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The American disconnect

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9:56 am

In last week’s article, I wrote about the importance of pursuing the truth in the scandalous atmosphere of Washington politics, and an essential component of this truth is accountability. But in a democracy, elected officials and unelected bureaucrats only answer to their wrongdoing in the presence of a well-informed public concerned with the correct management of the government and its power.

Unfortunately, it seems that a significant majority of Americans are disconnecting from the political sphere. Due to a combination of fatigue, uncaring, and a simple lack of information, voters are generally unfazed by or even ignorant of the scandals currently plaguing the Obama administration. According to Gallup, President Obama’s approval rating has remained roughly the same for the past month and a half, an astounding feat in light of the sheer number of crises that have been brought to light just in the past few weeks.

This disconnect is made especially clear when it is viewed on video. Fox News producer Jesse Watters traveled to Lower Manhattan to interview Obama supporters about the scandalous atmosphere in Washington in a piece that aired on May 22nd on The O’Reilly Factor. Here are some of the responses Mr. Watters got:

WATTERS: Which scandal really, really gets your goat?

LADY 1: Would the Boston Marathon bombing be considered a scandal?

WATTERS: Have you heard about the IRS scandal?

LADY 2: No I have not.

And then this interesting exchange…

WATTERS: Does the AP spying story bother you?

MAN: No.

WATTERS: Now why doesn’t it?

MAN: I actually don’t know anything about that.

And then this one…

WOMAN: I always assume that a president will also be a criminal. There is no way to be an honest president of a dishonest country.

These, among a number of other creative and totally ignorant responses, is a clear illustration of the problem that our country faces at this crucial juncture. The reelection of President Obama came on the backs of ill-informed voters, voters who knew no differences between Mitt Romney and their president beyond skin color and party affiliation. And now, in the midst of three outrageous scandals, the only thing that stands between the anger of the American people and President Obama is the ignorance of the American people themselves. I guarantee you that most people who are not diehard liberals and are instead low-information, bandwagon voters will be immensely disappointed and even angry at the president if they learn more about these scandals. But until these people learn about these stories and make a public outcry, there will be no repentance from the Obama administration and no accountability whatsoever.

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The truth pursuit in the IRS, Benghazi, and AP scandals

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8:28 pm

Voltaire, a famous writer and satirist of the Enlightenment Era, once wrote that humankind should “love truth” and “pardon error,” and such a poignant epigram could not be more well-suited to American politics today. Since the start of Barack Obama’s second term in office, the executive branch has been rocked by scandal after scandal, ensnaring a number of agencies ranging from the Justice Department to the IRS and even the State Department. The IRS reported that it had targeted conservative groups for undue scrutiny, infringing upon the political right of expression that has, until now, been an untouchable liberty of the American people. And later in the month, it was learned that the Justice Department had performed a warrantless sweep of the phone records of Associated Press journalists in order to snoop on their anonymous news sources, and to the continued annoyance of the President’s administration, the congressional investigation into Benghazi has ground on undeterred.

I am sure that most of you know at least the basics of these scandals, and if you don’t, you can find them on TV or on the internet. However, many people – particularly those sympathetic to President Obama – feel that the scrutiny into these scandals is unfair and unwarranted, even describing it as partially or entirely politically motivated by Republicans wishing to oust their nemesis from office. In all fairness, this is a legitimate complaint; after all, since when have Republicans or Democrats been apolitical about their party’s tactical decisions? Nonetheless, it is important to note the cruciality of this truth pursuit in the context of the Obama administration’s actions in the past few months in response to these crises.

Let’s go back to the 80s, a decade glorified by conservatives and dominated by the eminent Republican hero Ronald Reagan. In November 1986, the Iran-contra scandal exploded into the news. Reagan’s administration, or at least its subordinates, had been coordinating a series of arms shipments to Iran and the funneling of the money garnered from these shipments to the contra rebels in Nicaragua, a clear violation of congressional mandate and of executive authority. In under three weeks, President Reagan appeared before the nation to apologize and explain the incident to the American people. Although deflecting personal responsibility, he cooperated with a full investigation by a specially called review board to investigate the matter fully. In other words, he came clean. He fired the people the review board regarded as responsible for the contra affair, and he promised that it would never happen again.

