I love this country, especially my home state of North Dakota. I also love the mountains of Montana and plan on retiring there someday. Even though we have some major problems facing us as a country, this is still one of the best places to be on earth. I am proud to say I served my country for five years and wouldn’t trade that for anything. We have been a blessed people and our country has prospered since declaring our independence over 200 years ago.
That’s one reason I do what I do in my writing and soon my broadcasting. I want to help make people aware of what’s going on in our country so we can do something about it before it’s too late. I don’t like being negative or too critical, but if we don’t exercise our free speech to speak out against things that are just plain wrong or immoral we may eventually lose that right. Some may say that I have a need to satisfy my ego and that’s why I write and broadcast. That’s not true. I have always wanted to be a news reporter/announcer of some kind since I was a kid. I got sidetracked by falling in love and having children right away, but now that they’re grown I can move forward with fulfilling my dreams.
Keep in mind that I am a commentator, not a news reporter so while my writing will report on news, you’re also going to get my conservative views on the subject. What are my views? Some people ask me if I’m a republican or democrat as I’m very conservative financially (less govt. regulation, low taxes, free markets, etc) and yet considered liberal on social policies like legalizing marijuana. Well I’m not running for any office so I don’t really need to explain myself, but since I am on the public airwaves I’ll tell you.
Our country has been heading down a destructive path economically since 1913. That’s when the Federal Reserve Bank was created. This is a private conglomeration of international banks and it’s a PRIVATE bank, not part of the government as some people still believe. It took the power to coin money away from congress and the people and gave it to this den of thieves. Now the Fed prints the money, loans it back to the government and then charges us interest on it. Great scam huh? If any of us did this we’d be tossed in the slammer for counterfeiting. The Fed has far too much power and no oversight and that is always dangerous. But I won’t get into all of that here. Just Google the Federal Reserve and you’ll find TONS of material to help educate you on why it’s so bad.
Next is our foreign policy. One could argue that our foreign policy has been messed up since the Korean War, but let’s just focus on the past 10 years. Ever since the tragedy of 9-11 we’ve been in a state of pre-emptive war. Going after Bin Laden in Afghanistan was fine, but we should have left once that job was done. I still believe Bin Laden has been dead since December 01, but they needed to keep him alive in order to justify staying over there. I won’t get into all the criminal reasons we’re still there in this column, but essentially we should have pulled out a long time ago. Then Bush Jr. put on a big dog and pony show about Saddam still having WMD’s in Iraq. This is a war that should have never been fought. Saddam and Bin Laden were not tied together (in fact they hated each other) and just like most UN inspectors and most of our CIA thought, the WMD’s were long gone. We had Saddam in a box. He wasn’t a threat to anyone. Was he a brutal dictator? Yes but in some ways he had to be or Iraq could have collapsed into a perpetual state of civil war. But we went in and now we have had thousands of our troops killed and wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and wounded and have wasted trillions of dollars in another attempt at nation building. This war was fought for all the wrong reasons and violated international laws.
Then we have the torture and imprisonment at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and many other “black” locations around the world. Those people are held without bail, no attorneys and aren’t allowed to rebuke the charges against them. Some have died due to our torturing and yet it continues to this day. This isn’t just about the Geneva Convention it’s about human rights and decency. We have sunk down to the level of our enemies and torture almost NEVER gets true confessions. Hundreds of experts have come forward to state the obvious, that a person will tell you ANYTHING you want to hear if you torture him/her enough. You might get some actionable intelligence, but for the most part they are telling you what you want to hear in order to stop the torture. I don’t condone torture under ANY circumstance. It’s wrong and places us in a bad light on the world stage. How can we stand up for human rights abuses elsewhere when we’re no better than the rest? Now we even have secret Whitehouse kill lists for AMERICAN citizens. This is very dangerous territory but I’ll cover that in a different article.
In conclusion, what we as a people need to do is tell DC in one collective voice ENOUGH! No more wars for oil and poppy fields, no new wars in Iran or elsewhere and let’s focus instead on fixing the issues in our backyard. I know some of you will say “better to fight over there than over here”. That’s true to a point, but we wouldn’t have to be fighting so much if we’d just leave other countries affairs alone. Bin Laden and Saddam are dead and Iran is NOT a direct threat to us. If we attack them or allow Israel to attack them we could be looking at WW3. We also need to prosecute those who have devastated our economy through fraud and manipulation. Bernie Madoff was just a fall guy for those around and above him who knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it. More of those folks need to go to jail. Plus let’s get rid of the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security. They have become monsters and don’t do much to protect us. TSA fails their security tests constantly and I’m tired of watching them grope innocent Americans. The DHS has become a monstrosity of bureaucracy that does nothing but argue with one another. The CIA, FBI and DEA still don’t like sharing sources and that was the whole point. One last thing; let’s repeal the Patriot Act. It gives the federal government far too much power and violates our rights to privacy (the 4th amendment) everyday. Our forefathers created checks and balances in our constitution for good reasons, to prevent the federal government from being all powerful. Let people live their lives and unless you can PROVE wrongdoing in a court of law, LEAVE US ALONE!
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