Every four years, during the presidential debate season, the Islamic Republic of Iran re-enters the American political spectrum. Conservatives are pressuring the President to act in order to disrupt the rekindling Iranian nuclear capability. It is prudent to review the history of the Iranian regime to properly understand the situation we now face, and the dangers of callous actions.

Founded in 1979, the former Persian Empire became an anti-American theocratic regime under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini, and a handful of mullahs, when the Iranian people overthrew the monarch Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who in 1953 had been installed as Prime Minister to continue providing cheap oil to the British, Iran’s former colonial ruler.

Iran was further aggravated by American support of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iraq-Iran War. Fifteen years later, as the world’s largest Shiite nation, Iran was emboldened by the American toppling of the Sunni Ba’athist Party during the 2003 Iraq War.

Since 2004, Iran has appeared to be the imminent national security threat, as it has led a “Shia Revival,” extending to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Violent Islamism – and the vehement Anti-Semitic language that accompanied it – did not sit well with the Iranian people: In 2009, the moderate Iranian public showed their disdain for their extremist regime by protesting the fraudulent presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some protestors gave their lives in the struggle.

During this period of opportunity, American officials largely sat silent.

Today, America faces a renewed threat, with a more desperate Iranian regime.

Although Iran has not initiated a military strike against another nation since it was under British rule, given the recent plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador on US soil, last month’s hijacking of a US Drone, and the likely Iranian assassination of a Houstonian student last week, the threat is real. Our actions today, however, are counterintuitive to toppling the regime; furthermore, conservatives are making critical errors in pushing Obama to action with Iran.

Our first mistake is imposing massive economic sanctions, crippling not the regime, but the entire nation. The EU recently joined the US in these efforts, with the EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton saying: “The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table.”

The financial embargo is destroying Iran’s currency, and their gasoline imports have been cut in half. These actions do not accomplish the goal of stopping the Iranian regime; in fact, we are arbitrarily turning those moderates who protested Ahmadinejad toward their regime, and away from us. When an embargo becomes a blockade, sanctions become an act of war. Make no mistake: Forced starvation will lead to aggression. We are essentially radicalizing an enemy.

Our second mistake is confusing what is acceptable from the Iranians, and what is not. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has explicitly stated the Iranians are not developing a nuclear weapon, but are pursuing a nuclear capability. It is understood that an Iranian nuclear capability could pose a threat to Israel, but we have not specified whether or not Iran’s return to nuclear energy – which they had until 1979 – is acceptable. A nuclear weapon in the hands of this particular regime would be a threat to our national security, whereas nuclear power is not.

Furthermore, Iranian naval exercises in the Persian Gulf have riled Defense officials.

In direct retaliation against sanctions, the Iranian regime – as of this writing – has sworn to “definitely” block traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. I understand the seriousness of the situation; in the US Navy, I drove a $5 billion warship through that Strait, was followed by the Iranian missile silos ashore, P-3 aircraft overhead, and coastal patrol vessels afloat, and can attest it is a contentious area, through which roughly 25 percent of the world’s oil flows.

Iran’s closing of the Strait in response to a blockade would indeed be an act of war, and would require action. A hasty counterstrike, however, would lead to an asymmetric and chaotic naval war. The Revolutionary Guard commander Brigadier General Jafaari has threatened: “The enemy is far more advanced technologically than we are, we have been using what is called asymmetric warfare methods… our forces are now well prepared for it.”

Irregular war with Iran poses the largest threat to our ally Israel. While the Arab Spring was promoted by the Obama Administration – and emboldened the Administration’s circumvention of the Congress in warfare – it destabilized Israel. Defense Secretary Panetta has warned an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites would be “catastrophic” to the region. I disagree. A true friend to Israel would back off and let Israel take care of itself. With over 300 nuclear warheads of its own and the best intelligence agency in the world, Israel should be allowed to act in sovereignty and in accordance with its own national security.

It is unclear whether the United States has the resources, or if the American public has the willpower, to escalate to another war, without being struck first. It is clear, however, that our federal government is actually inviting war with Iran; that is why we deliberately confuse our “red lines.” That is why we restrain Israel. That is why we are provoking Iran, to incite them to act first, in order to generate instant American support for another war.

Why would our government want a war with Iran? The reasons are simple.

