Bondage of Corruption Pt. 2: American Taliban

In “Bondage of Corruption Pt. 1: Culture”; I state that in America today there is a “diversion away from the essence of things–the essence of what is good and what is intrinsically bad–and a preference for promoting the concept of the subjective over the reality of the objective.”

To that I add: This preference for the subjective over the objective, manifests quite often in a twisting of terms and words. Shallow thinking coupled with what often seems disdain for the true meaning of words, gives rise to malformed concepts.

These semantical mutations take on a life of their own when allowed to remain unchallenged. The American Taliban is just such a term and concept.

American leftist more so than any other group in our nation specialize in this sort of thing. It is one of their primary tactics, employed to stoke the emotional furnaces of liberal reactionaries and to silence, or marginalize ideological opponents.

The Tea Party forms, standing for limited government and fiscal responsibility, with constituents representing Republicans, Democrats and Independents. They hold rallies to unite people of all walks of American life in a singular cause: Reign in an out of control American government.

The left renames them “Tea baggers” a slang term for a sexual activity and paint their fellow, Americans as uneducated racists. It doesn’t matter many of the Tea Party movements most popular speakers and political figures are Black. The left “tars” them as brainwashed “Toms” and “sellouts”. The Democrat Party has a lot of experience with Tar. Unfortunately my people have a very short memory.

The left loves “diversity” but cannot abide diversity of thought! The only thing the liberal left fears and hates more than people putting aside what they “feel” in favor of thinking is Christianity!

They don’t necessarily hate religion, but they have a mad on for Christianity. It is more  fear than anger. The left only becomes angry with Christianity when those who actually believe God stand in opposition to them. The left fears people will actually begin to believe what God says.

If there is one movement above all others the Democrat Party and the liberal left exerts full power to marginalize it is Christianity. This is something I wish Black Christians could come to understand. The Democrats will come to your church to solicit your votes, but the truth is not in them.

Democrats do not go to churches teaching the full doctrine of Christ and they know the ones that do. Democrats go to churches most likely to preach social messages than theological messages.

If you go to a church where you have never heard a sermon against abortion or upholding the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. A church that seldom emphasizes sin and repentance of sin, a church that talks more about God giving you a breakthrough on your finances, than the inherent sinful nature of man, you are likely to see Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden show up.

If your church dogmatically clings to Christ being the only way to salvation, it’s not likely you will have a visitor from the Democrat party. This is why Barack Obama said:

“I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”

This is not a Christian statement--This is the statement of an unbeliever. It is also the way the overwhelming majority of liberals think. Only Black Christians vote for Democrats in numbers and they do so by putting aside their faith.

Liberal Democrats hate statements like:

“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

John Jay said those words–John Jay, who served as President of the Continental Congress and as the first Chief Justice of the United States. (Do you think he knew what the Constitution says about church and state?) He was also the 2nd Governor of New York, who after several attempts, finally passed a law to emancipate the slaves of his state in 1799. Today he would be called a right wing fanatic!

I was called a member of the American Taliban a few weeks back by a liberal friend of mine. I mention it because it underscores the point I am trying to make. The meaning of words, the essence of things, have no meaning for liberals because they do not think. They feel!  When people begin to think they cease to be liberals.

Conservatives ask what do you think about so and so? Liberals ask how do you feel about so and so? A liberal may actually ask you what you think? But once you begin to tell them, when they respond, it’s plain they really want to know how you feel.

The word Taliban is a Pashtun word borrowed from Arabic. It literally translates as students. Students is an accurate word as the movement began with students recruited from Islamic fundamentalist madrassas (schools).

When the Taliban seized political power in Afghanistan after scores of bloody massacres, they implemented a very strict, anti-modern, interpretation of Sharia law in the regions it controlled. Here is a partial outline of what the Taliban outlawed:

“pork, pig, products made with human hair, satellite dishes, cinematography, and equipment that produces the joy of music, pool tables, chess, masks, alcohol, tapes, computers, VCRs, television, anything that propagates sex and is full of music, wine, lobster, nail polish, firecrackers, statues, sewing catalogs, pictures, Christmas cards. Employment, education, and sports for all women, dancing, clapping during sports events, kite flying, and characterizations of living things, no matter if they were drawings, paintings, photographs, stuffed animals, or dolls.”

