“This is not 9-1-1. You cannot just simply call and expect within two minutes to have a team in place. It takes time,” Panetta said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

He continued blaming the lack of intelligence that would have allowed the military to respond more rapidly to the crisis. According to a report published by Fox News on October 26th, Panetta expanded on that. According to the report, the U.S. military did not quickly intervene during the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya last month because military leaders did not have adequate intelligence information and felt they should not put American forces at risk.

While I am sure that there are many in this nation who might believe the fear of risk for the members of our military is in fact an admirable trait for the Secretary of Defense, there is most likely a far more sizable number who cannot accept such a rationalization at face value. Who are these doubters? Well, military veterans sort of springs to mind.

There is never perfect clarity of information when men and women are being sent into harm’s way. For those of us who served, particularly those of us who served in combat, we pretty much took that as a given. Why else would the phrase “the fog of war” even exist?

Planning is essential in any military operation, and there is nothing that can substitute for having a plan to follow that everysingle member of a unit can grasp. However, there are two things that must be noted about the idea of plans.

The first comes from the great military thinker Carl von Clausewitz who inspired German General Helmuth von Moltke to say: “No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

The other comes from Sun Tzu, the renowned Chinese general and military thinker. In his book The Art of War, Sun Tzu states that there are five serious flaws in any general that will lead to defeat. The most applicable in this situation is:

“There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general … over-solicitude for his men …”

Every veteran, from chairman of the Joint Chiefs to the most junior private instinctively understands the truth of these two propositions. Apparently the then-secretary of defense Leon Panetta does not. When you are in the service, risking your life in fulfillment of the mission is a given.

But what about those who have no military experience? Can they possibly understand how this could work? If they have never been in the military, or had a family member in the military, probably not. A mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle or grandparent would understand. When their son or daughter went into the military they would go to bed fearful every night and pray that this night would not be the one when they got a phone call advising them that their own, personal, veteran had been wounded or killed in action. But as much as they feared the outcome, they understood that that risk was part of being in the service to the country.

But for those who are still blissfully unaware of what life in the military is like, I would suggest that a similar effect can be seen every single day on television. There are scores of police-centered dramas broadcast every day of the week, and inevitably one of the police in the show is shot and wounded.

And then a brother officer makes a radio call that consists of only two words. Just two. Not an Obama length speech. Just two words: OFFICER DOWN!

For a change, the script writers need only reflect the reality of the world in this situation to produce the heightened drama that television needs. When a call goes out that an officer is down, every single officer, whether a state trooper, county sheriff, a city or town cop, even meter maids, immediately begin moving. And they are all, every single one, moving toward the sounds of guns. No hesitation, no second thoughts, no lengthy risk assessment. They just start moving because a brother officer is down. A brother officer. A phrase that has come down through the centuries from Shakespeare who, in 1598, had his character, Harry the King in Henry V, describe the relationship so well:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother

That’s the response of police to the potential loss of a comrade. So too is the response of every member of the military when told one of their own is in jeopardy.

So is an order to “Stand down” (or in the latest iteration of nonsense from the White House, “not go”) because of the risk believable?

Not likely.

What the administration fails to understand is that Americans will forgive a failed attempt to save the lives of Americans. We see people die every day in this country trying to save someone else who is drowning. We see ordinary people take risks just to help another human being. That is part of the American personality. It is part of the American culture. That is part of being American.

Apparently those creatures in the White House have failed to learn these things.

Perhaps this scandal will help them learn that although Americans will forgive a failed attempt to save lives, they will never forgive a failure to make that attempt.

Originally published on American Thinker

No matter who is the target, that is the essential question in any scandal. What did the head of the IRS know, and when did he know it?  What did the Attorney General know, and when did he know it?  And of course the biggest question of all is inevitably: What did the President of the United States know, and when did he know it?

Answers to this last question are always the toughest find.

Sometimes those who have not been indoctrinated in our union-dominated, Democratic Party-affiliated, nearly useless public school system see glimmers of history repeating itself.  These current scandals in Washington are forcing echoes of those history lessons to come bubbling up out of the subconscious and play themselves out against the backdrop of current events.

