THIS is why Conservatives fear BIG GOVERNMENT

THIS is WHY Conservatives Fear BIG GOVERNMENT
By J. D. Longstreet

 

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Recently it was reported that the Pentagon plans by 2011 to station 20,000 active-duty troops within the United States to respond to large-scale catastrophes or terrorist attacks. These troops would be specially trained to handle chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attacks. Reports say this force has been in planning stages for several years. Read more on this at:
www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/Beware_of_using_the_military_for_law_enforcement_121408.html )“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

Now comes this: “New rules published in the Federal Register would allow certain civilians to call American soldiers into action inside the U.S. to prevent environmental damage or respond to “special events” and “other domestic activities.”

In a speech he made in July in Colorado Springs, Colorado, presumed President-Elect Obama said:

 

The alarming warning is contained in proposed rules published last week for the Department of Defense’s “Defense Support of Civil Authorities” plan.

 

But the new rules go far beyond that, essentially establishing a plan to activate the U.S. military inside the country to deal with social issues under provisions that appear to be devoid of any connection to the Constitution…”

 

Read the entire story at:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=83477

Worried yet?

What about the Posse Comitatus Act, you ask? Well, if these foks get their way Posse Comitatus is dead, and, frankly, so is our constitution!

Some of you may be wondering what the dickens the Posse Comitatus Act is. Ok, let’s take a look, shall we: “The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act substantially limit the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on June 16, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction. The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (the Army, Air Force, and State National Guard forces when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain”Law and Order” on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) in the former Confederate States.

The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Coast Guard is exempt from the Act.” (From Wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act )

In an article in the Washington Post dated December 1st and titled: “Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security” it is pointed out: “There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military’s role in domestic law enforcement.” You can read the entire article at:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217_2.html?hpid=topnews

Ok, so we have 20,000 US combat troops to be to do, uh, what… exactly, in the US… plus, Obama’s civilian national security force of, how many? Who knows! Now, I don’t know about you, but this is beginning to be worrisome. Are we about to become an armed camp? It certainly seems so.

I know it is not popular these days to speak of it, but the fact is… I am a product of the only part of the US to be invaded, conquered, and occupied by armed forces of the US. My section of the US underwent ten years of the worst form of occupation by armed troops. Even today stories handed down within families, from generation to generation, and a number of books have been written about the atrocities committed by those troops while here in the former Confederate States of America. If you care to read an excellent account of some of those war crimes, I recommend a book by Walter Brian Cisco titled: “ War Crimes Against Southern Civilians.” Some of the crimes he writes about in the book took place in my hometown.

It seems to me that what we have is a Federal Government out of control. That means the constitution is being trampled, shredded, and maybe, as some claim, it is already dead!

For decades we have warned that a federal government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have… including your freedom. And now it is happening.

I repeat my question asked above: Are you worried yet?

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

A Rip in the Fabric of the GOP Tent!

A Rip in the Fabric of the GOP Tent!

 

We Republicans have a growing divide in our party…the divide between Liberal Republicans and Conservative Republicans.  I don’t include Moderate Republicans because, frankly, I don’t believe there is such a thing.  Moderates, I believe, are simply Liberals afraid to take a stand.

 

Here’s the problem:  Liberals want to compromise.  They LOVE to compromise.  Conservatives do not want to compromise at all.  In fact we view compromise as losing. We conservatives had rather lose than compromise, period.

 

This trait has caused the Liberal Republicans to hate our guts and, believe me when I tell you, there is no love lost for Liberal Republicans in the Conservative Camp.

 

So, basically, what we have is… a big tent with two political parties underneath it.

 

This is not good for anyone… except the Democrats.

 

So, I propose the split of the Republican Party.  The Liberals may keep the name “Republican” if they choose and the new name for the Conservative Republican party would be: “The Conservative Party”.

 

I have said often, before, that I believe a Conservative Political party would draw conservatives from the Democrat party who feel they have no place to go now. I still believe that.

 

It is a fact that the electorate in America leans conservative… all the time.  So… why not have a Conservative Party, as such?  Makes all sorts of sense to me. 

 

I do not believe we would be a three party system long.  I am fairly certain the liberal Republicans would fold straight away, or join with the Liberal democrats, as they should, anyway.

 

Taking uncompromising stands is the hallmark of a conservative.  That’s what we do. It’s how we got to be conservatives in the first place.

