Can A Conservative Be An Isolationist? You Bet

In my lifetime, I have witnessed our United States involved in six major wars. Every one of them took place overseas. Here is the list. World War II, Korea, Vietnam (where I saw combat), Gulf I, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These wars consumed over a half million of our finest young men and women. Not once has our country been invaded by an opposing army (unless you count 9/11). Canada has remained a good friend and ally since our Revolution.  Mexico provides us with a continuing flow of workers and drugs, but so far, the ghost of Santa Anna has not re-invaded the Alamo. Nor is there faintest chance in hell that anyone, over the past 100 years, would have dared take on the Continental United States by invasion. So what the hell are we doing fighting all these wars all over the globe? The short answer is because we are the big dog on the street  and want to stay that way. An oft cited answer is that we must fight overseas to keep the enemy from our front door. A third answer often heard is that somehow, we have acquired the mantle of “The leader of the free world” and must act accordingly. All of which are pure bullshit, except for maybe the first.

We are a great, big, robust country that is the envy of the world, even to our enemies, for our wealth and freedom of our system and our citizens. Somehow, that has sunk in to our political sub-consciousness to the extent that we naturally believe that our country, our system, should be the model for the rest of the world. Somewhere along the way, from the American Revolution to the present, we lost sight of the fact that our original goal was to “Create a more perfect union” here  and not “A more perfect union” in the rest of the world.

Is there another country in the world that has been so involved in six major wars in the past half century? Not even close. I think it is time to take a hard look at what drives us to send our young men and women to die in some God-forsaken country. And, simply put, we ought to quit doing so.

This great country of ours has the ability to take care of each and every person living here. We raise enough food to feed every man, woman, and child of our population and still manage to be the leading exporter of foodstuffs. We are dependent on foreign oil but that is by choice, not necessity. If we really had to become energy independent, we have the resources and technology to do so. We have been held hostage so long to the big oil companies and cartels we have fallen for their propaganda and cheap oil.  We have the finest military services in the world--no one would dare attack us if our military was concentrated and based here, in the United States. We have become addicted to cheap products from Japan, Korea, China, and India. This country was once the leading manufacturing country in the world. We could be again, if we loose our addiction and pay a bit more for our own manufactured items. We can secure our borders, if we have the guts to do so.  Let me put it clearly, we don’t need the rest of the world to be the great country we are.

A good start would to throw that worthless tower of Babel called the U.N. out of the country for good, and let them continue their inane deliberations elsewhere. Next step would be to pull all our troops back home. All of them from every place we have them stationed. Germany, you are on your own. South Korea, your problem is North Korea--solve it. Japan, our guys have been there long enough. Iraq, you have the ball--run with it. Afghanistan, you want those crazy Taliban back, go for it.   Finally, get serious about energy independence. Open up all our areas for oil production. Fast track nuclear plants. Exploit our huge reserves of natural gas. Fund increased research on alternative technologies. Hint: We don’t have an energy problem, we have an energy storage problem. In five years we could break the backs of Big Oil and OPEC.

I have saved the best for last, so you may confirm your suspicions that I am certifiably a raving curmudgeon . Message to Muslim World. “If one of your Jihadist nuts manages to employ a weapon of mass destruction on one of our cities, Mecca will be vaporized.”

  Signed,
President of the New United States of America

(Oh well, its nice to fantasize every now and then)

JP

Obama Nominated For Academy Award

The Academy Awards is just around the corner. May I suggest another category to add to the thousands they already have. For lack of a more educated, high brow title, I would like my category to be called, “The Weak Dick Award” The sole nominee, who has already garnered the Nobel Peace Prize, is none other than Barrack  Obama, the man who is currently masquerading as the President the the United States.  For God’s sake people, we are dealing with a madman who murdered hundreds of Americans and now is murdering his own people with abandon. Would not you think that our President could at least summon the courage to actually name that worthless bastard who has terrorized his country for over 40 years? No, not Mr Cool. He is sending Hillary to Geneva to express our “Grave Outrage”, while the people of Libya are slaughtered by this psychopath. What a joke. As an Italian general officer once told me when referring to the political leadership of his country,  “Parole, parole, parole.”  Words, words, words. Obama has mastered the art of words but lacks a shred of credibility when it comes to backing up his words with meaningful action. As an American, I want to crawl off someplace and hide in shame at the gutless response of our so-called leader. I am sure the dainty liberals of the Academy will see fit to honor Obama with this new award.

Wisconsin--The Soft Revolution

What we are witnessing is nothing less than the failure of an economic system that is  essentially a government run Ponzi scheme. I am not just referring to Social Security and Medicare, I am talking about the entire system that at its core relies on borrowed money to pay for current goodies. As every credit card holder knows, the bill always comes due. Some dodge the inevitable by obtaining more cards and borrowing more, but this just pushes the day of reckoning further down the road--the bill will always come due. It has come due in Wisconsin, Ohio, New York, California and numerous other states as they struggle to balance their budgets. It is coming due as I write for the United States as a whole. The Republican party, goaded on by the Tea Party, appears willing to confront the problem. The Democratic party, Obama included, seem to be unwilling to face the problem and have opted to obtain some more credit cards The clash in opposing ideas put forward by the two major parties has divided the country. Thus, the protests and counter protests we are witnessing in Wisconsin are the opening salvo of a revolutionary war driven by the two camps. The winner will determine the shape of our country in the future.

