EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: Unfortunately, defense cuts do not occur in isolation. They feed a syndrome best typified by an insolvent and largely defenseless, socialist Europe. The more prosperous societies cut their defenses to expand social programs, the more the resulting dependency leads to even less defense and evermore benefits. Once the state promises to take care of the citizen, the citizen believes more subsidies are still never enough. Once voters believe that defense spending is an impediment to greater entitlements, the fewer impediments they will pay for. The net result is something like the squabbling, soon-to-collapse European Union: trillions in unfunded entitlement liabilities and unable to defend itself.
President Obama just ordered massive cutbacks in defense spending, eventually to total some $500 billion. There is plenty of fat in a Pentagon budget that grew after Sept. 11, 2001, but such slashing goes way too far.
Fairly or not, the cuts will only cement a now-familiar stereotype of Mr. Obama’s desire to retrench on the world scene. They follow symbolic apologies for purported past American sins, bowing to foreign royals and outreach to the likes of Iran and Syria. Abroad, such perceptions can matter as much as reality, as our rivals begin hoping that Mr. Obama is as dubious about America’s historically exceptional world role as are they. Read the rest of this entry »
Religious freedom is the lifeblood of the American people, the cornerstone of American government. When the Founding Fathers determined that the innate rights of men and women should be enshrined in our Constitution, they so esteemed religious liberty that they made it the first freedom in the Bill of Rights.
In particular, the Founding Fathers fiercely defended the right of conscience. George Washington himself declared: “The conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be extensively accommodated to them.” James Madison, a key defender of religious freedom and author of the First Amendment, said: “Conscience is the most sacred of all property.”
Scarcely two weeks ago, in its Hosanna-Tabor decision upholding the right of churches to make ministerial hiring decisions, the Supreme Court unanimously and enthusiastically reaffirmed these longstanding and foundational principles of religious freedom. The court made clear that they include the right of religious institutions to control their internal affairs.
Yet the Obama administration has veered in the opposite direction. It has refused to exempt religious institutions that serve the common good—including Catholic schools, charities and hospitals—from its sweeping new health-care mandate that requires employers to purchase contraception, including abortion-producing drugs, and sterilization coverage for their employees. Read the rest of this entry »
Individuals should be free to decide what to produce and consume, and their decisions should be made within a predictable policy framework based on the rule of law.
As this election year begins, a lot of people are wondering what we can do to restore America’s prosperity and create more jobs. Republican presidential candidates are offering their ideas, and at his State of the Union message on Tuesday President Obama presented his. I believe the fundamental answer is simple: Government policies must adhere more closely to the principles of economic freedom upon which the country was founded.
At their most basic level, these principles are that families, individuals and entrepreneurs must be free to decide what to produce, what to consume, what to buy and sell, and how to help others. Their decisions are to be made within a predictable government policy framework based on the rule of law, with strong incentives derived from the market system, and with a clearly limited role for government.
Getty ImagesRonald Reagan: He and advisers such as George Shultz shunned the idea of stimulus and agreed on ?the need for a long-term point of view.? Read the rest of this entry »
Roger A. Keats has it right in his letter of Jan. 14 (“Protecting the Election of Democrats”) when he describes how a minority-Anglo Texas has ruffled the national Democratic Party. In my 49-year stint as a resident in Texas, I witnessed a 100% Democratic state in the 1950s change to one of the reddest of red states today. Among other states, its economy and job creation are beyond comparison. It has become the absolute opposite of California; it does not need nor require a state income tax; and it pays for a substantial homestead exemption on resident and senior-citizen property taxes.
It appears that Sam Houston had it right in his negotiations with the U.S. Congress over the 1845 Treaty of Annexation when he reportedly said in essence that Texas is going to keep ownership of its public lands or we are not going to join, thus laying the groundwork for its economy to become unique among the 50 states. Texas doesn’t have a significant share of its area under federal control, as many other states do, and it is able to profit from royalties on state lands on which it encourages development.
- The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation – http://blog.heritage.org -
Morning Bell: A Slashed and Burned Military
Posted By Mike Brownfield On January 27, 2012 @ 9:35 am In Protect America | 79 Comments
The future is not bright for the U.S. military. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave America a glimpse of the half-trillion dollars in defense spending cuts requested by the Obama Administration and detailed how the U.S. military’s capabilities would be affected in practical terms. The result is a slashed and burned military that woefully lacks the forces it needs to meet America’s security challenges on a global scale.
