Presidential Address

[molly bloom]

Would you be so nonchalant if President Bush were doing it?

Which modern American governments haven't collected 'data' on presumed/assumed subversives ? They've been doing it since at least the time of Emma Goldman.

[PLATO]

"presumed/assumed subversives" ... oh you mean collecting data about when I call my wife to find out whats for dinner?

Seriously, the notion that people only care about these activities by government when their particular party is in power is ludicrous. I, for one, have been railing on about the Patriot Act since it was originally passed.

The simple fact of the matter is that technology is making it possible to monitor nearly all public and many private activities of people. This is not good...period.

[molly bloom]

"presumed/assumed subversives" ... oh you mean collecting data about when I call my wife to find out whats for dinner?

Seriously, the notion that people only care about these activities by government when their particular party is in power is ludicrous. I, for one, have been railing on about the Patriot Act since it was originally passed.

The simple fact of the matter is that technology is making it possible to monitor nearly all public and many private activities of people. This is not good...period.

Silly me.

I had thought since the Patriot Act everyone was presumed guilty until they could prove they were innocent, or at least not Muslim or Arab.

I assure you, I feel/felt the same way about the supposedly Labour governments of Tony Blair and their 'anti-terror' legislation and the government law to protect religious groups against criticism.

Still, at least Blair's off in the Middle East and elsewhere spreading his own brand of dishonesty and mayhem somewhere else.

[Elok]

That ass saved this thread

Don't talk about DD that way!

[dannubis]

He was talking about the other ass, obviously.

[Ben Kenobi]

Has anybody seen Slowwhand lately?

[David Floyd]

Sorry for the thread necro, but what can I say?

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama took credit for improvements in many areas, ranging from jobs and the economy, to education, to healthcare, and beyond. Leaving aside the fact that the President was, in many cases, essentially "lying with statistics", he also forgot - or more likely, never understood in the first place - the root cause of the problems he supposedly improved.

At the heart of the matter is the foolish cycle the federal government goes through. The American people are told by the government, or by the media, that a problem exists. The fact that the problem was essentially made up is conveniently left out. The federal government then proposes and enacts a solution to the problem they effectively created. When that solution creates an actual problem - as well as failing to address the made up one - the federal government then uses the emergency situation as an excuse to take more power and enact even more sweeping "solutions". If - not when, but if - the problems then begin to abate, the federal government immediately takes credit, effectively saying to the American people "See? Without us where would you be?".

While this is a very general analysis, it can be applied to almost any major action taken by the federal government. The housing crisis, for example, was largely caused by artificially low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve, and by the federal government pressuring banks to give loans to those who couldn't afford them, in order to address the made up problem that home ownership was "too low". When the housing market crashed, as a predictable result of this behavior, it almost took the rest of the economy with it, and in that emergency, the federal government - both Republicans and Democrats - told us that without immediately spending hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars in bailouts, the economy would collapse. Then, as the economy began to recover, the federal government touted the bailouts as the reason why. This is disingenuous nonsense - the problem could have been avoided from the get-go had the Federal Reserve not meddled with interest rates in pursuit of the political policy of increasing home ownership, and had the federal government not made race-baiting arguments in the media and pressured banks behind the scenes to grant signature loans for mortgages.
In other cases, such as health care and education, the federal government identified a legitimate problem, but failed to realize that the problem was not appropriately within the purview of the federal government, except insofar as the federal government, particularly the Judicial Branch, is empowered and required to provide a level playing field from a legal standpoint. By attempting to address problems in our education and healthcare systems, systems that are properly run at the State and private levels, the federal government has spent trillions of dollars to achieve worse results.

The federal government is the problem, not the solution. In virtually every situation in which the federal government has enacted legislation to solve an imaginary problem, or one which was not properly within the purview of the federal government in the first place, that legislation has made things worse. The War on Poverty is one such example, as is the War on Drugs. Poverty is at higher levels today, despite anti-poverty legislation, than it was in the 1960s, and both drug use and associated drug crimes are at higher levels today than ever before -- in spite of the fact that we are incarcerating more citizens per capita at both the State and Federal levels, mostly in pursuit of the War on Drugs, than any other nation on the planet.

The answer is clear. Money, and with it power, must be returned to where it properly belongs - with the States, and with the People. But lowering taxes is not the complete answer. The federal government must also understand that it has a role that is strictly limited by the Constitution, and the States and the People must demand that the federal government sticks to it's role. Many argue that it is the corrupting influence of money and corporations which lead to government excesses, but they are only partially right. It is true that unlimited campaign donations and unlimited lobbying creates a "Pay for Play" environment, but it is also true that this only matters because the federal government has usurped powers far beyond those to which it is entitled. If, for example, the federal government didn't illegally usurp power to meddle in health care policy, then large pharmaceutical companies would have no reason to spend billions trying to influence the government. If the federal government maintained a strictly limited role in education, and in labor, and in energy, then teacher's unions, SEIU, and Big Oil would not exert the enormous influence that the do in the current environment.

