likely go out of business.  But I digress…..  As a result of this boondoggle of liberal spending, the TEA Party was born.  It was by accident really that this organization was founded.  Thanks to Rick Santelli on CNBC and his rant against the stimulus package and a particular proposal to for it to also subsidize what he called the “losers mortgages”.  He proposed a ceremonial dumping of  of derivative securities into Lake Michigan.  A few hours later a website popped up with a call for a “Chicago Tea Party” and Santelli’s video rant. The video became viral across the nation.  Average Americans were furious about the massive new spending and the revelations about previous spending on those “studies” and “grants”.  This alone was not the sustaining factor in keeping the TEA Party movement alive but the fact that: Under President Obama, federal spending has been growing at an unprecedented pace.  We are adding $4.8 billion to the national debt everyday.  The long-term viability of Medicare and Social Security isn’t merely uncertain – as so many analysts would have us believe.  In fact their failure is is a sure thing without structural changes.  By adding massive new entitlements with the health care bill we are simply going to go broke faster.

The TEA party gained so much momentum so fast, it was a threat to the liberal establishment.  Immediately pundits, the obAMATEUR friendly media, the Democrats went into full gear with their baseless and usual smear tactics and attacks.

Susan Roesgen of CNN (once an anchor in New Orleans) was going after TEA Party enthusiasts at a Chicago rally, suggesting they were stupid and irrational (no objective reporting there).

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: “The danger of political violence in this country comes overwheminly from one direction – the right, not the left.  The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day – and, quite regurlarly, at TEA Party rallies – is calibrated not to inform but to incite.”

MSNBC’s Ed Shutlz (I KNOW NOTHING!!!): “I believe that the TEA Partiers are misguided.  I think they are racist, for the most part.  I think that they are clinging to their guns and their religion.  And I think in many respects, they are what’s wrong with America.”

Actress Janeane Garofalo: “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.  There are nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging readnecks.”

Comedian Bill Maher: “the teabaggers, they’re not a movement, they’re a cult.”

Democratic strategist Stece McMahon: “The reason people walk into schools and open fire is because of rhetoric like this and because of attitudes like this.  The reason people walk onto military bases and open fire is because of rhetoric like this and attitudes like this.  Really, what they’re doing is not that much different that what Osama bin Laden is doing in recruiting people and encouraging them to hate America.”

Chris Mathews claimed that the TEA Partiers are all “monochromatic” and “all white”.  A quick look and amateur and profession videos at rallies quickly proved this talking point wrong.

However, a Washington Post/ABC poll found that 14% of voters say the TEA Party is “most in synch” with their values; 20% say TEA Partiers are “most in tune with economic problems Americans are now facing”.

A most interesting poll came from TargetPoint Consulting which interviewed 500 attendees at the April 15, 2010 Tax Rally in DC Here are some of the results:

The TEA Partiers are united on the issues of debt, the growth of government, and health care reform

They are socially conservative on the one hand and libertarian on the other, split roughly down the middle.

They are older, more educated, and more conservative that average voters and they are “distinctly not Democrat”.

This brings us to the present day.  The President’s approval ratings are low and getting lower and Congressional Democrats are the lowest and getting worse.  Members of his party are running away from him (as seen in the November elections with declines of his speaking at their rallies).  Now with the debate on the debt limit, Americans are seeing that the Republicans have presented plans while the Democrats and the President have presented NONE.  The only thing liberal Democrats and their drones can do is continue to attack the GOP and the TEA party candidates who won in November who are doing what their constituents want – lower spending and reduce the size of the budget with has grown over 25% in just two years.  There is no way you can convince anyone that there a no room for cuts.  The liberal drones continue with their attacks of racism.  Andrew Brietbart has offered anyone who can prove racism at a TEA party rally with a cash reward.  With all the amateur and professional videos out there NOT A SINGLE ONE has captured anything close to the looney left’s claims (of course, the left now claims criticizing the Presidents failed policies is racism).

The Democrats are out of new ideas.  They continue to tout the same old ones that have failed time and again – more spending and more taxes.  When the President says we must live within our means he is not talking of cutting spending to match revenues, but raising taxes in hopes of raising revenues to match spending.  His mishandling of this debt limit and lack of leadership is showing among his Twitter followers (losing 30,000) and elsewhere, his support continues to dwindle.

When President Obama spoke before the United Nations General Assembly in September 2009, he declared that a world order that elevates one country or group of countries over others is bound to fail.  So he’s changing the order.  If his domestic policy priority is the redistribution of wealth, his foreign policy seems to be the redistribution of power.  The TEA Party has members of every race and creed is continuing to gain momentum and returning the conversation to limited government in scope and power.