On the ground, in the sea, and in the air, American forces will shrink drastically — the Army will shrink by 72,000 people, the active Marine Corps will be reduced by 20,000, the Air Force will see six tactical fighter squadrons de-established while an additional training fighter squadron will be eliminated, the next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter procurement will be slowed, and the Navy will retire seven cruisers and two amphibious ships at an early juncture while delaying the procurements of new ships. To put these cuts in context, we are returning to ground forces levels we had under President Bill Clinton when the Army strained and scrambled to execute smaller missions like Kosovo and Bosnia–let alone significant ground force operations. Read the rest of this entry »
When Gaston County commissioners sound an alarm tonight for Americans to wake up and guard against a subversive, sinister threat of global political control, they know many people will scratch their heads.
Others, said Commission Chairman Donnie Loftis, may consider their warning about the “insidious nature of Agenda 21” to be an overreaction.
“I realize there will be folks who say, ‘You guys are drinking the Kool-Aid,” he said.
But Loftis believes the county’s resolution “to heighten awareness of Agenda 21’s impact on communities in the United States” is necessary to shed light on a nefarious United Nations initiative.
On the surface, Agenda 21 is a 1992 blueprint for communities worldwide to use in achieving “sustainable development.” Critics, however, allege it’s a ploy to strangle the American way of life by reducing private property rights, and instilling harsh zoning restrictions and socialist philosophies into local government planning.
“The point is, this is something people do need to know about because it’s happening in other parts of the country,” said Commissioner Tracy Philbeck, who referred to Agenda 21 as a “Marxist weapon.’” Read the rest of this entry »
On Thursday, the Pentagon will begin detailing its plans to cut $500 billion from the military’s budget over the next decade. The reason, insists President Barack Obama, is that “since 9/11, our defense budget grew at an extraordinary pace.” That’s true in top-line numbers—but it’s anything but true when examined strategically.
Between budget cuts, cost overruns, overweight bureaucracy, ever-growing red tape, and changing requirements, the arsenal of democracy has become a bureaucratic nightmare. In spite of itself, our military cannot build new programs anymore. Old programs might win wars, but with much higher human and financial costs.
After 9/11, defense budgets grew because they had to. The U.S. military’s budget, size and force structure had been too deeply cut in the 1990s, after the anticipated post-Soviet “peace dividend” failed to materialize. So the Pentagon began quickly and inefficiently dumping dollars into the military to fund the missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This made budgets grow steadily, but the money did little to increase cutting-edge capabilities for the future. Our war-related investments came at the expense of tomorrow’s military capabilities. As a new American Enterprise Institute study concludes, the military over the past decade didn’t modernize but rather embraced the equivalent of buying new apps for its old, clunky cellphone.
Associated PressThe Air Force wanted 750 F-22s to replace the F15, above, but they ultimately only received 187.
From 2000-2010, the Air Force spent $38 billion on 220 fighters—as compared to $68 billion for 2,063 fighters from 1981-1990. Air Force leaders wanted 750 F-22s to replace their F-15s, but successive administrations cut that number—to 648, then 438, 339, 270 and finally 187—before President Obama terminated production. That wasn’t a coherent acquisition strategy but budget-driven politics, plain and simple. Read the rest of this entry »
The president is trapped by his own rhetoric amid America’s energy boom.
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
Barack Obama may believe a lot of things, but he probably doesn’t believe the Sierra Club is key to his re-election. His decision to nix the Keystone XL pipeline will cost him votes but he did it anyway.
We’ll admit that Mr. Obama’s global warming talk has often seemed to us perfunctory. Perhaps we mistook his lack of heat for a lack of conviction. He just released his first 2012 campaign ad and it’s a paean to green energy. Maybe he’s no less a believer than Al Gore, for all the problems this might seem to pose for what we thought we knew about our president.
President Barack Obama on energy strategies including natural gas at the State of the Union Address. Photo: Associated Press.
For one thing, he’s not given to unrealistic goals. He knows China and India are opening a new coal plant every week. He knows the huge amounts of fossil energy lying at humanity’s feet won’t be abandoned just because an American president says so. He can’t fail to notice that Canada’s oil sands won’t remain undeveloped; the oil will go to the Far East.
Associated PressDemonstrators for and against the Keystone XL pipeline gather outside Pershing Auditorium near the Capitol in Lincoln, Neb., Sept. 27, 2011. Read the rest of this entry »
In 1971, Saul Alinsky wrote an entertaining classic on grassroots organizing titled Rules for Radicals. Those who prefer cooperative tactics describe the book as out-of-date. Nevertheless, it provides some of the best advice on confrontational tactics. Alinsky begins this way:
What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.
His “rules” derive from many successful campaigns where he helped poor people fighting power and privilege
For Alinsky, organizing is the process of highlighting what is wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don’t have the power to change a bad situation, they stop thinking about it.
According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a bad situation. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”
Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a “mass army” that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals.
Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.
Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.
Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.
The result is confusion, fear, and retreat. Read the rest of this entry »
