How Can Any Sane Person Tolerate This?

1. Sanctuary Cities. This writer has argued for years that city council members and mayors enacting sanctuary city laws should be prosecuted for interference with, and disobeying, federal immigration laws. Never happened. Instead, as we know, the Feds are prosecuting Arizona for attempting to actually enforce the law. How can any sane person tolerate this?

2. The mosque at Ground Zero. It appears that the City of New York will not prevent the mosque from being built. This type of insensitive behavior is nothing new for the muslims. Most readers have probably either been to Jerusalem or seen pictures there of the golden Dome of the Rock. It is adjacent to the Al Aqsa Mosque; both of which were built on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. It is the place where the two great Temples stood before they were destroyed. And what did the muslims do - they built on top of that destruction, where the Western Wall of the Second Temple still stands. They built on top of the destruction, just like they want to do at Ground Zero. How can any sane person tolerate this?

3. Financial Regulatory Reform. The main backers of the so-called reform bill of our financial institutions are none other than Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank. These two guys were prominent backers of the lax practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; and encouraged them to purchase sub-prime mortgages on the secondary mortgage market. Those two quasi-governmental agencies were significantly responsible for the mortgage crisis, and the subsequent economic meltdown. And what did Dodd and Frank put in the new legislation about Fannie and Freddie? Nothing. How can any sane person tolerate this?

4. Liberty or veggies? In the July/August edition of Commentary is an interesting piece on behavioral science, and how the Obama administration wishes to use it to help people make "better" decisions for themselves. Really, wouldn't you rather eat veggies and be thin than have that piece of cake? Wouldn't you rather not smoke and not get lung cancer? Wouldn't you rather invest that money in a retirement account for your future than get that big screen TV? Who could even argue against veggies, not smoking, and an IRA? If we just thought it through we would come to the right decision. The Obama team wants to help us make the right decisions for ourselves; but just in case we don't, they gave us Obamacare, the stimulus, and now financial reform, along with all the new bureaucracies and regulations to go with these new laws. They will gently nudge us into making the "wise" choice; but if we don't, there is always the coercive power of government to make sure that we do.

And therein lies the rub. No matter what efforts business makes to get us to buy their products, we have the power and the RIGHT to say "no." But when the government uses its' power to coerce - there is no saying "no." Instead, we should be grateful for what they have done to "better" our lives, even if we have given up a little liberty along the way. Americans generally do not like to be told what to do. We will need that "rugged individualism" to save us from the tyranny of government. But so far Obama and his transformationist team are winning - Obamacare, the stimulus and now financial "reform." So I ask: How can any sane person tolerate this?

5. How Obama learned to love the (Iranian) bomb. In the above-referenced issue of Commentary is another interesting article on what to do about Iranian nukes: acceptance and containment or attack? Notwithstanding lots of tough talk by both Presidents Bush and Obama about Iranian nukes being "unacceptable," it appears that their actual policy was one of acceptance and containment. For all his tough talk, Bush denied Israel's request to fly over Iraq in order to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. Obama has demonstrated that he believes that diplomacy and sanctions can work, notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary. So that leaves containment for Obama. Can we contain Iran, as we did with Russia and China?

Can we rely upon the sensibility of a regime which martyred (murdered really) its own young children during their war with Iraq, by sending them to clear Iraqi minefields for Iranian soldiers?

But Iran will fear the fear the power of the US. Really? Why would they? They have successfully snubbed their noses at us on countless occassions, with no repercussions other than some harsh words. They took over our embassy. They supported Hezbollah when it bombed our Marine barracks in Beirut. They are fighting against us in Iraq through their proxies and by supporting our enemies with materiel. And the consequences? Harsh words.

Well, maybe they will fear the Europeans. (Okay, you got me. That was put in for comic relief.)

The CIA was caught off guard when India and Pakistan tested their nuclear weapons. Bush was not able to reverse the tide of nuclear proliferation, as North Korea joined the club, and Iran was well on its way. Will our allies in the region sit idly by, on the assumption that the US will protect them? Not likely. Egypt and Saudi Arabia will want their own nukes. The United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the US says the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf cannot live with a nuclear Iran. The ambassador supports a military strike on Iran. But if the US will not act, he says that the Arab states in the region will have to end their alliance with the US in order to appease Iran. (Now there's a concept that Obama can get his head around - appeasement. Information about the UAE ambassador from the 7/13/10 Caroline Glick article on JPost online.)

We are in this mess partly because Bush went along with the politically correct mainstream media, who were horrified at the thought of a war with a third Islamic country. Of course, the consequences of doing nothing were ignored. And Obama clearly has an infatuation with the muslim world that seems likely to deter him from taking military action against Iran - which means (sans an attack by Israel) the Ayatollahs will have nukes. How can any sane person tolerate this?

6. The Tea Parties. The Tea Parties have attracted large numbers of supporters. Their message of smaller government, and government living within its' means, resonates with many people during these recessionary times. But the NAACP does not see things that way. Instead, they see racism. (Of course, in all fairness to the NAACP, they have to justify their continued existence after the country demonstrated its LACK of racism by electing a black president.) You see, when tea party people speak of smaller or "limited" government, it's really a code word for racism. (Can someone please send me the secret code book?) Yes, I know that the KKK and other racists justified their opposition to civil rights laws by arguing for a limited role of the federal government and for states' rights. But does the NAACP not think anything has changed in the last fifty years? Do they not feel the pain of millions and millions of Americans who have lost their jobs and have had to tighten their belts (if they did not lose everything) while the federal government has gone on a giant spending spree? And where is their outrage over the comments by Mr. Shabazz of the New Black Panthers: "You're gonna have to kill some crackers! You're gonna have to kill some of their babies!" But the problem is with the extraordinarily peaceful Tea Party movement. How can any sane person tolerate this?