31 January 2013 –

On 6 February, the national board of the Boy Scouts of America meets to discuss the removal of the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation.  If the board votes to remove the restriction, homosexual men can be scoutmasters.  The board offers the sop to its many church sponsors that if it lifts the restriction, local sponsors can still decide for themselves on such issues for their troops. 

The sponsors of local BSA troops, the majority of which are churches, must think cleanly and clearly about how this decision may indeed pollute their local organization through association.  Would you, as an upright, church-goer want your twelve-year-old daughter in a girls’ softball league where the other teams’ uniforms bear the sponsor names of local strip joints, saloons, and x-rated movie parlors?  I don’t think so.  You might be able to protect her from such influences during closed practices and scrimmages; but, once your daughter runs on the field to play the other teams, you won’t be able to control what is imposed upon her.  And whose fault would that be?  Yours.  After all, you knew what the league was when you joined it.     

Churches claim, by traditional definition, to be organizations built on enduring principles—truths.  Churches claim that these truths come by commandment from God.  By living according to these principles, one builds in one’s character certain virtues that enable one to draw closer to God.  Among the virtues that Christians want to develop are the following:  trustworthiness, loyalty, charity, compassion, courtesy, kindness, obedience, happiness, thrift, bravery, cleanliness, and reverence.  If one’s church—the structure that enables one to draw closer to God, the structure that one supports with sacrifice of time and effort—preaches that homosexual acts cripples one’s ability to be close to God, and, by extension, defining oneself by one’s indulgence in such acts continues to distance one from God’s presence, then why would one want to continue to embrace a church when that church associates with a secular organization that now endorses the opposite?  And, indeed, why would one offer up as sacrifice one’s son to the false gods of such a secular organization? 

Christian churches, particularly the Latter-day Saint and Catholic churches, sponsor many of the  Boy Scouts of America’s tens of thousands of local troops.  They are found in nearly every community in America.  These two mentioned churches are more centralized in their policy and doctrine making than any other Christian churches in America.  Therefore, they should take the lead in the Christian community.  They should show others how to build better programs to teach their young men the truths necessary to develop the virtues that will enable these young men to be physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.  Otherwise, their sacrifice to Baal will have already been offered.  

29 January 2013 –

The rush to erode society didn’t wait even one day after Secretary Panetta’s announcement that DoD would open all combat positions to women.  When queried by the press, the Secretary implied strongly that drafting women would certainly be probable if the draft were reinstituted.  One step of social engineering leads to another leads to another.  The social fabric of a vibrant society is tearing as we watch it.   

Yesterday, the announcement of the bipartisan group of senators’ agreement to restructure our immigration policies and laws bears further examination.  A history of U.S. immigration policy would be interesting.  Long and interesting.  Too long for a blog.  Besides, most people use their read of history to justify what they feel and think based on their modern experiences.  Let’s compare a couple of current arguments on immigration reform using the value and emotion laden definition of the term that I presented yesterday.  Reform:  to put an end to evil by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action.  Which of these opposing arguments contains evil and should be reformed? 

a.       The widespread concept of “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants describes what over 150 cities in 34 states have done by writing laws and declaring policies that dictate that local law enforcement not cooperate with federal authorities to enforce existing immigration laws, mainly the overarching 1996 “Illegal Immigration Reform & Immigration Responsibility Act.”  Is sanctuary evil or does it righteously react to the evil of government’s prosecuting or processing illegal immigrants for deportation, no matter the extenuating conditions or circumstances that forced these people to come to the United States?  

b.      The Rule of Law describes the concept that the laws of a strong and peaceful nation be applied to all within the nation’s jurisdiction and that such laws be applied evenly and consistently.  Is a strict interpretation of the Rule of Law evil or does it guard against the eroding evil of societal structure caused by those who deliberately break the law and those who aid and abet those who break the law? 

c.       The concept of being a “Shining City on a Hill” means that the United States, the richest and most powerful nation on earth, should extend an invitation to all who want to live there to come and enjoy the rights and privileges of citizenry.  Is this concept evil or does it react righteously and generously to the effects of the horrors and travails imposed on so many people in so many places—including in the lands across our southern border. 

d.      The concept of Strategic Imperatives (I just made the name up; I hope it catches on) describes the necessity for law-makers and policy implementors to hold paramount the best interests of the United States when making strategic decisions on how the United States interacts with the rest of the world, no matter how tragic or horrible conditions may outside its borders.  To help is fine; but, only if it furthers clearly-stated U.S. strategic interests.  Is this concept evil or does it protect the United States from the ultimately destructive effects of massive movements of destitute people, international, economic upheavals, and eventual loss of power to less altruistic bad guys in a bad world?

