Make up your mind!

The hypocrisy of some so-called leaders is appalling. I often wonder how some politicians can look at themselves in a mirror, and not understand they are looking at the image of a two-faced, forked tongued liar?

For two weeks or more, some of these “leaders” have been yelling that we must do something to help the rebels in Libya. The were roundly criticizing President Obama for not taking immediate action.

The President wisely ( I think) waited until we had UN agreement. For many reasons, this is important. Only then did we take direct action.

Now these same “leaders” are yelling that he, the President, moved too fast, that he took precipitous action, that he should have referred the problem to Congress. For what? We didn’t need a declaration of war—this is a UN action. We certainly didn’t need Congress to spend several weeks to argue, which would probably have involved a filibuster or other parliamentary tactics to delay taking any action. Our Congress can’t even figure out how to keep our government running.

Being President in this climate is a case of being damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

Thought Control

Are we seeing the onset of attempted “thought control?” Consider. The Radical Republicans, by using a rather sneaky maneuver, are attempting to delete any Federal funding for National Public Radio. The “stated” reason for this is to make NPR stand on its own, supported only by the public. Anyone not living under a rock can recognize the hypocrisy in such a position.

The truth of the matter, as I see it, is not that NPR has demonstrated any bias against the world view of the Radical Republicans. NO, NPR reporting is probably as objective as we are ever going to see. Of course, it is a sad commentary on America that the most objective reporting of American news is from the BBC. No, the complaint of the RR’s is that NPR is objective. RR’s don’t like this. They want 100% support, ala Fox News. They have no time for partial or limited agreement. It’s either “agree with us or you’re trash!”

In this respect they remind me of certain religious groups, whose attitude is “We’re right, and everybody else is wrong. Either completely agree with us or you’re going to hell!”

In another development, there was an ongoing study exploring the possibility of constructing a new toll road in southern Wake County. Certain groups did not want such a road built, so they got a legislator to introduce a bill to stop it. The contents of the bill are unusual. Not only does it deny any funding for construction, but also denies funding for any further study. Consider the implication of that. The message is “Not only can you not do it, you can’t even think about it.”

Shades of Brave New World or 1984. Thought control is sneaking in the door.