The Conservative Soldier

Everyone is afraid of something in America.

Afraid of John McCain or Barack H. Obama.

Afraid of gasoline prices and their precipitous rise.

Afraid of inflation. Afraid of job loss. Afraid of declining home values that will keep them from amassing huge home equity debt.

Afraid of salmonella. Afraid of tomatoes. (Will string beans be next?).

Afraid of guns. Afraid of the Supreme Court.

Wallow in all the fear you want. Dive in and wiggle your toes in it. Then grow up and shut up.

Let me tell you what we should be afraid of in America. He’s a 23-year-old guy in Idaho who phoned The Dennis Miller Show on Monday morning. At 23, he is fixated on the War in Iraq, the national debt, his economic stimulus check. He fears we are sending too much of “his” money around the world to support war and foreign aid.

He actually said the U.S. should stop sending food to “people who don’t appreciate it.” Now, I have no idea how often our 23-year-old Hangdog Harry has experienced hunger (beyond the normal pangs that young men feel between meals and snacks), but I have a sneaking suspicion he has no idea what he is talking about.

Dennis Miller, who does not attack guests (to his credit) even when they are really stupid and have teed themselves up for a verbal onslaught, calmly wondered aloud when the kid lost the natural enthusiasm once automatically possessed by youth in America. The 23-year-old did not have an answer. It was obvious he didn’t realize — until that moment — how ridiculous he sounded.

The Fear Syndrome in America is totally ridiculous, too. A democracy is not built on stimulus checks and right-of-birth cheap gas and guaranteed upward mobility. We have millions of people running around this country afraid that they’ll have to stop driving Cadillac Escalades and Lincoln Navigators and other over-sized SUVs, scared to death they might have to rebalance the family budget, worried sick that a third flat-panel TV planned for their homes might have to be put on hold.

But they are not afraid of the threat to America posed by radical Islam. They give nary a thought to the threat posed by Al Qaeda terror cells to stability across the Middle East.

We know this because a majority of vote-eligible Americans refuse to give credit to President George W. Bush for the number of terror attacks on U.S. soil in the past 2,500+ days since 09-11-2001. That number is zero. These same Sulking Sams and Samanthas absolutely refuse to acknowledge the building success of American military initiatives across Iraq. A lot of these folks make up the so-called youth vote, the sector that is underwriting Obama’s campaign $25 at a time (or so we are expected to believe) and will turn out in droves this fall to assure his ticket to the White House is punched.

If I am B.H. Obama, I am counting on these whiners at my peril. Most of them will be too depressed to get out of bed and haul their lazy behinds to a polling place. Count on it.

It also is likely these disillusioned youngsters never will come around. But let us be clear. They can bemoan the evolution of the global economy, which is seeing enormous upticks in oil consumption by China and India (and therefore impacting demand and worldwide prices). They can bemoan the normal economic cycles that see wages freeze and prices rise and jobs vanish and stock markets panic now and again.

Yet nothing we’ve seen to date will compare to the economic devastation that will be triggered by another terrorist attack on the United States. So let’s stop the whining and take a moment to wallow in something other than fear. Let’s put a toe in the waters of hope. Let’s take a second look at what the Bush Doctrine is achieving.

David Brooks, the acclaimed New York Times columnist, observes: “…Before long, the more honest among the surge opponents will concede that Bush, that supposed dolt, actually got one right. Some brave souls might even concede that if the U.S. had withdrawn (troops) in the depths of the (Iraq) chaos in (2006 and 2007), the world would be in worse shape today.”

And, from the monumental effort by author and embedded war journalist Michael Yon, entitled, “Moment of Truth in Iraq”, are these words from his book that affirm the power of American democracy in the world: “Maybe creating a powerful democracy in the Middle East was a foolish reason to go to war. Maybe it was never the reason we went to war. But it is within our grasp now and nearly all the hardest work has been done.”

Hard work. Staying the course. Waking up everyday, believing in the Founding Fathers’ vision. This is the life a 23-year-old male can choose, whether he is here at home enjoying American freedom, or walking through healed neighborhoods in Iraq in a military uniform, or cornering Al Qaeda militias in Afghanistan.

If young men and women in America really want change, let them get to work. Slogans and rehearsed rhetoric and tax cuts are not change. Change is an attitude, not a campaign pledge. When attitudes are restored, fear is defeated.

