Honesty

The principle of honesty says that one must refuse to fake reality - to pretend that the facts are not what they are. It is loyalty to reality and rationality, and requires that one live by the ideas he accepts as true - to mean what he says.

However, as with all moral principles, honesty is an absolute in a specific context: it is a guide to action that applies within a specific set of conditions. It is a guide to life-sustaining actions; thus one cannot be expected to act for his own destruction or to cause harm to others. And such actions, in turn, must have reference back to the principle; i.e. the principle must always be upheld.

Thus, to be honest is to fully obey the principle within the relevant context. Virtues are broad abstractions, not concrete-bound rules or commandments.

That is why lying, generally a form of dishonesty, is not necessarily immoral. But the conditions that can make it moral are not subjectively determined - without reference to the principle. Thus, it is immoral to lie in order to gain a value, but not to preserve one.

An example of “preservation” is lying to prevent a criminal from harming you or someone you value. One’s virtue should never become a means to serving the ends of evil.

It is moral to lie to government to protect one’s rights.

It is moral to withhold information from someone - even a loved one - if such information would prove harmful to him; or due to age is better provided at a later time for his own well-being.

Such examples may seem like, but should not be confused with, “white lies.” The latter is defined subjectively as a minor or unimportant lie, without regard for the principle of honesty.
But it does follow that when lying morally, one is not actually being dishonest - faking reality or relying on an irrational principle. He is acting for the good: for the good of himself, of the person to whom he is lying, and of the honesty principle itself.

Obama The Lyin’-Hearted

It is not unusual for a Presidential candidate to “stretch the truth” to get elected. But to consistently lie before and after being elected is rare; and Obama is the most guilty. 

Obama’s morality is as explained in the second half of “Linking Politics to Morality” (in this blog). His statist ideology is the result. And dishonesty is just one of the many vices of one who so rejects reason and rationality in his life. A lie is a knowingly false statement made with the intent to deceive. Given the chronic nature of his lying, one can only assume that he believes his ends always justify his means.

The following is a collection of many of his lies. You need to decide when enough is enough! 

·      Economy

    Financial bailout: he did not want any, but then he said that the one he approved was critical to save our economy. It ended up being a scan - the panic was false, and it became a means to control banks and other industries and to create a stimulus package to help special interests. 

    Trade: he said he supports free trade. Then he fights it; e.g. anti-Nafta, tariffs on Chinese products to appease labor unions, “buy American” legislation and restrictions where countries fail to restrict CO2 emissions - all without regard for retributions. 

    Taxes: he said no new taxes on the middle class. Then he pushes programs (e.g. HC with mandated insurance) that clearly will tax them. He said he just wants to increase taxes on millionaires, but his proposals actual do so for all families with income over $250k. 

    He criticized millionaires and corporations for their use of corporate jets; yet he knows that his own stimulus plan included a tax break that incented them to buy more jets. He recently proposed removing the tax break as “it will only take from people who are doing extremely well”; but he knows that the middle-class and pension funds will be hurt as the stocks of companies making those jets fall. 

    He said that 80% of the people want his budget plan with tax increases, yet he knows that the polls show that is closer to 30%. And he said he wants to cut the deficit but shows no desire to do so. 

    Shovel-ready projects: his stimulus was supposed to have immediate effect, e.g. with construction projects; yet he knew that with today’s environmental regulations and bureaucracy, such projects would not be ready for the shovel. 

    Green jobs: he pushes hard for growth in such jobs. Yet he knows that government does not create wealth; that it can only take wealth and jobs from the private sector and replace that with government jobs that are not productive ones that actually help the economy; and that “green” is merely a talking point. 

    Wealth redistribution: he uses any excuse and program to achieve this broad goal. E.g. “need” for services, environmentalism based solely on emotion. 

    Being consistent with that goal, he said there would be no congressional salary increases (7/11); but said salaries increased an average of 8%. 

    He said that he would never “pull the plug on Grandma.” Then he said that if the debt ceiling is not raised, then he cannot guarantee that seniors will receive their social security checks. Yet he knows that most of the SSA outlay is covered by current FICA taxes and that those checks are most certainly guaranteed. (And that program is not even an entitlement: it is our money in a government ponzi scheme that he is threatening to withhold!)   

    He said that the U.S. could default on our debts causing a global financial crisis; yet he knows that essential debts would be covered and there would be no serious repercussions. 

