Nero's New Palace Underway

IM (an American citizen with an inquiring mind):  Gadfly, Nero waited for the fire in Rome to subside before starting work on his new palace.  Our American Nero is not as patient.  (See previous discussions here and here).

Old Gadfly:  Why do you say this?

IM:  As challenges to his Obamacare mandates play out, it is becoming obvious that President Obama has already started work on his palace.  But, unlike Nero, Obama is not circumventing the Senate, he uses it as his Palace contractor.

AM (an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind):  OK, IM, you’re teasing us.  Give us some details.

IM:  The news cycles are already talking about two federal courts ruling in opposite ways regarding the legality of subsidies for federal versus state exchanges.  The one in Virginia, with a Democrat majority, ruled in favor of the provision.  The District of Columbia (DC) Circuit Court of Appeals, represented by a three-judge panel with two Republicans and one Democrat, ruled against.  Now, Obama will request the full DC court review the decision and update it as deemed appropriate.  The full court has four Republicans and seven Democrats.

AM:  This does not look good.

Old Gadfly:  Until recently, didn’t the DC court have only eight members, four Republican and four Democrat?

IM:  Until last November, yes.

AM:  What happened in November?

IM:  Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, unilaterally changed a long-standing rule regarding filibusters and Presidential nominations—commonly referred to as the “nuclear option”.  In other words, he changed the rule to allow nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority vote, strictly along Party lines. 

Old Gadfly:  This opened the door for three very left leaning judges to stack the court:  Patricia Millett, Cornelia Thayer Livingston “Nina” Pillard, and Robert Leon Wilkins.  Now, legitimate constitutional challenges to laws and rules will be adjudicated through the lens of political ideology.

AM:  You claimed the US Senate is Obama’s palace contractor.  Why do you say this?

IM:  The Republican-controlled House of Representatives have passed over 300 bills that have gone nowhere in the Democrat-controlled Senate.  Forty of these bills are jobs related.  Since Reid and his fellow Democrat cohort can count on a left-leaning complicit media, they can broadcast a “do nothing Congress” through the media’s bull horn.  A “do nothing Congress” is code for Republican obstructionism, which is happily amplified in the press.  This in turn serves as justification for executive action.  As Obama loves to unabashedly proclaim, if Congress insists on doing nothing, then I have a phone and a pen.

Old Gadfly:  Don’t forget the Democrat and left-leaning media’s success in blaming last fall’s government shutdown on Republicans.

AM:  Yet, in 2010, the majority of American citizens expressed their disapproval of federal overreach by electing a significant majority of Republicans in the House (and reduced the magnitude of the Democrat majority in the Senate).  The bills a Republican-controlled House have already passed reflect the will of the people.  Yet, the Senate defies the will of the people by blocking these bills.  And by Senator Reid not bringing these bills to the floor for an up or down vote, he successfully shields obstructionist Democrats from accountability.

IM:  To whom do you think the Democrats in the Senate owe their allegiance?

AM:  Obama.

Old Gadfly:  Why Obama?

AM:  Obama is a symbol of the progressive movement that believes in a large, central government.  As part of the “sacred state” palace, they have deliberately created a large indentured class of Americans who by choice or through coercion are becoming dependent upon the “benevolent” state.  Less than 50% of Americans pay 100% of taxes.  The majority are now dependent upon government largess.  Does “Obama phones” sound familiar?  The following graphic shows the percentage of Americans participating in the labor force.

Old Gadfly:  Notice the sharp decline began in 2007, the year Democrats enjoyed large majorities in both houses of Congress.  Then, as we know, President Obama took command in 2009.  The implications of this graphic are that more Americans have had to start drawing Social Security benefits earlier than they might otherwise, and millions are having to draw from savings accounts, 401Ks, and IRAs earlier than expected to make ends meet, which does nothing to create wealth.  Combine this dynamic with the increased demand for taxpayer funded subsidies (food stamps, housing, health, income subsidies), the economy cannot keep up with government spending.  This is why for the first time in the history of the United States, public debt now exceeds Gross Domestic Product. 

AM:  And while very subtle, the subliminal message being transmitted to Americans is that Obama is providing for them.  The following ad is from a mortgage company’s internet website.  Check out the verbiage in item 2.

 

IM:  And, as the US and the world burn, Obama is out campaigning for more resources to complete his palace.

Old Gadfly:  Interesting.  I have been doing some polling of Americans: friends, family members, and casual bystanders.  I tell them I am going to ask a question, to not give it a lot of thought, to answer instinctively and honestly:  do you feel ruled or served?

