Politicians Say The Darnest, And Most Idiotic Things, Part 1: Hillary's Gaffe Fest and Barack Lives In A Different, Less Violent World Than Us

We have spent the past few days destroying political class myths that our politicians try to pawn off on us everyday. They do so for two reasons:

• First, they want to avoid addressing and resolving the major issues of our times either because they do not want to resolve those issues, do not have the will to resolve those issues, or they do not have the intelligence to resolve those issues
• Second, by keeping false issues and myths alive, they can leverage those myths for their own political good, energizing their supporters behind these false issues and demonizing their political opponents for their own self-enrichment and perpetual reelection to office.

Whatever their intentions, they spend more time perpetuating false realities to their own benefit without ever helping Americans overcome major issues facing them and their families. The first post in this myth destruction series can be accessed at:

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We will continue to analyze and dissect this myth issue this week but from a slightly different perspective. We will look at and examine some recent inane, idiotic, out of touch, and abominable quotes from current politicians. After reviewing them, it will become clear why no major issues ever get resolved in this country while the political myths continue to grow. 

You will see that we may have allowed our election processes to become so perverted that we end up with people in Washington that are so out of touch with reality, so wrapped up in their own myths, or so short of brain power that nothing constructive ever gets done. These conclusions are not based on our analysis but simply by reviewing these politicians own words and how stupid they really are.

We have done this exercise a number of times before. Some of these previous posts include:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2010/10/politicians-say-darndest-things.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/10/our-book-love-my-country-loathe-my.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/10/politicians-say-darndest-things.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/poiticians-say-darnedest-thingsand-that.html

In our past posts, you will find a Congressman who was concerned that the island of Guam would physically tip over in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, You will find a Texas Congresswoman who asked out loud whether the Mars rover explorer vehicle would be visiting the site on the moon where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed. You will find a California Congresswoman who stated those citizens opposed to certain Presidential policies should go straight to hell. 

The following paragraphs follow up these past inane quotes with the latest from the American political class. The myths they focus on may not be real but their inability to comprehend reality and resolve issues is not a myth, it is the reality of their incompetence.

1) Quote: “The World Is Less Violent Than It Has Ever Been” Barack Obama

Comment: This has to fall into the myth category vs. reality category. As always, the President provided no proof of this assertion, assuming that we should just believe what he says. But given that he was more or less crowned as the top political liar in 2013 by the Washington Post, that is not an option. Maybe he did not consider the following and current sites of violence or does not recognize them in his reality:

• Iraq is imploding in a violent civil war.
• Syria is imploding in a violent civil war.
• Libya is imploding in a violent civil war.
• The Sudan has already imploded in a violent civil war.
• China is battling a violent Islamic insurgence.
• Russia is battling a violent Islamic insurgence.
• Nigeria is battling a violent Islamic insurgence.
• Somalia pirates are running rampant both on land and at sea.
• The Ukraine and Russia are waging war over parts of Ukrainian territory.
• Central and South American governments are battling violent drug and criminal gangs and cartels.

Doubtful Mr. President, mythical Mr. President, as far as your assertion that the world is less violent than ever.

2) Quote: “Whoever [women politician] runs has to recognize that the American political system is probably the most difficult, even brutal, in the world.” Hillary Clinton

Comments: There is little doubt that Hillary Clinton is trying to position herself for a White House run in 2016. One myth that she is trying to build up is that the mean cruel world is against her because she is a women, not because of her inability to actually get anything positive accomplished. 

This myth building was on view this past weekend during her endless tour of news shows. She maintained that running for office in the United States is not easy and that in fact: “Politics is so unpredictable. Whoever runs has to recognize that the American political system is probably the most difficult, even brutal, in the world.”

Huh? The American political system is the most brutal in the world, especially as it pertains to women?

Let’s review some realities:

• In some countries around the world, girls are not allowed to be educated, making it brutally hard to run for political office if you do not know how to read
• In some countries around the world, women are not allowed out in public unless they are with their husbands or a male member of their family, making it pretty brutal to run for office if you can only go outside when your husband allows it.
• An article from the Independent Journal Reviews correctly pointed out that some women politicians around the world, e.g., Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, Malala Yousafzai of Afghanistan, and others have either been assassinated, imprisoned, or who have survived assassination attempts all because they were running for political office, promoting women’s rights, human rights, or simply for being a female political figure.

Sorry, Hillary, compared to the rest of the world, all you have to do is answer some reporters’ questions without fear of your husband’s wrath, assassination, imprisonment, etc. That is not brutal, that is what happens to politicians in a democracy, citizens deserve to ask questions and receive honest answers. To suggest that you are somehow brutalized by that process is just a myth being created to build sympathy for yourself.