·      Education

    He asked children to work hard to achieve their goals in life as independent beings; and he plans on helping them along the way with subsidized education. But he purposely fails to tell them that his aim is to make them more dependent on govt. and that their success should be shared by all. 

·      Energy

    Global Warming: he says the evidence of man-caused warming is indisputable and the debate is closed. But he knows that there is no evidence of any warming due to man and that, in fact, the temperature warming (1% in a century) ended a decade ago. 

    Cap and Trade: based on the GW myth, he has wanted legislation to force drastic change in the use of energy. He says it will be good for our economy and for the planet. But he knows that such legislation is designed to make energy so expensive that Americans will use less of it and be forced to use more of the less efficient alternative energy sources, thus bad for the economy. Many new taxes are to be added to force said use. 

·      Foreign Policy

Israel: he said he fully supports Israel in Middle East conflicts.

But he has pressured them to stop all settlement growth until they negotiate a Palestinian State, knowing full well that the Palestinians will never yield to Israel’s rational conditions. He is even supporting training of Palestinians to enable them to fight Israel more effectively in case the latter does not succumb to the pressure. He also knows that with decades of violence, the Palestinians could not possibly be able to live with a peace accord. 

Another Obama condition for peace is a return to pre-war, dangerous boundaries. He speaks for freedom without acknowledging that Israel represents the only example of freedom in the ME. He is merely contributing to the belief that Israel is the cause of Muslim poverty; and he evades the fact that our survival as a free nation is dependent on the moral strength of Israel and capitalist values in general. 

Iran: he said he would not tolerate a nuclear Iran.

He has since been passive with them and knows Iran will not consider changing its nuclear ambitions - especially given his own weakness. It is also false when he argues that negotiations with Iran would be enhanced if Israel yielded to Palestinian demands. He knows Iran is the greatest beneficiary of such U.S. concessions; and he is simply diverting attention from his unwillingness to deal with Iran while making Israel the eventual fall guy when Iran becomes a nuclear power. All while knowing full well of the serious dangers of the latter scenario. 

Eastern Europe: he said he would support countries against Russian dominance.

Then he decides to withdraw long-term plans for a missile defense system in the area - at the pleasure of Russia and Iran. 

At the same time, he says we will build a “defense umbrella” in the Middle East if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon - which he knows would then be too late. 

Iraq and Afghanistan: he said he would pull out of Iraq immediately, but he has remained there longer than planned by Bush. His goal was only to defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but he has escalated a larger war there against the Taliban with virtually the same Iraq goals for which he criticized Bush. And he knows that it is virtually impossible to succeed in achieving such goals there. 

These lies are merely to gain international acceptance. And to give hope for peace - despite it being impossible - which will likely prolong further violence.

·      Health Care

He said that he wanted to fix our HC system, not control our HC. But he pushed for a single-payer plan which is total government control, and he accepted a public option which he says does not imply any control.

    He said that his plan will not add to the deficit or tax the middle class.

    He said Medicare benefits will not be cut.

    He denied that there is end-of-life planning in the proposed bill.

    He said the proposed plan did not cover illegals.

    He says we will keep our doctors and control all aspects of our care.

    He vilifies insurance companies knowing that it is government restrictions imposed on them that create concerns about cancelled policies et al, not the companies themselves.

    He says he will fight all special interests in this area, but supports the greatest special interest of all - the tort bar.

He understands causes and effects; he simply believes that his agenda justifies any such deceptions. He even lied about multiple HC cases in order to strengthen his case for ObamaCare - including that of his mother who was taken care of quite fine by our HC system.

·      Individual Rights

    Free speech: he says it is certainly a right and he supports the Constitution; then he supports laws that restrict talk radio, internet communications and “hate speech.”

    Guns: he likewise violates the 2^nd amendment when agreeing to gun and ammunition restrictions. 

·      Personal Relationships

Acorn: he denied working with them, denied their illegal activities, and denied government was supporting the organization. Yet he linked himself closely with SEIU which is closely linked to Acorn.

Rod Blagojevich: Obama denied having any connection with the former Illinois governor who tried to sell the Obama seat in congress.

Rev. Wright: he denied knowing the Rev.’s radical views. 

Read “Radical-in-Chief” (Kurtz) if you have any doubt about his lies regarding other relationships.

·      Special Interests

    He promised no favors to special interests.