There’s not a whole lot on that list I don’t personally participate in. Yet I am labeled an American Taliban. This is possible because it does not matter to a liberal what the Taliban is in reality.

The first use of the term “American Taliban” appeared with the capture of John Phillip Walker Lindh during the 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attack.
Lindh is one of the few people in the world for whom the appellation American Taliban actually applies.

Applying the term to Christians who hold to an orthodox Christian faith in America, including opposition to abortion, defending the Biblical definition of marriage and traditional Christian values, is a liberal attempt to marginalize Fundamental Christianity. The left wants very much to link and equate fundamental Christianity with the bloody excesses of fundamentalist Islam.

Employing the term American Taliban, betrays the liberals overall lack of depth and shallow thinking. People who use such terms know nothing about Christianity or Islam on a fundamental level. And frankly, they don’t care to!

Islam in America uses this lack of depth in liberals to further their agenda. Islamists in America know liberals are clueless as to what their faith teaches and they know liberals hate Christianity more than Islam.

Even though Islam is a conservative faith, (if you are gay try getting married in an Islamic state) opposed to the same kinds of things Christianity is opposed to, Muslims know, if they claim they are set upon, the left will not look too closely at their true agendas and pave the way for them to do what ever they want. Because it feels good to them.

Liberals believe if they appease Muslims they will not become fundamentalists. Liberals believe Muslims become terrorists not because the Qur’an teaches proselytizing with the sword and warfare against unbelievers, but because Muslims do not have enough social justice.

Liberals dread fundamentalist Islam and  are so reticent to offend them, they dare not call them Islamic terrorists even when they blow things up and kill people--Opting instead for meaningless terms like “man caused” disasters.

Where liberals fear fundamentalist Islam, they loathe Christianity! Even though Christians don’t make a habit of strapping Composition 4 to their bodies and don’t blow people up shouting Jesus is Lord, They still insist traditional Christian values are as big a danger as Islam. This is why they are comfortable calling fundamentalist Christians American Taliban.

The word Christian is a good one! It is my prayer more liberals come to understand what Christian truly means. The disciples of Christ were first called Christians in the  Holy Bible in the Book of Acts 11:26:

“And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”

Fear of Christianity is demonstrated in at least two ways pertinent to this article. There is the liberal fear people will embrace the teachings of the Holy Bible and then see the foundation of liberal philosophy and Democrat's politics are inherently contrary to not only God, but the best interests of this nation.

The second type of fear is displayed in people who say they have accepted Christ. it can on occasion be found in conservatives as well. It is a fear to unabashedly identify yourself as a Christian for fear of being rejected by people.

These are the people who don’t want faith to play a roll in political debate. People who are afraid to offend others by standing beside Christ and affirming what He affirms. They want salvation and the promises of God, but they don’t want to bear the cross themselves.

Even the simple term Christian is no longer good enough, the term has to be parsed. Religion is one of the first things I look at when I acquire a new Facebook acquaintance. I am amazed at the number of people I know are Christian who leave their religious philosophy blank. How a person identifies themselves spiritually tells a lot about them. You see pseudo Christian descriptions like:

“believer in the Great I Am”  or “I am desiring to be like Christ”

(I have found this particularly true amongst academics claiming faith in Christ)
Ontologically, who is the Great I AM to you? I’ve heard Buddhists claim they desire to be like Christ! Do you desire to be like the Christ who says?:

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6

and

“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33  But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. 34  Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35  For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36  And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.”  Matthew 10:32-35

Or President Obama’s Christ of the so called liberal and nebulous “Christian tradition?"  The Jesus who lives only in the liberal mind, whose followers believe you can go down a different path to reach God?

This is an important question, because the Jesus Christ who says the liberal favorite:

“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31

...Is the same Jesus Christ quoted above! You can’t accept the Christ of Mark 12 without the Christ of John 14 and Matthew 10! At least not if you are a Christian. It may cost you some friends and votes if you are a politician, but the truth is the truth!

Just before the verse from Acts calling Christ’s disciples Christians for the first time, we find out it was a dangerous time to be identifying yourself with Christ, there was serious persecution for believers then. This is to be expected, it is happening all over the globe even today.