Fast forward to today. The Obama administration has no interest in getting to the bottom of what went on in these three scandals, as they have said numerous times. Instead, the administration has assured us that these unsettling and even disturbing occurrences will never happen again. President Obama has failed to appoint a special counsel to investigate any of these crises, and he and his administration officials have only obstructed the pursuit of the truth. Today, senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows, presumably in an attempt to clear up these three exploding scandals. But instead of clearing things up, he provided non-answer after non-answer, toeing the administration line about the partisanship of the dastardly Republicans and giving a truckload of ambiguity to the people watching. Even CBS host Bob Schieffer was less-than-impressed, asking Mr. Pfeiffer directly why he was there for the interview in the first place.

The Obama administration needs to stop evading questions and respond to the public’s calls for answers. If they don’t, they’ll just look guilty, and if they do, they will earn the respect and appreciation of a very unsettled nation.

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Was Boston handled correctly?

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10:51 pm

A loud knock on the door. Footsteps. A man opens the door, perplexed at the number of police officers at his door. In an instant, he is removed from his own home at gunpoint, his hands in the air, as police enter his house with full assault gear. This man isn’t a criminal. He has nothing to hide.

Sadly, this scene – better off in a Hollywood mistaken-identity drama – played out many times in the streets of Watertown, Massachusetts as Boston Police searched tirelessly for the remaining perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing attacks, a man named Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. For several tense hours, cops scoured the town for any sign of the 19-year-old terrorist, going door-to-door within the perimeter of their search in order to talk to residents and determine Tsarnaev’s location. But instead of cooperating with the community and its inhabitants in a peaceful manner, heavily-armed police ordered families out of their houses at gunpoint and conducted unauthorized and unwarranted searches of their properties. I posted a video of one such search below.

Certainly, police departments and militaries must do what is necessary to protect the people in their areas of jurisdiction, even if this involves them stepping outside the bounds of the law and constitution. As one fine example of this, police delayed the administration of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Miranda rights so that they could inquire about any other planned attacks. This move, although briefly compromising the young terrorist’s constitutional rights, served to protect the people of the United States by ensuring that the Boston bombings would be the last to succeed.

As a conservative and, quite simply, as an American, I don’t think it is useful to anyone to drag innocent people in a Boston suburb out of their homes in order to conduct an unwarranted search of their homes. Watch the video! I find those actions to be egregious violations of authority by law enforcement, and – to be quite honest – the unwarranted and threatening searches that took place didn’t even help police. According to several reliable news outlets, the police had already concluded their search when a Watertown resident contacted them after discovering the terrorist in his own backyard. So what good were all the unwarranted searches?

Situations like these can always cause us to lapse into a moral grey area regarding the activity of government in our lives. Following the horrifying World Trade Center attacks in 2001, the American people and Congress backed the USA Patriot Act, which granted unprecedented surveillance capabilities to the government. Certainly, being able to wiretap American citizens will help prevent terrorism, just as allowing cops to enter homes without a warrant might get some legitimate scumbags behind bars. But then the question arises: where do we draw the line? Is allowing the government – ever an untamed beast throughout history – to read your email and listen to your telephone calls a wise choice? Can the police round up suspects without charges or even search a home without a warrant or probable cause?

Our Founders created the Constitution in order to protect us from the powerful hand of government. Although the creation of a police state and a Stalinist regime is assuredly not upon us, it is important to consider the very real and deadly consequences of an all-powerful government kicking down doors in Watertown without warrants.

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Counteracting America’s health slide

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6:10 pm

In light of the horrific bombings last week at the Boston Marathon, many Americans are scared, stressed, and dying to relieve their many anxieties. More than any event, an act of terrorism shines a harsh, unyielding light on the vulnerability of every single person in every town across the globe to attack. The Boston Marathon was a random target, and the victims of the bombing there were indiscriminately maimed and killed. For a high schooler living in California, a state that is home to several of the largest cities in the United States, an attack like this is jarring, frightening, and even paralyzing at times. Yet, someday, we will be able to look back on this horrifying event without feeling the sense of crippling terror that struck the hearts of many Americans on that day.

How can we reduce stress in our lives while paring back America's drug abuse culture?

How can we reduce stress in our lives while paring back America’s drug abuse culture?

