WHAT HAVE WE DONE?

WHAT HAVE WE DONE?

By Jim "Gymbeaux" Brown, July 2, 2016

This is an Opinion, my opinion.  Opinions are like behinds, everyone has one and this is mine, opinion not behind.

It is hard, at least for me, to look at America and the World and not become totally depressed and I beg the question, what have we done? 

In America we have two candidates who are definitely less than ideal and I find it extremely difficult to believe that they represent the best beliefs and policies of either political party yet these two imperfect candidates are really our only two choices unless you consider a pot smoking former governor a good choice.

In America the streets in our largest cities have become war zones.  On a recent FOX News report (and yes I said FOX News as if that very name carries with it some form of disease for so many people who are the on Left of the political spectrum), they had an article on crime in the streets of Chicago.  Just during the month of June 2016, there were 70 murders in Chicago.  There was no mention of the number of people who were wounded during this same period.  It was said that there is a murder in Chicago at the rate of 1 per every 10 hours.  Let that sink in for a moment.  In the Orlando shooting there were 49 people murdered in the Pulse shooting, 49.  Outrage across the country and world ensued.  Yet in Chicago 70 people were murdered during the month of June and over 350 thus far in 2016 and hardly a word from anyone.  In my opinion, the result of the terrorist in Orlando and the maddening murders on the streets of our major cities is no different – they both strike fear in the hearts and minds of people who have to visit or live there.  Is that not a form of terrorism?

I believe we have two terrorist fronts to confront and we are confronting neither of them: terrorists from Radical Islamic Terrorists at home and world-wide and domestic terrorists on our own streets in the form of street thugs.  They both result in death and fear. 

The question arises, what exactly are our current President and his administration doing about either one of these issues?  Outwardly not much.  I continued to hope that President Obama’s speeches that really have said nothing hid an underlying objective or goal to rid ourselves of both of these types of terrorists but after seven and a half years I see no evidence that his actions are any different than his shallow words.

I have 4 children, 9 grand children and 2 great grand children.  I look at them and/or their photographs and can’t help but think my generation and the following generation has let them down.  There is no way that they will ever enjoy the freedoms and a life without fearing attacks by either type of terrorists that we now face and it IS our fault.  When you see the photos of people in other parts of the world being drowned, burned alive, beheaded, raped, murdered, etc, not to mention bodies laying in our own streets at the hand of our own citizens, how can you turn a blind eye to this type of pure evil?  Yet that is what we have done.  Yes we have had air strikes and we have killed hundreds, maybe even thousands of these devils but that policy is not even holding a status quo position.  We as a country have done very little to curb the violence in our own streets.  We are losing two wars that as of yet really haven’t even been declared.

What are the solutions?  Yes I am retired military; I retired from the U. S. Coast Guard and while the Coast Guard IS a branch of our military, being a member does not make me a military expert but I would like to think I have majored in life and common sense.  So here are my common sense solutions to the problems we now face:

