Walking the dog tonight I notice a cool breeze blowing. Normally this would illicit no thought except for the fact that it is July. Such a wind is rare in the Carolinas this time of year. That had me thinking how many other rare or strange things are swirling about these days and so I bring to you this group of oddities.
1. First we have had the recent passing of Michael Jackson. No one could have been surprised by this this. Nor could they have been taken aback by the media circus surrounding it. If the same level of attention was paid to the death of a soldier or a saint (of which he was neither) I suspect we would see a different world.
2. We have the case of Governor Mark Sanford of the South Carolina. The public political suicide of a rising star and possible presidential candidate is worth noting. What is not worth noting is the repeated public confessions of his indiscretions and sins which we need not know. That he is a liar and a cheat as well as a thief we are aware. With whom an how often we will leave to his poor wife and the Attorney General of South Carolina.
3. The economy and the stimulus package. I suspect that few Americans can yet grasp the implications of the money that has been spent and wasted. It is on a scale unprecedented in human history. Yet those who propagated this crime sit in office and find new ways to spend money they must steal from you, print from thin air, or borrow. Staggering is too weak a word. Despite (or because of) the Obama promises to save 600,000 jobs in early June, we just recieved news of a higher than expected June loss of 467,000 jobs following May’s loss of 322,000. I am sure the Obama administration has a neat, muddy, ambiguous, and empirically unsustainable argument for the fact that the $787 billion stimulus plan has been a conspicuous and historic failure so far. They always do. This train wreck of an administation is already worse that the previous monumentally bad eight years.
4. We commit more troops, lives, and fortunes to a pile of rubble called Afghanistan (which is little more than a geographic term). As Obama pours thousands more into this pointless war with a shadow enemy and no real strategic goal or necessity we go further down the road to an imperial occupier. With this goes the further erosion of the economy, liberty, and self reliance in the name of national security. In this the “liberal” Obama is no different from and perhaps worse that his “conservative” predicesor.
This 4th of July I hope we can all remember just what happened on that date. Not the date of D-day or 9-11 or anything else. We need to remember the sacrifice of safety, freedom, fortune and life that was made by those with no prospect of winning their liberty other than their courage and faith in victory. Beside that most of our modern perils fade into insignificance.
von Rum
