Why Do Democrats Hate Democracy?

Mandates and Their Consequences
© 2011 Ross Williams

Memories! What a sweet bit of nostalgia is the spring of 2010 now to liberals around the country. That was the last time liberals in their democrat party tent could believe, with any amount of conviction, that they had a mandate from the election of 2008.

And they did. That mandate was to not be Dubya. The country was tired of him. Spendthrift policies built upon a base of fear-mongering, appealing to the desires of a very decided minority, and – worst – virtually open-ended. Super-regulatory intrusion into the daily lives of individuals built upon a base of fear-mongering, appealing to the desires of a very decided minority [mostly the regulators themselves], and – worst – virtually open-ended. Abdication of philosophical substance in pushing the spendthrift policies and super-regulation built on the base of...

...and, well, the point should be sufficiently made.

Dubya had an [R] after his name, and starting in 2006 the one-third of the nation who is neither [D] nor [R] but who votes side to side started to vote for the [D] names on the ballot. I’m among them, if only because there isn’t a viable libertarian candidate for anything.

Americans were tired of Iraq. Some, that we were there at all. Others, like me, that we didn’t leave when we should have.

Americans were tired of the Patriot Act. Some, like me, that it existed at all. Others, that it wasn’t as “temporary” as it was initially claimed to be.

Americans [in general, not including me] were tired of Afghan war detainees being held in Gitmo. Some, that they were held at all because kidnapping those who shoot at American soldiers in a war is rude and inhumane. Others, that they were held as, like, war detainees or something, and not given their Constitutional Rights as required under some hallucinogenic reading of the Geneva Conventions.

And Americans were tired of their government spending money on things they no longer wanted or never wanted in the first place, spending more money than they had [and after the [R] Congress held Clinton’s feet to the fire in the ‘90s and imposed fiscal solvency if only on a year-to-year basis], and spending more money than the vast majority wanted to spend on such things even if they had it to spend ... which they didn’t.

Americans were tired of Dubya, anyone who looked like him, and the elephant he rode in on.

His party lost Congress in ’06, and his party lost relevance in Congress in ’08 and the White House to boot. That oughta learn ‘em!

The Democrats were going to fix what was wrong with the country by doing all those things that caused them to get elected in the first place.

The Democrat Congress could have closed Gitmo [for war detention] any time they chose after the Class of ’06 was sworn in; they did not do so.

The Democrat Congress could have ended our involvement in Iraq any time they chose after the Class of ’06 was sworn in; they did not do so.

The Democrat Congress could have rescinded the Patriot Act by failing to renew it any time they chose after the Class of ’06 was sworn in; they did not do so.

The Democrat Congress could have reined in federal spending any time they chose after the Class of ’06 was sworn in; they did not do so.

Well, doing these things between ’07 and ’09 would have risked a Bush veto. Why waste legislative effort on guaranteed losers? Okay ... that may have happened.

But:

The Democrat Congress could have closed Gitmo [for war detention] any time they chose after the Class of ’08 and the National Savior was sworn in; they did not do so.

The Democrat Congress could have ended our involvement in Iraq any time they chose after the Class of ’08 and the National Savior was sworn in; they did not do so.

The Democrat Congress could have rescinded the Patriot Act by failing to renew it any time they chose after the Class of ’08 and the National Savior was sworn in; they did not do so.

The Democrat Congress could have reined in federal spending any time they chose after the Class of ’08 and the National Savior was sworn in; they did not do so.

With the exception of a feeble, half-hearted attempt to move the Gitmo detention to a vacant federal prison in Illinois – which is only “closing Gitmo” in a teen-agers’ petulant loyyerese – the Democrat Congress and the National Savior didn’t even attempt any of the things they were elected to do.

Instead, they took the opportunity to pile on. If Dubya can start two wars that only some of us want after we figured out the scare tactics behind them, the National Savior can impose a legislative agenda that only a third of the nation wants in the first place, even after the fear-mongering, with the only benefit going to a very decided minority, and – worst – undeniably open-ended.

If Dubya can make $500billion deficits, our National Savior can double down.

And because Democrats don’t make any pretense of being fiscally restrained, the typical liberal voting bloc doesn’t care when their Democrat politicians spend money they don’t have, and the only time the liberal voting bloc even notices government spending money it doesn’t have is when Republicans – who do claim to be fiscally responsible – do that spending.