When asked what the greatest threat to American national security is, former JCS Chairman ADM Mike Mullen said not Iran – nor any other nation – but our national debt. Because the federal government lacks both the willpower to cut government spending and the capacity to tax the American public any further, it is preparing to hyperinflate our way out of this financial mess. Doing so will destroy what is left of the US Dollar, which is in a downward spiral, as the world slowly gives up on it as reserve currency.

This week, India dumped the US Dollar for gold in purchasing Iranian oil; a week earlier, Russia did the same. To understand why the world is abandoning the Dollar, it is critical to note that while the price of a barrel of oil is high, it has remained constant compared to the position the US Dollar holds to gold. The Dollar has been devalued by 95 percent since the 1913 advent of the Federal Reserve, which now holds the majority of US Treasury bonds.

Engaging in war with Iran would shroud the Fed’s actions while the maturation of these bonds destroys that final 5 percent, enabling a transition to a global currency and monetary standard progressives have wanted for decades.

If you are still not convinced the federal government would welcome war with Iran, consider this: Since James Madison, no wartime President has lost reelection. War with Iran ensures four more years of President Obama’s social control and class warfare. Obama will pretend as though he doesn’t want war with Iran, up until the point he must act, which I would wager to guess would be around October of 2012.

History teaches that free trade and the advancement of ideas would spur the people of Iran to topple their own regime. Irregular war with Iran would come at the expense of the American soldier and the Iranian citizen, while the Iranian regime could escape unscathed. Conservatives must consider the consequences of pushing the President to reelection and plunging the nation into another war.

To understand the scope of our economic crisis, we must understand the degree of departure from sound money.  The American economy was founded upon the idea of natural law, actually, where the free exchange of goods and services occurred in the marketplace.  The father of capitalism, Adam Smith, called this the “obvious and simple system of natural liberty.”  An obvious and simple economic system requires an obvious and simple currency; I generally believe precious metals are ordained as currency, as these elements have little industrial superiority over others, other than their perceived inherent value.  All Western empires grew based on sound currency - the US Dollar, the British Pound (and silver Sterling), and the Roman Aureus (and silver Denarius) - and subsequently died when they departed from the set standard.

Like the British and Roman empires, America departed from an obvious and simple system, adopted a fiat currency, and embarked on a journey which placed democracy before freedom.  In all things, spreading the costs and minimizing the risks dampens rewards, as profits are smaller, and produces little incentive to succeed; social democratization of our institutions undermines natural liberty.  Our monetary system and our fiscal policy are not exempt from the laws of nature.

History of the Crisis

Business cycles in the market are as normal as the consumer trends – or “animal spirits” – that keep it afloat.  Realizing this, our founders established a dollar as equal to 371.25 grains of fine silver; this economic law was adopted by the Continental Congress in 1787 and formally signed into law as the Mint Act of 1792 by President George Washington.  This effectively tied the hands of the US Mint by prohibiting the printing of money not backed by silver.

Over time, this law was altered to accept gold – and occasionally, foreign currency – in place of silver, effectively providing currency competition within our borders.  America went completely off a precious metal standard from 1863 to 1878 to accommodate spending for the Civil War; we fully instated the Gold Standard in 1900.

But it didn’t last long.  Although more destructive business cycles began with the conception of the Federal Reserve (1913), our modern fiscal crisis began with the Bretton Woods agreement (1944), which established a nominally gold-backed US Dollar as an international monetary standard, managed by the International Monetary Fund.  I say “nominally,” for this standard was susceptible to manipulation:  In 1933, FDR issued Executive Order 6102, which made the possession of gold bullion illegal until 1974.  This confiscation obscured the actual effects a global monetary system - defined at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire – had on the Dollar.

It cannot be emphasized enough how important the Bretton Woods agreement was to world history, and not just for monetary reasons.  Empire status was, for the most part, thrust upon us as a repayment for the blood we shed for our Allied partners in World War II.  Deferring to the International Monetary Fund for control of the Dollar, however, has not aided these partners, as our ignorance of the IMF has allowed for the clandestine support of military dictatorships worldwide with our printing of fiat currency.