IM:  Is it 50-50?

Old Gadfly:  No.  One hundred percent responded, “ruled.”

AM:  Were they all content to be ruled?

Old Gadfly:  I asked, and all said no.

IM:  If the “sacred state” chooses to really turn on dissenting Americans

AM:  Such as the IRS’s strong-arm censoring of conservative groups?

IM:  Yes, but I’m referring to broader measures such as the law enforcement army within the Department of Homeland Security and even military members within the Department of Defense.  Would fellow government-employed Americans use force on fellow Americans?

AM:  As a former military member, I’d have to say that some government employees prefer the security of their job over protecting liberty for Americans.

IM:  Why do we not see Americans in senior leadership roles in our government speaking out?

AM:  For military members, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 88, prohibits contemptuous speech toward the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress.  So, how can senior members speak out?

Old Gadfly:  Is criticism based on an understanding of the Constitution considered contempt?

IM:  Good question.

Old Gadfly:  Members of our armed forces swear an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.”  If these members see actions that threaten our Constitution and do nothing, then what good is the oath?  Further, the allegiance expressed in the oath is to the Constitution and the sovereign people it represents, not elected officials or government bureaucracies.  Further, I believe Article 88 presumes honorable character and, as such, is a logical condition for prohibiting contemptuous speech.  But what if the actions are not honorable?  What if actions are in defiance of the will and intent of the people?

IM:  Unfortunately, Gadfly, as you indicated in August 2012, our nation appears to be populated with an increasing faction of Copernican drones.

AM:  Our founding fathers dissented against the dishonorable and tyrannical behavior of King George.  Why would that same sense of honor not be needed today?

Old Gadfly:  It is needed.  Let’s see what kind of heat US Marine Corps Commandant General James Amos receives for his recent, honest criticism.  Are there enough Americans, like General Amos, with the courage to do something about the erection of a “sacred state” palace?      

Secretary Kerry's Defense of Fiddling

Old Gadfly:  Gentlemen, earlier this week we suggested President Obama is fiddling, that is, political campaigning while America and the rest of the world are burning.  Today, Secretary Kerry went on most or all of the Sunday talk shows to defend the fiddling.  Of course, I pictured my daughter learning to hit a baseball with the ball sitting on a stationary tee when David Gregory kicked the interview off with Obama’s criticism of his predecessor in his book, The Audacity of Hope.

AM (an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind):  Gregory sets the stage by suggesting Obama’s grasp of foreign policy is superior to Bush because Obama says so.  What a joke.  If this were Jeopardy, and the emcee asked to whom this quote was directed among the 43 American presidents, I suspect most sufficiently educated contestants would say either Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama. Yes, bin Laden is dead (technically a battlefield execution in violation of international law and norms) but Islamic extremists are proliferating.  A President with superior judgment regarding foreign policy might have demonstrated the courage to actually apprehend bin Laden to put him on public trial.

Old Gadfly:  Do you think much could have resulted from such a public trial?

AM:  Do you remember the Scopes trial?  While it pitted religion against science, in the end it demonstrated the power of ideology—whether it be religious or scientific dogma.  A bin Laden trial could have put such ideology on trial.  That’s what our war on terrorism is all about.  And now we see a caliphate emerging in portions of Syria and Iraq.

Old Gadfly:  Why do you think this option was not considered?

AM:  There would be no political capital to be gained from a trial.  But to declare “bin Laden is dead” made for great political capital in election campaigns.

Old Gadfly:  That’s interesting.  When President Bush exercised bipartisan Congressional authority to invade Iraq in 2003, his popularity was nearly 90% and I remember seeing members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican, holding hands to demonstrate national unity.  Within a year after the invasion, harsh criticism from Democrats and the left-leaning media began.  I offered an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal that attempted to explain the quick reversal by the left-wing.  I called it the political dilemma (a spinoff of the prisoner’s dilemma used in game theory).  In the article I explained that if Bush were successful in achieving stability in Iraq and the region, this would result in significant political capital for Bush and by association the Republican Party.  This would not be good for Democrats.  Thus, the left-wing undermined Bush’s effort in Iraq.  To Democrats, the outcome must be win-lose—Democrats win and Republicans lose.  If this outcome is not achievable, then the alternative outcome needs to be lose-lose.  If Democrats cannot win, then by God, Republicans won’t win either.  In the Iraq scenario, this tactical objective was achieved (Democrats eventually won large majorities in both houses of Congress).  But not part of the political calculus was a strategic major win for the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq--as we see in Syria and Iraq today.  I am terribly disappointed when I hear or read people say today’s circumstances in Iraq are based on conditions established by the Bush Administration.  The Bush Administration had to fight a two-front war, the one against Iraqi insurgents and the other against political opposition on the home-front.  Democrats demonstrate more animus towards conservative Republicans than they do against militant jihadists/Islamists.  As they say in the Middle East, an enemy of my enemy is my friend.    

