Talking Elections in America

 

The elections are rapidly approaching upon the United States and there is little to campaign upon. The Republicans are counting on the good economy and the general lack of major problems while the Democrats are putting magnifying glasses on even the slightest problems and trying to make them appear systemic. Both parties are facing the dearth of problems as their greatest challenge. While one would believe that the rise in economic realities would favor those who support the President and his tax cuts and backing off on regulatory morass which had been stymying economic growth, that may not be sufficient a reason to get out and vote. On the other side of the coin, the Democrats will cast the improved economy as just paying dividends to the wealthy and not helping the middle class or the poor. Even the lack of the issue of unemployment will still be cast by Democrats as being unusually high. This might be considered to be simply wrong except that people have short memories and may be convinced that real unemployment is still a problem. Then there will be the usual claims that the Republicans are a bunch of racists and the only means of solving these problems is to elect those loving Democrats. Then there will be the concerns about the sporadic but troublesome violence which has struck cities across the country. These will be laid at the feet of President Trump and the Republicans despite the lack of evidence. Still, this is a staple of politicking in America despite the seeming lack of real racism. This will be an interesting election as all will depend on which party can get their base out to vote.

 

The recent circus over the Kavanaugh confirmation and the DNA test backfiring on Senator Warren will both be forgotten possibly by the time this article is posted. There is one way of possibly producing another brouhaha by sending a nomination for a new United Nations Ambassador to replace Nikki Haley. This would be risky as any time one foments a confrontation, they can never tell how it will eventually play out politically. The other problem would be whom President Trump might consider appointing which the American people would accept on face value and still be opposed strongly by partisan Democrats. Dina Powell has been probably the main person along with Richard Grenell, the recently appointed Ambassador to Germany, Republican Sen. Bob Corker who recently served as Senate Foreign Relations committee chairman. There has been what we consider a humorous suggestion of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. She will not be the choice for many and obvious reasons. Then there are the less obvious choices such as Secretary of State Pompeo or, should the President want a really big and vocal pushback, appointing once serving United Nations Ambassador John Bolton who currently serves as the President’s Security Advisor. The trick would be to choose somebody with unquestionable credentials but also partisan enough to cause the desired uproar from the Democrat side of the Senate. Still, we doubt that the President will risk any such appointment until after the elections, though one never knows with Trump. If President Trump were to attempt to use such an appointment as a wedge issue in the upcoming elections, we would suggest that the appointment be made ten days or so before the election as the ultimate October surprise. We might suggest a position for the recently retired columnist and renowned economist and generally well-rounded man of knowledge, Thomas Sowell, or Katrina Pierson who was national spokeswoman for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as well as Allen West who had a stellar military career and is a proven spokesperson for the United States. The problem is whomever the President chooses is going to have some very impressive shoes to fill and will have the stellar performance of Nikki Haley always in the backdrop upon which they will be compared. Of the former choices, the one which stands out would have to be Allen West as he has shown a strong understanding of world politics and particularly the problematic Middle East. And yes, we admit his unwavering support for Israel did color our choice.

 

Allen West

 