I am a “fundamentalist”, I believe the whole Holy Bible and I make no apologies for it, though I will offer an apologetic of the Christian faith! Insufferably stupid liberal terms like Tea Bagger and “American Taliban” as rendered by ignorant, dull witted people, I dispassionately reject.

I prefer American Christian!

Digital Publius

Trump Psychosis!

Psychosis is defined (from the Greek ψυχή "psyche", for mind/soul, and -ωσις "-osis", for abnormal condition) as an abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality".

Leading up to the 2008 election, we saw the rise of a first term Senator from the state of Illinois named Barack Obama. This man literally came out of nowhere, but not without a great deal of heavy and highly questionable baggage.

Barack Obama, much to Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Political machine’s consternation, was able to convince the liberal grass roots throng that not only was his baggage not the least bit heavy, but he had actually lost the claim check for his baggage completely.

Thus, the Bill Ayers’, Jeremiah Wrights’, Saul Alinskys’, along with the then-junior-senator’s overall lack of transparency, stayed packed neatly away in Obama’s leaden Samsonite, quietly circling alone on the conveyor belt of rational thought, before being placed in public scrutiny’s Lost and Found department.

Philip Berg, an attorney acting on behalf of the Clinton machine, filed a motion in federal district court on August 21, 2008, against Democratic Party presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama. The Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission chose to ignore the fact that Obama was allegedly born in Mombasa, Kenya and that the "Certification of Live Birth" posted on Obama's website, is a forgery.

Though the complaint was dismissed as frivolous, it began President Obama’s commitment to spending as much money as necessary in legal fees to keep his credentials suppressed for whatever reason he chooses to do so!

As Berg was an activist attorney acting on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign this, in a way, makes Mrs. Clinton the De facto mother of the “Birther” movement!

Yet somehow the stigma of racism dogging those who question Mr. Obama’s eligibility contemporaneously, somehow fails to be affixed to the Democrats and the Clinton machine responsible for getting the “birther” ball rolling.

All of this is irrelevant to Democrats because true liberal Obama supporters couldn’t possibly care less if Obama is or is not a natural born citizen, just like the left doesn’t care Barack was the least qualified candidate in the field from either side of the political aisle.

Democrats didn’t care about Obama’s less than savory and, in many cases, un-American close associations. Nor did they care despite our nation’s fight against socialism for the better part of the 20th century, Mr. Obama displayed socialist proclivities.

Even now, in the face of President Obama’s numerous broken promises and utter failure in dealing with the countries economic woes, for some the man can do no wrong. Without regard for the “no more cowboy diplomacy” candidate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate recently launching an attack against another country.

To Obama’s base it doesn’t matter he explicitly contradicts his own criteria for using U.S. military force and, I might add, does so without congressional approval, the true Obama sycophants hold fast to their belief in Hope” and “Change”.

Thus, we are not surprised to read statements such as:

“I simply don't care about the facts you're throwing out. What I care about is getting our country back on track...”

Even more troubling is the way this statement ends:

”…and Donald Trump is the only one that will do that. I don't care who he hired in his business. I don't care that a Democrat is his campaign advisor, I don't care who he has donated money to.”

How is such an irresponsible statement different from the unsettlingly similar statements, thoughtlessly spouted by Obama supporters, we on the right expressed contempt for over the past few years?

I spent the better part of last week engaging with people who are ardent supporters of a Donald Trump presidential candidacy with negligible success. Trump supporters seem as immune to rational argumentation as the most psychotic Obama loose bolts.

In response to an invitation to read my article “Cmon’ Folks, Let’s Get Real” and listen to  Mark Levin’s blistering critique of Trump’s conservative bona fides, the afore quoted Trump acolyte wrote:

“Your article shows you hate Trump so silly for me to even respond to you any further. You'd never have anything good to say about him. That's fine.”

I may have a biased perspective when it comes to my own ability to convey ideas with the written word, but I dogmatically insist there is nothing within my article intimating I harbor hatred for Donald Trump--at least not to a rational individual!

The difference is this article is not about rational individuals, it’s about people on both sides of the political aisle so blinded by rhetoric, they refuse to examine their political sacred cows!

I wish I could say Trump psychotics were a rare breed, but I have run into an inordinate number of them in the last week. Like their liberal Obama kindred, Trump followers refuse to acknowledge either the truth or the record of their guy.

