Search Harrold's blog

   only Harrold's Blog
index sitemap advanced
site search by freefind
 
halfmast US Flag smallLest We Forget...September 11th, The Victims ... and our enemies. Crusader Cross Christian Cross Knights Templar Cross, red on white background Christian Cross animated chess pieces
→ (allies=friends, enemies=treason) ←
War, the Long War: A Just Crusade
"It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute."
-- James Madison (letter to the [Muslim] Dey of Algiers, August 1816) Reference: Madison, III, page 17
"The sun hangs low on the horizon." -- GB (2009)
Countdown until Obama leaves Office
The 2016 Presidential Election begins in
"Elections Are Not Won by Who Voted.  They are Lost by Who Did Not" ~ rfh
"If you were a liberal 20 years ago, without changing your positions on any issues, today you would be a conservative." -- KD, 2010

"Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master." -- Demosthenes (384-322 BC)
9.11 fading? Listen: Secure-Skies.org small speaker icon
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." - Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus (c. 378-395) "If you wish for peace, prepare for war."

Also see: o'quotes and o'related videos

Sunday, June 29, 2014

o'I will lower the oceans. (2008) - A record sea ice extent... - wattsupwiththat.com

Antarctica sets new record for sea ice extent... - wattsupwiththat.com
http://tinyurl.com/kptvavx
shared via www.drudgely.com

TARGET: Irael - ISIS declares Islamic 'Caliphate'... - www.reuters.com

ISIS declares Islamic 'Caliphate'... - www.reuters.com
http://tinyurl.com/ogsxj4n
shared via www.drudgely.com

Election Fear Grips Senate Democrats


Election Year a Drag on Productivity in Senate

WASHINGTON — A fear of voting has gripped Democratic leaders in the Senate, slowing the chamber's modest productivity this election season to a near halt.

With control of the Senate at risk in November, leaders are going to remarkable lengths to protect endangered Democrats from casting tough votes and to deny Republicans legislative victories in the midst of the campaign. The phobia means even bipartisan legislation to boost energy efficiency, manufacturing, sportsmen's rights and more could be scuttled.

The Senate's masters of process are finding a variety of ways to shut down debate.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., now is requiring an elusive 60-vote supermajority to deal with amendments to spending bills, instead of the usual simple majority, a step that makes it much more difficult to put politically sensitive matters into contention. This was a flip from his approach to Obama administration nominees, when he decided most could be moved ahead with a straight majority instead of the 60 votes needed before.

Reid's principal aim in setting the supermajority rule for spending amendments was to deny archrival Sen. Mitch McConnell a win on protecting his home state coal industry from new regulations limiting carbon emissions from existing power plants. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, faces a tough re-election in Kentucky.

This hunkering down by Democrats is at odds with the once-vibrant tradition of advancing the 12 annual agency budget bills through open debate. In the Appropriations Committee, long accustomed to a freewheeling process, chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., has held up action on three spending bills, apparently to head off politically difficult votes on changes to the divisive health care law as well as potential losses to Republicans on amendments such as McConnell's on the coal industry.

"I just don't think they want their members to have to take any hard votes between now and November," said Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb. And there's "just no question that they're worried we're going to win some votes so they just shut us down."

Vote-a-phobia worsens in election years, especially when the majority party is in jeopardy. Republicans need to gain six seats to win control and Democrats must defend 21 seats to the Republicans' 15.

So Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, probably shouldn't have been surprised when his cherished bill to fund the Labor, Education and Health and Human Services departments got yanked from the Appropriations Committee's agenda this month. Word quickly spread that committee Democrats in Republican-leaning states feared a flurry of votes related to "Obamacare."

"It's not as if they haven't voted on them before," Harkin griped. "My way of thinking is, 'Hell, you've already voted on it. Your record's there.'" Harkin blamed Senate Democratic leaders.

Two other appropriations bills have run aground after preliminary votes. The normally non-controversial energy and water bill was pulled from the committee agenda after it became known that McConnell would have an amendment to defend his state's coal mining industry. McConnell is making that defense a centerpiece of his re-election campaign and his amendment appeared on track to prevail with the help of pro-energy Democrats on the committee.

Again, after consulting with Reid, Mikulski struck the bill from the agenda.

McConnell pressed the matter the next day, this time aiming to amend a spending bill paying for five Cabinet departments. Democrats again headed him off.

Democrats privately acknowledge that they're protecting vulnerable senators and don't want McConnell to win on the carbon emissions issue. They also see hypocrisy in McConnell's insistence on a simple majority vote for his top — and controversial — priority while he wants Democrats to produce 60 votes to advance almost everything else.

Another measure, financing the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service, failed to get a committee vote last week after speeding through a subcommittee hearing. Mikulski blamed problems with timing. But it was known that Republicans had amendments on hot-button issues coming.

Fear of voting is hardly new. In the last two years of the Clinton administration, Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., blocked Democrats from offering a popular Patients' Bill of Rights, and more. At the time, Charles Schumer of New York and Dick Durbin of Illinois were among the Democrats who cried foul.