The Barack Hussein Obama brain trust has got to be positively awash in salivation as red flags pop up daily across the U.S. economic landscape. With each passing hour, Obama’s hollow campaign platform — CHANGE — surely will grow more powerful as Americans come to grips with significantly higher energy costs. Invest heavily in the blame game, his brilliant advisers will tell him privately, and coast into the White House on a tide of economic despair. The working class will be re-defined as the economy class, a group of Americans paralyzed by indicators and analyst forecasts, eternally waiting for their tax cuts and stimulus checks.

More government. More relief for the little guy. More unchecked spending in Washington. The Perfect Storm for B.H. Obama & Co.

But, lest we forget, Obama also has declared that during his presidency “the oceans will begin to slow” (in a lame reference to appease the global warming nuts). So he had better be careful about choosing the waves he rides into the seat of power. From this seat, empty campaign word crafting soon must be replaced by important, sometimes unpopular decisions. Waves can weaken into ripples and, next thing you know, you are dog paddling.

Sen. Obama, who has rarely ever engaged in writing or passing serious economic legislation as a Senator, is turning up around the country talking about his stimulus-in-every-pot strategy for “saving” the U.S. economy. The middle class will get tax breaks and free spending money to offset high prices — middle class to be defined by Obama on an as-needed basis. For now, we can assume middle class means all of those people making just south of $75,000 a year, or looking at it another way, people who are one pay raise away from becoming not-middle-class and, thus, subject to Obama’s massive income tax increases.

While the expanding economy class (expanding because, presumably, illegal immigration will remain rampant under an Obama presidency) becomes dependent on electronic direct-deposits from the U.S. Treasury, all of the “obscenely wealthy” small-business owners and independent investors finally will be derailed from the free ride they’ve been on for too long, Obama will preach. Oh, and while we’re at it, we’re going to ratchet up capital gains taxes to stop all of these insensitive white folk from clearing so much money from property and stock investing. (The consequence being that this is the very activity — investments returns being reinvested — that fuels economic rebounds and growth).

Oh, and don’t forget death and inheritance taxes. That one-two punch will surely come back in Obamaland, more destructive to more longtime family owned farms and other businesses than ever.

By any (even casual) historical measure, Obama will bask in a struggling U.S. economy at his peril. The nation was so blinded by its desire for “change” in 1976 that it ushered in the untested Governor of Georgia, James Earl Carter, who was run out after one term by crippling inflation and heavy taxation. It was so extreme as to overshadow his foreign policy ineptitude. At least Carter was not naive enough to try ramming nationalized healthcare down our throats.

Team Obama will not be deterred by historical warnings. In his twisted view, an America near collapse is a beautiful vision to behold. Gas prices spiking to $4.50, then $5, and beyond. Airlines parking airplanes and, in some cases, disappearing, even as Obama and the radical left wing ignore the public’s cries for energy independence. (”We can’t drill our way out of these problems,” the old liberal Matriarch, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chortled last Sunday on one of the talk shows). Housing prices stagnating because legitimate real estate investors (not “flippers”) will avoid rising capital gains taxes if, as some predict, the tax doubles to 30%.

How can he relish these scenarios? Perhaps he simply does not care. Could not care less, in fact.

Writing for the electronic magazine American Thinker, Prof. Ed Kaitz explains Obama’s indifference by reminding us how strongly Obama is guided by anger (as are longtime associates and friends). For anyone who cared to listen, Obama stated this all too clearly in his much analyzed speech on race during the Democrat primary season. “The anger is real;” he said that March day in Philadelphia, “it is powerful. And to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm (between races).”

Kaitz, a UC-Berkeley educated professor, believe it or not, addresses the roots of Obama’s anger deftly in his American Thinker piece written soon after the Philadelphia race speech. He examines the stark difference between those in the black minority and those in Asian minorities. He recalls a conversation with a black acquaintance years ago that has stayed with him in which the black gentleman zeroed in on the differing attitudes between black and Vietnamese residents of the Louisiana Bayou.

“We’re owed and they aren’t,” the man told Kaitz.

Kaitz concludes that Obama’s race speech and, as I would interpret it, his campaign for President, tells us that Obama is not invested in the audacity of hope. He is invested in being, as Kaitz puts it, “a peddler of angst, resentment and despair.”

That’s quite a bit different than being an agent of change, isn’t it?

I am watching the world end — in hi-def and via high-speed Internet.

Barack Hussein Obama was back in Chicago today, boasting that he’ll be wrapping up a second term in the White House right around the time the 2016 Olympic Games are about to begin in the Windy City. (What will it cost to fuel the Olympic flame in eight years?)