    Then he put Lobbyists in high positions; many organizations were promised stimulus money in exchange for favors (e.g. supporting his HC plan).

   

·       Regulations

He said that his administration is the only one that has conducted a significant review of regulations. But Gore noted that it was done in 1999. He said cost of regulations under him was less than under Bush; but, in fact, his in 2 years equaled Bushes in the first 6 years.

·       Trade

In support of a trade deal with S. Korea, he claimed that they export a lot of cars to the U.S. but we don’t export cars to them. Yet just in the first 4 months of 2011, we exported $141M worth of cars to S. Korea. 

·       Welfare

He acknowledges that welfare programs can encourage dependency and discourage working. Yet he talks as though our current system does not do that - where all but 1 of 70 programs don’t even require able-bodied recipients to look for work. And he fights against reducing benefits.

Obama’s arrogance adds to this problem: he feels superior and is intolerant of others’ views; he has apparently concluded that the public is too dumb to figure out his schemes and that he must pursue his goals at all cost. And only an extremely biased media would allow him to continue in this manner - to deceive the public so badly. 

We cannot afford such a statist in this country - a country that was founded on capitalist principles of freedom and individual rights. We cannot afford to let this immoral president continue in office beyond 2012.

Linking Politics to Morality

There is a hierarchy of concepts in philosophy: from metaphysics to epistemology to morality to politics. Let’s look at some important linkages between concepts to arrive at an acceptable political system.

Reason is a critical first value for man: it is his only means of acquiring knowledge and truth. Since man has a volitional consciousness - free will, he must use reason to abstract and form concepts, and to base his conclusions on available facts. And that provides the only means to make proper choices and take proper actions for his survival.

Morality is a code of values that guides man’s choices and actions; it only pertains to those actions open to his choice. Its purpose is to enhance his life - to enable him to be virtuous and happy. It should be clear why man needs such a code; but what code should he follow?

One must begin with some standard of value by which one judges good from bad/evil. Given the above, that must be life itself: that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good, and that which opposes or destroys it is the evil. Actions are required to gain and keep one’s values and sustain and enhance the good in life. The following virtues define those actions.

Man’s essential characteristic is his rational faculty. Rationality is the recognition of reason (as described above) and that nothing can alter the truth dictated by reality and reason. It must be man’s most fundamental virtue, the source of all of the following virtues.

·         Independence: accepting responsibility for forming one’s own judgments and never subordinating one’s mind to another’s.

·         Integrity: acting in accordance with one’s convictions and values, to rational principles; never sacrificing the latter to the opinions or wishes of others.

·         Honesty: loyalty to reality and rationality; never practicing deceit or evasion. It requires living by any idea you accept as true; mean what you say.

·         Justice: never seeking or granting the unearned or undeserved. To judge and be judged based on all factual evidence available; i.e. objective judgment.

·         Productiveness: pursuit of purpose and the use of one’s mind to sustain life through productive work and the achievement of one’s goals. This is highly correlated with reward.

·         Pride: recognizing oneself as his highest value, having earned it, by striving for moral perfection – consistently practicing all virtues. This correlates with strength of character.

This is a pro-life, pro-individual morality of rational self-interest. The result is happiness - one’s end goal in life; and self-esteem - living up to one’s values and strength of character.

“Rights”, a moral concept, are inherent in man’s need to survive. They necessarily pertain only to individual actions. And based on this morality, force can never be initiated in violation of rights.

This moral foundation dictates the only proper function of government: to protect individual rights. And we should be thankful that our original political system - called Capitalism - was based on that belief and enabled America to become the freest and most productive society in history.

Any rejection of reason is an escape from the responsibility of rational thought. The result is inappropriate choices, actions and conclusions. Emotionalism, not rationality, will be one's guiding virtue and other virtues will be compromised or negated.

·         Dependence and Obedience replace Independence: not accepting responsibility for oneself and relying on others for one’s survival.   

·         Compromise replaces Integrity: Loyalty to one’s subjective whims leads to sacrificing one’s convictions/principles to others. In any collaboration between two men holding different basic principles, the more irrational one wins.

·         Dishonesty replaces Honesty: failing to adhere to reality and to live by what you say.

·         Mercy replaces Justice: unearned forgiveness, subjective judgment. (Don’t confuse this with being charitable or caring for others.)

·         Unproductiveness replaces Productiveness: lacking purpose and desire to achieve one’s goals.