Of course, the main reason the liberal voting bloc notices is so they can claim that Republicans are doing something wrong. Needless to say, the spending money no one has thing isn’t wrong itself because if it was, Democrats would be in deep trouble; what’s wrong is pretending to be fiscally responsible before spending money you don’t have. That is one political hypocrisy the Democrats can legitimately claim they do not have. They do not claim to be fiscally responsible; they would seem to be proud of being fiscally irresponsible, in fact.

Their voting bloc relies on it as we can all see in Wisconsin.

...and Indiana.

...and Ohio.

Because a funny thing happened on the way to the quorum. The one-third of American voters who are neither [D] nor [R] and who vote side to side couldn’t convince the Democrats elected in ’08 that they only had a mandate to not be Dubya, and not a mandate to out-Dubya Dubya.

End Iraq; yes. Close Gitmo; if you must. Rescind the Patriot Act; please. Stop spending money like water in a flood; definitely.

Obamacare; no. Endless bailouts; no. Reinvestment and Recovery – where the main investment went into the super-regulatory intrusions expanded under Dubya’s fear-mongered policies that we didn’t want and that doesn’t accomplish its goal in the first place; no.

The Democrats were put into office for a reason; they failed that reason and instead gave the nation what the nation didn’t want once again. ...and then the election of 2010 occurred. For the same reason that those who are neither [D] nor [R] flipped to [D] in ’06 and ’08, they flipped back to [R] in ’10.

That reason? Do what WE tell you to do, not what you want to do.

Doing what they want is not their job; their job is to do what the voters who voted for them want done. “Of, by and for the people”. Democrats lost their jobs by the fist-full last year. Nationally, locally and in virtually every state.

It seems that their replacements in at least some states are now willing to listen to the voters. Wisconsin has a $3.6 billion projected shortfall in its public employee pension fund, awarded by decades of Democrats negotiating with the public service unions who donate to Democrat candidates, who’ll then take office and “negotiate” those contracts for the unions who support them. Wisconsin is broke [though not as broke as Illinois]. The majority of Wisconsin voters want fiscal responsibility in their state; controlling unsustainable fixed-benefit pensions – and the contracts which created them, and the process which allows it – is a great place to start.

Naturally, the public service unions are having major hissy fits about it. And Wisconsin’s Democrat Senators have fled the state in order to play the procedural game of Lack of Quorum. Just like Democrats in Texas did during the redistricting squabble after the 2000 Census.

Indiana’s Democrats have fled Indiana as well to avoid quorum in Indiana’s similar public service union legislation. And Ohio is close to doing the same.

Democrats avoiding democracy. Kinda ironic, annit?

Yes, denying quorum is a procedural game. It’s a useful symbolic protest, and quite possibly necessary from time to time, maybe even more often than it’s been used. I can think of a piece of federal legislation early last year that could have used a Lack of Quorum. Once the symbolism has been delivered and the point made, however, legislators need to get back to the job of representing the people who elected them, even if they are in the minority.

Take a deep breath, Democrats, participate in the Senate vote, lose the Senate vote, and then use the democratic process to try to convince the voters before the next election that the law is wrong and needs to be rescinded. If the voters agree, they’ll vote for more Democrats next time who also believe that public service union members are the only people in our nation who deserve to be exempt from reality, and who deserve to benefit from economically unsustainable fixed-benefit pensions funded by taxpayers who are tired of sticky government hands thrusting themselves deeper and deeper into taxpayers’ pockets.

Democracy is the will of the majority, even if the minority doesn’t like it. A constitutional democracy, like ours, lays the extra caveat that this Majority Will cannot exceed certain pre-defined limits. Fiscal responsibility doesn’t exceed a constitutional limitation, however. It is considered – or should be – a constitutional requirement.

Yes, those who typically vote democrat do not like fiscal responsibility; it hurts the endless list of entitlements they believe they are due. But the majority in the states of Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio disagrees. That’s what counts. That’s the only thing that counts, in fact.

“Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day you didn’t listen to us.”

Can you hear us now?