These days, Durbin and Schumer hold the No. 2 and No. 3 Democratic Senate leadership posts and now that their party is running the place, they're backing Reid's moves to clamp down on GOP amendments.

"You've always got senators on both sides of the aisle of all political persuasions and all regions whining and complaining how they don't want to vote on this amendment or that amendment," Lott says now. "It always frankly agitated me because I felt like these are big boys and girls." He said "it has gotten worse and worse and worse."

Republicans say Democratic leaders are trying especially to protect Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Landrieu says she hasn't asked for such help.

"I've taken so many hard votes up here," Landrieu said. "I could take more."

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Border Resident: Nancy Pelosi Should Visit My Ranch | American Renaissance

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is scheduled to travel to South Texas on Saturday to meet with immigrant children at a detention facility and be briefed about the ongoing humanitarian crisis along the Texas-Mexico border.
Vickers wishes Pelosi or a member of her staff would come to her ranch to see first hand what everyday Texans are going through.

http://www.amren.com/news/2014/06/border-resident-nancy-pelosi-should-visit-my-ranch/

Assassination Started WW I, like 'Game of Thrones' Script - ABC News

Assassination That Started World War I like 'Game of Thrones' Script - ABC News
http://tinyurl.com/lcrjwap
shared via www.newshog.com

History - World War I Matters to Today's Economy

History Lessons: Why World War I Matters to Today's Economy
http://news360.com/article/245768315

Chasing drug-laden 'bogeys' across the skies

Been there, Done that. -- rfh
Chasing drug-laden 'bogeys' across the skies
http://news360.com/article/245747916

Russia will not sit idly by as jihadists press Iraq assault

Russia will not sit idly by as jihadists press Iraq assault http://news360.com/article/245762922

o'enabling acts - ignores lawsuit threat: 'I'll keep taking actions on my own'... - www.washingtontimes.com

Obama ignores Boehner lawsuit threat: 'I'll keep taking actions on my own'... - www.washingtontimes.com
http://tinyurl.com/m7s8obe
shared via www.drudgely.com

Rise of the Machines - GOOGLEbots: Search giant to begin selling humanoids... - www.dailymail.co.uk

GOOGLEbots: Search giant to begin selling humanoids... - www.dailymail.co.uk
http://tinyurl.com/m27jsfl
shared via www.drudgely.com

New Judge May Seek Special Prosecutor in IRS Scandal... - observer.com

New Judge May Seek Special Prosecutor in IRS Scandal... - observer.com
http://tinyurl.com/pfyu28y
shared via www.drudgely.com

BORDER AGENT: THIS IS AMNESTY... - cnsnews.com

BORDER AGENT: THIS IS AMNESTY... - cnsnews.com
http://tinyurl.com/op9yyly
shared via www.drudgely.com

'First thing that hits you is smell'... - cnsnews.com

'First thing that hits you is smell'... - cnsnews.com
http://tinyurl.com/o3nz89t
shared via www.drudgely.com

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

The Ring

There's be many theories brought forth about this ....but there's no getting around his relationship with the moustached guy. -- rfh
From: BHAM Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 10:14 PM Subject: Ring

     Barack Obama has been wearing the same ring for over 30 years.  When he and Michelle were married in October 1992, Barack used the ring as his wedding ring.
     So, what is so important about this ring that Obama will never take it off?  The answer is shocking; well, maybe not to most of you.  Below -- Barack Obama and his roommate Hasan Chandoo at Occidental College in 1981:          
                                      
                                                         
          Obama wearing the ring as president:                                                
                  
                        Obama signing legislation while wearing the ring:                                                         
Obama in Cairo, Egypt, smiling and waving during his speech:                        
             
And what does the inscription on the ring Obama will never take off mean?
       
                           
      lâ ilâha illâ allâh: There is no God except Allah
The most transparent president in history?  Who is this person that occupies the oval office?  Does anyone really know? Clint Eastwood's September 7, 2012 interview with his home town newspaper, The Carmel Pine Cone, is dead on: "President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Are you surprised by anything above? I didn't think so.


Tuesday, June 17, 2014

o'welcome to o'bamanation: W.H. Opens Doors to Illegals, no arrests expected (President Jarrett?)

    1. Daily Caller ‎- 19 hours ago
      .... established by Obama to provide living and working status for undocumented young immigrants. ... While the White House is teaming with law enforcement officers, no arrests are expected  ... The Daily Caller previously reported that Valerie Jarrett held a handful of secret meetings with illegal immigrant activists.

    Valerie Jarrett met with illegal immigrant activists | The Daily ...

  1. dailycaller.com/.../valerie-jarretts-secret-meetings-with-il...
    Jun 10, 2014 - President Obama's senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett held a series of meetings with illegal immigrant activists during Obama's first ..
Valerie Jarrett, Mystery Woman of the White House

o'mam - German view on Islam: Something to ponder

From: ren Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2014 Subject: German view on Islam - SOMETHING TO PONDER.
This read not too long..  I did read this and found it to be very interesting. 
We cannot be forever be silent.  Political Correctness IS also our enemy.
Here is a sample...a few paragraphs from below:​
     Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
 In the U.K, the Muslim communities refuse to integrate and there are now dozens of "no-go" zones within major cities across the country that the police force dare not intrude upon. Sharia law prevails there, because the Muslim community in those areas refuse to acknowledge British law.

Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on..
​________________________________________________​
German view on Islam - SOMETHING TO PONDER
 A German's View on Islam - worth reading. This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read.
His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is Dr. Emanuel Tanya, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 
'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.' 
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. 
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers. 
The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. 
China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'? 
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. 
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. 
Now Islamic prayers have been introduced into Toronto and other public schools in Ontario, and, yes, in Ottawa too while the Lord's Prayer was removed (due to being so offensive?) The Islamic way may be peaceful for the time being in our country until the fanatics move in. 
In  Australia, and indeed in many countries around the world, many of the most commonly consumed food items have the halal emblem on them. Just look at the back of some of the most popular chocolate bars, and at other food items in your local supermarket. Food on aircraft have the halal emblem, just to appease the privileged minority who are now rapidly expanding within the nation's shores. 
In the U.K, the Muslim communities refuse to integrate and there are now dozens of "no-go" zones within major cities across the country that the police force dare not intrude upon. Sharia law prevails there, because the Muslim community in those areas refuse to acknowledge British law. 
As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts -- the fanatics who threaten our way of life. 
Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on. 



Saturday, June 14, 2014

Islam Lies About Christianity (chart)

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=485809598216309&id=100003618202896&set=a.111963942267545.13634.100003618202896

The Unmaking of the American World :: SteynOnline



SteynOnlineMobile Edition
Regular Site

The Unmaking of the American World

by Mark Steyn
National Review
June 13, 2014


While we're waiting for Baghdad to fall and now that President Obama, fresh from his Saigon-evoking photo-op in front of a helicopter, has departed to play golf in Palm Springs for the weekend, I thought I'd dust off a few pieces not irrelevant to the present situation. This first is from a review of Robert Kagan's book The World America Made that I wrote for National Review two years ago. Certain points are worth re-considering in the light of Iraq's implosion, shortly to be followed by Afghanistan's. "The world America made" is like that US Embassy in Baghdad - lavish, money-no-object, but about to be abandoned and left to others:

There is a great deal of ruin in a nation, and even more of it in the nation's publishing catalogue. Robert Kagan has noticed the resurgence of declinism; he doesn't care for it; and The World America Made is his response to it. He is an eminent thinker, consulted by Romney, quoted favorably by Obama, but don't hold either against him. I have a high regard for him, too. In the early years of the century, he came up with a line that, as geopolitical paradigmatic drollery goes, is better than Jon Stewart's writing staff could muster: "Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus." Granted, even at the time, one was aware that many Americans were trending very Venusian, but the gag was worth it just for the way it infuriated all the right Continentals.

Nothing so deftly distilled emerges fromThe World America Made, an extended essay that paints with a very broad brush. What few specifics there are raise far more questions than Kagan assumes they answer. For example, on the very first page:
In 1941 there were only a dozen democracies in the world. Today there are over a hundred.
Back in 1941, you couldn't have had a hundred democratic nations, because there weren't a hundred nations. The European empires were still intact. One continent, from Marrakesh to Mbabane, was (excepting a pocket or two) entirely the sovereign property of another. And that latter continent, in 1941, was itself colonized, the German army's sweep west having temporarily extinguished some of the smallest but oldest democracies, from Denmark to the Netherlands. All in all, it's an odd starting date for the point Kagan is making — that the spread of democracy around the planet is "not simply because people yearn for democracy but because the most powerful nation in the world since 1950 has been a democracy."

Put aside those small European nations that, post–Third Reich, recovered their liberty: Norway, Belgium. In 1941, half the democracies were His Britannic Majesty's Dominions — Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. After the war, they were joined by what remains the world's largest democracy, India, and then Jamaica, Mauritius, Papua New Guinea, Belize, etc. Democracies all, and all operating with a local variant of the throne speech, speaker, mace, Hansard, and all the other features of "the Westminster system." During the deliberations on the post-Saddam Iraqi constitution, I received from a retired colonial civil servant in Wales an e-mail with the enviable opening line, "Having helped write seven constitutions . . ." Perhaps he was moved to do so "because the most powerful nation in the world since 1950 has been a democracy," or perhaps he was just continuing an imperial evolutionary process begun in January 1848 in Nova Scotia. Likewise, the French decolonized (or attempted to) in their own image.

Which raises a more interesting question:Why hasn't America tried to export its own distinctive constitutional ideas? If England is the mother of parliaments, America's a wealthy spinster with no urge to start dating.

In all those new nations supposedly inspired by American democracy, you'll search in vain for, say, a First Amendment, or a Second. Even when the U.S. has expended a decade's worth of blood and treasure in "nation-building," the nation it's built is not in its own image but a sharia state complete with child marriage, legalized rape, and death for apostasy.

