Of Foxholes and Atheists and Donald Trump

 The leftist elites always hate Republicans, but there is something much deeper going on with their hatred for Donald Trump. The desire to destroy him has an almost religious element to it.

They say there are no atheists in foxholes. The basic premise is that when facing an existential threat, particularly when lives are on the line, people will look for something stronger than themselves, often God, to pull them through.

The opposite might be when things are good. Then, atheism, or at least an indifference to God, grows.

Sadly, in this context, the last 75 years have been very good for the West. WWII was horrible, of course, but there were some good things that came from it.

The first good thing features two sides of the same coin, and that coin is the utter destruction of Germany and Japan. I don’t mean their defeat, but rather the utter destruction of their infrastructure and that of many of the nations fighting them. The result for the relatively unscathed United States was that its full wartime manufacturing footing put it in a position to provide pretty much of everything the war-torn world needed. The result was that by the middle of the 1950s, the American economy, with 5% of the world’s population, approached 40% of world GDP. Times were indeed good.

The other side of that coin was that because the German and Japanese infrastructures were so completely destroyed, they could leapfrog over many iterations of evolution and begin again with the latest technologies, machinery, and processes. The result was that by the 1980s, the Japanese and German economies were the most powerful in the world after the US.

The second positive outcome of WWII was the Cold War. Now the Cold War had many downsides, including the hot wars in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere, but what it did was draw a clear line between who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. America and the West were far from perfect, but we knew that at the end of the day, the West was the land of freedom, while the communists were tyrannies constantly seeking to expand.

The result of that clarity was that, for the most part, Western nations understood there was real danger in the world and prepared for it. They focused on trading with one another, they took defense seriously, and while they sometimes tolerated communists in their midst, they rarely made heroes of them.

The consequence of that Cold War clarity, and the Soviet and Chinese understanding that the West was willing to fight to preserve freedom across the planet, was a relative peace. And that relative peace was the West’s undoing.

For the half-century from the end of World War II until 2000, the world experienced more economic growth than it had in the previous 2,000 years combined. Driven by relative peace, world trade took off both within the West and with the developing world.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to perpetual prosperity. The West, basking in its victory over the Soviets and its certainty that communist China would evolve into a modern Western democracy if only allowed to sell us tchotchkes, began to turn on itself.

The peace / communist parties, which had been funded by Moscow and had always been a fringe element of modern Western polity, suddenly morphed into environmentalists and cloaked their anticapitalist ideas in far more voter-friendly “Earth First” shibboleths. Now, just as the money spigot from Russia was coming to an end, a far larger resource was becoming viable…Western governments.

The result was the extraordinary growth in the power of the far left in Western politics. And it wasn’t just environmentalism that was driving the train. As the Cold War wound down, Western nations used their “peace dividends” to shower citizens with benefits while simultaneously seeking to regulate their economies into perfection. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t work!)

The perfect encapsulation of the West’s metastasizing can be seen in the form of the European Union. Imagined as a vehicle to foster peace and then trade between perpetually warring European states, it morphed into a leviathan that not only seeks to control virtually every aspect of citizens’ lives in its member states, but it seeks to control who can grow what and when, how states can control their borders and even whether sovereign states can conduct their own elections.

Like so much of the modern West, an idea that started out as something ostensibly good metastasized into cancer. Stopping the pouring of chemicals directly into rivers morphed into eviscerating farms. A temporary safety net for the downtrodden morphs into generational welfare. An empathetic desire to help victims of war morphs into an invasion by legions of military-aged men.

And it’s not just capitalism and freedom that have taken body blows. The third leg of the stool upon which western civilization stands is Christianity, and it has been brutalized by Western prosperity, as have the foundations of Christianity, namely, marriage and children.

As they say, idle hands are the Devil’s workshop. The West’s relative prosperity has caused citizens not focused on a common enemy to turn on their own history. From British universities dropping Shakespeare and Chaucer to the New York Museum of Natural History removing Teddy Roosevelt’s statue to the Spanish government’s vow to “decolonize“ the nation’s museums, to the cancer of DEI, across the West, nations are turning their backs on their own foundations, the things that set them apart from—and above, frankly—every other civilization in human history. From socialism to communism to Islam, Western intellectuals have led the charge, via schools and the media, to champion everything that is anti-Western, anti-capitalist, anti-masculine, and anti-white.

At the end of the day, the globalist elites co-opted the hard-won prosperity and peace by leveraging technology, Chinese tchotchkes, and social media algorithms to aim society’s guns at the very things that built success in the first place. They’ve created a Mexican standoff where everyone loses as the core elements of Western civilization are undermined by policies specifically formatted to destroy them, while the resulting “culture” is not equipped to support anything close to the same level of civilization.

All of this is why Donald Trump is for the left, a new Jesus Christ—not in the sense that he’s godlike, because I think we can all agree that he’s not, but because he embodies their eventual destruction. Thus, just as Christ was a heretic whose message of love and a gracious God had to be destroyed because it threatened the established order, Trump’s pro-America, pro-masculinity, and pro-Western civilization message must be destroyed because it threatens the New World Order.

The globalists argue that they are best equipped to structure the lives of citizens, organize world economies, and control everything from speech to cow farts to electricity generation. Any message that suggests that citizens should control their own lives, that capitalism makes for the most prosperous outcomes, and that free speech is a cornerstone of civilization must be quashed.

Western elites think Donald Trump is the common enemy they need to unify citizens under the banner of globalism. They’ve got it backwards. They’re more likely to discover exactly how many of their citizens feel like they’ve been crouching in a foxhole waiting for someone to inspire them to climb out, pick up their weapons, and charge into a battle of ideas to take back their lives. Imagine the sheer horror on the globalists’ faces when they realize that Donald Trump just might be that guy...