Looking Ahead

An Alternate Future Essay
© 2011 Ross Williams

The era of Positive Rights hit what many thought was the pinnacle of Progressiveness in the spring of 2017 when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals – long the main Progressive court in the nation – ruled that persons below the poverty line were entitled to “certain vehicle repairs and maintenance” pursuant to their educational and employment-seeking activities required under the rules for receiving any form of welfare. The government can’t require welfare recipients to either go to school or seek employment if it doesn’t provide reasonable ways to get there; public transportation covers only a fraction of the country. The Supreme Court, packed by Obama, agreed and the federal government thus found itself in the auto insurance business.

The presidential election of 2020, fortunately the formality that Chicago Mayoral elections had long been, was noted for the clanging rhetoric pitting the privately-employed remnants of the middle class against the federal patronage workers. “If the poor can get free oil changes, why can’t we?” the privately-employed asked. They were prevented by law from saying much else.

The answer was plain: the Wealthiest Americans have no need for handouts because they’re wealthy. Instead, they need more regulation to keep them from collecting and flaunting their obscene wealth. If the Wealthiest Americans wanted to, they could try this trick in state legislatures. The Supreme Court, operating under its 2012 ruling, Florida et al v. Sebelius, requiring all matters of state jurisdiction to first be granted by federal court ruling or Congress, had no objections and so in 2021 the states of Idaho, Montana, Texas and Alabama – dominated by Wealthiest Americans – passed laws requiring all auto insurers in their state to cover routine vehicle maintenance in every Comprehensive policy they sold. While varying from state to state, these typically included oil changes, battery replacements, tire changes, wipers, belts, hoses, wiring and charger couplings for all automobiles, even the outdated gas-only vehicles banned by the EPA in 2013 by their authorities under the Clean Air Act.

In 2022, 19 more states passed similar laws, and by 2028, all 49 states and the District of Columbia required auto insurers to pay for routine maintenance of vehicles. ...but only for electric and hybrid vehicles. In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that coverage of the maintenance costs for gas-only powered vehicles could not be required under state law as federal law already prohibited gas-only vehicles for anything other than collectors of antiquities and “certain civic or educational functions of historical intent”. Gas-only vehicles were, essentially, a luxury item even though most were still operating daily by the Wealthiest Americans living in Appalachia and the remotest parts of the western states.

What happened next was almost completely unexpected by anyone with government accreditation.

The cost for Comprehensive automobile insurance increased by 4,500% between 2020 and 2034, puzzling government economists.

Additionally, an oil change, a typical oil change that cost $50 at most instant-change shops in the spring of 2017 on a standard two-cylinder hybrid, and $55 in 2021 when States started requiring them to be covered by comprehensive insurance, cost instead, on a nationwide average, $75 by 2028, $95 by 2030, and $125 by the 2034 mid-terms.

Costs for other vehicle maintenance items rose similarly.

Economists in the Government Accountability Office, in the Congressional Entitlement Office, and the Internal Revenue and Regulatory Compliance Service were dumbfounded. It had long been established that government regulatory oversight kept prices low – sometimes [according to certain Liberal critics] artificially low – and the Progressive leadership in Congress, the White House and the Courts were unready for the ramifications. Liberal opposition attempted to capitalize on the upheaval, and even attempted to use some of the tactics of the Wealthiest Americans and their outlawed Republican and Tea Parties during the tumultuous days of the Early Progressive Republic, though they stopped short of using the S-word. No sense in risking a conviction on Sedition charges by calling Progressive policy socialism!

The rise of vehicle maintenance costs baffled everyone. It could not be explained by the rising cost of materials; government regulations kept that under control, even if cheap North Korean parts were all that could be found for the price. It could not be explained by the rising cost of labor. The Labor Rate Equalization standards were being properly applied and the quadrennial IRRCS audits found no significant deviations.

Since not everyone had comprehensive insurance for their vehicles, many Americans could no longer afford to maintain their vehicles; they were going bankrupt – 11.5 million bankruptcies in 2031 alone linked to vehicle maintenance, not including Wealthiest Americans. Tens of millions of Americans [also not including Wealthiest] were forced to drop their comprehensive insurance between 2020 and 2035 because of the sharp rise in premiums.