It doesn’t matter Trump, in his book “The America We Deserve” asserts the U.S. needs a universal healthcare plan like Canada’s. Trump writes:

“Doctors might be paid less than they are now, as is the case in Canada, but they would be able to treat more patients because of the reduction in their paperwork,”

For Donald supporters, Does this mean, as long as Trump says he wants to overturn Obama’s socialist plan so he can promote Canada’s socialist healthcare plan, a socialist plan is okay?

Hasn’t President Obama and the liberal left made it a point to talk more about what American’s “deserve” instead of what American’s can earn on their own? Is it just me?

The leftist mainstream media has spent the last few years blaming the Tea Party for taking the establishment Republicans too far to the right. Over the past few weeks, this rhetoric was ratcheted up by Democrat Congressional leadership. Chuck Schumer made it abundantly clear the left’s agenda was to marginalize the Tea Party and conservatism as much as possible, highlighting the Tea Party’s “extreme” views!

Trump back in 1999 on “Meet the Press”, told the late Tim Russert:

“I really believe the Republicans are just too crazy, right?” he went on to say; “I mean, just what’s going on is just nuts.”

Keep in mind this was 1999, after the George W. Bush nomination was a foregone conclusion. At this point Trump split with the Republican Party faithful and spent the next eight years delivering liberal talking points.

Yet we are asked to believe Trump has now joined and identifies with the far more conservatively
orthodox and “extreme” right wing Tea Party? “ Cmon’ folks! When was Trump’s political “Road to Damascus” moment?

It seems Trump Psychotics are as willing to disregard Trump’s past as the Obama Psychotics are when breathlessly devoting themselves to their savior of all things good.

For some it doesn’t matter Trump just a few years ago contributed to the Who’s Who of anti-Tea Party candidates. Money for Harry Reid and Anthony Weiner and the self appointed champion of the extreme view of the Tea Party, Chuck Schumer! After all Trump does say: “I’m a business man”.

Trump gave campaign funds to conservative turncoat Charlie Crist, but no money for Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio. So much for Trump’s it’s “good business” to give to both sides cock and bull story.

Beyond the “good business man” malarkey, if you’re successful and powerful and truly believe Obama and the left are wrecking the country, would you help fund the destruction?

I mean, what happens when the side you say you don’t like wins? Does it make sense to pay into a political philosophy you say is hostile to business because you’re a businessman? Does this imply Trump is putting his business ahead of the overall good of the nation, because his explanation certainly implies so! Think People!

Is Donald Trump a born again conservative? Perhaps. I haven’t seen anything beyond his rhetoric to convince me a decade worth of conservative bashing should be disregarded just because Trump has poorly advanced some eligibility arguments!

Not when there are so many longstanding and true conservative voices being drowned out who make the same statements about the economy, foreign markets and returning to American pride with far more intelligence and credibility!

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Matthew 7:15

Shake off the psychosis! Let’s return to the rational thought separating us from the reactionary left and their ill developed ability to discern between feeling good and the pragmatic truth of the type of leaders we should look for to steer our ship of state back to a steady and prosperous course.

Digital Publius

Cmon' Folks, Let's Get Real!

One of my favorite songs of all time is “Stand”; by Sly and the Family Stone! I don’t know Sly’s politics, although Sly may be a degenerate of the highest order, in Stand he raised universal, even Biblical truths!

If I were head of the RNC, this would be the song I would play before every rally! One of  “Stand’s” copious, steeped in wisdom lyrics, reads:



“Stand,
You've been sitting much too long,
There's a permanent crease in your right and wrong”

Last week the President declared his candidacy for the 2012 election, which will be perhaps the most critical one in the 21st. Century. I believe it will set the tone for America’s moral course and philosophy for the next hundred years.

It is imperative that as Conservatives we “Stand” for what we know is “right” and in opposition of what we certainly know is “wrong”! The courts again will be a major issue. We cannot allow the left to win again. There is too much at stake! Conservatives cannot afford to have the Supreme Court loaded with youthful, liberal justices primed to serve on the bench for decades.

The left is pulling out all of the stops. This election really needs to be about morality and principles without compromise. In fact, I am beginning to hate the word, “compromise”!

Compromise may have begun life as a concept nobly, but in modern America it has since warped into acquiescence.