Which raises another question: What does Kagan mean by "democracy"? An election twice a decade good enough to pass muster with Jimmy Carter and the U.N. observers? Or genuine liberty? Kagan never defines terms, which is perhaps just as well. The Arab Spring may be the bleak dawn of the post-Western Middle East, and the Coptic Christians are fleeing in terror, and the al-Qaeda flag's flying in Benghazi, and half the new guys all seem to have Iran on speed dial, and the only viable alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood is the Even More Muslim Brotherhood, and they're tossing the offspring of U.S. cabinet secretaries into holding cells, but for Kagan it's all nevertheless "an essential attribute of the American world order," and therefore even the booming burqa sales and state-of-the-art clitoridectomy clinic are in their fashion a tribute to American influence. If some mad scientist crossed Dr. Pangloss with George M. Cohan, he'd sound a lot like Robert Kagan: Once one accepts this is the most American of all possible American worlds, all is as American as it can possibly be.

At such moments, the author, the consummate American interventionist, sounds in need of an intervention himself. He is confident his compatriots retain "a degree of satisfaction in their special role" as global-order maker. Where's the evidence? Well, "during the seventh-inning stretch in every game at Yankee Stadium, the fans rise and offer 'a moment of silent prayer for the men and women who are stationed around the globe' defending freedom and 'our way of life.' A tribute to those serving, yes, but with an unmistakable glint of pride in the nation's role 'around the globe.'"

Really? I'd say he's mistaking that glint pretty comprehensively. Those moments of prayer, and the "We support our troops" yellow-ribbon stickers, and the priority boarding for military personnel on U.S. airlines, and the other genuflections are there to help a disillusioned citizenry distinguish between the valor of the soldiery and the thanklessness of their mission; it's a way of salvaging something decent and honorable from the grim two-thirds-of-a-century roll call of America's unwon wars.

Why can't the United States win? The question never seems to occur to Kagan — to the point where, toward the end, he argues that, if America is set for British-style imperial sunset, it is today nevertheless "not remotely like" the old lion at the dawn of the 20th century but "more like Britain circa 1870, when the empire was at the height of its power." I had a strong urge at this point to toss the book out of the window and back my truck over it. In 1870, Britain's military victories were honored in the imperial metropolis by Trafalgar Square and Waterloo Station; there's a suburb of Melbourne where everything's named after Crimea — Crimea Street, Balaclava Road, Inkerman Road, Sebastopol Street — and you can even find a Kandahar, Saskatchewan, memorializing a long-forgotten Victorian victory on that thankless sod. Today, in an America "at the height of its power," there is no Korea Square, Saigon Station, Jalalabad Road, or Fallujah, Idaho. Yankee fans "support our troops" because they no longer know what the mission is, or ever was.

Kagan would counter that America won what he calls "the war that never happened," the one with the Soviet Union, but, given the way the others turned out, it is perhaps just as well it never happened. A great scholar of the American way of war, he's fascinated with every aspect except victory. "The United States remains unmatched. It is far and away the most powerful nation the world has ever known. . . . The superior expenditures underestimate America's actual superiority in military capability. American land and air forces are equipped with the most advanced weaponry, are the most experienced in actual combat, and would defeat any competitor in a head-to-head battle."

But put 'em up against illiterate goatherds with string and fertilizer, and you'll be tied down for a decade.

What's wrong with this picture? And what's wrong with this analyst that he can't see anything wrong with it? Kagan is a serious historian, but, aside from pondering Europe's revolutions of 1848 vis-a-vis the era of American democratization, a consideration of American versus British dominance is the only serious attempt at historical perspective. Yet, if you step back and take the long view, you wouldn't bother weighing those differences at all. In the sweep of history, scholars will see (as the Chinese and French already do) the last two centuries as a period of continuous Anglophone military-economic-cultural dominance, first by the original English world power, and then by its greatest if prodigal son. The transition from the Royal Navy's Pax Britannica to today's Pax Americana was accomplished so smoothly it was barely noticed. The United States inherited the global networks of its predecessor: American sailors were stationed in Bermuda, and RCAF officers at NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain; Washington joined Australia and New Zealand in the ANZUS alliance, and built a new base on the British island of Diego Garcia. For Britannia's lion cubs, from Ottawa to Canberra, getting a hearing in Washington became more important than getting one in London.

As for the mother country, Britain accepted its diminished status with as much grace as it could muster. As with an old, failing firm, its directors had identified the friendliest bidder and arranged, as best they could, for a succession in global leadership that was least disruptive to their interests and would ensure the continuity of their brand: the English language, English law, English trade, English liberties. It was such an artful transfer it's barely noticed and little discussed. Indeed, even Kagan mentions it only en passant:"Just as the British could safely cede power to a rising United States," he writes, "so Americans could have an easier time ceding some power and influence across the Pacific to a rising democratic China." I marvel that anyone could type that sentence without realizing the absurdity of the comparison.