• Strengthen our military.  We hear stories of mechanics cannibalizing very old planes just for parts.  The number of vessels the U. S. Navy can claim to be able to put afloat has diminished to the scary point.  The number of foot soldiers has also diminished to pre-WWII levels during war time and YES, we ARE AT WAR.  Unfortunately our current Administration doesn’t seem to realize it YET!
• STOP with the asinine legal attacks on our police departments and the policies such as “stop and frisk” that have been proven to work where they have reduced crime and protected the very people that politicians and our courts say the policy hurts.  What sane police officer wants to see his or her face smeared all over the local news programs suggesting they violated someone’s civil rights just because a potential criminal said they did.  As good as our police departments are, the deck is currently stacked against them preventing them to do effective police work BEFORE the criminals do their dastardly deeds.  This must change and the change MUST come from the White House and the Department of Justice.  I don’t see either stepping to the plate to fix this wrong.
• The world, at least in my opinion, looks to America to lead.  Who would have won WWI and/or WWII had Americans not become involved?  It surely wasn’t Europe.  One nation standing alone could not have taken on the opposing forces but many nations standing together can defeat a vile enemy like ISIS.  They defeated Hitler’s Germany, why not ISIS?  But until someone, anyone, takes the lead, defeating ISIS simply will not happen and while everyone sits on their collective asses and waits for someone else to take the lead, ISIS becomes stronger and stronger and has acquired more and more land and assets.  Besides our current administration, who is stupid enough to believe that ISIS won’t eventually come to the shores of America as if they haven’t already?  Like before, AMERICA MUST take the lead and form a REAL coalition of countries not the fiction of  66 we continually hear President Obama and Secretary Kerry refer to – I seriously doubt they could name even half of the 66 countries if asked.  You either lead, you follow, or, you get out of the way of someone/country who has chosen to lead.  We are neither leading nor are we getting out of the way.  We are simply following but who we are actually following only God knows.
• We need to dump the United Nations.  It is a financial drain on America with absolutely no appreciable return on the billions if not trillions we have spent on this lame organization.
• We need to stop spending more than we take in from our tax dollars.  We routinely give billions of billions of dollars away to countries with little to no accountability and then tell the American people, especially its veterans, that there is no money in the pot to do the right thing for its own citizens.  We have politicians including the President who feel they need a pay raise at the same time that people on Social Security, government retirees both civilian and military, haven’t had a pay raise in years.   We have a VA Hospital system that has simply failed the veterans it was created to serve and no one, absolutely no one has done anything to fix it as promised by President Obama.  WE NEED A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT AND WE NEED TO STOP SPENDING MONEY ABROAD UNTIL ALL OF OUR HOME ISSUES HAVE BEEN RESOLVED!  PERIOD!  AND WE NEED TO STOP GIVING MONEY TO COUNTRIES WHO HATE US AND WHO WOULD TURN ON US AT THE VERY FIRST OPPORTUNITY.
• WE NEED TERM LIMITS.  There are more millionaires in Congress per capita than in the country.  Were they all millionaires BEFORE they got to Congress?  I don’t think so.  Career politicians we do not need.  We need problem solvers in Congress not money seeking people missiles like we currently have, people who have spent 15, 20, 30 and more years in Congress.  People who were sent to Congress to govern and fix problems instead of sucking everyone dry and fixing nothing.
• We need to restore racial harmony in America, a harmony that people like President Obama and then Attorney General Eric Holder diligently worked to destroy.  Whatever degree of harmony we had, it is now history.
• We need to secure our borders to insure that no one enters our country ILLEGALLY with the key word being ILLEGALLY.  As in years past, people entered our country ILLEGALLY and then there were movements to make those who entered ILLEGALLY legal citizens all while there are others who wait patiently on LEGAL waiting lists to become citizens.  If I were one of those citizens who came here LEGALLY I would start a class action suit against the Federal Government for making them jump through hoops and spend money to become citizens when the same Federal Government does nothing to stop ILLEGALS from entering the country and eventually becoming citizens by the stroke of someone’s pen.  When you see this in writing, it is hard to imagine anyone not appreciating the stupidity of our current policies.  Make it hard to come here ILLEGALLY; make it easy to come here LEGALLY. 
• There needs to be a procedure to legally remove a Supreme Court Justices from the bench IF a Justice fails to uphold and defend the provisions of the U. S. Constitution.  Case in point is Obamacare.  There is nowhere in the Constitution that authorizes the U. S. Government to REQUIRE its citizens to purchase anything – ANYTHING!  Yet the Congress and the Supreme Court failed to rule constitutionally on the issue and these Justices are appointed for life; they cannot be removed.  Who in America should ever hold a job/position where you can’t be fired for incompetency or committing fraud?  No one!  Repeat:  NO ONE!

If you have read this far, congratulations.  But if you HAVE read this far you can obviously tell that I am pissed off at our government for failing its citizens.  Answer this simple question.  What has our government, starting with the President and working down the ladder, what has any of them done for you lately that would be considered as being positive and without taking something from you?  I’ll wait………

Humpty Dumpty has in fact fallen  It has been broken into the smallest of bits.  Now it can’t be put back together again; or can it?  Let’s hope so!