And before you draw the conclusion that means comparing Benghazi, or the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups or the seizure of telephone records from the Associated Press to Watergate, you’re not going back far enough in history.

Are you now thinking of the Teapot Dome scandal?  Still not far back enough.

The year was 1170.  December 29, 1170 to be exact.  Four men, four knights in fact, Reginald FitzUrse, William de Tracey, Hugh de Morville and Richard le Breton, entered Canterbury Cathedral, and killed Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canturbury.

Thomas Becket was a close personal friend of King Henry II, and when his predecessor as Archbishop of Canturbury died, Henry convinced the Pope to appoint Thomas Becket as his successor.  Quite a plum in terms of patronage, not just in that day, but today as well.  Then Henry named Thomas, after his ascension to the bishopric, as Chancellor of England.  That would be similar to Barack Obama appointing Valerie Jarret as a special White House Senior Advisor to the President.  Lots of power.  Power nearly equal to the King himself when the King was out of town campaigning. (Of course back then campaigning had an entirely different meaning.  Back then, the King was going to war.)

Once appointed as Archbishop of Canturbury, the relationship between the two men changed.  Thomas Becket resisted any attempts of the King to dominate the Church, and similar to the President, Henry II didn’t take the word “No” too graciously.

At the height of his frustration with Becket, the King reportedly shouted at a dinner with some of his knights “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest!”

And so four of his knights thought they would just do something that would really, REALLY, make the boss happy.  So they, to use the Chicago phrase, “rubbed him out”.

Now, back to the present.

Is it possible that Barack Obama actually relayed instructions to the IRS to target Tea Party groups, or those groups encouraging the study of the constitution?  Is it possible that Barack Obama told Eric Holder to cast a wide net in his search for a leaker in his administration?  Is it possible that Barack Obama personally told those who were ready to leave to try to help those trapped in the Benghazi nightmare to “stand down”?

Anything is possible, but really, do you think any one of those three is likely?

What is more likely is that Obama’s subordinates just wanted to make the boss really, REALLY, happy and make an irritant just go away.  That way their boss, Barack Obama, could skate on the technicality that he, personally, never actually gave any such order.

What could encourage people to act in such a way?  Could it be the tone set by the President?  Could it be the management tone of “they bring a knife, we bring a gun” that emanates from the West Wing?  Could it be President Obama’s “joke” when he was told that he would not be given an honorary doctorate at a commencement ceremony at Arizona State in 2009 he reportedly said that “President Crow and the Board of Regents will soon learn about being audited by the IRS.”

Or, to follow the pattern of Henry II eight hundred years earlier, could he have shouted in frustration “Isn’t there any way to get these Tea Partiers to shut up!”

Setting the tone of an administration is as important as, or even more important than, the actual directives that are generated by the president.  If the tone is one of compliance with the law and the Constitution, no matter what momentary irritation the President might express (and let’s be fair, it is an all too human reaction sometimes), his subordinates would know that he wants the law followed and the Constitution respected.

Our current President, however, sets a tone with an endless stream of Executive Orders that are the result of believing that the law is supposed to be written by the Congress.  The tone is set when the President announces that he will not enforce certain laws that he, or some powerful (and usually generous) part of his base, disagrees with.  The tone is set when he tries to exclude Fox News from the press pool, and even the main stream media is aghast.

The real problem with this President’s administration is, to be blunt, the President himself.  He sets the tone, he outlines the results he wants, and he communicates through every action he takes that he doesn’t care how those results are achieved.

So the real culprit in each and every one of the scandals is Barack Obama himself.  He was the moving force behind all this criminality, not by explicit directive, but by creating an environment where there is the mentality that anything that is done for him is perfectly alright, regardless of the collateral damage done to a few little things like the ordinary citizen or the nation.

Only one question then remains:  “Will no one rid us of this troublesome President?”

Originally published at Canada Free Press

Both men seem to believe that governance is all about issuing directives and expecting them to be obeyed without question or pushback.  Disagreement is not tolerated.  Those who disagree are not merely people with reasoned objections, but enemies, traitors, subversives, and so are deserving of punishment.