From its inception, the Bretton Woods system was doomed to fail:  Over time, the global use of the US Dollar stressed the Gold Standard to the point where we had to abandon it for fiat currency in 1971, which began the Nixon Shocks, and allowed the Treasury to print as much money as it needed, therefore increasing the magnitude of the booms and busts created by the artificially low interest rates held by the Federal Reserve.  Consider the fact that when Nixon announced our departure from the Gold Standard, gold was $40/oz; today it is near $1,700/oz.  Gold is not up; the dollar is down, as a result our debt.  Today, the US Dollar has lost 95% of its purchasing power since the Fed’s inception; that is, a dollar today buys what 5 cents bought in 1913.

Since Bretton Woods, America has assumed the risks of the world: Through wide-scale cost-cutting business practices, we have relied on foreign nations, first for labor, and then for capital by monetizing debt, thereby slowly gutting the workforce, and the the economy.  With our new-found – albeit temporary – wealth, our government approved unsustainable – and untouchable - welfare and warfare states.  Through the maintenance of these empirical federal programs, we are forfeiting the greatest experiment in freedom the world had ever seen.

Mechanics of the Crisis

Because our government has been uwilling to rein in spending, and unable to raise taxes any further on American productivity, it has relied on the Federal Reserve to distribute more money and push interest rates lower for borrowing purposes.  Interest rate manipulation leads to destruction of the economy, in which good people get hurt.  Artificially low interest rates promote banks to lower lending standards, creating malinvestment in the market, which creates a moral hazard for both parties of the transaction.  When the market exposes these investments as flawed, the entire society experiences the bust – that is, the consequences of the actions of a few.  Therefore, through market interference, the Federal Reserve violates the economic liberty of all Americans.

We are taught that prices should slowly rise in a “normal” economy, at a low single-digit annual rate; we are also taught deflation is a bad thing, as if falling prices is harmful.  The price of a particular good should fall until it is improved upon, the way flat screen televisions and Smartphones do.  New products entering the market are priced high and then fall, until they either reach a level of sustainment or exit the market, with annual inflation for the entire economy equal to zero.

For some reason, we don’t expect a gallon of gas, a gallon of milk, a carton of eggs, or a loaf of bread to behave similarly; we somehow expect annual inflation.  Therein the Federal Reserve has perpetrated the greatest conspiracy – unknown to most Americans – that inflation is necessary, when indeed, it is not.  But inflation has a purpose for the political class, for it allows them to spend without limit.

While the American public is focused on rates of taxation, they fail to recognize that overspending is a tax itself.  It does not matter what the tax rate is.  Whether our government taxes, borrows, or inflates the monetary base, the public will pay for its government’s overspending eventually.  By delaying the inevitable, and not addressing our debt drivers – Defense, Social Security, and Medicare – our correction is going to be sharp, and will hurt the savings and investments of millions of good people, while rewarding those in control.

Investment research expert Charles Biderman offers this:

“Debt has to be reckoned with one way or another. It either has to be repaid, or someone has to bear the losses on what cannot be repaid, either through default or inflation and currency debasement. If it were otherwise, everyone could be rich.”

Similarly, but from another angle, the now infamous economist John Maynard Keynes:

“By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.  By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.”

Is it any wonder we now have billionaire career politicians, considering it is they who write the rules for banking, the stock market, and the economy largesse.  In his controversial new book, Throw Them All Out, Peter Schweizer reports on how the median speculator loses in the options market, while industry insiders beat the market by 5%, hedge fund managers by 8%, and US Senators, astonishingly, by 12%.

With inflation, politicians have fleeced the citizenry of their covert actions; this period of American history may be ending.  Through what psychologists call the normalcy bias, our society believes since an occurrence has not yet occurred, it will never occur.  This fallacy is rampant across demographics: Our large elder generation – “Baby Boomers” – long ago voted themselves welfare-state benefit, is now seeking retirement, and expects to reap their just rewards.  The next generation is riddled with protesters – or protester sympathizers – who demand their generation be shackled with more debt.

So, like the empires before us, we are slowly committing national suicide, with a debt-laden poison pill.