Unfortunately, we do not have a direct line to the White House beyond calling the operator and being shuffled around and put on hold until we give up. But that might have more to do with our living outside the United States than anything else as well as our lack of notoriety. Still, we would love to see one of the above choices be sent by the President at any point in time as they all have their qualifications. Another reason we love the idea of Allen West is he has a quick wit and is difficult to intimidate as he fears virtually nothing, or at least has not shown any indication of such fears. As far as providing sufficient paper trail as evidence of his fitness for such a position, his editorials and speeches would serve well. Nobody could be able to question his patriotism or his dogged determination to get the job accomplished, as proven by his military record. Even the one presumed blemish on his command was his being relieved from his command for what was deemed unprofessional conduct. The story behind this was a simply one. His unit in a combat zone in Iraq, if memory serves, had been ambushed regularly and they had a high-level detainee who was expected of Taliban connections with knowledge of where the next day’s ambush would likely be waiting his troops. This detainee was resisting normative methods of interrogation and Lieutenant Colonel Allen West ordered the other officers and enlisted men out of the interrogation area. He then proceeded to use a less normative form of interrogation by discharging his service sidearm into the sand-bucket used for clearing weapons, except he did so tight behind the detainee’s head. He then racked his weapon and asked again, likely but not proven, brandishing said weapon and the detainee provided the necessary information. He then advised the officers of the gleaned information, preceded to the communication area, called his commanding officer, some general, and informed him of his actions. The gears of the military turned and he was removed from command for his special form of coercion and improper treatment of a prisoner. This would be the kind of officer I would have followed into any war zone as he placed his men ahead of his own career, a rare and exception commander in our book. We would almost dare the Democrats to attempt to use this as ammunition to try and stall his selection as once the real story broke and was carried by FOXX News and any other conservative outlet, the story would get to the remainder of the population and would definitely super-charge the Republican base to support their candidates. But that would be devious and we all know that President Trump would never lay a trap such as this.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

How to React When Your Societal World is Threatened

 

More often than not, when one finds their world under existential threats, the society under threat attempts to mollify the perceived grievances; if one were to be completely honest, something such societies are often found to be in short supply, the perceived grievance is their existence and the fact that the targeted society considers itself more enlightened and one that is superior often because it is so accommodating to the other, to almost every other even attempting to be accommodating to those who wish to supplant them. In the society under threat there will be those who will propose that the only way to survive is to be as ruthless and barbaric as those who wish to destroy everything they have. These people will be rejected and accused of being boorish brutes who are uncultured and have no ability to reason and that they are the reason the threat exists and if only they would tone down their alarmism and allow those with minds deal with the problems and find a solution where both sides get what they desire and both can then live in comfort and equality where both sides would enjoy enlightened lives in relative peace and understanding. How one is met halfway if their starting point is the eradication of one society’s way of life and entire social structure is beyond my meager intellect to compute exactly how much of the one society can be sacrificed that will allow those who are the destroyers to be satisfied that they have destroyed a sufficient amount of the other society that they are satisfied and no longer desire to destroy the entirety of the other society. Would allowing the destruction of one third do or must it be a fifty-fifty split or perhaps the others are truly energized and really hate the society and will only be satisfies with three-quarters of that society destroyed. If their intended goal is your total destructions, then guess what, only your total destruction will quench their blood lust. And this does not mean just the creature comforts and advanced luxuries and the trappings of your society, they probably also want everybody from your society dead or subjugated into servitude under their cruelest of conditions and little short of that will do to end their drive to smash everything you have built in a blood curdling frenzied lust for destruction of every last vestige of those structures and intricacies and comforts your society had afforded you.

 

There are numerous signs that such difficulties are headed your way as these things are rarely a complete surprise no matter how well you managed to ignore the signs, they were there and there were those who were screaming out warnings but the majority simply preferred to ignore the warnings and claim that this too will pass. When it is pointed out that these adversaries are talking of world conquest the majority of your society will laugh and chortle that nobody dreams of world conquest any more. Where that may be true in your all so egalitarian society where learned and studious men discuss the great moral debates of the day and all conflicts are mediated and violence is just so distasteful, world conquest went out with the two great world wars and died when the Soviet Union fell. Well, that did not end the numbers of people who dreamed of world conquest. There are still active Communist ideologues who believe in a world existing in a Communist Utopia run by, who else, them, of course. The Islamic Republic of Iran dreams of a Shiite Islamic world where all surrender before their rule and obey their edicts and nothing other than the Quran and the Sharia rule men’s lives and men rule all women’s lives and Allah rules all lives as they interpret the will of Allah and they who wear the robes and sport the longest of beards with the wild look in their eyes are to be obeyed as they are the ones who control the necks which fall before the executioners axe for the crimes of heresy. Even Kim Jong Un believes his version of Communist enslavement will eventually rule over all that remains of the world after North Korea amasses sufficient numbers of nuclear warheads and the ICBMs with which to deliver them over the entirety of the globe starting with the United States then Europe and on until he is stopped or all else have been vanquished. If you believe that there are none who believe they were chosen by heaven to rule the world you need read no further than the Hamas Charter and founding documents to realize even they believe they have been chosen by Allah to bring Sunni Islam to the world and be those who will be chosen and blessed to be in the catbird’s seat and be the ultimate deciders of everyone’s’ fates. The exact same dream is at the core of Islamic State (formerly ISIS), the Wahabbists, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iran, the Saudi Royals and probably countless others some of which would surprise many people including those who thought they knew the person and never suspected they held delusional thoughts that they were destined for world conquest.