And, that aside, it's not in the offing, is it? For 30 years, the foreign-policy "realists" have assured us that economic liberalization would force political liberalization. Instead, we've helped China come up with the only economically viable form of Communism. So, sometime this decade or next, the dominant economic power will be a totalitarian state with no genuine market, no property rights, no free speech, an abortion policy that's left it with the most male-heavy population cohort in history, and, a little ways inland from the glittering coastal megalopolises, 40 million people who live in caves. This is not your father's transfer of global dominance.

"Great powers rarely decline suddenly," says Kagan. Well, it depends how you define "suddenly." By the time Odoacer took Rome in 476, the city's population had fallen by 75 percent in barely half a century — or the equivalent of the Beatles to now. As Paul McCartney might put it, yesterday came suddenly: Within a few years, a prototype "globalization" of European commerce had reverted to a subsistence economy of local agriculture.

This is where Kagan's complacency serves him ill. America currently spends around $600 billion a year on its military, more than every other major and medium power put together. Nevertheless, says Kagan, "the cost of remaining the world's predominant power is not prohibitive." He's right in the narrow sense that it's small potatoes next to Medicare. But he's wrong in his understanding of the underlying political realities.
Kagan is a geopolitical guy. Economics seems to bore him: The T-word — "trillion" — makes just one perfunctory appearance before the end, although it's profoundly relevant to America's fate. As Paul Ryan put it at the House Budget Committee recently, the entire U.S. economy "shuts down" in 2027 on this path. 
Might that not have some impact on our "superior expenditures" on "advanced weaponry"? What about human capital? For Kagan, "America" and "Europe" are entities that seem to exist independent of any actual Americans and Europeans and their respective dispositions. Much of "the world America made" is in steep demographic decline — or transformation. For three of the five permanent members of the Security Council, an accommodation with Islam will be not just a prudent foreign policy but necessary for domestic tranquility, too; the fourth member — China — already has a very friendly working partnership with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation at the U.N. and elsewhere.

What of Americans? Any post-war British general can tell you that, when it comes to a choice between the nanny state and the military, it's the latter that takes the hit, no matter how footling the savings. In an ever broker America, it will always be easier to cut defense — for the Left, as a matter of principle; and, for ever larger numbers of the Right, because, for whatever reason, a lavishly funded military's "unmatched capability" seems utterly incapable up against those it actually gets matched with. Indeed, for Ron Paul Republicans, the more relevant thesis would be "The America the World Made": A prosperous Europe (subsequently joined by China, Singapore, Korea, India, Brazil, you name it) suckered U.S. taxpayers into picking up the tab for global security and signing on to an economic order that turned America into a cheap service economy. I'm no Ronulan, but nor am I deluded enough to sit in the Yankees stands and think "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack / I don't care if I never get back" embodies the locals' quiet "satisfaction" in an open-ended Afghan deployment.

America is an anomaly: the non-colonial superpower. So, having inherited Britain's imperial networks, it had no interest in getting into the business of imperial administration. No American lawyer or police commissioner wants to be chief justice in Kabul or police chief in Tikrit. Instead, Washington opted for the role of global-order maker, setting up international institutions that downplayed its own status and artificially inflated everybody else's. If you encourage the pretense that the Sudanese and Swiss ambassadors are no different, don't be surprised if the former takes it to heart. Today, many of the U.S.-created global luncheon clubs are ever more institutionally at odds with American interests. This too is "the world America made," a world where the wealthiest nations in history are defense-welfare queens, and many of the rest are affirmative-action grievance-mongers with nuclear ambitions.

We speak of "credit bubbles" and "housing bubbles," but the real bubble is America's 1950 moment: a very precise set of post-war conditions that put the U.S. in a different league from other nation-states. Europe rebuilt, Asia got the hang of capitalism, and still America thought 1950 was forever. It's not. It's already fading. The nearest thing to an insight in Kagan's book comes toward the end when he states what ought to be obvious — that "a liberal world order will only be supported by liberal nations."

America is ceding economic dominance to China; the transnational talking shops are hollowed out by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation; in Central and Eastern Europe, a resurgent Russia is selling itself as an effective bad cop to Washington's ineffectual good cop. All these forces are highly illiberal — which suggests that Kagan knows the answer to how things are going to go for the "liberal world order."

The Left doesn't believe in American exceptionalism, but assumes that the highly exceptional prosperity of "the world America made" is as permanent a feature as the earth and sky. The Right certainly does believe in American exceptionalism, to the point that its own myth-making blinds it to the lessons of history. The cause of those of us who value American order in the world is done no favors by a book as complacent as this.
Yes, it was a wonderful life.
But what's next?

~from National Review, May 14th 2012
© 2014 Mark Steyn Enterprises (US) Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of Mark Steyn Enterprises.

