Thank you, my friends, for asking where I have been. I hate to say it, but I have become somewhat of a political recluse for the reasons above. In case after case, I am disgusted by our leaders. They fail to act when action is required, fail to explain themselves, and fail to fight. They fight the wrong fights for bad reasons. Our nation is in decline and I despair for whatever it will be that will right our ship of state.
The disgust comes in the total lack of problem solving. It seems that political debate in this nation is now a matter of identifying a problem and saying "something must be done". No real programs other than building commissions or spending money on peripherals, but lots of flummery. If it is proposed by a liberal, all of the liberals go on the offense to defend it and accuse any attackers of being mean spirited and not caring about the issue. Unfortunately, the same happens if the proposal is from a conservative. Lets not talk about the problem, lets talk about the political process.
The dismay comes in when our leaders have a decent position but won't fight for it. Bush has been a total waste with the Iraq funding bill as his first veto that I can remember. Darn it, fight! Defend Wolfowitz, Rummy, Cheney, and the others. Prosecute that thieving b*st*rd who stole the 9/11 documents from the archives. The Democrats act partisan without shame, but the Republican leadership apparently wants to be loved and so shows the spine of a jellyfish.
The despair comes in the fact that neither party has any solutions to the problems that really face us and both parties (for their own reasons) refuse to do the hard lifting needed.
Lets look at the REAL problems we face and what both sides want to do:
Illegal Immigration - Well, the Republican leadership wants to pretend to defend the border while creating defacto legalization. The Democrats don't want to pretend.
Iraq - The Republican leadership wants to stay the course without offending "moderates" and without telling America that this is a war for decades, not years. The Democrats want to run away and hide under the sheets, hoping that the Jihadis won't follow them home. They also want to make sure not to offend these fanatics by saying nasty things about them, again to secure the home front.
Energy - The Republican leadership wants to do nothing. We have bigger fish to fry. Lets make a big show and pretend. The Democrats agree, but they want to spend more money to make a bigger show and pay their people back.
Social policy - The Republican leadership is afraid to offend the media by picking on their darlings. As such, they make speeches but no policy. The Democrats move steadily at dismantling our national character and replacing our society with a European style Secular Progressive one.
Iraq is so misunderstood by the people of this nation. The media refuses to portray what is going on. It is a culture war. In a culture war, the aggressors do not back off until they win or until they get a massive bloody nose. Islam fought the West for hundreds of years until they lost in Spain and Poland and then were conquered throughout the middle east by the European powers. They are now resurgent and there is no power willing to face them in another hundred years of fighting. And what is the result when one side of the conflict fights and the other does not? Darn it! This is history folks! How long did the Indians fight the British? How long did the fight against Stalinist Communism last (it has not ended yet btw). How long did Christianity fight paganism? How long did Rome fight to expand? We are talking multiple hundreds of years!! A few blogs back, I wrote War - A History, A Warning, and A Prayer. Read it and consider if we have the will to fight? My only hope is that when President Hillary is in power, and they hit us again and again that the Democrats realize that the fight will continue, will we or nil we.
Illegal immigration is another piece that we don't understand. We are often told that we are anti-immigrant or pro-immigrant or ... Many people suggest that we “make them citizens and let them pay taxes”, but surveys show that many of them do not want to be citizens. At least not of the USA. They want our money and our jobs, but do not want to change themselves. Well, so what? Who does that hurt? The Balkans in the last century and Iraq now shows what happens in a country where “Mexican-Americans”, “Irish-Americans”, “Afro-Americans”, “Republican–Americans”, or “****-Americans” are their nationality or group first and Americans second. Once you take the needs of your subculture over the needs of the overall culture, you no longer have a functioning nation. Many of my friends who came from Mexico (or other nations ) embrace the US culture and its’ values. They bring wonderful parts of their lives to the overall culture but also participate in those pieces from other lands that are shared. Unfortunately, the La Raza groups and other nationalistic groups do not want to be part of that. They want to come to these lands but ignore the overall culture and substitute the one they remember from their homeland. Ultimately, they want to recreate their homeland and force the USA out of “their” lands. Other groups, simply are coming for the money to send home. Once again, they have no real interest in the culture of the USA. They will not learn the language, the customs, or the foods. They simply create their own little Mexicos across the nation. This is a recipe for the destruction of this nation and the creation of hundreds ethnic enclaves, each hating and fearing the other. And it is false to suggest that this could not happen. It did happen in the Balkans with ethnic cleansing, in Lebanon, and is still happening in Iraq. And the Balkans and Lebanon were advanced and stable cultures (at one time).
Energy - Yes, I know that this is a Democratic plank, but it is real. We cannot just forget that everything is limited. But we cannot simply go ahead and go to alternative fuels. They just don't have the energy density to do things that we do at the costs that apply today. Energy is the life blood of any economy. We must get solutions before they crash down on us as critical problems.
Social Policy underlies all of this. The United States was a unique experiment where the little guy was as important as the big guy. This was underpinned by the belief that we are all equal before G*d and instructed by his commandments. It was not "if it feels good" but rather "if it is right". It was not "what my leaders tell me", but "what I understand for myself." Europe with all of it's wars is the home of the elite and their "better knowledge" and is the body that is taking us to a land that is underpinned by nothing.
I want to push on with the discussions. I find it so hard to do. I hear no hope from our leaders and despair that our nation will soon fall into the dust of the ages. Unfortunately, if it does, it will be replaced by the fundamentalist Islam and the Imperial China, left alone to play out their time on the stage.