The End

Hello online community. This blog was founded to promote critical thinking concerning political issues, and try to raise awareness of certain troubling trends and developments regarding our freedoms as Americans.

Any reasonable inquiry into the subject, however, will result in the inevitable conclusion that Americans no longer have freedom. We are simply permitted to live our lives in a more or less self-directed fashion until the government or one of its many extensions takes an interest, and at that point your freedoms are revealed for what they are, merely the result of the government not having the resources to bother with those who are not causing them any trouble. Should they decide you are worth an investigation, you will quickly find that the rights you thought you had do not exist. Should you take steps to defend them, be advised that domestic terrorists can now be held indefinitely on suspicion alone without the need for evidence, and be tried by military courts. That is not a conspiracy theory; those provisions were bundled into spending bills over the past few years, and the information is publicly available.

The constitution had long been viewed as a "living document" before now, able to be reinterpreted as necessary; today it is simply irrelevant. This is not primarily the result of government conspiracies, this is primarily the result of the American people no longer valuing their freedom, or keeping a hold on the reigns of their government. They have traded freedom for prosperity, then security, both promised by the government. It is obvious now that the government did not create the prosperity, does not know how to maintain it, and cannot now help us out of our recession. The same is likely true of security, though the millions of rounds of ammo being purchased by the department of homeland security, and thousands of drones being purchased by police departments, suggest that the government does intend to keep itself secure, at the least. (these again are matters of public record)

In short, Americans (though the term now merely describes a varied set of subcultures, often opposed to one another, usually but not necessarily actual citizens of this country) have given up their freedoms voluntarily, not realizing their value or the price required to get them back. This is a price most people are not now willing to pay anyway; times have changed since the days of wars of ideals.

The die has been cast; the election of President Obama, a man with little governing experience and openly stated ideas and policies which run contrary to those on which this nation was founded, was not the cause of our nation's problems but merely a symptom of them. Were the American people informed about the principles of their government and anxious to keep their liberty secure, he would not even have been a candidate.

All this is to say, that the purpose for which this blog was begun no longer exists. Crying foul at random examples of the government overstepping its bounds or blundering in economic policy at this stage of the game is like raising questions about the veracity of the crocodile's sympathetic tears as it has already begun to drag you under the water.
I suggest, dear reader, that you take whatever steps you feel are prudent to protect yourself and your family from the civil unrest which is fully expected and currently being prepared for by the Department of Homeland Security. There are currently too many groups in America with conflicting interests, and once the prosperity which kept people willing to live in relative peace with one another erodes further, order will begin to break down in certain areas. Again, this is not my own theory, this is what the DHS has predicted and is taking steps to protect government interests from, while they take great liberties with your physical person in every major airport in the nation. Any sort of widescale unrest and even the more unperceptive among us can anticipate the sort of lockdown measures that will take place. Recognize that this is coming and take a few practical measures, that is the best you can do.

What those measures should be you may decide for yourself; this is not a survivalist blog, and this author does not foresee total societal breakdown, merely social unrest leading inevitably to violence which will provide the government with all the reason they need to ratchet control up a few notches. Just until things settle down, you understand. By that point even the most couch-bound politically apathetic among us may peer out into the darkened streets and at the drones watching in the sky and feel that this is somehow not the America they once knew, but the process will also be far too gone for them to do anything about.

Where all this will lead, none can say. Perhaps future events external to our nation will radically change the situation, like another World War or a global economic meltdown, or perhaps we will settle into some kind of equilibrium, not free but not totalitarian, with enough bread and circuses to keep the masses more or less satisfied. Certainly, wherever there are those who value freedom above all else, and also understand that it can only be retained by morally strong people who take responsibility for their own lives, there is hope that such marvelous experiments in freedom as the USA has been will flourish, though perhaps never again on so grand a scale.


May you be well, and may you find such freedom and peace in your own lives as you can.

Remember that true freedom and peace are not found in this world, but have as their source the Creator who bestowed them upon us, and though the Cross were purchased that all might have access to them through faith in the Bestower. God has blessed America greatly, and if He is now ceasing to do so on a national level may He then at least, as per Abraham's plea for Sodom, spare her destruction for the sake of those righteous who still dwell within.

Wale, Amici

-()4|<

Atlas' shoulders are itching

The transportation department is now jumping into the Toyota recall fray, demanding documents to investigate regarding whether Toyota moved swiftly enough to enact the recall.

The Transportation Department demanded documents related to Toyota's massive recalls in the United States on Tuesday to find out if the automaker acted swiftly enough. Toyota, meanwhile, said it will idle production temporarily at Texas and Kentucky plants over concerns the recalls could lead to big stockpiles of unsold vehicles.

