Old Gadfly: Gentlemen, Merry Christmas.
IM (an American citizen with
an inquiring mind): Thank you,
Gadfly. I am celebrating this day with
my family. Why did you feel compelled to
disrupt my celebration?
AM (an American combat
aviator with an inquiring mind): I know
why, IM. Two days ago, a Jordanian
fighter pilot was shot down by ISIS and is now a prisoner. May God give him strength.
IM: Why do you say that, AM?
AM: Ironically, while Senator Feinstein and other
like-minded progressives self-flagellate America for the so-called
water-boarding torture, ISIS beheads people for propaganda purposes. What do you think they have in mind for this
coalition fighter pilot? Before they
behead him, ISIS will perpetrate and advertise the most extreme forms of
torture, ensuring that other fighter pilots are fully aware of what they can
expect if and when captured. They won’t waste
their time water boarding the pilot.
They could care less about humane measures during interrogations. They want to send a global signal that they
are fully committed to their cause.
Old Gadfly: Was water-boarding a form of torture?
AM: According to legal analysis prior to allowing
the method, the critical element was “intent.”
The intent was not to harm or injure, which would be considered
torture. What I find ironic is that it
is common to flash the three images of the only terrorists to be
water-boarded. They are still alive and
healthy. It would be far more revealing
to show these three murderers against the 3,000 images of innocents murdered on
9/11 and the numerous Americans beheaded by terrorists. Unfortunately, only Fox News has an interest in revealing the significant
flaws and deliberate slant of the Feinstein report.
Old Gadfly: Was the
Jordanian fighter pilot shot down by a surface to air missile?
AM: In my opinion, yes. What should be very disturbing to our
national security team is that 20,000
surface to air missiles were unaccounted for after the fall of Kaddafi in
Libya. Then there was the Benghazi
attack, where I have been told by credible sources, some of which having
been reported in various news venues, that the U.S. was engaged in a gun
running operation to supply anti-Assad rebels in Syria.
Old Gadfly: Didn’t ISIS emerge from Syria?
AM: Most of the evidence
points to Camp Bucca in Iraq. What the
news reporting got wrong is that the cause, which unites members of ISIS, is
Islamic ideology. Camp Bucca closely
assembled fanatic adherents to the ideology.
To the fanatics, Camp Bucca symbolized the Great Satan, thus adding fuel
to the fire already raging in their hearts and minds.
Old Gadfly: Did they benefit from the Benghazi arms
shipments?
AM: My guess is quite a bit. But these weapons are a piss ant compared with
the weapons they can acquire in the black market.
Old Gadfly: Let’s revisit the ISIS cause for action. Why would an American fighter pilot be
willing to put himself at similar risk as the Jordanian fighter pilot? For what cause does he (or she) fight?
AM: In my day, I fought for the American way of
life—supporting and defending the Constitution against all enemies foreign and
domestic meant something to me. I was
prepared to die to protect our nation from the foreign threat of communism. Our
President now wants to help communist Cuba.
IM: In terms of our way of life, we now have a domestic
enemy, a secular force in America that fights hard to diminish one of the
important reasons we fought for independence as a nation. Our very first of 10 Constitutional amendments
guaranteed the freedom of religion. Our
culture and legal institutions were built upon Judeo-Christian principles; principles
that regard life as being sacred and declared as an unalienable right in our
Declaration of Independence. Did you
know that while Planned Parenthood and other organizations push for unfettered
and taxpayer subsidized abortions, I could be fined up to $250,000 and sentenced
up to 2 years in prison for destroying an eagle egg? I guess a human being is less important than
an eagle.
Old Gadfly: Neither of you answered my question. Why would an American fighter pilot risk a
fate similar to the Jordanian fighter pilot?
AM: I think many in today’s military are confused
about what it is that they have committed to.
Sure, many “serve” for the pay and benefits. If we get too many who serve merely for this
purpose we can end up with the same hollow force the Iraqi’s discovered when
American forces departed.
Old Gadfly: But, don’t many in our military fight for our
way of life?
IM: Our way of life is being transformed by a
major shift from individual liberty to collective liberty, managed by a central
government.
AM: Many in our nation are not in favor of this
shift. The recent elections are
evidence.
Old Gadfly: There is only so much that Congress can
do. It is still constrained by public
sentiment.
IM: Good point, Gadfly. Public sentiment is characterized by our news
media. As we have discussed previously,
the mainstream news media sources have a progressive lens through which they
report.
Old Gadfly: Did you see the report
about the Marquette University (a Jesuit run university) professor being banned
from campus while being investigated for “offensive speech” in a blog post? He basically argued that a student was being
unfairly censored for his traditional view of marriage.