e.       There is a modern, widely-stated concept that the United States’ strength lies in its diverse population, with its many groups of different peoples, each with its own views of life and society based on myriad ethnic, cultural, and language experiences.  What is more, interpretation of the “moral intent” of the Constitution and subsequent laws should reflect this inclusion process.  Is this concept evil or does it necessarily defend all the peoples in the United States against the historical and continuing subjugation of their rights to a racist and sexist, white, English-speaking, male elite?  

f.       The concept of assimilation into American society describes a process where the primacy of individual liberties, individual rights, and the literal interpretation of the Constitution that enshrines these rights and liberties in the formation of modern laws are essential to creating an American.  An American’s loyalty to a societal group may stay strong, but that is not what makes one an American.  Is this an evil concept or does it combat the evils of group rights, the stated mixed loyalties of hyphenated-Americans, and those corrupt, self-serving politicians who attempt to balkanize American in order to gain power? 

If you prioritize the evils and the response to evils that you agree with in the above comparisons, I am sure that you will more clearly understand your position on the complex issue of immigration law and policy reform.  I hope you will arrive at the position that Representative Sonny Bono (R-CA), so succinctly declared when asked what he thought of illegal immigration:  “What’s there to say;  it’s illegal.”  And the beat goes on.  

28 January 2013 - 

Odds and Ends:

1)      Poor Secretary Clinton.  She falls down, suffers a concussion, has to testify before the Senate and the House about a debacle that was on her watch, and suffers from double vision due to a damaged nerve in her head.  It has not been a good couple of months for the Secretary.  She now has glasses with prisms in them to correct the double vision.  Apparently, at least this is what I heard, Secretary Clinton had to get the corrective lens immediately in order to prevent further falls and more physical damage.  It seems that when she started to see double, she instinctively walked to the left, causing her to smash into everything.  She has now corrected that action; for how long clearly remains to be seen. 

2)      Soul legend Tina Turner, is giving up her American citizenship and requesting to become a citizen of Switzerland.  Ms. Turner, 73, has lived in Kuesnacht, a Zurich suburb, since 1995 with her longtime music manager, Erwin Bach.  It seems that MS. Turner, née Anna Mae Bullock, has come a long way from Brownsville, Tennessee.  I hope she will continue to be happy and secure in a country the size of a postage stamp and that looks like a postcard.   For her naturalization process to be complete, however, the canton of Zurich has to approve her request, and then the Swiss Confederation will review the case before a passport can be issued.  The two-step procedure is worth mentioning.  Switzerland is a modern democracy that resembles the United States in the 18^th and 19^th century.  The cantons, or states, hold much more power that the Swiss federal government does on such matters as citizenship, voting, etc.  Local government matters there.  It works.  It seems that one can be happy and prosperous and secure with limited central government and strong canton control of the law.  I am sure that Ms. Turner will continue to love the United States, but then again, what’s love got to do with it anyway? 

3)      Rich and famous celebrities changing abodes and citizenship is not important to most average people.  The rich and famous live real lives, but they are not seen as real by those whose only contact with them is through music, sports, films, or books.  But mass immigration of real peoples into the U.S. has always been a contentious issue. The recent announcement that a group of influential senators—is there any other kind of senator?—has reached an agreement on “the outlines” of a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. immigration laws and policies is good news.  This overhaul will address creating a way for citizenship for the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the U.S., will implement stricter border enforcement measures, and will ensure stricter enforcement of visa compliance by aliens in the country legally.  There also will be procedures to ensure that young people brought into the country illegally as children will be given a faster path to citizenship.  A couple of things:

a.       Nothing about this announced plan is remarkable.  In fact, all of this easily could have been done last year, with the same group of senators leading the process.  The fact that such a comprehensive plan was announced only one week after the inauguration means that they must have been working on it for some time. So, why now for the announcement?  Because nothing contentious gets done in the year leading up to major elections.  Restructuring immigration law & policy\y—massive,  illegal immigration being one of the biggest threats to the sovereignty of the United States, simply was too contentious an issue for the senators to do anything bold and courageous until after the election.  Yawn.  Politics as usual.    

b.      Two definitions of the word reform conflict with each other as they apply to the issue of illegal immigration.  According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, the first definition of reform is to make change in a social, political, or economic institution or practice in order to improve it.   This is a neutral definition.  Any side of the argument could use it to start a stump speech.  The second definition is to put an end to an evil by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action.  The second definition, full of moral judgment, is where the conflict begins.  Some people say that we must put an end to the evil of policy makers mocking the rule of law and creating an increasingly balkanized country for the sake of a few votes.  Others say that it is evil when local government and racist groups resist giving immigrants—illegal is such a perjorative term—the rights, advantages, and privileges of citizenry, especially because of the harsh conditions most of them escaped in coming here.  How you choose the lesser of the two evils usually determines where you stand on the issue of illegal immigration. More tomorrow on immigration reform.   

