The Flawed and Costly War
By J.J. Jackson (06/07/08)
Barack Obama is out on the stump using the skills he learned as a "community organizer" to try and woo support while talking about little of substance. He has the liberal psychobabble down pat and uses tried and true tactics any time someone levies any criticism against him. For example, in order to prevent the light of truth from shining on the good things happening in Iraq, his previous proclamations about the war being lost and on top of all that the fact that he seems to be adverse to actually going to the country, he recently raised his handy dandy deflector shields and accused Senator John McCain of abiding by what he called President Bush's "flawed and costly war in Iraq". What's more, he continued, is that because of this "flawed and costly war" that Bush and McCain have, "lost sight of the problems that have been mounting in Michigan, here at home."
Hey Barack, three quick questions for you. Which political party has had a stranglehold on Michigan's government for more years than most can remember? What have their policies generally been? What authority under the constitution does President Bush have to do anything about the economy in Michigan?
The answer to the first is the Democrats. The answer to the second is the same ones he is proposing be implemented nationally. The answer to the third is none.
There is indeed a "flawed and costly war" going on. But it is not in Iraq. Standing with people who want to cast off a dictator and better themselves is never a "flawed" war. Although it is "costly" in the terms of the American lives that have been lost and the sacrifices by our soldiers at the expense of their families. However it must be remembered that such is a cost that each and every soldier has gladly written a blank check payable to Uncle Sam for an amount up to and including their very lives. And in that little notes section which most people ignore is a few simple words – "so that Liberty may not perish from this Earth."
No, the "flawed and costly war" that is going on and that I speak of is one against America; a war against Liberty. It is a war that has been raging for years – decades even. It is a war that has left in its wake a path of destruction of inalienable rights and mounting debts that rise every day.
This real "flawed and costly war" is a war where Americans have their property, their ingeniousness and their labor confiscated not to support good and limited government, their liberty and the belief that all men are created equal. It is a "flawed and costly war" where the wealth of the industrious are spoils that are taken by bureaucrats and politicians to be then paid out as bribes to those that support them in this "flawed and costly war". It is a "flawed and costly war" where the few bear the costs of the many not by choice or charity, but by threat of force and at the point of a gun ordered by the many. It is a "flawed and costly war" where we are divided into classes and groups and pitted against each other in order to further the power of those who are the handlers of each class and group rather than be united as solely Americans.
It is a "flawed and costly war" being waged by men like Senator Barack Obama who are running around the nation decrying individualism and calling for collectivism; who are parading around in front of thousands of adoring fans telling them to forgo the very things he and his wife (and his spiritual mentor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright) have themselves acquired. He calls on them to give up their dreams of the big house, the nice car and the job they really want and are passionate about so easily while he has all these things. All these thing save the job he himself really wants; the Presidency. But he has not given up "hope" on acquiring that quite yet. Until that time, being a Senator will have to suffice.
This "flawed and costly war" waged on Americans destroys the American family, regulates family owned small businesses to the point where they cannot cope with the imposed and arbitrary costs, and snatches up large portions of wealth for no other purpose than the person who possessed it died. It promises that government will protect us from ourselves and our own bad decisions. It saps dollars from the paychecks of workers every month to pay for past debts and entitlements with the promise that in the future the government will tax those that are younger and working to pay you the same benefits back.
This "flawed and costly war" costs American taxpayers billions every year and has been waged from Washington DC for far too long. Its strategy and basis is poorly contrived. It solves no problem and only enslaves Americans to those who control the purse strings.
Last year alone, this "flawed and costly war", whose sole purpose is to promise false security at the price of our liberty, cost over $1.6 trillion. Yet despite this steep price tag and the failure of this war little is ever made of it and no progress is made. They claim we are fighting poverty – yet we still have poverty. They claim we are fighting for better education – yet American public schools continue to turn out under performing students. They claim we are fighting to provide security in retirement – yet we still hear far too many stories of how the government issued checks often do not make ends meet for those that receive them and how bankruptcy of the system is looming.
Instead, those who control the purse strings (or seek to control them) tell us that fighting for liberty and inalienable rights, to bring a sliver of hope to those that have none is what is really "costly" and "flawed".
Such claims show a deep running deficit of their own moral bank account.
The answer to the truly "flawed and costly war" against liberty is simple. We must withdrawal. And we must do so with all due haste.
J.J. Jackson
J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the lead editor of Conservative News & Opinion – The Land of the Free and also the owner of The Right Things – Conservative T-shirts & Gifts ( http://www.cafepress.com/rightthings ). His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at http://www.libertyreborn.com
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