The federal Transportation Assurity Administration, which oversaw the guaranteed vehicle maintenance program for those under the poverty line, was not equipped to handle a huge influx of new clients who were thrust into poverty by rapidly rising costs. Congress held hearings repeatedly in 2033 and 2035 but reached no conclusion or consensus.

It was a Chinese economist, working with her Mexican colleague and collaborator, who put forth the outlandish hypothesis in their Nobel Prize-winning paper in 2036 that suggested a reactionary and disproven notion behind it all. This was all it took to unite the Progressives and Liberals in defense of America from the economic hegemony of China and Mexico: the world’s and western hemisphere’s largest economies, respectively. Their answer? “Free Trade”.

Free Trade had been debunked as a means for the wealthy to enslave the poor, and using the middle class as its “useful idiots”. Every economist of the 21st Century knew that! Hell, even Keynes hinted at it.

But the “Free Tradist” argument is useful to look at despite its obvious flaws; it went as follows:
1] Before government required insurance to cover vehicle maintenance costs, vehicle owners got their vehicles repaired if and when they had the money to. Various mechanics – in one example, oil change shops – would attempt to lure customers by offering discounts and free services in connection with the oil change. Refilling wiper fluid, tire inflation, $5-off Wednesdays ... that sorta thing.

2] After states required Comprehensive coverage for these items, vehicle owners with Comprehensive insurance stopped worrying about the immediate cost for the oil change; insurance paid for it. Instant oil change shops then stopped offering discounts, and started charging for each of the extra services that used to come free. In one shop in Iowa, checking tire pressure – not even filling tires to required pressure, just checking – cost an extra $15. Filling tires was another $10 [$6.50 national average for both combined].

3] No one in the government caught on to this because “free” services had never been charged before, and once they started to be charged the charges were deemed “fair” and “reasonable” by Federal Procurement, Standards and Enforceability Agency rulings.

4] Acceptable insurance overhead for the processing of services had been fixed by federal law in 2015 to 125% of the “fair” and “reasonable” cost of the provided services, over the actuarial pool from which those services are rendered. This meant that Progressive Insurance could charge an insured driver – if premiums could be broken down by service – $32.50 in premiums for covering checking and inflating tires in Iowa where the cost was $25 in 2035, for each of five oil changes per year, when there had been no cost for this to be done twenty years earlier. Insurance premiums of $162.50 per year to pay $125 in charges for something that had been a free service a generation ago.

[Editor’s note: I don’t think I need to explain the insane dishonesty behind the concept of a “free” service when discussing the failings of the “free trade” philosophy; the Wealthy use such lures as the bait to ensure willing compliance with their Terms Of Slavery.]

5] ...and it went on interminably.

What the SinoMex Free Tradist tirade famously neglected to consider in its attack on the ideals of Progressivism is that real people were suffering real harms to their positive rights. They apparently didn’t get the memo: we, in America, stopped rewarding the Wealthy for being better than others in 2012 with the reelection of Obama, and started treating everyone identically. In every way! “Opportunity” was the Wealthy code-word for monetary manipulation of the system, through the false promise of financial benefit to the poor and middle classes.

“Equal opportunity” was false; there is only equal outcome. That is the only way human civilization can Progress. Countries like Mexico and China will eventually see through the mirage of their opulent society, just like we did. Better roads and newer schools mean little when a family is bankrupt due to vehicle maintenance issues. Roads and schools are not sustainable; vehicle maintenance – just like health care before it – is the very definition of sustainable.

Our unpatriotic critics among the Liberals continually spread conspiracy theories that Progressive policy has only been affordable thus far because we allowed Arizona, New Mexico and southern California to be annexed by Mexico in 2022. Despite the $15 trillion we earned from parting with useless desert and Los Angeles, it wasn’t done for the money; the only down side was we also lost San Diego. It was done, instead, for repatriation of imperial conquest – a point that was made at the time and that the Wealthiest Americans refused to hear. They had a history of not listening to reason; it is no coincidence that privately employed persons in America are not permitted to engage in political discussions with the federal patronage workers who keep our Republic free. It’s bad enough that Liberals are allowed to have some of these jobs themselves.

Further, there is no truth to the rumor that we spent the Annexation proceeds by 2027. It was 2029, at least, before that $15T was spent. But the results were worth it. The same health care for all, and it’s rare that anyone goes to Cuba for treatment now that we’ve forbidden travel again.