The Post-Hope and Change World

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Victor Davis Hanson notes the darkening scene:

…But it is in the Pacific where we may well see the most dramatic changes of American withdrawal. Insidiously, the Chinese are translating their formidable financial power into a new muscular military profile. North Korea is as crazy as ever. The proverbially terrorized shop-keeper in the region thus does not know where to turn—to the mostly absent cop on the beat dreaming of his union pension, or the young thugs who demand protection money or else.

The result is that Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines have one eye on China, and one on Washington—and therefore are increasingly terrified. One of three things will happen: our shaky allies will demand a higher U.S. profile in the region, and new assurances of safety under the U.S. nuclear umbrella (all quite unlikely); or they will go nuclear and, unlike North Korea, their missiles will work like Camrys and Kias; or they will make face-saving accommodations with the Chinese that will result in a new version of the old Co-Prosperity Sphere (China 2011 reminds me a lot of Japan 1935).

Right now, I could not imagine that anyone in Taiwan would believe the Obama administration would say or do anything should Chinese ships tomorrow show up a mile off the Taiwanese coast—but could envision the most eloquent speech why Taiwan must inevitably rejoin communist China. Indeed, Obama would call on both sides for restraint, while chewing out the Taiwanese for provoking the Chinese, while working out a “balanced” deal that ceded Taiwanese waters to China—until the next incident.

In short, we will be back soon to about 1937. The old rules are disappearing. All that we await for is some audacious trouble-maker to make perfectly clear that there are no such rules…

There will be a World War Three, you know?  It will probably be launched by China, but it could also be triggered by some darn fool thing done by Russia, Iran or Egypt.  The bottom line is that we are returning to international anarchy as Obama’s weakness and our massive debt convince more and more of the global players that we are off the board.  The global school master is out on break…and now the delinquents have their chance.

There is a cold, hard fact of life that our liberals – like Obama – simply do not grasp:  human nature does not change.  Not ever.  The wars and cruelties of the past and present are not an unintentional result: they are the result of what people desire.  When anyone out there in the world desires something they do not merit people will suffer – in greater or lesser degree, but they will suffer.  Naturally, the more powerful the evil-doer, the more suffering caused.  No matter what situation you create, no matter how hard you try to be just and merciful, the nature of mankind ensures that some people will simply reject the path of righteousness…some people simply from base motives will act badly, and thus there will be horrible things happening.

This rather bleak fact of life should turn all those of good will towards those practical policies which will avoid or ameliorate the effects of evil.  Not get rid of it – we can’t do that – but reduce the frequency of evil, and the damage done by it.  An attitude of careful saving against a rainy day, of insisting upon everyone pulling their own weight, of providing and maintaining a very strong military force…this is what is needed to navigate a world in which some are out to do wrong.  At bottom it is a recognition of duty and an understanding that you simply will not get everything you want…because you have onerous duties to perform, there simply won’t be enough time or resources for every pleasure and whim which seizes your mind, even if some of them are of quite admirable intent.

Because we undercut the last President and then elected a complete fool as his successor, the United States is rapidly weakening – not so much in actual power, but in the perception of American power.  This will touch off a scramble among the ill-disposed to grab as much as they can while the getting is good.  Those who are wicked are preparing – building up armed forces, undermining targeted States and powers, preparing the global stage for their nefarious designs.  This will eventually lead to war on a grand scale – a war which we will fight, and we will win (truly, the power of the United States is functionally limitless and far more than any other power can marshal).  But I don’t think after this next big war that we’ll go back as we did after the two previous World Wars and the Cold War.  No, I think that those who will sustain the United States and carry us through to victory will insist upon some significant changes.

I don’t see a future America pouring out its treasure to rebuild enemy States.  I don’t see America tying itself to corrupt international bodies.  I don’t see, in domestic affairs, a “well, hey, we did all the fighting – but don’t you who stayed home worry about it, we don’t mind all the suffering we went through” attitude.  I see in that portion of America (probably still a majority, but controlling no matter what by simple willingness to put duty first) demanding that we end this charade…this fool’s bargain where we pretend that those who don’t work are worthy of endless support; where those who don’t serve in the military are as patriotic as those who do; where those who whine loudest get the most.  A new bargain will be struck, where those who do the work and shed the blood are given precedence over those who don’t.

False ideas can get a lot of traction and go very far, but because they are false they are doomed to fail.  For a century now we have been living in an Age of Lies…an age of con artists.  That age is coming to a close – a new age dawns.