Reflections From a Murky Pond

Sometimes referred to as part of Scottish Wisdom and meant with all humor, this blunt statement carries with it a great weight of vastly unpleasant truth.

Help a man when he’s in trouble, and he’ll remember you when he’s in trouble again.

I think that what humor it evokes is of the “you either have to laugh or cry variety.”

It’s true though; more often than not, the result of helping is man is that he’ll first turn to you the next time he believes that he needs help – and so the cycle of irresponsibility and dependance begins.

Tags: Entitlement Society | Foreign Aid | Humor | Welfare | Wisdom

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 29th, 2011 at 9:04 am and is filed under Musings, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

The very fact that America is in its current “Debt Crisis” and seeking to, once again, raise it’s own debt ceiling is an example of a willful and utter failure of leadership. Rather than behave responsibly, the politicians in Washington D.C. have chosen to continue to make America reliant upon foreign financial aid and to burden our children and our children’s children with crushing debt owed to foreign powers.

The above was Obama’s stridently voiced opinion when President Bush Jr. was POTUS:

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” he said. “It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.

— Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), March 20, 2006

Then-Senator Obama then voted, along with 47 other Senators, against the proposed debt ceiling increase. The joint resolution ended up narrowly passing 52 – 48.

Since then, of course, Obama’s public opinion has rather dramatically reversed. Now he and his coterie seem to feel that not raising the debt ceiling would be a failure of leadership.

In January, 2011 the White House was questioned on this turnabout of position. The response from Obama’s mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs revealed quite a lot about Obama’s “character” and his “positions” on issues.

Asked about that quote – and vote — today, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that it was important that “based on the outcome of that vote…the full faith and credit was not in doubt.”

Then-Sen. Obama used the vote “to make a point about needing to get serious about fiscal discipline….His vote was not necessarily needed on that.”

So Obama was against the debt ceiling increase when being so would have no near-term consequences that might affect his chances of keeping his job in the US Senate. One must presume that he is for it now for similar reasons since failing to raise the debt ceiling would definitely have near-term consequences – or so his cabal keep telling us – that would negatively impact his continued employment.

Unsurprisingly, this being an election year, Obama has further “clarified” his position on the matter and no longer believes that even token speeches of dissent or unneeded votes of conscience against raising the debt ceiling are appropriate.

Press secretary Jay Carney said that “the president, as David Plouffe said yesterday, regrets that vote and thinks it was a mistake. He realizes now that raising the debt ceiling is so important to the health of this economy and the global economy that it is not a vote that, even when you are protesting an administration’s policies, you can play around with, and you need to take very seriously the need to raise the debt limit so that the full faith and credit of the United States government is maintained around the globe.”

Don’t mistake either my point or Obama’s position. He was not “against it before he was for it.” His position has always been the same, to be elected and reelected. Obama, the Campaigner-in-Chief has no firmly held positions or agendas beyond that or, at least, none that supersede that self-centered and narcissistic core goal.

Like most Liberals Obama’s ideology falls by the wayside whenever pursuing it would force him to make sacrifices or put his personal circumstances at risk. Sacrifices are things that other people should be forced to make for the “greater good.”

~*~

Keep your eyes open. Travel light but load heavy, and always put another round in the enemy after they’re down. 😉

Tags: 2012 Elections | America | Debt | Debt Ceiling | Deficit | Foreign Aid | History | Lies | Obama | Politics | Spending | US Senate

This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2011 at 2:18 pm and is filed under 2012 Election, Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

The “government” of Pakistan has defied US laws and refused to have its chief of Intelligence, Lt. General Ahmed Shuja Pasha appear in a US court to face a lawsuit alleging that he was responsible for the November, 2008 Muslim Terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

Pasha is the chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

As reported Thursday, December 23, 2010 by the Economic Times of India:

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani today said that no force could pressurise the ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha to appear in a US court to face a lawsuit filed by relatives of victims of the Mumbai attacks.

“The ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence)… is an extremely important (and) sensitive institution of this country. If they do not agree to go to the American court, then no one can send them,” Gilani said.

His remarks came as media reports from New York said the plaintiffs in two US lawsuits accusing Pakistan’s spy chief of nurturing terrorists involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks are hoping for a historic outcome recalling the Lockerbie settlement.

The lawsuit against the ISI and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was filed before a Federal court in Brooklyn, NY on November 19, 2010 by relatives of Rabbi Gavriel Noah Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, who were both brutally gunned down by Islamist vermin while at the Chhabad House in Mumbai. The court promptly issued summons to Lt. Gen. Pasha along with other key leaders in the ISI and LeT.

The 26-page lawsuit accusing ISI of aiding and abetting LeT in the slaughter of 166 people was filed before a New York Court on November 19, following which the Brooklyn court issued summons to Major Samir Ali, Azam Cheema, Inter-Services Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Major Iqbal, Lakhvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Sajid Majid, Pasha, Saeed and Nadeem Taj.

“The ISI has long nurtured and used international terrorist groups, including LeT, to accomplish its goals and has provided material support to LeT and other international terrorist groups,” said the lawsuit filed by relatives of the slain Rabbi. Pasha, who has been director general of the ISI since September 2008, has been summoned, so is Nadeem Taj, the director general of ISI from September 2007 to September 2008.

