I Guess I’m A Statist After All

I’m against “gay marriage”, and I can explain why without delving into religion, but given all my strong leanings towards individual liberty and freedom, my reasons may surprise you.

Question: Why do we have Marriage?

I’m not asking “why do people get married”? That would be stupid! Or at least the kind of stupid question whose “obvious” answer could fill the textbooks for several Masters Degree programs.  In light of the fact that people have been getting married since before there were either religions or governments, the long form of my question is really “Why do we have this thing we refer to as the legally recognized ‘institution of marriage’?”  Why do we have to get a marriage license? Why does someone – a preacher, priest, judge, Starfleet captain, Subgenii or other licensed minister – generally find themselves compelled to utter some version of the phrase “by the powers vested in me by the State of Wherever-we-are, I now pronounce you (up until just recently only) man and wife”?

I mean even back in the day when the State not only had no means to track every single last detail of your life, but also frankly didn’t care to, we still had marriage licenses, so the current pervasive domestic spying trend can’t be to blame…

A clue can be found in how we look at weddings (or more precisely, the whole “greater wedding experience” if you’ll bear with me), since they’re the traditional beginnings of a marriage. It’s a pretty selfish endeavor.  And if the word “selfish” bothers you in this context, let’s use the softer “self-centered” because I don’t mean this as a criticism.  And as any bridesmaid would shout at you if you complained the bride was being “self-centered”, IT’S HER DAY YOU JERK!!!

And it is HER day. Despite repeated and probably eternal attempts to make it “their” day, it really isn’t. Human nature, especially as it plays out in grooms, makes it such. And that’s OK.  It’s her day. Let’s roll the clock back to just before the wedding, and look at the focus of each major member of this dance:

The Bride:  If all is going even reasonably well (as defined as “not completely coming apart at the seems, with in-laws literally at each others’ throats”) then she’s walking around in a nigh-pseudo-orgasmic state on the cusp of HER BIG DAY!!!

The Groom:  He’s looking forward to getting out of his tux and on with the Honeymoon.  Sorry, ladies, but it’s true – he may be a wonderful man, but he’s also a stereotypical cliché.

The Parents:  They’re rightly concerned about the costs. They have other concerns too, of course, including hopes for grandchildren, but before the wedding it’s generally all about the bills they’re racking up.

The State:  It’s concerned with the perpetuation of The State, and is prepared to grant “Special Rights and Privileges” as incentives for people to get married, and to stay married, in order to further this goal.

Wait, what?  You don’t remember The State being at your wedding?  Sure you remember the Matron of Honor looked like an underdone lobster, and little Suzette couldn’t find the high notes in that special “tribute to the loving couple” song if she’d had a map (and she didn’t have a map, and it was a loooong trip), but where was The State?

You were standing in it.  Don’t you remember?  You signed the marriage license, right along with whomever performed the ceremony.  That was The State right there, granting you not only permission, but also a legally elevated social status – “Special Rights and Privileges” – as a reward for going through with it all.

Why? Well what… I guess I can’t say “God forsaken” reason…but what Puritanical Right-Wing 1st-Amendement Separation of Church ‘n State violating Neolithic Cys-Cro-Magnon-originated oppressive abomination allows The State to say men and women can get married but that homosexuals can’t? What about personal happiness? What about equal rights? What about two men who really love each other and are a long-term devoted couple?  What about Heather’s Two Mommies?

What about (yes, let’s go there) polygamy?

Allow me to speak for The State to answer some of the above.

Q: Who allows The State to make these rules?

The State: The State does. Deal with it.
 

Q: What about personal happiness?

The State: I don’t care about your personal happiness. That’s your business. I care about what benefits The State, and therefore have to take the long, historical view of things. In fact (editorializing a bit) those parts of The State which make a big play of actually caring about your personal happiness are just trying to seduce you into being dependent voting blocks, and should rightly be viewed as cancers in the Body Politic.

Q: What about equal rights?

The State: Not meaning to sound flippant, but you already have equal rights. A gay man is just as free to marry a woman as is a straight man. He may not ever care to do so, but he certainly has that right. You’ll predictably follow up with “That’s not what I meant – I obviously meant the equal right to marry whomever he wishes.” Well, I – The State – did indeed already know that, and my answer is the same. Marrying someone of your same gender is not in the best interests of the perpetuation of The State, at all, and thus The State finds no compelling reason to grant you “Special Rights and Privileges” in order to induce you to get, and to stay, married. By the way, don’t get your nose all out of joint over this – the prohibitions against heterosexual incestuous marriage have the same origin, as does making even consensual adult incest a crime.

Q: What about two men who really love each other and are a long-term devoted couple?

The State: I wish you well. You obviously do not need the State’s endorsement to have a happy, long-term relationship.  But please recognize that your happy, long-term relationship does nothing to perpetuate The State because such relationships do not produce offspring.  Wait! Wait! Yes, I know ALL ABOUT the “gay adoption” issue, but we’re talking “gay marriage” here.  Even though the deck is naturally stacked against them, if a gay couple adopt and successfully raise a child to be a healthy, happy, productive member of society, that child still did not originate with THEM. I – The State – am completely in favor of adoption, which is precisely why THE STATE GRANTS SPECIAL RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES TO ADOPTIVE PARENTS simply because they’re adoptive parents. And you don’t need a gay marriage license to be an adoptive parent.