On a happier note, though, one can always hope that the repetition of history doesn’t stop there.  Keep in mind, George III is remembered as the King Who Lost America.  He lost it for England, of course, but perhaps, in the not too distant future, Barack Obama will be remembered as the President Who Lost America, with the difference being that he will lose it for those who want to destroy our freedom (just like old George) and turn us into a totalitarian state (again just like old George). Those who desire those things, for those who haven’t been paying attention are the Progressives of the Democrat Party, plus those few Republicans who serve as useful idiots who enable them.

George III failed, and Obama seems to be following the same well worn path.  Yet George III resorted to armed force to impose his will, and one has to wonder if Obama will try the same thing.

Far fetched?  Then why would Homeland Security need enough ammunition to shoot every single American three times over?  Why is limiting gun ownership such a priority?  Why are the details of the membership of people in the Tea Parties of such importance to the Obama administration that he is willing to use the second most powerful, the most hated and the most feared organ of government — the IRS — as his personal SS Storm Troopers?

As a pure coincidence, the man who bankrolled Obama’s attempt to resurrect the totalitarian dreams of George III is also named George — George Soros.

Yesterday was a very interesting day for Barack Obama, our formerly Teflon president.  I almost felt sorry for his predicament.  Almost.  As in Paris is almost next door to Los Angeles. 

First there is the growing scandal of the Benghazi massacre and the administration’s response or lack of response to the deaths of four Americans.

Then there was the Friday night news dump of an apology of sorts from the IRS regarding the targeting of specific conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

And what most of the media, both mainstream and alternative, view as the culmination of a scandal hat-trick by the Obama administration, the report by Associated Press that without warrant the Department of Justice had seized all telephone records from several phone lines that were dedicated within the White House, the Congress and two other sites compromising AP’s ability to protect sources and whistleblowers.

All in all, what you might consider a busy day for Obama and Company.

But, as they say in commercials, that’s not all!

The Kermit Gosnell case reached a climax when Dr. Gosnell was found guilty of three counts of first degree murder in the deaths of three babies that were born alive in his Philadelphia abortion clinic and had their spinal columns snipped with scissors.

Our leftist friends about now are saying “Whoa! What has that trial got to do with the President?” 

That’s a very good question. I would remind those defenders of Barack Obama that this very President, to whom they refer, voted not once, not twice, but three separate times while in the Illinois state senate for a law that would legalize exactly the kind of thing that Gosnell did to babies that survived an attempted, and then botched, abortion.  The President is on record, one of the few records of his past that he has not been able to expunge, as favoring denying any life sustaining care to infants that survived a botched abortion. 

Now I will admit that it’s only my opinion that anyone, anyone at all, who has a record of supporting Dr. Gosnell’s killing of babies who are alive and living outside the mother’s womb is likely to face criticism. But when that supporter is the President of the United States, it would be almost inescapable to have criticism for that rise to the level of a scandal.

So if the media and the political operatives on the right move quickly, they can help Barack Obama set a new record – four scandals running simultaneously! 

Now resting a defense case without calling a single witness is unusual, but not unknown.  In many civil trials, especially when there is no jury involved in determining a verdict, the defense often depends on some legal technicality to generate a favorable ruling from a judge.

On the other hand, Dr. Gosnell, if found guilty, faces a potential death penalty, for what the prosecutors have described as running a “house of horrors”, and murdering newborn children who were born alive when the late term abortions that were planned for them failed.  When the potential outcome of such a trial is death, it is more than just usual for the defense to pull out every possible opportunity to produce evidence or testimony from witnesses who are sympathetic that will produce even a tiny bit of “reasonable doubt” in the minds of the jurors.

Could this act on the part of Mr. McMahon be a tacit admission of defeat for Dr. Gosnell?  Many would seem to think so.  However, there is always the possibility that this is simply a set-up for a future appeal for Dr. Gosnell to avoid the fate the law prescribes for his actions.

There are hundreds of ways for brutal murderers to delay final execution of their sentences in the courts, as can be seen by the enormous numbers of convicted killers now sitting comfortably in cells on death row in states around the nation.

One of the most favored appeals is the claim that the defendant received “inadequate representation.” This is the polite phrasing that the legal profession uses to say “my lawyer was an idiot”.

By not calling any defense witnesses, McMahon, Gosnell’s defense attorney, opens the door to just such an appeal.

