Post Election Thoughts - Reactions One Week Later

I wrote this on Wednesday, 07NOV12, the morning after waking to find out President Obama was going to have another four years in office. BOLD TEXT indicates my reflecting on my feelings nearly two weeks ago:

Here's what I'm seeing from what happened last night:

1. The American people have spoken. Although I do not believe Conservatism is a minority mentality in America, what is exposed through the evidence from yesterday's election is that Conservatives are not well represented, and thus will not be able to well represent Americans in its political endeavors  This needs to change if America is going to become a powerful leader on the world stage again, instead of a complicit follower.

2. Americans, as a whole, do not understand the damage that has been done to our ability to sustain ourselves as a Nation. We've forgotten what self reliance means, and have traded hard work and dignity in for revenge politics a la Valarie Jarrett, David Axelrod and President Obama. America, to our dismay, has shown that the sensationalism of the dirty political game is what makes them happy.

We continue to see this represented in what happened last week with the Hostess bankruptcy proceedings. Even in the midst of corporate failure the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union's public euthanization of Hostess (their leadership knew that Hostess wouldn't be able to meet their demands, and held firm anyway, regardless of the need to work for their employees) represents a failure of the Left to realize that corporations do not exist to provide work, benefits and pensions for employees. The private sector is about the creation of wealth, not the creation of jobs. One begets the other, but without the former the latter simply cannot exist. The BCTGM, in what they called "good faith" for their workers, intentionally destroyed a cornerstone of American culture for the last 82 years. Their disregard for the livelihoods of the families of the 18.5k employees that are now out of work due to their actions is appalling, and should shown as such by our media. Instead, Hostess is being vilified by the media and by those in Leftist circles. The news doesn't indicate the truth of the matter. Instead this is being portrayed as a story of revenge made good. Hostess failed to properly care for its working class employees, instead giving lavish bonuses to its executives while the company was in the throws of bankruptcy. How else can anyone see this but as a story of the bourgeoisie getting over on the proletariat? Hostess was faced with unfunded liabilities that were going to crush it regardless of an agreement with the BCTGM. When the company reached an agreement with the Teamsters Union last week it was hopeful that the BCTGM would see there was a way to save the jobs of the employees if they  would simply allow for Hostess to work through bankruptcy in a way that would make the company profitable again. The BCTGM didn't blink, calling bluff where none existed, and now 18,500 people are out of work, along with the entire support apparatus that existed to enable an 82 year old company to be viable. Entitlement. Business does not exist to create jobs, but to create wealth. The creation of wealth necessitates the creation of jobs because wealth creation requires labor. Hostess wasn't cheating their workers. The company was bleeding money out of its union negotiated benefits and pension packages and needed a way out. The executives that sought bankruptcy were rewarded for their efforts to save the company, and would have been regardless of the union's efforts to destroy the company in what seemed like their proving a point. I wonder if the 18,500 BCTGM employees out of work now understand what that point is?

3. We, as a Nation, are in for a devaluation of the dollar as a world currency. The world, as we know it, will begin to stop trading commodities in our currency and we will begin to see a downward spiral into banana republic status as we continue to try to print our way out of the obligations Keynesian fiscal policies will create for our progeny, and theirs. America will see its credit rating dropped from the As and we will become the biggest Greece this world has ever known. The rest of the world will be forced to cut us off for fear of our failure taking us down with them.

4. Because the House remained in GOP control and the Senate did not change control we will see a perpetual Continuing Resolution built on a 2009 budget baseline that included over $1T in spending that was intended to be temporary. Instead of what President Obama promised in a reduction of our National Debt and reduction of our Deficit Spending we will see at least $5T more added to our debt with $1.3T/yr deficit spending per year until Obama leaves office.

