THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 166, August 1, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE PERFECT STORM
By Alan Caruba
THE U.S.A. IN DEEP TROUBLE: HOW A COMBINATION OF CIRCUMSTANCES & BAD JUDGMENTS ARE CREATING
HAVOC FOR & MAY BRING ABOUT THE DEATH OF THE AMERICAN NATION -- THE TIPPING POINT: THE ELECTION OF
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA AS PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.A. -- OTHER SIGNS OF SERIOUS TROUBLE FOR THE COUNTRY:
THE U.S. CONGRESS UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY & THE LIBERAL LEFTIST POLITICAL
ESTABLISHMENT -- THE CURRENT FINANCIAL & ECONOMIC CRISIS, ORIGINALLY CAUSED BY & MORE RECENTLY
EXACERBATED BY U.S. GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION -- PUBLIC POLICIES THAT CATER TO THE DEMANDS OF POLITICAL
ENVIRONMENTALISTS & GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS & PREVENT OR MAKE EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE AMERICA'S USE OF
ITS OWN SOURCES OF ENERGY -- IMMIGRATION & OTHER POLICIES THAT ARE UNDERMINING THE SOVEREIGNTY &
NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE U.S.A.-- SINKING INTO AN ERA OF SOCIAL DECADENCE, STEADILY DECLINING FAMILY &
MORAL VALUES, & WIDESPREAD CONSUMPTION OF ILLEGAL DRUGS
FULL STORY:
The term, "the perfect storm," has come to mean how circumstances and bad judgments come together to create
havoc and death.
I have begun to conclude that America is caught in a perfect storm. It didn’t occur overnight, but it has rapidly
reached a point wherein the very life of the nation is at stake.
The tipping point, if I may be permitted another cliché, was the election of Barack Hussein Obama as President of the
U.S.A. Though efforts, including several books, attempted to flesh out what little was actually known about Obama,
it was the skillful packaging that turned him into a rock star whose theme “hope and change” could and did mean
anything the voter imagined.
Obama arrived in the Oval Office with virtually no paper trail. He had not ever managed a business, never made a
payroll, and had not worked in the private sector. He had been “a community organizer” and had taught
Constitutional Law as a lecturer at the University of Chicago. In this regard, he was spectacularly ill-prepared to
make decisions regarding the greatest economy in the history of civilization.
He had been preceded by a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party, as of January 3, 2007, following the 2006
midterm congressional elections, the voters having wearied of the long war in Iraq and, typically, the second term of the
incumbent President -- in this case, Republican George W. Bush. Leading the new Congress was, by any standard
one could apply, two of the most stupid politicians to hold high office. Senator Harry Reid (Democrat - Nevada) was U.S.
Senate Majority Leader and Representative Nancy Pelosi (Democrat - California) was Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives.
Senator Reid had famously said, “The war is lost.” Representative Pelosi told the world that the CIA “lies to
Congress all the time,” and has called insurance companies “villains.” Not exactly a vote of confidence in the
nation’s military or its intelligence agency. When did insurance companies, banks, and investment firms become the
enemy? The burst mortgage loan bubble was the creation of the U.S. national government.
It is the perfect storm.
It was, however, the economy that took the first body blow with the sudden, though predicable, bursting of the
mortgage loan “bubble.” There had been earlier warnings, but, as in any perfect storm, they were ignored. It goes
back to the days of the Carter administration when legislation was passed to give everyone the “right” to own a home.
Banks and mortgage firms were literally required by law to ignore normal lending caution. When there were more bad
loans than good, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government “entities,” owned more than half of all the mortgage
loans in the nation.
At that point, in what can only charitably be called total panic, Congress authorized the U.S. Treasury to spend $700
billion in TARP funds -- U.S. government funds in the Troubled Asset Relief Program -- to “bail out” troubled
financial institutions instead of letting those troubled institutions fail. The word was that the institutions were “too
large to fail” and had to be rescued, and there may be some truth to this, though Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail.
To this day, Congress does not know much, if anything, about the distribution of TARP funds. It can’t even audit the
Federal Reserve Banks.
It is the perfect storm.
In a similar fashion, instead of allowing General Motors and Chrysler to go through the tried and true bankruptcy
process, the U.S. government “invested” billions before, inevitably, the two automobile manufacturing companies did
undergo bankruptcy. The government now owns some 60% of GM; its unions own most of the rest. GM's creditors are
suing to get their legal and proper compensation. The government is not supposed and is not allowed to own private
enterprises; (though it does own government “entities” like Amtrak, which has never made a profit.)
It is the perfect storm.
The country is watching a “Cap-and-Trade” bill pass through Congress that everyone, including its authors, agrees is
a massive tax on the use of electricity, one that will drive up the cost of electricity to every American and all business
and industry in America. The bill is based on the assertion that “greenhouse gases” must be reduced to avoid “global
warming,” but there is no global warming, and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide play no role in climate change.
When the cost of energy is increased, the cost of everything that depends on energy use increases and that is, well,
everything.
