Memo from the OTPE

The Top 10 Stupidest Answers to the Question, “Why Are You a Vegetarian?” (by ContraSuggest)
 

     
      10.  My life-partner suggested it 

  9. Global warming, stupid!

  8. To save the environment I decided to eat it (the planet can have it back when I’m done)

  7. My composting toilet was having trouble breaking down meat

  6. Bush lied; people died!

  5. It seemed like the next logical step after I started Kabala water high colonic enemas

  4. I enjoy eating organic cheese fries, Munchos and Red Bull for breakfast.

  3. I had trouble digesting only dirt

        2. I decided to “go green” with my feces

  1. My purple Mohawk, lip, nose, eyelid, tongue piercings, and full facial tattoo of Lady Gaga's ass,  weren’t pissing off my parents enough 

Memo from the OTPE

ContraSuggest Responds to Doug Indeap:

On 5/15/2011, Doug Indeap posted a response to the OTPE interview linked here:

http://contrasuggest.blogspot.com/2011/05/interview-from-office-of-president.html

Below are Doug Indeap’s unedited comments, followed by ContraSuggest's response (scroll to bottom):


Funny stuff. Anita Mann, clever. I'll comment on one of your (serious) points.

The principle of separation of church and state is derived from the Constitution (1) establishing a secular government on the power of the people (not a deity), (2) saying nothing to connect that government to god(s) or religion, (3) saying nothing to give that government power over matters of god(s) or religion, and (4), indeed, saying nothing substantive about god(s) or religion at all except in a provision precluding any religious test for public office and the First Amendment provisions constraining the government from undertaking to establish religion or prohibit individuals from freely exercising their religions. That the phrase does not appear in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, only to those who may have once labored under the misimpression it was there and, upon learning they were mistaken, reckon they’ve discovered a smoking gun solving a Constitutional mystery. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to name one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.

James Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that even as new principles are proclaimed, old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”

It is important to distinguish between the "public sphere" and "government" and between "individual" and "government" speech about religion. The principle of separation of church and state does not purge religion from the public sphere--far from it. Indeed, the First Amendment's "free exercise" clause assures that each individual is free to exercise and express his or her religious views--publicly as well as privately. The Amendment constrains only the government not to promote or otherwise take steps toward establishment of religion. As government can only act through the individuals comprising its ranks, when those individuals are performing their official duties, they effectively are the government and thus should conduct themselves in accordance with the First Amendment's constraints on government. When acting in their individual capacities, they are free to exercise their religions as they please.

The Constitution, including particularly the First Amendment, embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion.

Wake Forest University recently published a short, objective Q&A primer on the current law of separation of church and state–as applied by the courts rather than as caricatured in the blogosphere. I commend it to you. http://tiny.cc/6nnnx

Response to Doug Indeap by ContraSuggest

Since the mock interview wasn’t designed to be a detailed exposition on constitutional church/state issues, there isn’t much detail in the fictional tit-for-tat between the characters.  Allow me to elucidate.

For a historically accurate view of this, one has to first understand the basic differences between the old European style of government and the newer American model.  In the old European model, rights and authority were viewed as coming from God, were bestowed upon the monarch, and if the subjects were allowed any rights at all, they were conferred only at the sufferance of the king.  In the American model of government, rights and authority were also viewed as coming from God, but they were bestowed directly on the people, who in turn loaned those powers to the government.  In the American model, the power and authority resides with the people.  What are the first three words of the U.S. Constitution?   I’ll give you a hint, they’re not, “We the Aristocracy,” (or “We the White Males,” or “We the Wealthy Landowners,” or “We the Free and Accepted Masons”); the first three words of the Constitution are, “We the People.”  Specifically, we the people, who derive our rights from God, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, etc.  Interwoven in the fabric of the legal document that established our laws and created our government is an indissoluble religious expression, whether or not the statists want to accept it or not.

Since Judeo-Christian theistic thought is based not only upon faith, but also upon reason, it has always been at the heart of responsive, if imperfect, government.  Whether we’re talking about the Ten Commandments, the Mosaic Law that rose from them, the posting of the Twelve Tablets that bestowed rights and privileges on citizens of the Roman Republic, Magna Carta, or the U.S. Constitution; Judeo-Christian thinking lay at the foundation.  In cases where Judeo-Christian thought was not directly related to the precepts of responsive government, the same reason that informs Judeo-Christian thinking was present.

Although the words ‘Separation of Powers’ aren’t mentioned in the text of the Constitution, it’s clear that the intent of the framers was to provide co-equal branches whose powers served as checks against the others.  To say that the Constitution calls for a ‘Separation of Powers,’ or for ‘Checks and Balances’ is no stretch, and anyone stating as much would get no argument from me.  However, stating that the Constitution calls for a “wall of separation between Church and State,” defined as the federal government erecting a barrier between religious expression and the public square, is simply false, figuratively and literally. 

It is a fact that the actual words “wall of separation between Church and State,” are nowhere to be found in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, and that is a critical point.  The words come from Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.  The letter was a response to a letter from the Association congratulating Jefferson on his recent reelection; Jefferson was addressing why he did not call for national days of fasting and thanksgiving like his predecessors had.  Now here’s the rest of the story.  Two days after penning that letter, Jefferson attended Church services in the House of Representatives, which he did on a regular basis for the remainder of his presidency.  He regularly allowed the use of public buildings for church services and the use of public funds to subsidize Catholic missionaries to proselytize various Indian tribes.  When he wrote the first plan of education adopted by the District of Columbia, he used the Bible and Isaac Watt’s hymnal as the primary texts for students’ reading instruction.  He saw none of this as a violation of his own written words about the wall of separation; so why should we?  Statists have a perverse fetish with the wall of separation quote; for the sake of balance, let’s look at a few other Jefferson quotes:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (Declaration of Independence) 

God who gave us life gave us liberty.  Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God?  Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.  Commerce between master and slave is despotism.  Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. (Notes on the State of Virginia)

I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the minds of man (the dome of the Jefferson Memorial)

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?  That they are not violated but with his wrath?

Although, along with Madison, Jefferson was the most secular of the founders, do these sound like the words and actions of a man who is in agreement with modern-day progressives in their attempts to banish religious expression from the public square?  Of course not.  It is particularly offensive to me that Jefferson’s words would be selectively quoted and taken out of context to support the eradication of religious expression from public life.  Jefferson is rolling in his grave.  So let’s stop telling people half a story in order to arrive at preconceived, half-assed conclusions.  Let’s instead endeavor to tell the whole story and let people decide for themselves.        

James Madison, near the end of his life wrote that belief in God was “essential to the moral order.”  John Adams, famously remarked, like the Roman Livy, and the Greek Aristotle before him, that a true republic was “a government of laws, not of men.”  There would be no laws, or rule of law, if it were not for the precepts of Judeo-Christian religion.  The founders knew this, and so it is inconceivable that the system of laws that they created was meant to banish religious expression from the public square; or somehow prevent partnerships between faith-based human aid organizations and the instrumentalities of the government.  In toto, their writings and actions as legislators and presidents support this view.  Only beginning in the late 1940s, after nearly 150 years of sound constitutionally-based governing and court decisions in the area of public religious expression, did an activist Supreme Court drive us off the rails by citing Jefferson’s obscure letter as proof of the existence of the “wall.”  The court declared that this misreading of the 1^st Amendment, also extended to state and local governments, something that the framers never intended.  The Constitution gave the states the freedom to deal with religion in their own way; thanks to public apathy towards our history, and the brainwashing our culture has suffered at the hands of leftist educational institutions, this fact has been lost in the mists of time.

The clauses of Amendment I to the U.S. Constitution regarding religion, read as follows: Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.  The framers were enshrining in law, a prohibition against the formation of an official government sanctioned national religion (like the Church of England), to protect individual conscience as concerns religious faith and observance.  The day after the House of Representatives voted to adopt the wording of the 1^st Amendment, Rep. Elias Boudinot, proposed a resolution that would call for a national day of thanksgiving and prayer, which was signed into law two weeks later by President Washington.  How is it that the House members who voted to adopt the 1^st Amendment, and our first president who supported it, saw no contradiction in legislating a proclamation calling for a national day of thanksgiving to God?  Perhaps caricatures in the blogosphere are more commensurate with the beliefs of the founders than the blather of little tin gods who render unconstitutional, capricious decisions from the court bench.