25 January 2013 - 

I wonder what it will take before this Administration’s façade of integrity will finally collapse?  There still is a huge cover-up of what happened on 11 September 2012 in Benghazi, Libya.  The cover-up is not the administration trying to hide a bungled and amateurish security process.  I posit that the cover story of bungled security is to deflect attention from and thereby hide a deeper cover-up.   The Obama administration wants to hide covert, ambassadorial-level actions in Libya that, if made public, may bring down the administration and certainly would have lost the 2012 elections for the President. 

On 12 September 2012, I first heard about the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and the death of Ambassador Stevens, and my career intelligence analyst instincts perked up.  I started to list questions that needed answering, as if the United States were some other country and I had to create an objective picture of events and intent.    Three things immediately came to mind when I saw the videos on television: 1) This was a heavily armed, organized attack on already determined targets for already determined purposes;  2) This was done on 11 September, the 11^th anniversary of 9/11, a day when much of the Moslem Arab world sang for joy in the streets, 3) My mind’s map of Libya showed Benghazi on the east coast of the Gulf of Sitra and the capital, Tripoli, hundreds of miles to the west on the Mediterranean coast.  I then asked myself the million-dollar question:  What was so important that U.S. Ambassador to Libya had to be in Benghazi, a known rebel and terrorist stewpot, on the anniversary of 9/11, far from the protection of the embassy in Tripoli?  As an analyst, I would scour all sources to find the answer to that question.  The answer would lead me to the answers to most all other questions about the attack and to why we failed to respond in a timely manner.  Without the answer to this question, any analysis or subsequent conclusion would be worthless. 

Why isn’t this question being seriously asked and then the answer being scrupulously examined for veracity?  Why are we accepting this flimsy cover story of bungled security practices in the Department of State?  As an intelligence analyst, if  Buglestan were to announce that an attack on its consulate in Marseille on the anniversary of francophone terrorists’ butchering of thousands of Buglestan citizens was a spontaneous response to an expatriate French activist’s advertisement on the internet criticizing French culture and religion, I would laugh out loud.  My experience would immediately warn me that Buglestan is hiding something important.  I would look for who was targeted and killed, where they were killed, and why. 

I repeat the question that has neither been asked nor answered in public.  What was Ambassador Stevens doing in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11, far from Tripoli?    My analytic experience tells me that Ambassador Stevens was there doing something so wrong, explosive, clandestine, or embarrassing to the Obama administration that if the truth were finally revealed, President Obama would risk certain impeachment and, quite possibly, conviction.    Why else would an administration chock full of clever political operatives come up with and stick with such an embarrassing cover story as security bungling for its enemies to chew on if it didn’t want to cover up something even more damaging? 

What could Ambassador Stevens have been doing without a security detail in Benghazi?  Arms deals with governments or terrorists?  Covert oil deals?  Organizing a coup d’état?  Trying to help Libya counter French influence in Africa?  The list of possible scenarios is as long as a screenwriter’s script for his next adventure/spy movie.  I fear that the Ambassador’s presence in Benghazi was of such importance that the President directed or gave his personal approval for it and may have allowed the Ambassador to be killed when things went to hell.  If we let the administration continue to guide the criticism of the events, then we deserve to be fooled.   

I am taking Sunday off.

Look for more on Monday, 28 January.    

25 January 2013 –

The most precise definition of the term gun control is, as the old saw goes, to control your breathing and to squeeze, not pull, the trigger.   The rest of the debate is full of misdirection and obfuscation.  One example:  The verb to assault has been applied as an adjective to many weapons.  People from both sides of the debate use the term.  Elements on one side hawk weapons with that moniker in order to entice certain buyers.  Elements on the other side spit out the adjective to make some weapons seem even more dangerous in the minds of frightened voters.  What determines control is at the heart of the debate over Second Amendment rights. 