And it looks like we now are going to have the same federally protected right to vehicle maintenance as well. Luckily, Canada and Russia are in a bidding war for the annexation of Alaska to get the ball rolling. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Let Sarah Palin come out of Argentinean exile and stir up her self-sufficiency witchcraft with a different government in charge of her precious wilderness.

All I can say is: It’s about time!


**********************************************************************


Crystal ball gazing time is over. It was fun. But don’t laugh yet.

In the ‘60s, poor people couldn’t afford to go to the doctor, and Congress gave us Medicaid. We felt sorry for poor people ... pity is easy to acquire when using other peoples’ money.

In the ‘70s the middle class woke up and discovered it was their money being used to give poor people something they didn’t even have themselves – free doctor visits. And the middle class even had health insurance. What did health insurance pay for, then? Well, catastrophic care. ...like if a car blows through a stop sign and totals your new Chevy Monza. It didn’t pay for routine procedures, like immunizations or oil changes.

Also in the ‘70s, people started screaming to their state legislatures about “Well-baby care! Well-baby care!” “Studies show” that routine pre-natal and neo-natal care is the best predictor of healthy children, and people are forgoing some routine doctor visits ... so why can’t these procedures be covered? After all, those without jobs can get it “free”. ...and state insurance regulators made it so.

Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, item after item after item was nagged about to be included in health coverage ... and state insurance regulators made it so.

And the cost of health insurance went up with each new procedure that was covered.

And the cost of routine doctor visits went up for each new procedure that was covered because now “insurance paid for it”. And the cost of health insurance went up with each new increase in the cost of covered procedures.

And the notion of suing doctors for being unhealthy and having undesired outcomes didn’t help any, either.

The idea of positive rights had long been around: We The People have the right TO ... go to dental school ... have a happy childhood ... be protected from unscrupulous fast food cookeries who use desiccated cat in their “beef” topping ... whatever else. This despite the Constitution saying nothing of the sort.

We The People only have negative rights: the right to NOT ... be subjected to government intrusion into our daily lives, irrespective of pretense or benign claim to benefit. Speech, writing, associations, religion, legal railroading, ... etc.

Positive rights come with financial costs to everyone except the person exercising the right. The right TO health care means that everyone else pays my doctor. Yes, it may just be a half a cent per year per person, but there’s 300 million of us. That adds up.

Negative rights have no cost to anyone except the person exercising them. If I want to stand on the street corner and exercise my right of free speech – where my right is manifest in being left alone by the government to do it – then the cost of building my soap box, buying the bullhorn, and writing a compelling speech that will attract the attention of passers-by is on me.

If freedom of speech were a positive right, then the cost of building the soapbox would be everyone’s; the cost of buying the bullhorn, everyone’s; the cost of speech writing, everyone’s; the cost of corralling the first 400 people to stand and listen, everyone’s. You’d still pay for these things, even if you didn’t want to hear it. And then won’t you wish your rights were negative rights? The right to NOT be compelled by the government to do something you may not want to do?

Hell, you’ll pay for my right to free speech even if I have nothing to say.

There is no right to health, health care, or health coverage in our national charter. Seeing it there takes eyesight aided by self-righteous messiania. There is only the right to be free from the government telling us what to do – even if it’s for our own good. Especially if it’s for our own good.

Alright. You can laugh now.

Short-Suiting the US

Commentary on Playing to Our Short-Suit
© 2011 Ross Williams

Alright, so does Barack Obama have anyone in his administration who knows diplomacy? Does anyone even have the talent for it? I mean, besides the manipulative liar Hillary Clinton? Diplomacy is the patriotic art of lying for one’s country [Ambrose Bierce, Devil’s Dictionary] as well as the art of allowing someone else to have your way [David Frost], not to mention a continuation of war by other means [Clauswitz, or Chou En-Lai, depending on which side of the political spectrum you call home].

Are you telling me that our National Savior can’t find anyone with Clinton’s polished skill at deceit and manipulation having the selfishness to think of the United States first, the foresight to think of the United States last, the arrogant stamina to think of the United States in between, and pass ideological muster with the Neophyte in Chief? There’s 300 million Americans, fergodsake, and the dozen or so major foreign policy advisor seats are filled by a clown car full of boobs and drips ... and Hillary Clinton.