An Interview from the Office of The President-Elect (by ContraSuggest):

[What you’re about to read is a mock interview with a fictional morally bereft liberal from a fictional morally bereft left-wing advocacy group.  Any similarities between actual morally bereft liberals, or actual morally bereft liberal advocacy groups, are strictly coincidental]

This month’s OTPE interview is with Anita Mann, founder and president of the Dynamic Order of Ultimate Child Housing Experts Bitching About God (or DOUCHEBAG).  DOUCHEBAG is a not-for-profit group that works closely with federal, state and local governments around the country, in order to promote “child welfare”, and is also committed to eliminating public funds to faith-based welfare programs wherever they exist.  Ms. Mann is a graduate of Fumco University, where she earned her B.A. in B.S.; she also attended Hubris where she earned her PH.D., and finally, earned her BBQ in Poultry from Yucatan State.

OTPE’s ContraSuggest: Anita Mann, welcome to the OTPE Interview Series.

Anita Mann: Thank you for the opportunity ContraSuggest.

CS: Let’s start at the beginning, what first motivated you to start DOUCHBAG?

Mann: Well, it was really my early life experiences that eventually led me to form DOUCHBAG.  My parents divorced when I was only seven years old, my mother leaving my father for another woman.  She had been a closeted lesbian during the intolerant 1950s and only married my father for financial security.  My father, a Minister with the Universal Church of Jebus, was actually a woman at birth and was the first woman-to-man sex change operation recipient in the country.  My mother was aware of this when they married, thinking she could have the best of both worlds.  Things didn’t work out.  In the course of the scandalous divorce proceedings, my father was stripped of his ministerial duties and excommunicated (as we know now, the Church of Jebus later came to accept gay and transgender Americans, in fact their entire clergy is now exclusively made up of transgender and gay ministers).  It was much different in the 50s.  At any rate, I realized at a very young age that traditional marriage and organized religion were shams and responsible for much pain, for children and adults alike.  So we at DOUCHBAG are committed to providing supplemental care, especially housing, to children who are the victims of these insidious institutions.

CS: I understand how these harsh childhood experiences have caused you pain, but why do you insist upon faulting “traditional marriage” and “organized religion”?  A lack of personal responsibility and imprudent choice-making on the part of your parents must enter into the equation.  No?  

Mann: Not at all.  It wasn’t my father’s fault that he was a man trapped in the body of a woman, nor was it my mother’s fault that she was a lesbian.  They could no more control those factors than you can control the color of your eyes.  If it wasn’t for the rigidness of 1950s society, embodied in the institution of traditional marriage, none of these horrible things would have befallen me or the other members of my family.  I blame society, and children are the biggest victims.  Only with the aid of organizations like DOUCHEBAG, and the Obama administration, can the full force of government be brought to bear on these insidious forces arrayed against children.  It’s for the children. 

CF: Well, there is a strong argument to be made that homosexual proclivity is not immutable, like eye color.  Many people incorrectly believe that because an impulse is overpowering and ubiquitous in one’s mind, that it is automatically right to act upon.  Every strong impulse that we feel is not necessarily correct, or beneficial to our well-being.  Unfettered emotional reactions can often lead us astray in dangerous and unforeseeable ways.  But let’s get back to DOUCHEBAG; tell us a bit about the nuts and bolts of the organization, do you actually employ lobbyists; if so, what do you specifically lobby for?

Mann: We’re a registered 509(a) NPO (non-profit organization).  At the center of DOUCHEBAG is a half dozen policy experts, our Policy Bureau, or “Politburo” for short.  These specialists have years of experience in government lobbying and utilizing their contacts in the various state legislatures and in Washington.  Each Politburo member has a small staff and an operating budget that derives from our general fund.  Each employee draws a modest salary to compensate for the excellent work that they do, but DOUCHEBAG remains a not-for-profit organization.  The causes we lobby for include, increased greater welfare benefits, especially subsidies through Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the passage of various legislation to grant the right of gay marriage, and the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), just to name a few.  The Politburo releases bi-monthly position papers known as, Position Reviews And Various Detail Applications (PRAVDA), which are intended to keep the public informed as to our positions on the various issues. 

CS: For the benefit of our readers who aren’t aware, The Freedom of Choice Act is a bill currently pending in congress, that president Obama has said he will sign into law.  If it passes, the measure will give the force of federal law to the Roe v. Wade decision; making abortion on demand (even for minors, without parental consent) legal in all 50 states.  It will also compel all healthcare clinics that are the recipients of federal aid, including those run by religious organizations opposed to abortion, to provide the ghastly procedure.  Ms. Mann, does DOUCHEBAG really support unfettered abortion for all?

Mann: Oh yes, certainly.  One of the reasons why it is so difficult to properly care for children is because there are so many unwanted little ones out there.                