Scope of the Crisis

Both America and the world are buried in debt:  just as America’s debt reached 100% of GDP at $15 trillion last month, the world did the same, at $195 trillion of debt.  To put this in perspective, Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff, the authors of This Time It’s Different (2009), found (by studying 22 global economic crises) that when government debt-to-GDP ratio rises above 90%, it lowers the future potential GDP of a country by at least 1%, and begets a slow-growth, high unemployment economy; our unemployment rate is stuck at the socialist nations’ average of 9%.  After a crisis, public debt soars to an average of 86%, whereas our is, as stated, currently over 100% of GDP.  Nations that cannot pull out of the debt crisis often experience sovereign debt default.  An American default would lead to a collapse of the global currency system.

The source of our debt concerns, deficit-spending, is now an epidemic.  Our last budget surplus occurred during the Clinton Administration, with ballooning debt spiraling out-of-control during the Bush Administration.  Today, a wholesale abandonment of fiscal responsibility has allowed President Obama to run monthly deficits greater than Bush’s annual deficits.  Artificially-low interest rates beget loose lending standards, incentivizing people to make money during the boom, before the “necessary bust” punishes everyone.

We have avoided this bust with Federal Reserve policy, but we are merely delaying the effects, and intensifying the pain to come.  Through “Quantitative Easing” - QE1 and QE2 - the Federal Reserve surpassed China as the majority owner of our Treasury Bonds.  Through a money-laundering scheme, we are both debtor and lender.

With the imminent collapse of the Euro, the world is painfully realizing the facts: the world economy is bankrupt, and the IMF looks to the U.S. to bail out Greece, when, in fact, the U.S. is only one to two decades from becoming Greece.

Conventional wisdom says that when – not if – the Euro collapses, it will strengthen the US Dollar as the world’s reserve currency, as there will be no other global alternative.  I believe the opposite, that the Euro collapse expose the US Dollar as being just as weak as the Euro, as our debt is at similar levels; the bond rates will go up, credit will dry up, business will fail, and prices will rise, thus commencing the global currency crisis some have been predicting for years.

Future of the Crisis

History shows what awaits if we don’t get our debt under control: First, a sharp period of hyperinflation, and then, a sovereign debt default.  With the facade gone, we will also experience a currency collapse, followed by a painful, deliberate return to a precious metal standard.  How this will happen, and who will be controlling it, is yet to be seen.

The collapse of the Roman Empire was predicated by inflation; to combat the effects, Rome used price controls to drive prices below their market value, sapping all profit and killing the economy.  Similarly, the US has monetized and securitized the debt, auctioning cheap Treasury Bonds to overseas bidders to prevent inflationary effects.

Here’s the kicker: Treasury Bonds, seen as assets on multiple nations’ balance sheets, are essentially worthless, for if they were to be leveraged as capital during the collapse, it would further undermine the unit of currency upon which it rests, quickening the collapse.

Contrary to popular belief, the Federal Reserve does not print money to make up the balance; rather, it transfers it electronically, and accordingly, has been able to covertly manipulate markets – both foreign and domestic – for years.  These actions are finally catching up to us.  While Congress approved a $700 billion Bank Bailout, followed by a $700 billion Stimulus, the Federal Reserve was delivering 10 times that amount of cash - $7.77 trillion – to the financial industry through the back door, all in an eight month period.  The total amount of cash lent in the financial crisis was $16 trillion, a truly inconceivable amount of money.  In perspective, $7.77 trillion is more than half the US production capacity last year; GDP in 2011 was a little bit shy of $15 trillion.  I believe this action will be remembered as the “nail-in-the-coffin” for the US Dollar.

What will a currency crisis look like?  As the US Dollar crumbles, we will export our inflation to other nations (as it is the reserve currency of the world), destroy their economies, and create a “Weimar Republic” situation around the world.  How the world will reckon with this is uncertain, but America will receive much of the blame from the rest of the world for its woes.  How will these nations react?  What coalitions will be formed to fill the power vacuum?

Ask yourself:  What happened to the British and Roman Empires when their currency collapsed?  The end of the British Empire brought the First World War in Europe, which eventually precipitated into the Second World War at the end of Germany’s currency crisis.  When the Roman Empire collapsed, the world plunged into a 600-year economic doldrum known as the Dark Ages.  Of course, America wouldn’t let that happen; no, I’m sure we’d go out with a bang.

Alternate History

This could unfurl differently.

By restoring the US Dollar as sound currency, on a precious metal standard, combined with a laissez-faire economic approach – that is, a severe downsizing of our federal government – would let a correction take place, and would be the quickest way to spur innovation in the private sector and unveil a new economy, dependent on individual action, and not the collective.