America Used To Be A Serious Country... America Today Is Not

In his brilliant book, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, Matt Ridley makes the case that coal saved Britain in the 19^th century just as the Industrial Revolution was picking up steam. A similar argument could be made for oil in the United States in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. At mid century, a time when oil from whales was a significant source of energy, the discovery of seemingly limitless amounts of oil in places like Pennsylvania and Texas provided an energy boom like the world had never seen. In the quarter century between 1864 and 1892 the price of oil dropped by more than 90% while production increased 25 times, providing a boost that turned the American economy into a juggernaut.

Of course from soot in the air to spills in the water to holes in the ground, neither resource is what today one might call “clean” energy. But you know what they were? Inexpensive, efficient and relatively easy to transport. Indeed, by the 1880’s the average family was illuminating their home for a penny an hour while the fuels to do so, oil and kerosene could be delivered right to their doors. From lighting individual homes to powering giant factories – which would have been largely impossible without it – petroleum and its various products gave Americans the energy necessary to grow from an economic also ran to the most robust economy on the planet in less than half a century.

America of the late 19^th century and early 20^th century was a land of giants where anything was possible. During the 60 years between 1865 and 1935 Bell invented the telephone, Ford brought the assembly line to auto manufacturing, and the Wright Brothers took to flight while at the same time the First transcontinental railroad was finished and the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building were built. The United States was growing, both geographically and economically and energy fueled that growth, and increasingly that was oil.

Energy drives modern civilization, whether its gasoline for cars, electricity for countless mobile devices or natural gas and coal fueling generators. Americans used to recognize the fact that without fuel, little functions in America. The lesson was painfully driven home in 1973 with OPEC’s oil embargo.

Today, 50 years later, while less dependent on OPEC for our energy needs, overall we’re far more dependent on energy itself as our much of our lives are driven by transportation, information and consumption. But the funny thing is, the more energy becomes central to our lives, the less serious Americans become about it. Nuclear power, by far the most efficient, cleanest and most abundant of potential sources has basically been sidelined, with not a single new plant being built in a quarter century and 13 plants closed. Coal plants are being regulated out of existence while blue states and the Biden administration are seeking to smother fracking in its bassinette. Not to mention one of Joe Biden’s first acts after taking office… shutting down the Keystone pipeline. At the same time, from the federal government to local governments, billions of dollars are being wasted on the fiction of “green energy”, both in terms of tax incentives, regulatory vices and “investment” boondoggles. These are just the latest examples of the left literally wasting energy and money – and doing much harm in the process – all in the name of the “environment”.

Why does any of this folly matter? Because geopolitics is a messy matter, and everything from money to trade to weapons to war play a central role in it, and energy is central to each of them. More specifically, the United States is in the midst of a pitched battle for prosperity and influence around the world with other players who have decided to not fight that battle with both hands tied behind their backs. On the contrary, not only do China and Russia do essentially whatever they want as it relates to – pretty much everything – but at the same time, both (China, Russia) fund the environmental left in the west, resulting in the ludicrous Paris Climate Agreement. That is the agreement, of course, in which the west – and particularly the United States – willingly put a straightjacket on their economies while the Chinese economy is allowed to operate essentially unfettered for decades while the Russians pay lip service to the agreement.

Both the Chinese and Russians understand that energy is the key to power and are willing to operate on that basis, unburdened by the need to appease the world’s environment scolds. China not only continues to develop and build nuclear capacity – as they literally seek to create an artificial sun – but they have been working to expand their control over the South China Sea for a decade as they look to lock up lucrative deep sea oil deposits – putting them in conflict with many of their neighbors. Russia continues unfettered development of oil and gas and recently restarted work on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline – with the help of Joe Biden – to provide Europe with natural gas. Bewilderingly, the Europeans are purposefully tying their economic fortunes to the very country who threw them into a deep freeze by cutting off their gas supplies in the middle of a winter blast in 2009.

Meanwhile, here in America energy is merely a political football to be played with, regardless of the consequences. California, with the world’s fifth largest economy, last summer experienced third world style rolling blackouts because the state’s “green energy” mandates had crippled the ability of producers to actually… produce energy. In New York, despite high prices and energy disputes wreaking havoc on development, the Governor signed into law a permanent ban fracking while the state regulatory agency killed a proposal to ease constraints by approving the building of another pipeline to bring gas into the state. Not to mention of course the federal subsidies and state mandates for “green cars” “green homes” and a push for battery and windmill development that leave environmental disasters in their wake.

America used to understand that energy powered prosperity, and with prosperity it was possible to a great deal of good for a great number of people. Just ask the Europeans or Asia… In Democrat run America we seem to have lost that understanding. Like history’s loss of the knowledge of how the Egyptians built the great pyramids, Americans seem to have lost the understanding that inexpensive, reliable and widely accessible energy are the keys to prosperity and everything it brings. To face a loss of such empowerment because of the natural vagaries of geology or geography or the result of war is depressing, if somewhat understandable. To face the loss because politicians decided that virtue signaling trumps cost, effectiveness, efficiency and reliability is despairing, infuriating and simply criminal. It’s often said that citizens get the government they vote for, which is often true. What’s also true is that citizens deserve the government they vote for and in the case of voting for Democrats, from New York to Colorado to California Americans are getting exactly what they deserve. Sadly that folly has been fraudulently foisted on the nation. Let’s hope the United States and the allies who depend on us can survive 18 more months of their monolithic, dysfunctional, and patently unserious control.  

The Hill to Die On: Will Ted Cruz and Rand Paul Take Their Oaths Seriously and Help Mo Brooks Save the Republic?

In 1776 56 brave patriots signed their names at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence; a document that spelled out the specifics as to why the 13 colonies were making a break with England and King George.

