Why Isn't Our Only Debt a Debt of Gratitude?

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.

The above excerpt comes from President Washington's farewell speech\. This speech has come to mind multiple times during Washington DC's latest act of political theater.  Those words may have been spoken 217 years ago, but they are just as relevant today as they were then. In the meantime, our nation has gone deeper and deeper in debt. The last time we did not have debt as a nation was during President Jackson's tenure (in 1835). Our debt has waxed and waned over the years, but nonetheless, it continues to climb.

Why haven't our leaders taken to heart President Washington's words? They have not cherished the public credit. They have abused it--both parties. Both parties have decried raising the debt ceiling when their party is not in the White House while raising the debt ceiling seemingly without question when their party is in power. Washington believed that preserving the public credit means that debt should be incurred in rare circumstances. He also believed that the only times its should be utilized in during "unavoidable wars" as to not burden future generations.

However, just weeks ago our government was poised to get involved in a battle between two evils in Syria--clearly an avoidable war that would require billions in spending. Rhetorical battles continue to be waged in Congress over Obamacare--legislation that is poised to add billions to our national debt.   Other rhetorical battles are being fought over a resolution to fund a bloated, yet currently supposedly shutdown government and to raise the debt ceiling yet again.

In the midst of all these threats of avoidable and political rhetorical battles, there has been a neglect of those who have fought in true battles to preserve the strength and security of which President Washington spoke. During the shutdown of our bloated government, memorials honoring the fallen have been barricaded, benefits to families of the fallen have been threatened, and bodies of the fallen have not been shown proper respect. Some of these things have been rectified--either by politicians trying to save face or by the veterans themselves.

Earlier today during the worship service I participated in with my church family, a man--a veteran-- got up to give a brief message before we partook of communion. He spoke of the sacrifice of both Jesus and American soldiers-- one man who died to save our souls and the many men and women who died to protect our freedom. He noted a quote that one of his co-workers  has as an e-mail signature that reads something like this "there are only two entities who have given their lives for you expecting nothing in return". This, of course, alludes to both Christ and American soldiers.

We owe Christ a debt of gratitude that of course we can never repay. We owe American soldiers a debt of gratitude that we can poorly attempt to repay. Our political leaders must heed President Washington's word about cherishing the public credit. We should not continue accruing debt for bloated government, temporary programs that become permanent, and an ever list of increasing agencies, departments, and bureaus. Our only debt should be to those who have given of themselves to protect the freedom we have in this nation. A freedom that diminishes every time we add to a monetary debt rather than a humble debt of gratitude.

Crossposted here and here. 

On National Security, Be Not Hawks or Doves; Be Eagles

It seems that often in politics--at least with our media--political views are too often dichotomized rather than seen on a continuum or through the lens of circumstances. The recent discussion of likely intervention in Syria has been a fascinating  display of this common practice of categorizing political views into tidy categories for intellectually incurious journalists and commentators. These individuals try to pigeon hole people as either isolationists or neo-conservatives, doves or hawks, etc. These are false choices. Those who want America to be secure and strong without being the world's policeman are neither isolationists "doves" or neo-conservative "hawks".  Such individuals could be better defined as by our very own national bird--the eagle. An eagle is neither a docile dove, nor a hawk, or even a vulture, which seems to characterize some who think that America must be involved in every civil war or skirmish throughout the world. An eagle is a strong, noble bird, who is both territorial and protective of its interests.

Eagles are known for being territorial when nesting, aiming to keep other eagles out of their area.  They only leave their nest to build another nest if they feel threatened. The male and (mostly) the female eagles take turns sitting on the eggs to protect them from squirrels and other animals. Furthermore, because of their great size, "eagles often ignore the mobbing behavior of smaller birds". 

American foreign policy should be seen in the same way. Eagles protect their own territory and their own interests only. They protect themselves and their interests--their future generations--by staying at home to protect.  They are not like hawks or vultures swooping down preying on any opportunity to "intervene" to pad their own political pocketbooks. They are not doves who won't intervene even when they are truly being threatened. When they are being threatened, they act in overwhelmingly, quickly, and with great strength. Look no further than the philosophy of Ronald Reagan during his presidency and the five point approach suggested by Governor Sarah Palin just a few years ago.