Of course, a sharp self-correction of this type, like that of 1920-21, would mean a number of firms that could not survive without federal injections of cash would go bankrupt.  A positive externality of wide-scale bankruptcy would mean an influx of skilled labor entering the job force, creating the new economy.  Restoring the US Dollar to a precious metal standard would, in turn, restore confidence in the American monetary system, and would no longer allow our government to destroy the economy and our standards of living with inflation.

As only an extremely slim minority would favor this sharp self-correction, the status quo decides there are only two ways out of this: war or inflation.  I disagree.  Restoring the fundamentals would allow the nation to find the new economy, while allowing competing currencies in the marketplace as not to burden the US Dollar and worsen the impact of recession.

If left alone, the market would rebound and define itself, the way it has centuries before.  From 1750 to 1850, America was an agricultural society; 1850 to 1950 marked the industrial society; and 1950 until now, America has been a technological society.  Our wholesale abandonment of the agricultural and industrial sectors for the technological sector has left us vulnerable, as we are unable sustain our own demand for food or manufacturing.  This situation undermines our national security.  We need to leverage our new technologies into these antiquated sectors, the way oil companies have with oil exploration, or BMW has with automobile production.

Demand is there for new innovations and new approaches, shrouded beneath layers of government intervention and stimuli.  In attempts to choose winners and losers in a market, government destroys entire sectors, a fact I discussed back in October.  The green movement comes to mind: Considering the fact that food travels an average of 1500 miles to get to your plate, and that food travels away from you before it travels toward you, it’s high time to overhaul inefficient supply chains, before the currency crisis empties store shelves faster than they can be restocked.

Ending this mess begins with reinstating sound currency, and ensuring the rest of the world the US Dollar can be trusted again.  Although we haphazardly began our empire with Dollar hegemony, it will take deliberate steps to end it and restore the republic.

That is the choice we now face, as we did in September of 1787:  republic or empire.  It’s important to remember the ominous nature of the answer given when Ms. Powell of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, exiting the Constitutional Convention, “Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

Dr Franklin replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

It is now ours to restore.

Democracy is necessary, but not sufficient, for a free society.  Whether in the Arab Spring or Nazi Germany, democracy was placed before freedom, and look what democracy hath wrought.

A free state, on the other hand, provides legal protection of the civil rights and ensures the free will of its citizens.  These individual rights, seen as “natural,” or given by God, were formalized by John Locke, stating in his 1689 Two Treatises of Government:

“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

This idea – which drove our nation’s founding documents – is based on centuries of work to overthrow tyranny, whether with the Magna Carta in England, 1215, or in 35 A.D, when Jesus Christ said, in Matthew 7:12, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

This is, in essence, a libertarian’s only charge.  All other freedoms are defined negatively.  The less the state tells its people what they cannot do, the more free they are.  Turns out, citizens whose state has minimal control over them have more control over their state; therefore, freedom begets democracy, and not the other way around.

Maintaining freedom in a society is difficult: governments around the world often devolve from democracy into a natural state of dictatorship, due to the “tyranny of the majority.”  As opposed to a dictatorship – where one identifiable individual takes the blame for the ills of a nation - in a democracy, everyone is to blame, and recovery takes much longer.  Unable to accept blame, a democracy often targets specific segments of society, as we’ve seen recently with the Occupy Wall Street movement and the London Riots.

America has experienced significant loss before – loss of separation of powers, rule of law, the respect for life, liberty, and property – but now, it’s different, as the crisis is more globalized, and I’m unsure we have the willpower to change course.  In the midst of a global insurrection, I believe the United States of America is leading the world’s recoil into a dictatorship, under the disguise of democracy.

What we sought at our nation’s conception was not a democracy, but a republic; what we had was a republic; it was bound together by the values prescribed in the Constitution.  These values made us supreme, and by relying upon our values, we could have weathered any storm, even when challenged by the mongrels of the world.

But we chose a different journey.

When the Roman Empire - a previous global democracy – fell to tyranny, the entire world plunged into two centuries of Dark Ages, due to not one, but many causes.  I will have two follow-up posts covering the two most prevalent reasons for the decline of Rome, and now, America:

1) Economic Collapse – a crippling debt and the debasing of the currency;
2) Incoherent Defense – a large military budget and the loss of military principle in warfare.