I want to focus on one method of persuasion in the weapons control debate. The strict-government-control advocates repeat it often to convince the less intellectually rigorous, but generally law-abiding and hard-working people who make up the bulk of the swing citizenry, that guns should be controlled by the elite decision-makers in the federal government.  In all discussions or debates, the elite or their talking heads eventually ask the easy question: “Do you really need an assault rifle?”  “Do you really need a magazine with 24 rounds in it to protect yourself or to go hunting?” is another version of the talking point.  These questions win adherents to the elites’ side of the argument, probably more than any other statement or fact. 

This type of question is a powerful method of persuasion.  It makes one feel guilty about buying something one really doesn’t need.  I think it exploits the old Protestant work ethic, penury toward pleasures culture that the Progressive Left is trying so hard to undermine in so many other ways.  How can one answer these questions without sounding like a selfish and self-centered, ideologue jerk?  One risks losing the argument even if one eloquently and flawlessly explains the irrelevance of “need” in the constitutional concept of rights.  This is because the target audience will be moved more by the question than by the answer.  The target is the guy who is not ostentatious, either because he is truly modest in his needs and wants or because he is envious of those who can afford to buy things they want when he can’t.  There are a lot of these people in every crowd.  Their immediate answer to such questions is that they don’t need weapons—and others, by extension, don’t need them either. 

“Do you really need such a weapon or clip (Gun purists would say magazine, but this question is never directed toward them)?” evokes a range of interpretations and feelings among many people in the United States.  Have you ever used or understood the meaning of such expressions as, “Now, you don’t need to do such a thing!” or “You don’t be needin’ to talk that way!”  or, the more direct “You don’t need that!  Get away from there!”  Our society’s use of the word need, as a verb or a noun, ranges from survival requirements all the way to rampant illicit desires.  Proponents of gun control gently pose the question and let each listener interpret it in the way he feels most comfortable.  It is a powerful method of persuasion by deflection.  Scary method to get people to support something that is not in their best constitutional interests, heh?   Oops!  I guess I shouldn’t need to talk that way!

24 January 2013 –

I was going to take the day off from writing on my blog.  I am tired.  It was hot and muggy today—not usual for the dry season here on the equator in the Congo—and I walked all around a military training facility assessing how much effort it is going to take to bring it up to snuff so that we can train soldiers here again.  I drank three quarts of water when I finished my two hours in the sun.  I really wanted to shower and fall into bed.  But, then I realized that I did have something to say about Secretary Panetta’s leaked announcement that many more combat roles, including serving in small, front-line combat units, will be open to women in the near future. 

1)      If the decision had been made based on careful study of how women in combat roles would increase the military’s capability to face challenges in the modern battlespace, I would be less saddened by it.  But, that is not the case.  Women serving in combat units is the result of a push in the last generation to knock down what the desiccated witches of the left considered a male bastion of chauvinism and opportunity.  I do not deny that there may be unique military advantages to having women serve in combat.  But, the risk to our society of unstudied and unintended consequences is obviously not of concern to those who have pushed the hardest for this to happen.  This decision is probably the wrong thing to do, and we are doing it definitely for the wrong reason.  Social engineering, it seems, reigns supreme.    

2)      The few modern, historical examples of women soldiers in combat do not support DoD’s decision.  The most prominent example is Israel.  From its inception in 1947 through the 1967 war, Israel had women in combat units in its Defense Forces (IDF).  After the ‘67 war, a study of the effects of women in combat on combat effectiveness showed that it detracted from combat effectiveness to a point where it was considered essential that the IDF pull them from combat arms roles.  The evidence showed that even the young men and women who were raised in the kibbutzim of the Zionists’ secular and sexually liberated society, not unlike feminists’ goal for our society, could not work together effectively enough in the stress of combat to ensure victory.  Israel made the decision to pull women out of direct combat roles because it was dangerous to continue its current practice.  Why did Israel make such a decision?  Because, Israel must use its military to survive in a very rough neighborhood.    Survival trumps social engineering.  Our decision makers haven’t had such a life-or-death situation in a shooting war since the Civil War.  They have, however, consistently bled our military over the decades in pursuit of poorly conceived foreign policy objectives, adding women’s names to the casualty roles in increasing numbers.  Leaders from both sides of the aisle have followed the Progressive crusade to remake the world according to their vision of what is right and “safe for democracy.”   If women in combat doesn’t work in a survival setting, why should it work when troops are fighting for far less obvious things?  It won’t, and the results will be dead soldiers. 

3)      Women in combat roles now will make it far easier to draft young women in the future. Our Progressive leaders will eventually decide that we must, for social engineering reasons, for reasons of “fairness” in an impending crisis, or to take advantage of a doubling of the eligible pool of draftees, conscript into the military young women in equal numbers as young men.  Our society says it values families and the unique, cohesive tasks that women have in maintaining them and in raising children.  But, women in conscripted combat roles will give us even less force to maintain that embattled position.  Another nail in the coffin of the traditional family.  The left is winning a battle in its war on our society with this decision.      