·         Humility replaces Pride: having a relatively low assessment of self/self-esteem/self-respect; contentment with one’s moral flaws. (Don’t confuse this with merely recognizing one’s failings.)

 

This is anti-life. The standard of value becomes subjective, leaving one with no guiding principles and with a morality of sacrifice and irrationality. It sacrifices higher values to lower values, ability to inability, achievement and wealth to need, a love of life to envy, self-esteem to self-denial, and happiness to duty. It is a code for the unearned and undeserved.

As need trumps life as a standard, the theory of rights begins to self-destruct: rights are replaced with arbitrary government “privileges”, and policies based on ‘sacrificing to need’ make the pursuit of individual rights a virtual crime. Conflict becomes the norm as one is given the “right” to infringe others’ rights. Life is necessarily sacrificed by force.

The resulting political system is necessarily some form of statism. Included is:

·         Arbitrary government control of at least some aspects of our economy and our actions.

·         Lack of adherence to our constitution and the DOI.

·         Failure to truly protect our rights. E.g., bending to special interests, cronyism, collectivism over individualism - concern for the unidentifiable “public good” at the expense of the individual.

·         Egalitarianism: economic equality with need trumping justice. This is used to justify redistribution of wealth, ignoring the distinction between the earned and unearned.

·         Multiculturalism: a belief that all cultures are inherently equal, regardless of their moral flaws. It fosters an anti-American bias even in favor of cultures determined to destroy us. It attempts to negate America’s exceptionalism.

·         Talking points (emotional assertions) replacing the truth.

 
Capitalism (as in the beginning) is clearly the superior, and only moral, political system. And placing a high value on individual life, it will always be the most benevolent system. The primary reason for our long-term trend toward statism is that statists and others who have abandoned reason have only recently faced rational moral opposition (previous issue). Moral truth is key; and let’s hope Gandhi was right: “the way of truth has always won.”

The Hypocrisy Of It All (Part 2: Domestic Policy)

On the domestic front, Obama shows no greater moral virtue than in his Foreign Policy.

It all began with his supposed dedication to his country as he associated with statists who believe in economic equality for all and the destruction of U.S. exceptionalism. That is explicit egalitarianism.

He claims to be serious about cutting the U.S. deficit and level of debt. But when Paul Ryan produced a deficit reduction plan that only reduced part of the projected increase in the deficit, Obama and other liberals called it radical and irresponsible. It seems impossible for a statist to tell the truth and to support government spending reduction.

He says that he respects the rights of the American people. But he does not act in defense of those rights; he sacrifices us for the sake of his political gain. E.g. his altruistic foreign policy that ignores our national interest; and his statist domestic policies which are based on an immoral standard of “need” and sacrifice of the wealthy and other select groups to those with whom he chooses to align himself.

He admits that entitlements must be reformed. Under current projections, they will consume

10.8% of GDP by 2020 (while defense spending goes down to 2.7%) and 100% by 2052!

Yet he fights every effort to reduce their costs.

Then he considers any reform of entitlements as “robbing the poor” to “give to the rich.” But it is okay to redistribute the wealth in the opposite direction. He also ignores the fact that entitlements for the poor are not rights of the poor: reducing them is merely giving them less for nothing - less of what they did not earn or deserve in the first place. And “giving to the rich” means cutting their taxes - which means reducing the amount government immorally takes from what they have earned. He wants greater wealth, yet he should know that redistribution does not achieve that.

He claims to support the free market, but he does not truly believe that one has a right to what he earns. He follows the immoral creed that need trumps rights and the collective trumps the individual.

He strongly supports public union “rights” to collective bargaining which are not rights at all. Ditto for all other government “permissions” that he chooses to call rights.

He believes in full disclosure but does not practice it and exempts unions, environmental groups and other special interests from disclosure requirements. In his latest proposal, he wants corporate political donations to be disclosed as a condition for bidding on government contracts; that can only lead to bias for companies that contribute to his causes - purely immoral politics.

He spoke hard about cleaning up Washington and eliminating favors to lobbyists. Then he continued the worst of Washington practices and gave jobs to big donors. Worse is his unreasonable favoritism toward leftist radical friends.

He said it is time to eliminate special interests. But he has set a record of support for special interests. “To big to fail” is merely an excuse to protect his friends and contributors.

He wants Congress to pass his preferred legislation. But when they don’t, he bypasses them with executive orders or uses other agencies to do his dirty work for him (e.g. EPA, NLRB).

