Wednesday, October 31, 2012

A Romney Administration?

The possibility that Mitt Romney might win the election next week is not as far-fetched as it was a few weeks.  His strong performance in the debates and the obvious weaknesses of the Obama administration has no doubt given Romney some momentum.  The polls are all over the place; who knows which one(s) to believe?  The "mainstream" media cannot be trusted on any matter now.  They are blatantly--blatantly--in the Obama camp, and are making absolutely no pretense at objectivity.  What a gross dereliction of duty by a once-great institution--the American media.  It is difficult to tell who is going to win the election, especially from where I sit 10,000 miles away.  But I do believe Romney may win, and with that possibility in mind, I'd like to consider what a Romney administration might look like and what might happen over the next four years.

First, if Romney wins, there will almost surely be a significant economic revival in the country.  As has been endlessly reported (everywhere except in the pro-Obama media), American businessmen are scared to death of Barack Obama and aren't going to risk their money while he is in office.  Romney would invite and encourage business investment, hopefully repeal the econmy-clogging Obamacare, and provide a positive atmosphere for job creation.  If Romney wins, look for an unemployment rate of 5% within two years, if not sooner.  That would certainly be a positive, and would probably earn him another four years in office.

Second, in foreign affairs.  Mitt Romney will strengthen the American military, not bow down to foreign leaders, and not apologize for his country.  This will, of course, make America more unpopular around the world.  For example, a recent poll in Russia indicates the people of that country favor Obama's re-election by a 41-8% margin (I don't know what the 51% thought, the story didn't say.  Perhaps they had no opinion.).  "Mitt Romney will take us back to the days of George Bush," is one of the major battle cries of the Obama forces.

This scares a lot of people, of course, who fear Romney would drag us into another war.  If he does, however, it will largely be the fault of Barack Obama, who by showing weakness and guilt, has invited America's enemies to become stronger and more aggressive.  I don't believe Romney wants a war, and we don't need to go to war with Iran.  But then, Iran doesn't need nuclear weapons, either.  Obama has done nothing to prevent Iran from obtaining them, but, to be fair to him, it's not altogether clear, short of war, what he could have done.  Sanctions aren't going to work on Ahmadinejad, mainly because he doesn't care what happens to his people, and they cannot do anything to displace him.  Romney will, at least, make sure America is prepared for the worst.  That is a necessity.  My suggestion would be, if Iran does end up with nuclear weapons, make it very clear to them that, if they ever use them, Iran would cease to exist on this planet.  Of course, that would start World War III.  There is no good scenario for a nuclear war.  America must be militarily strong.  Mitt Romney would see to that; Barack Obama has given every indication he wants to weaken America's armed forces.  Theodore Roosevelt once said, "Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace."  He also said--and I must paraphrase here because I cannot, at the moment, lay my hands on his exact words--but something to the effect that we, in America, are forever for peace.  But to maintain peace, we must always be ready for war.  (Roosevelt also said, "A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education."  That is a little irrelevant to this article, but still worth quoting because of its truth.)  Romney doesn't want a war; but he won't run from one, either, and he'll have America ready, if necessary.

Thirdly, and as I have written many times before, America's biggest problem is not economic, or some imagined "military-industrial complex."  America's problem is not even Washington, D.C.  America's biggest problem is moral--and that is within the hearts of men and beyond the reach of any President.  Obama, because so many people admired and adored him, could have helped direct many of his countrymen back to God, decency, and righteousness.  But then, he doesn't believe in those things, and he would never have gotten the nomination of the Democratic Party in 2008 if he had.  So we see in America a continual, and rising, immorality--rejection of individual responsibility, abortion, homosexuality, feminism, extra-marital sex, drug abuse, Hollywood violence, sex, verbal filth; pile on top of that the fact that so many Americans willingly live off the hard work of others, with no shame for any of it--and you have the real problems plaguing the country.  Democracies, more than any other type of government, need a noble, industrious, frugal, virtuous, self-disciplined people.  There are many, many people still like that in America, of course, perhaps enough to elect Mitt Romney.  But the Democratic Party, tragically, has given itself almost totally to that anti-Christian, hedonistic element, elevating and exalting is as "progress".  Mitt Romney--no one--will be able to change that.  Only God can, and He frequently does that, in history, by flushing the whole thing down the toilet and starting over again.