What about Heather’s Two Mommies?

The State: Asked and answered.

The State is concerned with the perpetuation of The State.

Which means:  CHILDREN.

No matter your own personal experience, and no matter how many true and tragic cases of child abuse and neglect you can cite, the historical, statistical and provable truth is that children are best raised in homes where there are both a loving mother and father.

I’m not knocking single parents when I make this point.  I’m saying that no matter how wonderful a single parent is (and there’s plenty of them), it would be better off for the child if that single parent found an equally wonderful heterosexual partner. Which admittedly is often seemingly impossible, but that doesn’t change the stats or the government policies supported by them.

Q: What about (yes, let’s go there) polygamy?

The State: Polygamy is better for perpetuating The State than is homosexual marriage – in fact infinitely so – but it is still not as good a monogamous marriage for a couple of reasons, some of which have to do with the nature of polygamy and some of which are dependent on outside factors in our culture.  Let me lay this out:

1)  Our country has a welfare system.  Polygamous marriages, even though illegal, commonly end up saddling the welfare system with multiple dependents the parents cannot afford. In fact, this is overwhelmingly the case.  Instances of wealthy or at least entirely self-supporting polygamous marriages are vanishingly rare.  The argument can be made that removing the welfare system, or at least the part of it which props up such dependants, should remove the cause for their prohibition, and certainly The State feels this is something the Body Politic has a right to decide.  But that’s not the current situation.

2)  The population of our citizenry is fairly close to gender parity.  Despite male adolescent dreams of legally having multiple hot wives, the truth is that (unlike wealth created through free market forces) the “marriage candidate” pool really does function as a “zero-sum game”.  If a rich man marries a dozen women, all of whom he can support, that takes 11 women out of consideration for 11 bachelors. Furthermore, emotionally, psychologically, and behaviorally the likely many offspring of these dozen women are if not technically fatherless then nearly so as one man’s attention and time can only be spread so thin.  A child may have their mother’s devotion, but much less so their father’s, when compared to the child of a monogamous couple.

3)  Polygamous marriages produce fewer offspring. A man with a dozen wives is statistically less likely to have as many children as a dozen average couples, even if he fathers children with all his wives.

Overall, whether we’re talking about the children of polygamous marriages being a (likely) drain on The State’s resources, or the likelihood of the children not growing to be as well-rounded adults as might otherwise be the case, or simply that they’re just not as comparatively plentiful, your average statistical polygamous offspring are not as attractive to The State as are the children of heterosexual couples for furthering The State’s goal of perpetuating The State.

-------

Whew!  Enough Commie-talk! I find it hard to speak as The State without continuously wanting to go brush my teeth!

When I explained all this to a dear friend of mine a couple of years ago – and he’s a straight man who was (and may still be) pro-gay-marriage, largely (I think) based on his pro-individual-freedom leanings (which I generally share), he was surprised because he thought explaining my pro-traditional-marriage stance would involve a lot of Bible thumping.  His response was essentially “I hadn’t thought about it that way… but that makes my argument not so much “pro-gay” marriage as it is “anti-State-recognized” marriage, to which I agreed.

Trends come and go, and this trend towards recognizing gay marriage may outlive us all, but in the (well, I can’t say “end”), uh, eventual eventuality, things will swing around, because humans are humans, we make up The State, and it is crystal clear to The State (see any and all recent elections on the subject, judges’ subsequent rulings notwithstanding) that incentivising monogamous marriage is one of the best ways The State has of perpetuating The State*, which – believe me – is something The State always wants very badly to do.

It is also one of the vanishingly few areas where I find myself generally siding with The State.

But I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. 

We’ve got bigger fish to fry.

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

*There are certainly others, like having a strong military defense, a robust economy, not having traitorous crooks in high office, etc.

Before You Argue the Point, Know Your Bible First

This is not a religious post.

But if conservatives – whom, by every measure available, already give more money to charity than our socially-conscious, deeply-caring liberal brethren (*cough*) – contributed a mere dime apiece to favorite charities for every leftist counter-argument they heard based on either pure emotion or hackneyed talking points, there would not be a single homeless, hungry, or shoeless human being in all the land. There might even be enough coin left over to wipe out a few diseases and have every alley cat in Brooklyn spayed or neutered.

Since the Paris terrorist attacks, among those who actually admit that Islamists were responsible, debate has been hot and heavy in all media corners regarding exactly what the Koran actually says and means. What does it endorse? Are these kinds of barbaric acts really acceptable to Allah? And what of all the barbarity in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles? How can we criticize the Koran when the Old Testament, in particular, is rife with such brutal and vulgar displays?

Often quoted by atheists and religious skeptics, considered to be the benchmark example of primitive justice, cruelty and incivility in the Bible is Exodus 23-25:

 “And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,  Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,  Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

The famous “eye for an eye” verse…

 

After all, to a civilized, sophisticated culture, what could be more barbarous than the idea of cutting out someone’s eye as a dispersal of justice? The concept – and the belief in a God that would issue such an edict – is as primordial as giving up your seat for a woman on the subway, or wishing someone a Merry Christmas without being absolutely sure of their own religious leanings.

