Courting Catastrophe

To some of us, it has been obvious for years that self-professed liberals hold the United States in disdain. And that their collective heart harbors a dangerous, wildly irrational soft spot for many of the world’s murderous dictators, for no other reason than those dictators share their anti-American views.

For us, it has also been obvious that Barack Obama is their political dream come true, not because he is an even-tempered, open-minded centrist – but because he is so good at getting votes by making people think that’s what he is.

In reality he’s a hard-line leftist out to dismantle this country and everything it stands for. It’s hard to say anything is the last straw with this man, because every week he throws out dozens more with no end in sight. As soon as you catch one straw and start to do something about it, he’s already tossed several more past you while the MSM shut their eyes and sing his praises.

However, the biggest straw may have been last week’s release of documents pertaining to the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” to get information from terrorists.

That Obama released the documents in a redacted state – i.e., having blacked out the parts that describe the techniques’ outcome – is proof that he is hiding something important.

That he portrayed the documents as evidence of his predecessor’s administration running wild – when in reality they show that the administration was taking extreme care to ensure the safety of those being interrogated – is proof that their release is a scandal.

That he portrayed the documents as evidence of the administration operating afoul of the law – when in reality they show that extreme care was being taken to make an ethically informed decision about where tough tactics end and torture begins, precisely because there was no law defining that line – is more proof still.

But above and beyond scandal, the release of the documents signals to our enemies that we are willing to tie our own hands when combating them – and it signals to our friends that we are not trustworthy (why should they cooperate with us when we let the bad guys know even our own secrets?) – and it signals to our intelligence operatives that they can not trust their leaders (how can we expect them to do their jobs when they know they can get prosecuted later for doing them in a way that was legal at the time?). Therefore, Obama’s release stands a better-than-average chance of going down in history as an act of sabotage against the safety and security of the American people.

Here is just one thing that resulted from enhanced interrogation techniques: They got Khalid Shiekh Mohammed to reveal information that allowed us to stop terrorists from carrying out a plot to blow up the tallest skyscraper on our West Coast (L.A.’s Library Tower). So, by casually abandoning the techniques and broadcasting their abandonment, it is evident Obama has made a decision that putting us at risk of such atrocities is an acceptable price to pay for playing kissy face with the world’s governments and liberals.

American citizens were taken hostage by Iran in 1979. Following that, attacks against Americans by Islamic terrorists occurred every two or three years like clockwork...until George W. Bush came to power. Now, it is more than 7½ years since 9/11 and there has been no attack that entire time. It would strain credulity for anybody to argue that Bush’s decision to take the battle to the terrorists and preside over implementation of enhanced interrogation techniques didn’t have anything to do with that.

Since Barack Obama has demonstrated that he is not willing to do what’s necessary to combat civilization’s most clear and present danger, we should not be squeamish about saying this: The next time mass numbers of Americans are slain by terrorists, he will, to a certain degree, be responsible for their deaths.

I am not the first person to say these things, but I am adding my voice because the chorus must be made as loud as possible for us to have any effect on the direction our government takes.

Make This One Our Rallying Cry

I feel kind of bad that instead of opining in my own words like I usually do, more than half of this month's posts have been nothing more than me passing on what others have said or written.  But hey, here I go again.

Today I was driving to the gas station during my lunch break, and the car in front of me was sporting a bumper sticker that said:  "If 10% is enough for GOD, it's enough for the IRS."

It says so much in so few words, I won't even risk diluting it by elaborating.  

As far as using my own words to expound on the happenings of the day, I'll be back in full swing before long.

Blog Update

Though others usually describe this as a political blog, that's not what it actually is.

It is simply a forum for me to write about whatever is on my mind at a given time.  And as it tuns out, a sense of duty often causes that to be politics.

However, I write about other topics here as well, and travels I've taken seem to make up a recurring topic.  Traveling is something I truly love, and when I write about it I am writing out of love rather than duty, so in addition to this blog I have started a travel blog called The Continuous Tourist.  I ask you to check it out, and if you like it I would appredciate you sharing it with others.

I don't know if I will update The Continuous Tourist as frequently as this blog, but I will update it regularly.  And I intend to market it more because, well, it is more marketable.   It amost certainly has more universal appeal, because believe it or not, some folks get turned off when I point out that our president is pushing America down a path of destruction.

Stanton's Space is not changing, and I will still write on it about my travels and whatever else I think is worthwhile.  Meanwhile, The Continuous Tourist will be more like a travel guide for places I've been and less like this recitation of my hiking trip from last fall.