  

CS: So one of the solutions to the child welfare problem is to kill children in the womb?

Mann: You’re mischaracterizing the issue; women must have the right to exercise their constitutional right to choose.

CS: I’m a college dropout, Ms. Mann, but I have read the constitution on numerous occasions and can find no clause in it that directly or indirectly confers a right to abortion.  I have a copy of the constitution in front of me right now; can you direct me to the part where that right is stated?  Or perhaps point out any recorded statement by the framers of the constitution that spells out this right or even implies it?  I would like to print it here in order to educate my readers.

Mann: If you’re familiar with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision then you would know that women have the constitutional right to choose.  For too long women have been treated as second class citizens in this country and have always been the victim of laws created by men who will never know what it is like to cope with an unwanted pregnancy.  It’s time that we changed the law once and for all to codify this universal right.

CS: Many constitutional scholars, far more learned than I, have said that the Roe decision is bad law furthered by an activist court, which granted an imagined right to the children of the sexual revolution.  And I object to the use of the word “choice” in describing a procedure that amounts to infanticide.  I’m sure we could debate this all day long, for now let us get back to the interview.  Another thing that puzzles me is DOUCHEBAG’s opposition to faith-based self help programs.  By all accounts, faith-based programs are hugely successful in helping the drug-addicted and the downtrodden.  Why the staunch opposition?

Mann: Well, as you should know, the Constitution provides for a separation between church and state.  Any time a religious organization receives government funds, the wall between church and state has been breached.  Religion has no place in the public square.  When faith-based organizations receive government funding, there is a great danger that those funds will be used to proselytize, amounting to government mandated religion.  DOUCHEBAG is committed to stopping this sort of theocratic bent from taking hold in our country. 

CS: Once again Ms. Mann, you’re either misreading the Constitution or attributing intentions to its framers that are false.  There is no “separation between church and state” in the U.S. Constitution, nor is there any “wall between church and state.”  I defy you to quote the article, section or amendment where these things are laid out.  The Constitution deals directly with religion in only one place: The First Amendment; it reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…  That clause was designed more to protect religion from intrusive government, not the other way around.  It is flatly erroneous to say that religious expression is not, or should not be permitted in the public square; the vision of the Founders and 250 years of practice to the contrary, illustrates this. 

Mann: Well, thank God, I mean- thank god… no, I mean- thank heaven, shit!  I mean- fortunately, there have been numerous Supreme Court decisions that defined and defended the separation of church and state in this country.  It would be a return to the dark ages if women, gays, transgender and pagan Americans were ruled under a despotic theocracy run by intolerant, right-wing Christians.  Let’s not forget the Inquisitions in Spain, and the Salem Witch trials in early America.  Do we want to return to that kind of intolerance and barbarism?

CS:  Christian religion has done a lot more good than bad, and the barbarism of the Inquisition has been greatly exaggerated over the centuries, beginning during the Enlightenment.  Unfortunately, though we are out of time.  Anita Mann of DOUCHEBAG; thank you for joining us.

Mann: You’re welcome.

Editor’s Note: Most OTPE interviews are conducted via the internet, some, like this one, with SKYPE image cams.  We would like to note that at the conclusion of the interview, Ms. Mann chewed through the ropes of her straight jacket, combed her hair with a chocolate bar, and proceeded to ride away on a tiny tricycle.              

Please join us next time at the OTPE for an in-depth interview with some other genius.   

Memo 3 From the OTPE

The Obama Administration’s Anti-Terror Policies and the Death of bin Laden:  

By ContraSuggest (5/8/2011)

This week’s entry was originally supposed to be the second part of an ongoing series of posts on the subject of America’s finances and the Obama administration’s economic policies.  However, the assassination of Osama bin Laden has caused such a furor, and become such a political football, that I simply had to address it.  People seem to be extremely confused about the political implications of Osama’s exit from this world, and what it says about the Obama administration’s anti-terror and foreign policy initiatives.  So let’s get right to it.

Bin Laden was an important figurehead for both al Qaeda and the worldwide Islamic-fascist movement that has pledged to destroy Western civilization and institute global Sharia.  As the progenitor of the 9/11 attacks, which he repeatedly and proudly claimed credit for, he deserved an unceremonious execution.  It was indeed a great day for America when the announcement of his death came over the wire.  Because of bin Laden’s sensitive location in Pakistan, only President Obama could give the order to commence the operation.  He did so, and I applaud him for it. 