One can interpret this defense move as a validation of the “my lawyer was an idiot” point of view, or it might merely be a cynical attempt to prolong the life of Gosnell.  Since Gosnell is 72 years old, it would seem likely that a series of appeals would allow him to die of natural causes, rather than face execution if convicted.

Unless, of course, Gosnell, while waiting for his appeals to be processed through the courts, were imprisoned and released into the general prison population.  The attitudes of ordinary criminals toward child molesters and killers is reasonably well documented.  The fact that Charlie Manson, head of the once notorious “Manson Family” has been held in solitary confinement for his own protection since 1971 provides eloquent testimony to this danger. One can only wonder what their attitude toward someone who commits serial infanticide would be.

Originally published at American Thinker.

Of course if you ever purchase anything online, the cost of that item will go up by way of sales taxes. Oops, I of course meant they will increase because of “fairness”.

Current law says that state sales taxes, county sales taxes, and city sales taxes (and for all I know there is a hamlet somewhere in America that also has its own sales tax), do not apply to purchases made over the internet. So to encourage “fairness”, the exalted members of the Senate want to increase the tax on online purchases from zero to whatever cumulative sales tax rate applies in your jurisdiction.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? After all, your small, local, mom-and-pop type merchant can manage to charge the right amount of tax when you purchase something, right? So why would some online company have a problem at all?

Well, there are 50 states (regardless of how the president counts them), and of those 50, there are five states that do not have any statewide sales tax at all — Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon. But even with only 45 states with a statewide sales tax, there are still 9,646 sales tax jurisdictions, so a lot of hamlets might actually have their own sales tax rules.

But that’s fair, isn’t it? Why should you be able to avoid paying more just because you made a purchase over the internet? That’s not “fair”. According to Senator Durbin (D-IL), we need to “level the playing field” so that no one is being treated unfairly.

There are two groups of senators debating this “fairness” issue. And unbelievably there is bipartisan cooperation on both sides of the question. There are Democrats and Republicans who think that local business are being treated unfairly because they have to collect taxes on each sale, while other Democrats and Republicans feel that asking online retailers to deal with nearly ten thousand different tax jurisdictions is an undue burden and will unfairly inhibit the industry.

Unfortunately, the answer to any question of exactly who is being treated unfairly always seems to be sort of fuzzy.

Amazingly, the one interested group that would be intimately involved in the question of “fairness” has no champion on either side of the question. Want to guess who Washington is ignoring with all this talk? Consumers! Those folks who have to actually pay the tax.

Our friends on the Democrat side of the aisle, as well as more than a few Republican members, seem to think that it’s unfair to those folks who invested in a brick-and-mortar store in your community. If you were to compare prices between your local retailer and an online retailer (they claim) that the price difference is solely due to the unfair benefit the online retailer has unfairly gained by being exempt from the aforementioned sales taxes.

In at least one community, according to the Tax Foundation, that might actually be true. Tuba City, Arizona clips their shoppers with three separate sales taxes (6.6% state tax, a 1.125% county tax, and a 6% tribal tax levied by the To’Nanees’Dizi local government) for a combined sales tax rate of 13.725%. Allow me to rephrase that: if you buy something for $100.00, you would be required to pay almost $14.00 in sales tax in Tuba City.

Other politicians, of both parties, think it’s unfair for small retailers who deal with online sales to be forced to comply, at some significant cost, with the varied sales tax rates, and an equal number of sales tax returns, to comply with all those 9,646 tax jurisdictions, when local retailers only have to deal with one and only have to file a single return for sales tax. Those in favor of all this “fairness” say that large online retailers, such as Amazon.com, have enough business so that the cost of compliance could be managed.

So our politicians have picked sides. One side says it wants to be fairer to the small retailers in brick-and-mortar stores in our communities, while the other wants to be fair to the smaller retailers who sell online.

How noble of them! Fairness for all. But more taxes for us. Senator Durbin recently said in a press release:

Small businesses in Illinois and across the country don’t want special treatment,” said Durbin. “They don’t want a handout-all they want is a level playing field. The Marketplace Fairness Act gives them that while helping states avoid raising taxes or making painful cuts that will slow our economic recovery.