President Obama has expressed confidence that Congress will give him the $1.6T tax increase over the next decade he feels he needs to reduce the deficit. This is a useless statement, however. The President first ran for office on a promise that he would reduce the deficit starting on day 1, but the Super Majority in Congress, held by Democrats until 2011, refused to pass a budget, instead passing continuing resolution after continuing resolution, every single one containing the full balance of the first stimulus package from 2009. This effectively ballooned the deficit to over $1.3T per year over the last budget passed by President Bush. Obama blamed Bush for the deficit, but has shown absolutely no interest whatsoever in pushing Congress in the direction of passing a budget that doesn't include $1.3T more spending than our Nation is able to generate in tax revenue. His only plan to change this dynamic is to raise taxes. When asked about reducing spending he evades the question, talks about how he's commissioned a committee or some such study to help identify waste in Government, and then ask for the next question. In every instance where waste in Government has been indicated as something that can be cut the conversation is evaded or Obama indicates that he takes the suggestions of his committees very seriously and will consider their input in due course. Little is said about the fact that the budget recommendations made by his commissions have been rejected by his Administration, and every single budget proposal he's made has been rejected soundly. If the Obama Administration had any intention of decreasing the deficit the President would have vetoed the Bill authorizing the stimulus and requested Congress change the language to exclude this addition to 2009's expenditures from 2010's baseline budget. This simple change would have eliminated over $4T of the deficit, and debt, President Obama has racked up in four years.

5. There will be continued attacks on the non-governmental institutions that have helped define what it means to be an American. The Constitution will see attack after attack as Justice Ginsburg retires and two more lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court are appointed by President Obama and Harry Reid. These appointments will be divisive, have defined designs on their personal interpretations of the Constitution and what it means in terms of how the Government can control the individual and the individual entity. We will see an increased fervor from those already in our Government for Command and Control governance, where the regulatory state will determine your outcome regardless of the legal ramifications of your actions within your state of residency. If you wish to succeed it will be at the behest of the Government, not because of your desire to do so.

6. Iran and radical Islam will be emboldened by our inability to throw off the shackles of tyranny which bind us to our fate. Ahmadinejad and others will see this election as akin to what happened in 2009 in Tahrir Square through violence and unproductive demonstration against a totalitarian regime, and recognize our unfulfilled will to oust a dictatorial despot as further evidence that we do not possess the means to prevent him from developing a nuclear device. Iran will reach that goal or Israel will be forced to stop them, or Israel will be attacked from another aggressor, and they will have to protect themselves on their own. This will spark the powder keg that is the Middle East into what could very well become the catalyst to WW3. Under President Obama we will not be prepared to protect ourselves or our allies, and we will not be prepared to feed and power ourselves without the rest of the world's resources available for our purchase because the Command and Control state will not allow for continued domestic energy and agricultural development.

Leading the world in a "Peace through Strength/Strength through Leadership" mentality is a foreign concept to this Administration. For the last four years we've done nothing but capitulate and appease our aggressors and the aggressors of our allies, to our detriment. Palestine has been attacking Israel for decades, but since the election we've seen a dramatic increase in these attacks. There isn't anything this Nation, under its current leadership, is willing to do to stem the tide that is building against Israel. Our President has indicated that Israel has the right to defend itself, but has said nothing about whether or not he will stand with them in their defense. It has been discovered (surprisingly after nearly two weeks of shelling) that Hamas has been supplied with weapons from Iran. Egypt's new Islamist regime has expressed solidarity with Hamas in their attacks on Israel. Our media has shown they're also tied to Hamas in their reporting of the events as they unfold, calling Israel's response to being brazenly attacked "assassinations" instead of retaliations. There have been political cartoons in newspapers across the United States trivializing the attacks from Hamas while at the same time implying that Israel's responses have been overblown and uncalled for. World wide, news organizations have been showing images and video of grieving families crying over children that have been touched by the violence, conveniently leaving out the fact that the Palestinian children being shown were killed by poorly maintained Hamas munitions that detonated prior to deployment, or missed their mark entirely, while Hamas militants have hidden the evidence of a Hamas fired rocket or missile having caused the damage and the family crying out for the annihilation of Israel. Demonstrably, the mainstream media in the United States, and worldwide, has a bias against Israel.

