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Many years ago, at a certain academic institution, there was an experimental program that the faculty had to vote on as to whether or not it should be made permanent.
I rose at the faculty meeting to say that I knew practically nothing about whether the program was good or bad, and that the information that had been supplied to us was too vague for us to have any basis for voting, one way or the other. My suggestion was that we get more concrete information before having a vote.
The director of that program rose immediately and responded indignantly and sarcastically to what I had just said— and the faculty gave him a standing ovation.
After the faculty meeting was over, I told a colleague that I was stunned and baffled by the faculty’s fierce response to my simply saying that we needed more information before voting.
“Tom, you don’t understand,” he said. “Those people need to believe in that man. They have invested so much hope and trust in him that they cannot let you stir up any doubts.”
Years later, and hundreds of miles away, I learned that my worst misgivings about that program did not begin to approach the reality, which included organized criminal activity.
The memory of that long-ago episode has come back more than once while observing both the actions of the Obama administration and the fierce reactions of its supporters to any questioning or criticism.
Almost never do these reactions include factual or logical arguments against the administration’s critics. Instead, there is indignation, accusations of bad faith and even charges of racism.
Here too, it seems as if so many people have invested so much hope and trust in Barack Obama that it is intolerable that anyone should come along and stir up any doubts that could threaten their house of cards.
Among the most pathetic letters and e-mails I receive are those from people who ask why I don’t write more “positively” about Obama or “give him the benefit of the doubt.”
No one— not even the President of the United States— has an entitlement to a “positive” response to his actions.
The entitlement mentality has eroded the once common belief that you earned things, including respect, instead of being given them.
As for the benefit of the doubt, no one— especially not the President of the United States— is entitled to that, when his actions can jeopardize the rights of 300 million Americans domestically and the security of the nation in an international jungle, where nuclear weapons may soon be in the hands of people with suicidal fanaticism. Will it take a mushroom cloud over an American city to make that clear? Was 9/11 not enough?
When a President of the United States has begun the process of dismantling America from within, and exposing us to dangerous enemies outside, the time is long past for being concerned about his public image. He has his own press agents for that.
Internationally, Barack Obama has made every mistake that was made by the Western democracies in the 1930s, mistakes that put Hitler in a position to start World War II— and come dangerously close to winning it.
At the heart of those mistakes was trying to mollify your enemies by throwing your friends to the wolves. The Obama administration has already done that by reneging on this country’s commitment to put a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe and by its lackadaisical foot-dragging on doing anything serious to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That means, for all practical purposes, throwing Israel to the wolves as well.
Countries around the world that have to look out for their own national survival, above all, are not going to ignore how much Obama has downgraded the reliability of America’s commitments.
Iraq, for example, knows that Iran is going to be next door forever while Americans may be gone in a few years. South Korea likewise knows that North Korea is permanently next door but who knows when the Obama administration will get a bright idea to pull out? Countries in South America know that Hugo Chavez is allying Venezuela with Iran. Dare they ally themselves with an unreliable U.S.A.? Or should they join our enemies to work against us?
This issue is too serious for squeamish silence.
Did Bush do anything meaningful to stop Iran? Did Bush do anything meaningful to build a strong economy, rather than to destroy it? Did Bush work toward peace in the Middle East? Did Bush make us impervious to terrorism, or did he fail to connect the dots. Jezzuz Krist……..
We never were, nor will we ever be impervious to terrorism. Many people take pleasure in trashing President Bush, and there are reasons for some of the complaints. He did, however, put measures in place that enabled America to better protect herself. Most importantly, he never apologized for America, nor did he do anything that would give America's enemies reason to believe that we are weak and that we lack the will to protect ourselves. Nor did he give our allies reason to believe that we would no longer protect them, thus possibly causing them to look toward America's enemies for “protection”. Say what you will about President Bush, but he did and does believe that American liberty is worth protecting, and that our word to our allies should be kept. Obama does not.
I will not defend President Bush on his actions. The second commentor is right in that he put measures into place against terrorism. His problem is that he had to back off of what the root of the problem was. You can't fight “terrorism” any better than you can fight “sniper-ism” or “fighter-jet ism”, etc. I will not beat the dead horse. If we were united in purpose as a nation, we wouldn't have fallen to where we are now. The bottom line is that some nation/ ideology is always trying to rule the world and we won't believe it. Instead our younger generation is spoiled and enoculated by freedoms to the point of hating those very freedoms that protect them. In other words, America could implode by blinding following anything that seems “new” and “change” because they want to fill their own desires instead of the nation's (children and grandchildren included). I hope we can “change”, but back to a solid nation we were before the 90s.