 

The Libs in the GOP really want us to be gone… they think.  The problem, for them, you see, is… we win elections for the party.  The liberal GOP, left to it’s own devices, cannot swing a single election.  Soon there would be no liberal Republicans in the House or the Senate.  I can’t help but feel that would be a good thing for the Party and the country.

 

Conservatives know what they believe and they can articulate it well.  They aren’t good at nuance, or shading their beliefs, in any way.   You ask Conservatives a question and you will get a direct answer. No flip-flopping.  Unlike Liberals who are with you at the beginning of a war but flee at the sound of the first gunshots, Conservatives stay for the entire war… period!

 

We can be defeated… but not easily.   As things are today, the GOP is continually on the edge of defeat.  A Conservative Party would stay away from the edge.

 

I fully expect to see another party develop in the next few months. It will be a conservative party. 

 

The bottom line is this:  Conservatives are fed up with being used to win elections and immediately afterwards being dumped.  We don’t like it.  We feel if we had our own party, we could do even more than the GOP allows us to do today.  We feel we could eventually capture the seats held by Liberal Republicans in the Congress and in the White House. 

 

So, give us the party.  Give us a party named “The Conservative Party” and we will flock to the banner. I’m ready!  How about you?

 

J. D. Longstreet

The US Constitution. The Deliberate Stumbling Block.

By: J. D. Longstreet

You know, every now and then, every American ought to read the US Constitution from beginning to end.  I’d wager that if we did, we would not be living in such a screwed-up country as we have today.

 

One of the things I have learned, over my better than 6 and a half decades on this earth, is that the fellows who wrote the Constitution were quite likely the smartest, most intelligent, men on the entire planet at that time… and… without a doubt… would rank at the top of the intelligentsia today!

 

Funny thing is that back in the 18^th century, folks had a tendency to say what they meant and mean what they say.  They had never heard of political correctness, so… they called “a spade a spade”.   When they applied pen to paper, to write their thoughts, they didn’t hem and haw about… they wrote down those words, which illustrated, exactly, their thoughts and their intentions.

 

Now, here’s the thing:  When a person, of even average intelligence today, takes it upon himself, or herself, to read the US Constitution… as those Founding Fathers wrote it… they understand it!  It’s as clear as a bell.

 

Now the question:  Why, then, do we find it so inconvenient today?  Yes, the US Constitution is inconvenient.  To the power brokers in the US, the Constitution is a roadblock.  It is continually getting in the way.  And that is where the US Supreme Court comes in.

 

When an American turns to the Constitution, to learn the duties of the Supreme Court, often he, or she, is surprised at the limits on the Court.  More surprising, still, is the mantel of powers the Court has assumed which the Constitution does not grant the Court!

 

The national powerbrokers learned, long ago that a Supreme Court molded in their likeness, could extend THEIR powers simply by INTERPRETING the Constitution in a manner which would benefit them. To arrive at that beneficial arrangement, the powerbrokers had to see that they determined the make-up of the court… that only those nominees to the Court who favored their biases could be allowed on the court.  That set off a continuing battle between the two sides of the American Political Spectrum, which is near a fever pitch today. 

 

A fairly intelligent high school student can interpret the Constitution.  It is that clearly written.  Yet, today we require a court of nine persons made up of scholars of the law… even though the Constitution does not require one to be a lawyer to serve on the Supreme Court!  Did you know that?

 

Let me give you an example of how simple the Constitution is to interpret:  Article One, section 8 of the Constitution declares that the District of Columbia shall be no larger than ten square miles.  Got that?  Ok, then why, today, is the District of Columbia 98.25 square miles?  Huh?  Oh, you see the constitution was inconvenient when it came to that ten square mile law.

 

The point in all this rambling is… you really ought to acquaint yourself with the US Constitution. When you do, you are going to marvel at how far from the Constitution the US has strayed.

 

May we suggest that you set out to familiarize yourself with the Constitution while you can?  Already, our government is in talks with Mexico and Canada to merge the three countries into a single entity patterned after the European Union.  Once that happens, there is a better than even chance the US Constitution will become subject to whatever passes as a constitution for the North American Union.

 

 By:J. D. Longstreet

Rid The Sea Lanes Of Piracy.

Rid The Sea Lanes Of Piracy.

