Political Angst In America

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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Friday, June 24, 2011

While everyone was following the developments in the sordid Anthony Weiner story, Obama signed Executive Order 13575, establishing the White House Rural Council. This EO appears to be the start of implementation of UN Agenda 21.Naturally, the MSM saw no need to report on this action, which threatens the liberty of rural Americans. Agenda 21 started at the Rio conference in 1992 which is also where the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC) was started. The goal of Agenda 21 and the IPCC is to establish a world socialist government. Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan to be enacted on international, national, and local levels for sustainable development. Basically it calls for central planning in a socialist government. You can find a lot of articles on the internet discussing all aspects of Agenda 21. Liberals like it and conservatives and Libertarians don’t, as would be the case with any plan that proposes central planning with the consequent loss of individual liberty.

President Obama has decided to rule through Executive Order, bypassing Congress, and, when necessary, ignoring the Courts. His White House Council includes virtually everyone in his cabinet and his Czars. Why Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Department of Defense, etc. are concerned with rural development is hard to understand. EO 13575 says that 16% of the people in the country live in rural areas. Those people will lose some of their liberty under this EO, particularly their property rights. The EO implies that the government will undertake central planning for “sustainable development of rural areas, including crops, energy development, conservation, outdoor recreation and access to healthcare. Based on what people in the Administration have said about “sustainable development, they plan to tell land owners what they can do with their land. I expect that they will move to stop drilling for oil and gas, for example. They also talk about zoning land to prevent farmers from subdividing for suburban development, which the Obama Administration doesn’t like. The MSM won’t report this story because they like the idea of central planning, and don’t want to stir up opposition. Again you can read about EO 13575 on the internet, and will find that Liberals love it and conservatives and libertarians loath it.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

The White House says that President Obama's position on gay marriage is "evolving." Years ago back in the 90's he was a supporter of gay marriage. When he ran for President he was for "civil unions" but not for gay marriage. I interpret the "evolving" position as meaning he is waiting for his pollsters to tell him which position gives him the most votes in the next election.

Watching Democrat spinners on TV today it was interesting to see that they are all on message. I'm always impressed by the way the Democrats instantaneously get their message out to all of their spinners and media sycophants. This time the message is that Republicans have no new ideas, just those old Reagan and Bush ideas that "got us into this mess we are in." I don't know about the new idea thing because the Democrats ideas are all communist and socialist policies that have been tried and failed in the past in other countries. As far as what "got us into the mess we are in" it is clear that making mortgage loans to people who couldn't afford them was the root cause, and that was a Democrat plan. Furthermore, the "mess we are in" seems to be made worse by economic failure in Europe, and it is hard to see how George Bush had anything at all to do with that.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

There is a lot of discussion today about students lack of knowledge about American History. Most of them do not even know who fought in the American Revolution. Educators blame the situation of the No Child Left Behind Law which requires achievement tests in math and reading, so those subjects are emphasized. It seems to me that the knowledge of history could be improved by simply assigning history books in reading class. Surely they read something in reading class. I hope the students are not stuck reading about Dick and Jane.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

President Obama says he would like the country to produce more Engineers. That is a good idea. There is a strong correlation between the percentage of engineers in a countries workforce and the economic success of that country. At present the US ranks second on the list of countries with the highest proportion of engineers behind Israel. But the US is falling fast. Economic freedom is also an important factor, and in that category the US is falling fast now that Obama is President. In my opinion the problem is producing more engineers in America is related to the failure of the public education system. Most students graduating from high school are not equipped to handle engineering school. They need remedial instruction, particularly in math. Most don't want to spend the time taking remedial courses. I think the relatively low prestige of engineers compared to other professions is also a factor, particularly for qualified minorities choosing other careers.

The FBI has no rules that give them more latitude in investigating citizens when they have no reasonable suspicion of illegal activity. More guess would be that they already did that, and they are just formalizing the practice. I haven't seem much about this in the liberal media. Can you imagine the hue and cry from liberals if this had been done while "the evil Bush" was President.

Friday, June 10, 2011

The Obama Administration has been working on a plan to share missile defense technology with the Russians. Sarah Palin has this to say about what she terms this WTF policy. (Obama thinks WTF stands for "Win the Future.")