How many times have we heard this nugget, attributed to Gandhi: “An eye for an eye simply makes the whole world blind.”

Adorable. That's right up there with "War Is Not the Answer." Indeed, war isn't the answer ...if the question is, "What is the square root of 116?"

But that’s not what it means. That’s not what it has ever meant. But as is the wont of the emotions-first, bumper-sticker-lovin' left, the jerking knee does so in a reflex of emotion and ignorance, not honesty or historical context.  One does not have to be a believer to understand what the aforementioned Bible verse is meant to convey;  And if there were intellectual honesty on the left, regardless of one’s religious belief, one would see that the verse is not primitive, in the least. In fact, it can be looked at as a great step forward - a progressive step, if you will – in the history of jurisprudence.

Never in human history were members of the so-called lower classes – peasants, indentured servants, etc - considered to be on an equal level in any way as those in the royal or ruling classes. Contrary to the tiresome and uninspired “every god is just an angry, cruel, vicious man in the sky” arguments, the Bible actually invents a hardcore liberal value: equality. 

The verse establishes that everyone’s “eye” or “hand” is equal, regardless of economic and social status. A rich man’s eye was no more valuable on the scales of justice than a poor man’s eye.  

That concept is a big deal.

It creates equality in law – something that the left should adore as much as windmills. Thus, if an eye is taken, one could not seek two eyes as a form of just punishment.  This is true equality that transcends class – something the left is really big on.

The “eye for eye” concept simply cannot be taken literally, because it could never be executed consistently or justly (save for the idea of a life for a life, which I will touch upon in a moment). In fact, one cannot cite a single example of that kind of literal justice being metered out in the Bible anywhere. It just is not possible to reserve and carry out justice in punishment to that which could literally replicate the crime – as much as many of us would love to see it done in certain instances. 

Besides, equivalent physical damage could never be exacted in this way during that time period. There were no top flight medical facilities thousands of years ago. Antibiotics were still millennia away. Scooping out an eye could literally lead to death – and by definition, that would be contrary to the rule. One would think God is wise enough to understand this.

Additionally, if we take the verse literally, could a blind person escape justice with no working eyes to extract?

The exception here is the justice of a life for a life – that one who murders the innocent (and the word “murder” is key here) shall not be able to keep his or her own life. This law appears in each of the first five books of the Bible, known to Jews as the Torah. It is the only law to appear in each the Torah’s five books. To take an innocent life by way of murder means that the murderer no longer has the right to keep his or her own life.

And how do we know this is to be taken literally, whereas the “eye for an eye” verses are not?

The Bible actually states that one cannot ransom a human life (Psalm 49:8) – meaning that no amount of bartering, bargaining or deal making can ever be made as to make the loss of that murdered life "even." There is no provision, however, prohibiting the ransom of a body part such as an “eye” or a “hand.”

I would be willing to guarantee that most on the left have never even heard these arguments based not only on the biblical text itself, but on centuries and centuries of scholarly examination and discussion. 

To the left, the phrase “eye for an eye” sounds so awful, so unevolved, so close-minded … thus those who are repulsed by the idea of a transcendent creator making the rules have ammunition – albeit in the form of intellectually inane bullets – to shoot down religion in the name of civility and reason. 

The problem is: I’ve heard this argument come from so-called moderate Muslims as proof that all faiths have their questionable doctrines to wrestle with.

Well, to be fair.... indeed, they do (the word "Israel" literally means "struggle with God") … but “eye for eye” is not one of them. 

Try again.

