Political Class Craziness, Greed, and Incompetence From Around The World

Although the American political class provides daily examples of craziness, greed, and incompetence, they have not cornered the market on such behavior. Recent news accounts prove that the afflictions of our political class exist elsewhere in the world:

- A November 1, 2010 Associated Press report reviewed the status of a government housing development in New Delhi, India. The original intent of the Adarsh Housing Society shelter effort was to provide affordable shelter to the wounded Indian war veterans, disabled veterans, and the widows of Indian soldiers killed in battle. Sounds like a wonderful concept.

However, according to the article, the effort turned into a huge scam with housing units being sold far below market price to top politicians, their relatives, and retired Indian military generals. Additionally, rather than a regular, six story apartment building, the original plans were never implemented and in their place, a 31 story luxury high rise was built despite violating zoning and environmental laws. The original apartments were budgeted to be sold for about $130,000 but once the political class got involved, the cost of the units in the luxury apartment building now go for about $1.8 million. The highest ranking local politician offered to resign when it was uncovered that his mother-in-law and other relatives had apartments in the luxury high rise.

Sound familiar? The politicians vote themselves the perks while the less fortunate of a society suffer.

- In England, an article in the Daily Mail that was summarized in the November 29, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, reviewed how the new Prime Minister of England, David Cameron, was getting along. Mr. Cameron has been on a government downsizing and expense reduction mission since taking office, reducing Britain's military, government payroll, and other government agencies.

The problem is that he has not taken the same tact with regards to the government agencies and expenses that touch his life. According to the article, he has created a new staff of public relations experts solely dedicated to creating a brand campaign that expands and improves his image. He has created a new job title called "head of e-media" which pays a salary of $120,000 a year and whose duties are only to write about Cameron on blogs and Twitter. He has a personal photographer whose $56,000 a year job is to take positive pictures of Cameron at work and at play. He has a "special advisor" whose sole duty is to tend to the wardrobe needs of him and his family.

Sound familiar? Everyone needs to sacrifice for the good of the country... except for those that are running the country whose wages and the benefits of their jobs far exceed those of the citizens they should be humbly representing.

- According to an article in the London Observer, as summarized in the November 19, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi allegedly personally intervened in a police matter in order to get theft charges dropped against a 17 year old belly dancer. The belly dancer claims that the Prime Minister invited her to his personal villa for an "erotic ritual" which involved a cast of naked women. The Prime Minister's response to the accusations: "It's better to have a passion for beautiful girls than to be gay." An offensive remark and certainly not a denial.

The article goes on to summarize past tawdry incidents in Berlusconi's past. These include the promise of jobs for young women in exchange for "their attentions" and the gift of a pricey necklace he gave to an 18 year old woman (Berlusconi is 74 years old.) The article goes on to say that as a result of all of these distractions, the government work and cooperation that needs to take place between Berlusconi and Parliament has brought the Italian government to a virtual standstill.

Sound familiar? Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, Jim MacGreevey, John Ensign, Mark Sanford, Gary Hart, Gary Condit, Larry Craig... Government functions negatively affected by political class sexual exploits.

- According to a Washington Post article by David Ignatius that was summarized in the December 3, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, the Afghan government and NATO military leaders have been negotiating with a Taliban representative in an effort to find a middle ground for peace talks. Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour has been flown via British military helicopter from the countryside to the capital of Kabul a number of times to hold face-to-face negotiations with the Afghan president and has been given large sums of money for his trouble. The top U.S. general in Afghanistan hailed the talks and negotiations as a path to reconciliation and peace.

One problem with this effort. The Taliban negotiator is not Mansour but a total imposter who apparently has no connection to the Taliban whatsoever. Officials now believe that it was just a con game played on the upper echelons of the Afghan government and British and American military, perpetuated by an individual whose sole aim was to get some money for himself. Maybe that is why the Taliban constantly claimed that they were not in negotiations with the Afghan government, because they really weren't.

Sound familiar? Didn't a Virginia  husband and wife gain deep entry to a formal White House dinner even though they were not invited and had absolutely no ties to the hosts, the Obamas, or any of the guests? Reminds me of an old Far Side cartoon where a bunch of bears are standing around a coffin when the bear in the coffin sits up and shouts: "I was hibernating, don't you guys ever take a pulse?" Doesn't the U.S. government ever take a pulse or check an id?

- Another article in the December 3, 2010 issue of The Week magazine reviewed how the Mexican government is urging any Mexicans, who are living in the United States and who are returning to Mexico for the Christmas holidays, to travel in convoys when they return. This is a safety suggestion since many returning Mexicans are known to be carrying money and gifts and could be targets of the drug cartels, robbers, and kidnappers. The government has actually set up a convoy coordination agency and suggests that all holiday traveling be done in daylight.

Sound familiar? Fortunately, this situation has not yet happened in the United States. But unless we come up with a strategy that effectively addresses the drug problem in this country, who knows when and how deeply the Mexican drug cartel-induced  lawlessness will cross the border and prompt similar warnings in this country?

See, we are not the only country who has to deal with corrupt, pompous, sexually active, and incompetent politicians. Makes you wonder what type of people are drawn to the world of politics, regardless of where they live. The sad part is we are subjected to their craziness, greed, and incompetence without ever getting a major problem solved that would affect a large segment of the population.

That is why term limits, as explained in Step 39 of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," is a good idea for this country as well as the rest of the world. Better to get a hard working, dedicated politician for a short amount of time in office than be saddled with a long term politician that gets nothing done accept find more and more ways to enrich himself and slow down the functions of government.