Acquiescence is what happens when one of the compromising parties seems consistently to be the only one making concessions. This is surely the case in American politics today.

At no time has this sad truth been more easily recognizable than in the recent battle to pass a Federal budget for the nation’s fiscal year. To begin with, Republicans asked for a drop in the bucket and even that was reduced by the Democrats to a moist smudge.



Republicans couldn’t even manage to take a stand for the social riders they had placed in the budget. As a nation, if we’re getting basics like the right to life wrong, how on earth can we get anything else right? How long will we “Stand” for compromising on life?

The narrative during the budget debate was completely controlled by the media and the right lay down passively and took it. We who call ourselves conservatives are again allowing the media to shape our actions and thinking. Even on the grass roots level.

The amount of adjustment made to the budget was so infinitesimal, it could be claimed pyrrhic.  To paraphrase the eponymous King Pyrrhus: “ ‘One more such victory would utterly undo’ the country!”

Ironically, if this woefully inadequate and largely symbolic gesture towards fiscal responsibility had not been passed, we would not have had the money to pay the troops necessary to even have (God forbid) such a victory as Pyrrhus had at Heraclea against the Romans.

The Republicans lack the confidence in the American people’s support to properly wage this battle for the nation’s soul. We are too easily distracted! The left understands this and they use it to their advantage.

This is why the left, in truth, loves the question of the President’s eligibility to hold the office. There is legitimacy in questioning Mr. Obama’s reticence in sharing his credentials and records, but, this is a marginalizing issue. It is meat for the Conservative base and it should be of concern to the whole nation, but... it is not.

We on the right claim to understand how tragically and blindly supportive the left is when it comes to President Obama. That may indeed be the case when it comes to the liberal voting base. However, it is not true of the media or the political and economic powers behind the Democrats and Mr. Obama. This group knows exactly what Obama is!

It is the powers behind the Democrats, who convinced the conservatives John McCain was the offering to be placed in sacrifice before the Obama machine in 2008. It is happening again.

We keep seeing these brand name media straw polls coming out touting Mitt Romney as the Republican frontrunner. Meanwhile, no one we know ever talks about Romney except to say; “We don’t want him.”

Every straw poll conducted on conservative grassroots sites like the ones here on Digital Publius or Freedom Torch all suggest a decidedly different narrative than the one conveyed in the mainstream media.

Polls on all the grassroots sites show conservatives desiring to back candidates that  express the values and perspective that reflects their worldview... candidates who are proven conservatives. Not wishy washy politicians who follow the political climate.

This is what nags at me about the blossoming Tea Party support for Donald Trump! I have to admit I find it amusing that Trump makes so many leftist talking heads appear to squirm. Trump is saying all of the right things right now,  but after a period of sober minded reflection, I am not comfortable with Trump.

In the back of my mind I keep thinking about the Donald Trump that appeared so often on “Don Imus In The Morning” reveling in  Bush bashing a few years ago. The Trump who was so tragically short sighted when it came to the war in Iraq, and who was was pro-”choice”.  This Donald Trump:

Contrast that video with this more recent appearance by “The Donald”!

It seems The Donald has merely transposed George W. Bush’s name with Barack H. Obama’s. The most telling thing, the thing we should be paying closest attention too, is the attitude of the media-figures Trump talks to.

If we were going strictly by the leftist talking points In the first video, it would be impossible to tell Trump from Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow or even Keith Olbermann and that was just a few years ago mind you.

Donnie Deutsch was only too eager to feed into The Donald’s all too frequent anti-Bush diatribes. This really looks no different from the way Matt Lauer and David Gregory supported Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer last week on the morning shows as they presented the DNC’s talking points and a singular unopposed perspective on the budget battle.

In the second video, we again see Trump being interviewed by Donnie Deutsch--This time we are treated to Deutsch and the rest of the panel smirking and derisively dismissing Trump as he spouts so called “birther” arguments! Arguments long since dismissed by people who have been fighting this battle since Obama came on the scene.

Fringe arguments like the President’s “Grandmother in Kenya”, long abandoned for their lack of strong evidential integrity. He is bringing up issues that have all been dealt with by the left, whether you find the answers credible should not be your bone of contention. It is a question of advancing persuasive arguments to the American people.