He strongly opposed “pork” in legislation, but he continues to sign bills containing it.

He strongly supports the first amendment, but he attacked FOX - the most balanced TV network - of bias against him.

He fights against corporate “greed” and favoritism, yet he encourages crony-socialism (which he spins to be crony-capitalism) that creates the same.

He strongly supports equal and higher quality of education for all. But in his egalitarian way and in support of multiculturalism, he is lowering the standards and quality of education for minorities.

He wants immigration reform but never pursues it. He wants to protect the border and claims that he has completed that task, but has actually done little to do so and the border remains over 90% uncontrolled. He wants a guest worker program (essentially amnesty - not acceptable), but signed bills that virtually gutted the idea.

We need to better identify all illegals, allow only those willing to work and become citizens to stay, simplify the citizenship process and require basic English skills, and punish businesses who hire the rest. Protecting the border will then be an easier task.

He wants to reduce unemployment to boost the economy, but his policies contribute to it. He promotes government jobs over private sector jobs, reducing productivity and harming the economy. He favors renewable energy sources over traditional ones, ignoring the inefficiency of the former and further increasing unemployment.

And after harming private industries with his policies and regulations, he blames them for not helping the situation by becoming more efficient and requiring fewer workers; and uses absurd examples such as ATMs and airport Kiosks to make his point.

He is an environmentalist who pushes for Cap and Trade, green energy and EPA controls on the energy industry. Yet it has been proven that all of that would be devastating to business and increase unemployment.

He strives for energy independence but knows that is not possible; and his policies will achieve the opposite. He lifted the ban on off-shore oil drilling but has allowed very few permits to drill.

He complains about high gas prices and blames the oil companies. But his own policies have purposely contributed greatly to those prices in order to more easily justify his green alternative energy proposals.

ObamaCare was presented as a plan necessary to make insurance available for all and to lower costs. An insurance mandate was essential to make it work.

ObamaCare is already beginning to unravel: the “mandate” to date has millions of exemptions via waivers (justified because requirements will cause individuals to “lose their minimum health coverage or see their premiums increase” - Pelosi). And the truth is that the plan was, in part, designed to destroy the private insurance market.

His HC policies work against his own goals. E.g., the FDA is overly restrictive with private drug manufacturers, preventing timely use of their drugs and complicating treatments. It heavily fines them simply to generate revenue to help support ObamaCare. Only by discouraging drug use can it claim to be cutting costs.

Only by leaving doctors in charge of medical decision-making will we see continued progress in medical technology and practice.

While he claims to put America's security at the top of his concerns, he seriously cuts the defense budget as he increases costs everywhere else. And he also fails to realize that we are weak globally when we are weak economically at home.

His administration encouraged the trafficking of guns into Mexico for the supposed purpose of tracking them to, and capturing, criminals. This has led to many deaths including a U.S. border patrol agent. But they knew crimes would be committed with those weapons - it could not be stopped, and that they could not capture the criminals. (Was this possibly a mission to build a case for gun control?)

Hypocrisy of this magnitude suggests a serious problem for a President of the U.S. Obama has been extremely immoral and anti-American in his actions, policies and personal associations. He is a statist who knows he has to disguise it in this relatively free country in order to further destroy our fundamental principles of freedom and individual rights. We need a Republican candidate in 2012 who understands those principles, has the ability and courage to enunciate them clearly to the public and expose Obama for what he truly stands for. Then we can have “hope and change” that is meaningful and good for the individual.

Health Care: What’s Wrong, How to Reform

 

This discussion must begin with a fundamental understanding that Health Care (HC) cannot be a “right”. Rights define and limit proper individual actions in society and serve to protect them from outside interference. They are inalienable: there cannot be conflicts of rights among individuals. Thus a right cannot impose obligations on some to satisfy the whims or needs of others. Thus no product or service can be deemed a “right” as that would require the initiation of force against some individuals and cause the inalienable principle to be violated. Therefore, ObamaCare is unconstitutional and immoral.

It behooves us to find a moral approach to reforming our HC system. We still have the best quality of HC in the world. But we are facing 2 problems: government control and cost.