At Least the Gays Can Marry

So, let me see if I got this straight.
Okay, maybe “straight” isn’t the best word to use.
So, let me see if I understand this Rube Goldberg rattrap constructed by the Obama Administration.
The United States Federal Government will do absolutely nothing to ensure disease-infested foreigners can come into our country because, well, that’s xenophobic.
The United States Federal Government will do absolutely nothing to prevent terrorists from entering our country through the southern border because, well, it might prevent future registered Democrats from pouring over our border with them.
The United States Federal Government will not prevent American citizens who leave the US to fight with ISIS from returning to the United States once they’re done. Or, once ISIS decides to have them return to carry out attacks on us from within our homeland. Because, well, Islam is a religion of peace.
The United States Federal Government will sit on its hands and leave the citizens of this country vulnerable to disease and attack just as surely as the Secret Service will leave the President vulnerable because securing the American People is nativist.
Whoever was the first person to say Political Correctness kills should be given a medal and a lifetime supply of Rice-a-Roni.
But hey.
At least the gays can marry, right?
Good to know the Federal Government has its priorities, yeah?
Of course, Christian businesses who refuse to supply wedding cakes or photographs of gay weddings will be driven from business and forced to file bankruptcy, not to mention pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
Because, when it comes to actual dangers to the citizenry of the United States of America, Christian business owners are way more of a threat than ISIS or infectious diseases, am I right?!
Fussing over gay “marriage” at a time like this is precisely what the old expression, “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” was made for.
This is how a Republic dies.
Not by foreign enemies, but by self-inflicted death.
It’s pathetic, really.
I’m sure Obama will be tripping over himself to phone up some gay couple from Utah or Oklahoma to congratulate them on being free to marry.
Say, has Obama made a phone call to the family of Colleen Hufford.
Don’t know who she is?
Boy, I am not surprised you don’t.
We are living the end result of Liberal Political Correctness.
Ebola — a disease that has never been in the US is now here.
Some heretofore unknown viral infection is killing children.
Drug resistant tuberculosis has entered the US through our sieve-like southern border.
Islamic terrorists are here on our shores — some snuck in, some homegrown.
And we’ve let it happen. Hell, we flung the doors wide open for it. And those doors are hung on the hinges of Political Correctness.
The primary function of the Federal Government is the safety and security of the American people.
It is not the primary function of the Federal Government to determine state marriage laws.
It is not the primary function of the Federal Government to determine what contraceptives insurance companies must cover.
It is not the primary function of the Federal Government to spy on and harass American citizens.
The primary purpose of having a Federal Government is to ensure the safety, security and sovereignty of our country.
And they are failing at it.
Worse, they aren’t even making the effort.
But, hey. At least the gays can marry.
Your children will be attending public schools with an untold number of illegal foreigners who will likely not be screened medically before they are dumped in your kids’ classrooms.
But, hey. At least your kids won’t get fat from their school lunches.
Yeah, they might starve for the seven hours they are in school, but they won’t get fat!
And, who knows? Some of those foreign nationals who are in your kids’ classrooms just might expose your kids to a parasite that will help keep them skinny.
Here’s hoping!
Amazing, isn’t it?
The Federal Government is larger than it has ever been in the history of this country. It wields more power than it has ever wielded (or was supposed to wield).
And yet.
It is an impotent, flaccid, over-bloated, good-for-nothing waste of time, energy and money.
Yesterday, White House Spokes-Liar Josh Earnest declared that President Obama is taking “a whole of government approach” in dealing with Ebola here in the states [hat tip Breitbart].
I’m sorry. Is that supposed to make me feel better?
We’ve seen the “whole of government approach” to healthcare. To ISIS. To Immigration and illegals pouring over our borders.
Is this supposed to be a comforting thought?
But, hey. At least the gays can marry, am I right?
The truth is, we don’t need a “whole of government approach.”
All we need is concentrated, swift action. Close the borders. Ban all flights out of Africa. Any medical personnel or relief workers who have been in Africa must remain in quarantine until such time as it can be determined they are disease-free before they are permitted to return to the US.
Easy peazy.
But they won’t do it, will they?
Not a chance.
Because for them, the “whole of government approach” can be summed up in two words: Political correctness.
But, hey. It isn’t all bad news. Sure. We may be only days away from a domestic Islamic terror attack or a full-on outbreak of Ebola, but at least the gays can marry.

10 Ways Obama Has Failed as President

We are so over with being impressed by this president.

A poll released last week had some pretty bad news for congressional Democrats heading into the midterm elections. But buried in the poll numbers was a figure that just might constitute an even more important turning point.

Respondents were asked: “On balance, do you feel that Obama’s presidency so far has been more of a success or more of a failure?” More than half, 52%, said “failure.” Only 42% said “success.” And it gets worse. Only 22% were “strongly” convinced Obama is a success, while 39% are strongly convinced he’s a failure. And the American people have pretty much made up their minds on this; only 6% of respondents had no clear opinion.

Other evidence backs up this turn in public opinion. How bad has it gotten? The last president who was widely written off by the American people as a failure, George W. Bush, now enjoys higher net approval ratings than Obama, while Mitt Romney has been going on an I-told-you-so tour.

At this point, the American people are pretty much feeling like this kid. We are so over with being impressed by this president.

On behalf of long-time critics of Obama, let me say to the American people: welcome to our world. As a public service, to help you solidify your sense that he just isn’t up to the job, let me count down the ways that President Obama has failed to live up to his promises and to the responsibilities of his office. The list is pretty comprehensive.

1. He didn’t heal our racial divisions.

The first thing people expected of Obama, the whole reason his presidency was already hailed as “historic” on Inauguration Day 2009, before he had taken a single official act, is because voters thought that the first black president would help America put the ugly history of racially divisive politics behind us.

But from his earliest stumbling efforts—anyone remember the “Beer Summit“?—Obama has proven alternately uninterested and ham-handed in dealing with this signature issue. What he has mostly contributed has been to rush in and pre-judge racially charged cases, like the shooting of Trayvon Martin or the questionable police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, before the defendants get their day in court. When you pre-judge someone on the basis of race, isn’t there a word for that?

So as the recent race riots in Ferguson confirm, Obama has not served as some kind of magical bridge who would promote mutual understanding between whites and blacks. Instead, he has done more to inflame the tensions in these cases than to defuse them.

