Un-Accomplishment Has Become A Virtue

     The parent told the child that he was a winner just for trying out for the baseball team, even though he did not earn a place on the roster. And so goes the mistake in our culture that is repeated with alarming regularity and has accelerated over the last 20 years or more. It is the age of un-accomplishment, where children are told that they "are all winners" and every one gets an award, even if you struck out every time at bat and dropped every fly ball that came to you in the outfield. These children have grown into adults who feel entitled to remain emotionally as children because they have been taught that they "are special just for being you." No further requirement is expected from them, so no further effort to accomplish is engaged in by them.
     The modern self-esteem movement that began to infect our society through the school system twenty years ago, not only accepts inadequacy and incompetence, but it requires and elevates them to the status of veneration. At the same time, virtues of hard work and accomplishment are downgraded to second-class citizenship to the new age teaching of not only failure equaling success, but of non-participation equaling it as well. How many children who end up living in their parents basements as adults, were inculcated by their parents and teachers with self-esteem simply for getting out of bed everyday?
     Our culture has reached the dubious precipice of having elected twice the exemplar of the self-esteem movement, Barack Obama. Mr. Obama's election to the presidency was more historical because of his personal lack of accomplishment, than it was because he was the first black person to hold that office. And even though Barack Obama is old enough to have missed being in elementary school when teachers were doling out self-esteem to their students like bottomless Pez dispensers, he some how managed to reach the highest political office in the country with a resume' that substituted relevant experience with entitlement to the job. The dangerous aspect to the self-esteem movement has been that it has populated this nation with enough of its graduates to elect someone as wholly unqualified to the presidency as Barack Obama.
     Being special means one has actually accomplished something, e.g., made the team, hit a home run or caught that fly ball that saved the game. Being special means something of substance and it is defined by the results of action, not simply by meaningless measures that fall outside the bounds of accomplishment. We would do well to teach our children that while they will always be special to us, the world requires proof of their worth through substantive and positive results of their actions. 

Analysis Of August Jobs Report

     The unemployment data released yesterday was dismal, giving anyone with even a modicum of intellectual honesty cause to admit that after five years of Obamanomics, the nation is in worse economic health than when Mr. Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009. And with the coming implementation of ObamaCare, one should not expect that the employment situation is going to do anything but deteriorate further.
     The overall jobs added to the economy in the month of August was 169,000, short of economists lowered expectations of 180,000, and not even in the same ball park for recoveries from previous recessions. The modus operandi of  post-World War II recessions has been robust economic growth within ten months of their official end, which for the Obama recession was over four years ago. Robust economic growth means a Gross Domestic Product that is growing at over four percent, not the struggling two percent of the Obama recovery. A robust recovery also includes job growth that approaches, or in the case of the Reagan recovery, exceeds half a million jobs a month.
     Two data points from Friday's jobs report that are very concerning are the number of part time workers in the work force and the overall work force participation rate. The number of part time workers who desire full time work increased by thirty percent over the previous report, not exactly a sign of a recovering economy. The work force participation rate is the percentage of working age adults that are employed, which has now dropped to its lowest level in thirty five years. There are now 90 million people not working in this country who meet the requirements of being employable. Ten million more than when President Obama began his term in January of 2009. If the work force participation rate was the same as it was when President Obama first took the oath of office, the unemployment rate would be almost 11 percent.
     Remember in the beginning of his first term when President Obama was trying to sell his almost trillion dollar stimulus plan to the United States Congress and the American people? He said that passing the stimulus would ensure that by the end of his first term the economy would be adding half a million jobs a month and the unemployment rate would drop below six percent. Not only did his promises not come close to being realized, but in many ways the country is in worse fiscal shape than when he first darkened the threshold of the Whit House with his "Hope and Change." Ten million people have given up looking for work in the Obama economy and have dropped out of the work force, companies are switching more full time workers to part time because of ObamaCare, there are now a record 100 million people on some sort of government assistance and the federal government has been borrowing itself into financial oblivion while Ben Bernanke continues to print 85 billion dollars a month to buy government bonds just to prop up a stock market that has become dependent on the sugary liquidity provided by an out-of-control Federal Reserve.
     The worst loss of the Obama tenure has been the loss of the very thing he promised, i.e., hope. The American people's expectations have been lowered below the threshold of what was once the standard of economic excellence and dominance that was assumed to be the constant companion to the liberty we use to enjoy in this great nation. Sadly, both our economic excellence and our liberty seem to be slipping further out of reach with every passing day of the Obama presidency.
    