3) Quote: “You have no reason to remember, but we came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt. We had no money when we got there and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources…” Hillary Clinton

Comments: Another fictional myth to enhance her aura. Tough to believe they were broke considering:

• Her husband was eligible for an annual government pension many times larger than what the average American household earns. 
• He had just gotten done earning well over a million dollars while in office for eight years, eight years in which your family did not have to pay for room or board.
• He would have untold numbers of speaking engagements opportunities after he left office.
• It was no secret he would make millions writing his memoirs.
• She had book royalties coming in from a previous book she published.
• She would be in line for massive speaking fees also.
• She made it clear in this interview where this quote came from that the Clintons had MULTIPLE houses that they needed to afford and maintain. Many Americans have trouble affording one house and if things were so bad for the Clintons, why not sell a house or two?
• And finally, shortly after her husband left office, they spent anywhere from an estimated $3 to $5 MILLION on their daughter’s wedding. I am sorry, you do not go from flat broke to wasting possibly $5 million on one wedding in such a short time.

Still, no sympathy here either Hillary. Your claim of being flat broke is a myth as large as they come, you cannot claim that you rose from poverty to become the first female American President.

4) Quote: “These 5 guys are not a threat to the United States.” Hillary Clinton

Comments: Today somehow turned into a Hillary Clinton myth and quote fest but we will get to other inane political quotes in the next few days. This quote is in reference to the five top terror leaders that President Obama recently released for a captured American soldier, a soldier who is highly likely also a deserter. Most knowledgeable intelligence and terrorism experts, both inside and outside of the Obama administration, would disagree with Ms. Clinton on this quote. 

How she thinks that these people will not return to their evil ways against their own people and the rest of the world, without providing any proof whatsoever, is beyond comprehension. We have had them locked up for over a decade. Do we really think that they are not going to be out for vengence at their first opportunity? Remember that Bin Laden planned the entire 9-11 operation from a cave in the Taliban controlled mountains of Afghanistan. 

Thinking that the island of Guam is going to tip over is ludicrous and embarrassing but not going to result in the deaths of many Americans. Trying to mythically wish these evil men out of reality is ludicrous, embarrassing, and extremely dangerous to Americans.

That will do it for today but more quotes and more political class mythical thinking and idiocy in the next few days.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The BP Oil Spill, Our Political Class, and Pollution of The World

Consider the following examples of pollution that were presented in an article by Ronald Bailey that appeared in the October, 2010 issue of Reason magazine (after reading the four examples, figure out what they have in common):

• The Nigerian government owns all of that country's petroleum resources. Since 1966, over 456 million gallons of that state-owned oil has been spilled which is comparable to having an Exxon Valdes disaster every year since 1966. Although oil accounts for 90% of Nigeria's exports and 80% of the government's revenues, the Nigeria political class has handled the industry so poorly that thew national petroleum company is now insolvent from a financial perspective. The risk of more pollution from spills is likely to increase as the Nigeria government starts drilling in more remote and dangerous terrain. Mr. Bailey notes that the Wall Street Journal's ranking of countries in order of economic freedom, places Nigeria at 106 out of 183 countries that were ranked, describing Nigeria as "mostly unfree," i.e. the government runs most of the operations in the country.
• In China, a country that ranks 140th out of 183 in economic freedom (another "mostly unfree" nation), 62 underground coal fires have been burning since the 1960s. These fires started when the country's communist government ran the entire coal industry in the country. The underground coal fires burn more than 20 million tons of coal annually, contributing 2-3% of the entire world's total fossil fuel greenhouse gases.
• Haiti is ranked 141, just after China on the economic freedom scale, and is also designated as "mostly unfree." According to Mr. Bailey's article, Haiti is currently 98% deforested, making it highly susceptible to storm and hurricane damage. 95% of Haiti's real estate property is owned by the government, giving private Haitian citizens no reason to protect their own property since they own virtually none of the property in Haiti. Haiti shares the same island with the Dominican Republic where virtually no large scale deforestation has occurred so it must be something in how each country manages it's assets that result in the dramatic difference from an environmental perspective.
• In central Asia, the Aral Sea, the fourth largest lake in the world in 1960, it has shrunk by almost 70% in size since then. Throughout that time, the central communist government in Moscow had repeatedly diverted feeding rivers away from the Aral to support large scale irrigation projects in the Asian deserts of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. These now independent countries get poor economic freedom ratings of 82 and 158, respectively.

As you probably guessed it, in every example, the source of the pollution was caused by each country's political class, who rule in a strongly undemocratic manner, where property rights and personal freedom is minimized. The point Mr. Bailey is making is that when faceless government bureaucrats manage their country's' problems, they are unlikely to have a personal stake in the how things are done, just how to get the desired or demanded results. Since these bureaucrats and politicians do not personally own their country's property, they have no stake in protecting them. As a result, four of the world's worst environmental disasters can directly track their source to government actions.