Unfortunately, the president’s oblivious supporters don’t seem to understand that one decisive act does not an effective presidency make.  Take for instance the example of a baseball player who’s been playing for three seasons in the major leagues.  Every time he’s stepped up to the plate he has struck out.  By all counts the guy is a lousy player, and it looks as if his contract will not be renewed, and that he’ll soon be sent back to the minors.  Suddenly, midway through his 3^rd season, at a make or break point in a pivotal game, he steps up to bat with the bases loaded.  Managing to hit a grand slam homerun, his team wins a narrow victory.  Now, should we judge this player’s overall effectiveness based upon his one homerun, or should he be judged based upon his nearly three years of lousy performance?  The answer seems obvious, but many people don’t seem to get it.  For one thing, it’s argued that the analogy doesn’t hold, in that Obama’s anti-terror and foreign policies cannot be characterized as a series of strikeouts.  In actuality, the administration’s exclusive policy initiatives have been a total and complete failure. 

It’s important to note that the hunt for bin Laden was merely a continuation of the previous administration’s policy, made possible and pursued through the infrastructure, intelligence, and resources put into place by the Bush team.  This brings us to a disturbing trend in Obama’s foreign policy that has been underreported by the mass media.  Obama has been able to have it both ways; excoriating Bush-era policies while his alternatives to those policies have failed miserably; then quietly continuing the successful Bush policies, hoping that no one notices.  This insidious trend has been hidden by the intellectually bankrupt rhetoric that has constantly spewed forth from the administration and its boorish, uninformed apologists.  Lest I’m accused of leveling criticism without evidence, I offer the following examples of the president’s serial policy reversals: 

·        He irresponsibly announced the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility with no plan for the logistics of the closing.  After signing an executive order to close it, claimed that some U.S. allies were willing to take custody of some of the detainees, which never happened.  After years of vacillation on the issue, the administration finally announced that the facility would remain open.  The phony moralizing, and misreading of U.S. law sent a confused message of weakness and fecklessness to al Qaeda and our Islamic-fascist enemies worldwide

·        He excised the terms “War on Terror” and “terrorist attacks” from the administration’s public statements, instead referring to “man-caused disasters.”  When the public reacted negatively to this euphemistic, politically correct drivel, the terms “terror” and “terrorist” mysteriously returned to the administration’s lexicon    

·        He began treating the totalitarian cutthroats that run the Islamic gulag of Iran with the same diplomatic respect we treat Great Britain, downplaying Iranian human rights abuses.  Only after much criticism in the wake of the 2010 protests did Obama declare solidarity with the Iranian resistance movement

·        He foolishly decided to remove the “911 Five” from military custody and try them in civilian court, conferring constitutional rights (for the first time in U.S. history) on legally held enemy combatants; the admitted architects of the death of nearly 3,000 American civilians.  After proffering a litany of gibberish arguments to support this idiotic decision, he then announced,  in another stunning reversal, that the Five would once again be tried by military tribunals

·        He claimed that he would withdraw our troops from Iraq within a year of taking office.  Recall Obama’s campaign rhetoric: Afghanistan- good war; Iraq- bad war.  He has since pushed the timetable for withdrawal way into the future

Where he has continued the anti-terror/foreign policies of Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama has enjoyed success.  Where he has pursued his own foolhardy policies, he has failed miserably.  Examples:

·        Went on a world tour that included a stop in Cairo, Egypt, to perfect the art of sycophancy, meekly apologizing to human rights abusers for America’s largely-imagined past sins

·        Abandoned the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, erroneously labeled as torture, that garnered intelligence that prevented numerous attacks and American deaths

·        Engaged in world-wide diplomatic efforts (that he excoriated Bush for failing to pursue)

President Obama claimed that there were to be many benefits as the result of following his nuanced policies.  Those purported benefits included the following: the rehabilitation of America’s so-called tarnished image around the world; getting more cooperation from our allies to assist with our military and economic goals; to communicate to our enemies that America is not the threat that they perceive it to be.  None of these goals has been achieved.  Since Obama has taken office we’re still at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, our allies have committed nothing additional to those efforts; the mullahs still want their nuclear bomb and continue to press their boot to the throat of the Iranian people; North Korea under Kim Jong Il remains a belligerent danger; Russia continues its hegemonic ascendance in Asia and Western Europe; al Qaeda has become a threat in Yemen; and now the U.S. is militarily involved in a Libyan civil war.  What exactly is supposed to have improved on the international scene since Obama has taken office?

