America's next President

This is principally aimed at the candidates that are vying for the highest office in America.  In fact, it is directed towards those seeking the Republican nomination.  Maybe think of it as as kind of 'what's needed' list.

First and foremost - integrity.  Under the previous Clinton Administration, America and the world became accustomed to disingenuous and evasive answers to straight-forward questions.  Under the Obama regime, the spineless American media mostly hasn't even bothered to ask questions.  They have accepted the froth pushed out by the mendacious White House.  Given the close familial ties between senior White House staffers and media personnel, that is perhaps, not too surprising.  So the next President needs to be honest (examples are below) and to actually talk to the American people and those in the rest of the world - not read scripted lies and half-truths from an autocue.

Secondly, have a plan to tackle the deficit.  Here is where some of that honesty is required.  The next President needs to tell America that it has to stop living beyond its means.  Americans must be told that it is not acceptable to impoverish their children, grand-children and great-grandchildren.  They need to know and understand that America must not only eliminate its deficit but must also reduce its debt.  That means a budget that matches revenue from taxes, with expenditure.  On the expenditure side, some of that money must go towards paying down the US National Debt.

This is where a GOP led Congress comes in.  The House and Senate must put the national interests ahead of those of their own district's/State's.  Many of these Republicans have been elected - some repeatedly so - on a ticket of being 'fiscally prudent and responsible'.  Well there isn't much prudence or responsibility in stuffing the US Budget with your own pork-barrel wants.

Of course, any President or even any nominee, telling Americans that they need to tighten their belts will face strong, even rabid opposition.  The choice though is simple and stark - rein back spending now or sit back and watch America's continued decline, on all fronts.  Sit back, do nothing and see more and more Americans on food stamps - more than 49 million, at the moment (and climbing) and they are not all immigrants!

Part of this also requires addressing the immigration issue.  How, when America is broke - and believe me, a country with the debt levels that America has, is broke - how can America afford to bring in more and more immigrants? Legal or illegal is doesn't matter, America just doesn't have the resources to fund these people.  The biggest part of this problem lies with illegal immigration.  It sounds crazy to have to say this but the in-coming President must understand that when he or she swears the oath of office, part of protecting the US Constitution means upholding the laws of the United States.  So the southern border must be closed and such closure must be enforced by appropriate forces - military, Homeland Security and local law enforcement, until such time as primary security devices - otherwise known as a very high wall and such - are in place.   Allied to this must be the expulsion of illegal immigrants already in the USA.  Absolutely no amnesty.  Let me say that again, No Amnesty  - it is so very wrong to reward law-breaking.

Consider, for a moment.  The Department of Homeland Security has a budget in excess of US$38 billion.  A significant part of their brief is to 'secure and manage' the border.  Does anyone think that they have done a good job on that, in recent years?  They have effectively facilitated the invasion of illegal immigrants.  Does anyone really think that Daesh and Al Qaeda have not managed to slip terrorist murderers across the border, when it has been so porous?  As with politicians and the media in Europe, Obama and the press would have you ignore the evidence of your eyes and instead believe that all of the invading force are women and children!

Immigration brings thoughts of foreign relations.  I don't want to be too radical but America's next President needs to remember that the USA's allies are friends.  Ignoring them, bypassing them is not the way to treat them.  How did it come to pass that America finds itself allied itself with Iran?  A country that immediately after ending its dancing on the streets of Tehran, following the so called 'Iran Agreement' , then has its leader, the war-monger Khameni, calling for 'Death to America'.  How can America abandon Israel, simply because its Prime Minister doesn't suck-up or kow-tow to the narcissistic Obama?  Isn't it enough that Obama abases the USA with his bowing down to the terrorist supporting Saudis and Qataris?

In addition to remembering which countries are America's friends the next President should also bring basic negotiating skills to the table.  Giving nuclear weapons to Iran will surely be Obama's true legacy but so will abandoning millions of Cubans to continued servitude under the oppressive Castro regime.   The next President needs to remember that Iran's development of inter-continental missiles does not represent a threat to Israel.  They are aimed at the USA!

The next President will have a full domestic agenda, clearing-up the mess that is ObamaCare and the socialistic Common Core programme but he or she should not ignore foreign affairs.  North Korea, like Iran has become emboldened under Obama - indeed it is hard to think which enemy of the USA hasn't - but the next President cannot afford to further alienate ~America's traditional allies.

The next President needs to have a sense of proportion.  John Kerry and Obama might consider Climate Change, or whatever it is being called this week, to be the greatest threat to national security but the true greatest threat is terrorism in all its guises - the state-sponsored variety from Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the enemy within.  This fifth column, which seeks to impose shariah law in America, is led by the Council on American Islam Relations (CAIR).  These people are falsely recognised as 'moderates'.  The regularly cover-up for what the media then calls ' the excesses ' of Islamic behaviour.  The truth is that these are not 'excesses'.  They are the realities of Islam.  These media fools, and their fellow-travellers in Washington, think that one can coexist with Islam.  They ignore the plight of Christians in the Middle East, who, as I write  are being eliminated, every hour of every day (if that comes as a surprise to you, blame the media's blindness!)    Homosexuals are thrown off of buildings - the media and Obama says nothing.  Women are stoned to death for adultery because they 'allowed'  themselves to be raped and America's President says nothing.

I mentioned earlier, that the next President needs to restore integrity to the office.  Hand in hand with that is honesty and demanding that of others.  Liberals or Progressives, call them what you will, have mis-appropriated the English language and have, for too long, been allowed to get away with blatant hypocrisy.  The oppose the death penalty for convicted criminals, they oppose racism and then they support the murder of unborn children, which is the largest killer of America's blacks.  They don't just support abortion, they want the state to fund it.  They do this because they believe in it but they don't accept that others are very opposed to it and certainly are against paying for it.  That's the Liberal version of freedom of speech.  You can have freedom of speech, so long as you agree with their views.  If you don't, you are a racist, homophobe or right-wing or a fascist, etc..

To wrap-up, in the same vein, can anyone say what it is that homosexuals want?  By all studies, they represent a small percentage of the population - 3-5% in Western countries.  Initially they wanted to end discrimination that they were subjected to.  This they have largely achieved and yet now they want more.  Don't know what it is that they want  but they want more!  They want to not be persecuted for the sexual choices, that's fair enough, I guess.  Why then do they want to provoke and persecute people that have very deeply held religious beliefs in opposition to homosexuality?  Why is it okay to support homosexuality but not okay to oppose it.  And, fundamentally, why do these very same Liberals that are so pro-homosexuality,  also also silent on the atrocities that are perpetrated against homosexuals, by Muslims, around the world, not just in the Daesh areas of Syria and Iraq..  Hopefully, the next President will 'call-out' these hypocrites and bring honesty to the White House.

The power of Twitter and the Anglosphere

I have been thinking about Twitter recently (apologies if not using the copyright symbol is somehow wrong!) and its power for good.

I am also reading a book called "How we invented freedom", by a UK Member of the European Parliament - Daniel Hannan - highly recommend the book and Dan's tweets and articles - very 'sound' on Europe and the freedoms that 'Anglosphere' democracy brings.

The book (is that the right phrase for a Kindle version?  I dislike putting e in front of everything!) brings to the fore all those things which many of us almost take for granted - the primacy of the rule of law, no one being above it,  property rights and the importance of contracts and above all, freedom of speech, religion and assembly.   The book tracks the establishment of common law and the basic principles of same, from the pre-Norman invasion of England  through to the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights and onto the US Constitution and eloquently shows, the flow of these basic principles runs common to all of these documents and to those ideals that the Anglosphere hold dear.

It seems to me that those basic rights are under threat as never before.  Now the threat isn't National Socialism from the German Nazis or Communism from the Soviet Union, no the threat comes from within.

Part of the threat comes from a comfortable place called complacency - long established rights are taken for granted by 'indigenous' Anglosphere peoples and the slow erosion of these isn't noticed or widely remarked upon.  Arbitrary punishment is meted out by governments , especially the US's, via drone attacks, for example, and people move past that news item or, if they stop to think, justify it on the grounds of national security.  Similarly, people are stopped and searched at airports around the world and have various petty restrictions put upon them, in the name of security.

People are finding that freedom of speech or religion is being curtailed, except that most politicians and main stream media shy away from negatively commenting on Islam and it's adherents.  Look at what happened to Phil Robertson.  He is a reality TV personality on an American TV show called Duck Dynasty.  In an interview he stated, amongst other things, that he wasn't attracted to men and he likened homosexuality to sin.  Cue outrage from the homosexual lobby in the USA and their supporters in the media at his 'hate crime'.  Now, Phil espouses Christian values and for those that believe in the right of free speech - something on which America was founded - his freedom to say such things is exactly that - a right.

A right as in something that he inherently has - not something that he (or you or I) is given. 

I have never seen the Duck Dynasty show but all I have read about Phil Robertson and his espousal of deeply held Christian beliefs suggest to me that nothing that he said, in the magazine interview, could be construed as being in any way surprising or controversial.  Similarly if Ayatollah Khameni, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said the same things I wouldn't be surprised.  In fact the only thing that would surprise me is if the media actually reported or in any way commented upon Khameni's speech.  The teachings of both Christianity and Islam consider homosexuality a sin.  Whether you agree with that or not, is your opinion and I for one am happy to support your right to hold such an opinion - that's what free speech is about!   What free speech isn't about is stifling the saying of things with which you or I disagree. Period as they say in the US!

So back to Twitter and its power for good.  The A&E TV channel that broadcast Robertson's show, suspended him for a period, after disassociating itself from his comments.  Normally, that would be the end of Phil's TV show and fame.  However, right-thinking people got to work on Twitter and brought the story to a far wider audience than would have normally been the case.  A petition was raised and boycotts of A&E and its advertisers and sponsors were organized and, low and behold, Phil's suspension was lifted.  Encouragingly, he did not have to refute his beliefs or sayings, in order to achieve this.  The right to his free expression of speech was met.  In my humble view, Twitter played a great part in spreading the message and generating the climb-down by A&E.  Now I do not think for one single minute that the war is over and the 'powers that be' have seen the light and will 'allow' free expression.  I think that this is a battle won but this will need to be continuously fought for these cherished freedoms to be retained.  Incidentally, the 'allow' with is because I am uncomfortable in considering that someone allows another person to exercise a right.  No one can give you something which you already have!

Problem is though, that Twitter and other social media are under attack.  There are the overt attacks, where those that would deny freedom, talk-up so called trolls and make the attacks from these people, a justification for the curtailment of the liberties of all.  Then there are also the less obvious methods of attack - such as the USA's Internal Revenue Service using social media to identify groups and individuals from the Tea Party or other anti-Obama administration tweets, and then subject them to special attention from their audit teams. 

Dan Hannan, in his book, rightly confronts the facade of rights that some countries have or had and posits that it is the historical depth of these rights, within the Anglosphere, that gives them meaning.  He talks about the constitution of the former Soviet Union granting it's citizens all sorts of rights but no means for the citizen to actually exercise them.  I hope though that he is wrong in suggesting (I haven't yet finished the book, so maybe he does change his view later) that the places where the fundamental human rights can survive are restricted to those places that have historical links back to England and it's Magna Carta and older common law antecedents.  Hope, because these places (and this isn't meant to show an anti-immigration stance) are fast becoming a cosmopolitan mix, where the inhabitants do not all share the historical connection with England.  Hope, because I want those people who look to the UK, America, Canada and Australia and want to emigrate to those countries, look not just at the material benefits that settling in those countries will bring, but also at the traditions of individual freedoms, that have made these countries, what they are!