The Chaos Theory

     Barack Obama is not a complicated man to figure out. He is, in essence, the embodiment of the core element of community organizing. In that rather dubious profession, the object of the exercise is to use chaos, whether real or created by the organizer, to inculcate or increase hatred, fear and anger in the masses for the purpose of empowering the organizer. The target of the hatred is the organizers political opposition or the wealthy. Fear is generated among the "organized", the source of that fear being those who are the target of the hatred generated by the organizer. And finally, the organizer whips the crowd into a frenzy of anger to affect some political change that only benefits the organizer and his buddies in the political class. This process is what I call, "The Chaos Theory." The community organizer feeds on chaos like the dung beetle feeds on the excrement of others.
     The chaos theory as it relates to Barack Obama has been full throttle in the Middle-East in the last five years. When Barack Obama took the oath of the office for the first time in January of 2009, the Middle East was by no means a Disney World. But Iraq was making great strides towards self government, Afghanistan was holding its own against a Taliban resurgence and Egypt was lead by a dictator who kept the peace in his own country and between his country and its neighbors. Al Qaeda had lost 60% or more of its troop strength and over a third of its top leadership had been decimated, and the terrorist organization was severely weakened. Libya, while under the control of another dictator, Khadafy, was not causing any problems to speak of, just some saber-rattling every now and then.
     Since the beginning of the Obama Presidency, he has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq by pulling out our troops too early, threatening the fledging democracy's survival in the face of an Al Qaeda resurgence. Mr. Obama has also forced the United States military to leave Afghanistan with its tail between its legs as it beats a hasty retreat. The President of the United States facilitated the removal of an American ally in Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, and his replacement by the terrorist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, and now refuses to support the Egyptian military against the Brotherhood. Barack Obama fomented the hatred against Khadafy that resulted in his lifeless body being dragged through the streets of Tripoli. And the rebels who took his place have a radical Islamic ideology and ties to Al Qaeda. And now President Obama has created even more chaos in Syria by allowing a legitimate and pro-Western rebellion to be hi-jacked by radicalized Islamists who now control the movement and will replace Syrian Dictator, Bashar Al Assad, with a much more dangerous and oppressive government based on Sharia Law. The President's response is to help the Al Qaeda-lead rebels to remove Assad from power.
     My contention is that the chaos facilitated in the Middle East the last five years by Barack Obama, is just "community organizing 101." It is a purposeful attempt to interrupt the free and cheap flow of oil, while at the same time restricting exploration and procurement here at home. This creates more opportunity to grow government even bigger for the purpose of developing so-called "green" energy. Once it is understood that the end goal of the radical Leftist President, as it is with all radical Leftists, is to grow the power of the federal government, then chaos in the Middle East becomes, in the words of Rohm Emanuel, just another "crisis" by which President Obama can "do things he wouldn't normally be able to do."  Those "things" always lead to a less-free, less-secure and less-Constitutional America.

The Depravity Of Barack Obama Matched Only By That Of The Media

     The unwillingness for the media to show any tenets of journalistic integrity with regards to probing the depths of President Obama's depravity, says more about their own corruption than it does of his. In fact, the media is a willing participant in Mr. Obama's deceit, even gleeful help maidens in the venture. This is best exemplified with the claim by President Obama that he never drew a "red line" with regards to Syria if chemical weapons were found to have been used. The President's "red line" statement was made in public to countless news outlets and recorded for posterity. The existence of the statement has caused the President to disclaim it, and even more, it has caused him to claim that the American people, the United States Congress and even the international community are to blame for the "red line."  Barack Obama is the only one to be held blameless, which is the narrative that the President's lapdog media will breathe into existence through their disgusting magic of information manipulation.
     The detachment of the President from his own words is reminiscent of the Benghazi affair, when the President and his administration claimed a terrorist attack was a spontaneous demonstration in response to an anti-Muslim YouTube video. These claims were made hundreds of times in a two week period after the attack, thirteen times just in the President's United Nations Speech alone. Recently, the administration has said they never made such a claim. And because of an ideologically chained media, the lie will magically become truth, or at least what too many low-information citizens will believe as truth.
     The Founding Fathers knew that men in power were susceptible to corruption and depravity, that is why they created the first amendment to the Constitution to protect free speech and allow the press to keep a check on our leaders. They also knew that the only way for free people to remain free is through a free press, rigorously committed to revealing the truth. The Founders would never have foreseen a day when those enabled by the power of the Constitution to hold our elected officials' feet to the fire of truth, would violate their own ethics of journalistic probity and the tenets of honesty to enjoin themselves to an oppressive and corrupt ideology.   
     The reader may be shocked by my use of the word "depravity" to describe the President of the United States, and may be less surprised by its use to describe the media. But our Founding Fathers would have held the opposite sentiment, holding the people and their press in higher esteem than those who governed them. That is why they gave such power to the individual and to those charged with informing them. It is a shame that our modern-day press has chosen to trade their freedom, along with ours, for the tyranny of ideas that are the antithesis of the Constitutional freedoms given to us by the Founders.
    