I traveled today on a UN airplane from Kinshasa to Kisangani, Democratic Republic of the Congo.  To be more precise, I left the hotel this morning at 0500, after spending late into the evening trying to get my laundry back from the hotel so I could use it on this week-long trip.  I was to retire at 2000 to get eight full hours of sleep.  I finally got to bed at 2330.  Four and one-half hours of sleep.  It took forty-five minutes to drive to the airport, another two and one-half hours processing and waiting for the flight.  Ninety minutes in the air, and then I had to wait for my rental car and driver to arrive for another two hours.  Then a forty-five minute drive into town before getting into my hotel room twelve hours after I started the day.  Traveling in a dysfunctional, failed state is exhausting, even when it is traveling in the finest accommodations available.  Kinda like taking public transportation in a large city in order to get to work.  Gotta start early and pay a lot. 

Former Senator Chuck Hagel, wounded and bemedalled VietNam combat veteran, former critic of Israel, and liberal Republican while on the Hill, will be confirmed as the new Secretary of Defense when the Senate meets to do so.  Why?  The Republicans know that a nasty fight to keep him out of the office would be too expensive a fight to enter into in terms of public opinion.  There are too many other issues that are much bigger right now.  The Republican Party hasn’t enough backing in the public arena to fight a losing battle here and also fight bigger budget and debt battle simultaneously.  I personally would fight the battle; but, I enjoy the fight for the fight’s sake. Fortunately, Secretary Hagel will probably do an acceptable job as SECDEF.  An initial comparison—a hope, rather—would be if he were to perform similarly to another liberal Republican senator chosen as SECDEF by a partisan, liberal president in 1997:  William Cohen, (R-ME).  I would not expect any more of a reach across the aisle than this anyway from the ideologue President Obama.  Let’s take it and go. 

The House of Representatives has predictably kicked the debt limit crisis can down the road just one more time.  It probably was an acceptable thing to do, given the contrived confluence of tax increases, sequestration, and the debt limit expiration at this time.  President Obama predictably has endorsed the move.  Any decision on such serious issues as this one that the president can avoid until tomorrow, he will avoid it.  The Senate predictably twiddles and sucks its thumb, happy that it doesn’t have to make a real decision either.  If I could change one thing in our government, it would be to repeal the 17^th Amendment and force senators to be accountable to state legislatures.  They thereby would act as the voice of the states, as the Founders designed them to do.  Right now, they are simply super representatives who don’t have to pass budgets and who don’t have to represent the people except for a few months every six years instead of every two.  But, I wander.  Back to the debt limit:  another contrived, media circus is gearing up for May when the debt ceiling will again be addressed.  Meanwhile, money flows unabated. 

Secretary Clinton testified today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  She took full responsibility for the Benghazi debacle.  Her words were straight forward and blunt, a disingenuous swipe at the softballs offer up by her former colleagues in the upper house.   The sad joke is that nobody will take her up on the unspoken challenge to hold her accountable for her abysmal performance.  The Benghazi debacle is over because the election is over.  The bad guys in the debacle got reelected, partly by taking the sting out of the Benghazi incident by delaying the analytic processes until after the election.  Any smack-down now of a departing SECSTATE won’t get any sympathy from the biased press and will not carry a warning to future fiddlers-while-Rome-burned in high public office.  In fact, it probably won’t hurt Ms. Clinton’s chances for winning the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for president in 2016 or for winning the election.  Two thousand sixteen is too far from now for an electorate that increasingly is made up of generations who think that all issues older than last year are so, you know, like, so last year.  Perhaps, when Secretary Clinton testifies later today in front of the House Foreign Relations Committee, someone will insist on hitting her hard.  Unfortunately, that may just give her a sympathy vote from people who will look at her only as a woman and not as an irresponsible stateswoman. 

I heard that Beyonce lip-synched the Star Spangled Banner at the inauguration festivities on Monday.  How many metaphors and puns can I tease from this slip-of-the-tongue?  The president and his friends still don’t understand what is appropriate respect at appropriate times for this great nation and its institutions.  After all, it took the president until he was running for president to learn how to stand at attention with his hand over his heart when the national anthem was being sung and Old Glory was being presented.  He deserved what he got from his friend.  The rest of us didn’t; but he did.