From what evidence we have, including testimony by Pakistani-American Muslim Terrorist David Headley, the case has definite merit. It is very likely that Pasha and others in Pakistan’s ISI are Islamist terrorists and it’s even more certain that they’ve been waging a war of terrorism against India due to the long dispute over Kashmir.

I wholeheartedly sympathize with the plaintiffs in this lawsuit. These Muslim vermin need to be made to pay in any way that mankind can make them pay.

Then, when we’ve punished them fully, we can shove pork chops down their vile throats and shoot them in their respective heads – unto their last misborn crotch-dropping.

Unfortunately, irrespective of the merits of the lawsuit or mankind’s sentiments, restitution as dictated by the court will not be forthcoming and no member of what passes for Pakistan’s government will ever stand before a US court. It is delusional or foolish to believe, think, or hope otherwise.

Failed state or not, never should have been created out of whole cloth or not, Pakistan is a sovereign nation. Sovereign nations rarely allow their citizens to be summoned to stand before foreign courts in matters of tort, nor due they make any effort to enforce any judgments rendered by such foreign courts. This is even more true when the defendant is a senior member of the nation’s ruling body.

In point of fact, the US behaves in exactly the same manner and protects its citizens and officials the same way. It’s – at best – ridiculous to expect any other nation to behave otherwise. That’s why retribution in such cases is most often best handled outside of the judicial system and by experts in the field of bringing wrongdoers before the highest bar for judgment.

Tags: Ahmed Shuja Pasha | Foreign Aid | Foreign Policy | India | International Law | ISI | Islam | Islamists | Jihad | Lashkar-e-Taiba | Law | LeT | Mumbai | Muslims | Nationalism | New York | Pakistan | Politics | Sovereignty | Terrorism | Terrorists | Tort | Vermin | War On Terror | Yousuf Raza Gilani

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 23rd, 2010 at 2:18 pm and is filed under Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

As I’ve said before, America’s foreign aid philosophy and policies are and have been a hideous failure. They do very little but perpetuate problems and foster dependence, seeming more a perverse combination of “feel good” easy actions and animal husbandry than true aid to those in dire need.

As shockingly odd as it seems to me, it appears that the Obama Regime agrees with this premise.

Below is an excerpt from President Obama’s address to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals Summit on September 22, 2010.

And today, I’m announcing our new U.S. Global Development Policy – the first of its kind by an American administration. It’s rooted in America’s enduring commitment to the dignity and potential of every human being. And it outlines our new approach and the new thinking that will guide our overall development efforts, including the plan that I promised last year and that my administration has delivered to pursue the Millennium Development Goals. Put simply, the United States is changing the way we do business.

First, we’re changing how we define development. For too long, we’ve measured our efforts by the dollars we spent and the food and medicines that we delivered. But aid alone is not development. Development is helping nations to actually develop – moving from poverty to prosperity. And we need more than just aid to unleash that change. We need to harness all the tools at our disposal – from our diplomacy to our trade policies to our investment policies.

Second, we are changing how we view the ultimate goal of development. Our focus on assistance has saved lives in the short term, but it hasn’t always improved those societies over the long term. Consider the millions of people who have relied on food assistance for decades. That’s not development, that’s dependence, and it’s a cycle we need to break. Instead of just managing poverty, we have to offer nations and peoples a path out of poverty.

These are somewhat encouraging words coming from President Obama. It’s past time that the government of the US admitted that and either changed the policies and methodologies or scrapped the various programs of foreign aid entirely.

A Very Grim Caveat

I must sadly add one grim caveat to this post. I just can’t manage to raise my level of credulity – my suspension of disbelief really – far enough to lend any credence to Obama’s words. I don’t completely reject his words and intentions, but there’s little reason for I or anyone else to believe him.

President Obama’s promise to shift US foreign aid to a model that gets people in the Third Word “moving from poverty to prosperity” is just too far removed from – seemingly diametrically opposed – his domestic economic policies and those of his entire Liberal base for any sane individual to easily believe.

Tags: Charity | Foreign Aid | Foreign Policy | Obama | Politics | Poverty | UN | USAID | Wealth

This entry was posted on Monday, September 27th, 2010 at 10:03 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Is a man and man, possessed of and by a similar nature and drives to his fellows, irrespective of his race, ethnicity, or creed? Are all peoples essential equal at a fundamental level in that they all have similar aspirations and have both base and sublime desires that resemble those of all other peoples?

Many Americans claim to believe that the answer to all these questions is yes, all men are equal.

Indeed, answer is contained within the single most quoted line from our Declaration of Independence and has been used many times as a rationale for changing our nation’s laws.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

The very wording of this declaration, combined with what we know of the Founding Fathers’ theologies and philosophies, sets forth the inherent equality of all of Man as a matter of Natural Law.

But, if this is case, one would be forced to accept the bad along with good. Whether it is merely people’s belief that all men are inherently equal or a fact of Natural Law that they are, in fact, equal in both propensity for nobility and for ignominy then one should expect roughly similar results and responses any stimulus that is applied to a group people, irrespective of their race, ethnicity, or creed.

That being the case, why do so many people in America believe that “domestic aid” programs will achieve any better results than the bulk of both private (NGO) and governmental foreign aid programs have achieved in the many decades of their existence?

Tags: America | Exceptionalism | Foreign Aid | Liberals | Money | Nationalism | Politics | Poverty | Prejudice | Socialism | Society | Subsidies | Wealth | Welfare

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.