Category Archives: morality

Obamatalk

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President [Barack] Obama on Friday sought to fine-tune his response to the growing Islamic State terror* threat, vowing to “degrade and ultimately defeat” the network—seemingly abandoning, at least publicly, his previously stated goal of making them a “manageable problem.”

“We are going to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL, the same way we have gone after Al Qaeda,” Obama said in Wales, during a press conference at the close of a meeting of NATO allies.

And

Obama on Friday claimed “there was unity” at the NATO summit over the belief that ISIS poses a “significant threat to NATO members” and regarding a readiness to take action.

“I did not get any resistance or pushback to the basic notion that we have a critical role to play in rolling back this savage organization,” Obama said.

This business of “the same way we have gone after al Qaeda” isn’t reassuring, given the metastasization of al Qaeda, and its success across the Maghreb, Yemen, eastern Africa, the growing power of its Boko Haram affiliate, ….

Yep—he’s toughened his words, all right. But he’s not toughened his actions.

This is just empty chatter. Obamatalk.

 

*Come on, guys. Their “state” is a delusional concept. This is ISIS (or ISIL, if you prefer; it’s a trivial distinction), and they’re terrorists. You should be talking about the ISIS (ISIL) terrorist threat. Full stop.

Resign, or Resigned?

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The parents of a SEAL lost in Afghanistan, on seeing the butchery of ISIS and President Barack Obama’s decision not to respond, have written an open letter to him, via World Tribune. Here is their letter.

Billy and Karen Vaughn

After finally choosing to view the barbaric, on-camera beheading by ISIS of freelance war correspondent James Foley, I have been left with a level of rage known only to those of us who have sacrificed unspeakable offerings on the altar of world peace.

My offering was my only son—Aaron Carson Vaughn. Aaron was a member of SEAL Team VI. He was killed in action when a CH47D Chinook, carrying thirty Americans and eight Afghans was shot down in the Tangi River Valley of Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011.

Many times over the past three years, I have been asked what drove my son to choose his particular career. What made him want to be a Navy SEAL? My answer is simple.

Aaron Vaughn was a man who possessed the courage to acknowledge evil. And evil, once truly acknowledged, demands response. Perhaps this is why so few are willing to look it in the eye. It is much simpler—much safer—to look the other way.

That is, unless you are the leader of the Free World.

As Commander-in-Chief, your actions—or lack thereof—Mr President, cost lives. As you bumble about in your golf cart, slapping on a happy face and fist-pounding your buddies, your cowardly lack of leadership has left a gaping hole—not only in America’s security—but the security of the entire globe. Your message has come across loud and clear, sir: You are not up to this job. You know it. We know it. The world knows it.

Please vacate the people’s house and allow a man or woman of courage and substance to seize the reigns of this out-of-control thug-fest and regain the balance we, America, have provided throughout our great history.

Thanks to your “leadership” from whatever multi-million dollar vacation you happen to be on at any given moment, the world is in chaos. What’s been gained, you’ve lost. What’s been lost, you’ve decimated. You’ve demolished our ability to hold the trust of allies. You’ve made a mockery of the title “President.” And you’ve betrayed the nation for which my son and over 1.3 million others have sacrificed their very lives.

But this should come as no surprise, since your wife uttered a vile statement on Feb. 18, 2008, during the primary campaign—one that speaks volumes of your true convictions. “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country,” she said.

I am sure my deceased son thanks you for that, Mrs Obama. Oh, and you’re welcome.

Never in my lifetime have I witnessed such despair and such growing fear that the world’s last best hope, America, has finally been dismantled. Perhaps the better word is transformed—fundamentally transformed. Come to think of it, it’s become difficult—if not impossible—to believe things haven’t gone exactly as you planned, Mr President.

Amazingly, in five short years, your administration has lurched from one disaster to another. You spearheaded the ambitious rush to end the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan—with no plan on how to do so effectively. Also, the release of “the Taliban five” in exchange for one American—without consulting Congress—is also on your shoulders.

You have been at the helm during unprecedented national security leaks—including, but not limited to the outing of SEAL Team VI on the Bin laden raid, the outing of the Pakistani doctor who provided the intelligence for that raid, the outing of Afghanistan’s CIA station chief, and the outing of your personal “kill list” to make you look tough. In addition, 75 percent of American deaths in Afghanistan and 83 percent of Americans-wounded-in-action have occurred on your watch, according to icasualties.org.

And now, we have this recent, heinous event: the beheading of an American citizen by a barbaric organization you foolishly referred to as “the JV team” in your statements to the New Yorker magazine in January.

You, sir, are the JV team. It’s time for you to step down and allow a true leader to restore our honor and protect our sons and daughters.

America has always been exceptional. And she will be again. You, Mr President, are a bump in our road.

Obama’s decision not to respond is embodied in his speech and question/answer period while he was traveling in Estonia. While there, Obama said his goal was to “degrade and destroy” ISIS. A few short minutes later, he said his goal was to render ISIS a “manageable problem.”