And while we are at it, we should also implement Steps 26 and 29 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." Step 26 would implement a process to address the drug problem in the United States and Step 29 would implement a process to address the illegal immigration problem in the country, two steps that are needed to prevent the Mexican convoy problem from becoming a United States convoy problem. That is one act of craziness we do not need in this country.


Our recent 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:


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

Why There Will Not be Another British Invasion (And That Is Good News!)

For those of you that, like me, came of age in the 1960s, you remember the so-called British invasion of that time. Great musical groups came to the U.S. from Britain and brought some great British rock and roll sounds with them including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Animals, Herman's Hermits, Freddie and The Dreamers and who knows how many more. These "invasion" years were great times and great music.

But today, and in a different context, I think we can confidently say that there will not be another British invasion anytime soon and that is good news. Why? Consider the details from an Associated Press article from October 19, 2010 entitled, "UK's Cameron Announces Military Austerity Plan:"

• British Prime Minister David Cameron announced a sweeping military austerity plan for the British government to help reduce the national debt of the country.
• The country will reduce its armed forces by thousands of troops and a whopping 25,000 civilian staff.
• It will delay a program to upgrade its traditional nuclear defenses.
• While two new aircraft carriers will be built, one will be mothballed immediately and the other will not have enough aircraft for it to be serviceable until 2019, only because construction contracts and budgets have already been committed. In the universal and  perverted government budget process, it is less expensive to build the carriers and not use them than it is to stop building them. At least they thought through the process.
• Numerous military bases will be closed.
• The country's nuclear weapon stockpile will be reduced 25% from 160 warheads to 120 warheads.
• The changes would reduce the overall defense budget by 8% over current levels within four years.
• The new defense budget will still be more expensive than the recommended NATO guidelines.
• Planned expenditures to replace Britain's four nuclear-armed submarines will be delayed until 2016 and the number of warheads on each of the new submarines will be reduced, saving almost $1.2 billion.
• Cameron stated that Britain's military will refocus its defense efforts on its special forces and develop expertise to repel cyper threats.

Wow! A politician that has the courage to challenge his country's military-industrial complex, understands that the out sized and in many cases, unnecessary, military expenditures were helping to inflate an unacceptable national budget deficit, and realizes that the military Britain has in place today is ill-equipped to counter the new security threats in the world today. Kudos to Mr. Cameron for doing the right thing for his country vs. doing the right thing for his campaign donors and political future.

What could the U.S. learn from this positive and strategic effort in Britain?

• We should be able to downsize our out sized international military deployment by bringing home our 50,000 or so troops in Germany, our 10,000 or so troops in Britain, our 27,000 or so troops in South Korea, and our 50,000 or so troops from Japan. The Iron Curtain is down so we need much fewer troops stationed in Europe, South Korea has one of the strongest economies in the world so let them defend themselves against the North Koreans, and Japan is now an ally so there is no need to occupy their land. Realize that these deployments are from another age and era and are no longer necessary.
• Bring home the remaining 50,000 troops in Iraq as Obama the candidate promised to do but Obama the President has failed to do, with him just continuing the plan of deployment that Bush had in place.
• Stop recruiting new people for the armed forces and use attrition to reduce the hundreds of thousands of troops returning from around the world, substantially reducing military deployment costs and personnel costs.
• Refocus some of these freed up troops to counter the Islamic terrorism threat now facing the country in so many different ways including nuclear terrorism, biological terrorism, chemical terrorism, home grown terrorism, and cyber terrorism. As you can see, our biggest national security threat today and for the immediate future is terrorism, not the Iron Curtain, not North Korea's traditional military capacity, and not the potential of Pearl Harbor II.
• Close unnecessary military bases, doing it through another Base Closing Commission if the current members of the political class do not have the courage to do it themselves, further reducing the military budget.
• Delay or cancel new weapons systems, naval ship building, and other military build programs that do not address the terrorism threats listed above regardless of the impact on a local economy.
• Improve, enlarge, and redeploy special forces troops to counter foreign based terrorism threats, avoiding massive foreign military intrusions like Iraq and Afghanistan wherever possible.

Taking these steps would reduce our deficit spending, reduce our meddling in other countrys' affairs, and focus our armed forces on real threats, not past threats. It would help clean up our election processes since there would be less money available to give out as earmarks in exchange for re-election campaign contributions.

If we achieved Britain's target of 8% reduction in military spending, we would be able to trim about $60 to $70 billion out of our huge military budget. I believe that 8% is a conservative estimate since we have so much more wasted resources deployed under our Defense Department budget. In fact, if our defense spending was in line with the NATO benchmark of 2% of a country's gross domestic product, our defense budget would be about $280 billion or about $420 billion less than it currently is. Thus, an 8% reduction seems to be very doable and a little on the low side.

Why would we not do this? Because it does not appear that we have the forward thinking, problem solving politicians that Britain has. Obama has been in office for almost two years and nothing has changed relative to what the Bush administration would have done it if was still in control. The defense budget is still way too big, our troop deployment around the world is still too extensive, we are building and planning weapons systems that nobody thinks will be useful in the terrorism world we live in today, and most of our troops are trained and deployed to fight the types of wars we are highly unlikely to face any time soon. As a result, we spend a lot of money for less protection than we probably had years ago. Not a good deal but a deal I do not see changing anytime soon, based on the current administration's actions and plans and the lack of backbone of our current political class.

Thus, it is good we will not be seeing another British invasion soon since they are focused on evolving their national defense resources so that they more effectively and more efficiently protect their nation from today's threats, and are far less likely to invade any nation under this progressive strategy. Maybe we can take a hint from Mr. Cameron and his associates and ensure that the United States does not do any invasions either while simultaneously increasing the protection per defense dollar spent.


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.



Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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