22 January 2013 –

Below is President Obama Inaugural Speech 2013 Full Text Transcript.  I have read the speech several times.  It is progressive liberalism to its very core.  I wished for better. 

The President hies back to the credibility of the founders’ documents, but, he then fails to be consistent with their intent.  The President stresses collective approaches to issues, and he then mentions only federal government approaches to the issues.  His version of the people focuses only on the federal government’s picking of winners and losers in the economy—in the name of ensuring competition and fair play.  His version of taking care of the people means federal government programs that do not reward risk, hard work, and individual initiative.  They instead waste incredible amounts of hard-earned taxes, and they have proven to perpetuate lower-economic class stagnation.  His version of the people means the federal government knows best how the individual citizen should live his life to ensure his basic “right” to “security and dignity”.  Nowhere did our President mention the states, the local governments, the churches and other private organizations, and most important, the family with mothers and fathers who raise their children together.  These are the organizations that create the societal cohesion necessary to keep this nation strong and free.  For a progressive, such a no-federal-government-approach is frustrating because it doesn’t give him anything by which to garner power.  Sadly, when he listed specific issues important enough for a world-wide speech, he chose issues that ranged from contentious, to wrong, to complex but doable, to unachievable; and, by mentioning the horror of Newtown, he rendered his speech unseemly.  His framing of these issues definitely makes bipartisan solutions—all the people—difficult. 

In true progressive style, he warns us that we are following worn-out programs that are inadequate to the needs of our time.  This is the classic progressive attitude toward anything that has gone on before, of decisions made by anybody in the past.  Unfortunately, this also includes rejecting a literal reading of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. 

Finally, President Obama says that perpetual war is not the answer.  He was right.  President Bush blew it by using the military to nation-build in places where it simply would not work.  But, then the President assumes that his brilliance on the international scene will create friendships and trust that will, in effect, build stable nations.  A classic progressive thought process.  It seems that he wants his personality of trust and friendship as the basis for international actions.  History has shown that this is a foolish way to protect a nation’s interests.  The world will always be a dangerous place, even for brilliant people like President Obama.  The world is full of people who are just as power-hungry as he is. 

Full text of the inaugural speech as released by the White House...

Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.

For more than two hundred years, we have.

Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.

Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce; schools and colleges to train our workers.

Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.

Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and enterprise; our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, are constants in our character.

But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.

This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience. A decade of war is now ending. An economic recovery has begun. America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together.

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.

We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time. We must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, and reach higher. But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American. That is what this moment requires. That is what will give real meaning to our creed.

We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn. We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war. Our brave men and women in uniform, tempered by the flames of battle, are unmatched in skill and courage. Our citizens, seared by the memory of those we have lost, know too well the price that is paid for liberty. The knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who would do us harm. But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war, who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends, and we must carry those lessons into this time as well.

We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law. We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully – not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear. America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe; and we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation. We will support democracy from Asia to Africa; from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice – not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.

That is our generation’s task – to make these words, these rights, these values – of Life, and Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – real for every American. Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life; it does not mean we will all define liberty in exactly the same way, or follow the same precise path to happiness. Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time – but it does require us to act in our time.

For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and forty years, and four hundred years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.

My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction – and we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service. But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty, or an immigrant realizes her dream. My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride.

They are the words of citizens, and they represent our greatest hope.

You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course.

You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time – not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.

Let each of us now embrace, with solemn duty and awesome joy, what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history, and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.

Thank you, God Bless you, and may He forever bless these United States of America.

21 January 2013 - 

There are interesting events in the ongoing budget and debt limit crisis.  First, President Obama’s latest framing of the debt crisis irritates me.  Military.com reported on a forty-minute White House press conference last week, in which the President said, “I’m willing to find compromise and common ground (with Congress) on how to reduce the deficit…but, there’s no room to debate about paying bills Congress has already racked up.”  Whoa!  What does this mean, “bills Congress has already racked up”?   President Obama is range-gate stealing on one topic to keep from being shot at on a related one.  If you don’t know what that term means, you either haven’t been around combat aircraft or you haven’t lived in our house.  He cleverly framed his overall assessment of the crisis a way that leaves his prior, contributing actions conveniently out of the picture. 