Crude oil barrel prices spiked more than $10 today to record highs north of $138 as commodity speculators carelessly threaten the stability of the U.S. economy. And why do they do it? Because they can.

Americans, with the help of the wrist wringing cable media, continue to talk themselves into an economic malaise, as if cheap food and gas are some birthright. Today’s 394-point decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average will have them positively giddy at CNBC, where execs find breaking news of a perfect storm of $6/gallon gas, inflation and a protracted housing downturn like music to the ear. Given that scenario, no one would drive a car. They’d sit home watching CNBC and all those pretty red numbers and arrows.

The Chinese are buying oil they don’t really need. Why? Because they can. And some wacky Israeli politician, who thinks he should be the nation’s next leader, says Israel has no choice but to consider a military attack on Iran, which is hording something like 25% of the world’s oil reserves.

B.H. Obama, who is going to heal the sick and lift up the needy (in a nation of 94.5% employment) while taxing the rest of us (who eat what we want and shamelessly set the thermostat at 72) into economic Armageddon, is probably rooting like hell for an Israel-Iran conflict. He can then blame it on President George W. Bush — who has actually been elected twice, not theoretically elected — and U.S. foreign policy post-9/11.

This is the same Obama, keen observer of foreign affairs that he is, who was for the sanctity of an undivided Jerusalem until he was against it, the change of viewpoint coming to pass in fewer than 24 hours. In front of a Jewish conference in Washington, Obama said that “any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”

Not a lot of gray area there, but that was Wednesday. On Thursday, Obama was forced to react to a Palestinian uproar. Obama the Diplomat, on Day 1 of the General Election, has already stepped in it, by failing to grasp that peace in the Middle East probably will never be borne of black-and-white statements like “Jerusalem … must remain undivided.”

So, as he has before with Mr. Wright’s remarks, and Mr. Rezko’s conduct, and Mr. Ayers’ terrorism, Obama reached into the oratorical bullpen to try to wiggle out of a bit of a jam. On CNN, he said: “Well, obviously, it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations.”

Why won’t Obama say the P-word (Palestine)? A range of issues? Barry, I know you and Michelle are busy picking out Oval Office furniture, but don’t you read the papers?

As I contemplate the end of the world as winds swirl outside my window and images of another 9/11 swirl inside my head, I think I know the reason why Obama is struttin’ it today in downtown Chicago at the 2016 Olympics rally, and why he doesn’t worry about verbal miscues too much.

I think it’s because John McCain’s campaign has been so incredibly benign so far. Sen. McCain, this is the battle of your life and the battle for America’s future. We need that old soldier to come out of hibernation. Now. This morning, I observed one of your economic advisers on CNBC trying to combat an Obama adviser over policy issues. Your guy did little more than recite message points.

And that’s when it struck me like a barrel of light sweet crude upside my head. At their peril, Americans do not care very much — average, American Idol-addicted, gun polishing Americans — about the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, or the global ramifications of an Israel-Iran war, or the imminent threat posed by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to Middle East peace initiatives.

So I am sending an urgent wake-up call to the McCain camp. It is imperative that you assemble an economic all-star team of media savvy men and women who can blanket the nation, spreading the McCain gospel. They must address gas prices, job protection, health care, sub-prime mortgage reforms and an aggressive plan for energy independence tied to oil exploration on U.S. soil. This needs to be a sweeping, comprehensive display. Voters need clear, credible proof that Reaganomics and sound, conservative policies will return the U.S. to economic prosperity under a McCain administration.

The world feels like it is ending today. Obama thinks he will be swiftly anointed a two-term President.

Chicago thinks it should host the Olympics because American corporations are the principal underwriters of the Olympic financial engine, though within the International Olympic Committee the U.S. is positively loathed. This is, after all, the same IOC that can’t wait for this year’s Games in smog-shrouded Beijing.

As summer arrives, Americans could care less about the incredible achievements by our military in Iraq, nor do they wish to think about the long-term importance of those achievements within the region.

And here is what tears me apart. As we obsess about our $4/gallon gas and our little, insignificant economic hiccup here in America, the Islamic radicals are licking their chops. Even as Sen. Obama pledges change, the radical martyrs are clamoring for another shot at an increasingly vulnerable United States. You want to see change? Terrorism can bring it to your doorstep before lunchtime.

Jet fuel on 9/11 was incredibly cheap compared to the here and now. But why should the radicals care? It accomplishes their goals, at any price, and somebody else always picks up the tab.