Signing that document was treason against the British and every single man, some with names you know, Benjamin Franklin, Sam Adams and of course John Hancock, and some you may not such as Thomas McKean, Button Gwinnett and Arthur Middleton, risked literal life, limb and property by doing so. Had the British prevailed, they very well may have ended their days in front of a firing squad or at the end of a hangman’s noose. Yet still they signed.

The interesting thing is, only about a quarter of the population actively supported the break with England at the time the Declaration was signed. Another quarter, largely those whose fortunes benefited greatly from the connection with England (which some of the signers did themselves) wanted to remain part of the Empire, while fully half the population were what we’d call today “undecided”.

The reality is, leaders do what these men and others did… they led, they fought and they went home and convinced their fellow citizens about the righteousness of their cause and inspired others to join the fight. And in the end, they prevailed, and in doing so they set forth a path that changed the course of human history, much for the better.

Today America finds itself in a place not so different from that which the thirteen colonies faced 246 years ago. While the thirteen disjointed colonies faced the greatest empire the world had ever known, patriots today face the greatest propaganda machine in human history: The Democrat / Media / Tech Industrial Complex.

There are two big differences however. The first is that the thirteen colonies had the benefit of 54 men who were willing to stand up and challenge the King and Parliament in order to do what they knew to be right. Today patriots find a largely barren wasteland of leaders who are willing to stand up as the Democrats and their cabal seek to steal an election in broad daylight.

The other difference is that in 1776 war was the last option available to the patriots. In 2020 patriots still have one last option before something drastic… and the odds of it succeeding are as slim as those faced by the thirteen tiny colonies taking on the most powerful empire in the world.

As the Hill detailed earlier in the week, there is a Constitutional tactic through which the Republic can be saved… and make no mistake, that is exactly what is at stake here.

The tactic involves senators and representatives using the procedures outlined in the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act (ECA) to delay the acceptance of the electors to a point where the House would then choose the President, with each state having a single vote. Given that Republicans control a majority of the state delegations Donald Trump would be declared the winner.

This would be a long and arduous process, something like Jimmy Stewart’s character in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” spending a month reading scripture. No doubt the patriots who choose this path will be tarred and feathered in the press, have their families doxed on social media, and very likely be thrown under the bus by Mitch McConnell and other “leaders” in their own party. In a word, for a while their lives would be made miserable for the crime of standing up to those who would steal the election from the American people.

That’s what real leaders do. That is what real patriots do. In the 200 plus years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the ratification of our Constitution, millions of men and women have put everything – up to and including their lives – on the line after swearing a military oath that starts with this: “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;” Congressmen and senators take a similar oath, but it’s very rare that they risk much of anything, let alone their lives, after doing so. Most senators and congressmen leave office far richer than when they entered politics or at a minimum are able to parlay their service into lucrative lobbying positions on K Street. Can one be a politician and a leader and a patriot simultaneously?

Now is the time for patriots who serve in Washington to actually show that they take their oath seriously. While the Communist Chinese may indeed have influenced our election, the real threat to the Republic, to the Constitution, is a domestic one and it presented itself on November 3rd when fraud changed the outcome of the presidential election. Beyond the God given rights protected by the Constitution nothing is as sacred to Americans as their right to vote. Period. Full stop.

If the integrity of our elections is lost then nothing else matters because at that point no one is accountable to voters, the rules and the Constitution ceases to be anything but a faded piece of paper. As such, now is the time for patriots in Washington to stand up and actually do that which they swore to do. No more assuming “We’ll win next time”. No more thinking the other side plays by the rules. No more assuming that everything will blow over and we’ll be back business as usual soon. No. This is the hill to die on because beyond this hill is a Stalinist tyranny like the one George Orwell warned us about. Tens of millions of Americans have seen the writing on the wall as written by Antifa and Black Lives Matter and AOC and other Democrats who seek to punish Trump supporters. Not sure? Think Stalinist purges can’t happen here? Think again. Look at what was done to Donald Trump over the last four years when every single Democrat involved knew that the charges were fiction. And he was (and is) a billionaire President loved by tens of millions and they only controlled ½ the legislature for ½ his term! Once in power imagine what they will do to average Americans who just trying to make ends meet and wants to be left alone, a small businessmen who just want to make a living, or senators or congressmen who stand in the way of their plans for domination…

There is nothing usual about America in 2020 and what we’ve just experienced was not just another election loss. It was a coup in the literal sense of the word and the Democrats were willing to do it right in front of us because they were pretty sure that no one would do anything about it. This is a call for Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and all ostensibly Republican senators join Congressman Mo Brooks and his army to show Democrats that they were wrong in their calculations and that you take your oath seriously and will fight to protect the United States from these domestic enemies of freedom. It will be challenging and there will be countless people seeking to derail you, from both sides of the aisle. No doubt the media, friends and maybe even some family may seek to knock you from the path – as Benjamin Franklin’s son sought to do with him – but if you keep the faith, if you fight the good fight, we will win and when the history of the 2020 election is written you will find yourselves in the same company as those 56 intrepid men, they having birthed our nation and you having saved it.

www.EverySingleElector.com

Donald Trump as the Isolationist in Chief... Not a Recipe for Success

As I’ve said before, if Donald Trump is the nominee I will vote for him over anyone the donkey party runs. Why? One reason… the single greatest threat to our nation is open borders and the continued entry of people from failed states with no understanding or appreciation for limited government or individual rights. The Democrat Party, which has a similar disdain for both things, has almost destroyed the country on its own and with open borders it seeks to tip the scales of our Republic towards their tyranny by packing the voting rolls with such invaders…

The candidate who promises to build a wall and curtail illegal immigration gets my vote… and my hope that he will actually do so.