President Obama wants to give Russia our missile defense secrets because he believes that we can buy their friendship and cooperation with this taxpayer-funded gift. But giving military secrets and technologies to a rival or competitor like Russia is just plain dumb. You can't buy off Russia. And giving them advanced military technology will not create stability. What happens if Russia gives this technology (or sells it!) to other countries like Iran or China? After all, as Woolsey points out, Russia helped Iran with its missile and nuclear programs. Or what happens if an even more hardline leader comes to power in the Kremlin?

We are told that Sarah Palin is stupid. She seems to be a lot smarter with regard to defense policy than Obama.

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

The cost of higher education keeps going up much faster than inflation. The Departure from government of Obama's economics guru Austan Goolsby offers one explanation. After helping Obama destroy the economy of the US. Goolsby is leaving to return to his day job as an economics professor at the University of Chicago, which pays him $460,000 per year. (I used to laugh at Goolsby's stupid economic ideas that he presented on TV, like increasing taxes to foster growth. If that is what they teach at Chicago, no wonder the nation is in trouble.) And, part of the reason college is so expensive is that the schools have bevy's of famous folks on the payroll at huge salaries, but who don't actually teach courses. I don't see why students should have to pay the salaries of the pontificators. Maybe the political party they belong to should pay them instead of the poor students.

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

President Obama has stated that he doesn't like the Star Spangled Banner as the National Anthem. I guess that "bully pulpit" thing works because a college in Indiana has now banned the National Anthem from school events.

One of the many other things that Obama doesn't like about America, as he says frequently, is the idea of "American Exceptionalism." One of the unique things about America is the fact that the majority of people favor "individualism." (Other Anglo countries like Canada, Australia, and Great Britain have large pluralities that favor individualism, but most countries in the world have few people who like the idea of individualism.) Collectivists (be they socialists, Communists, fascists, Nazi's, or just progressives) obviously by their name do not like individualism. Obama is clearly a collectivist, as are most Democrats now. I suspect his dislike of individualism is at the root of his dislike of the idea of American Exceptionalism. Since most of the people who favor individualism are Anglo's and thus are white, In his autobiographies Obama repeatedly expresses his dislike for white people, so I think that us another reason for Obama's dislike of the American Exceptionalism concept.

Sunday, June 05, 2011

It appears that the US is in the process of losing the war in Afghanistan. Hillary Clinton says that the Obama Administration is trying to find some "moderate" Taliban leaders with whom we can negotiate our departure (in other words, our surrender). Apparently the Obama Administration does not realize that there is no such thing as a "moderate" Taliban, no more than there are any "moderate" Islamists. It was curious to me that during the Presidential election campaign in 2008 that Obama said the war in Iraq was bad, and that Bush had ignored the "good" war in Afghanistan. By that time the war in Iraq had been won. Bush seemed to understand that the war in Afghanistan was unwinnable because the US was unwilling to do what was necessary to win, which is to annihilate the Taliban, and it would be necessary to invade Pakistan to do that. Bush was just doing a holding action to prevent al Queda from re-establishing in Afghanistan. Obama promised to enlarge the war in Afghanistan, and even implied that he would invade Pakistan to attack the Taliban. But, as Bush knew, that is not politically possible. The Taliban realize that the US does not have the will to do what it takes to win, certainly no Democrat President has that will. Thus, the Taliban know that they can wait us out; they perceive that they are winning and have no reason to negotiate a peace agreement with us. To me, the fact that there were no peace demonstrations in the US as Obama escalated the was in Afghanistan clearly shows the hypocrisy of Democrats, and peaceniks like Cindy Sheehan and Nichael Moore.

The EPA has announced new regulations on mercury emissions by powerplants that will cost about $11 billion per year. Lisa Jackson, the EPA Administrator says the new regulations will save 17,000 lives and $140 billion per year. Her claims are fanciful and the reality is that this is just another attack by the Obama Administration on the use of fossil fuel. The reality is that people in America, including those residing near power plants, do not now suffer from effects of mercury in the atmosphere. American powerplants release about 0.5% of the mercury released into the atmosphere, so the new regulations will do nothing but increase people's electricity bills. Of course, increasing electricity bills was one of Obama's campaign promises.