I Can't Look

Do you ever feel like just putting your head in the sand instead of watching the news? If I want to see what is going on in the world lately, I find that I turn on the news or go searching the news websites and come away with a lot of nothing. Not nothing, something. Junk. The talking heads are wasting my time.

What have I learned lately? I know that we are into our third war now, even though we have a supposed anti-war president. The President acted without Congress, which has upset a lot of people. Bush acted with Congress and it upset a lot of people.

Also, we've hit the one year anniversary of ObamaCare being signed into law and corporate supporters continue to drop like flies. They say it is not affordable as we are entering the much discussed and forewarned about second dip of the "double dip recession." All of the information was available last year, why didn't they say something then?

Here's what it looks like to me: Washington still isn't behaving constitutionally or doing much of anything rational and Americans seem as fickle as ever.

Since we are so bored with all of the chaos all over the world, people are starting to talk about the 2012 run for President. Fickle, no? I confess was persuaded by the hype and "might" have ordered a "few" books by "some" of the potential "candidates." It's done already so I can't be fickle and change my mind. I'll put up some book reports when I finish some of my reading!

It's a sad state of affairs when I find that the most uplifting and motivating thing in current events is the courageous way the Japanese are facing their current plight. Our media seems so focused in finding fault or placing blame, yet that is an American message. The message I hear coming out of Japan through blogs and smaller internet news sites is one of strength and dignity. Nobody is mad that they haven't received their free stuff yet. The people seem to be unified by their disaster. They are just supporting each other and trying to get through this terrible tragedy. Really amazing.

30-Year Mistake

Ron Paul's blog on Eqypt this week, entitled "Our 30-year Mistake" caught my eye. I have always been a little uncertain about his foreign policy opinions and thought he was wrong most of the time, but this paragraph kind of turned on a light bulb for me:

We are in fact more isolated from Egypt now than ever, because the regime we propped up appears to be falling. We have isolated ourselves from the Egyptian people by propping up their government, as we isolate ourselves from Tunisians, Israelis, and other recipients of our foreign aid. Their resentment of our interventionist policies makes us less safe, because we lose our authority to conduct meaningful diplomacy when unpopular regimes fall overseas. We also radicalize those who resented our support for past regimes. 

Let us hope for a more prosperous and peaceful era for the Egyptians, and let us learn the lessons of our thirty-year Egyptian mistake.

Explained this way, I see the error of us getting involved in another country's business. I mean, most of the world thinks Obama is a great president who will turn America into what they would like us to be. If other countries were openly financially propping his administration up, there is a great part of our population that might resent those countries. That would be a negative for those countries. So I see now that as we step into another country's internal struggle and choose a side, we only create more enemies for ourselves in a region of the world where we don't need more enemies.

Quote of the Week

Mike Huckabee posted this on Facebook this week. While he was not my choice for President in the 2008 primaries, I still really like him. I heard him speak at the Iowa Straw Poll and his morally conservative rhetoric appealed to me.

The most important form of government is the family. In the long run, the only way to ensure prosperity, safety, and equal opportunity is to make sure we raise our children to be ethical and productive citizens. No bureaucracy can replace parents in that essential role, so we have to do everything possible to help parents do their job.

Just nice to hear someone who has a voice say what I think sometimes!