But I have to say, Trump continues to make it much more painful to be willing to support him. From his thin skin and childish Twitter tirades, it makes one wonder how temperamental a President Trump might be. Something more consequential that forces some soul searching when considering voting for him is his unserious perspective on international relations. When he says things about not sending money to countries that hate us, that makes pretty good sense and makes a great place to start with foreign aid. But he doesn’t stop there. There are two things that are particularly troubling about his foreign affairs perspective. His populist tirades against free trade, and his statement of two weeks ago that the United States should pull back from its leadership in NATO.

On the former, Trump cries that the United States is losing out on trade with China and Mexico and other nations around the world and that these countries are taking the jobs of millions of Americans. Both of those suggestions may indeed be accurate, but he is wrong in that they are a symptom, not the illness itself. The primary driver of those issues is not that Mexico or China are cheats. They may be manipulating their currencies or labor markets, but that’s not why American companies choose to build iPhones in China or cars in Mexico. It’s American taxes and regulations… Think about it, China is a Communist country separated from the US by 6,000 miles of water and Mexico is a dysfunctional quasi state where the politicians and population are perpetually intimidated by narco terrorists. And somehow it makes sense that a US company would want to manufacture widgets in those places rather than in Detroit or Pittsburgh? Yes. Sure, labor costs are a problem, but it’s regulations and taxes that are the real drivers of trade deficits. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, federal regulations cost American consumers almost $2 trillion in lost economic productivity and higher costs in 2014. And that’s just the federal government! That $2 Trillion was almost four times the entire US trade deficit with the whole world that year! Add to that the fact that US tax rates are the highest in the developed world and that giant sucking sound of jobs you hear is not because of China or Mexico’s cheating, but rather because the US government is simply making it too difficult to operate profitably in the United States. If Trump wanted to make our trade balance more balanced and bring back jobs he’d focus on eliminating regulations here rather than spending most of his time demagoguing the rest of the world.

The bigger problem with Trump’s world view is his fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the United States in said world. Two weeks ago he suggested that the United States should take a step back in its leadership of NATO. We could do that and it would certainly save us billions of dollars a year. But it not only would it lead to a world war, but it would be the catalyst for a collapse of the world economy and western culture. Why? Because it was American military power, presence and a willingness to use both that has kept the west largely at peace for the last 70 years and driven a greater increase in world prosperity than in any period in all of human history.

To understand the impact of a United States led NATO, one simply has to look at the history of Europe. For two millennium, from the rise and fall of the Roman Empire to the rise and collapse of the British Empire, Europe was at an almost constant state of war either within itself or without, and often brought much of the rest of the planet along with it.  That reality culminated in the two world wars of the first half of the 20th century that cost the lives of over 100 million men women and children. Post WWII however, after the United States military brought order to a world in chaos, Europe and much of that world have enjoyed an unprecedented period of relative peace, and as a result saw wealth and prosperity grow and expand at levels unprecedented in human history.

None of that happens without a NATO led by the United States. It was NATO that kept the Russian bear at bay for half a century and American leadership in the Pacific that kept the Red Chinese from swallowing much of Asia. And as a result Europe and Asia have become critical trading partners with the United States and have provided both markets for our goods and sources for things that make our lives better.

And now Donald Trump wants to abandon NATO leadership. In the name of populist rhetoric he wants to turn his back on a successful world that the United States largely designed and benefits from. That would be a mistake. For our partners in NATO, for much of the world that relies on the west for leadership and trade, and, most of all, Americans. The solution to a troubled planet isn’t to pull up the drawbridges and hide behind the moat… But that seems to be the Donald’s plan.

It would be a tragedy if American leadership having already devolved from Ronald Reagan defeating the Soviet Union and winning the Cold War to Barack Obama embracing anti American thugs across the planet and unleashing ISIS on the world is followed up by Donald Trump reviving the isolationist policies of the 1930s that led to WWII… because with bellicose and acquisitive states like Russia and China unrestrained by American strength it would not be long before WWIII was at our shores.

But, such is the nature of populist candidates. Say and do anything that will get cheers from the crowds and ignore the consequences down the road. Let’s hope in November we have a Ted Cruz lever to pull

Fool or a Villain? Obama and America's Standing in the World...

I find myself vacillating between thinking Barack Obama is utterly incompetent, or he’s an evil genius who has a nefarious anti American plan in mind. While my heart wants to tell me that the person who’s been twice elected President of the United States is a good man with good intentions who’s simply in over his head, my head tells me something else.

When it comes to the domestic economy, Barack Obama is nothing short of a complete disaster. In virtually every situation he has chosen the path that is bad for freedom, bad for entrepreneurs, and bad for businesses… basically bad for pretty much the entire country except for maybe union members and government redistribution recipients. The disaster he has wrought in the economy is obvious to anyone who’s not living off the government.

What’s a little less clear to anyone but the most engaged political observer is the fact that as bad as he’s been on the economy, it’s possible he’s been even worse on foreign policy. In 2008 candidate Obama promised to “Restore America's standing in the world.” Like with the economy, his steps here too seem more like calculated steps in a plan rather than simple missteps. If they were simply missteps one would expect him to get things right 50% of the time. He’s not even close. Indeed, his failed plan to “Restore America’s standing” can be seen in the willingness of enemies and adversaries to attack the US or take provocative actions, all with little concern for consequences from a United States led by Barack Obama.

Our “Reset” partner Russia feels no qualms in threatening NATO allies for policies it dislikes, invaded Ukraine then annexed Crimea and continues to be provocative on and across our borders, all while helping Iran pursue its nuclear ambitions.

Today China has not only hacked into our government computers and stolen personal information on every government employee of the last twenty years, but they are actively building bases on disputed territory in order to expand their area of sovereignty at the expense of its neighbors.

In 2012, thriving on the chaos enabled by Barack Obama’s feckless leadership, Islamists captured and killed four Americans in Benghazi, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Early on in his administration Barack Obama gave a sop to Vladimir Putin and blindsided much of Western Europe when he abandoned plans for the installation of a missile defense system in Poland.