There is an answer to this problem in our Constitution. The 10th Amendment states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." Most of the powers delegated to the United States can be found in Article 1 Section 8 (power granted to Congress). While this is neither the time nor the place to debate the nuances of the Interstate Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause, for example, it is very important to point out that the specific listing of powers granted to Congress, and the very existence of the 10th Amendment, tells us that the federal government was always intended to be limited in terms of power.
President Obama does not understand this, nor do the Democrat or Republican Parties. President Obama believes that Congress should act as a rubber stamp for his policies, and if Congress will not act as such, he will act on his own. We have seen that through his extra-Constitutional recess appointments, and in fact he specifically threatened to continue to act without Congress in statements leading up to the State of the Union, as well as in his address. President Obama has repeatedly castigated Republicans in Congress for voting "No" and failing to propose alternatives. However, what the President needs to understand is that sometimes "No" is the ONLY alternative. If the President proposes a solution to a problem that lies outside of the purview of the federal government, or a solution to a problem that doesn't truly exist, the duty of the Congress is to tell him "No". The President possesses this same duty, and this same power, to tell Congress "No" - that is, the Veto Power. It is shockingly disengenuous for the President to exercise, or threaten to exercise, his Veto Power in response to Congressional action, yet to demand Congress tell him "Yes" unless they can propose a different solution. Congress SHOULD vote "No" on most bills, and the President should veto many of the bills that are actually passed, as most of this federal action is either unnecessary, or illegal under our Constitution.

There are some within both of those parties who do understand that the federal government is the problem, such as Senator Rand Paul, who provided an outstanding response to President Obama's State of the Union.

Yet last night Senator Paul failed to address President Obama's other failing. Ironically, this failing is in an area which belongs solely to the federal government -- that is, the foreign policy of the United States. The President has pursued a foreign policy that has confused our allies, emboldened our enemies, and resulted in the abdication of American leadership on the international stage to Russia. This can be seen very clearly in recent events in Iran. Indeed, President Obama specifically stated in his Address that he would veto any Congressional bill imposing sanctions on Iran. This has handed our geo-political opponents in Russia a major victory in their efforts to secure greater influence in both the Middle East and the world in general, and has also handed a significant victory to Islamists in Iran and around the region.

Speaking of handing victories to fundamentalist Islamists, President Obama strongly supported the revolutions in Libya and Egypt, which were partially fueled, funded, and fought by Al Qaeda. Indeed, President Obama's policy in Libya directly led to the assassination of Ambassador Chris Stevens, and 3 other Americans, and the ensuing scandal. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood took control of the country, and if not for the counter-coup by the Egyptian military, Egypt would still be ruled by Muslim fundamentalists backed by Al Qaeda.

In Syria, President Obama involved us in a civil war between two factions, neither of which promote democracy or freedom. Then, he laid down red lines that had nothing to do with American security, allowed the red lines to be crossed, and then did nothing about it. In the end, he had to accept a solution proposed by Russia that only enhanced Russian influence and power in the region, and diminished our own.

In Afghanistan, the President is seeking a bilateral security agreement that will leave American soldiers in that country, but is being thwarted by President Hamid Karzai, who has shown himself time and again to be more interested in blaming the United States to score domestic political points and engaging in corruption - in other words, business as usual.

In Iraq, Iran, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups are rapidly gaining influence - influence that prior to the Obama Administration was virtually wiped out. Without getting into the argument over the Iraq War, surely most reasonable people can agree that an Iraqi government bankrolled by Iran and in bed with Al Qaeda is the worst of all possible outcomes, and yet it is the outcome we are rapidly getting to.

And finally, the Obama Administration is allowing the People's Republic of China to rapidly close the gap between the People's Liberation Army and the United States military when it comes to technology and capabilities, particularly in space. Rather than focusing on the development of next-generation weapons, pursuing closer relations with Pacific Rim nations that have an interest in limiting Chinese growth, and moving more strongly into space, the President's "Pivot to Asia" strategy has instead served only to position larger military forces in the Pacific region - forces which are rapidly approaching obsolescence.

The President's sole major victory is the fact that he ordered the strike that killed Osama bin Laden. And, yes, that was a victory. Indeed, it was a courageous decision made in the face of adverse advice -- although, given that the contrary advice was coming in part from Joe Biden, it isn't a stretch to imagine that President Obama simply elected to do the opposite of what Biden recommended, something that in and of itself constitutes a wise foreign policy. However, the President cannot use the death of Osama bin Laden as an offset to the unmitigated disaster the rest of his foreign policy has been to the long-term interests of the United States.

The President has told us that the state of our union is strong, and that an explosion of growth is just around the corner, if only we will allow him to enact his policies. His record over the past 6 years, however, shows that assertion to be misguided at best, and an outright lie at worst. Benjamin Franklin, in response to a question as to what type of government the fledging United States would have, answered "A Republic, if you can keep it." President Obama, on a daily basis, ignores the Constitution, flouts the law, expands Executive power, sidelines Congress and the Judiciary -- and then, in front of a Joint Session of the United States Congress and millions of Americans, threatens to continue to do so. If we allow this to stand, we will have finally shown that we cannot keep the Republic bestowed on us by the Founders of this nation.

The only possible response is to send the President a strong message in November, that the American people do not consent. While electing a Republican majority in the Senate is not a long-term solution to our problems, it will at least create an environment in which the President will be unable to enact any further disastrous legislation, or push through any treaties contrary to American interests, for the final 2 years of his term. And that, at least, can be called a victory.

TLR -- I hate Obama.

[Ban Kenobi]

TLR -- I hate Obama.

He must be doing something right.