PrintSeptember 14, 2010
Reaping the Whirlwind
"They sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind."
- Hosea 8:7
"Sooner or later in life, we all sit down to a banquet of consequences."
- Robert Louis Stevenson
There is a sense of foreboding rising in this country. It is not the usual pessimism fueled by a sensational press, nor is it surfacing because of the political crisis machine that generates one drama after another by which to manipulate the electorate. It is a feeling of imminent danger fueled by a realization based on evidence so obvious and so startling that the citizenry cannot help but take notice. Our prosperity, our security, and even our safety are fast fading away. Our own president and his party are facilitating our demise.
The signs are everywhere.
Every new piece of backroom congressional legislation chips away at a few more freedoms, undermining our republic by preventing open and honest debate. Behind the scenes, Obama's henchmen wield sledgehammers against free commerce, gun ownership, freedom of speech, and energy. The billions in taxpayer money going to leftist and socialist organizations cement their toxic influence into the very fabric of our government. The corruption and fraud of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are obvious examples, but there are thousands more. Unions, "community organizations," far-left causes, anti-American ideologues, socialist fifth columnists, environmental radicals, open borders fanatics, Mexican irredentist revolutionaries, Islamists, terror-supporters, and professed communists all prosper from Obama's destructive largesse.
The Mexican war with its drug cartels escalates. Brutal massacres and car bombings are killing innocents just miles from our southern states. Surpassing war-torn Iraq, 28,000 have died since 2006. The butchers responsible pass with impunity into our territory. In their own country, they murder police, the press, and innocent citizens. They torture, they behead, they kill the families of their enemies.
Our government stubbornly refuses to stop them and pretends to be working diligently on the problem. It is a lie. They persecute police officers who enforce the law and sue states that attempt to stem the crippling illegal immigrant tide. The jackals that tortured and killed 72 unarmed migrants are already here; the violence we see south of the border will soon follow. Americans will die. Obama does nothing.
Illegal immigrants cost border states billions -- in law enforcement, in social services, in education, and in emergency medical services. Arizona has asked for National Guard troops, the situation has become so untenable. There is little hope the problem will abate. Mexico is so corrupt; any effective countermeasures are undermined before they begin. NARCO dollars buy police, prosecutors, judges, and the army. The poison spreads.
Drug cartels control swaths of U.S. territory. Instead of action, Arizona got signs.
... the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has placed 15 signs along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 that links San Diego with Phoenix and Tucson warning travelers of drug cartels and human trafficking operations."DANGER - PUBLIC WARNING, TRAVEL NOT RECOMMENDED," read the signs placed along Interstate 8. "Visitors May Encounter Armed Criminals and Smuggling Vehicles Traveling at High Rates of Speed. Stay Away From Trash, Clothing, Backpacks, and Abandoned Vehicles."
A couple of weeks ago, thirty National Guard troops showed up for border duty; Arizona asked for three thousand. In a move designed to fail, administration talking heads can now claim there is Guard support for border enforcement. It is another trick, another betrayal of a beleaguered state, and normal operations for our anti-American president and his cabal of "progressive" academics.
Obama's exploding national deficits are sucking the lifeblood from our economy. In the name of "social justice," they deconstruct what has taken generations of sacrifice and toil to build. We spend what we do not have like a drunk on a binge. When that horrendous bill is due, our children and grandchildren will pay in a far less significant America than we know today.
Every jobs report is a "surprise" of increasing unemployment, the real level of which is around 22 percent, not the 9.5-percent fiction the Obama administration touts. Great-Depression levels of unemployment do not support the "recovery summer" propaganda. Teen unemployment is at levels above 25 percent as adults take jobs traditionally filled by teens. Americans are not fooled by the government spin; they see the evidence every day.
They see empty stores, shuttered gas stations, small businesses closing shop. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "... 4.3 million businesses with 19 or fewer employees closed during the fourth quarter of 2007 through the fourth quarter of 2008." The numbers are now much higher, though exact numbers have become strangely difficult to find. If bank closures are any indicator, Mom & Pop businesses are in deep trouble. Loans to small businesses have dropped by 40 billion dollars. The lifeblood of American commerce, small business employs half of all workers in the country. They are the source of the innovative energy that once made our economy so exceptional. Once Obama's and the Democrats' new taxes and hidden "fees" kick in after 2011, the problem will explode. Ideology never runs an economy well, but it does blind its true believers to the consequences of their actions.
But it gets much, much worse.
Iran now has a viable nuclear program. With the support of Russia and North Korea, they claim their reactors are for purely peaceful purposes. The Obama administration has tried to convince Israel it will be at least a year until a nuclear weapon can be produced. Obama's Nuclear Proliferation Czar, Gary Samore, tells us, "We think that they have roughly a year dash time" and "[a] year is a very long period of time," kicking the problem down the road -- a road that grows shorter each passing day.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad frequently talks of wiping Israel off the map. He is a fanatic who takes the Quran's injunction to kill Jews very seriously. If we are to believe his own words, he plans to do just that, through Hezbollah, through Syria, and eventually with a nuclear weapon. Whether Israel or the United States will be the first target is a coin toss. We will be attacked. It is just a matter of time.