Our expectations of Obama were overblown from the beginning, but he worked pretty hard to overblow them. Certainly, when voters chose him, they were hoping for the opposite of an unscrupulous race-hustler like Al Sharpton. There was even a joke about Obama sending Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on missions to non-existent countries just to get them as far away from his campaign as possible. Now, Sharpton is being described as Obama’s “go-to man on race,” with a White House source gushing to The Politico that “There’s a trust factor with The Rev from the Oval Office on down.”

For those of us who remember Obama’s previous go-to man on that subject—the Reverend Jeremiah Wright—it’s not surprising. But it’s not what most people thought they were voting for.

2. The stimulus didn’t stimulate.

President Obama was elected in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and his first big act in office was to sign a gargantuan package of “stimulus” spending—financed entirely with debt—that was supposed to jump-start the economy. Congress voted for hundreds of billion of dollars for “shovel-ready projects” which Obama later discovered don’t exist, and the money disappeared without a trace.

How many “recovery summers” have there been in which growth and employment was finally supposed to take off—only to peter out again? (Hint: the first one was in 2010.)

In how many other recoveries has labor force participation—the percentage of people actually working—declined? In what other recovery have poor people emerged deeper in debt than they were at the beginning?

Yes, the economy was in crisis when President Obama took office. But he has presided over the slowest, weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression—and by a good margin.

3. Financial reform didn’t reform.

But surely, Obama saw to it that we would never repeat the problems that led to the financial crisis and the recession in the first place, right? Except that the Dodd-Frank financial reforms didn’t really reform anything. They created a couple thousand pages of new legislation and many, many more new executive-branch regulations, which have helped to muddle the rules rather than clarify them. But these regulations have never really resolved any of the pre-crisis problems.

The old system in which a handful of giant financial institutions were considered “too big to fail” and thus could depend on the rest of us to bail them out? That system is alive and well.

4. ObamaCare is a boondoggle.

The disastrous launch of ObamaCare was a reminder of everything that’s wrong with big government. It turns out that when we warned health insurance would be run as well as the Department of Motor Vehicles, we were too optimistic. And no one was ever held accountable for that fiasco.

When ObamaCare was passed, we were assured that it would provide insurance for 32 million people who didn’t have any coverage. Four years later, it looks like ObamaCare has covered far fewer new people, between 10% and 20% of what was promised, and about half of those were through an expansion of Medicaid—a burden that will eventually bankrupt the states—rather than through ObamaCare’s insurance exchanges.

Most of the people buying insurance through the exchanges are those who were kicked out of their previous health insurance plans by new regulations. It turns out that if we liked our health insurance, we couldn’t keep it. For some of us, this will be bad. For others, it’s much worse.

You’re still going to hear a lot of commentators on the left arguing that the law is a great success—if you agree to move the goalposts and ignore all the broken promises. But the American people aren’t buying it.

5. Obama failed to reform immigration.

He spent all of his political capital, and then some, on the failed stimulus and the ObamaCare boondoggle, leaving nothing for immigration reform. Having failed to get anything through Congress, he floated a dubious plan to enact amnesty through a unilateral executive authority that he doesn’t have. Then he dropped the idea.

Instead, he has simply failed to enforce the immigration laws, contributing to a crisis on our southern border.

The result: he has managed to enrage the right, the left, and the middle. He hasn’t cracked down on illegal immigration, he hasn’t legalized it, and he hasn’t forged any kind of compromise or consensus on the issue. Nobody is happy and nothing has been accomplished.

6. He withdrew prematurely from Iraq.

Obama was so eager to not be George W. Bush that he pulled all of our troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, then totally ignored the country, even as a terrorist threat re-established itself there. For most of this year, he foolishly downplayed the rise of the Islamic State. Even as Kurds and the Iraqi government issued increasingly panicked warnings, and the Islamic State took over more and more territory, he let the problem get worse for months without bothering to interrupt his golf schedule.

A few weeks ago, he admitted to having no strategy for dealing with the Islamic State. Last week, he hastily assembled one, but it’s looking like it might be unrealistic and lacks international support.

Bush went into Iraq with multiple UN resolutions, congressional approval, a broad “coalition of the willing,” and (as it turned out) the resolve to use whatever means were necessary to prevent a terrorist state from establishing itself there. Obama is going back into Iraq with none of that. So I guess he really isn’t anything like George W. Bush.

Who could have guessed that he would be the one to suffer by that comparison?

7. He blew the Arab Spring.

When a series of uprisings overthrew dictators across the Middle East, Obama failed to adopt any meaningful policy or to turn the situation to our advantage. He dithered for so long on Egypt that all of the factions there hate him, and most of Egypt’s liberals concluded that he was secretly backing the Muslim Brotherhood. The result is that Egypt went right back to where it was before, except this time the military dictatorship regards America as a useless and irrelevant ally.

Meanwhile, the two places where we could have taken advantage of the Arab Spring to get rid of truly nasty dictators who have been hostile to our interests for decades—Libya and Syria—ended in disaster. In Libya, the killing of our ambassador in Benghazi was just the beginning of a slow collapse into chaos and civil war. In Syria, three years of administration dithering allowed the rise of ISIS, which then spilled over into Iraq.