One of the biggest problems I had with President Bush was his insistance that Islam is a religion of peace. You are correct, “terrorism” is not the danger, Islam is. I also agree with your assessment of our younger generation; alot of them are selfish and spoiled, as they have been taught to be. I do not agree that they hate liberty. They simply do not understand it and have never had to fight for it. Thank God there are some (quite a few, actually) of the younger generation who are able to learn from history and recognize the peril our nation faces, and are willing to fight it.
Thomas Sowell has, once again, stated the truth.
All I can say about the article is that I AGREE, AGREE, and AGREE.
Readers, while you are at it, read Sowell's two-part
“Dismantling America.”
Absolutely!
The widespread indulgence of Obama – and his adoring admirers who just “believe” in change – creates dangerous environment.The radical Islamists believe they are winning – and fully expect Obama to surrender.
I would also note, however, that most Americans are far more concerned with employment, housing, education, and medical issues than foreign policy. A solid majority of Americans voted for Obama – and some vague notion of change – to improve their economic and social situations. Therefore, it behooves harsh critiques of his foreign policy to acknowledge that most Americans seem indifferent to these global issues… until we are attacked again on American soil.
President Bush is the only reason the USA is in a credible position to stop Iran, hussein won't do it though. I'll know who to thank if the mad mullahs go nuclear on hussein's watch, and it certainly won't be President Bush.
President Bush's tax cuts did in fact help the economy, and increased tax revenue. President Bush certainly did try to get congress to do something about fannie and freddie before they collapsed, but barney and co. knew better.
The exposure of the khan proliferation network, the exposure and elimination of khadaffy's NBC programs, and the elimination of saddam and his psychotic sons wasn't working away from ME 'peace.' President Bush certainly made us less vulnerable to terrorism, while the dp/msm certainly tried to make us more vulnerable.
Thanks for reminding us.
Sure you can fight terrorism, or any other tactic. You do that by making the cost of using the tactic not worth the consequences. When was the last time Germany or Japan bombed anyone's population centers? That's what the Geneva conventions and other laws of war were for, when they were enforced.
The rest of the post was on, but don't ever expect the dp to ever put unity or national security over obtaining or keeping their political control.
From day one of his presidency, Obama has been eager to communicate to the Muslim global community that pleasing and submitting to Islam is his top priority.
In October, 2009, the Obama administration co-sponsored a UN resolution with Muslim Egypt to ban speech that defames religion (Islam). A massive attack that threatens the freedom of every non-Muslim on earth.
Obama's first official phone call was to PLO Muslim terrorist leader, Abbas. Abbas, highly respected by past and present U.S. administrations, financed the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. Obama's first interview was with Al-Arabiya, Muslim TV station.
Obama Bows to the Saudi King:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd425zfw5Ew&feat...
Obama: “My Muslim Faith”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKGdkqfBICw
Obama: MUSLIM Call to Prayer One of the PRETTIEST Sounds on Earth
http://www.arkjournal.com/2008/06/obama-muslim-...
The Koran is radically different from the Bible.
PA Muslims CELEBRATE Murder of 3,000 Innocents 9/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrM0dAFsZ8k
G-D's eternal Biblical requirement for ALL humanity is KINDNESS: Jewish Bible, Micah 6:8. 'And what does the L-RD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-D.'
Obama: ” We are no longer a Christian nation . . . “
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOOrSAbU9z8&anno...
In fact, Bush's tax cuts worked to increase the divide between rich and poor. The economy was never on a sound footing during his entire presidency. As I predicted, the economy collapsed once the contradictions of the fake housing boom manifested. In the meantime, we had to suffer through a faulty regulatory apparatus that let crooks like Ken Lay and Bernie Madoff destroy American lives, and destroy the credibility of American capitalism. Bush and Cheney together sold out a member of the CIA ('amateur hour' as Cheney referred to the CIA he 'reveres' so much), and proceeded to stage a phony propaganda war on the US public to convince us that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 ('mushroom clouds') and was stockpiling WMD (a program we knew he dismantled in '93). In addition, the tortures that the Right have denied were largely the product not of 'keeping America safe', but rather to try to glean (ie. force) a connection between Iraq and 9/11. We now know why the US has refused to join the world in the International Criminal Court, one of the most important entities to ensure accountability. And we haven't even gotten to Katrina yet……………………
Again, the Bush tax cuts increased economic activity and thus revenue, and made the recession he inherited shallow. The problem, as always, is failure to restrain domestic spending. Our poverty bottom end will always be whatever we let crash our Southern border, the only thing required to increase that gap is for the rich to get richer. There's nothing wrong with the rich getting richer, it hurts nobody and helps many. Wealth isn't zero sum.