JP

A Declaration of No Confidence

What we expect from Presidents, above all else, is leadership. With our country facing a financial crisis of monumental proportions we expect out President to lead the way out of the mess that took years of financial mismanagement to create. Plenty of blame to go around, but the time for the blame game and cynical political maneuvering is over--this is a real crisis that needs solving.  We expect our President to lead the way, to tackle the tough issues and lay out a clear blueprint to pull us away from the brink of financial collapse.

So what do we get from Obama? A carefully crafted  budget that is long on spending and increased taxes and short on meaningful fiscal restraint. A budget that dramatically increases the deficit and national debt to unthinkable levels. A budget that completely avoids tackling the government entitlement programs that are at the root cause of our enormous deficit. A budget that is politically crafted to place the opposition in the role of the bad guys who want to destroy the popular entitlement programs.  A budget, in other words, that shows not an ounce of leadership. 

Lofty ideals and misplaced priorities will not pull us out of this mess, and Obama has again demonstrated his inability to rise above Chicago-style politics and really lead this great nation. While in the military, I sometimes had to follow inept leaders because I was required to do so by law. Now a civilian, there is no law that requires me to do the same with this President, and I shall not.

JP

The Obama Administration Begins to Unravel

Obama Care begins to unravel and that is a good thing. More importantly, the entire Obama Administration is beginning to unravel. It is what happens when your govern from an ideological basis and not from the moderate center where the majority of the American public resides.  It took nearly two years for the American public to wake up to the fact that its central government had been taken over by far left ideologues .  They then sent a resounding vote of no confidence, resulting in an election landslide that tilted the country back to the center. It is now clear that the Obama Administration is not only driven by a far left ideology; it is also just plain inept. Its very ineptness is the result of policy driven by ideology. Here are some examples.

The utter failure of nearly a trillion dollar “stimulus” plan that was a thinly disguised hodge-podge of left wing idealism and programs. As the economy stubbornly refuses to recover in the manner promised, more and more citizens have come to recognize the “stimulus” for what it was--a very expensive omnibus bill of left wing programs that benefited a favored few at the expense of the rest of hard working America.

A Justice Department that is so ideologically driven that it appears to be prosecuting American values rather than ensuring American values are upheld. The list is long, but their opposition to Arizona’s immigration law; the non-prosecution of the thugs at the voting location; the attempt to try the mastermind of the 9/11 attack in NYC; and finally their futile efforts to support Obama-care has cast huge doubts as to the fairness of that Department. I call it the Department of Injustice. It appears its only function is to prop up an ideology rather than serve up true justice.

A completely inept Director of Homeland Security, who manages to imitate the totally inept Governor of Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina every time she speaks.  Her assertions concerning the threat posed by returning veterans and the safety of our southern border with Mexico not only ring false, they also reveal her ideological bias. In her typically liberal view, it is the extremist element (read conservative Americans who cling to their guns and beliefs) that pose the real danger to the security of the United States. By the way, she also oversees, and approves of, the TSA’s big brother search of the core of our personal privacy.

An ideologically driven head of the EPA who is hell bent on regulating the last of our industrial base out of existence with her un-Constitutional findings on Carbon Oxide Twice. Need I mention the Delta Smelt?

An Energy Department whose only goal seems to be prevent us from ever becoming energy independent by shutting down or restricting nuclear power construction, offshore drilling for oil, or on-shore exploitation of known energy resources. Again, ideologically driven.

Finally, the man himself.  Swept into power by his ringing call for hope and change and his promise to transform this country into something great. What we actually bought was just another left wing liberal with tired out liberal ideas and surrounded by sycophants of the same ilk. Then, as David Axelrod so recently pointed out, Obama became Prime Minister rather than President, and let the wild eyed Nancy Pelosi and that reptilian Harry Reid set and cram down their agenda on the American public. With those two actually setting the agenda, it is no wonder that Obama Care is coming apart at the seams.


From these examples and others too numerous to mention  came the Tea Party movement, a truly grass roots revolution arising from the realization that this inept Administration was hell bent on bankrupting this country, both economically and morally.  It has started a true revolution that is now beginning to undo some of the more horrific excesses and  mistakes of  the past two years. It is my fondest hope that the revolution will continue into 2012, when we can truly rid ourselves of left wing ideologues and begin rebuilding this great country with common sense governance.  




JP

The Perfect Storm

The Middle East hiccups and we rush to the emergency room with oil fever. Even the thought of oil being choked off from that area of the world sends the price per barrel soaring and the stock market plummeting. For as long as I can remember, one U.S administration after another has called for a cogent energy policy that would reduce, and even eliminate, our dependence on oil from that area of the world. Instead, over the past several decades, our dependence has grown, rather than lessened. And that very dependence drives and constricts our foreign policy operations, often at the expense of our treasure and blood. The Middle East may be the tail, but it wags the alpha dog of world politics with ease. The question becomes, why have we allowed this to happen? The short answer is bad politics and bad policy. The longer answer is a bit more complex--a perfect storm of diverse interests and groups that have combined together to prevent true energy independence to emerge.

