Are We Throwing It All Away? [Reader Post]

Settle down Craig, don’t let your optimism of Sarah Palin get Obama like. She cannot do miracles. What she can do is be herself and be informed and be smart at the things she says and does. There won’t be miracles, but there will be a better future if she and McCain get elected. Neither will be perfect, neither will do everything right, and both will have four years of fighting Democrats at every twist and turn and be hounded by the left wing media (paparazzi like) for that four years.

Every moment of their lives will be spent under more scrutiny than any President or Vice-President in history because the left wing media will be looking for everything they can find to make them look bad. This will make things tough and makes things hard to turn around. Perseverance, faith, determination, and hard work will get us through. If they are elected, the only miracle will be the turn around of our country, and I know they will do their best.

There are heroes, but they aren’t names you would know. Teams have replaced individuals as things just cost more and are more complex. You’ll have to start reading scientific journals to see where the heroes of today are.

Troops are going back into battle even if they are missing a leg. Just 60 years ago, that wound could have either killed the trooper or left him crippled for life.

Just 20 years ago, a trooper had to still write to keep in contact with his family. Now a guy in Afghanistan or Iraq can pick up his camera phone and just dial home as if he was just a few minutes from home. Even the civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq rely on cell phones.

People are dedicated to better protective equipment that didn’t exist 10 years ago that has saved people and will continue to save people long after the creators have died of old age.

I don’t believe America is in a twilight. It is still a massive country and people need America. Even Venezula and Cuba need America. China and Russia aren’t buying U.S. bonds because they love us or hate us. They buy U.S. bonds because we are their safety net in case their economy implodes into the dark ages. They trust the U.S. more than they trust themselves. We could put 50,000 troops in probably 90% of the countries in the world and not be seen as invaders. There are guys in Lebanon dressing up what they think U.S. marines look like because they respect them. Civilians in countries run toward our soldiers to greet them instead of running away from them in fear. Iraqi civilians are probably still going to U.S. troops to handle domestic issues because they don’t trust their own government. Mexico calls the U.S. southern fence a humanitarian disaster/crime even though they treat the immigrants going into Mexico as scum. I once read Columbia has an unoffical monument claiming the U.S. is the promised land.

If you think $700 billion is big, picture this. The 2009 U.S. budget is $3.1 trillion with a $407 billion estimated deficit. In 2010, that would be $814 billion in unpaid bills if 2010 had the same budget. The U.S. war on terror runs $150 billion a year. the 4,000 some odd companies on just the NYSE are worth $30.5 trillion. The stimulus package this year was worth $250 billion and didn’t even really dent the economy. Last week on one day, the market lost $1 trillion in value. Even during the Great Depression the U.S. unemployment was 25%. One of the offsetting things to prevent that from happening now is the massive number of people, 76 million, turning 65 in the next 18 years. Even if the number of jobs shrinks, there will be a massive number of jobs still waiting for people.

“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” –Voltaire

People should not have been shocked that this was going to happen, it’s just a shock that people waited too long to react. People should have remembered the over leverage that caused the Great Depression. People should have been shocked in the 1990s with the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. People should have been shocked as soon as wages were not beating inflation in the late 1980s and beyond. People should have been more shocked from the Savings and Loans scandals. people should have been shocked when the U.S. savings rate went negative 1% in 2007 (people were spending more than they were making). The news was out there that this was a fluffed up house of cards that was going to fail. The politicans didn’t need a degree in economics, they could have seen if the screaming in the wings was legit. What happened to proving an opponent wrong? Ross Perot was screaming this and he had simple charts to show off!), Ron Paul (so who are the crazies now?) was screaming this stuff, and some economists were screaming this stuff. These people were never checked out by the politicans. They were just labled loonies for saying what they were saying and then ignored. Just because somebody is crazy, doesn’t mean they are not telling the truth at times. Some people heard the screaming. I was reading the text of investors in Yahoo chat who were pulling out of the market a couple of years ago. There are billions if not trillions of dollars tied up by contrarian investors and that money is on the sidelines waiting for the blood on the streets. These guys will be buying all sorts of things at very steep discounts like people buying stocks during the Great Depression.

Don’t follow the pack, because they are nothing but a flock of sheep. Don’t listen to people that know nothing about the economy talk about the economy. It’s the things you don’t know that can wound or kill you. In Iraq it’s the IEDs that will get you. In, the U.S. it’s the IDK’s and IDC’s (I don’t know, I don’t care).

If you think these are dark times to remember, this will be forgotten in 5, 10 or 20 years like nothing had happened. The sheep will never learn, because if they did they would never have gotten into this mess. Heroes don’t think of themselves as heroes. They are labeled as heroes by dreamers and those dreams tend to be variations of the tall tale with a dash of truth.

So where have the heroes gone?

Heroes? We have plenty of them. Could be your neighbor that risks his life to pull you out of your burning home, or the one that chases down the perp that just mugged you, or the one that stops the carjacker, or the one that does CPR on the stranger he finds laying in the street while everyone else walks by.

The appropriate question should be, “Where have the Patriots gone?” The ones willing to risk everything for country, God, and family. The ones willing to preserve our articles of freedom that many made sacrifices to write in the first place. Lee Iacocca wrote a book called “Where have all the leaders gone?” Maybe somebody needs to write, “Where have all the patriots gone?”

And Washingtons and Lincolns, Reveres, and Paynes, Pattons and Marshalls. And those of us who love our freedom. Heroes and patriots.