Last week in a post at the American Spectator, former Reagan adviser Jeffrey Lord re-iterated Reagan's rules for military intervention:

Which prompted Reagan to eventually write out a set of four principles. Four principles, he would write in his memoirs, that were specifically designed “to guide America in the application of military force abroad, and I would recommend it to future presidents.” 

Here they are: 

Reagan Rule 1: The United States should not commit its forces to military actions overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest. 

Reagan Rule 2: If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives. 

Reagan Rule 3: Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the actions we take will have the support of the American people and Congress. (We felt that the Vietnam War had turned into such a tragedy because military action had been undertaken without sufficient assurances that the American people were behind it.) 

Reagan Rule 4: Even after all these other tests are met, our troops should be committed to combat only as a last resort, when no other choice is available.

Similarly, Governor Palin offered her own approach to military intervention in a speech roughly two and a half years ago:

First, we should only commit our forces when clear and vital American interests are at stake. Period. 

Second, if we have to fight, we fight to win. To do that, we use overwhelming force. We only send our troops into war with the objective to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible. We do not stretch out our military with open-ended and ill-defined missions. Nation building is a nice idea in theory, but it is not the main purpose of our armed forces. We use our military to win wars. 

Third, we must have clearly defined goals and objectives before sending troops into harm’s way. If you can’t explain the mission to the American people clearly and concisely, then our sons and daughters should not be sent into battle. Period. 

Fourth, American soldiers must never be put under foreign command. We will fight side by side with our allies, but American soldiers must remain under the care and the command of American officers. 

Fifth, sending in our armed forces should be the last resort. We don’t go looking for dragons to slay. However, we will encourage the forces of freedom around the world who are sincerely fighting for the empowerment of the individual. When it makes sense, when it’s appropriate, we will provide them with material support to help them win their own freedom.

Like the eagle, America is strong and should seek to protect its own interests. This does not include potentially siding with the very evil that killed thousands of Americans twelve years ago on American soil this week or those who trained the jihadists who killed four Americans in Benghazi last year this week. This does not excuse the evils perpetrated by Assad, but there is no need to choose sides in a civil war between two evils.

Crossposted here and here.

5 Videos to "Promote" Obamacare

The Obama administration is touting a youth  video contest to promote Obamacare.  I'm not considered a youth anymore, but I'm on the "old" end of the Milennial generation. I figure that means I can make a submission or two to "promote" Obamacare. Close enough, right? Heck, if Karl Rove can do it, so can I. The only problem is--I cannot decide which part of Obamacare to "promote".  I have five ideas:

1. The more people find out about Obamacare, the more they dislike it. It's almost as if the Obama administration is trying to make fetch happen:

 

 2. Despite the Obama administration's claims, insurance premiums are going up in many states--including higher premiums for young people. It's kind of like an expensive financial trampoline for your budget!:


 3. Those fun death panels that youth will eventually have to face (if Medicare is not bankrupt by then). It is kind of like the your very own board of Count Rugens and his "machine":

 

 4. Hey,with the Obamacare navigators, you are at risk for identity theft, which of course, is all kinds of fun:

 

 5. Finally, you might, just might get to keep your doctor:



  Crossposted here and here.

President Obama Unveils New Apple iPAB at Press Conference

In a Friday afternoon press conference, President Obama unveiled the new Apple iPAB--a device with the ability to ration healthcare for Medicare patients.

"Older Americans are using technology more and more frequently", the President said, " this new new device will allow for healthcare to be more efficient by allowing patients to know whether or not they will be able to receive treatment before they even leave the house".

Some major components of his healthcare plan have or potential will be delayed, including business mandates and some information technology based aspects of the law. However, other parts of the law he has chosen to implement more quickly. The new Apple iPAB was introduced through a new executive order from the President.

With this executive order, rather than appointing member to the Independent Payment Advisory Board to be confirmed by the Senate, the President has ordered that this board be replaced by Siri.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated in a press release that seniors will simply have to ask Siri, "will Medicare cover my blood pressure medication?". Using already collected personal data from the NSA and IRS, Siri will be able to quickly determine whether or not a patient will be rationed whatever particular medication or procedure they have queried. This is will save patients the hassle of having to go the doctor, which, subsequently will help reduce carbon emissions from travel.

Vice President Joe Biden has been tasked with Beta testing the new iPAB and has run into some minor issues after he shot the iPAB with a shotgun after he consistently mistyped his passcode. " God love, Siri. You know what they say, 'an apple a day--an iPAB-- keeps the doctor away'. Barack and I want to make sure that's true".