Atlas Shrugged is by no means an upstanding work of literature, but it is certainly an insightful one. One of the central issues of the plot involves an American government punishing successful companies by handicapping them against other companies (to make it "fair"), and enforcing industry-wide socialist subsidies to "promote" business. The result, of course, is that the successful companies are slowly and inexorably driven into the ground, trying to drag the burden of a massively unproductive sector with them. Ultimately the economy goes into an endless depression, with no real producers left.

While Toyota may not have acted as promptly as they should for the recall, one strongly suspects that the trouble they are in is not at all due to their procedure for the recall, and very much due to their success at the expense of American car companies. Toyota rose to the top by the choices of the consumer; now it appears suspiciously like the government is attempting to knock them down a peg to support our own failing domestic industry. And that failure is due to very specific, preventable problems. Yet what we see is nothing like an attempt to solve those problems, but instead an attempt to tear down their opponents, to "level the playing field".
The similarity to the situation described in Atlas Shrugged is troubling, to say the least.

Yet what we see here par for the course lately. Our government is actively engaged in propping up failed enterprises with good money. If not stopped, this can do nothing other than utterly erode our economic foundations and ultimately lead to the collapse of our currency, economy, and national stability.

-()4|<.

The Good Old Days of Bush... Hardly.

Apparently a poll actually showed that 44% of Americans would prefer to have Bush again versus Obama now, politico has mentioned.

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama's declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they'd rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that's somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country's difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited.

The article goes on to mention how this might effect the 2010 elections, but those are practically a decade away in the accelerated lifespan of current political climates.

I wouldn't be surprised if that is a bit of number skewing in the sampling pool. While I am not supportive of Obama's policies in general, I certainly don't see a return to Bush as a step forward. Many destructive government practices begun during (or before) the Bush administration have been brought to painful light in this one. Many people don't like where they see our country going in the past year, but other than a few more abrupt changes wreaked or suggested by Obama's really very strange czars, much of what people dislike are things that had simply not been surfaced during the previous administration(s). The Tea Parties could have happened during the Bush administration with nearly equal validity. The difference is the "in your face" style of liberalism that Obama and his administration have been pursuing, which shocked enough people to get them out of their daily routines and into the streets.

The long game works nearly every time against the American people, our attention spans are too short to notice what's up. But when those who wish to transform our society to a form of their choosing smell victory, sometimes they show their hand too soon. That is exactly what has happened with Obama's victory and subsequent actions, and why there has been such a strong reaction against them. Had he kept a lower profile and simply continued to ram legislation through congress without fanfare, much more damage would already have been done.

The days of Bush were not the good old days, not for liberals or conservatives. Bush felt very strongly about certain issues and ideals, and was content to use the rest for bargaining. Conservatives loved the lip service he paid to their pet issues, but it was largely lip service, and little progress was made on those fronts, certainly very little that has not been quickly erased by the advent of a liberal administration. If we do not realize that "settling" for a Republican who talks the talk but who is errant or weak on the economy, dangerously uninformed in foreign policy issues, and willing to gamble with issues he touts during stump speeches but has not shown during his career in elected office to have taken action on, we will have done ourselves and our nation a huge disservice.

We can't go back to Reagan, and we can't go back to Bush. And we should want neither of those things. We should remember the lessons of the past, but use those to move forward and encounter the future from a position of strength and reality. Otherwise, we will become part of that past so quickly that our words of protest will hardly have stopped echoing before we realize we are irrelevant.

-()4k...

Four for Friday - Huge News Week

Here are four very significant stories to be aware of this weekend, as we move into what is apparently the fourth week or so of the Christmas season this year...

1. Dubai Tower, world's tallest building by far, set to open next month

Next month's opening of the Burj Dubai tower, the world's tallest building, will bring Dubai's era of exuberant expansion to a juddering halt as hundreds of other building projects are already mothballed.

The article actually speaks much more of Dubai's ongoing economic woes than of the tower itself, but the building is an impressive undertaking. Here's the tower's wiki page for more info.
The tragic human rights story behind the undertaking is that of the thousands of immigrants brought in for what is basically illegal slave labor. Their story needs to be told.

-
2. Next we have being reported what the Russians have known for a long time: your crayons are not made from a T-rex... This is a potential energy revolution in the making:

Many Russians and Ukrainians — no slouches in the hard sciences — have since the 1950s held that oil does not come exclusively, or even partly, from dinosaurs but is formed below the Earth’s 25-mile deep crust. This theory — first espoused in 1877 by Dmitri Mendeleev, who also developed the periodic table — was rejected by geologists of the day because he postulated that the Earth’s crust had deep faults, an idea then considered absurd. Mendeleev wouldn’t be vindicated by his countrymen until after the Second World War when the then-Soviet Union, shut out of the Middle East and with scant petroleum reserves of its own, embarked on a crash program to develop a petroleum industry that would allow it to fend off the military and economic challenges posed by the West. Today, Russians laugh at our peak oil theories as they explore, and find, the bounty in the bowels of the Earth.