 

I reside just minutes from the Atlantic Ocean and the coast of North Carolina and those barrier Islands along our coast which made for wonderful hiding places for the pirates of yesteryear.  The Coast of North Carolina is drenched in folklore about pirates.  The infamous Blackbeard was captured here and decapitated. The sports teams of at least one noted university here are named “The Pirates.”  So, we Tar Heels have a colorful history of interaction with pirates as does our sister state to the south. .

 

That was then.  This is now.

 

Again the high seas are infested with pirates.  Their aim is the same… to rob and steal. But now, they have added ransom. 

 

Recently we heard of an Ocean Liner being attacked, but managing to speed away.  A few days later, in the same waters, a freighter was attacked.  It, too, managed to get away.  As I write, at least one of the largest vessels afloat, an oil tanker, is being held for ransom by a handful of modern day blackhearts in full view of the world, and the world’s navies, including warships of the US Navy.

 

Our own Caribbean is littered with modern day pirates.  Yachts disappear to show up at some other location, with a different registration, and different name. Sometimes passengers disappear, too.

 

On at least two different occasions in our history, under two Presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt, the US Navy, and Marines, had to rid the coast of Africa of pirates.  The Barbary Coast Pirates.

 

I bring up these particular pirates because they were based along the African coast, mainly the North African coast.  The pirates we seem to be having the most trouble with today are also on the African coast, but the east African coast…the coast of Somalia to be more exact.  So far this year, alone, those pirates have attacked over 90 ships.  They have managed to hijack 39 freighters, tankers, and fishing vessels. At least 14 of them are currently anchored, under heavy guard, off pirate villages along the coast of Somalia.  Estimates run as high as 30 million dollars paid in ransom money. 

 

Turns out it is not as easy today as it used to be to take on the pirates.  All sorts of national and international laws tie the hands of governments and makes them less than eager to take on a couple of dozen men with small arms and two or three rubber boats. But there is an outfit, based here in North Carolina, eager to do what the governments of the world sea powers are reluctant to do.  I speak, of course, of Blackwater Worldwide.

 

Equipped with their own warship, the McArthur, Blackwater is looking to provide a new service to the merchant navies of the world.  Blackwater offers to escort paying customer’s ships through the pirate infested waters, safely.  Their plan is simple:  Issue verbal warnings to approaching vessels which appear to have piracy in mind, followed by a few shots in the air, and if that fails… then the sharpshooters aboard a couple of helicopters, flown from the deck of the McArthur, will do their job by taking out as many barefooted pirates as it takes to discourage the attack.

 

Already Blackwater is receiving inquiries from dozens of shipping companies and shipping insurance companies concerning Backwater’s services in escorting their ships through the world’s most dangerous waters. 

 

There is an excellent article on all of this at:

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,592433,00.html 

 

The country of Somalia still has no functioning government and it is a breeding ground for this type of activity.

 

Teddy Roosevelt, the last President of the United States to deal with Barbary Pirates, had the opportunity to use the big stick he carried and, he did just that.  He sent seven battleships from the Atlantic Fleet to the North African Coast. It worked and the pirates backed down.

 

This blight on the oceans will not go away if we turn a blind eye.  It will get worse.  Eventually they will manage to stop and board a passenger liner and death and destruction will be the result.  Or, terrorists will seize an oil tanker, sail her into the harbor of one of the world’s great cities, and blow it up with unbelievable death and devastation as the result.

 

Now is the time to hunt them down and destroy them… even if that means following them to their center of operations in the seacoast villages of the country, or countries, providing them safe haven.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Happy Thanksgiving all!

 

Longstreet, and the lovely and gracious Mrs. Longstreet, are off to be with family today and enjoy the annual Thanksgiving Feast with the Grands!

 

Please remember your blessings today and take the time to offer thanks to God, the source of all those blessings.

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We Gather Together

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens his will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing,
Sing praises to his name: He forgets not his own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, wast at our side, All glory be thine!

We all do extol thee, thou leader triumphant,
And pray that thou still our defender wilt be.
Let thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!
Amen

–Traditional Thanksgiving Hymn
(A translation by Theodore Baker: 1851-1934)

We leave you with this note from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

We’ll be back in the trenches tomorrow!

 

Happy Thanksgiving all!

 

Longstreet

 

 

 

The End Of The World, Or Not?

The End Of The World, Or Not?