However, an examination of current statistical trends reveals that temporary terror is the least of our concerns. According to a study compilation published on the website of WND, an independent news network, the American people – in spite of record prescriptions of anti-anxiety medications and antidepressants – are “snapping by the millions” due to increased stress and struggle in their daily lives. Here are some of the alarming statistics presented in the article:

  • “11% of all Americans aged 12 or older are currently taking SSRI antidepressants:” drugs which have been linked to several school shootings and suicidal tendencies.
  • Almost one in four women in their 40s and 50s are now taking antidepressants.
  • “Suicide has surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of injury death for Americans;” and in 2012, more US soldiers “died by suicide than in combat.”
  • More than 60 million American adults consume alcohol “at levels that put them at risk for alcohol dependence and alcohol-related problems.”
  • 22 million Americans use illegal drugs: a number which amounts to roughly 9% of the entire American population.

In my perception, these shocking statistics are the result of several issues. One major concern is the quick-fix mentality demonstrated by both patients and doctors about persistent medical and mental conditions. On the television, we are bombarded with commercials about drugs that will make us feel better, look better, and even be better, and while these advertisements certainly have merit, they contribute to an overwhelmingly positive perception of prescription drugs and their impacts on people. Stress-reducing, antidepressant prescription drugs alter the brain’s chemistry in order to create a positive result and enable people to avoid confronting their own problems and daily life issues. Many psychiatrists, rather than giving person-to-person care to their patients regarding genuine concerns and life struggles, instead prescribe medication to their patients that regrettably leave the problems underlying their stress and depression unsolved.

Also concerning is simply the “prevalence of stress, pressure, confusion, cruelty, anger, injustice, temptation and corruption” in the United States and around the world. Let’s face it: the world can really suck sometimes, and life can get stressful. The key, however, is to react to it in the right way, but sadly, most people don’t. Healthy diets and plentiful exercise crush stress and help us work through our problems, but still, in spite of this iron-clad fact, obesity is still on the rise in America. Many people simply are not willing to make the effort to reform themselves and to overcome the stress in their lives, and that – in many cases – is 99% of the problem.

Instead of thinking about how to escape our problems with drugs and alcohol, we should be thinking about how to confront them. This week, please think about ways that you can overcome a little bit of stress in your life. Maybe it’s going out for a few walks, or maybe it’s confronting a long-standing grudge. Regardless of what you do this week, the importance of maintaining a healthy, stress-free lifestyle is paramount, and doing so without drugs is the best way to go.

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Where your tax dollars will go

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10:55 am

Happy Tax Day, everyone! I hope that none of you forgot to pay your dues to the federal government. Unfortunately, for the first time, I had to pay taxes for my modest gains in the stock market, and there isn’t much that feels worse than filling out a check to the government giving away money that I have painstakingly accrued (and lost, on many occasions) over the years. I will say, however, that it wouldn’t be so bad if the money I contributed was being put to good use. Sadly, this is not the case.

The Heritage Foundation published an interesting picture today on its blog, which I have displayed below for your convenience. Of each American tax dollar given to the government this year, over sixty cents will go to entitlement spending. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security alone burn forty-five cents of this dollar, almost half of the entire federal budget. Then, there is so-called “income security.” Comprised of food stamp programs, unemployment benefits, and other welfare programs, this sector takes up nearly a fifth of the budget, equaling America’s entire national defense appropriations.

So how about education and transportation? President Obama talks so often about how new roads and bridges will boost our economy, and in his State of the Union address, he pledged to hire new teachers and spend more on education to improve our nationally ailing K-12 system. But, this year, the government will spend one single cent on K-12 education for each tax dollar it receives, and a paltry three cents on transportation. It’s no wonder, then, that neither our schools nor our roads are improving under this administration.

Courtesy of heritage.org

Courtesy of heritage.org

The average American taxpayer paid about $20,000 to the federal government today, a staggering sum when considering the median income of US taxpayers hovered around $50,000 back in 2011. So, roughly 2/5ths, or 40%, of each person’s income in this country is being given to the government. Looking at how the government carves up our tax dollars, I conclude that there is no reason we should be giving so much money to Washington. So next time you visit the ballot box, remember this dollar, and make sure you vote for someone who will spend it wisely.

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