Saturday, August 27, 2011

Armchair Generals

I am so tired of all these armchair generals and leftist journalist talking on how great the rebels in Libya are doing against the loyalist forces of Gadhafi. You have to be joking. If NATO, meaning the US, would have only done what they said they were going to do, which is to provide a no fly zone, the rebels would have been crushed. They are a rag tag mob that has some of the world's best air forces providing not only close air support, but also blatantly being their air arm by providing offensive sorties and still can barely make headway.

I still wonder how they can say they were trying to stop a massacre of civilians when a) civilians were taking up arms against the government. Whether or not that government is tyrannical or not does not matter. And b) They tried to stop this "potential"  while watching a real massacre in Syria take place, and still taking place.

Now we see them letting out al Queada terrorist from their prisons. Are you still wondering what kind of government these great rebel fighters are going to implement? If they can implement anything. It will more than likely descend into a power struggle. Who will fill that void?

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Compromise

We have been hearing a lot about compromise in the news here of late. Especially since November when the Republicans took control of the House. Not so much when the Democrats controlled them all though. Hmmm. Anyway, compromise is not a dirty word, although in Washington today it seems to be. Compromise is how our nation was built and how it was kept growing strong.

Our Constitution was based on compromise. From the separation of powers to the way congress was to be chosen and the amount each state would have to even the bill of rights. Compromise has been such a bedrock in our history that the have been given their own names like the 1820 Compromise, the Missouri Compromise and the Great Compromise.

That system that worked for so many years have been forgotten and broken somewhere along the way. People no longer see it as a way to accomplish great things, but without it nothing gets accomplished. The problem is that each party only see's compromise as the other side relenting. Neither side is willing to truly come together and for both to make sacrifices. The progressives like to throw around accusations that the conservatives, especially the TEA Party will not give in, but they are doing exactly the same. Their idea of compromise is for the TEA Party to move to their side, which will never happen. In true compromise both sides must give. With that said, I am a firm believer that one should never compromise on their principles, because if they will come off that stance then they will give everything up for the sake of appeasement. Barry Goldwater said it best, "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Let me remind you, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

There has always been this "partisan bickering" that is so frowned upon in today's politically correct world. It is part of the genius of our founder experiment. They designed a system that has a left and a right, but do not confuse that with party politics which they found to be a great evil better kept away from. They didn't want a politician more loyal to a party than to the country and its people. For our system to work the left and the right are needed and without them the people are undone.

In a nutshell the left is their to point out societal problems and to come up with solutions to fix them. The right is there to hold on to the purse strings letting the left know that our country can't afford such a program, or that this power is not in the federal government purview and better left to the states. They both have functions that our nation must have to survive. In our system without the left it would be too tight, strict and uncaring, but without the right the left would spend us in to oblivion with every reactionary social program that could be thought of  and would eventually lead to our collapse.

The latter is our major problem that we face today. In the last hundred years or so the left and right system has been totally eroded, save for a few hold outs and some newcomers that are marginalized and demonized as the lunatic fringe. The progressive movement has taken control of both parties pointing them both on a leftward direction. The have both turned into the spending and growing of a reactionary government that the right was designed to combat. Our system cannot stand with both parties being left, nor could they if both were right. When this left turn took place there was no longer any need for compromise, because they were both spending and growing government. The left/right system our founders designed was no longer in place. The progressives had their way for so long, that when the TEA Party stood up to challenge them both parties got mad and attacked. They have thrown a monkey wrench in their collective progressive agenda. So now that the left/right system is trying to correct itself, the progressives do not want to give. So they use their stranglehold on the media to demonize and blame the TEA Party, without looking at the other side of the coin.