If you're ready to read about politics and current events, I will write about them soon enough.  But for right now, let me just praise our Navy SEALS and say that I very encouraged by all you tea partiers out there.

Said So-well

Yesterday I wrote about something I heard Mark Steyn say on the radio, because his words were too good to wait for me to update this blog's "Quote of the Week" next Sunday.

Well, it's happened again today -- not once, but twice, and with something I read rather than something I heard.  The following quotes both come from Thomas Sowell.

"Barack Obama seems determined to repeat every disastrous mistake of the 1930s, at home and abroad.  He has already repeated Herbert Hoover's policy of raising taxes on high income earners, FDR's policy of trying to micro-manage the economy, and Neville Chamberlain's policy of seeking dialogues with hostile nations while downplaying the dangers they represent."

And:  "Perhaps the scariest aspect of our times is how many people think in talking points, rather than in terms of real world consequences."

Sowell has been my favorite opinion writer for more than 15 years, always cutting straight through the BS and hitting the nail right on the head.  And at 78 years old, he shows no signs of slowing down.

Bloody Well Said

I know I have a “Quote of the Week” feature on this blog, but while I was eating in my car today during my lunch break, I heard a quip on the radio that was so good I couldn’t wait to share it.

 

It came from one of my favorite UK-transplanted commentators, Mark Steyn,  who was expanding on North Korea’s provocative rocket launch over the weekend.  Since I’m going from memory, I may have gotten a couple words wrong, but what he said was essentially this:  “We are creating a world in which some of the most successful nations in history, from Norway down to New Zealand, are unable to defend their borders, but third world degenerates like North Korea and Sudan have nuclear weapons.  How long do you think that is going to last?”

I have nothing to add really.  It’s just an excellent observation -- and one that the MSM never makes, even though it seems obvious when you think about it -- so I decided it warrants a post.

The Calamity Continues

We are well before the end of that “first 100 days” everyone likes to jabber about, and these are some of the deeds Barack Obama has performed:

He has appointed, into positions of power, so many people who have obvious ethical problems that the list of their names would be considered impossibly long -- except for the fact all of their problems have been acknowledged.

He has announced plans to have the White House take control of the census away from the non-partisan Commerce Department -- which might not sound like a big deal at first, until you remember that: 1) the census outcome is used to draw congressional districts and apportion electoral votes, and 2) Obama & Co. wants to use “statistical sampling” instead of a head count to “determine” its outcome.

He has disgracefuly dissed the United Kingdom, which is arguably our mother country and unarguably one of our all-time greatest allies.

He has done the same to our Eastern European allies, while kowtowing to a government that has brutalized them through history and always means us harm.

He has overseen a government takeover of one of the world’s biggest auto makers.

He has overseen growing government takeovers of banks.

He has claimed unchecked authority to seize private businesses, by asserting that government may take them over and determine what they can pay certain employees even when they are solvent.

He has told the people that many of them will start to see a little less tax money deducted from their paychecks -- but intentionally neglected to tell them that his energy policies, if enacted, will make the cost of their utilities (and many commodities) increase by so much that they will have far fewer dollars left in their pockets when all is said and done.

He has exploited one of the seven deadly sins (envy) in an effort to soften public opposition to his unconstitutional war against free enterprise.

He has targeted a group of private citizens by retroactively imposing on them 70 to 90 percent taxation of bonuses they legally receive for work they legally perform. To help gain support for this tax, he has taken the executives of a single company and pretended to be surprised and appalled by the amounts of their recent bonuses -- even though those bonuses were agreed to before the government granted money to their company; even though those bonuses were disclosed to the government before the government agreed to the grant; even though the government, with Obama’s knowledge, wrote a clause at that time explicitly OK'ing those bonuses; even though the combined amount of those bonuses is less than one-tenth of one percent of the grant money; and even though it is far from clear whether the executives in question had anything to do with the company’s financial woes (some of them were hired after the woes began, and at least one of them was working for a salary of one dollar, meaning his bonus was his only income).

These are the kinds of things done by tinhorn dictators in backwater banana republics, yet Barack Obama is doing them in (and more importantly, to) the greatest, most productive, most benevolent nation in all of human history. He does these things without any regard for the restraints placed on the federal government by the Constitution, and he does them with contempt for his constituents’ interests -- because in his mind, he is The Exalted One who knows better than his constituents.

Obama’s actions must never be excused by believing they are the unfortunate results of naivety or inexperience. He is a bigger threat to this country than the Taliban or Al Quaeda or Achmadenijad or North Korea, for he is the enemy within. He emboldens and enables those other enemies, and he seeks to change this country so radically that it could soon be crippled without them ever firing a shot.