It’s a sad day when the nation’s most insightful foreign policy maker is a corporate loyyer from Chicago, by way of New York, DC and Little Rock, and her main qualification for being our nation’s Head Diplomat [apart from innate talent for self-serving prevarication] is being the sometimes wife of a former President – who filled many of his own administration’s foreign policy advisorships with Republicans.

Speaking of… Why does James Clapper still have a job? It’s obvious why he got it; why’s he still there? “The Muslim Brotherhood is a secular organization...” Uhhh ... huh?

How about the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Secular? Run that by the ACLU and see what they think.

United Jewish Appeal. Secular?

Muslim Brotherhood is only involved in “civic” improvements? The group which fathered Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, the outfit from which al Qaida’s number two leader [and number one strategist] Ayman al-Zawahiri emerged? The group which claims Hamas as its Palestinian outpost? Seriously? That’s “civic improvement” in Obama’s world?

Yikes.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been involved in the periphery of several Egyptian political intrigues in the 80 years of its existence. They are to the muslim world what Freemasons are claimed to be to the christian world. Super-secretive, super-connected, super-involved.

Involved with the assassination attempt on Nasser; involved with the assassination of Sadat; involved in various paramilitary outfits of the pan-islamist jihadi stripe...

Involved also in building Egypt’s mosques, hospitals and schools as well, yes. So’s Hezbollah in Lebanon – in between lobbing mortar shells into Israel. So what? Alexander rebuilt Persepolis ... after he burned it down. The US rebuilt Serbia ... after Clinton and Chirac bombed the snot out of it [and the Chinese embassy]. The US is rebuilding Iraq, as well, and I don’t think I need to discuss that any further.

We’ve heard for close to a decade the sad, wailing refrains from the idiot American left about why America is always wrong and everyone else is always right; how the bad things we do cannot begin to be compensated by the good things; and how the good things that others do more than makes up for their bad things. And while dishonest, disingenuous, and disconnected from reality when such an outlook is found in an idiot Liberal on the street, it becomes dangerous and nationally suicidal when the attitude is found in an American politician with more clout than the City Clerk of Springfield.

Any nation which devotes energy to propping up other countries and tearing itself down is a nation whose only future is in history books. Does no one in our current government understand that?

Furthermore, “to say nothing ... is half the art of diplomacy” [Will Durant] ...

So why are we unable to keep our big fat mouths shut with regards to Egypt? If it’s sad that Hillary Clinton is our nation’s most credible diplomat, then it’s pathetic that Joe Biden is the administration’s least objectionable elected mouthpiece. Joe Biden has stuck his feet in his piehole so often that he has athlete’s tonsils. Yet he managed to make many phone calls to his counterparts in the Middle East this past week without embarrassing himself, humiliating the nation, or causing the US to take center-stage in what is somebody else’s problem.

Barack? What’s your problem? At least Dubya knew – or he had advisors tell him and he listened – to shut his damn mouth now and then when the subject was something he didn’t know ... which was a lot. You know nothing of foreign policy, and neither do those you surrounded yourself with. Why are you blabbering about what needs to happen in Egypt? You haven’t even got a clue what needs to happen in the US – apart from you getting re-elected, and over half of us would be glad to give you a hearty debate on that point.

Here, I’ll make it simple for you.

Egypt is our friend and ally. Have they been a dictatorship with a thin democratic veneer for 25 years? Yep. Doesn’t matter. Again: two-thirds of the nations in the world are run by dictators – in fact, or in practice – and if we are to survive long enough to make it to whichever environmental armageddon floats your boat this week, then we need as many friends as we can get. Some of them are going to be dictators. Get over it.

When our dictator friends are in the process of being overthrown we don’t jump on the pile – unless we’re the one overthrowing them. What ever made you think that adding your self-righteous commentary to the fray was going to help? Or even make you look – to the rest of the world – like someone who had anything intelligent to add? Your middle name, Hussein, can only get you so far in the Arab/muslim world; so does your bowing and prostration to them. Seriously, have you no dignity? Since you act in our name, do you think we have none? Say enough stupid things and the rest of the world won’t care how low you scrape to them; they’ll consider you stupid and, by scraping, a weak, easy target.