Got a comment on a column? Drop a line to Mark's Mailbox.
receive the latest by email: subscribe to steynonline's free weekly mailing list  back to top of page

25 Most Recent Posts

Blog Archive

o'quotes & related videos



Mar 11, 2008 - "My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world.  I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it." -- B. Hussein Obama

animated burning question

sound or narration
Pledge of Allegiance


Gov't Off Our Backs
o'KGB?: "Remember..comrade, one day it will be your mission to destroy those bourgeoisie capitalist freedoms." small video camera image
o'mam: 'The Prettiest Sound On Earth At Sunset' is the Muslim call to prayer. small video camera image
o'anti-colonialist: Constitution..is imperfect..flawed..colonial small video camera image
o'Marxist: 'I sought out..the Marxist professors..' small video camera image
o'cap'n tax: 'Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket..'
2008: o'bamacide's 'Culture of Death' "The first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act."
o'who?: 'We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation..' small video camera image
ø'commie: 'It's not surprising..they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion..' small video camera image
o'bamacide: 'doesn't want his daughters punished with a baby..mistake' (773)
2008: '..5 days away..fundamentally transforming the U.S. of America..' small video camera image
2008: 'Judge me by..whom I surround myself.'
2009: "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance." Hussein Obama, Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009 small video camera image
2010: 'I am a muslim."
2012: 'If I had a son, he'd look like..' small video camera image
2012: o'stand down 'What difference does it make?, phony scandals, real dead peoplesmall symbol of a sound speaker
2013: 'Catholics and Protestants are divisive..'
o'der führer: '..reject..'voices' that warn of tyranny.'
2014: o'der leader 'That's the Good Thing as a President, I Can Do Whatever I Want.'

"The Rise and The Fall of Great Civilizations - From Apathy to Dependence to Slavery"
http://www.corson.org/archives/sociological/S27_090109.htm
by 'The Corsons', John and Janice Corson (John is a member of the American Conservative Union and the Federalist Society.)

2nd Amendment: Safety and Training small books icons movie or video sound or narration Games/Diversions Reference and Reading small books icons movie or video
"Arm your self with the ballot, while you still have arms." -- rfh
773The 2012 Presidential Election:but not for many children! Read Facts as to Why not? & See contributor$ who benefit.
3 Images of Change: Hitler, Obama, Lenin Communism What is it?

Undercover FBI
View more.
Alan Keyes:

Right Then,
Right Now

au contraire

Return to this blog's 1st Page

Followers

Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta.
Do me justice, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy.
- Psalms 43 KJV, 42 Douay Rheims

Stay up to date on Harrold's blog:


2nd Amendment TV (videos)
"The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control."
E.W. Jackson (R-Va)

May 18, 2013
    Alan Keyes, "He must be stopped or the United States will cease to exist."..."We are in the midst of the greatest crisis this nation has ever seen...chaos, and civil war...an alleged usurper...destroying our borders...infanticide...this is insanity...we are claiming that a bankrupt government can save a bankrupt banking system...this is insanity.." (19Feb09)    
Alan Keyes:
video: source
Right Then & Right Now

Quotes |

BE HEARD: Contact Congress & the President -- Phone & Fax Numbers

Obamacare equals abortion and euthanasia
Ronald Reagan on SocialismFreedomWorks.org We the people declare Independence from obama
"It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones."
-- Calvin Coolidge (1873-1933) 30th US President

Find Elected Officials
Enter ZIP Code: or Search by State
See Issues & Action
Select An Issue Area:
Contact The Media
Enter ZIP Code: or Search by State

Senators: State (.xml) (.htm) Senators: Name (.xml) (.htm) source: GrassFire.org Effective Advocacy
image of man inside the Capital looking up at the rotunda Legislation Pending in Congress
Instant Congress Phone Number Lookup
Street number and name only:
Zip Code, 5 digits:
Call or fax your members of Congress today. small image of a telephone Just submit your street address and 5 digit zip above to get all their phone numbers. Get this free lookup for your site
(note: Any above political action questions are posed by the author of the "Instant .. Lookup" script.)
Contact the U.S. government and the Media
SENATORS: (toll) 202-225-3121
HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES: 202-224-3121

PRESIDENT: 202-456-1111 & 202-456-1414 & FAX: 202-456-2461
WH Legislative Affairs: 202-456-2230
All Federal Agencies via
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Directories.shtml

Legislative status: Abortion updated information
Legislative status: Gun Owners
Legislative status of the Health Care bills: in the Senate & House
Live Debates: Senate & House + CSpan Congress, POTUS, other FED, BookTV & Wash. Journal
More Phone Numbers links: http://callcongressnow.com
Fax numbers & eMail Addresses:
http://conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm (facsimile/email)
Fax & phone #s to 'Grassfire.org' Congressional list: http://www.grassfire.com/3122/targets.htm
• email Congress & W.H.: http://capwiz.com/congressorgfb/issues/bills/ (CapWis.com)
• write your Congressional representative: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
All Governors, Senators, Representatives, Committees + Citizen Action Resources source: ConservativeUSA.org & alt: Elected Officials at ResistNet.com email, call, write CongressTalk ShowsNewspapersNetworksLobbying GuideCurrent Action Items