Mitt Romney is not the greatest man on earth and he would almost surely not be a great President; it may not be possible, in America, for anyone to rise to greatness, politically, any more.  His election depends upon one thing--whether there are still enough people left in the United States who believe in the principles that founded America and made the country great (great, not perfect).  Next Tuesday will answer that question.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

A Slight Change of Direction

I'm obviously making some changes to this particular blog site.  A "current events" blog is fine, but there are plenty of those.  A "history" blog can also be valuable, but a multitude of those exist as well.  But a "current events" blog rooted in "history", while it might not be totally unique, does, I believe, present a little more opportunity for depth and quality.  I hope I can produce that.

A simple current events "opinion" blog is just not what I want.  That makes me nothing more than a commentator or, in effect, a newspaper columnist.  Again, there are a countless number of those floating around the Internet.  One man's opinion is as good as another, and confusion reigns.  America is a horribly divided country right now because too many people listen to men rather than God and history.  But a blog rooted in the facts of history can provide a little more support and intelligence as a foundation, and thus greater weight for its analysis.  That is what I hope to do here.  You will see more history here, though this blog will NOT be just a recounting of boring facts and dates.  I want to provide relevance for the world's current occupants.  "The Lessons of History" is what the subtitle says, and that is the aim of what I will post here.

There are those who argue that we cannot really "know" anything in history.  I do not believe that.  What I just wrote is now history.  I know I wrote it.  YOU know I wrote it because you are now reading it.  Do you know what you did yesterday?  That's history.  If you told someone what you did yesterday, can they know what you did yesterday?  And if that person denies you did it, they are, in effect, calling you a liar.  At what point can we no longer know what happened in the past?  People certainly do lie, and not everything recorded in the history books is accurate.  But, for example, for someone to say, "Well, we cannot really know, for sure, that George Washington was the first President of the United States," or that we cannot know that four Americans were killed in Libya on September 11 of this year (that's history now, too) is, I believe, at best, intellectually disingenuous.  People who make such arguments, more often than not, are trying to avoid the obvious lessons from certain historical data, and just as often, are happy to use history when they feel it will buttress their beliefs.  Folks, in one sense, everything is history, because the present lasts only a moment, and the future also is always at least one moment away.  Interpretations of history can vary, and certain events can be disputed.  But that does not mean I cannot know anything from history.  The fact that I do not know the exact minute I was born does not mean I cannot know that I was born on September 29, 1954.  The "can we really know anything from history?" is simply a dodge to avoid the powerful force of the lessons of historical truth. 

Since it is my blog, I also reserve the liberty to include whatever I want to include, such as personal information that might be of interest to friends or family.  But, in the main, I want this to be an educational blog:  the lessons of history as applied to current events.  As I posted, repeatedly, on my former, "Current Events" blog, if Mr. Obama knew--or cared--about history, and had learned from it, he would not have done many of the things which he has done, and his administration would not have been such a failure.  Four years ago I knew, and said, that if Mr. Obama follows his left-wing, liberal, ideological beliefs, he will not have success as President of the United States; I knew that for two reasons:  I know history and I know the Bible, which is the inerrant, infallible Word of God, is not and cannot be wrong, and is, by far, the greatest interpreter of human events in existence.  Mr. Obama did exactly what I expected him to do, and the country is in far worse shape now than it was when he became President--economically, morally, spiritually, yea, by almost any measurement a person wishes to make, when comparing with economic, moral, and spiritual law.  Over the course of my posts on this blog, I hope to show why.  One ignores history, and the God of all history, at one's own peril.  Unfortunately, when ignorance of God and history are in power, many people suffer.

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The first lesson I'd like to suggest isn't a terribly important one, but I'm a baseball fan and it's my blog, so I'm going to write briefly about it.  That lesson is:  pitching wins championships.  The San Francisco Giants are on the verge of winning their second World Series in three years, and the main reason is pitching.  Oh, they've got a couple of decent hitters, but they win because they can get people out.  Good pitching and defense will beat good hitting every time.  I hope the Astros learn this lesson, and this year, with the first pick again in the baseball draft, go after pitching and not a shortstop.  Pitching wins, not hitting.  If you only score one run, but the other team doesn't score any, you win the game.  It's actually in the first verse of the Bible:  "In the big inning...." har har har.

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I've got a little work to do on this new blogsite, obviously, in getting all the links to my other sites up.  I'll get that done soon.