 

There are always those who will claim they did not see it coming and will be upset that nobody sounded an alarm or warned of the dangers coming. These people have a long line of predecessors. There were those who claimed that the Norsemen who had boarded their ships and gone a Viking and had already raided the eighth village up the coast and then the seventh and then the sixth and suddenly the village is all up and arguing that the Norsemen gone a Viking would tire before reaching our village and they continued to claim this and even passed laws arresting those who would sew panic by building ramparts and digging ditches to aid in defending from an invasion which these leaders kept claiming would never reach their village as they were a safe distance up the river and that would protect them. These are the same leaders who will be pushing those who had warned and even been locked away for attempting to fortify the village and were released and sent to lead the defense against the men gone a Viking as they disembarked and were heading straight for the village. There was a similar disease called disbelief in the Middle East and eastern Europe claiming that the Mongols would bypass their city as their walls were too thick, too high or that their town held too little treasure or any of a myriad of reasons but when the dead bodies of the plague victim who were still alive when the trebuchet or catapult heaved them over those very same unsurmountable obstacles defending the city and the panic struck with people screaming and crying to those same incompetent leaders to save them and the leaders hid so as not to be thrown out the gates carrying as much of the city’s wealth in a futile attempt to appease the Mongols, but alas that never worked as the Mongols wanted more than the gold and jewels, they wanted the pleasure of conquest, the blood lust of battle, and the prizes won in the pleasures of the terrified women and the subservient men groveling at their feet begging for their lives, they were the first butchered as those who stood caught in their futile attempt to stay the Mongols or who rode out in defiance choosing what could possibly be called a good death as is it not better to die on one’s feet than on one’s knees?

 

The truth is that the leaders rarely see such troubles coming and it is not because they are honestly blind to the threat but because to address such troubles would assure they would be thrown from office and they are accustomed to the comforts for as long as it will last. Leaders are not those who seek challenges except in rare instances such as Churchill who seeing the buildup of the Nazi German war machine knew what lie ahead sooner or later thus he attempted to warn the people and the leaders. Anyone remember what happened to Churchill for all the warnings he attempted to provide? No, not leading Britain during the war but before war became thrush upon an unready British Isles? He was drummed out of office being called a warmonger and an old fool and virtually every other horrific name one could heap upon a man who had simply attempted to warn a people of the coming challenge and steel them for the war that was sure to come, it was only a matter of when and to what degree the Germans would have prepared. When the Germans rolled across the remainder of Czechoslovakia they would still have been easier to defeat than after they swarmed across half of Poland and sealed their eastern border with a treaty with an anxious Stalin who was not prepared for a war with Germany. Churchill’s final verbal fusillade to his noble members of the British Parliament after Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich pact with Herr Hitler which was straight forward, to the point and true as he told them, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.” There was far more indelible historical record of a man choosing the path of honor when those around him chose to ignore the threat and whose words are familiar to any student of ancient history or the study of war where the two famous quotes came at the shores of Thermopylae. When the Persian officer stood before the three-hundred Spartans and three to five thousand assorted Greek volunteers and demanded that King Leonidas and his men give up their arms and they would be allowed to live, his reply was simply, he exclaimed disdainfully and grinning without a doubt, “Molon Labe” or, “Come and take them.” Also, when Dienekes, a Spartan soldier, was informed that the “Persians would fire arrows so numerous as to block out the sun,” his reply reflected the bravado of his King stating, “So much the better as then we shall fight our battle in the shade.”