Unfortunately, dictatorships do not have a monopoly on the pollution of their countries. Consider a few examples what the United States government has done to Mother Nature in our nation:

• The Department of Defense generates 400,000 tons of hazardous waste a year, which is more then the waste generated by the five largest chemical companies in the country combined, and this mountain of waste is outside the enforcement capability of the Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, the biggest potential polluter in the country, the Federal government, does not have to abide by the same rules that the rest of us have to abide by.
• The Tinker, Oklahoma Air Force base was supposed to recycle all of its hazardous waste byproducts but until recently decided to sell it, not recycle it. Tests have found higher than expected pollution levels from these materials in the underground water sources close to the surface.
• The U.S. Army's Rocky Mountain Arsenal is only six miles outside of Denver, Colorado. One source I found called the arsenal the "most polluted piece of ground in America." It cost $40 million to clean up the arsenal's 600,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil, soil that was identified as contaminated back in the early 1950s.
• The Federal government runs the 59 Tennessee Valley Authority power plants. While these power plants expels large amounts of greenhouse gases every year, they too are exempt from Federal environmental regulation.

The same effect is going on in these Federal government examples as the examples pointed out by Mr. Bailey throughout the world. These properties are owned by the government and run by the politicians, they have no personal stake in preserving the properties since they do not personally own them. As a result, the biggest pollution source in this country is the very government that is supposed to prevent the pollution and which has exempted itself from its own regulation and oversight.

Which brings us to the government's role in the BP oil spill:

• No one seemed to care that those government employees that were supposed to safeguard the Gulf from an oil spill were either busy surfing the Net for pornography, accepting vacation trips and gifts from the same companies they were supposed to be regulating, were busy setting up career changes to move to the same companies they were supposed to be monitoring for safety, or were neglecting to do the required number of rig inspections. These employees had no personal stake in the safety of the Gulf, they did not own it (the United States government owns it), and the political class obviously gave them no incentive or direction to take a personal ownership stake in its safety.
• The political class legislated a trivial $75 million cap on liability for environmental and economic damages from an oil spill. This released the oil companies operating in the Gulf from having any kind of corporate stake in the environmental condition of the Gulf, they could just buy their way out of a oil spill for a relatively nominal amount of money.
• And the most atrocious piece of political class legislation, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 encouraged and incented the oil companies to go further and further out in the Gulf for oil drilling. The further out they went, the less and less they had to pay the Federal government in royalties. The chance for making billions in profits at the risk of millions in fines made the safety of the Gulf environment secondary.

We trusted environmental safety to our politicians, all of which all over the world caused some of the greatest environmental disasters the earth has ever seen. These politicians were in charge but were not responsible for the ensuing disasters. In all cases, they had no personal stake or ownership of the resources they were supposed to be safeguarding. The scary thing about this phenomenon in America is that the Federal government owns almost two thirds of the physical land in this country. Imagine the potential for widespread ecological damage like Rocky Mt. Arsenal, Tinker Air Force Base, and the Tennessee Valley Authority coal plants.

Several steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would address these issues:

• Step 1 would downsize the size of government by 10% a year for five years. Included in this downsizing would be the selling of the 70,000 or so government buildings that no longer serve a purpose (as we discussed in a previous post) and should also include the sell off of government land, with proceeds going to reduce our national debt. If the right conditions and laws for private ownership were put in place, people, companies (oil and mineral exploration companies), and organizations (e.g. the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society) could own Federal land, have a personal stake in keeping that land safe, and would be placed under the enforcement authority of the EPA.
• Step 34 would replace Congressional members sitting on Congressional committees that are responsible for the Federal departments and agencies that end up polluting public lands, i.e. they would have a personal stake, if not a property ownership stake, in protecting the earth. In the BP oil spill case, any Congressional person sitting on those committees that oversaw the Interior Department's operations, those operations that were negligent in safeguarding the Gulf, wold be removed from their committee post. Before these politicians are removed form their post, they would remove those federal employees from the posts which they failed at. This would put a federal employee's career stake in play regarding public land, air, and water when a personal ownership stake is not possible.
• While Step 7 would prevent any politician from accepting campaign donations from anyone or any organization except a private citizen, a short term solution in the spirit of this step would not allow any politician to accept campaign donations from any industry that the politician has Congressional committee oversight responsibility for. In the BP case, no politician sitting on any committee responsible for oil exploration and safety would be allowed to accept campaign donations form that industry.

The main point to take away from Mr. Bailey's article and this post is destroy the myth that government and politicians are caretakers of the earth. They are not trusted caretakers, mainly because they have no actual or administrative stake in keeping the earth whole. Another example where "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" is not the case. Make them accountable by dumping the incumbents in the fall elections and making sure that the three steps above are implemented to ensure that accountability is instituted, from the lowest Federal employee to the highest ranking Federal department heads and Congressional members.

Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/