Former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin has denounced the iPAB as a digital death panel that continues to give too much power to the federal government and rations care.

Note: This is simply satire. Please read it as such.

 Crossposted here and here.

Real Warnings and Revelations on Obama's "Phony" Scandal

On Thursday, CNN reported that nearly three dozen CIA agents were on the ground during the attacks at the Benghazi consulate on September 11, 2012. Additionally, the Obama administration is subjecting many of these individuals to very frequent polygraph tests (and changing Benghazi survivors' names). These revelations beg two questions. One--why is the Obama administration subjecting agents to what Jake Tapper's source is calling an "unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency's Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out" if this is simply a phony scandal? Of course, that is a rhetorical question. Second--why were so many CIA agents in Benghazi at the time?

On Thursday night, Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf indicated that the CIA was moving guns in Benghazi, per Breitbart News:

 “We’re getting calls from people who are close to people who were [in Benghazi at the time] that they were moving guns. So where are the guns?” asked Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), a sub-committee chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Wolf also wonders what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi on that night. Stevens and three others were killed over the course of the attacks. 

“Are they in a warehouse somewhere? Some people say they moved on to Turkey and then from Turkey to Syria," Wolf told Breitbart News on Thursday. "Did they fall into the hands of some of the Jihadis?" 

"Nobody knows, so I think there are so many questions from the failure to respond to where the guns went,” he stated. 

Wolf is currently attempting to create a Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi attack by launching a discharge petition from committee. He needs 218 signatures to take the issue to a vote on the floor.

In January, Senator Rand Paul asked then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton if guns were being run to Turkey from Libya, which she did not answer, but deferred to the CIA (see the 2:17 mark):

 

 About that same time, the CIA denied that guns were being run from Libya through Turkey to Syria.

To look at this more completely, we must take a step back. It was an absolute failure of security to not have more protection at a consulate in an Islamist country on a date with such significance as September 11th, especially with the threats and violence that had already occurred in Libya in the previous months. Remember too that in August 2011, Gaddafi was overthrown. A dictator was defeated, and a country in a volatile region of the world was even more unstable. When that happened, Governor Palin warned (emphasis added):

Finally, we must make sure that terrorist groups don’t try to co-opt the revolution, as Al Qaeda is trying to do in Syria. We should continue to use our intelligence assets to monitor the situation in Libya to ensure that potentially dangerous weapons are secured, and that terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda don’t gain a foothold in Libya.

What ultimately has happened? Essentially the very thing Governor Palin warned against. While Governor Palin was likely referring to securing Gaddafi's stockpiles of weapons, arms still ultimately transferred to dangerous hands.  Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks on Benghazi consulate, and weapons were being run (and continue to be transferred through other countries), likely to Syria, to arm Al Qaeda linked rebels.

The President has often touted that bin Laden is dead and that al Qaeda is decimated.  He has cheered the death of Gaddafi. While these three things help rid the world of evil, only two of them are true. Al Qaeda seems to still be very much active. On Friday, the State Department issued worldwide travel warnings for the entire month of August because of al Qaeda threats. US Embassies are closed this Sunday (President Obama's birthday) throughout the world including places like Iraq and Egypt.If a terror network was truly decimated, there would be no need to take caution over their threats.

It is phony reasoning to suggest that the death of two evil men means the death of an entire network of evil. It is phony leadership to not heed real warnings of the potential for evil and to intimidate those who were survivors of such evil by subjecting them to polygraph tests in an attempt to silence them. The only ones who should be subjected to such tests are those who claim the death of four brave Americans is solely a "phony scandal".

 Crossposted here and here.

Phony Scandals Are the Product of the Triumvirate of Hypocrisy

On Friday, Governor Palin hammered President Obama for characterizing his lapses of leadership, his administration's corruption, and his neglect of the Constitution  as merely "phony scandals":

 

 On her "redneck whiteboard", Governor Palin noted several real scandals of the Obama White House: 1) IRS targeting of Tea Party groups 2) Benghazi 3) Accessing Fox News journalist, James Rosen's email 4) NSA spying 5) Holder's perjury 6) Fast and Furious 7) Obamacare lies...and the list continues. Governor Palin is the perfect person to distinguish between real and phone scandals. When she took the reins as Governor, she did so on the heels of a massive vote buying scandal that indicted members of the Alaska legislature and Governor Murkowski's staff. Prior to that, she had called out the real scandal of the head of the Alaska GOP, Randy Ruedrich, doing party business on state time. She recognizes scandal because she has often had to clean it up.

