Duces Are Wild!

Duces are wild is a phrase one might expect to hear around the card table but when it becomes an accurate description of your government, as in double standards everywhere one looks, well that presents a problem. Elected officials should be held to a higher standard than everyone else, both in their words and their actions, but instead we seem satisfied as a nation with electing the lowest common denominator, sending them to Washington and then complaining about what we end up with for representation.

Among the many recent examples of this phenomenon is the Hate Crimes legislation currently making it’s way through Congress. Wrap your minds around this if you can, legislation designed to combat discrimination does so by discriminating! Why should assault and battery, or any crime, carry a harsher punishment if my victim is gay than if he/she is straight? You can not break down barriers by putting them up and if we hadn’t elected 536 bumbling idiots to represent us in Washington perhaps this would be apparent to our leaders.

In another irony this week President Obama tells us that the U.S. can’t be seen as meddling in Iran’s election as Iran’s people cry out for justice, but bullying Israel into a corner and in the process pushing the entire Middle East that much closer to the brink, that kind of meddling is fine. A moment has come in the Middle East, perhaps the moment, where a strong United States led by a strong President could possibly bring about real change. No one is talking about using force, just leading by example, saying the right things and using what diplomatic tools are available; but nope the “Hope and Change President” isn’t interested in the kind of change that might mean a Democratic Iran. Now isn’t that ironic?

But, by far my favorite double standard for the week of June 16th (and it’s only Wednesday for goodness sake) is President Obama proposing “tough new financial regulations” and a new agency to enforce them one day after firing the supposedly autonomous Inspector General Gerald Walpin because Mr. Walpin regulated one of the President’s friends and supporters a little too well. Kevin Johnson, a huge Obama supporter and now Mayor of Sacramento, whom Mr. Walpin accused of illegal use of funds, paid back more than $400,000. Does that sound like the actions of an innocent man being “targeted” by an “over-zealous” Inspector? In back-pedaling the White House attempted to justify its actions saying the firing had nothing to do with this investigation and that Mr. Walpin was let go due to being “confused and disoriented”. This raises many more questions than it answers; for example, Vice President Joe Biden is “confused and disoriented” virtually every time we see him, will the President be firing poor old Joe next?

Appease Them To Death – Is That the Plan?

Barrack Obama’s latest comments on Iran are some of the most stunningly neive of his time in the national spotlight, and that is saying something. It has been clear all along, that this President believed appeasement to be an effective diplomatic strategy despite their being no historical evidence of that tactic ever being successful. But, today’s comments take the groveling to a whole new level of absurdity. During an interview with the BBC Obama said that Iran’s energy concerns are legitimate and that as a result, we should allow them to pursue nuclear energy as long as their intentions are peaceful.

Of course, their intentions aren’t peaceful as anyone paying attention to the rhetoric out of Iran’s president can clearly discern, but let us put that aside for the moment. It’s these “energy concerns” that have me baffled. Iran has 136 billion barrels of proven oil reserves making it the 3rd richest oil nation in the world and 991 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves or the 2nd most of any nation in the world. I knew this already, but confirmed this information here, and it took me less than 5 minutes. How then does the President of the United States say this,

What I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns…

Dan Quayle misspelled potato and we are still hearing about it from the left more than twenty years later. Stupid? Yes. Dangerous? Not like allowing Iran nuclear technology because they have “energy concerns”. A Republican would never, under any circumstances, get away with making such an imbecilic statement.

Since the Appeasement President came to power, the world has seen North Korea test long range missiles on almost a weekly basis, Iran push forward with its nuclear plans and grow exceedingly more belligerent toward Israel, Hugo Chavez seize the operations of U.S. corporations in Venezuela (of course, he’s just following our President’s example – after all Obama has all but seized GM and is now hinting at a takeover of Citigroup), and Cuba thumb its nose at reconciliation overtures from this White House. How’s that appeasement strategy working out for ya’?

It seems we will never learn? In 1938, appeasement governments in Britain and France gave Adolph Hitler’s Germany 1/3 of Checkoslovakia and allowed Germany to unify with Austria. They just gave it to him to keep him quiet! At the time, Germany was not yet strong enough militarily to win any wars (think Iran or No. Korea today), but through these acquisitions the Nazis gained better defenses, more natural resources, more young men to conscript into the army and most importantly, time to continue their military build up. Why did Britain and France do this? Because Hitler “promised” to commit no further acts of aggression. I’m not kidding, they took his word for it! One year later, Germany invaded Poland setting off a World War that would result in tens of millions of deaths.   It seems my college history professor was right, those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it (and not just academically). Appeasement was  a losing strategy in 1938, and it is a losing strategy in 2009.