And let’s not forget about 2009, when Iranians poured out onto the street to oppose their own brutal, theocratic, terror-sponsoring regime—and Obama sat back passively because he preferred to cut a diplomatic deal with the ayatollahs.

8. Obama ignored the threat of a resurgent Russian dictatorship.

During a debate with Mitt Romney in 2012, Obama dismissed Romney’s suggestion that Russia might be a threat to American interests, sneering, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.” Now it’s looking more like the 1970s are calling, with an aggressive Russian dictatorship invading its neighbors, leaving our European allies feeling exposed and unsure whether they can really count on support from the US and NATO. Poland’s foreign minister has been overheard complaining about—how shall I put this politely?—his country’s unrequited love for America.

The president’s response to Russian aggression has been to impose a few more sanctions, make a speech in Estonia, and otherwise ignore the crisis and hope it goes away.

9. He didn’t shut down Guantanamo, keep the NSA from spying, or rein in the drones.

I know people who sincerely believe that all of these are good policies and who will defend them vigorously if asked. Barack Obama is not one of those people. Yet all of these policies have been pursued during his presidency, on his authority.

President Obama came into office having loudly condemned many of the Bush administration’s measures against terrorism. Then he continued them. You can call this hypocrisy or you can call it subversion. But President Obama has achieved a unique combination: managing to morally discredit America’s anti-terrorism policies without actually ending them.

10. He has made America irrelevant.

You will notice that most of Obama’s failures result, not from taking a bold stand, but from taking no stand and just letting events drift. Certainly, in a lot of these cases, Obama has given speeches or press conference to announce his enlightened intentions—then done nothing to plan for how to actually achieve his goals.

But if he is irrelevant, that makes America irrelevant. We can look at the Arab Spring, at Ukraine, and at Iraq, but let’s add one more example. For most of his presidency, Obama has declared his intention to “pivot to Asia,” extricating himself from the Middle East and focusing on bolstering our Pacific allies to peacefully manage the rise of China. It’s pretty widely acknowledged that he never managed to do it, letting the Asia pivot die of neglect.

This may fit with the quasi-isolationist mood that has taken hold in America in recent years, but it is yet another case where Obama promised something very different. He campaigned on the promise that America would be more respected in the world after the Bush years—not that we would be considered a useless ally and an ineffectual opponent.

I don’t know if you could come up with a more comprehensive list of presidential failures, encompassing foreign policy and domestic policy, economics, race, and immigration. And I’m sure I left a lot of things off this list, not least of which is the targeting of Obama’s political opponents by a corrupt IRS, which continues to announce the oh-so-mysterious loss of potentially incriminating data by its employees.

Combine all of this with his frequent vacations and golf outings and his fascination with the trappings of pop-culture celebrity, and you get the impression that Obama has checked out of the presidency and lost interest in the responsibility he is neither willing nor able to shoulder.

Obama was originally elected on the basis of celebrity, on vague slogans about “hope and change,” on a sense of self-congratulatory smugness about how progressive and enlightened we would all be if we voted for him. He was re-elected on all of that, plus the smearing of his political opposition as racists and mean rich white guys.

If the result is an utter failure of leadership, maybe there are a few lessons we ought to learn for the next presidential election.

Obama Terrorist Released For Bergdahl, Now Commander For Isis

The Obama administration is worried that news of Fazi’s emergence as a top commander in ISIS will worsen public perception of both the terrorist swap for Bergdahl and the GAO’s findings of illegal activity. The two events, taken together, could generate sufficient fallout to derail some of the political agenda President Obama has for the remainder of his “lame duck” term. The White House has gone into full damage control mode regarding both developments.
Unofficial word coming out of the White House is that Fazi has been elevated to the top of a prioritized drone strike list of terrorist targets. It is being speculated that the administration believes that it can mitigate a large portion of the potential political fallout if Fazi, and the embarrassment he represents, is quickly eliminated. To facilitate this elimination large portions of regional drone resources are being specifically tasked with finding and destroying the former prisoner.
I don’t know how you can spin this. Obama released five for one, now at least one of the five is committing genocide with ISIS in Iraq. That is treason my friends. When a sitting President releases a known terrorist and in under a years time the terrorist is back killing people, that President needs to be removed from office….end of discussion.
The only thing the Obama regime is worried about is being embarrassed. Stunning.

MY SECOND DAY AS PRESIDENT…..

January 21, 2017 agenda

[Buzzing the new Press Secretary, Eric Bolling] “Eric, would you please arrange for a quick press conference at 1:45 this afternoon in the White House briefing room?  I’ll be signing my first executive order, so I’ll need a desk, chair, pens, etc.  Yes…. perfect.  Oh, I’ll speak but I won’t take questions today – I think my remarks will be self-explanatory.  As soon as you set that in motion, please join me in my office.  I have several phone calls to make.

Yes today!  [laughter] Forgive the short notice but I know you can work a miracle for me.  Yes, I’m jumping in with both feet.  Why not make a little news on Day 2.”

My first call would be to the new Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

“Good afternoon, Your Excellency.  Thank you for taking my call – I will be brief. 