He has decimated the US military, shrinking the Army by almost a quarter, dropping the Navy to a size not seen since Carter, and leaving the United States militarily incapable of fighting two wars at once, a basic element of American defense policy for half a century.

In Egypt Obama embraced the Muslim Brotherhood as it came to power and then proceeded to give the cold shoulder to General Sisi, the leader who ousted the Islamists and who is now Egypt’s president.

In Iraq, after the United States spent hundreds of billions of dollars and shed the blood of thousands of American soldiers and marines, the country is on the verge of collapse. The virtual collapse of Iraqi state, which led to the rise of ISIS, is a consequence of Barack Obama’s unwillingness to bring about a Status of Forces Agreement that would maintain an American presence capable of reassuring the Iraqis that the hard fought gains would be sustainable. Today ISIS not only controls much of Iraq and Syria, but they have affiliates and adherents who are carrying out terrorist acts around the world, including here in the United States.

In what might be the most disturbing foreign policy error of Obama’s parade of errors, he has worked out a deal with Iran which does virtually nothing to stop the Iranians from getting both nuclear weapons and delivery systems. The Iranians think so little of Barack Obama and the nation he leads that they don’t even bother to make promises that they intend to break as the Soviets used to do. Not only that, Iranian leaders go on domestic television regularly and threaten the United States amid cries of “Death to America” all while knowing that Barack Obama will give them whatever it is they want.

And there’s much more of course, from his support of the leftist thugs in Honduras in 2009, to his embrace of the Communist Castro brothers, to his exchanging five Islamist terrorists for an American deserter, to his paper tiger threats in relation to red lines in Syria… and the list goes on.

One can only wonder, if an American president wanted to do everything possible to diminish the United States on the world stage without explicitly looking like that was what he was doing, what more might he do make things worse than Barack Obama has? Today not only are the two other superpowers in the world far more belligerent than they were when Barack Obama took office, a new terrorist organization is wreaking havoc in the heart of the middle east and a nation that constantly cries “Death to America”, threatens to annihilate Israel and funded many of the weapons that killed American soldiers in Iraq is now billions of dollars richer and on its way to obtaining a nuclear weapon. While it is theoretically possible to have taken more actions that would harm American interests and diminish the United States on the world stage, such as fighting harder to keep the Muslim Brotherhood running Egypt or quitting NATO, it’s hard to imagine any president doing more to intentionally undermine American interests than what Barack Obama has done.

Sadly, at the end of the day I don’t think Barack Obama is just a dolt who makes consistently bad choices. I think he has a plan and he’s executing it… and that plan is to leave in his wake a greatly diminished America that has far less influence in the world than it did when he took office. For those of us who feel like the United States is the greatest force for good in the history of the world – albeit an imperfect one – to know that its enervation came at the hands of the man elected to lead it makes the shrinking that much more tragic.

Obama, Mohammed & ICANN - The Biggest Bad Deal No One's Talking About

Thankfully humans are no longer slaves to their environment. We have been able to use our creativity and ingenuity to adapt (some of) the world around us to make our lives longer, less dangerous and in many cases, more enjoyable. Throughout history there have been many inventions or innovations that have changed the world: The printing press. The internal combustion engine. Flight. The wheel. Plastic. Penicillin. Computers. Nuclear power. And much more.

Of all of the inventions of man however, the Internet has changed the world more, and more quickly, than any invention or innovation in human history. In what comes down to basically a quarter century – although it’s roots were laid in the late ‘60’s – what most people think of as the Internet, has changed practically every aspect of civilization. It has created a worldwide library people have easy access to from Manhattan island to an island is the south Pacific and most places in between. It has given a voice to the oppressed across the planet. It has changed the way we shop. It has changed the way they play. It has brought everything from scientific study to pornography to investing to our fingertips with the click of a button. It’s even changing the way people date and get married!

It’s no surprise that the roots of the Internet and most – although not all – of its innovations and superheroes have been American. At its root the Internet is about the sharing of information and ideas, and the United States has a stronger foundation for free speech and the free exchange of ideas than any nation in history. That fundamental freedom of speech, protected by the 1st Amendment, has fully taken root in the Internet and the result has been (mostly) spectacular.

It’s because the Internet has been such a revolutionary force for (again, mostly) good that the latest example of Barack Obama‘s hostility towards American Exceptionalism is so despicable. Although the Internet is truly international, since its beginning at its very foundation has sat an American guiding hand, seeking to ensure its basic functionality, smooth operations and widespread access. Barack Obama doesn’t like that. He doesn’t’ believe there should be an American guiding hand. Last year, his Department of Commerce announced that it was planning on relinquishing the last bit of control the United States has by transferring the power to assign domain names to an international body.

That might not sound like much… but it’s a BIG deal. Right now, the United States is the only country on the planet who can decide who is allowed to have a domain and who can’t. While Barack Obama and most of Washington regularly demonstrate exactly how incompetent our government can be, on the domain front they have been rock solid in support of free speech. Today I can register a domain criticizing Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Mark Zuckerberg, Iran or anyone else and not worry about the ability to say what I want… even if no one else was listening. Under Barack Obama’s plan that would no longer be true.

Today domains are managed by an international organization called ICANN, via a contract from the Department of Commerce.  That plan is to have ICANN accountable to some international organization, very possibly the United Nations. Yes, the very same body that put Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Russia on the Human Rights Council. That should work out well from anyone who wants to create a website promoting Falun Gong or exposing the Global Warming hoax, supporting Israel, or criticizing a rich and influential neighbor. Of course it might end up being some other "international" or "multistakeholder" organization that's even less accountable than the UN...  An OPEC for the Internet if you will. At least on the UN the US has a permanent seat on the Security Council!