 

h/t Power Line

The Problem with a Law

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In 2012, the Labor Department threatened to seize the blueberry crops of a couple of Oregon farmers until they settled a Labor complaint and signed away their right to appeal the settlement. With crops at risk of rotting away, the farmers settled, agreeing to pay Labor more than $240,000. The alleged “crimes” were Labor’s claims the farmers had violated minimum wage requirements under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. Labor used the threat of seizure of these perishable crops to extort the settlement.

After signing and getting their crops back, the two farmers sued.

The courts were unimpressed with Labor’s behavior.

By using the threat of rotting crops as coercion, the feds trampled due process. In January, Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin ruled Labor had prevented defendants from having “their day in court.”

In February, Labor asked US District Judge Michael McShane to review Judge Coffin’s decision. Judge McShane agreed with the original ruling, noting the growers had challenged “unique circumstances” involving “a highly perishable product at peak harvest.”

Yew betcha. Hence the extortionate nature of Labor’s behavior. “Nice crop you got there….”

Congressman Kurt Schrader (D, OR) has been equally unimpressed with Labor’s behavior. He’s now writing a bill that would “exempt certain perishable agricultural commodities” from this sort of action.

Schrader doesn’t go far enough, though. The law should be rescinded altogether. The Federal government has demonstrated conclusively that it can’t be trusted with it.

What Does Europe Owe Ukraine?

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The crisis in Eastern Europe…is now entering its 10th month. What began with the collapse of an association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine can now be called a war.

Emphasis added.

All Ukraine wanted was to be free. Free from Russia; free to chart its own course; free to begin to escape its own history of governmental corruption; free to align itself with, learn from the association, and perhaps to prosper in its freedom. The EU implied, with that agreed association, that it would help Ukraine work toward those goals, using that association and EU’s vasty trade market.

When the collapse of the agreement occurred, the Ukrainian people tossed the mendacious government that had collapsed it—and those people—in favor of returning to the Russian sphere; in retaliation against the Ukrainians’ making their wishes, their demands, their very sovereignty over government known, Russia invaded Ukraine. First, the Russians occupied Crimea and then partitioned Ukraine, incorporating Crimea into itself. Then the Russians invaded eastern Ukraine, initially by supplying arms and ammunition to Russian “separatists” already present in the region, then by supplying Russian soldiers “on holiday,” and now openly, driving a Russian held corridor through southern Ukraine stretching along Ukraine’s erstwhile Sea of Azov coast from Russia to Crimea.

What is Europe doing about this? They’re talking. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin 25-35 times, to engage in idle chit-chat. The EU has applied pinprick “economic sanctions.” They do not supply arms and ammunition. The openly say they will not supply troops—which Ukraine already has said they do not want, but still….

What is the value of Europe’s agreements when they dishonor the implications of an association agreement? Even the one that was signed by the government which the Ukrainian people put in place a couple short months ago?

Democracy People’s Republic of China Style

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And democracy Hong Kong style.

The PRC’s view of elections in its satrapy is that only candidates acceptable to the Communist Party of China can stand for office in Hong Kong. Indeed, the Deputy Secretary General of the National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee, Li Fei, has said out loud that openly nominating candidates would create a “chaotic society.” He went further:

[R]ights come from laws, they don’t come from the sky. Many Hong Kong people have wasted a lot of time discussing things that are not appropriate and aren’t discussing things that are appropriate.

The contrast between freedom and tyranny could hardly be made more starkly clear.

Pursuant to Li’s remarks,

The…Standing Committee ruled that all candidates for chief executive must receive more than half of the votes from a special nominating body before going before voters.

And

[T]he 1,200-member nominating committee would select two or three candidates. After one is selected through universal suffrage, the chief executive-elect “will have to be appointed by the Central People’s Government.”

The good citizens of Hong Kong, though, have been holding massive demonstrations during the current run-up to the elections for governing positions there, demanding that actual democracy break out (as agreed by the PRC when the UK gave up Hong Kong to them at the end of the last century). These citizens demur from the PRC’s despotism.

Democracy, freedom, are messy and chaotic at times. That’s the price, and the strength, of free men working their way along a path of their own choosing, rather than suffering the order of government telling them what their path must be. The noisiness and seeming chaos are in the nature of every man being free, of every man having his say, of every man acting in his own time according to his own needs and wishes. It is a sign of a healthy society.

My suggestion, in the hubris associated with my position on the outside looking in: the citizenry should agree on a couple of candidates for the relevant posts—most particularly, for Chief Executive—and then, en masse, write those names in, and thereby elect one of them to each of those relevant posts. The citizens then should demand the PRC recognize that man as the Hong Kong Chief Executive and those men as the elects for those relevant posts.

Of course, such a prior arrangement is not different from what the Standing Committee has done, but as a one-time event to make an important statement and to make the PRC’s behavior internationally public, perhaps an exception can be made. After all, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is the citizens of Hong Kong’s right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

In such an event, extraordinary measures become necessary.