Anyone on the left worth their beans, who is prepared, could take Trump apart as we saw when he appeared on CNN, Suzanne Malveaux ate his lunch. The most powerful question that can be put in play when it comes to this issue is: Why is the President fighting so hard and committing so much money to suppressing his credentials? Why?

This is the question that no one ever answers. Trump has brought it up in a few interviews, but Donald never presses for an answer. He was so thoroughly handled by Malveaux that he never even asked that most pivotal question. The bottom line is this: This is not an issue you can win new votes with. It plays great with the base, but not the independents.

I refuse to believe Trump is  unaware of this, or the seemingly reasonable apologetics forwarded by Obama’s supporters on the weaker “birther” arguments. Trump is too smart! Or perhaps I give him too much credit.

I do not believe that Trump is a true conservative. 

I think Trump is nothing more than a complicit distraction to draw people away from the candidates we really need to support, who are true, longstanding conservatives. I don’t necessarily mean long time politicians, I mean clear, consistent and unwavering conservative voices.

Trump is a media creation--A left wing media creation! His show the “Apprentice” airs on NBC, while his network’s boss, Jeffrey Immelt is President Obama’s appointed head of the Jobs and Competitiveness Council (whatever that is) for goodness sake.

Trump’s bid for conservative support is nothing more than theater! Liberal stagecraft at it’s finest and most deceptive. Do not be fooled! “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” It seems almost like the birth certificate issue is a faint.

You let the whole “birther” issue hit a fevered pitch as advanced by perhaps the nation’s greatest “pitch” man. Make him the champion of the issue, he secures conservative support and then “boom goes the dynamite”, the President finally submits and releases the long form birth certificate, conservatives look foolish and petty and Obama wins a second term.

A far more likely scenario sees the right marginalized even further so that we are forced to nominate the common since candidate the media really wants us to choose. So, again we offer a sacrifice like the feckless and unelectable Mitt Romney instead of a true conservative.


Sly’s song ends:

Stand
Don't you know that you are free
Well at least in your mind if you want to be
Everybody
Stand, stand, stand

Free your minds of the media’s manipulation this time around. Let’s not buy into the newly conservative Trumps or the chimerical Romneys. Let’s get real and support a conservative who has always been a conservative.

As always, I am reminded of Holy Scripture, specifically, Paul sharing the Gospel with the pagans in Athens at Mars Hill. The Holy Bible relates:

(For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) Acts 17:21

Let’s not be like the Athenian pagans always in pursuit of some “new thing”! The essence of conservatism is conserving those things we know are true and real! Donald Trump I am afraid is neither!

Digital Publius

How Now Mr. President?

In a recent exchange on my profile page on Facebook a friend, and I mean a real life friend, someone that I have known for decades and of whom I am exceedingly fond, made a typical attack from the left when he avowed:

“We saw Bush/Cheney's open-hearted outreach at the Superdome in New Orleans. The only minority group the GOP is interested in is the Fortune 500.”

In response I countered:

“Not so my brother--Bush spent more money on entitlement programs for the poor than any President in history. Bush also sent more money in aid to Africa than any President in history.”

My friend scoffed so I provided the documented proof of what I’d asserted in regards to entitlements and Africa, which was met with the also typical leftist disregard for facts in favor of what they want to believe. As I stated in the thread: Facts are to a liberal what garlic is to Count Dracula - Something to be avoided at all costs.

The truth of the matter is that in Africa, Bush was adored because his policies saved legions of lives there. The liberal championed banning of DDT, killed millions in Africa. Bush countered that with a program that distributed Mosquito netting all over the continent, protecting people from malaria and other diseases that were wreaking havoc on the population. President, George W. Bush was also responsible for sending over an enormous amount of money to fight the scourge of HIV/AIDS.

It is interesting to note that one of Mr. Obama’s very first acts as President, was under cover of night, Barack Obama followed the lead of Bill Clinton and signed an order lifting the Mexico City Policy originally implemented by Ronald Reagan. The policy had been reinstated by George W. Bush before being again overturned by President Obama.

The Mexico City Policy banned the use of U.S. taxpayers dollars for funding abortions abroad. The majority of those funds for “family Planning” went towards aborting African babies. Bush sent money to save the lives of the African people, Son of Kenya, Obama sends money to end African lives.