7. Because the President and those in the Senate will see their continued status in power as a mandate from the people for them to lead us to their designs of what this Nation should be we will see massive increases in taxes for the wealthy and what is known as the upper middle class. Those who have means will leave this country for nations friendlier to their wealth, and those who do not have means will suffer at the hands of a Nation that does not value their productivity as much as it values punishing it through wealth redistributive measures. Those who are in the so-called middle class will find it harder to succeed, and those who are poor will become poorer still. There will be a rash of selling of stock and a retraction from the market by those who have capital but are unwilling to spend it in anticipation of the increased taxation that will come beginning in 2013 and continue with the implementation of ObamaCare.

Already there has been a shrinking away from capital markets as businesses with much to lose are preparing for their tax liabilities beginning in 2013. Many companies have begun to publicly indicate what their plans for 2013 will mean to their workforce, and the picture they're painting isn't very pretty. There will be a new 29.5 hour work week for non-salary employees (read: wage earners, mostly below the poverty line, and many below several multiples thereof). This change in many labor practices will be in direct response to the mandate in ObamaCare that businesses with over 50 employees SHALL supply every employee working over 30 hours in a single week (hence to be referred to as "full time", a ludicrous thought process) with Government approved health insurance. Businesses with low profit margins, relying on shift labor to churn through volume consumption will increase headcount and reduce hours to make up the gap while at the same time dodge the requirement AND the tax/fine associated with not providing health insurance to their employee. Those working in low skill employment will find their hours cut from 8 hours a day/5 days a week to 4 hours a day/5 days a week, with no tolerance by the employer for over clocking, and no options for overtime. Hourly employers will hire twice the headcount, get the same amount of work out of two employees that they would have otherwise had one employee accomplish, and both employees will slide further into poverty as they're forced to work three or four jobs in order to feed their families. Again, entitlement. Business exists to create wealth, not jobs. Obama and the Left has made the conversation about ObamaCare not about the impacts to the economy, but about the health care that everyone will have. They fail to mention that you'll have to lose what health insurance you may have once had to obtain ObamaCare, and you may not be able to feed yourself while you're waiting in line for your Government mandated minimal care at the hands of overworked, under staffed medical professionals who will be leaving their jobs in droves due to the increased burdens ObamaCare places on them in terms of patient to provider ratios. Simply put, you cannot add 39M patients to what will have been known as MediCare/MediCaid without adding doctors. The Administration has indicated they see a need, due to ObamaCare, for at least 52k more private practice doctors in the coming years to deal with the increased patient load ObamaCare will create. They haven't really paid much attention to the fact that MediCare has reduced payments to doctors who take Medicare patients steadily over the years, so much so that it will eventually be impossible to make a profit as a private practice doctor in the United States. That's alright, though. Everyone will have insurance, right?

We're in for a very rough four years, everyone. If you measure our Nation's success in terms of the unemployment numbers and GDP, both are in store for a respective downturn as those who produce begin to find new markets to move their productive activities into. War will not become a thing of the past, and we will see many more instances where the controversy in Libya, and the failures of our Nation to adequately deal with the aftermath will become the norm.

We have been shown to be the moral minority. That doesn't need to be our death knell, but at present it will be discouraging. Do not despair. When confronted with the truths about Conservatism in the face of the lies of Liberalism and outside of the echo chamber that is the mainstream media, the American People invariably choose the former over the latter. We have to find a way to cleanse the GOP of those less than upstanding examples of who and what we stand for, and better educate those who are willing to listen. Our message is clear, but the minds of those receptive to it are not, and the hearts of those who would co-opt our souls for avarice and power are all too common.

This is not the end, everyone. It is a beginning. Eventually Americans will realize what they've done to themselves. Once they do, we will be there to help guide them out of the dark and into the light that is Freedom, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.