And they do. Surely you remember something of the islamic mindset from your time in that madras. Get with it, man. Even Jimmy Carter, the only other US president in the last century to have as ideologically inept a foreign policy as you have, knew better than to cut the Shah of Iran loose after the revolution by Iran’s version of Muslim Brotherhood. The Shah lived out his last days in exile – in Los Angeles.

Do you think we’re too pure to give Mubarak sanctuary? Or cut him some slack while he’s being deposed?

When our regional allies have their little revolutions, only bad things can happen for us. And bad things are most likely, unless we step in and do a little nation-building. Like we’ve done over and over and over again since we were born in the 18th century, so let’s not pretend to be too pure for that, either.

Egypt has a government that is friendly to us ... then they lose that government. What are the odds that they’ll create a replacement government that is friendly to us? Slim? None? Wasn’t that part of the reason for the uprising in the first place? There’s goes an ally. An imperfect friend is always better than an enemy. I’d spend time being surprised that you don’t know this, but ... I recall your qualifications and see who you have advising you.

The single largest outfit in Egypt – besides its military, which has taken turns being brutal to the Egyptian people, and being accommodating of the rioters – is Muslim Brotherhood, the loins from which two terrorist groups were spawned and a third gets support. Do you honestly see this ending well from our perspective?

And do I need to remind you that, as President of the United States, it is our perspective from which you should be seeing all matters of international consequence, and to the absolute exclusion of all others? As far as you need to be concerned, we are the only people who matter to you and your legitimate priorities. Muslim Brotherhood is going to be pulling strings, making use of current fractiousness in Egypt’s military, and if they don’t end up with Egypt’s reins, they’ll probably be a significant partner to those who do.

Not a pleasant picture.

You blew it, badly, by not keeping quiet and backdooring a transitional government in Egypt that would transfer power from a “retiring” Mubarak to a less dictatorial, but still-US-friendly leader. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, Yemen, Turkey – all imperfect friends – are getting nervous and twitchy at your public and self-righteous pronouncements. They saw how quickly you turned on our ally; they consider you a clueless amateur that can't be trusted.

It’s already quite clear that you don’t consider Israel a friend, even an imperfect one, and that is undoubtedly fine and dandy with all the pan-islamist yahoos taking heart by the rioters who toppled a US-friendly nation, and who see Israel as the 51st state in our union. Wither Israel, the US. Count on it.

Is it not bad enough that there are already two nations ruled by “secular” islamists who want to wipe Israel off the map, and a third who isn’t ruled by anyone at all who does as well? Not to mention the Palestinians. I’m sure it’ll be better with Egypt added to the list. Haven’t we been there, done that? Again, even Jimmy Carter, the only foreign policy fool more foolish than you, recognized which side our pita bread is buttered in this area of the world.

None of these events in Egypt are going to have any kind of resonance with masses of people in Saudi Arabia, I’m sure. All we can see is that the Saud family is dictators. If they get overthrown it can only be by “popular will”, and that is universally a good thing – except in “healthcare” “reform”, huh.

You do realize, don’t you, that the vox populii in Saudi Arabia belongs to the Wahabi sect of the Sunni muslims. You do realize, don’t you, that these people are the religious zealotry behind al Qaida, and their first target even before the US, even before they invented al Qaida, was the Saudi royal family – another of our friends and allies. Is that still a good thing?

You do understand, don’t you, that it’s extremely rare to overthrow a dictatorship and immediately replace it with a democracy. Right? The list of nations which have done that consists of ... um ... us. The US. And many would argue whether or not it was “immediate”. All other democracies that exist evolved slowly through piecemeal relinquishing of centralized authority [or by force] – often by means of one or more civil wars somewhere in the process. “Letting the people get their way” is virtually guaranteed to result in a different dictatorship. One that, not to belabor a point or anything, is not friendly to the people who count and that you need to look out for: us.

One dictatorship for another, but this one an enemy ... yes, I can see why that would appeal to certain Americans: because they are self-loathing, suicidal idiots.

Stop posing for your statue long enough to do what’s best for the country. Our country. Not someone else’s.