Liberals would argue that aborting children in Africa alleviates suffering and eases tensions in a strapped land that cannot afford to feed it’s people. On Digital Publius. I often quote Romans 3:8 because within that passage we find encapsulated the essence of liberal wrongheadedness:

“And not [rather], (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.”

We are again facing difficult questions in the African nation of Libya where we are acting without clear mission or intent. Moreover, we also have no idea as to the true motives of those we’re aiding. Even the mainstream media has reported that many of the Libyan rebels are hardened Al Qaeda fighters who hate America.  And we’re debating whether we should arm the Libyan rebels?

All this in contradistinction to the circumstances, which in 2007 President Obama himself said were necessary to engage in war:

“The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. History has shown us time and again...that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the legislative branch.”

Yet, that is precisely what Obama did as president! For a person so adamantly against the prospects of a war without goals, Obama seems like “a greyhound in the slips, straining upon the start”. In no way, shape, or form could it be construed that Libya constitutes an “imminent threat” to our nation. Yet “In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove”, Mr. Obama did act, and the military action was quickly conceived and prosecuted.

Not at all like a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Notwithstanding Libya in fact having no strategic value whatsoever for America, Libya does not even play a roll in America’s energy needs, the North African nation only provides 2% of our oil. Add to that a complete lack of Congressional input, let alone approval and it is a puzzlement how this all happened so fast.

As it pertains to the humanitarian motivation for our intervention, I can’t help but remember what the President wrote in his book “The Audacity of Hope.” Obama argued if our nation got involved with Iraq in a humanitarian endeavor without a well-established plan that the American people and the world could understand and support, the United State’s efforts would not be seen as legitimate. 
At that time, President Obama even questioned: “Why invade Iraq and not North Korea or Burma? Why intervene in Bosnia and not Darfur?”

Why indeed? The question still remains even with a change in venue. Why Libya? why not Darfur or the Côte d'Ivoire? Well, in my estimation, the answer is foreign in origin: We are in a fight to aid our European friends. Bosom companions like France and Italy who procure the lion's share of Libya’s oil exports. We are not acting in Libya for our concerns, nor are we acting to help the Libyan rebels.

It seems likely; the French Connection offers a good reason why we are not acting to help the Ivory Coast as well. Not only does the Ivory Coast keep France knee deep in cocoa and swimming in coffee, recently off the small nation’s coast oil was discovered.

Adding interest for the French, in a current Ivory Coast election, the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo was defeated under questionable circumstances, prompting Gbagbo to refuse to abdicate power. Coincidentally, I am currently building a website for a local lawyer who happens to be from the Ivory Coast. I asked him what he thought of the circumstances in his homeland.

My friend declared his loyalty to Gbagbo and stated that the French backed and supplied Alassane Ouattara, (the “winner” of what my friend called the “corrupt” election for Ivory Coast President) and his supporters are murderous thugs. My friend’s words  confirmed all of the reports that I’d read in international papers.

The French and the U.N. backed Ouattara, stand by while Ouattara’s forces slaughter civilians by the thousands as they attempt to force Gbabgo to step down. In fact, President Obama’s United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice has also gone on record asking Gbabgo to step down.

Meanwhile Gbabgo’s requests for a recount and an investigation into the election have been ignored.

The U.N. and the E.U. make statements suggesting they fear Gbabgo is responsible for human rights abuses. That’s good enough for the French. However, we know that Ouattara’s thugs are murdering people.

How the left can continually be wrong when it comes to Africa is beyond me. Especially when one considers this administration’s close familial ties to the continent. As it stands, the emerging facts seem to suggest that we are not acting in North Africa because of any imminent threat to our nation, which was what Senator Obama forcefully proclaimed was necessary in 2007.

Who knows what’s really going on in the Ivory Coast, or anywhere in Africa for that matter. We are not acting for any strategic reason that I can fathom, or even for what Libya has to offer. It seems that America is in Libya because the European Union wants us to be.

I am reminded of the immortal words of the Bard as King Harry warns the Bishop of Canterbury to count the consequences before inciting the realm to war.

“Therefore take heed how you impawn our person, How you awake our sleeping sword of war: We charge you, in the name of God, take heed; For never two such kingdoms did contend Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint”

How now Mr. President - Why act in Libya and not the Côte d'Ivoire?

Digital Publius