The contention that Congress alone is responsible for the crushing debt would be laughable if it weren’t so self-serving and obfuscating.  When the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress earlier in his first term, President Obama enthusiastically spent money like the proverbial drunken sailor—whom he threatens now not to pay.  But, I get ahead of myself.  He championed almost a trillion dollars in emergency bail-out spending, pushed for and received large increases in federal employee numbers, praised his fellow profligates in Congress when they expanded—and he happily signed—unemployment and welfare benefits, prolonged the expensive war in Afghanistan to make it his war, pushed through a liberty-squashing, fiscal albatross called Obamacare, and proposed such idiotic budgets every year that he fell in league with the Senate to enable four years of money-bleeding continuing resolutions, which nefariously substitute for constitutionally mandated budgets.  Only now that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is trying to use its role as the constitutional originators of spending legislation in order to put some semblance of accountability back into the budget process does the President try to lay this mess at the feet of Congress.  Nice try.  It probably will work with those who benefit personally from government largesse with tax-payer money.  After all, they don’t really care what happens to the nation, as long as they get their Obamamoney!  To me, it is dishonest to perpetuate such conditions.      

Speaking of who gets what from the government and why, it is not surprising that Military.com highlighted the issue of who among those who receive money every month from the government will be affected if the debt ceiling is not raised in March. 

“Though the Department of Veterans Affairs and Pentagon were not discussed in any detail during the roughly 40-minute White House press conference, veterans and troops – along with Social Security recipients – topped the list of those Obama said will be adversely affected by a government shutdown….’If congressional Republicans refuse to pay American bills on time, Social Security benefits and veteran’s checks will be delayed,’ he said. ‘We might not be able to pay our troops…’”  “

Someone should tell the President that such scare tactics are beneath the dignity of the office.  What is more foolish is that the President cavalierly and ignorantly exploited the deadly serious issue of nonpayment of soldiers to threaten opponents in the political arena.  He should be far more careful with such topics.  I doubt many of his political advisors have any idea what the threat of not paying soldiers, if continued for any length of time, can do to the cultural stability of a nation. 

How important is paying soldiers on time and paying them everything you contracted to pay them while on active duty and later in retirement?  Let me explain what I have seen and experienced during my travels throughout the world. 

I am in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) right now.  You can find the country by looking at Africa and going right to the center of the continent under the hump.  There is the place that only one-in-a-thousand American high-school graduates can find on a map. I am under contract with the Department of State as a Government Technical Monitor.  I oversee and report on five DEPSTATE-funded military training contracts in one of the most dysfunctional countries on earth.  Why is the U.S. spending good money on such a project?  Because a functioning, professional, and loyal military force is one of the vital pillars of strength and stability of a country.  It doesn’t matter how large the force is, it matters how professional its culture is and how loyal the soldiers are to their country, its constitutional processes, and its people.  If they are such soldiers, their loyalty extends to the point where they will accept the unlimited liability of the profession and be ready to die for their political masters’ goals and objectives.  Without such a military, a country is ripe for collapse into squabbling and self-serving regions, tribes, ethnic groups, and political-economic criminal gangs.  A military where mothers of all stripes are proud to send their sons to serve the greater good keeps a country together.  That’s the ultimate goal of our training; it is a lofty one.     

Les Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC), those we are trying to professionalize, consist of 120,000 to 140,000 soldiers.  Nobody knows for sure how many soldiers there are.  Why?  For the fifty years since independence from Belgium nobody has trained, paid, fed, garrisoned or inoculated soldiers regularly enough to amass reliable records.  As well, and this is important to the reason for my rants, the military in the DRC consistently has been used as a political, propaganda, and economic pawn by national and local “leaders” in their attempts to seize  and maintain political and economic power.  Under such abuse, the FARDC, officers and individual soldiers, have largely abandoned a culture of allegiance, loyalty, and personal sacrifice to any noble cause they may have once embraced.  I know first-hand that they now are mostly just a bunch of hungry guys with guns.  It is a proven recipe for tragedy. 

Any military, no matter how great the country from which it springs, can quickly arrive at such a state if its soldiers aren’t paid, fed, housed, and kept healthy.  Even killing the soldiers at a regular rate on an ill-conceived and foolhardy battlefield does not have the same effect on soldiers’ morale as their country not honoring its contract with them.  Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach.  I would say today that a soldier commits only as completely as his or her country commits in return.   There are many reasons why a soldier enlists.  There is only one reason he or she commits to serve for any length of time: his country’s proven commitment in return.  Soldiers are soldiers are soldiers, no matter what uniform they wear or what language they speak.  Abuse them and it is your loss. 

Jason K. Stearns refers to this strongly in his superb book on the Congo, “Dancing In the Glory of Monsters, The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa.”  He quotes a Congolese lieutenant colonel, “The real challenge in the Congo…is not how to reform the army, but how to reform the men in the army!  There is a serious problem with Homo congoliensis.”  What the rest of the book strongly confirms is that the problem is not congenital; it is learned and could be resolved if the soldiers were fed, paid, housed, and kept healthy.  Otherwise, today, the training we provide from the outside will have little effect on the abysmal state of affairs here.  The wavering commitment of the government to the military is 95% of the military’s problem.    