By J. D. Longstreet

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Some predictions:

1. Obama’s “hold out your hand to everyone” foreign policy is going to be a catastrophe. They’ll love it in Europe. They’re probably laughing their heads off about it in the Middle East already.

2. The US hasn’t suffered a terrorist attack by al Qaeda since 9/11, but we’ll get at least one during Obama’s term.

3. We’re going to lose in Afghanistan.

4. Iran will get nuclear weapons. There will be nuclear war between Iran and Israel. (This is the only irreversibly terrible thing I see upcoming, and it’s very bad indeed.)

These are not my predictions. They are from an article by Steven Den Beste titled: “Not the End of the World.”  You’ll find the full article at:

http://chizumatic.mee.nu/not_the_end_of_the_world

A friend of mine emailed Mr. Beste’s article to me and, after reading it, I thought I would pass it on to my readers.

There are, indeed, some critical times ahead for the US.  There is no doubt about it. Mr. Beste has given us things to ponder over the next few months as we wait out the end of Mr. Obama’s term in office.

During that time, however, conservatives are going to have to decide the route they intend to take to remain a force in American politics.  It is more than a little obvious that remaining in the GOP and expecting to be a movement to “be reckoned with” is now out of the question.  We have, for all intents and purposes, been told to “sit down and shut up,” or, get out. Many of us have chosen to become Independent Conservatives until such time as a viable Conservative Party can be organized to promote our ideology.  That may be a long time coming.  I am not detecting movement in that direction and the lack of motivation toward that end troubles me greatly.

There comes a time in any effort when you reach the point of diminishing returns. It appears, at least to me, that conservative efforts within the GOP have reached that point. For evidence one only has to consider the manner in which the GOP campaigned during both the election cycles of 2006 and 2008.  Both those campaigns underscored the GOP’s snubbing of the conservative wing of the party.

It is time to stop crying in our beer and get off our collective behinds and get to work building a conservative party.  The sooner… the better.

J. D. Longstreet

 

November 22, 1963 … by Alan Caruba

November 22, 1963

By Alan Caruba

I doubt that most Americans will recall that, forty-five years ago, on November 22, 1963, the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

Clearly, part of the reason is that a lot of Americans have been born since then, but the other part of the reason is that, according to a newly released study, most Americans simply have not been successfully taught American history or civics since the 1960s. They have no real knowledge, facts, dates, events, to call upon.

That is no accident. There has been a deliberate effort to “dumb down” Americans to a point where they literally do not know how their government came to be and what its guiding principles, embodied in the U.S. Constitution, permits, proscribes, and limits.

Assassination is the ultimate act of treason. It renders the entire electoral process null and void despite the rule of succession that elevates the vice president to the position of chief executive. Only once in our history, the accession of Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency, has an assassination produced a President of truly great stature.

I recall hearing the news of JFK’s assassination. I was working in Miami at the time, a callow youth of 26, well educated, but lacking any real insight to the event. Two other things happened that day. Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the new President and I quit my job and returned home. Shortly after, I became a journalist.

What would follow in fairly short order would be the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy while campaigning in Los Angeles against a first full term for Johnson and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At that point, the nation was engulfed in the turmoil of the Civil Rights movement and, with the election of Johnson, would find itself mired in the Vietnam War. The streets of Washington, D.C. would fill, time and again, with Americans protesting that war.

Johnson would decide not to run for a second term. The nation would elect Richard M. Nixon twice, only to see him disgrace the office with the Watergate scandal and become the first President to resign.

In a very real way, all of these events began on November 22, 1963.

I was struck by the adulation, the exuberance of the huge crowds that turned out during President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign. It reminded me a great deal of the same response the then-youngest President, John F. Kennedy, engendered. Rumors would circulate after his election that the Chicago machine, led by then-Mayor Richard J. Daley, had stuffed the ballot boxes to ensure his victory.

The reason it is essential to know something of the history of the nation is the ability to draw lessons from it. As popular as JFK was, he quickly blundered into the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, having won office in 1960. This was redeemed only by the standoff with the Soviets that forced them to withdraw their missiles from Cuba in 1962. A year later, JFK was dead; the victim of what some have said was an extraordinary feat of marksmanship attributed to Lee Harvey Oswald, a leftist malcontent.

The election of Barack Obama has been hailed as historic and, as the first Afro-American President, it surely qualifies, but history has a relentless repetition to it.