It's Bush's fault he couldn't reign in the CRA, which caused the housing bubble, over dp opposition? It wasn't the GOP insisting all was well at fannie and freddie to the end. Herb Moses and franklin raines weren't connected Republicans, and fixing the problem before it imploded wasn't shot down by the GOP. The GOP failing to stop the dp doesn't absolve the dp from doing it. You must be real upset that barney frank and the dp left all the elements in place to let it happen again.
Ken Lay's enron scam was developed and protected by dp corruption, and shut down by the Bush Administration (cap and trade is enron on a grand scale, btw). Same with Global Crossing. Regular folks lost their life savings so democrat party crooks like mccauliffe could skate with millions and say when asked about it, “That's capitalism.” yet somehow it's the GOP giving the free market a bad name. Funny how the democrats and their supporters are always in the middle of these dp enabled scams that the GOP gets blamed for.
You can't very well condemn madoff with out condemning social security, our biggest government ponzi scheme. Madoff didn't get a dime from me, and couldn't force me to give him anything. Not so with social security.
Since when has “american capitalism” (capitalism is a marxist term, btw) had any credibility with the democrat party? That's okay, I know it's government interference in the free market that causes most of the problems with it. That's always an excuse for more interference.
How did the Bush or Cheney get almost the entire dp to wage that “phony propaganda war,” while clinton was in the WH and Bush was in the Texas Governor's mansion? Cheney called the CIA amateur hour because the clinton administration ran most of the pros out of the CIA. Hussein never documented the destruction of his WMD stockpiles, one of his many violations of the GWCFA, which he never complied with. They never said saddam was behind or connected to 9/11. Tell us some more funnies.
We didn't torture anybody (not that I think they shouldn't have), and no, we didn't have another mass casualty attack on our soil while he was President, so yes he obviously did keep America safe. Please let me know when any of our enemies treat our soldiers in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, that hasn't happened since the Luftwaffe POW camps in WWII. There is no equivalence in the treatment they get and the treatment our service members get.
Katrina, where the democrat party governor, and democrat party mayor waited too late to evacuate and let FEMA in? I guess it is President Bush's fault he didn't take over from the incompetent democrat politicians before it was too late, but they would have just pitched a fit over that.
Obama Is Dismantling America…
> “When a President of the United States has begun the process of dismantling America from within, and exposing us to dangerous enemies outside, the time is long past for being concerned about his public image. …”
Mr. Sowell,
While I agree 100% with your sentiments as stated, I have a pet peeve point of contention with ALL pundits, not you specifically, who merely state what Obama is doing to implement what he said 5 days before his inauguration, “… we are 5 days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
> 8 seconds on YouTuge – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvJJP9AYgqU
Transfroming America from what to what?
Dismantling capitalism brick by brick?
Maybe positiong himself and America to the left of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba?
Remember the Chavez speech when he said that he, Chavez, and Castro had to watch out, or they would find themselves to the Right of Obama if he succeeded in implementing his transforming and redistributive agenda on America?
Before the muskets of the citizen militia are confiscated and dissent is restricted, when is the federal and state legislative and judicial call to arms going to be sounded by right thinking print and media pundits such as yourself and Walter Williams and Mark Levin and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh et al.?
Isn't “…fundamentally transforming” America without “redistributive” constitutionsl authority a subversive act, a dereliction of duty to “protect and defend” the constitution?
Isn't that a subversive “high crime and misdemeanor” offense?
If “fundamentally transforming” America into a socialist state by taking advantage of a fabricated “crisis” without the amendment process isn't a “high crime” offense, then what is a “high crime” offense against the U.S. constitution?
Who in the public spot light is saying that Obama is acting beyond the constitutional 10th amendment negative rights restrictions and without “redistributive” authority, and who is ACTIVELY making a legislative and judicial concerted effort to STOP Obama in his “Lenin wanna be” commune(ist) agenda???
You can fight back to terrorism. My point has actually already been made by others. When we fought Germany and Japan in WWII, it was the Nazi and Imperialists regimes that we fought (not kamikazism though that the method of the pearl harbor attack). You cannot secure a nation against attack if you don't believe you have an enemy. RIght after 911, we said we had enemies. Now for the most part, we act as though we do not. It is like a biblical Christian or God fearing Jew trying to live for Jesus and ignoring the fact that there is a spiritual batrtle. Believe you have enemies and resist (offensive) them