Category Archives: Barry Kelly

by Barry Kelly | October 21, 2014 · 7:30 am

INSIGHTS 167 — CONSERVATIVE VIEWS

How far apart are conservatives’ and liberals’ political beliefs? Can the two ideologies ever work together to run the country and produce bi-partisan legislation?

The core values of the liberals and conservative values are made up of a mixture of myths, traditions, interpretations of the Constitution, and views ingrained in respective cultural exposures. The respective core values of liberals and conservatives are not easily put aside. Thirty or forty years ago, I wouldn’t have thought the dividing line was so hard to cross. After all, I was once a strong Democrat, a member of the NAACP, and suspicious of capitalism.

Now that President Obama has succeeded in dividing the people into two angry camps with his income distribution, class warfare, and anti-business rhetoric, the nation is more divided than at anytime since the War for Independence and the Civil War when families, towns, and states were divided into Tories or revolutionaries, slavery or non-slavery states, and unionists or secessionists.

President Obama and his progressive party have helped me understand how members of the same family could pick up arms against each other and fight to the death. People only reach those extremes when their core beliefs are threatened. For people to feel so strongly, they have to believe their nation, way of life, freedoms, and futures will be destroyed if the opponent wins. As a conservative, I believe we are approaching that point. Two more terms of the progressive party would continue the breakdown of constitutional barriers, our two-party system, individual freedom, our national security, and national sovereignty and would certainly destroy the America I know and love.

What are the conservative core values? The starting point is that conservatives mistrust government and believe the bigger the government becomes the more it is distrusted. Why? Because it is only the government that can take away our individual and collective freedoms.

A federal government is necessary, but the difference between liberals and conservatives is how big the government should be and what it should do. Conservatives believe that the federal government should only do what the states or people (the public sector) cannot. The job of our representatives is to constantly adjust the size and scope of government to protect rather than diminish freedom. This historic distrust of government is what fathered the Second Amendment guaranteeing the people’s right to bear arms. The best explanation of this right, to me, is that slave owners had guns, slaves did not. Every totalitarian government has always taken weapons away from the people. Anyone wonder why?

Conservatives believe capitalism is the only economic system that allows people to establish and run commercial enterprises that provides growth to the national economy and jobs for the nation’s workers without endangering individual freedoms as a socialist- or communist-managed economy always has. Capitalism is not a perfect system and it needs some regulation but it is the only economic system that meshes with the power of the free market.

Another core conservative belief is that individuals are better stewards of their money than the government. Therefore, taxes should be as low as possible. Low taxes enable more savings and spending by people that feeds the growth of the economy. Everyone with an income should pay some income tax. Higher taxes on the rich are acceptable as long as they are fair and far short of confiscatory. Death taxes are unacceptable. They are clearly part of a redistribution of wealth program. No card-carrying conservative believes a government can spend its way out of a depression or recession. Government spending does not create wealth. Also, no corporation is too big to fail. Government bailouts waste the nation’s wealth.

Welfare for those who need assistance such as the very young, disabled, aged is necessary. Social Security, a program fought by conservatives during FDR’s tenure, has turned out to be a good program. It needs to be made solvent by some simple changes. In FDR’s time, 65 was old. No more. The age of qualifying for social security needs to be gradually increased. Again, that is the kind of thing our representatives are sent to Washington to work out.

Conservatives believe in a strong national defense and distrust any move toward giving any part of our sovereignty to any international organization.

For most of our brief history we have managed to govern by parties with different core beliefs working together for the good of the people. I believe we can get back there. My personal belief is that term limits on our senators and representatives would make all this much easier. Professional politicians, regardless of party affiliation, are too engrossed in their own careers and re-election politics at the expense of the nation.

Written by the author of “Insights: Transforming America — Is This What We Fought For?” available now as an ebook, in paperback or hardcover on Amazon.com or BN.com. Follow the author on Twitter @factsfictions80. If you think this message is important, please share it.

INSIGHTS 165: GOP NEEDS TO BE SHAKEN UP

It looks as if the Republican Party will gain control of the Senate in November. I believe the Republicans will not be responsible for the win. President Obama is responsible for losing the Senate. If he had stayed away from his teleprompter and especially his microphone, some of the Democrats running in red or purple states may have won. Certainly the only winning platform the Republicans had was their anti-Obama ads. It is important to be clear about what you’re against, if you also make it very clear what you are for in the positive sense.

So what will the Republican Congress do in the first six months?