I am not suggesting the President Obama will fall to an assassin’s bullet, but I am suggesting that whoever holds the office of President will determine whether America continues to lead the world economically, militarily, culturally, and—yes—physically. If 9/11 was just a taste of what the Islamofascists have in mind for us, we are surely as threatened today as ever in history. Taking a longer view, we need to be mindful of the military buildup in China.

That is why it is essential to pay attention to Obama’s expressed views on homeland security and defense issues. President Ronald Reagan said that there was no evidence in all of human history that a nation was attacked because it was too strong. Even the ancient Romans knew that truth. “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” If you want peace, plan for war.

That’s why, as we commemorate the loss of John F. Kennedy to an assassin’s bullet, we need also to ask why an Arizona Governor, Janet Napolitano, is being considered for Director of Homeland Security. If she could not or would not defend the border of her State with Mexico against illegal aliens and drug smugglers, why should we expect her to do this and more for the entire nation?

President-elect Obama is already on record saying, “I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear systems.” It can be argued that nuclear weapons have deterred a fourth world war and conflicts between nations that possess them.

Leaving America defenseless or at least greatly weakened in a dangerous world is a suicidal policy.

It is said that Obama sees himself as some kind of national and international “transformative” figure. History will write the final chapter on that.

 

Alan Caruba writes a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. Every week, he posts a column on the website of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com.

 

Religious Conservatives Should Leave The GOP!

Religious Conservatives Should Leave the GOP!

By J. D. Longstreet

If I have said it once, I have said it a dozen times!  The Republican Party no longer wants conservatives, especially RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVES!  As if one needed proof, here comes an article by Kathleen Parker to end the discussion. The article is titled: “ Heresy and Other Truths.”  In her article, Ms. Parker says:

 

 “As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.

 

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

 

I’m bathing in holy water as I type.

 

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh.

 

You can read the entire article at:

 

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_11024437

 

This underscores the on-going battle within the Republican Party these days.  Religious conservatives are flat-out at odds with the moderates and liberals in the party and they (The moderates and liberals) want us (The conservatives, including the religious conservatives) gone.  In fact, they seem to want GOD gone from the party.

 

I am indebted to Ms. Parker for “backing up” what I have been saying for many years now.  Conservatives need to get out of the GOP and found their own political party and be done with it. When I refer to CONSERVATIVES, I, of course, mean the religious conservatives because there are very few, if any, non-religious conservatives.  You must understand that, in my opinion, the term “religious conservatives” means ALL conservatives.

 

There has been worry in recent years that the union of social and religious conservatives and the Republican Party is beginning to fray.  I beg to differ.  As far as I am concerned, it isn’t fraying. It is threadbare!  It’s OVER!  It’s long since time for conservatives, social, AND religious, to move on.

 

Look, as a social, and religious, and fiscal, and political, and every other kind of conservative, I can tell you, with no hesitation, conservatives need their own party.  We are not wanted any longer, if we ever were, in the GOP.  It is getting embarrassing for me as a staunch conservative to maintain my allegiance to a party that so obviously wishes I would LEAVE! 

 

Turning the tables on the GOP would taste very good at this point.  They know they have a snowball’s chance of winning another election without conservative support.  If we leave the party they will be forced to come to us and beg for our support in any future elections.  That’s fine by me!

 

Yes, founding a third party is going to be tough.  Yes, we may never have a Conservative Party candidate on a national ticket.  But, conservatives would be able to swing elections and you had better believe our support would be sought. That alone would give us more input into future elections than we have now.  Much more.

 

I am a conservative first and a republican second.  I am a republican because there was no conservative party, as such, to turn to. Given a choice, I would have joined the Conservative Party and never been a Republican in the first place. There are hosts of southern voters who feel the same way. I suspect there is another host of voters across the other regions of the country that feel the same way.

 

In two years we have another extremely important election coming up. If conservatives want to see any gains for conservatism in the Congress we had better get ourselves organized and ready. We cannot do that by staying in the Republican Party.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

 

 

 

America’s Group Hug About To End

BY J. D. Longstreet

As I watch, read, and listen to the MsM report the news of Obama’s selection of those people he wants to serve in his administration, it occurred to me that the change he had promised was simply a change… back to the Clinton Administration. 