Someday the idea that your car runs on smushed prehistoric biomass will be set down alongside the ideas that the earth is flat and that flies spontaneously generate from rotten meat...

-
3. Next up, say a prayer for modern western civilization: Britain is no longer a sovereign state, but now subject to the EU presiding body in Brussels. (see also Vox Day's article and links)

We woke up in a different country today. Alright, it doesn’t look very different. The trees still seem black against the winter sun; the motorways continue to jam inexplicably; commuters carry on avoiding eye contact. But Britain is no longer a sovereign nation. At midnight last night, we ceased to be an independent state, bound by international treaties to other independent states, and became instead a subordinate unit within a European state.

So it turns out that the Eurocrats got England before the Muslims did. Ah well. Wait 50 years and see how things stand...


-
4. Lastly, also on the British front, what is now being ubiquitously referred to as "Climate-gate".
You all know about this one, I hope, but for those of you who don't read the news much, or want more info than Jon Stewart (so far the Daily Show spot is the most coverage the issue has gotten in American "news media") provided, I highly recommend going here for a tongue-in-cheek but accurate summary of the extent of the scandal unleashed by this uninvited peek into the sordid underbelly of the global warming conspiracy. Enjoy:

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”.

The information heist came at just the right time, too, when the public had been pushed just a little too far into fearing the imminent destruction of the world, and started to push back. Polls in America had already started to indicate the public was still skeptical of the warming. Of course, now those few alarmists which have not switched from "warming" to "climate change" will do so, perhaps even have the gall to swap to "cooling" and themselves decry the false tactics used to skew the data to show false warming when we're really all in danger of the next ice age. The remedy will be the same in either case, however: taxes and regulations to stifle evil, job-providing and wealth-producing industries and line the pockets of more bureaucrats.

4+. Of course, the wrath of the stung bureaucrats will now turn upon those who exposed their game:

"Leaked e-mails allegedly undermining climate change science should be treated as a criminal matter, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Wednesday afternoon..."

"...We may well have a hearing on this, we may not. We may have a briefing for senators, we may not," Boxer said. "Part of our looking at this will be looking at a criminal activity which could have well been coordinated.

Naturally.

-()4k..

The Manhattan Declaration - Go Investigate and Sign It

I was notified of this today. I suggest those of you who believe likewise should go sign it, as I have done. Note that it acknowledges that civil disobedience, in an appropriate and godly manner, may become necessary as a result of following the ideals contained within it. -()4|<.

---

The Manhattan Declaration

A Call of Christian Conscience

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

To sign this, go here.
For FAQ, go here.
For the general site, go here.

------------------------------

US Foreign Policy - Hope but no Change

With two entries in the works, I first wanted to bring to your attention this short but interesting tidbit from Der Spiegel:

"When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming."

I recommend you all go read it, it's fairly thoughtful and less influenced by domestic politics than most of what we get here. It's also indicative of a gradually-clarifying world opinion on Obama. The honeymoon appears to be over, and now the soft approach and "nice" rhetoric that got him the Peace Prize is being weighed in the scales and found wanting.

The highlight of the piece, as far as I am concerned, is the following statement (emphasis mine):

"Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik."

One might say, convinced that after eight years of Bush, the world was just waiting to be charmed, President Obama and his team are finding that charm only gets you a willing audience, the "Hope" if you will. But the "Change" only occurs after strong, realistic, and well-executed foreign policies are brought into play. Bush's policies were strong, and even occasionally well-executed, but often fatally rooted in personal idealism over practical realism. Obama's policies seem, like Bush's, to consist largely of optimistic idealism, but unlike Bush, his optimism is based not on the persuasive and positive effects of freedom, but on the universal goodness and reasonableness of mankind, an even shakier and less stable foundation.

One has to wonder whether his repeated failures to charm the world into a better place will result in his adoption of a different strategy, one more resembling Bush's aggressive and often preachy stance towards the world.

The Spiegel piece suggests this may already be occurring:

While in Asia, Obama mentioned "consequences" unless it followed his advice. This puts the president, in his tenth month in office, where Bush began -- with threats. "Time is running out," Obama said in Korea. It was the same phrase Bush used against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, shortly before he sent in the bombers.