We have not had a free market in HC for nearly a century; it is irrational to blame the “free market” for rising costs. Prior to government interference, virtually all Americans could afford basic health care, and those truly in need of support were able to rely on abundant private charity. Government significantly intervened with wage controls, tax incentives et al during WWII which led to employer-based health insurance. This caused reduced individual responsibility for one’s own care, higher demand for care, and loss of insurance with any change in employment status. That created the concern about pre-existing conditions that poses the greatest risk to insurance companies.

Insurance’s primary function is risk management. It is intended to cover unexpected and unpredictable risks, not the opposite nor to force the healthy to cover the costs incurred by the unhealthy. The answer to this problem is to allow the companies to initially charge higher rates for known expenses, but in an environment where individuals do not have to change policies.

In 1965, Medicare and Medicaid changed HC as an economic product for which each individual must assume responsibility to an unearned "right" and entitlement to be provided by force at taxpayers’ expense.

All such government interference has led to high costs and with the average patient being responsible for only 3% of hospital care costs and 14% of costs overall. Instead of recognizing this cause and effect, our government has enacted ObamaCare with its price/benefit controls and crushing regulations that will further damage our HC system.

It is worth noting here that ObamaCare is already beginning to unravel: the “mandate” to date has millions of exemptions via waivers (justified because requirements will cause individuals to “lose their minimum health coverage or see their premiums increase” - Pelosi); Medicare cuts are impacting seniors; doctors are refusing Medicaid and Medicare patients; and employers are about to be forced to drop HC coverage for their employees.

This trend toward greater government controls and regulations must be reversed. A free market approach must be implemented:

1. Allow insurance companies to provide policies with rate flexibility and consideration for risk;
    encourage high deductible plans that serve as true risk management and lead to more
    responsible use of HC professionals.

2. Allow for the purchase of policies across State lines for greater competition.

3. Allow tax-deductible health savings account for all.

4. Enact tort reform to stop junk lawsuits.

5. Deregulate the industry and reform the FDA to open markets for medicines and enable
    faster technological breakthroughs.

6. Incent individual responsibility and good health.

7. Reform Medicare and Medicaid for efficiency and elimination of fraud.

This will lower costs, improve quality of care and preserve doctor/patient relationships - without care rationing, long waiting lines and immoral redistribution of wealth that is the natural result of socialized medicine. Private charity and emergency care would provide for those (estimated at about 10M) who are too poor to purchase insurance but do not qualify for existing government programs.

The Hypocrisy Of It All (Part 1: Foreign Policy)

Most politicians are too often hypocritical. But no one has been more prolific at it than President Obama. It reaches a serious level when his hypocritical actions make it difficult to determine where he stands on the important issues of the day.

I list here some examples to illustrate how easy it should be for his opposition to demonstrate the extent to which he is willing to sacrifice all principles and reason to talk his way to re-election in 2012. I begin with foreign policy issues since I believe that his actions there have the most potentially damaging affect on our freedom. Part 2 will cover domestic policy issues.

Obama sets a high priority on security; yet he has been cutting the defense budget which will eventually lead to decimated defense systems. We are in a war with totalitarian Islam that will not end soon; we must take the lead in weapon technology and be prepared for the worst.

He pushed hard for the START treaty on the premise that it was necessary for our future security. But the treaty ended up giving Russia far more flexibility for nuclear armament expansion than the U.S. and he betrayed important British military secrets to get even that. His call for general nuclear disarmament has already started a wave of new nuclear armament elsewhere.

He speaks out about human rights. Then he ignores them, either in the interest of trade (e.g. with China) or out of fear of reprisals (e.g. in the M.E.). He acts concerned about the oppressed people in totalitarian countries. But he has failed to support the Iranians and Syrians during revolution.

He claims to understand who are enemies are and how to deal with them. But when N. Korea fired artillery at S. Korea, he had his Defense Secretary pressure Kim Jong-il to “show restraint”; and as a result, Jong-il resigned in disgrace.

Obama is at his worst in dealing with Israel. He says he strongly opposes terrorism, but he appeases Muslim states that support it. Then he says “our commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable" as he pressures Israel to concede to anti-Western Palestinian (and his) demands, to accept a Palestinian state that may be run by a terrorist organization (Hamas), and says “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines.” He is essentially asking for Israel’s demise! While presumably relying on his arrogant belief that his magical negotiation skills will cause Palestinians to play fair, he is actually seeking to de-legitimize Israel by naively making its concessions the key to achieving peace.