 

Remember how it is when you begin watching a TV show that is a rerun, but you are not aware of it in the opening moments?  As the characters begin to flash onto the screen and the plot becomes more and more familiar it slowly dawns on you that you have seen this show before.  As I watch Obama gather his merry band together, that is exactly the feeling I get.  I have seen this show before.  Eight years ago.  So… it IS “Change BACK”!

 

Well, what about HOPE?  Remember… Bill Clinton was “The Man From HOPE!”

 

Look, the dems are nothing if they are not persistent.  They don’t seem to have had a NEW idea in decades.  They are still running elections with the same promises and pledges and even the same phraseology in their speeches that FDR used in his. So it should not be surprising that the Obama Administration looks so very much like the Clinton Administration because, for all intents and purposes, it IS the same.  All Democratic Party Presidential Administrations are the same. 

 

As soon as Americans stop slapping themselves on the back and congratulating themselves for making history, and overcoming “White Guilt”, and ending racism, and all that baloney, it will dawn on them that they have been had… again.

 

Soon, it will become clear that Americans, well, SOME Americans, are expecting entirely too much of Obama. Too much was promised and too little will be delivered.

 

Lowering expectations is the order of the day on the democratic side of the aisle.  Very serious democrats, in and out of the Mainstream Media, and in and out of the Democratic Party apparatus, are telling us to not expect so much from Obama.  Of course, that is exactly the opposite of what they were telling us just a few weeks ago.  Way back then they were promising miracles, hinting that Obama could heal the sick, make the lame to walk, the blind to see, the mute to speak, and there was a better than 50/50 chance that Obama could walk all the way across the Potomac… on his bare feet!  And yet, today, we are told that we should lower our expectations. This is all a bit much.  But this is what you get when the candidate is a blank slate upon which the voters can write their own expectations, their own desires, and, yes, their own fantasies. 

 

That American group hug, we mentioned at the beginning of this article, is slowly breaking apart as Americans begin to look up and cast their eyes in the direction of Obama’s selectees for his cabinet.  There’s some anxiety about its reflection of the Clinton Administration.  Then, too, the confirmation that among Obama’s foreign policy plans is one to lean on Israel to retreat back to it’s borders as they were before they were attacked by their Arab neighbors in 1967 and had to fight for their very existence.  In the war that ensued, Israel recaptured the old city of Jerusalem thereby reuniting it.  Now, apparently, the US is going to insist Israel turn it back over to the people who call themselves Palestinians. This has caused a stir in Israel and there is now some strain between Jews in Israel and those Jews in America who supported the Obama campaign.  They are NOT a happy bunch, at the moment. Neither are the Evangelical Christians in America and around the world.  But, then, Evangelical Christians did not support Obama and won’t.

 

And there is more, much, more to come. 

 

Too much is being expected of Obama by the Germans, the Iraqis, the Afghanis, the Georgians, most of eastern Europe, and all of Africa.  Here at home, in America, too much is being expected of Obama by the African-Americans, the White Americans, the Spanish-Americans, the Gay Americans, the unborn Americans, the poor Americans, the sick Americans, the old Americans, the young Americans, even those busy breaking into America across our wide open southern border in hopes of change with Obama.

 

Disappointment comes first.  Then comes dissatisfaction. Then comes disaster. After all, Obama is but a man. How he handles these three “D” words will define him for history.

 

Unlike George Bush, or any Republican President, Obama will have the added luxury of a Mainstream Media to justify his mistakes, his shortcomings, his disgraces, etc, to the nation and the world. After all, he is THEIR man and they will not allow him to fail. 

 

Clear thinking Americans, both republican and democrats, know whom America elected and they are worried.  They have reason to worry. America is as vulnerable as it was before World War Two… and every bit as naive.  In a country like America, vulnerability and naiveté can bring on disaster.  Anything can happen. Like a blind man negotiating a minefield, America must tread softly, and carefully, over the next few years.  Inexperienced leadership was not what the country needed, but that is what we have. Americans are now trusting in blind luck to get us through.

 

Me?  I pray a lot.

 

J. D. Longstreet 

 

 

Turning Boom into Bust … by Alan Caruba

Turning Boom into Bust

By Alan Caruba

 

Energy is called “the master resource” because every other aspect of life operates off of it. Nations that are rich in energy resources such as oil, natural gas, and coal, grow wealthy.

 

There is also something called “the curse of oil” because, if the price per barrel drops, the fate of some nations goes with it. This is the case, for example, of the former Soviet Russia whose government collapsed when it could no longer secure hard currency when oil and gas prices fell. Venezuela is an economic basket case these days, having nationalized oil and most of its financial and business sectors.