Some Gov't News sources: PresidentialCabinetCongressSupreme CrtOther US Govt

Life - Susan B. Anthony List: SBA HomeElected OfficialsIssuesElectionMediaLegislative Alerts and UpdatesCurrent LegislationKey VotesCapitol Hill BasicsPolling: Electoral StrengthThe Other SidePolling: Pro-life TrendsPolling: Electoral StrengthLegislationOur PrioritiesTake ActionPollingPro-Life Women LeadersWinning [Endorsed] CandidatesNewsroom

From: NRAILA.org | Current Legislation | Write Your Representative | Get Involved Locally | Write the Media | Register To Vote
Find your Congressman - http://gsnvip.com/your-rep
Find your Senator - http://gsnvip.com/your-senator
trust no one...not even yourself We're from the government and are here to help you. ...not even yourself
A Speaker GIF Image. My Sentiments: Soon, What We All (Are?) Will Be Doing. (benddown.wav, 47kb) A Speaker GIF Image.
Badges? speaker gif  (89kb) Voice of: Alfonso Bedoya Evans Law of Inadequate Paranoia: "No matter how bad you think something is, when you look into it, it's always worse." -- M. Stanton Evans, author "Black Listed by History, The Untold Story of Senator Joseph McCarthy" (published 2007) source: Glenn Beck TV show, Th.24Jun10 interview (http://harrolds.blogspot.com/2010/06/glenn-beck-ezra-taft-benson-warning.html)Number of Occupy protesters arrested counter
Tea Party Arrests=0

Now the U.S. Owes $175+ Trillion Dollars! (25Sep17) Up daily since o'tax'n spend was elected!

"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."
-- Alexis de Tocqueville [Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clerel, le Comte de Tocqueville] (1805-1859) French historian
The U.S. Deficit in 2007 was $9,007,653,372,262.48
The federal government has accumulated more new debt -- $3.22 trillion ($3,220,103,625,307.29) — during the tenure of the 111th Congress than it did during the first 100 Congresses combined, according to official debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury." -- By Terence P. Jeffrey, CNSNews.com (Read The Full Story)
Click Here for videos, graphs, movie & U.S. National Debt totals.
3 years ago: The Debt ~ $125T+! Then Obama:  Up $22T+ in only 3 years! $22T to $26T+ by 2015!  Since November 2011 to January 2013 he has added $2 Trillion to the deficit!  States' Unfunded: $3.2T+! • (Dec10) From Jan'09 the deficit: $10.2T→$14.6T up $4.3T/42%! -- Federal unfunded liabilities total $84 trillion .. equal to 5.7 percent of the present value of all future GDP, which translates into about 31 percent of the long run federal revenue estimate,” the report states.  “Thus federal revenues would have to rise immediately and permanently to 24.1 percent of GDP to cover the fiscal imbalance.” (source: http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/16/report-federal-unfunded-liabilities-total-84-trillion/)
Federal obligations exceed world GDP! Is the US Gov't Bankrupt?Unfunded a myth?
Deficit: $ national debt Totals Source: http://www.usdebtclock.orgUnfunded Liabilities: $ 107,599,889,000,000 (25Sep17)
Many Americans actually pay $1 out of ever $2 earned to some form of tax while ~50% of people pay no taxes!  Do you pay your bills?  The Fed takes $3 in and spends $5.  Debt per citizen: $51,985 - Debt per taxpayer: $142,513! (13Dec12)
Also, see the blog videos below at http://harrolds.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-debt-how-come-how-much-who-do.html
What were you doing in the last hour while the U.S. Gov't spent $188 Million Dollars of our money!  (Every Hour, Every Day!) (Apr11)   In 8 years, President Bush added $5 trillion to the national debt; President Obama, according to a revised Dec11 GAO report, added $4T+ to the U.S. deficit in 2011 alone!  The GAO estimates the deficit, including o'scamcare & mandates, may grow from $15T+ to over $26T+!  UPDATE: A little-noticed event occurred at approximately midnight on Monday, October 31, 2011.  The National Debt exceeded the GDP!  Imagine what these numbers are going to be now that Obama is reelected! (src)
A trillion seconds pass in 31,688 years.  At $1/sec it would take 41,194 years just to pay off o'tax'n spend's new Feb12-Feb13 added debt - 538,696 years to pay only the national debt or 4,404,632 years to settle the debt+unfunded liabilities!

