Rocky Mountain Straight Talk

Originally published 19 January, 2006.

As all observers can see, with Iran it is going to be a case of who blinks first. They know that we know they are trying to make nuclear weapons, but they also know we can’t prove it. They think they can lie about it right up until they bomb Israel, because by then it will be too late for anyone to stop them.

There is another weird aspect to this standoff: Religious clerics have been known openly to say that, while we value life, they value death. Anyone who doubts that need only look at their eagerness to blow themselves up in order to kill others. If that doesn’t add a new dimension to this explosive situation (no pun intended), I don’t know what would.

Israel cannot and will not let themselves be blown off the map, as Iran’s leader has said they intend to do, and if it comes to life or death, Israel will launch a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. That will bring the wrath of the entire world down upon their heads, because as warlike and aggressive as several other Middle Eastern countries are, Israel is the one hated around the world.

Why? Because Jews live there, and almost all the countries of Europe and the Middle East hate Jews. Why? I can’t explain racial hatred. I never could, but that is the motivation of a great deal of the world’s people, and anyone who denies that just doesn’t know history.

Our president has already sent warplanes to the immediate area. I think they are there because, if Israel is forced to attack, it will be imperative that we attack, also. My reasoning is that Israel must not be made to carry the world’s wrath alone for what is, and long has been, a global problem.

Though Iran could – and eventually would – attack Europe, they would deny that was their intent right up until they dropped their bombs on France or Germany. So, if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, both France and Germany will attack Israel verbally and with UN sanctions right up until Irani bombers turn Paris and Berlin into smoking trash heaps.

A political leader has said we would have to use a nuclear bomb to get through those hardened bunkers, but I have been told that anyone who understands phosphorous knows better than that. I hope that is true, because I don’t want us to be the first to go nuclear in that region.

Retired Air Force General McInerny says we learned how to break through hardened bunkers by failing to break through Saddam’s bunkers. He says we can do it. That’s good because he also says there are a lot of them to break through. We know they learned from the Israelis’ having taken out Saddam’s nuclear reactor in the ‘80s that they must not put the entire facility in one place, as Saddam had done. So, their nuclear facilities are spread all over Iran. McInerny says we should get other Middle Eastern countries to join in the attack, but that sounds like mission impossible to me. Let’s hope I am wrong. If there was ever a time when I wanted to be wrong, this is it.

So, with Osama bin Laden saying he is going to attack us again, with Iran saying they really are not making a bomb, while doing so, with Zarqawi running a terrorist network in Iraq and killing hundreds of Iraqis and some Americans, with Islamists plotting attacks in several of our country’s mosques, what are half of our homegrown political leaders doing? They are putting everything they have into forcing our president to forgo the wiretapping of foreign terrorists’ phone conversations with their fellow conspirators in this country. Why? They are trying to score political points that will help them win the next election. If that allows them to attack us, Oh Well! They can always say it is Bush’s fault.

Does this make sense to anyone but themselves? Is there any way any of them can guarantee they will not be one of those killed in the next terrorist attack on our country? It could be one of their loved ones, but it just doesn’t matter. Politics trumps everything. Iran’s malevolent leader and his obsession with building and using a nuclear bomb is no more than a minor distraction. All that matters is winning elections.

If some funny-looking guy from outer space were to stumble onto our planet and watch both the terrorists with their murderous obsessions and our politicians with their mindless ambition, he would roll his eyes, call his mother ship and say, "Beam me up Scotty, there’s no intelligent life on this planet."

One of the Watergate men, G. Gordon Liddy, has written a book entitled "When I Was a Kid This Was A Free Country." Though I am younger than he by a few years, I, too, can remember when this was a free country. Almost.

Woodrow Wilson made some egregious inroads into our freedoms, then FDR, the Congress, and the Supreme Court made it worse, and have continued to do so. It seems as though Wilson forcibly opened the barn door, after which our freedoms began to be stolen, one by one, by the others previously mentioned.

It is possible that a rural Westerner would notice the steady erosion of our freedoms more than Eastern city people. They are used to being herded, penned, coerced and sold out by their elected representatives more than we are. Westerners used to be more willing to fire their politicians than Easterners, who tended to be owned outright by unions, big companies and crooked politicians.

We rural Westerners worked the land, grew and stored our own food, went without when necessary, struggled against the climate, the weather, and every pesky critter that threatened our survival and/or well-being.

Our school teachers were often related to us, and if we got out of line, you may rest assured our parents didn’t sue the school or the teacher. If Aunt Betsy told your father – who just happened to be Aunt Betsy’s brother – that you were ill-behaved at school, chances were very good that you, not the teacher or the school, would pay a price for your bad behavior.

This is all in the past. Even rural Westerners get most of their food at the grocery store, now, just as city people do. Very few get their milk and eggs from their own animals and make their own butter and cheese. Very few grow and store their own food. Even fewer Western kids have to do the milking and feed and water the stock before school. They, too, have become dependent upon the grocery store.

The loss of that lifestyle has made Americans a dependent people. The citizens of New Orleans were completely helpless after Katrina. Their lives depended upon commerce, and there was no commerce. Everything they needed to survive was under water, even though a goodly percentage of their houses were not destroyed.

When we gave away our material independence for convenience and ease, we gave away our freedom. Almost all the American people would be completely dependent upon the government in any such emergency. They live in apartments or high-rise buildings and can do absolutely nothing for themselves. After Katrina, only predators and thieves thrived. Decent people were helpless. In like circumstances that situation would be repeated all across this country.

Our various governments have consistently and persistently taken our freedoms away, and we have let them do it, because politicians have persuaded us that we would benefit by so doing. Various groups, especially environmentalists and the ACLU, have indoctrinated many of our people, convincing them that it is right and noble to take away others’ rights and freedoms, because those others are abusing Mother Earth. These groups have learned that suing any person, school, business or government for what they want is the way to go. The case may involve an outrageous theft of the rights of the innocent people involved, but it doesn’t matter; it works.

The victim often cannot afford the legal costs to defend himself, so a lawsuit effectively deprives him of his rights, even though he might have had a case that easily could have been won.

When a Montana rancher opened his door one night, because his stock were making a racket, a grizzly bear reared up in front of him, right on his porch. As any intelligent, grizzly-wise rancher would, he shot it. He was taken to court, charged with provoking the bear, and fined thousands of dollars. Why? Because common sense no longer applies. Environmentalists have taken over much of our legal system, rising to judgeships, and they have persistently deprived the common people of their most basic rights of self-protection. Thanks to their perverted value system, an enraged grizzly two feet from your nose has more rights than you do.

Can we stop this disastrous situation before we lose all our freedoms? We could, but most likely, we won’t. We would have to be willing to elect fighters who are aware of what has happened to this country, and who are as determined to reverse the situation as we must be, and we have a dearth of such, and one of the reasons we have that dearth is because we are too lazy to find good people, then get them elected to public office.

Unfortunately, we seem to have elected a large number of not-so-good Senators and Representatives who are willing to give our country to Mexico. Equally unfortunately, there seem to be a large number of illegal Mexicans with the will to take it from us by political force.

At least Mexico has sense enough to recognize a good thing when they see it. The number of dollars illegals send back to Mexico to their families is exceeded only by the dollars Mexico gets for selling their oil. That makes for a pretty good income for old Vicente, and why should he make changes that would reduce that income, when we don’t seem to be smart enough to put a stop to it?

Yes, we could salvage our country. It is not too late. The only real question is: Do we have the will to both start and win the fight before it is too late?