Although Congress stepped in in December and stripped the Department of Commerce of the power to spend resources on transferring control when the ICANN contract is up in September, Barack Obama seems undeterred.  Last month Department of State Ambassador Daniel Seplveda told a Brussels press conference that he hoped that if the transfer was not completed by September, “significant progress would have been made”.

Once again Barack Obama wants what he wants, regardless of what the Constitution says. As we all know from his immigration power grab and his Obamacare waivers, the law is little barrier to Barack Obama's action.  This time however his disdain for the idea of American Exceptionalism is going to harm not only Americans, but anyone around the world who has looked to the Internet as a forum for free speech and the free exchange of ideas.   When censorship and crony capitalism replace free speech and free markets as descriptors of the Internet, we'll know how that happened.  When Beijing and Moscow get to decide what you can and can't say on the Internet, we'll no doubt look back longingly to the relative Wild West Internet of the early 21st century. When your ISP shuts off your service as they enforce a "multistakeholder" ban on Mohammed cartoons, we'll know exactly who's responsible.  Thank you Mr. President.

The Strong Horse, Barack Obama and the Collapse of American Influence

Robert Kagan had an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago. Titled “Power Failure” it discussed the parallels between the aftermath of WW I and today. In it he talks about the feeling in the US and the UK after WWI that war itself had seemingly become impossible.

Then as now, Americans and Britons solipsistically believed that everyone shared their disillusionment with war. They imagined that because war was horrible and irrational, as the Great War had surely demonstrated, no sane people would choose it.

That the US and Europe would pare back their military spending after a cataclysmic war is understandable. That the peace of the Roaring Twenties led them to believe that war was sufficiently passé it need no longer be prepared for is not. War has been a hallmark of human history since recorded time. Those few times when War seemed to be absent from large swaths of land it was often because peace was imposed at the tip of a sword, not because everyone just wanted to get along. While the Roman citizens who lived during Pax Romana enjoyed a relative peace, that peace was guaranteed by tens of thousands of soldiers dispersed throughout the Empire and along its borders.

The logical outcome of the winnowing of the American and British military muscle and resolve post WW I was of course WW II. From ignoring the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 to allowing Hitler to rearm in 1935 to abandoning the Czechs in 1938, it became increasingly clear to the Axis powers that they could act with impunity. It was only a matter of time before such appeasements led to a second world at war. As Kagan points out, we see a similar pattern today. Weakness begets belligerency. And that is the key takeaway from his piece, and from history in general.

The post WW II period has been one of the most peaceful in human history, primarily because of American – and to a lesser extent NATO – military strength. While hotspots cropped up from time to time in places like Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Cuba and various other Latin American nations, there was a distinct absence of the world wide conflicts that highlighted the first half of the 20th century, and a dearth of wars between European states such as those that characterized much of the 18th and 19th centuries. A more recent example is the fact that after George Bush decided to go after the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, suddenly Muammar Gaddafi decided that he wanted to give up his terrorist ways. Conversely, as the west has appeased both Iran and North Korea, both nations have continued to develop nuclear weapons.

Osama Bin Laden may have been wrong on many things, but one thing he was right about was this: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse”. Today the strong horse is Vladimir Putin as he seeks to reassemble the Soviet empire. Today the strong horse is Communist China as it bullies its neighbors from Japan to Vietnam to the Philippines and thumbs its nose at Britain as it ignores the democracy agreement it signed on Hong Kong. Today the strong horse is ISIS as it shows its enthusiasm for raining down terror across Mesopotamia and showcasing the murder of innocents of children, civilians and foreign journalists.

Sadly, with Barack Obama holding the reins, America is no longer seen as the Strong Horse. Domestically as his major military initiatives involve eliminating the ban on homosexuality, shifting military spending to social programs and saddling American troops with dangerous Rules of Engagement, Americans are left wondering if the military is supposed to be a fighting force or a social experiment masquerading as a traveling vaudeville act. Internationally, with Obama’s not so red red lines, his abandoning of various allies, his feckless leadership in the face of uprisings in Iran, Libya and Syria, his tepid response to Russian and Chinese aggression and his explicitly taking “boots on the ground” off of the table in his response to ISIS, America looks like a papier-mâché tiger.

Whether it’s the “Peace Dividend” that came after the collapse of the Soviet Union or the relative peace in post Surge Iraq, liberals are like the man who was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. They seek to bask in the glory of peace but denigrate how it was achieved in the first place. The Soviet Union did not collapse because Gorbachev was a nice guy who wanted to attend the then nascent Burning Man festival. It collapsed because it couldn’t compete with American military and economic might. Post Surge Iraq was not relatively peaceful because the insurgents suddenly decided to become BFFs with the Americans. It was because American troops went in and killed significant numbers of their fighters and leaders.

Today, after six years of Barack Obama’s leadership Americans may finally be waking up to the folly of the liberal notion that the world could be a peaceful place if America just stopped trying to impose its will on everyone else. The folly of that notion is twofold. The first is that while the United States – like most nations – does seek to influence events in various places around the world, the nation has rarely used its might to impose its will on other nations. Second, and more importantly, it misses the lesson to be had from Bin Laden’s quote. The world is not made up of leaders and people who seek to sit around holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Nations that believe in freedom, individual liberty and democratic government are greatly outnumbered by those where citizens enjoy none of those things. If the United States does not provide leadership in the world, make the case for freedom and individual liberty and make it clear that it will not only defend itself and its allies, but will stand up for others who share its values, who will?

Like a bully on the playground, if no one stands up to him he will continue to wreak havoc until recess becomes little more than a veritable “Lord of the Flies”. The United States cannot and should not try to be the policeman of the world. But if we do not make it perfectly clear that we will do whatever is necessary to defend our national interests and work to advance our values, then it won’t be a policeman the world has to worry about, but rather dictators who have little love for freedom of any kind and even less for individual life and liberty.