This is a matter of basic economic fairness, and for some small businesses it’s a matter of economic survival. Small businesses on Main Street invest in our communities, they create jobs for local workers; they are our neighbors and they deserve a fair shake. But local businesses will never be able to compete if we continue this unfair advantage for huge online retailers.(emphasis added)

Yet the states actually will be raising tax revenue. They may not necessarily raise tax rates, but they will tax every person who has used the internet to secure those things that they wish to purchase. The states and municipalities will be able to grab even more of our earnings to waste on frivolous nonsense.

Small retailers have always been at a disadvantage when they have to compete with the likes of Home Depot, Lowe’s, J.C. Penney, Sears, and countless other major firms. Does Senator Durbin want to penalize these large, successful retailers because their success harms some small mom-and-pop operation? How about the problem that occurs in communities that abut neighboring states with different and lower sales tax rates? Do we require any goods that are brought back from shopping in the next state be declared to some state customs official, always in the name of fairness? Or what about those who choose to shop in the next county, where sales tax rates are lower? Do they have to pay an additional sales tax to their home county even though nothing was purchased there? (Some states, such as New Jersey — actually do this. It’s called a “use tax.”)

Durbin’s real objective is to provide the Illinois legislature with a greater income stream for their tax-and-spend addiction. Where the money comes from is immaterial, as long as it appears on demand. Senators who support this budget amendment want the same thing for their home state.

Politically it’s a great scheme. The states can claim that they aren’t raising taxes, they’re just enforcing already existing law. Washington can claim it’s not raising taxes since not a nickel goes to D.C. But the fact is that tax revenues will rise for states and municipalities. If tax revenues rise, it means that taxes have been raised, if not by increasing the rates then by increasing the number of citizens punished by existing rates.

Obama and the Democrats also hope it works for them in the 2014 mid-term elections. If any Republicans vote in favor of repealing the sales tax exemption for online retailers, the left will claim that the Republicans raised taxes on the common man. If Republicans vote against the repeal, the Democrats will claim that the right is once again taking the side of giant corporations.

Neat trick, isn’t it? The Democrats are setting it up as a “heads-I-win-tails-you-lose” situation.

Unless, of course, the Republicans finally grow a brain and generate a narrative that Democrats wanted to raise taxes on everyone, most especially those who are not in the notorious 1% and Republicans worked to foil the dastardly plot. (Perhaps Republicans might use less florid language to describe it, though.)

Sales taxes would then be a real political hot potato for the Democrats since they always portray themselves as the champion of the “little guy”, yet sales taxes are the most regressive form of taxation available. It always hurts those in the lower and middle income brackets much more than the wealthy.

“Fairness” should be a word that is banned in any official Washington document. The only thing about the use of the word that is actually illuminating is that whenever it is used, the taxpayers of America have a clear signal that they are about to be fleeced again.

Boy was I disappointed when it wasn’t under my tree.

But today I read an article that noted that the Koch brothers are trying to by both the Chicago Tribune as well as the Los Angeles Times (both are owned by the same company).

When you’re a writer, you always wonder if anyone ever reads what you write.  It’s pretty much a universal fear that scribes have.  Now I have a brand new one to worry about.  Not only who is reading what I write, but what might they do after they read it!

I learned that there were something on the order of 200 shots fired during that firefight.

Think about that for just a moment.  It took a dozen or more cops, who are trained professionals, who practiced on at least a weekly basis with their firearms, to fire 200 rounds before he finally died.

Yet, our politicians (at least here in New York, and some in Washington – as well as other places I’m sure) are saying that the most anyone needs to have to protect themselves from armed intruders is seven rounds in the magazine.

Only 7 Rounds????

Of course it took trained police, who were not dealing with an unexpected attack, who were not roused from a peaceful slumber, who were not worried about their wives and kids, some 200 rounds to kill one dangerous man.

Makes you wonder if those politicians have even the slightest, tiniest hint of anything connected with the real world, doesn’t it?

As someone who has spent a life working in a financial role, the misuse of the words “debt” and “deficit” drives me insane.  Those two words are NOT interchangeable.  They are NOT describing the same thing at all.  They are related, just like the words “cause” and “effect” are related.