I believe America – and the world – is teetering on tyranny, and there is no use in denying the truth, for freedom depends on truth, and from the truth, we can regain our strength and restore a once-great nation.

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32

This President’s wars are far from over:  This past week, Obama plunged unilaterally into Uganda, sending 100 troops to chase down Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, as it has plagued Uganda’s government for years.  Uganda, you know: that lovely beacon of freedom that has outlawed homosexuality and kills their gay men and women in the streets.

For a true picture of Obama’s foreign policy, it’s best to ignore his words, and analyze his actions.  It’s key to remember that, first and foremost, Obama is a lawyer:  To him, words are everything, and winning the argument means winning the case; facts, therefore, are of little concern.  Actually, the United States ‘are’ engaged in military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, once in Pakistan, and now, Uganda.

President Obama, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, promised to withdraw troops from Iraq by August 2010, a date that has long come and gone; today, Obama promised to withdraw from Iraq by December 2011, a date rapidly approaching.  Looks like he might not be able to keep that promise, either.  Additionally, the United States seems to be committed in Afghanistan until at least 2015, according to State Secretary Clinton, as we continue to struggle in our efforts in the “Graveyard of Empires.”

Advancing militarism through never-ending withdrawals and precipitous warfare, Obama declared yesterday Gaddafi’s death is a warning to other world leaders who rule with an “iron-fist.”  Clearly, the Obama Administration is turning its attention to Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and Republican leaders are egging him on in that regard, although putting democracy before freedom will continue to destabilize the region.  What does this expanding vision for our military mean for American foreign policy?  What does it mean for us?

America Adrift

Obama’s “victory” in Libya has emboldened his military actions overseas, with the Associated Press declaring Gaddafi’s death a ”vindication of his doctrine.”  The virtual “ease” of our actions in Libya – and the lack of resistance to unjustified action – are perpetuating a scope creep in foreign policy, which is precisely why I was opposed to American military action in Libya from the beginning, and expanded on reasoning in my post Viet-Libya.  I spelled out my own foreign policy doctrine regarding the Arab Spring in February, six weeks before we entered our Libyan conflict.  I have provided links for your perusal, but the takeaway is this:  ”We must always support the democratic process, no matter the outcome.  We must not publicly endorse one side over the other.”

Obama’s interventions have far surpassed “endorsement.”  In backing rebels militarily without Congressional approval, we are witnessing the wholesale destruction of the rule of law in American foreign policy.  Bypassing Congress for 60+ days of military action, with no formal declaration of war, is a violation of War Powers Act of 1973. The War Powers Act was enacted Post-Vietnam to restrict the Executive Branch in committing troops arbitrarily.  The other coequal branches of government not only sit idly by while the law is trampled, but praise Obama’s actions, supporting his further interdiction overseas.  In fact, the same day Gaddafi was killed, a U.S. District Judge dismissed a lawsuit against the President by ten brave U.S. Congressmen for his War Powers violations.

Although entering Pakistan was an act of war, the surgical assassination of Osama bin Laden, I believe, was justified.  I praised the Commander-in-Chief for authorizing the action against America’s most wanted enemy combatant.  While I also supported the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, I do not support the Administration’s justification for killing an American citizen, not by trial – even in absentia – but with a “memo.”  Al-Awlaki was a dual citizen, and as a traitor, his US citizenship should have been revoked in accordance with US Code Chapter 8 Section 1481, a.7, for treasonous activities. If these legal proceedings were carried out, we don’t know about them. I suspect they weren’t; the Executive just declared him an enemy combatant.  This begs the question, who else does the Administration have memos to kill?

What I find saddest of all is that a once-sane nation cheered the torture and execution of Gaddafi, the leader of a nation on which we did not declare war, nor was at war with us.  Gaddafi deserved to be held accountable through legal means.  It’s questionable whether members of his family – including three of his grandchildren under the age of twelve - deserved to be killed by NATO Predator drone strikes.  Remember, in the words of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, who proclaim their solidarity with the Arab Spring: “This is what democracy looks like.”

Not challenging the Obama Administration on his War Powers is inducing him to plunge headlong into more wars - possibly for political gain - and is turning his Administration into that which he vows to crush around the world: a military dictatorship.