 

Molon Labe When Demanded the Greek Spartans Surrender Their Arms King Leonidas Replied Molo Labe __ Come and Take Them

 

 

In this day there are very few who have the metal or bravado of King Leonidas or Winston Churchill though there are a few and one is also a great friend and supporter of Israel as praises her efforts and survival as being on the front line in the generational clash of civilizations which too many throughout the western world are in complete denial that there be such a problem and the real problem is their leader in the White House. The gentleman in question is retired Lieutenant Colonel and former United States Congressman Allen West who can be heard from his recent Times Square Speech below.

 

After these quotes from some of the bravest of men to have ever lived and after hearing a man who did everything to protect his men in Iraq even to the point where he committed an act that he knew as he did so that it would likely cost him his career if the commanders above him did not stand behind him, they did not. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West commanded the 4th Infantry Division in Iraq where he was losing men to IED (improvised explosive device), which work a lot like mines, at a rate he knew was unsustainable and starting to affect morale. One of the terrorists responsible for these devices and who Lieutenant Colonel Allen West knew had knowledge of where his men would be ambushed with an IED and the location of those making the explosive devices but he refused to respond to his interrogators. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West entered the interrogation tent and ordered everybody out of the tent leaving him alone with the captured terrorist where Allen West decided to try a new form of special interrogation and took his sidearm from its holster and raked a round into the chamber and discharged a round into a sand-bucket used to assure that weapons were not loaded during interrogations. The terrorist decided that he would rather not test Lieutenant Colonel Allen West’s patience further and provided all the information desired. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West returned to his office and called his superior and informed him of his actions. He then calmly briefed his commanders and they devised tactics and actions for the next day. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West in very short order was relinquishing his sidearm and his command and was soon forced from the service after twenty-two years’ service. He will always have the respect of his men and many other patriots and some, myself included, would follow him in an assault on hades if that were necessary. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West was elected to the United States Congress in Florida but when his district was joined into another with the advice of his own party, he lost a clearly rigged primary as he was not what one might call a party man who could be counted upon to vote the party line as he only would vote his conscience, and we cannot have such people in Congress as what might come next, integrity?

 

As any of the heroes from above would have advised, when somebody claims over and over year in and year out that their primary aim is to kill you and destroy your way of life that only fools and politicians refuse to believe their threats. Iran has been chanting for over thirty-five years, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” and they continue to do so every Friday rain or shine. Despite that the political leaders in too many parties and places claim that these chants are made for domestic consumption and the Ayatollahs would never make good on these threats as they realize that by doing so they would be inviting their nation’s destruction. In all honesty, they will eventually try to make good on these threats and the deal recently reached set the clock ticking down to the inevitable date when they will finally have the ability to fully follow through on these threats. As Lieutenant Colonel Allen West stated, in the near future the deal just made by President Obama will make Iran an economic power and within five to ten years they will become a military power and between ten to fifteen years they will become a nuclear power and beyond that all bets are off and both Israel and the United States will be facing an Iranian monster capable of fulfilling those threats. Does the western world really desire playing Russian Roulette with Iran because if they do, I have news for them, they will be going first and in this game Iran is insisting they use an .45 cal. semi-automatic pistol which makes going first a guaranteed losing proposition. But still there are those in the western world who will be eager to join the Ayatollahs at the table and pick up that weapon and the obvious will result and the Ayatollahs will gladly continue to load one bullet into the .45 cal. semi-automatic pistol and handing it to their adversary from the west and allowing them the privilege of going first. If the leaders are as big the fools as many we have currently, they will gladly oblige. Unfortunately they will be taking all too many of us with them, so choose your votes carefully as your life does depend upon this.

 

Beyond the Cusp