We are approaching a situation remarkably and dangerously similar to the one we occupied pre-WWII in the Pacific: lecturing Japan on its policies, while sending our forces to deal with conflicts elsewhere. Eventually militant forces in Japan gained the upper hand, and all the outraged blustering Washington could issue weighed little in the face of the new overwhelming Japanese naval supremacy in the region.

Fastforward to the 21st century: Lectures on human rights fall on deaf, unappreciative, and increasingly (and rightfully?) resentful ears in China when our irresponsible economic policies are agitating their own economy. Meanwhile their military is more or less openly stating that their immediate objectives are to deny us air and sea supremacy further and further out from their mainland.

One major difference between then and now: China has more than a handful of nukes. And, as the Spiegel article points out, nuclear disarmament is a non-issue there. Nukes = respect and leveraging power. Why on earth would they want to give them up?

Meanwhile, apparently Obama's playbook has only one entry for China: Demands for transparency, increasing debt, and more lectures on human rights.

The piece goes on to point out the similarities that are being drawn between Obama's foreign policy and that of Jimmy Carter. It might be worth noting that it was under Carter that we funded central asian terrorist groups (Al Qaeda, for example), and Osama Bin Laden.

From weak policy to funding our future enemies... We can hope that weak and misguided policy now does not lead to either of the two parallel situations later. A capable and realistic foreign policy might remember that history has a way of repeating itself...

-()4|<..

Bowing to No One

Obama has created a furor over his repeated bowing to foreign leaders. Arguments have tended to rage over whether or not his nearly 90-degree bend at the waist constituted a "bow" or not, which is of course silly. Yes, he was bowing.

However, I submit that this is not the point at all. The relevant question to me is brought up by a statement by former Vice President Cheney:

"There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone. Our friends and allies don't expect it, and our enemies see it as a sign of weakness."

While it's certainly true that our friends don't expect it, whether our enemies see it as a sign of weakness is a more esoteric criticism, protocol notwithstanding. It gives more the impression, perhaps, of an inexperienced leader who is not sure how these matters are conducted. Yet while Cheney's comment is representative of a very common attitude in the US, I consider that attitude to be well-meaning but misguided.

It's easy to write off such a statement as more American arrogance: "We're the leader of the free world; others may bow to us, but we bow to no one." Yet the issue of paying respect to foreign leaders is a subtle one.

It's clear that part of Obama's approach to dealing with foreign leaders is wanting to be on good terms with all the other kids on the playground. Not totally a bad thing; though it shows a certain naivety on his part, as on the part of most liberals concerning foreign policy, it very rarely hurts to show respect to other people. The nonsense about "showing weakness" is probably true in dealing with a nation like Russia (and may very well stem from the Cold War mentality which most of our current government/infrastructure people seem irretrievably locked into), but does not apply in most cases.

It's 2009. The Cold War is over. Though President Obama doesn't seem to have any kind of cohesive strategy for engaging an increasingly belligerent Russia whatsoever, his interactions with China are arguably more important. And in that culture, bowing is not seen as a sign of weakness.
(Unless perhaps it be taken to the extreme of a kow-tow. And lest you think that idea laughable, go look again at how in debt we are to China. And recall that the Empire State Building was lit up yellow and red very recently in honor of the Communist revolution in China. We may yet see Obama approaching the Dragon throne, with the "three kneelings and nine head-knockings")

The problem with Obama's bowing is not so much that it projects weakness, but that it demonstrates a fantasy-approach to foreign policy. One in which by showing each other respect and being nice to everyone, "bad" leaders will suddenly see the light of freedom and reasonableness. This is similar to Bush's unswerving and irrational faith in the idea that if we can bring freedom to a people, they will choose to use this freedom in the same manner that people who earned their freedom have used it. Neither approach has demonstrated anything more than ephemeral success. Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Myanmar, all greatly appreciate the attention they so desperately crave and are now under Obama's administration receiving, yet at the same time make it clear that they do not intend to change their policies just because we threw them a bone of recognition. To believe that they would do so is in itself arrogance. And while a more subtle arrogance than that of America in some periods in the past, it is as foolish and ineffective nonetheless.

In any case, bowing to the Japanese Emperor is not going to make Al Qaeda decide that this is their big chance to launch another attack, or Iran decide to build another reactor, or Russia invade another small, former-Soviet province. Those things are all happening anyway.
A lack of a prudent foreign policy or economic strength to back up the bow will indeed bring trouble, however, and that is precisely what has been occurring.

"Walk softly but carry a big stick": this is an expression I've quoted here before, one containing much insight. The strong may bow to the weak with no loss of face, because they do it out of generous respect and not out of obligated weakness. If we as a nation really feel that bowing is in and of itself a sign of weakness, perhaps it shows how unconfident we have in fact become.

-()4|<...