Obama’s masterful diplomatic efforts included entreaties to our European allies (Angela Merkel, Nicholas Sarkozy, et al).  Here are the things he requested of them, during a much publicized European jaunt, but did not get:

·        A global economic stimulus plan

·        Additional troops for Afghanistan

·        E.U. membership for Turkey

·        Help from Turkey in our struggle against al Qaeda

·        Nuclear disarmament and assistance with stopping proliferation

Despite canceling a Bush administration promise to put an anti-missile shield in the country of Poland, in order to appease the Russians, the hoped for quid pro quo of Russian help in dealing with Iranian nuclear weapons development has not materialized.  His much vaunted diplomatic skills extracted no international cooperation on any key issue. Have domestic U.S. terrorist attacks abated as a result of Obama’s so-called enlightened rhetoric and policies of tolerance toward Muslims?  The spate of attacks since he took office would suggest not:

·        An Islamic terrorist shot up a recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas

·        Major Nidal Hassan, a Muslim army psychiatrist with connections to al Qaeda, gunned down a dozen people at Fort Hood

·        Abdulmuttalab, a Nigerian rich kid who turned al Qaeda, tried to detonate a bomb on board flight 253 over Detroit

·        Faisal Shahzad, a militant Muslim with connections to al-Qaeda on the Arabian peninsula, tried to detonate a bomb in Times Square in New York City

Although delighted that bin Laden is gone for good, I am hard-pressed to find any other bright spots in the president’s anti-terror or foreign policy efforts that were not carryovers from the Bush administration.    

Post Script: A Quick Note on Osama’s Burial:

In the aftermath of the raid that took out bin Laden, the administration announced that he had been given a burial at sea in accordance with Islamic practice.  What!?  This is the way we treat the enemies that wantonly slaughter innocent American civilians?  This is the way we treat an enemy who our magnificent SEAL teams put their asses on the line to take down?  We’re dealing with sub-humans who believe that they will receive great rewards in the afterlife for murdering people in this life.  In light of this, why in the world would we be sensitive to Muslim religious burial observances for bin Laden?  Even in killing a mass-murdering cockroach, the administration is still obsessed with “not offending Muslims.”  Yet all along we’ve been told that bin Laden distorted true Islamic teachings; if so, who are we trying to not offend?  Those who practice “true” Islam purportedly don’t support bin Laden and al Qaeda anyway, so why would they be offended?  By allowing this type of feeble, politically correct, counter-tribalism, the Obama administration is aiding and abetting the very Muslim terrorists that it claims to be fighting.  The message we’re sending them: if we kill you, your fanatic religious beliefs will be validated by the observance of a traditional Muslim burial; have fun frolicking with virgins in the afterlife!  After listening to the administration’s so-called reasoning behind this, I can see no upside to it at all.  I can only characterize it as painfully stupid.  We should have fed bin Laden to the hogs!

Memo 2 From The Office Of The President-Elect:

Rome Burns to the Tune of “Dueling Budgets”

by ContraSuggest (5/1/2011)

The Obama Administration and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) both released new budget proposals last month.  The administration’s proposal is a completely disingenuous affair, replete with fictional numbers, predicated on mythical assumptions; an ad hoc jumble of what the president thinks the public wants to hear (deficit reduction! tax the wealthy!), which amounts to the same old left-wing, demagogic nanny state horse crap that the statists have been ramming down our throats for the better part of the last 50 years.  Although Rep. Ryan’s budget is better by many degrees than the Administration’s, it still falls short of the obligatory Tea Party ideal. 

Look folks, this is simple: unless we take drastic measures now, we are looking at a great decline the likes of which has never been seen in America.  The magnitude of fiscal irresponsibility currently being exercised on the part of states, localities, and by the feds, is simply unprecedented in our history.  Now I understand that there are many out there in the field of public discourse, who are trying to convince us that our economic situation is not as dire as I’m claiming it to be.  So let’s put down the liberal crack pipe for a minute and take a hard look at the facts.   

