Maggie's Farm

Today, modern Israel’s 62^nd birthday, is a good time to ask the question, “What if there wasn’t an Israel, would things be different in the Middle East?”

The world would still be dealing with and suffering from MidEast extremists: First of the Soviet proxies, but without Israeli intelligence penetrating them and its military defeating them, exposing the Soviet Union as an unworthy sponsor; Then of the Islamist haters suppressing its peoples and fighting each other while harboring attackers of the West, but without Israel’s development and democracy serving as an unavoidable contrast to the potentials of freedom and sanity and its military and technology exposing the fundamental weakness of their self-created backwardness.

No one in the Middle East takes seriously that the Arab-Israeli or Palestinian-Israeli conflicts are the primary, secondary, tertiary or lesser cause of MidEast instability or its threats to the West.

Outside the Middle East, however, we have the core delusion among many of those raised on the puerile pap created by the Left that the modernity and successes of Western civilization somehow oppress the natural decency and advancement of Third World countries.

President Obama is the poster boy.  But he is not the cause.  He is merely the product.  He and those who follow him, thus, fall back on the false premise that Israel is the problem.

No, the problem is their core delusion that we can escape history by denying it, even reversing it, though that still would leave the real root cause of MidEast instability, regional petty satraps, backward hatefulness, and those outside powers – from the EU to Russia to China – who benefit from retaining rule or access to oil.

If the initial thrust of President Bush’s strategy of spurring democratization in the Middle East proved hollow, then our subsequent neutralization of Iraq’s WMD potential and funding of terrorists and our struggling effort to retrieve Afghanistan from being ruled by  as much a threat is at best a holding action.  We, as Secretary of Defense Gates admitted, lack a strategy toward even containing Iran, its imminent nuclear armaments, its support for those who kill our soldiers and Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s and their peoples.

The exaggeration by Saddam Hussein of his own WMDs was to counter Iran.  The US and initial allies entering Iraq missed the proper focus then as we do now.

Weakening Israel is not a strategy for peace in the Middle East but another abdication of what could reduce the dangers of the Middle East.  The US administration and apologists are blaming the “salamis” for the failure to ice the botulism.

President Obama and followers are not the root cause of Israel’s current dilemma.  They are the natural extension of the escapism that infects Western thought, that undermined President Bush’s brash, perhaps fruitless, but correct focus that peace can only come from shattering Middle East excuses and delusions and providing more fertile ground for the emergence of rulers more concerned with the betterment of their own peoples’ lots.

Israel shows the way, not the barrier. The barrier is the purposeful misfocus, the dangerous inanity, of the avoiders of truths. Isn't 62 years enough time to prove that if modern Israel didn't exist the catering to Middle East tyrants would still be the core cause of dire oppression there and threats to the West's security and prosperity?

Congressman Henry Waxman, who never met a federal tax or mandate he didn't like to ram down Americans' throats, even when he discovers that the law he backed actually requires corporations to quickly report the negative financial impacts of ObamaCare, has decided to focus his attention on Americans' throats.

The Hill reports: Waxman calls on Major League Baseball to ban chewing tobacco.

From the Comments:

"On behalf of the American people, I would like to submit an earmark for the next major piece of legislation, called "Bubble gum for Bubbas." This is to request $75 billion to buy smokeless tobacco from MLB athletes and to exchange it with bubble gum, just like we buy guns from people in inner cities to get those guns off the street. This legislation includes a rider for their third-party medical insurance plan that pays for any additional dental expenses that may in the course of this contract and for any reasonable time after the completion thereof be incurred by replacing said chewing tobacco with chewing gum."

And:

"The nanny state marches on. Since the government is now responsible for your healthcare, and can't afford the expense, be prepared for a rash of new restrictions. Obesity will be outlawed, alcohol consumption and lack of exercise will be next. Do you have any risky habits? Ride a motorcycle, sky dive, fly a light aircraft or hang glider? Dangerous and society should not be responsible to take care of you if you take these risks, so the government will say. Auntie Sam will take care of us all. Let's all take our morning "happy pill" and drone on like slaves."

There's another law he backed that Waxman forgets: Such a ban would have to be negotiated with the Players Union.

Can't wait to see the LA Dodgers and other teams send bottles of warm brown spit to Waxman's office.

Can we avoid 70% of the cost of the huge Medicaid expansion within ObamaCare?.  Yes, says a careful analysis, from a very knowledgeable source with practical experience.

Between 2014-2019, the estimated additional cost of the Medicaid expansion within ObamaCare, that accounts for over half those with added coverage, is $436.4 billion.  That’s the figure analyzed by United Healthcare’s Center for Health Reform and Modernization.  That ranges from $12.2 billion for Alabama, to $32.4 billion for California, to $28.1 billion for Florida, to $19.5 billion for Georgia, to $12.6 billion each for Indiana and Illinois, to $10.7 billion for Michigan, to $2.8 billion for Nevada, to $16.6 billion for Ohio, to $27.4 billion for Pennsylvania, to $59.5 billion for Texas, to $13 billion for Virginia.

The magnitude of each state’s added cost varies with how liberal its qualifications are already. Another factor is who gets new coverage.

Let’s get to the bottom line: Those claiming that their industry is too big to fail are those who are failures, failing in their basic responsibilities to plan, manage and innovate, most often accompanied by rewarding themselves with high pay and perks.

In the 1980’s, many large corporations were acquired by vulture capitalists, broken up and otherwise disposed of. Yes, hundreds of billions of dollars were sometimes wasted on acquisitions that proved worthless, except to the wheelers-and-dealers’ fees, although in far more cases reorganized leaner and meaner competitors emerged.  American industries, and those who wanted to keep their jobs, were forced to adapt if they wanted to remain viable.  The American economy prospered anew. Many millions of employees were dislocated, struggled, but American unemployment was at new lows as new opportunities were created.

Those lessons, like most, need to be relearned anew with each generation.