Deficits create debt.  Seems like a pretty simple concept, doesn’t it?  Deficits occur when you run out of money before you run out of bills and you have to borrow money to cover the bills that your paycheck can’t.  The money that you borrow becomes your debt.

As an admittedly simplistic example, let’s just suppose you have rent, a car payment, maybe a student loan payment, you tend to be one of those people who likes to eat occasionally, you have the latest cell phone, the latest iPad, the hottest new video game, maybe a couple of kids who also are downright annoying in saying they’re hungry all the time, a wife who likes to buy a new dress occasionally…well, you get the idea.  Now you add up all your bills for the month and it comes to $5,000.   Then you add up your paychecks and they only come to $3,500.  Oops!  You have a deficit of $1,500.  What to do, what to do.

Well, you put the $1,500 on your credit card, and you pay your bills.  You’re also created the first part of your debt.

Now let’s assume that this goes on for six months.  Every month you spend $1,500 more than you bring home.  Every month you add that $1,500 to your credit card.  Everything is running smoothly now, right? Except that your credit card company has added a $50 interest charge over and above the $1,500 they loaned you. The next month, though, you owe them $3,050 (another $1,500 plus $50 in interest for the first month) and they tack on about $102 in even more interest.  But everything is great.  They keep lending you money so you can keep all that cool stuff that you’ve wanted, and that you’re obviously entitled to.

After six months, you open your credit card statement and you get a letter from the 1^st National We’re-Too-Big-To-Fail Bank, telling you two things:  (a) you owe them a total of $10,500 (the $9,000 that you put on your credit card PLUS the $1,500 that they added on for you in terms of interest on your debt) and (b) they’d really appreciate you paying it off – NOW!

So you contact your bank and tell them that they need to give you more time.  And you get lucky, you’re told that they’re willing to work with you.

So you come up with a plan, and after using a really sharp pencil to trim the spending you’re been doing, you tell the bank that you’re going to reduce your spending by $100 a month.  Wow, congratulations, you’ve cut your expenses a whopping 2%, right?

Really?

You were spending $5,000 a month plus interest for your friendly banker, and now you say you’re only going to spend $4,900 plus some interest for that same friendly banker.  But, you still only earn $3,500.

The monthly deficit might go down slightly because of the draconian cuts you’ve made to your spending (ok, I’ll plead guilty there to sarcasm) but it does nothing at all to reducing your debt.  As I said at the beginning, debt and deficits do not mean the same thing, but they are related in the same way cause and effect are related.  Deficits create debt.  But always keep in mind that although an increase in deficits will always increase your total debt, simply reducing that deficit will never, ever (cross my heart) reduce your debt. If you want to decrease your debt, you have to become acquainted with a new word – surplus!

Even with your new spending plan, including those heroic cuts that you’ve made, you are still going to run a deficit each and every month.  You spend $4,900 a month and still only bring home $3,500 you are still going to be short by $1,400 a month.  Oops again.

So you go to your boss and convince him or her that you really, really need a raise.  In a weak moment your boss agrees to a 10% boost in your pay.  So now you will bring home not just the $3,500 that you had been earning, but an added $350 for a total of $3,850.  Problem solved?  Well, actually, the answer to that would be – NO!  In this example you would still be running a deficit each month of $1,050 a month.  And that means that your debt will increase every month, even though your deficit might be reduced slightly because of the cuts you’ve made and the raise your boss gave you.  Unless. Of course, you look at the raise you just got as a justification to spend even more.  In that case, all bets are off and you probably work for the Obama Administration.

The key question for the student – Are you any better off, or has your bankruptcy merely been delayed a couple of months?

Knowing all the basics now, the next question should be:  So what do these financial terms mean when they are used by the government?

Well when they use the term deficit, they mean exactly what the rest of us mean – they ran out of money before they ran out of bills, entitlements or pork barrel spending.  When they talk about draconian cuts, they are really talking about still spending more than they took in from taxes, but not quite as much more than they wanted to. Still they will still spend more than they spent the year before.  Debt is the money that we borrowed from China and other fools around the world to pay for things we, as a nation, really don’t need to survive and are for the benefit of those who support the current elite establishment, those benefits coming in terms of actual cash (can we all say “Solyndra”) or in terms of votes for re-election.