 

The history of nationalized oil and gas-rich nations is that they tend not to invest in their energy industries. They do not engage in sufficient exploration. They do not expand their capacity to extract their natural resources or to refine it. We have seen otherwise oil-rich nations like Mexico encounter financial tremors as in the 1990s when the Clinton administration had to loan Mexico billions to keep it functioning.

 

America has adopted anti-energy policies because of incessant environmental propaganda about “dirty” coal, out of the fear of nuclear power, and the refusal to permit exploration of 85% of the continental shelf and, of course, Alaska’s ANWR area, a tiny fraction of that State’s landmass.

 

If Congress imposes a windfall profits tax on the American oil industry, it will quite simply wreck the economy. As my friend, Seldon B. Graham, Jr., a longtime oil industry attorney as well as a petroleum engineer, points out, “”President Jimmy Carter started the ethanol subsidy on November 9, 1978 and signed the oil windfall profits tax on April 2, 1980.”

 

In effect, Carter put in motion an anti-oil policy that has existed for over three decades. Why is that a bad thing? The ethanol policy has severely disrupted the price of food worldwide as corn is diverted into fuel. The justification for this is “energy independence” from the purchase of foreign oil, but U.S.-produced oil has always been cheaper than imported oil.

 

If, however, the government creates conditions under which it is simply too risky, too expensive or prohibited to explore for more oil reserves, obviously oil production declines. There has been a 59% decline in U.S. oil production since 1980, the year the windfall profits tax was imposed. It was later repealed, but U.S. oil companies have a responsibility to their investors to act prudently and that has driven them to explore for oil outside of the U.S. or, to put it another way, to find foreign oil.

 

When you add in the idiotic ethanol mandates, you compound the problem. Graham points out that, “After thirty years, U.S. ethanol production was only able to produce less than 3% of our oil demand last year.” Moreover, “ethanol cost taxpayers $3.3 billion in subsidies in 2007.” Environmental claims that ethanol is cleaner than oil are false. Not only do you get less energy and poor mileage when ethanol is blended with gasoline, it actually emits more carbon dioxide per mile. “It is absolutely impossible for ethanol to replace foreign oil,” says Graham.

 

The justification for a windfall profits tax on oil companies ignores, for example, that ExxonMobil, just one of the few remaining oil companies operating in the U.S., pays more than $100 billion in taxes on the average. 

 

Less than 11% of ExxonMobil’s profits come from marketing and refining in the United States and the company recently announced it was spinning off its retail outlets.  Yes, it made great profits in recent years, but it also had enormous, risk-filled expenses.

 

Imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies will give them cause to consider moving their corporate headquarters to other more congenial nations. The city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has been engaged in a vast office building effort, perhaps anticipating the movement of corporate headquarters.

 

Americans greeted the expiration of the ban on offshore exploration and drilling with the expectation that American oil would begin to flow and thus lower their costs for this vital national asset. That will not happen if the President or a Democrat controlled Congress reinstates the ban and/or imposes a windfall profits tax.

 

The city of Houston has been enjoying a boom due to the increase in the cost of a barrel of oil. Even at $80 dollars a barrel, it is enough to have created “its strongest resurgence in more than 20 years” according to a 2007 New York Times article about Houston. “Some energy companies are expanding and putting up new buildings.” Others, like Schlumberger among the hundreds of service providers to the energy industry have established their headquarters in Houston.

 

Houston is home to the headquarters of ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and foreign owned companies like Citgo, BP and Royal Dutch Shell also maintain corporate offices there.

About half of Houston’s jobs, an estimated 1.1 million positions, are tied to the energy industry. The impact of a windfall profits tax would prove devastating to Houston.

 

Destroying the oil industry in America, a process that has been in place since the Carter administration, has left the nation vulnerable to foreign sources. The U.S. already imports some 70% of its oil. There has been a significant decline in the exploration and development of national reserves.

 

Unleashing the energy industries in America could dramatically improve our present financial troubles. Congress, having turned boom into bust, has a historical opportunity to reverse that trend.

 

Editor’s Note: “Why Your Gasoline Prices Are High” by Seldon B. Graham ($10.95) is available from Amazon.com.

 

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

 

© Alan Caruba, November 2008