IM (an American citizen with an inquiring mind):  Well, Kerry did defend Obama’s foreign policy by laying out what he called “facts,” such as Obama’s team is far more engaged in foreign affairs than any predecessor.

AM:  Some, I for one, would argue “being engaged” in this case is more accurately described as ”tampering,” or if you prefer, “fiddling,” with existing norms and traditions that produced stability in the international system.  For example, the left euphemistically referred to the eruption of chaos in northern Africa and the Middle East as “the Arab Spring.”  This happened under Obama’s watch.  How would anyone celebrate the Arab Spring today?  Yes, North Korea is quiet for now—wow!  I’m sure any North Korean that is not a member of the government appreciates that consoling thought.  China continues to advance its strategic reach militarily, while America mothballs equipment and gives folks pink slips.  Then, there is Putin and the Ukraine situation.

Old Gadfly:  Watch and listen to (or read the transcript of) to Kerry’s outrage about the Malaysian airliner shoot-down.

IM:  Amazing . . . utterly amazing.  Here are some incredible statements by Kerry:

·         So there's a stacking up of evidence here, which Russia needs to help account for. We are not drawing the final conclusion here. But there is a lot that points and the need for Russia to be responsible. And what President Obama believes and we, the international community, join in believing, everybody is convinced we must have unfettered access.

·         And the lack of access, the lack of access, David, makes its own statement about culpability and responsibility.

Old Gadfly:  What is the significance and irony of these statements?

IM:  The “stacking up of evidence,” a lot of points and the need . . . to be responsible,” “we must have unfettered access,” “the lack of access makes its own statement about culpability and responsibility.”  Yes, there were nearly 300 casualties (to include some Americans) in the airliner shoot-down and the killing of innocents demands culpability.  Yet, in our own country, we see an Administration that seems well beyond culpability when we hear about hundreds of Mexicans being killed from weapons involved in the Fast and Furious operation.  Erik Holder refused to completely cooperate with Congress in its investigation, getting top cover through Obama’s use of executive privilege TO DENY UNFETTERED ACCESS to evidence.  How about the IRS scandal (to censor opposing voices)—Lois Lerner’s invoking the Fifth Amendment as a public servant, the loss of emails, and other points or “stacking up of evidence” that suggest deliberate efforts to deny unfettered access?  And while there are certainly other notable examples, the same critics of Russian attempts to delete social media information regarding who was involved with the Malaysian airliner shoot-down, accuse critics of Administration motives for blaming a video for the attacks at Benghazi as conspiracy theorists, right-wingers, or extremists.  Many of these same critics deride those who watch Fox News as a leading and reliable source to learn about many of these points that become a “stacking up of evidence.”  Of course, if you don’t get an alternative narrative, then the only narrative one knows is reality, even if it’s not true.  Many people in other parts of the world only get the narrative the state wants them to know, such as in North Korea, many parts of the Middle East, and so forth.

AM:  Recall our recent discussion, “Yes We Can!”  The Obama Administration wants to control the narrative to distract Americans from knowing about the need for culpability in our own nation.

IM:  For those who believe in immortal culpability (and accountability well beyond the state), there is great wisdom in Matthew 7:3:  "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (New International Version)”

Nero Fiddles

Old Gadfly:  Gentlemen, do you recall the Roman emperor, Nero, and his legend: “Nero Fiddled as Rome Burned”?

 

AM (an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind):  Yes, and the metaphor plays out on a grander scale today.

IM (an American citizen with an inquiring mind):   OK, you guys seem to be talking in code.  What’s going on here?

AM:  Nero was the Roman emperor from 54 to 68 AD, and known as a persecutor of Christians and Jews.  Historians (i.e., Tacitus in particular) have concluded that he set fire to Rome to make space for a new palace, and that while Rome burned, he played the fiddle.

Old Gadfly:  So, IM, do you see similar behavior today?

IM:  Absolutely!  The leader of the once most powerful and stabilizing nation of the world fiddles with campaign speeches as the United States is becoming swarmed by chaos and the rest of the world is catching fire.

AM:  Sad . . . so very sad!