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« on: September 23, 2015, 08:25:08 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 9-23-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest
Sep. 23, 2015
THE FOUNDATION
“If we are to be told by a foreign power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.” —George Washington, 1796
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
President Xi Needs an Uncomfortable Visit to U.S.1
Last year, Barack Obama visited China in an effort to rally support for an international treaty on climate change and underscore the economic opportunities the two countries have in working together. Oh, how things have changed. Chinese President Xi Jinping is in Washington, DC, this week, and the issues facing the two countries are more … awkward. The Chinese stock market plummeted at the end of August due to an opaque, centrally planned economic system, which rocked the global economy. China continues to grow belligerent in the Pacific, laying claim to vast swaths of the South China Sea, and sending ships to steam off the Alaskan coast while Obama visited the Arctic Circle. Furthermore, the country has detained2 American Sandy Phan-Gillis since March on charges of “spying and stealing state secrets.” This comes at a time when the U.S. strongly suspects it was China that stole the data3 of millions of federal employees and everyone who applied for a security clearance. “Denying ourselves engagement with the Chinese would deny ourselves the ability to advance our interests and to make clear to China where we stand,” said4 Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for strategic communications. “We won’t paper over those differences.” We’re not holding our breath. After all, Obama’s paper tiger diplomacy has created room for China to flex its might toward America. An uncomfortable visit would do much to restore America’s spine in the relationship, so it’s too bad it’s going to be a lavish “state visit” instead5.
Hillary Flip-Flops on Her Keystone Pipeline Legacy6
On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton expounded a bit on the legacy she formed while secretary of state. She’s previously boasted of playing a “leading role” in starting the review process for building the proposed Keystone pipeline, which was designed to transport crude oil from Canada to American refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s been gummed up in bureaucratic review since 2010, though Clinton said then7 she would be “inclined” to approve it. But now, she wants the pipeline buried. “I think it is imperative that we look at the Keystone pipeline as what I believe it is — a distraction from important work we have to do on climate change,” Clinton told a crowd in Iowa. “Therefore I oppose it.” Clinton’s decision was not based on principles good for the economy, but rather political gain with her ecofascist base. Fellow Democrat candidate Martin O'Malley said8, “On issue after issue, Secretary Clinton has followed — not forged — public opinion. Leadership is about stating where you stand on critical issues, regardless of how they poll or focus group.” (The ironic thing is the public supports the Keystone pipeline by an overwhelming margin.) The result of Clinton’s inaction as secretary resulted in lost jobs and lost economic activity. Now, after the Left has stonewalled the project for years, Clinton wants to simply sweep it aside. Furthermore, she had the “courage” to make this announcement while9 the media focused squarely on Pope Francis' visit.
Iran Prepares to Annex Iraq10
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told his nation Tuesday that Iran and Iran alone has the military might in the Middle East to keep the Islamic State at bay. The remarks came during a military parade commemorating the start of the 35-year-old Iraq-Iran War. “[If] terrorists begin to expand in the region, the only hope will be Iran’s army and the Revolutionary Guards,” Rouhani said11. And does anyone think they would leave if they came in to wipe out the Islamic State? Rouhani continued, saying the West had little influence in the struggle: “Today, our armed forces are the biggest regional power against terrorism.” Seeing how the United States' proxy fighters are doing against the Islamic State, the Iranian president might just be correct. The fight against the Islamic State has ground to a standstill12 in Iraq, as an offensive to retake Ramadi from the Islamic State has been delayed. So the U.S. turns to Syria, where only a handful13 of American-trained Syrian rebels are still in the fight. Many of the fighters were delayed in Turkey, but when they returned, they handed over their weapons14 to the al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. This was exactly the worry many people had in giving arms and training to proxy fighters. As Marco Rubio said: Our military “was not built to conduct pinprick attacks.” If we want to take a simplistic route to foreign policy and focus our whole attention to the short term — dealing with the Islamic State — then maybe we should just give Iran $150 billion. Oh, wait…
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Francis Confuses Corporatism and Capitalism15
By Nate Jackson
Pope Francis arrived Tuesday for his first visit to the U.S. He will not only tour a Philadelphia prison and a Harlem school to showcase his trademark concern for the poor and downtrodden, but he will give the first-ever papal address to Congress Thursday on a range of topics. The political angle is that Democrats have finally found a pope with whom they can agree on the issues of climate and poverty — all while ignoring traditional Catholic teaching on marriage and the sanctity of life.
Francis arrived here by way of the Communist paradise poverty-stricken totalitarian island known as Cuba, where he spent four days and met not with dissidents but with Fidel Castro — whom he reportedly thanked for his contributions to world peace. Notably, Francis arrived by plane, not by homemade raft on the shores of Florida as do many of the poor people fleeing Cuba’s oppressive regime for the Land of Liberty.
Indeed, if Francis truly cares for the poor, he showed it quite poorly in this instance.
Of capitalism in general, he said in his recent apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, “Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. … Such an economy kills.”
It’s no wonder he has an eager audience in the Democrats and Castros of the world.
But it’s important to understand that Francis' views on capitalism are informed by his experience in his home country of Argentina — a nation beset with powerful families and businesses influential in government. In other words, it’s not the free market and it’s not capitalism. It’s cronyism and corporatism.
It’s also ironic, writes Thomas Sowell16, considering “Argentina was once among the leading economies of the world, before it was ruined by the kind of ideological notions [Francis] is now promoting around the world.”
God does warn His people about loving money, and greed and inequity are part of sinful human nature no matter the economic system. But which country’s poor are better off — Cuba’s, Argentina’s or America’s17? The truth is that no economic system has done more than capitalism to lift the poor out of poverty.
Tyranny kills, not Liberty.
Furthermore, Jesus never told his followers to perform charity by giving their money to the Romans instead18. Contrary to the assertions of far too many, Jesus was not a socialist19 — He always preached individual responsibility for our brothers and sisters, not collective statist mandates.
In many respects, Francis' care for the poor is welcome. All Christians ought to see every opportunity to help the disadvantaged among us. But it’s the pope’s methods we object to. He is a proponent — at least tacitly — of liberation theology, a synthesis of Marxism and Christianity born in South America in the 1970s and 80s. Liberation theology embraces collectivization, the subordination of the individual in favor of the group, and the forced redistribution of wealth and property without fair compensation. Furthermore, Marxism is profoundly anti-religion, making its blending with Christian teaching like mixing oil and water.
It’s noteworthy that Francis has thus effectively reversed the position of John Paul II20, who was a staunch opponent of such noxious theology, and, together with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, brought down the Soviet Empire. Try to imagine John Paul glad-handing Fidel Castro while dissidents languished in prison.
On the subject of climate change, the onerous regulations and top-down government solutions favored by Francis and his fellow alarmist travelers (and we do mean travelers in fuel-burning jets all over the world) are exactly the policies that will hurt the poor the most. |