In his 6/09 speech in Egypt, he opposed terrorism; but he demonstrated that his goal was (in some sense) to join Muslim nations - the only terrorist nations - in their campaign against Israel. Who was he primarily speaking to? The Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist group that he deems to be for freedom and reform.

He knows recent Muslim history; yet he talked about the importance of working with M.E. Arab governments "that reflect the will of the people" and desire democracy and "freedom to live as you choose." Then he cut support for programs in Egypt that promoted democracy.

He pushed for reform in Egypt, helping oust Mubarak; but that too was against his anti-terrorist stance since any successor regime will likely be Islamic totalitarian. The U.S.’s greatest Arab ally could very well become its and Israel’s greatest enemy.

He strongly supports financial aid to our allies. But he once threatened to cancel aid to Israel, our only ally in the M.E., and continues to fund terrorist nations there.

He campaigned for the Presidency as an anti-war candidate. Since, he has either followed President Bush’s lead in Iraq and Afganistan or become more aggressive. He now even wants to “promote reform across the (M.E.) region.”

He said he would close Guantanamo; he believes it to be immoral and represents torture which he refuses to accept. It still remains open.

He opposes interrogations used to gather information from terrorists, but he approved the assassination of OBL.

Information gathered through interrogations contributed to OBL and other terrorist captures; yet his Attorney General has been pursuing charges against the interrogators involved.

He started a “non-war” in Libya based on humanitarian concerns - not a just cause for American involvement - that was supposed to last only for weeks. But he has not helped ensure that its people will overthrow Gaddafi - the only cause of such inhumanity. And he totally bungled the initial effort: “relinquishing control” to the UN and NATO, failing to have a clear goal, supporting the rebels despite al-Qaida links, etc.

We now know that this is very much a war, it will last more than 6 months, being essentially in charge of NATO is not truly relinquishing control, and it will cause many deaths.

As he has involved himself with a non-threatening Libya, he has essentially ignored Syria and Iran, the true threats to the West in the Middle East. He foolishly sees Assad as a “reformer.”

So much for being serious about terrorism!

He pretends to appreciate our superior economic system that has enabled the highest prosperity; but then he apologizes to the world for our successes as if they have been at the expense of the more oppressed in the world.

He appears concerned about anti-American attitudes around the world. But instead of accepting it as a given and as expected envy, he finds it to be merely an issue of leadership; thus his naïve belief that he can negotiate for peace with our enemies. Worse is his blindness to the anti-American attitude among our own elite and his own past and present personal associations. He does not even realize that his own ideology is anti-American and that his foreign policy is wholly antithetical to U.S. interests.

All of Obama’s hypocrisy results to a great extent from being unable to recognize good from evil - our allies from our enemies. That, in turn, makes it too difficult for him to know the importance of size, strength and global reach of our military. And that makes it too difficult form him to know how to fight for America’s freedom and the protection of our rights. He has become a threat to our security.

NLRB: Nationalism Leaves the Republic Behind

Wilma Liebman was appointed chairman of the NLRB by President Obama soon after his inauguration. It is clear why: her entire career has been as attorney to unions and the NLRB. Until Obama, she was in the minority (as a Democrat) in fighting for union employee rights. So she was a perfect match for him. And he has since appointed other members to stack the board in his favor.

Given his ideology and pro-union bias, it should be no surprise that his NLRB would attempt to prevent Boeing from opening a plant in a right-to-work state; or that it now wants to greatly strengthen union power over employers and their investment/management decisions.

It should bother everyone that government can interfere with rational business practices. What can possibly justify preventing a business from relocating to reduce labor costs? Or to force it to provide economic justifications for relocation decisions in order to allow unions to bargain over it or even to lose the right to make such decisions?

The board believes that it has the right to force employers to make unions an “equal partner in the running of the business enterprise.” It wants unions to benefit over a business’ owners, shareholders and other employees. But it is creating “rights” that do not exist. Only individuals have rights and our constitution was designed to protect them from government. This is a power grab that represents an abomination of the concept of rights.

Without property rights, no other rights are possible. A business owner’s property in this country must be recognized as his to manage in any legal manner he desires. He should not have to answer to anyone with regard to business location, employees hired or wages paid. While our system has not been truly free for a long time and such rights are constantly abused, we must protect our constitutional Republic and stop the trend toward statism/fascism where government promotes nationalism (over the individual) and controls the use of private property. Start here by pushing back on the NLRB and unions to protect true individual rights.