IM: Yes, I saw the report. The professor is being punished for having a
different view. Add to this the “expectation”
that people emotionally react to a white cop shooting a black man is all about the
power of certain values despite the truth.
AM: Sadly, when highly paid athletes hold up
their hands to symbolize the “hands up-don’t shoot” meme falsely perpetrated by
an accomplice or wear t-shirts bearing “I can’t breathe,” then they are like chimps
mimicking prescribed behavior. Others
who assemble to protest over apparent racism or highly paid politicians who
release damaging reports such as “CIA torture” are chumps, kowtowing to
political ideology. Hmmm . . . is ISIS
successful because followers kowtow to an ideology?
Old Gadfly: Either way, what we see happening in America
is what F.A. Hayek observed among totalitarian regimes in the 1940s. We discussed this already in a previous
conversation. Recall the opening
paragraph in Hayek’s chapter, “The End of Truth,” in The Road to Serfdom:
The most effective way of
making everybody serve the single system of ends toward which the social plan
is directed is to make everybody believe in those ends. To make a totalitarian system function
efficiently, it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the
same ends. It is essential that the
people should come to regard them as their own ends. Although the beliefs must be chosen for the
people and imposed upon them, they must become their beliefs, a generally
accepted creed which makes the individuals as far as possible act spontaneously
in the way the planner wants. If the
feeling of oppression in totalitarian countries is in general much less acute
than most people in liberal countries imagine, this is because the totalitarian
governments succeed to a high degree in making people think as they want them
to.
IM: Part of the last sentence is worth
emphasizing: “Totalitarian governments
succeed to a high degree in making people think as they want them to.” I heard on the news just this morning that
the Obama Administration is saying our economy is growing like
gangbusters. Fortunately for the Administration,
most Americans are not economists. Were
they, then they would know that when the Administration claims our economy is
beyond the recession, technically this is correct. But what the Administration will not admit is
that America is in fact experiencing a serious depression. The difference depends on monetary versus
structural issues. America’s economy reflects
subnormal growth based on structural issues, thus a depression. For an excellent explanation of this
phenomenon see James Rickard’s article, “Welcome
to the New Depression.” Rickards claims the best definition of a depression
is from John Maynard Keynes: “a chronic
condition of subnormal activity for a considerable period without any marked
tendency towards recovery or towards complete collapse.” Rickards then argues:
Keynes did not refer to
declining GDP; he talked about “subnormal” activity. In other words, it’s entirely possible to
have growth in a depression. The problem
is that the growth is below trend. It is
weak growth that does not do the job of providing enough jobs or staying ahead
of the national debt. This is exactly
what the U.S. is experiencing today.
AM: I read the article. Rickard’s logic is compelling and contrary to
what the Administration and mainstream media claim.
Old Gadfly: It is ironic and not coincidental that the
Feinstein report was released the same time Jonathan Gruber testified before
Congress. This looks like a pretty
straight-forward strategy, given a complicit media: tell the public what you want it to believe. Let the noise of the Feinstein report obscure
the signal about intentional deception to get the Affordable Care Act passed.
IM: Déjà vu.
Gadfly, do you remember our conversation a couple years ago on
engineering public sentiment? Here is
what I said:
As I casually observed actions and behaviors
that seemed somewhat isolated from each other, I also kept hearing in the back
of my mind: drip . . . drip . . . drip . . .
Then, these seemingly isolated drops began to merge into a stream with
force and direction. I pulled my copy of
George Orwell’s 1984 (with John Hurt
and Richard Burton) off the shelf and inserted it into my DVD player. At the very beginning of the movie was a
black screen, then these words in white:
WHO CONTROLS THE PAST
CONTROLS THE FUTURE
(Following a short pause, the next two lines
appeared on the screen)
WHO CONTROLS THE PRESENT
CONTROLS THE PAST
This is when I truly understood the magnitude
and danger of Obama and the progressive movement’s design for engineering
public sentiment. Unfortunately, many of
our younger voters have no idea that Orwell was capturing the real dangers he
actually witnessed in the Soviet Union and Germany when he wrote the original
book in 1949.
AM: There is a scene later in the movie where
Richard Burton actually tortures John Hurt to coerce him into internalizing
only “the truth” he was allowed to believe.
Old Gadfly: Fortunately, today of all days is an
opportunity for us to embrace a certain truth for which Jesus Christ willingly
endured torture and death by crucifixion.
His selfless act liberated us from the chains of sinful illusions. He taught us to love and to forgive, not to
agitate or to hate.
IM: Is there hope for us?
Old Gadfly: Yes, if we place our trust in God’s
salvation, not in man’s idea of utopia.