While retaining his position as CEO of GE, Immelt is now Obama’s “Jobs Czar,” serving on the President’s Economic Advisory Board.  Insomuch, Immelt is the largest kleptocrat in modern American history.  My generation will have to work the rest of their lives to pay down the debt he’s helping to create.  In my opinion, Immelt is actively and recklessly assisting in America’s ruin.  Allow me to explain.

For starters, General Electric netted $14.2 billion in profit, and paid $0 in taxes in 2010.  Individuals and corporations paying 35% in taxes on income may ask, “How’d they do that?”  General Electric is among the few federally-connected corporations who helped write the Stimulus Bill of 2009.  In doing so, they managed to qualify for as many of the loopholes and incentives they helped write into law.  Turns out, they didn’t pay taxes in 2009, either, having benefited from $80 billion of loans from the TARP Bailout Program.

Immelt has an obvious conflict of interest as both Corporate CEO and Administration official:   He is assisting in federal policy decisions which directly ingratiate himself and GE.  Conflicts of interest are nothing new for Immelt: GE owned majority share of NBC until January 2011, which was sold to Comcast, upon FCC and DOJ approval; a week later, Immelt was appointed czar.  NBC is the parent of MSNBC, which served as Obama’s media megaphone during the 2008 election; therefore, GE directly assisted putting Obama in the White House.  In turn, Obama rewarded GE through tax breaks and Immelt’s czarship.

As a globalist, Immelt’s signature achievement is the wholesale robbery of the next generation of Americans by sending jobs overseas, at our expense.  Sixty percent of GE’s business is now overseas, while America borrows 40 cents to the dollar in deficit spending.  A year ago, Immelt feared China’s rise; now he loves China, and China loves him, and for good reason.

A  few ways Immelt is destroying the American economy:

1.  GE profited from the passage of Obamacare, as GE manufactures the X-Ray machines that are part of Obamacare’s testing for bone density (Section 3111).  After its passage, GE shipped all their X-ray manufacturing jobs to China, closing their 115-year old division in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in July 2011.  And, surprise:  Not only is GE one of the privileged companies to receive an HHS waiver from Obamacare, they also received $36 million for the “Early Retirement Reinsurance Program” in Obamacare.

2.  GE is the sole purchaser of Chevrolet Volts in China.  General Motors is giving away the technology it used to develop the Volt to China’s SAIC motor company.  The Volt arguably bankrupted General Motors, while the Obama Administration pushed its development.  In exchange for GM manufacturing the Volt in China, Immelt’s GE is going to buy thousands of Volts to use at their “Corporate campus” in Shanghai, and assist on building charging stations to aid Chinese infrastructure, while the Chinese will subsidize the Volt’s development at $19,000 per vehicle, crushing any competition.  While GM is no longer “made in America,” GE is fast-tracking the destruction of the American automobile industry – and our economic supremacy.

3.  GE spent millions lobbying the federal government to pass the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which effectively outlawed the incandescent lightbulb.  GE has since shipped all their light bulb manufacturing to China, closing the last factory of the 140-year old division in Winchester, VA, in September 2010.  GE is set to poison American homes with mercury from their inadequate Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs, and again, profit from the destruction of American manufacturing.  And, yet another surprise:  New EPA regulations on greenhouse gases were mandated in January 2011; GE received an exemption to the regulation in February.

Immelt is a shining example of why Occupy Wall Street hates corporations, and why the Tea Party hates government.  As an Obama Administration official, Immelt today stated he “sympathizes” with the protesters who also want to destroy the capitalist system.

Philosophically speaking, I am not “anti-corporation.”  If you read my other writings, you would find I am very pro-capitalism.  I want corporations to succeed in a competitive free market.  But this is not capitalism; this is corporatism.  Public funds for non-contractual private firms is, indeed, corporate welfare.  Doling out cash to save particular firms in particular industries is not authorized anywhere in the U.S. Constitution.  Today, the policies of the Obama Administration directly help Immelt’s GE.  Cap-and-trade, had it passed, would have been the largest Christmas present GE ever received.

The way I see it, Immelt has infiltrated government, is robbing my children’s prosperity, and is destroying the American economy.  Paraphrasing Herman Cain paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson, we’ve got some “altering and abolishing” to do.  We need to demand Immelt step down from one of his two posts immediately.