The most powerful business organizations in the world are the mega oil companies. They have invested billions of dollars in ensuring that the flow of oil from the Middle East continues. They are vertically invested, which means they have established a presence in each step of the way from the Middle East to the United States. They are heavily involved in the discovery and exploitation of the oil reserves in that area. They are heavily involved in the shipping of the oil from there to here. They own and operate the giant refineries in the United States and elsewhere. They are involved in the distribution and retail sales of the final products. At each step of the way, they make a profit. For example, a barrel of oil costing $100 will be refined into products worth $135 at the retail level. That is just at the refining and distribution end. They also charge $2.10 a barrel when they ship on their own tankers. (About 16% of the world’s tanker fleet is owned by the mega oil companies). They certainly share in some percentage of the profit at the well head, having cut deals with the Middle Eastern countries for exploration, discovery, and production. Simply put, the major oil companies have a huge vested interest in maintaining the status quo. With their billions in profits annually, they can buy influence in our government by the bag full. They also have an unwitting partner in maintaining the status quo. They are collectively known as “environmentalists.”

The environmental movement in the United States has paralyzed our ability to achieve any semblance of energy independence. They have fought successfully, tooth and nail, to prevent expansion of our nuclear energy capacity. They have prevented exploitation of our natural oil reserves both on land and on the coasts. In the name of a bogus “global warming” they are taking direct aim at our coal industry. And they are not just the Sierra Club, they have managed to infiltrate our government at the Cabinet level and are working hard to regulate the very air we exhale. Our country has vast reserves of oil that could be used to lessen our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Huge fields of crude oil  in Alaska’s North Slope. There are vast amounts of trapped oil in the Dakotas and the western states. And as a bonus, enough natural gas to fuel our country for the next 100 years. But, in the name of environmental purity, all those resources remain locked up.

The last item of the perfect storm is inertia. Our infrastructure has been built around relatively cheap oil to fire up the industry and commerce of the United States. The internal combustion engine, running on gasoline and diesel cannot be changed overnight to allow the use of alternative sources of energy such as compressed natural gas, wind, and solar and electricity derived from those sources. For the foreseeable future, we remain dependent on oil, and lots of it, to drive our economy.

So there it is. The oil companies have a vested interest to keep things as they are. The Environmentalists have locked the gate to our reserves and thrown away the key. The infrastructure of an oil driven economy is like a super tanker—it takes a long, long time to change direction.

In the next article, I will discuss some ways to get us out of this mess. In the meantime, pray the Middle East remains relatively calm—if it boils over we are going to be looking at $5.00 gas and the shambles of economic recovery.

JP

Good Intentions

Sometimes a sentence grabs you with its simple elegance. In a WSJ article written by Jason L. Riley, entitled “The State against Blacks”, he quotes his interviewee, Walter Williams as saying, “I learned (as a graduate student) that you have to evaluate the effects of public policy as opposed to intentions.” Let me repeat that.

You have to evaluate the effects of public policy as opposed to intentions.

Most laws and public policies start out with good-intentioned politicians trying to live up to their role in promoting the general welfare of our people under the terms of the Constitution.  Here are some examples.

Health care. Provide for the millions of un-insured people in this country.
Housing. Make housing affordable to all our citizens.
Energy. Achieve energy independence.
Education. Provide high quality education to all.
Individual rights. Equality in all things.
Environment. Provide a clean and healthy environment for the people.


These are just a few examples of the good public policy goals that well-intentioned politicians try to accomplish for the people of this country. Although we can all agree that all are laudable intentions, it is important to measure the effects in order to evaluate just how well they have promoted the general welfare of the people under our Constitution. I’ll take them one at a time.

Health care. Effect: Will place the best health system in the world under the control of big government. Many think that is a good thing. More think not.

Housing. Effect: Good intentioned legislation and regulation designed to make affordable housing available to most Americans led to the housing bubble, crash, and the current recession.

Energy. Effect:  After fifty years, more  dependent on foreign oil. (See Environment, below)

Education. Effect: An education system that loses ground every year in performance ratings. 

Individual rights: Effect: The murder of thousands of unborn children a year.

Environment: Effect: Regulation of the air we breathe out. Loss of jobs by the thousands.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not just anti-government, as perhaps the list above would indicate. There have been other public policies that have been very successful, when judged by their effects. For example, Social Security (at least to this point), OSHA, National Park System, Airline De-Regulation, NASA, the development of the Internet, and many, many others.

The only problem with measuring public policy by its effects, and not its intentions, is that intentions are here and now, and effects are measured only in the future. For example, the arguments against Obama care are couched in what the opponents think will happen in the future. To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, “We have to wait until it happens before we’ll know if it is as bad as we think.”

By that time, it will be too late.

JP