Saving Presidential Face

     The Syrian situation appears to be heating up with the help of Republicants in Congress as they prepare to vote on military action in a place where there is no U.S. national security interest. The two salient points for me that have been illuminated with the passage of the last week are the inclusion of Congress in President Obama's decision on what action will be taken in Syria by the U.S. military, and the almost Pavlovian way in which the Left, in and out of the media, have condemned Bashar Al Assad for the chemical attack in a suburb outside Damascus two weeks ago that killed 1400 people.
     Last week, when United Nations inspectors were still dodging bullets on their fact-finding mission to the Damascus suburb where the deadly attack occurred, President Obama and his minions were making the case to the American people, as well as to Republicants in Congress, that he could act alone and did not need congressional approval to use military force in Syria. Now the President is seeking congressional approval like a teenage boy seeks out the approval of the teenage girls that he spent most of his early childhood teasing and pulling their pigtails. The reason is clear, i.e., the President, with his inaction for two years while tens of thousands of Syrians were dying in the uprising, and because he shot off his big mouth about a red line being crossed with chemical weapons, has painted the United States into a proverbial corner. He needs cover if things go badly in Syria, he needs his favorite whipping boys, the Republicants.
     The automatic acceptance by those on the Left, in and out of the media, that Bashar Al Assad ordered the chemical attack, when there really is no conclusive evidence to support that supposition, has played into the Obama regime's agenda to advance as truth that which they do not know to be true in order to support his decision. In the Summer of 2012, rebel forces took control of a Syrian government installation where chemical weapons were known to be stored, and then Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, said that those weapons may have fallen into the hands of the rebels. Now the Obama administration is flatly saying that the rebel forces could not have been responsible for the recent chemical attack in an effort to frame the Assad regime, because they had no access to chemical weapons of any kind. I guess the President has conveniently forgotten about last Summer's raid, where it is very likely the rebels could have acquired chemical weapons. I have no love for Assad, I am just saying that the evidence does not show conclusively who used the weapons, and the rebels did have motive and opportunity.
     So far I have heard people on the Right and on the Left support military action in Syria. Of course the action is to be limited in scope and duration, giving the target of that military action ample time to move installations and weapons and hunker down until the American storm is over. On the Right (sort of) are the usual suspects, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and the rest of the Democrat-lites in the Republicant party. I even heard Senator McCain say that Bashar Al Assad must be punished for the attack, showing once again how his years in Washington have diminished the good Senator's ability to think for himself and corrupted his moral compass. Since when is the United States military a tool to be used by politicians to "punish" leaders who may or may not have used chemical weapons on their own people? And many of those supporting military intervention seem to have only the flimsy reason of President Obama's "red line" comment several months back.
     I suppose we are to believe that our military personnel, our allies in the region and our common sense which would prevent us from actually helping our enemy which now populates the rebel movement, should all be put at risk so that our President can save face and play golf with a clear conscious.
      