The closest modern parallel, in terms of magnitude, to our current crisis would be the economic malaise of the 1970s.  By 1979, the American economy had all but collapsed under the weight of Keynesian demand-side management, and a feckless, weak-kneed foreign policy.  I’m old enough to remember the Stagflation (a combination of stagnant economic growth and skyrocketing inflation), and the indomitable, repeated “Oil Shocks,” that led to long lines at gas stations and the devaluation of the US dollar.  In New York State, nearly fifteen years of the tax-and-spend insanity of uber-liberal, Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller, caused a near-bankrupt state government in Albany to default on some of its bond obligations.  During the New York City fiscal crisis of the 1970s, Albany (its own coffers empty) was forced to step in to save Gotham from looming bankruptcy.            

Chillingly, what’s happening all over the country in terms of government financing today, is far worse and more widespread than the debacles of the 1970s, although caused by the same ideological poisons.  Washington is locked into a dizzying spiral of spending money that it doesn’t have, our yearly deficit hovers at a whopping $1.65 trillion, and the ten year cumulative debt is in the $14 trillion range!  Ever-growing entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) that currently consume about half the federal budget, are in fiscal ruin, and are growing exponentially with each passing year.  The Ryan proposal addresses Medicare and Medicaid, but not Social Security; Obama’s proposal doesn’t address any of them!  How can we take the president’s proposals seriously if he doesn’t take our vexing problems seriously, or ignores them all together?       

Many state governments have long been engaging in the same type of fiscal lunacy.  California for example, as recently as the late 1990s, was the booming technology capital of the world; now it has been wrecked by two decades of chronic overspending, over regulating, and a hyper-progressive tax code.  Because the state’s politicians and voters have repeatedly expressed a congenital refusal to curb out-of-control spending, they have resorted to the formerly unthinkable.  Early release for non-violent prison inmates, massive lay-offs of state and local government employees, closing of state parks, playgrounds and recreational centers, cancellation of parades, reducing library hours of operation, etc.; and despite these drastic measures, their debt figures are getting worse.  Liberals inside both political parties have tried to convince us for many years that these high levels of taxation and government spending would ensure the continuation of needed government services, while those of us who preached fiscal discipline were accused of throwing homeless children into the snow and destroying the environment.  The roaring liars of the left won that debate, and may very well win it again, despite the economic devastation that their policies have visited on us.  The chance of widespread financial default in shameless tax-and-spend states such as New Jersey, New York, California, and Illinois, is more likely now than it has been in an extremely long time (perhaps further back than the reach of our institutional memory).  Luckily, Governors like Republican Chris Christie in New Jersey, and Democrat Andrew Cuomo in New York, are forcing the kind of obligatory reforms and fiscal restraint necessary for the survival of their respective states.  The benighted, leftist Democrats in congress need to take a lesson from fellow Democrat Cuomo, before it’s too late.          

In all fairness to President Obama, he was dealt a crappy hand upon taking office; the country was embroiled in two wars, a deep recession was underway, brought about by a collapsing real estate market (caused largely by bad federal regulations on the private sector economy).  Mounting debt created by a spend-happy Republican president and Democratic congress, were stifling the country’s economy.  However, aside from breaking nearly every single campaign promise that he made, President Obama has supported or enacted the wrong policies at every turn, making the country’s woes infinitely worse.  He has done everything that he could have possibly done to worsen the situation.  Whether it’s been Cap and Trade, Cash for Clunkers, Obamacare, endless stimuli, or another military campaign, Obama has plunged us ever-deeper into crippling debt, and the promised turning has not come.    

I would be remiss if I did not point out the deleterious effect that the policies of the Federal Reserve have had on the value of the US dollar, which is the cornerstone of both the American and world economies.  It’s time for the US congress to conduct a full audit of the Fed, in an effort to render its workings more transparent to the American public.  What the hell is “quantitative easing” anyway, and why does the Fed operate more like Ben Bernanke’s private little fiefdom instead of a pseudo-government agency that is subject to oversight?  We deserve to know.    

Our legislators cannot continue to treat the American taxpayer like an ATM, or continue the equivalency of paying off maxed-out credit cards with other maxed-out credit cards.  Our legislators must implement structural reform of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on the federal level; and structural Medicaid, Education, and Pension reform in the various states.  If not, the likelihood of economic collapse is all too real. 

Unfortunately, with no viable Tea Party Republican presidential candidate on the horizon, and the  Obama machine’s demagogic class warfare rhetoric brainwashing a uniformed and apathetic public, his chances of reelection are looking better and better all the time.  We shouldn’t be surprised if a majority of American voters look past Obama’s failed policies, and the cardboard cutouts he’ll potentially run against, to pull the lever for him once again.  God help us all.