Quelle Surprise! Five years of Barack Obama undermining American influence in the world...

The American military is the most powerful in the world. Indeed, we spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined. As one might expect, that amount of military spending translates into a lot of influence around the world, far beyond the bases in Germany or the battlefields of Afghanistan. From leading NATO to acting as the last – and in reality the first – line of defense of nations such as Japan, South Korea, Kuwait and many others, the United States exercises more global power than any nation in history, even during times of peace.

What is unique about the United States however is the fact that as powerful as its military might is, that’s never been the sole source of American influence and indeed during most of the last century, the military was not even the most powerful element of that influence. Since the end of World War II, the two biggest drivers of American influence in the world have been economics and ideals.

The march of free markets around the world over the last 50 years has been largely been led by the United States. From a shining showcase of the prosperity free markets can achieve to the spread of specialization, the importation of products and the outsourcing of services, the economic power of the United States has inspired and lifted billions of people around the world out of poverty over the last half century.

At the same time, the ideals of American freedom and democracy have inspired the world for more than two centuries. From the American Revolution inspiring the French to the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor inspiring a papier-mâché version in Tiananmen Square to the rainbow of revolutions over the last twenty years, American ideals, despite their sometimes failed execution both at home and abroad, have inspired (and influenced) patriots and freedom loving people around the world for decades on end.

American prosperity, when combined with the ideals of freedom and democracy have done more to lift the spirits and life spans of more people across the planet than any military of any size could ever hope to accomplish. The military certainly helps spread those ideals however, whether it be helping rescue the world from two World Wars or American ships and planes delivering billions of dollars of water and foodstuffs to disaster zones or famine ravaged nations.

At the end of the day American influence is largely the source of three things: The prosperity created by free markets, the ideals of freedom and democracy, and military strength. Sometimes those drivers work together while at other times they work independently of one another. They manifest themselves in small ways such as providing disaster relief to Haiti, the Philippines or countless places in between and big ways such as political and or military support for allies or a burgeoning democracy. At the same time that influence has created a tapestry of relationships around the world from strong allies to bitter enemies. In an almost perfect example the old adage you get what you give, to the degree that America succeeds in cultivating allies and friends in the world, the more prosperity we enjoy and the fewer times our military is called upon to engage in actual shooting.

All of that may be changing because of Barack Obama. For five years while he was busy inflicting his fascist, redistributitive economic policies on the citizens of the United States, he has been diminishing American influence abroad at the same time. Time and again Obama has come down on the side of leftists and American enemies. The Iran “deal” is only the latest in a very long line.

In 2009 Obama sided with leftist Honduran President Manuel Zelaya as he sought to defy the Honduran Constitution and run for reelection. Eventually Zelaya was forced into exile and as a result of his continued agitation for violence in the streets, Honduras has become one of the most dangerous nations in the world.

That same year Obama bowed to Vladimir Putin and threw American allies under the bus as he abandoned plans for a missile defense shield in Poland. 2009 also brought Iran’s Green Movement. When Iranian students took to the streets seeking to overthrow the avowed American enemy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Barack Obama ignored pleas for a public display of support, moral or otherwise. In contrast, when protesters – including the Muslim Brotherhood – called for the ouster of one of America’s strongest allies in the region, Hosni Mubarak, Obama quickly called for Mubarak to resign. Not surprisingly, less than two years later Egypt was in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 2011 President Obama helped unleash Hell when he sent American air forces to support the overthrow of an admittedly not nice guy, Muammar Gaddafi. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the chaos that was unleashed has turned Libya into an ungovernable mess where local private militias (some of whom are Al Qaeda) are far more powerful than the government itself. Indeed, according to the Cato Institute “Human rights conditions in post-intervention Libya... are considerably worse than in the decade preceding the war.” It was in the middle of this this ungovernable mess that an American Ambassador and three others were killed by Al Qaeda in 2012. 2011 was also the year he pulled the United States out of Iraq in the worst possible way, leaving the United States with virtually no influence in a country American troops had fighting and dying in for a decade.

Finally we find our feckless president in 2013 leading his march to diminish American power in the world. His first step was to undercut longtime ally Britain in their renewed dispute with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, unlike Ronald Reagan, who was a staunch supporter of the Brits during the Falkland War in 1982. His next step was to let Bashir Assad outwit him while simultaneously turning Vladimir Putin into a credible world leader. Obama accomplished this dual disaster as he blinked at actually doing anything about a chemical weapons red line he had offhandedly warned Assad not to cross. Next he betrayed staunch American allies Israel and Saudi Arabia when he proffered a nuclear agreement with Iran that John Bolton calls “Abject surrender by the United States”. Finally just last week, he essentially acquiesced to a Chinese power grab – and simultaneously undermined allies Japan and South Korea – as the US advised American airlines to comply with China’s demands for notification when they planned to fly over water and islands claimed by all three.

For five years we have seen that whatever the situation, Barack Obama consistently chooses decisions that will weaken American power and influence in the world. The history of an American superpower is not one that is without blemishes, but it has clearly been a force for good in the world. Can you imagine a 2013 where the dominant power for the previous century had been the Soviets or the Red Chinese or some incarnation of Al Qaeda? That ability to influence events and nations requires far more than just a powerful military. It requires a leader who recognizes that American influence has been a significant catalyst for the improvement of the condition of man around the world, and one who is willing to use that fact as his North Star when carrying out foreign policy. Barack Obama has consistently done just the opposite. From supporting leftists in Central America to betraying allies on practically every continent to fueling the replacement of imperfect dictators with whom we could work with Anti-American Islamists or even chaos, for five years he has chosen the path that leads to diminished American influence.