The United States is no longer your ally.  You have opted for your country to fund radical Muslim factions throughout the Middle East, particularly ISIS.  The United States is suspending all relations, including aid, with your country effective immediately.  The planes that arrived last night and took off at sunrise are bringing home all Americans, including the complete diplomatic staff based in Doha.

Additionally, American military and contract employees in charge of our embassy security are likewise now airborne and entering Mediterranean air space.

You have thirty days to cease and desist funding and support to ISIS.  If you opt NOT to follow this order, it is this government’s intention to obliterate your country with any means possible.

Please say ‘I understand’ if you DO understand what I have said.

[Silence]

I understand you are fluent in English.  A final diplomatic pouch should be arriving at your palace shortly, with my demands in English as well as Arabic.  I do not want any confusion about what I have said.

Good day, Excellency.”

My second call would be to the President of the United Mexican States, Enrique Peña Nieto.

“Buenos dias, Sr. Presidente.  I know you are busy so I will be brief.

You have been holding one of my former Marines, Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, in jail for a number of months.  You have 24 hours to return this man, along with all of his belongings including the weapons you confiscated, to the United States.  If you fail to do this, the busses will begin coming to Mexico.”

“What busses, Madam President?”

“The busses that will be lined up two days from now to repatriate your citizens, who have poured into this country illegally.  Not only will they be returned but, pursuant to Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, I am federalizing the National Guards of all Border States.  As Commander-in-Chief I will be directing them to take up armed positions along our common border with orders to shoot to kill anyone trying to enter the United States illegally.  THOSE buses.  Are we clear, Sr. Presidente?”

[Silence]

“I assume we are.  Tiene un buen dia.”

Third call, after getting myself a cup of coffee, would be to my Secretary of State, the Honorable John Bolton.

“Good morning, John.  I hope you’re getting settled in because I want to move forward on the complete review of the budget for the State Department like we discussed.  It’s time to start rewarding our friends and jettisoning those who are not.    

Please break it down by country into Peacekeeping, Foreign Military Financing, and Counterrorism expenses from last year. Then  I would like this put into two columns, please.  One column would be ALLIES and the other column would be NOT SO MUCH….. 

[laughter].  Yes….. Any idea how long that will take?  Excellent!  Oh… By the way, please cease ALL funding to Qatar immediately.

I look forward to sitting down with you soon.  Absolutely, John - you too.”

My fourth call will be a surprise to everyone.  It’s to my newly appointed Director of the US Office of Personnel Management, Liz Cheney.

“Good morning Liz.  Is there any chance you could come to my office after lunch today, say 1:30?  ………Wonderful – I look forward to seeing you and I promise our meeting will be short.  Thank you.”

Next call will be a conference call with the Leader of the Senate, the Honorable Marco Rubio, and the new Speaker of the House, Rep. Marsha Blackburn

“Good morning Senator Rubio and Rep. Blackburn.  Congratulations to you both on your new jobs within the Congress.  I look forward to working with you both.

Having said that, please forgive this short notice but I would be honored if you could both join me in a brief meeting after lunch, around 1:30.  Would that be possible?  [replies]  Excellent!  I promise not to keep you very long.  See you then.”

My next call will also be a conference call to the new Minority leaders of the Senate and House, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi with a similar invitation to join me at 1:30 in my office.  Oh – how nice – they both accepted.

[Buzz to Eric]” Eric, I’m expecting Liz, Marco, Harry, Nancy, Allen and Marsha here for a quick private meeting at 1:30.  I want you here as well….wonderful.

[Buzzing my White House Chief-of-Staff, Allen West] “Allen, everything is a go for this afternoon at 1:30, with the press conference at 1:45.  Please join me upstairs for a quick lunch at noon with the new ‘first man’ and the girls.  Wonderful!  See you soon.”

1:30 p.m.  January 21, 2017

[Greeting the invitees as well as Allen and Eric as they file into the Oval Office]

“Please grab a seat, and thank you all for coming.  I’m about to make an announcement that was NOT specifically part of my campaign agenda for the last year – I’m certain you will understand why. 

I have a press brief in 15 minutes where I will sign the following Executive Order.  I wanted all of you to hear this from me first, as I’m sure there will be immense fallout.  

Rest assured…. The fallout matters now a whit to me.  This is my first step as President to reduce the federal budget and to give this nation back to the people who are paying for it.

I will be reading the following statement to the nation in 12 minutes and upon completion I will sign an Executive Order putting this in motion.”

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS, FELLOW CITIZENS…. AS A FIRST STEP TO FULFILL MY CAMPAIGN PLEDGE TO REDUCE THE SIZE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND HENCE, FEDERAL SPENDING…. I AM ON THIS DAY SIGNING AN EXECUTIVE ORDER THAT WILL GO INTO EFFECT AS SOON AS THE INK ON THE PAPER DRIES.  

TO WIT, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY THERE WILL BE A COMPLETE, TOTAL AND UNEQUIVOCAL FREEZE ON ALL GOVERNMENT HIRING IN EVERY CABINET, IN THE 15 MAJOR DEPARTMENTS AND ALL AGENCIES THAT COMPRISE THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH, RIGHT DOWN TO THE SMALLEST SUB-COMMITTEE.  THIS WILL BE THE CASE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.  THIS WILL ALSO APPLY TO, BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO, GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS.  THE ONLY EXCEPTION WILL BE THE UNIFORMED MILITARY SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES.  ANY HIRES IN PROGRESS BUT NOT COMPLETED AS OF 2:00 TODAY WILL BE SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE."