At the same time, the United States, for decades, has placed every possible obstacle in the way of exploration and
extraction of vast oil, natural gas, and coal resources that exist within the nation and offshore on its continental shelf.
Plans for more than a hundred coal-fired plants have been abandoned, despite a growing population that is using more
electricity. There hasn’t been a single new refinery built since the 1970s. The construction of nuclear plants has been
painfully slow, due to regulatory hurdles. The nation’s electrical distribution grid was built largely in the 1950s and
1960s. It is in desperate need of expansion.
While coal provides 50% of our electricity and nuclear 20%, the rest is taken up by natural gas and hydroelectricity
(water). Just over 1% of our electricity is provided by wind and solar energy, and the government proposes to provide
billions in subsidies to its producers.
In much the same fashion, the government mandates the inclusion of ethanol in all gasoline sold, even though ethanol
provides less energy and adds to the cost not only of the gasoline, but to food products that utilize corn, the primary
source of ethanol. We are burning food to fuel cars, trucks, and buses.
It is the perfect storm.
Under the Obama administration, the nation is borrowing more and running up a deficit that is, in his own words,
“unsustainable,” but the government is making no effort to seriously cut spending. Instead, it passed a “stimulus” bill
that is largely devoted to helping states fund government mandates such as Medicare and Medicaid, thus failing to
create any new jobs in the private sector, most of which would come from investment in infrastructure. The “stimulus”
bill is pure pork, a political Christmas tree.
It is the perfect storm.
Meanwhile, it is no secret that the United States is the world’s policeman. Our Navy ensures that the world’s vital sea
lanes remain open. Our military has some 800 bases, large and small, around the world. It is engaged in fighting the
Taliban in Afghanistan and it is withdrawing from active fighting in Iraq. Billions have been expended in both of these
campaigns to defeat an enemy sworn to destroy America.
Then, too, the borders of the nation and its sovereignty are being ignored and reduced by the tide of illegal
immigration and by ratification of United Nations treaties that supersede U.S. law and the constitutional rights of U.S.
citizens. An obscure group of bureaucrats in the U.S. Department of Commerce are still working on plans to merge the
U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico into a single political and multi-national entity called the North American Union.
It is the perfect storm.
The United States, an experiment in individual liberty and federal rule; a nation that survived a Civil War, that struggled
another century to end racial discrimination, that fought in many wars -- including two world wars in the last century --
is now disintegrating financially and will soon lack the means to provide adequate power to its cities and towns.
Most of the member-states of the American federal union are, for all intents and purposes, broke and laboring under
public-service sector union contracts that impose huge present and future costs on their citizens.
To the astonishment of every economist in the world, the White House and Congress are proposing to raise taxes in
the midst of a recession. John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush all lowered taxes and made their
recessions go away.
In mid-July, 2009, Vice-President Joe Biden said, “We have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt.” That is
impossible.
It is the perfect storm.
The nation’s voters are almost completely divided between those on the political Left and those on the political Right.
There is an all-or-nothing, winner-takes-all quality to our political system and has existed since the FDR era. The
middle ground of independent voters literally determines most elections, or at least those that are no longer stolen,
such as the recent one in Minnesota that sent a former comedian to the Senate.
That brings us to the observation that we have a very unsavory group of politicians in government these days. There
are exceptions, but the revelations of sexual infidelity or misconduct, as well as outright theft, have become routine.
The vile politics of Chicago and Cook County have now been imported into the White House.
The worst development, however, is the creation of “czars” empowered to make and shape public policy without ever
being subject to review or oversight by Congress. That is a kind of gangster government.
Lastly, it comes as no news to anyone that, since the 1960s, the nation has been sinking into a era of decadence in
which the consumption of illegal drugs is widespread and sexual license is reflected in popular entertainment, as well
as in high divorce rates, single parents, and, of course, abortion. There’s a lot to be said for morality.
I am, by nature, an optimist, and I remain hopeful that elections and protest movements will alter future events, but,
for now, it is the perfect storm.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Politics, Political Competition, & the Control of
Public Policy: Elections, Political Parties, Political Factions,
Ideologies, & Special Interest Groups
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
United States Immigration, Assimilation, & National Security Policy:
Immigration into the U.S.A., Legal & Illegal Aliens,
& U.S. Border Control
Morality, Decency, & Traditional American Family Values
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, Marxists, & Other Leftists:
The Democratic Party, Academia, & the Mainstream Media
Liberalism Versus Conservatism in American Politics
-------------------------
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES:
COMPETING SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Conservatism
Traditional Conservatism: Questions & Answers
Conservatism: Attitudes, Types, & Present Status
Constitutional Conservatism: American & British
Liberalism
Classical Liberalism: Intellectual Foundations
Classical Liberalism: Conservative Liberalism
Manchester Liberalism & Social Darwinism
Modern Social "Liberalism": Statist "Liberalism"
Radical & Totalitarian Ideologies
Radicalism, Utopianism, & Totalitarianism
Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. A business and science writer, he is the
Founder of The National Anxiety Center.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity