September 29, 2012

Empathy in Plolitics

While empathy is a necessary ingredient to the human condition of civilized community, it is corrupted by the politics of power.

Many Democrats seek to entitle those with less, some of which, but not all, clearly need help. They also use the tool of class warfare to emotionally tie those who are receiving 'entitlements (a nasty loaded word) to them as the party who 'cares.' Most Republicans do not lack empathy, but reject the bureaucratic government model to which many citizens have transferred much of their empathy and personal responsibility and which grows unsustainably larger and deeper in debt providing ever more 'benefits' (another loaded word).

Societies have always had the super-rich (in relative terms) and they almost always have been demonized by those with much less. What's missing in the present economic malaise is enough productive work ( jobs) for willing people to support themselves, not a lack of empathy for the truly needy.

The debate is over the policies that will best provide the opportunity to earn a decent living in a society undergoing technological upheaval, not which political party is more empathetic.

September 12, 2012

Obama Cannot be Trusted in Foreign Policy

Arguments can be made that America cannot win a war with Islam. Nevertheless, when provoked as we have been in Benghazi and Cairo, we must respond both in words and deed.
President Obama has a foreign policy that is unknown to most Americans. America cannot trust the Muslim government in Egypt and Libya, for all intents and purposes, has no effective government. In this vacuum terrorists thrive. The Arab Spring is nothing more than liberal wishful thinking.
I have much greater confidence that Romney as leader would be a defender of America's interests than TeamObama, which has not demonstrated the savvy to confront the world's realities.

WSJ NEWS ALERT: U.S. Ambassador to Libya Is Killed in Attack on Consulate - dusher@gmail.com - Gmail

News Alert from The Wall Street Journal 
"Libyan officials said the U.S. ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans have been killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the Associated Press reported.
Demonstrators on Tuesday attacked the consulate and breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, amid angry protests over a film by a U.S. producer that mocks and insults the Prophet Muhammad."

Breaking News AlertThe New York TimesWednesday, September 12, 2012 -- 7:24 AM EDT-----
U.S. Ambassador to Libya Is Reported Killed by Protesters in Benghazi
The Libyan government said Wednesday that United States ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed along with three of his staff in an attack on the consulate in Benghazi Tuesday night in the first death of an American envoy abroad in more than two decades.
The U.S. State Department declined to confirm or deny the reports and said the previous night that only a single unnamed embassy employee had been killed. But if confirmed, the killing, during at attack by an armed mob angry over a short American-made video mocking Islam’s founding prophet, threatens to upset Washington’s relations with the new Libyan government that took over after the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and sour American public opinion about the prospects of the democratic opening of the Arab spring.
Mr. Stevens, a veteran of U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya, served in Benghazi during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi, and he was widely admired by the Libyan rebels for his support of their struggle to overthrow Colonel Qaddafi.

So much for the Arab Spring widely hailed as a positive development when it first started. Deposing dictators is a good thing.  Islamic mobs that we have seen in Libya and Egypt in the last day or two threaten the rule of law and basic security that democratic experiments must have in order to succeed.

What will be the American response?

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