We should never use soldier’s pay as a political negotiation chip, or as a threat to the society, in order to win political games.  I believe, and my experience throughout the world in the last three-plus decades has borne out, that nothing is as sacred an obligation for a nation as honoring its contractual commitment to those who are and have honorably committed to the defense of that nation.  It is a sacred contract, unlike any government entitlement, benefit, or promise made to anybody else.  To possibly undermine the assurance of this sacred contract with such remarks, Mr., President, is to play the same game that the monsters of the Congo play so very well.   Shame on you.   

19 January 2103 - I am back

19 January 2013 –

I am back.  I think I shall be back for some time to come.  

Here are two quotes from two articles pulled from Foxnews.com:

“House Republicans say they will allow a vote next week on a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, a move that could avert a stand-off with President Obama -- at least for now.” 

“More than eight in ten American voters (83 percent) think government spending is out of control, according to a Fox News poll released Friday.  That’s up from 78 percent who said so in 2010 and 62 percent in 2009.  Some 11 percent think spending is being managed carefully. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/18/fox-news-poll-83-percent-think-government-spending-is-out-control/#ixzz2IPfyWEAC”

Next week’s vote to increase the debt ceiling temporarily is probably necessary to avert the U.S.’s immediate default on its debts.  That is important to every person in America, whether he votes or not, whether she is in personal debt or not, or whether he follows the news or not.  If the U.S. can’t keep up with its debt repayment schedule and cannot be trusted by lenders with new debt, then we are busted.  Most important strategically:  Others, not necessarily our friends, will make our decisions for us.  

Greece, the cradle of western democracy, is not sovereign anymore.  Now, others, in Germany, Brussels, and elsewhere, make decisions for Greece, no matter how many protestors there are in the streets of Athens who think they have a voice.  How long America remains sovereign is up to those who decide how much we spend and where we spend it.  This is the single most important strategic decision the U.S. has to come to grips with.  It is more important than anything else: illegal immigration and borders; the results of the flow of petrol dollars to those who support terrorism; anything else.  

Every financial planner I have ever talked to has agreed on one thing:  When they analyze someone’s troubled personal or business finances, the first thing they look at is where to cut spending.  Increasing revenues never solves the systemic problems that cause debt and financial insolvency.  It is almost never a revenue issue.  It is almost always a spending issue.  The planners first determine the fundamental purpose of the company:  what the company does.  They then cut spending on everything that does not directly contribute to that purpose.  Then, the company can survive.  Then, the company can eventually thrive because it takes in more than it spends. 

We must use that model to tame the U.S.’s insolvency crisis.  What is the U.S.?  What are the fundamental missions of the U.S. federal government, specifically declared in the Constitution?  What are the other, universally-accepted programs or missions assumed since our founding that should be continued? After this list is written, cut off everything else and reduce our obligations to a level that can be covered with existing revenues.  Simple to do on the back of an envelope.  Extremely difficult to do in the political arena by pandering politicians. 

How important is it to resolve this fiscal crisis?  Well, I grew up poor and not in control of my future.  I know what it is like to have others dictate what and who I am.  I am convinced that now is the critical time for the wise judge Deborah to rally our nation’s fiscal forces.  She must lead us to cut down the modern-day Jabins and their Siseras and thereby stop them from overrunning our nation with their profligate ways.  She can still save our system of government and economy if we act now.  Or, should we wait until our weak, effeminate leaders desperately cry to Cincinnatus to rise up and save us from the Aequians, Sabines, and Volscians to whom we are in staggering debt?  And when the crisis is over, can we trust Cincinnatus to give up his dictatorial, executive powers and go back to his farm?  Yeah, right.  We have a choice.  Are we strong enough to make it correctly?

Are we so far removed from the events of our founding that we no longer care to follow the brilliant wisdom of our founders: limited federal government; fiscal responsibility; local solutions to local issues.  Cut spending now.  Forget about President Obama.  He has never built, lived by or understood budgetary processes anyway.  The key is the United States Senate:  It must pass a budget for the first time in five years and live by the consequences of its restrictions.  Until now, it has forced the country to live with no budget; the results have been a fiscal disaster.  A budget constrains and limits and appoints accountability.  No wonder the ill-disciplined Senate refuses to pass one. 

Enjoy your weekend.