Cut My Entitlements, Please!

Liberals always assume people don’t want their own entitlements cut.  I’m here to say I want my entitlements cut.  I'll be 63 this November. It would be OK with me if my retirement age was raised immediately to 67 from 66 for Social Security and 65 for Medicare. It would be fine if the retirement age was indexed for life expectancy. In addition, if benefits were adjusted for changes in Social Security tax receipts instead of inflation, that would be OK too. Further, as a Viet Nam era vet, it would be OK if my VA medical benefits were cut. Just so you know, I refuse to join AARP because I think their politics, their position that senior's entitlements can't be cut, will lead to federal government bankruptcy. Federal government bankruptcy will lead to chaos and death that will make folks wish they hadn't believed reactionary liberal promises such as "if you like your insurance, you can keep it." The Fall of Rome was at least partially due to the financial exhaustion caused by too much bread and circuses, now known as "entitlements." Rome's demise lead to several hundred years of Dark Age destruction and death in Western Europe. Life was brutish and very short. Why would we want to repeat the experience?

Muni Bankruptcy: Who's Next?

When liberals try to say that only Detroit is a mess, I have to laugh.  I have lived in and around Chicago for most of my life. Both the city, Cook County and the State of Illinois are on the one party road to ruin. The pension liabilities of these entities dwarf their ability to pay. The Democrat "Reform" Governor can't get the Democrat legislature to agree to even micro steps toward fixing the pension problems because the public employee unions own the legislature and refuse to see the state pension liabilities reduced in any way. Raising taxes has been the only politically correct answer so far. The corruption is legendary, and jokes about it are common. For example, Illinois governors get 3 terms: 2 in office and one in jail. The last Democrat Governor is in jail, as is the previous Republican Governor. The difference is that when the last Republican Governor went to jail, the Illinois Republican party was almost completely destroyed in the following election. When Democrat Rod Blagojevich followed Republican George Ryan into prison, the next election brought minimal to no electoral or policy changes. Some of the Democrat office holders were replaced by other Democrats. A Cook County sales tax increase was repealed. That's it. The State of Illinois no longer pays its bills on time. Getting further and further behind is the only way the state can borrow more money because its credit rating is lower than California's. I think that the public employee unions are counting on native son "The One" to save them with a big bailout. Since the states created the federal government, federal bankruptcy laws do not cover states, just municipalities. When Illinois defaults, nobody really knows what is going to happen. Maybe they'll just keep raising taxes until everybody moves to Indiana or Wisconsin.

The Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) received the nickname "Hell Upon Detroit" for reasons that are now evident. For some reason, reactionary liberalism doesn't do very well in practice no matter how good it looks in theory.

Articles on Detroit:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353862/detroit-goes-down-kevin-d-williamson

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/354461/steins-law-charles-krauthammer

Chutzpah from a Terrorist's Family

A recent article Nasser al-Awlaki shows a lot of chutzpah, asking why a drone killed his 16 year old grandson.  Drone strikes are much more targeted than flying airliners into buildings, or bombing subways and busses full of civilians.  Even so, sometimes innocent people are going to get hurt.  That said, the author says nothing about who else was in the restaurant with his grandson.  Why should we assume the grandson and all the other patrons of the restaurant were innocent?  The restaurant was in the middle of an area in South Yemen under the control of Al Qaeda.  It was not a sidewalk cafe in Manhattan.  By the way, if it was a sidewalk cafe in Manhattan, Al Qaeda would have considered it a good target for a bombing.

 The senior al-Alwlaki also glosses over the fact that his son, Anwar al-Awlaki, was the main English speaking recruiter for Al Qaeda on the internet.  One of al-Awlaki's recruits, Major Nidal Hasan, shot and killed 13 unarmed people in the Fort Hood shooting.  Hasan wounded over 30 more in this one incident.  Another al-Awlaki recruit was the underwear bomber.  Anwar al Awlaki was justifiably targeted in a drone strike.  As a result, he is no longer around to find more suicidal jihadis to commit acts of terror. 

Nasser al-Awlaki doesn't seem to see the most likely reason for the death of the grandson.  Is it possible that Anwar al-Awlaki may have influenced his son to take up jihad like his daddy?  The fact is that Islamist terrorists have declared war on the United States, the entity they refer to as the "Great Satan."  They kill without regard to the combatant status of their victims, even unarmed women and children.  They are also known to use civilians as human shields in an effort to deter drone strikes.  Since this is a war, at least according to Anwar al-Awlaki, the author's son, it is ludicrous for the author to expect that all the protections of the civilian criminal courts will be followed before the US counterattacks.  After Pearl Harbor, nobody thought we needed a civilian court's permission to counterattack the Japanese.  I fail to see why unlawful combatants who are at least technically war criminals because they wear no uniforms, hide in the civilian population and kill indiscriminately, deserve any civilian court protections.  In order to understand this, the author should consider how Al Qaeda would have treated his grandson if he was Jewish or Christian or Hindu.  His grandson might have been beheaded after begging for his life, like Daniel Pearl.  The author, and all Muslims involved with Al Qaeda, should understand that when Al Qaeda attacks us, we are going to fight back until we put them out of business permanently.

I can't sympathize with the senior al-Awlaki at all. In order to understand why, the author should consider how Al Qaeda would have treated his grandson if he was Jewish or Christian or Hindu. His grandson might have been beheaded after begging for his life, like Daniel Pearl.   Al Qaeda has no mercy at all for anyone, including Muslims who differ in their beliefs from Al Qaeda.   People who associate with Al Qaeda should not expect more than ordinary care from us when it comes to retaliatory drone strikes.   They're lucky we are not quite as uncivilized or uncaring as Al Qaeda.  If we were, we would be carpet bombing Al Qaeda areas in Yemen, not sending in very targeted drone strikes.

According to liberals, drone strikes merely antagonize Islamists and make more terrorists.  For liberals, the solution to Al Qaeda terrorism is to permit indiscriminate slaughter of innocents to avoid antagonizing the terrorists further.   Perhaps we should have tolerated Hitler's atrocities in order to avoid offending the Nazis?   Sounds like a great plan.   Liberals should please visit South Yemen as soon as possible to explain it to Al Qaeda.   They would love to hear from you in person.

Original Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html?ref=opinion&_r=0