"Over the last four years our national debt has risen nearly $6 trillion, and just last week the debt topped an astounding $16 trillion.  To put that in perspective, $16 trillion is enough money to fund the US military, along with the military of every NATO country combined… for the next sixteen years!  Government spending is projected to hit $3.8 trillion this year alone.  Even after every tax dollar paid by Americans has been counted, the government will still overspend by another $1.13 trillion.  Every single second of the day our government spends over $12,000.  So in the time it takes you to read this article, roughly five minutes, our government has spent $3.6 million.  It take four seconds for the government to spend what the average American earns in an entire year."  (source: by Tim Phillips 17Sep12 at TownHall.com)
    "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself.  They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence … From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable . . . the very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that is good." -- George Washington
"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." (Ecclesiastes 10:2)
Bishop Sheen Audio Library small animated speaker "For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise." [2 Cor 11:19] Psalm 109:8
"[W]e ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own." -- George Washington, letter to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, 1795
small animated speaker Fulton Sheen's "Talk to American Soldiers - The Centurions of Rome 'West Point' (alt src)
Bishop Sheen Radio small animated speaker
President Obama Job disapproval/approval (daily, interactive)
ElectionProjection dot com election results
+ Pre-6Nov12 Polls
Who Won Who Lost
(punctuation optional)
Thousands of Deadly Islamic Terror Attacks Since 9/11
     It has been suggested that o'who?, the clown, and 'those who surround him' are not the bumbling fools they appear to be.  Nor are they one of the 'Three Stooges' but rather are shrewd implementation/drivers and fellow-travelers of policies designed to disarm the citizenry & collapse the American economy.  Why?  o'nocchio's grandiose scheme to "fundamentally transform America" is more than simple campaign rhetoric as can be seen by his use of "enabling acts" to circumvent the Constitution of the United States.  As Ollie used to say, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into."

Read:

Recommended

News Briefs: 2nd Amendment, Values, Life, & Muslim Terrorism

AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News » Gun Rights News

AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News » Ammunition News

AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News » Firearm News

It's a race against time.

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence." -- Charles Austin Beard (1874-1948)

2nd, Founding, Traditional American Values, & ProLife Quotes: http://harrold.org/quotes/quotesalone.html

Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." -- James Madison, The Federalist No. 51, Independent Journal, Wednesday, February 6, 1788
Anti-Federalists and Federalists Papers
The Federalist Papers
Maintained by "Silent Calvin"
The Constitution Society
The Anti-Federalists' Papers
Maintained by Jon Roland of the Constitution Society at:
http://www.constitution.org/afp/afp.htm
Search Constitution.org or the web -- Powered by FreeFind

Anti-Federalist Papers Entire site Entire web

When Men Were


When Men Were Men - "Scots Wha Hae" Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 Listen to the poem A Speaker GIF Image. "Scots Wha Hae"

Values:   "Scots Wha Hae"  1] poem lyrics..text of "Bruce before Bannockburn" also known as "Scots wha hae", written by Robert Burns
Robert Burns b.1759-d.1796, 8May1794, The Morning Chronicle)  1] "Supposed to be addressed by Bruce to his soldiers before the Battle of Bannockburn against Edward II."
Listen A Speaker GIF Image. to the poem "Scots Wha Hae" read by Doug Robertson [3m55s],  Music by Steve McDonald from 'Bannockburn' [Stone of Destiny]" (.mp3, 3.7MB)
• alternate A Speaker GIF Image. ScotWha2.ram Stream in Real Audio (rm, 3m55s) re [ Robert Bruce's March to Bannockburn, Robert I, the Bruce (1274-1329) also know as Robert the Bruce, "The Hammer of the Scots" ] plus A Speaker GIF Image. "Scots, wha hae Wi' Wallace Bled," (midi, Scottish Songs) & .midi sequenced with lyrics [src] ***
and A Speaker GIF Image. Scots Wha Hae (bagpipes) by the 48th Highlanders of Canada (7MB, .mp3, 3m14s)
and A Speaker GIF Image. Scots Wha Hae, bagpipes solo (1.3MB, .mp3, 1m22s)
and A Speaker GIF Image. Scots Wha Hae (2.7MB, .mp3, 3m4s; 'The Corries' ["Battle songs of Scotland", sung by Ronnie Browne solo] & A Speaker GIF Image. Scots Wha Hae with pipes (4.3MB, .mp3, 4m29s)
Material published on Harrold's blog is collected from email forwards, public articles, and my opines or those submitted by users.  I try to avoid copyrighted material.  If anything on this site has been copyrighted by you, please contact me so it can be removed or give you credit. -- Robert Harrold small envelope • cite info: http://harrold.org/rfhextra/cite.html
"As a nation we have been asleep for years.  Lulled by affluence and self-indulgent apathy, our collective awareness has grown dim.  This has created an opening for our enemies, one that may ultimately prove fatal.  This is the truth and what we do, or don't do, will determine the consequences, for better or worse.  It is time to decide." -- truthandcons.blogspot.com
The Manhattan Declaration

Recent Visitors:

About Me

My photo
El Centro, California, United States
mailto: Robert Harrold formerly dba AERC, El Centro, CA, US 92243

Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta, ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me.
Do me justice, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy; rescue me from the deceitful and unjust man.
- Psalm 43 KJV, 42 Douay Rheims  (http://barnhardt.biz)

There are certain universal truths.  There is right and wrong.  Life is, choice Isn't.  The 2nd Amendment is for you and me, not the government.

"We failed to react appropriately to them and, instead, displayed weakness.  And, the weak are always beaten."  ~~ Vladimir Putin

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." - George Orwell on a BBC broadcast, April 4, 1942


"An armed society is a polite society." -- Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer

Before you sign anything, ask an Indian first.
Powered by Blogger.