“Any questions?  Nancy, dear – you look pale. Here – have some water. Everyone, please take a deep breath as we begin.  Shall we adjourn to the White House Briefing room for this announcement and the signing of the Executive Order?.”

2:00 p.m., January 21, 2017

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:  THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES…

“Good afternoon everyone.  Thank you all for coming on such short notice.  I am today taking a page from the playbook of my predecessor, President Obama….. and using my pen.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS, FELLOW CITIZENS….

===================================

This is some of the stuff MY dreams are made of……

Islam is the Face of Evil

"ISIS is not Islamic", said  Barack Obama as he gave yet another vapid speech to say what he will or will not do next about the threat of Islam. What he said is both idiotic and a lie. ISIS calls itself the Islamic State.

Obama used the word "war" only once, but ISIS is all about war---an Islamic holy war that has been waged since 632 AD. 

The one person neither named, nor blamed is the so-called prophet, Mohammad, yet everything being done by the jihadists today is being done in his name.

In his memoir, “Dreams from my Father”, Obama, in the preface to its second edition, wrote: “Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day (9/11) and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another’s heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.” And therein is the problem that he, as President, and we as citizens must address.

Political correctness is so dominant in the Obama White House that no one in the U.S. government dares say anything that might be deemed critical of a so-called “religion” that sanctions beheadings, amputations, stoning, kidnapping hostages, ransoms, polygamy, and slavery. To anyone deemed an infidel or unbeliever or a Muslim who questions anything about Islam, death is the only option other than dhimmitude, a second-class citizenship.

The pure evil of Islam was seen most recently in the two videos of American hostages being beheaded by the Islamic State, but despite decades of attacks on U.S. embassies, the taking of U.S. hostages in Beirut and Tehran, attacks in Bali, Madrid and London, and the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon, Americans have been slow to realize the intensity and size of the threat that the Middle Eastern and North African nations represent along with wherever else a large Muslim population exists.

As the U.S. and threatened Middle Eastern nations hurtle toward a military confrontation with the Islamic State, the name it has given to territory it has seized from northern Syria and into Iraq, a new book, Fault Lines: The Layman’s Guide to Understanding America’s Role in the Ever-Changing Middle East, ($00.00, Elevate, Boise, Idaho, softcover) provides one of the best, short histories on U.S. involvement and why, at this point, its influence has reached a low point.

Liebich writes of the way the U.S. policy regarding the Middle East changed over the years, particularly in the wake of World War II and the Cold War that followed as the Soviet Union challenged us for the implementation of communism worldwide. Dependent on the flow of oil from the Middle East, much of our strategic interest in the region was based on exercising our influence, often bringing about the removal of leaders whom we regarded as a threat to that necessity. After 9/11 that went into overdrive.

Liebich notes that our concept of nation-building proved costly, not just in the lives of our troops, but which included $50 billion in Iraq “and it didn’t work. Before you can build a nation you have to have a nation and only the citizens of that nation can decide what kind of a country they want to have.” The problem the U.S. encountered was that “In the Middle East, people related much more to the Ummah (the Muslim community) and to their own tribes.”

The problem that George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, encountered was that “The Middle East is a part of the world where many odd alliances appear. One is never sure who is allied with whom and whatever one thinks may all change tomorrow.”

Liebich takes note of the “Arab Awakening” that followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq that deposed Saddam Hussein. It began “with so much promise” followed by “its subsequent descent into chaos, has drastically changed the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Liebich says “My definition of a vital national interest is one that deals with an existential threat to the United States, and one for which the U.S. is willing to spill its blood and to spend its treasure in order to accomplish its objectives. By this definition, the U.S. has no vital national interest in events in the Middle East.” Written prior to the emergence of the Islamic State, a new existential threat is facing the U.S.

Liebich says our strategic interests in the Middle East for many years included access to stable supplies of oil at reasonable prices; support for the state of Israel; preventing adversaries or potential adversaries from coming to power or achieving influence in the region; improving life for the people of the region; and preventing terrorist attacks on U.S. territories and citizens.

“The region has become the epicenter for terrorist groups, some of which have ambitions for a global reach.” That alone will require a renewed military involvement by the U.S. as we are the only nation with the capacity to alter the facts on the ground.

It comes at a time when the U.S. is close to having developed its oil reserves to a point where the oil of the Middle East will not determine our policies, but it is that oil which other nations such as those of Europe depend upon. China and India need it as well so its protection by and for the West as well as the developing Asian nations affects our decisions. Even Russia whose economy is dependent on oil and natural gas has cast its support for Syria along with Iran.

Everything, though, depends on understanding the true nature and intent of Islam.

Liebich ends his book with a quote from Winston Churchill who said, “We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all other possibilities.”

Right now, the right thing is the destruction of the Islamic State.