We’ve known from before the election that Barack Obama is no fan of the American Constitution or free markets. From his willingness to diminish America on the world stage at every turn it appears that it’s not just American institutions that Obama despises, but rather the idea of a strong America itself.

Some unsolicited advice to Barack Obama on Syria

What happens when a majority of voters elect an unqualified hack as the head of state? Lots of bad choices and lots of bad outcomes. After watching Barack Obama make mistakes on the world stage for five years you might have thought he was beginning to figure out what he was doing. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong.  He’s as clueless as ever…

First he suggests (correctly) that as Commander in Chief he doesn’t need Congress’s permission in order to act militarily in Syria. Then he proceeds to ask Congress for authorization to do just that, with the absurd suggestion that somehow the rest of the world will look differently on the missiles raining down on Syria if there is political unity along Pennsylvania Avenue. Does Barack Obama even understand what the role of the Commander in Chief even is?

So he’s a little confused about what his actual role in running the military is… not particularly surprising given that before being elected to the most powerful position on the planet the only thing he ever ran was a community organization and some law school classes. At least he’s sure why he’s decided a military attack is necessary… because he drew a red line in the sand and wanted to be very clear to the Assad regime that if “we start seeing a bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized, that would change my calculations, significantly…” That is a pretty clear statement. Or maybe not.  Somehow that clear statement has morphed into “I didn’t draw a line in the sand…” Perhaps President Obama should ask his friend Al Gore about the thing called the Internet where he can look up what he actually said. 

Whatever the message Barack Obama was hoping to send to Assad and the rest of the world, I’m pretty sure it’s not the one of fecklessness and ineptitude they're getting. In addition to misunderstanding both his role in leading the military and forgetting who drew a line in the sand, he’s lost any element of surprise by telling Assad what to expect and not to worry because nothing is going to happen before Congress finishes their deliberations. And he also let Assad know that regime change is not the goal.

Then there is the Secretary of State’s constant pronouncements about the makeup of the rebels, who any bombing would ostensibly benefit: “I just don't agree that a majority are al-Qaeda and the bad guys…” he told a House Foreign Affairs Committee. Unfortunately, one of the key advisors to the administration on the issue of the rebels has been Elizabeth O’Bagy, who, it turns out, is a paid propagandist for the rebels themselves. So it appears that the main source – or at least a significant source – for the President’s contention that the rebels are good guys is someone who’s paid to tell the world… that the rebels are good guys. No problem there. Interestingly in a moment of morbidly vaudevillian juxtaposition, in the very week the Secretary of State is trying to convince Congress of the benign nature of the rebels, a video surfaced of those very rebels cold bloodedly executing captured Syrian soldiers as they lay kneeling on the ground.

All of this showcases a President who is simply not up to the task of successfully leading the nation during a crisis on the international stage. It might be one thing if this was fresh ink on a newly minted presidential canvas, but it’s not. From Iran to Iraq to Libya to Egypt we have seen this president in the starring role in a series of movies that went very badly very quickly. Taken together all of this suggests that whatever Barack Obama chooses to do in reference to Syria, things will turn out badly for the country.

Sending some cruise missiles seems to be the solution of the day. Of course bombing Syria could have a vast array of unintended consequences. It may provoke Syria and or Iran to attack Israel. Russia has already said it will support Syria if it’s attacked and it appears that China is sending ships to the region. An attack might destabilize Syria in such a way that the rebels take over and we see another failed state like Libya or the ascent of an al-Qaeda affiliated power like in Egypt. An attack might cause Assad to use even more chemical weapons just to demonstrate that he cannot be intimidated. Worst of all, the possibility exists that somehow the US is sucked into a situation where it does indeed require American boots on the ground, this time without any real understanding of what victory is, what it would look like or how to achieve it. We can't forget the outcome the President is hoping for, that Assad will realize that crossing Barack Obama is a dangerous game and he then decides to stop killing innocents in his own country - at least with chemical weapons. 

Then there is the option of doing nothing. If you listen to the President and his supporters, taking no action might result in Assad using chemical weapons again – assuming it was he who used them in the first place – and will embolden not only Assad, but Iran, North Korea and many other not-so-nice regimes around the world to do whatever they want with impunity.

Of course doing nothing is not the opposite of bombing. Doing nothing is one option, but so is crafting sanctions and seeking worldwide condemnation. Sanctions rarely work of course, but perhaps by convincingly laying out his proof Barack Obama can use his oft touted charm to win over the whole world on the side of effective sanctions. One wonders if Russia and Iran will be susceptible to such a charm offensive?  Another option would be to equip Assad's enemies to overthrow him, assuming any can be found who are actually pro-American, or at least not anti-American.

At the end of the day Barack Obama's poor performance over the last five years has left the country with few good options. Given the pickle he’s created, I’d like to give President Obama some unsolicited advice.

Finding an alternative to bombing is likely your best option, and if the case for sanctions is made forcefully and effectively, it might actually work.  If nothing else it might get some allies on our side and create something similar to the "coalition of the willing" George Bush assembled.  If, however, you are sufficiently confident that Assad is a threat to the country and her allies that military action is necessary, your message on Tuesday night  – rather than being a argument for why Syria should be bombed – should instead provide background on a strike that is taking place at that very moment.

If he is seeking to send a message, seeking to show actual leadership and has decided to bomb Syria regardless of what Congress does, he should strike quickly and with overwhelming force rather than wait until Congress says it's OK and then inflict some limited pinprick of an operation. If the goal is to show the world the negative consequences of using banned weapons then the resulting pain had better be pretty harsh, otherwise the world will recognize the US as the paper tiger it has become under the ill-equipped president the American voters have inflicted on the world.

There are some important if’s in that paragraph, but uncertainty and bad choices are what you get when a nation chooses to elect such an unqualified man as its head of state. Let's hope he doesn't fumble us into WW III.