I feel confident that everyone reading Canada Free Press is aware of this problem, even if it’s at an instinctive level.  But please use this very simplified example to try to get your low-information neighbors, your co-workers, your brother-in-law or any thumb-sucking Progressives that you might encounter (particularly those who call themselves journalists) to get the point across that the draconian (their word, not mine) cuts that Democrats in Congress and the Administration have made won’t change the trajectory of our total debt at all.  It will still grow each and every year and they, yet, are treating that debt as if it was just some sort of an insider’s joke.

Please think of this essay as a public service.  If the tens of thousands of CFP readers use it as a club to hammer home some understanding of fairly simple concepts, we might have a very slim chance to succeed in delaying bankruptcy almost indefinitely.  You might even just print out a few copies and hand them out.  I’m pretty sure the editors here at CFP won’t mind too much.

Originally published at Canada Free Press

Sadly, there seem to be a lot of people who haven’t heard of the fable the boy who cried wolf.  Had they ever encountered Aesop at any time in a school setting, this technique wouldn’t have worked for any of the special interest groups — or the president, for that matter — who use it again and again and again.

Doubtless there is some conflict within the left-leaning American Federation of Teachers (AFT) ranks concerning whether or not anything written by Aesop should be taught at all.  He was, after all, an old European, which by default means that he was an imperialist taking advantage of every innocent within his field of view.  On the other hand, one could trumpet the fact that Aesop, who was a slave, overcame the stigma of slavery and become a famous writer.

But the overarching problem of Aesop for Progressives is this: his fables show that one of the linchpins of Progressivism — i.e., that humanity and human behavior have “evolved” — is utter nonsense.  Reading Aesop undercuts the Progressive narrative that the behavior of mankind has progressed beyond the behaviors of the past, which was dominated by paternalism, militarism, homophobia, sexism, imperialistic ambition…well, you get the idea.

If people could remember “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” how effective would the campaigns of fear and panic ever be for the president, the environmentalists, the pro-choice crowd, the anti-gun mob, and all the others who want to control everything? 

How much of the Progressive demand for “income redistribution” would be undercut if people had a knowledge of Aesop’s fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper”?

What about Progressives who are seeking to control more and more of our production, taking more and more of our incomes, and directly controlling more and more of our wealth?  Might they not be be tarred and feathered if those low-information unfortunates (who graduated from our public school system) had learned from Aesop about “The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs”?  Might not that fable give even those low-information voters pause?

And Aesop is not unique in his ability as a fabulist to convey the real facts of life to ordinary people in so simple a way that even children can understand their messages.  Hans Christian Andersen and his stories are equally effective.  Who can read “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and not immediately think of our political elites?

On the domestic front, there was a home-grown compendium of fables made famous by a journalist named Joel Chandler Harris.  Harris compiled African-American folk tales in the second half of the nineteenth century.  You may not recognize Harris’s name, but the name of his fictional narrator has lasted in our collective memories for 150 years.  The name?  Uncle Remus, or course.

The left has effectively banned Uncle Remus from being taught as being demeaning to our black citizens, yet during the Vietnam conflict, during the buildup toward Iraq I and again for Iraq II, the left was quick to describe each of these conflicts as a “tar baby.”  That just drips with irony, doesn’t it?

And now, those on the left who are formulating the so-called Common Core standards plan on limiting the literature that our kids and grandchildren are supposed to read in favor of more technical, non-fiction stuff.  It’s almost as if reading Aesop, Hans Christian Andersen, Uncle Remus, et al., is considered dangerous and harmful to the welfare of a minor.

But then perhaps the left isn’t interested in your kids being able to see that “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” isn’t just a story with a moral, but an illustration, clear even to children, of supposed adults who are acting like children.  No, they want your kids to read things like the local library regulations or some such.

It appears that our exalted teachers’ establishment, in emphasizing the ability of kids to read regulations, is more interested in teaching young minds to obey the rules than consider if those rules make any sense at all. 

Of course, being leftists/Progressives, they might not be able to help themselves.  Don’t believe it?  Read Aesop’s “The Scorpion and the Frog.”  They are just acting according to their nature.

Originally published at American Thinker