The Rudderless Nation

     The United States of America has always been special because we have been a nation of laws, and not a nation of men. But that is not to say that the people we elect to high public office are not an integral determinant to the direction of the country, especially the President. For it is from the Oval Office that policy agendas are implemented and sold to Congress and the people of the United States. The President of the United States is analogous to a rudder on a boat, he provides the steering mechanism by which the nation presents itself, not only to its own citizens, but to the rest of the world.
     If there is one salient conclusion that can be taken away from the 30-month turmoil in Syria, it is that the United States has been rudderless for the last five years. Strong and decisive leadership is the cornerstone to the edifice of a purposeful nation, it is also something, unfortunately, in which the current occupant of the White House is wholly deficient. A leader is the first one into the water and the point man for the rest of the expedition as they make their way up the treacherous mountain to the summit. In Syria, as he has done during so much of his term as President, Barack Obama has not lead, instead waiting for someone else to do the job, or for the situation to magically resolve of its own accord. Mr. Obama's inability to be motivated by moral certitude has facilitated the deaths of over one hundred thousand Syrians since the uprising began over two years ago. Earlier action may have saved tens of thousands of lives and not allowed Al Qaeda to co opt the rebellion.
     But Syria is just a current illustration of the ineptness of this President to lead. He has been unable to work with members of the opposition party in Congress, instead choosing to mock, intimidate and demonize them in public. He dragged his feet on the Gulf oil spill early in his first term, waiting a full six weeks to take action, and then his first instinct was to send lawyers to the affected area to initiate the Justice Department shakedown of BP.  President Obama has not even shown a modicum of leadership when it comes to his own agenda items, like health care, instead opting for out-sourcing his responsibility of leadership to others. Even with his only claim to fame in his first term, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, he was dragged kicking and screaming to the decision by Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta and others after three times refusing to give the go ahead order on the mission.
     When a watercraft has no rudder by which to steer, it drifts aimlessly in the open waters. There can be no better illustration of this than the current state of America ushered in by the Obama regime. In foreign policy, we have become the paper tiger that Bin Laden said we were in the 1990s which lead to the 9-11 attacks. Our friends, like Poland, Czechoslovakia and others know that they can not count on us, and our enemies like Iran, Syria and Russia know that they can bully us into inaction or delayed action to their benefit. Domestically, the rudderless nation is adrift in the economic sludge of over-regulation and high taxes. Four years since the official end of the recession and our leaderless nation has struggled like an injured animal to crawl to the safety of prosperity, only to find that our own federal government has blocked the pathway with its boot of oppression.
     The rudderless nation that has resulted from five years of Barack Obama is in danger of drifting so far off the course of self-government and liberty that the Founding Fathers set for it, that it may never regain the proper heading again. And this would not only be a tragedy for this great nation, but for the world that depends on our leadership to show the pathway to the light of liberty and freedom.

Labor Day, A Celebration Of Union Bosses And The Democrat Politicians Who Love Them

     I do not celebrate Labor Day in the traditional sense of throwing laurels at the feet of organized labor who have visited much destruction upon our country, both economically and morally. It has always seemed a bit odd to me that the country would celebrate, with a day off of work, the very activity that is essential not only to personal wealth and satisfaction, but to the economic and moral well being of the nation as a whole. Celebrating Labor Day is a bit like celebrating a proper diet, it is just something in which one must engage if one wishes to be content, healthy and prosperous. Many are under the mistaken assumption that Labor Day is actually about those who labor, and not as I believe, about the corrupt and morally inferior labor unions who engage in a daily pursuit of benefits without a commensurate amount of merit.
     Since the days of the 1930s when James Hoffa Sr. was using his mob-backed muscle to bust heads and force unionization upon the country, the unions have always had an unholy alliance with the seedy underworld of our society. Today, the connection is not so clearly with mob influence but something worse, i.e.,  Democrat-controlled government entities. I say worse than the mob because the mob has no ability to make laws  or collect taxes. I see no reason to celebrate the unwilling confiscation of union members' hard-earned dollars through dues, and the distribution of those dollars to Democrat politicians who only institute policies which have a deleterious effect on the very workers who unwittingly support them.
     In the mid-1950s, when George Meany helped marry the American Federation of Labor to the Congress of Industrial Organizations, forming one of the largest labor unions in the country, today simply known as the AFL-CIO, he created an irresistible power structure and source of money that was duly recognized by Democrat politicians as an endless supply of campaign funds. Where James Hoffa, and his organization, the teamsters, were inextricably linked at the hip with organized crime, George Meany and the AFL-CIO had a similar relationship with Left-leaning politicians who controlled the United States government. Not that politicians of the 1930s, like Franklin Roosevelt, did not benefit tremendously from a cozy relationship with organized labor. But it was not until the 1950s and 1960s forward that both entities became more sophisticated at perfecting the money laundering scheme between Democrat politicians, who syphoned taxpayer dollars to the unions, and the union bosses who then paid off those politicians using taxpayer money and members' dues to fund Democrat political campaigns.
     I do not wish to end this post leaving the false impression in the readers' mind that I am anti-labor, just the opposite. I support all those who quietly and efficiently strive for excellence in their chosen work and are paid fairly by employers operating in the free market. I support men and women keeping more from the fruits of their labor, without having it confiscated by over-reaching government or union bosses. And finally, I support all those who take pride in their work, whether it is performing surgery to save someone's life or cleaning a toilet on their hands and knees, because I believe in the dignity of both functions as necessary to our society. And I do not need a day of hot dog-eating, beer swilling and parades to remind me that engaging in labor to feed one's family and contribute to the moral fiber of the culture is something that use to be expected of every citizen.