 When it comes to Governor Palin herself, the media, the Left, and establishment Republicans have all tried to spin faux scandals as legitimate scandals and have tried to turn lies and half truths into scandals. During the 2008 presidential campaign, the media claimed that Palin, as mayor, tried to ban books before they were even written. Some in the media, and people like Andrew Sullivan to this day, questioned that she was the mother of her son, Trig. The Left once tried to claim that  during Palin's childhood, the Heath family, received socialized medicine in Canada (before Canada even had universal health care).  At one point in 2010, the media tried to turn the language in her speaking contracts into a giant scandal over, gasp, bottles of water and bendable straws. The media and the Left have searched her emails looking for scandal only to find that she was a hard working dedicated governor. Recently, the media, the Left and the Establishment GOP have all tried to paint her as a consultant-laden, hypocritical politico because she dared to have her PAC spend money on things like postage.   The list could go on and on of examples of phony scandals drudged up by the triumvirate of hypocrisy--of the media, the Left, and the Establishment GOP.

If the Obama administration is trying to find phony scandal, look no further than all the garbage that has been thrown at Governor Palin over the years. Real scandal lies in the fact that the American people have been the targets of intense, gratuitous IRS scrutiny, that the 4th amendment has been desecrated by the NSA, and that four brave, patriotic men died in Benghazi because of a lack of true leadership. Those are real scandals, and it is an insult to the American people to assume we are in capable of recognizing the truth about the lies of the Obama administration.

H/T to "Woot6" for the inspiration for this post.

Crossposted here and here. 

How Violations of Privacy and Broad Brush Strokes Diminish Human Dignity

Between the seemingly daily revelation of the federal (and even local) government's violations of Americans' privacy and the media and political reaction to the George Zimmerman verdict, the constant disregard for the human dignity has become tiresome.

Over the past couple months, we have learned that the federal government is collecting metadata on our phone calls (e.g. who we've called and how long we talked with them) and that local police departments are able to take photos of our licence plates, sometimes keeping such photos (and a snapshot of our location at a given time) indefinitely. Obamacare includes numerous ways in which the IRS will collect information regarding not only our income, but our health insurance, and often share this with other agencies. Immigration reform proposals have included national biometric databases, and gun control proposals have included changes to HIPAA regulations to allow doctors to disclose mental health information about patients.  Common core educational policy includes massive data tracking of American children.

The federal government collects all of this data on our lives (often "accidentally" disclosing it) often without our consent. Essentially, we become naked before the government, in an informational sense-- our private data laid bare. This diminishes human dignity...and our liberty. The government knows (or has in place the potential to know) the intricate details of our comings and goings, and this makes us less free. It also means that the government knows our uniqueness, but only in the terms of categorical or continuous variables in some massive database that would put Karl Rove to shame.

While the surveillance state and a "big brother" government seek to know the unique details of our lives, the paternalism of such ideology also seeks to paint us with broad brush strokes of generalities. When a horrific shooting occurs in Aurora, Colorado or Newtown, Connecticut or when a  FBI investigation or trial verdict violates preconceptions, the President calls for soul searching. In doing so he paints Americans with a broad brush--all Americans have the meditations in our heart to kill or to act in a racist manner.  We're a nation of cowards, according to Eric Holder. Somehow the government that seeks the unique details of our lives, also paints us as violent and racist across the board--even while they rightfully call out those who paint African Americans with broad brush strokes. This violates our dignity. We are not seen as unique individuals judged by the content of character through our words and actions. We are prejudged as needing to soul search because of the actions of others, not ourselves.

Again, the government seeks to become god. However, the true God both knows the number of hairs on our heads ( Matthew 10:30), and He does so without having to keep a massive database. He has discerned the words on our lips before we speak them (Psalm 139:4).  He knows the motivations of our hearts. The true "prism" is not a data mining surveillance government surveillance program, nor the "soul searching" prism through which the President often patronizing instructs us to view the world. The true prism by which we must see those around us is by through the prism of everyone being created in the image of God. This is the only way to ensure we are treating others with the dignity they deserve. God is the only one who truly knows such intricate details of our lives, and He is the only one who knows our motivations.

Crossposted here and here.