I don’t think the leadership knows. The House speaker and the minority leader have not put forth an alternative to President Obama’s policies and programs. They either lack the intelligence or the courage or both to offer alternatives to the American people. That has to change. Like most changes, this one will require a change in key people. I hope the newly elected House members and the new majority in the Senate recognize their leadership while being crafty in the ways of Congressional procedures, have not shown anymore leadership than the president. You cannot run this great nation by being the party of NO.

Any political gains made this year will be lost in 2016 if the Republican leadership does not aggressively attack and solve the many issues the Democrats fumbled. Health care, tax reform, solvency of welfare programs, immigration, unemployment, national defense and myriad foreign policy issues. With Republicans, the issue is always the issue. No more whining about the president’s unwillingness to work in bi-partisan fashion or the use of his phone and pen unilaterally. You have the power. Use it. Stop worrying about getting re-elected or being out-messaged by the president. Just get the job done.

First send Mr. McConnell and Mr. Boehner back into the ranks. Then send bi-partisan bills to the president’s desk. When he vetoes, work to overturn the veto. He has less than 35 percent of the people with him. Show us Washington is not log-jammed now that the Republican congress is in town. Regain the respect of the people and foreign nations.

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Filed under Barry Kelly, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, political solutions, Politics

Tagged as 2014, 2016, Congress, current-events, elections, GOP, Obamacare, Republicans, Senate

by Barry Kelly | October 9, 2014 · 7:30 am

INSIGHTS 164: IF WORDS WERE BULLETS AND PROMISES BOMBS

Our president fills the airwaves with words and promises. Most of us have learned to just tune them out. He has a reputation as a good speaker but only if someone else writes the words and his technical staff puts them on a teleprompter. It would be more accurate to say he is very good at reading speeches. Words are simply a means to achieve some murky end.

The president’s words in a war environment are very different. We do not dare tune them out. People’s lives and freedoms are at stake.

This president is the least equipped to be a commander-in-chief than any president in my lifetime, which goes back to FDR’s first term. President Obama carries with him some very strange baggage. I think he believes American troops in foreign lands are and were there as occupiers. He has even referred to our troops in Iraq during the actual war as an army of occupiers. His anti-colonial distrust of American power is deeply ingrained, but not well hidden. No troops were left in Iraq because he wanted his legacy to be the president who lived up to his pre-election rhetoric to end wars, not start them. Any American forces left behind in Iraq would be interfering with the sovereignty of Iraq and be occupiers, not protectors of the peace.

As a result, we have ISIS. I gave the president credit for putting together a coalition of Islamic countries and for authorizing the air war. The no-boots-on-the-ground chant bothered me but I thought he would take advice from the Pentagon and intelligence agencies to guide the air war and when the time was right to put some troops on the ground to direct the air war and stiffen the Peshmerga and Sunni tribes to resist ISIS advances. The airstrikes did work to save Kirkuk and the huge nearby dam complex. Now ISIS commanders have adapted and the air war failed to reach the level of hundreds of strikes per day against fixed targets and targets of opportunity. Even now, outside the Kurdish city of Kobani, which ISIS is poised to capture and massacre thousands of non-believers in ISIS’s brand of Islam, the airstrikes are far to few and ineffective.

To reach Kobani with the troops and fire power necessary to push the Peshmerga out of part of their homeland, ISIS had to establish and maintain long lines of logistical support. These kinds of targets are vulnerable to air interdiction. ISIS logistical convoys of tanks and trucks have to move though miles of desolate, sparsely populated areas. There is no cover and very little need to worry about collateral damage. Yet the might of the American air power is not being used.

Civilian command over the military is a very important Constitutional precept. But that doesn’t mean political hacks in the White House should manage the war. Militarily, they are worse than incompetent, because in arrogance they believe they are right. How many books by former Cabinet officers in the Obama administration do we have to read or hear on TV before everyone realizes there is a huge difference between civilian control and civilian-hands-on-management by politicians whose primary purpose is to make the president look good? I thought we had learned our lesson in the Vietnam War when the White House acted as a command center and target selection facility outside the Pentagon. Then, as now, no high-ranking generals or admirals resigned rather than kowtow to politicians with no or very limited military credentials. It would be more honorable if, rather than write books afterward, they openly resisted bad political/military orders and resigned. Their oath is to defend America, not their careers or the political legacy of any president.

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Filed under Barry Kelly, Intelligence & Politics, ISIS, Kurds, Sunni, Terrorism

Tagged as America, BarackObama, iraq, ISIS, Islam, Middle East, White House

by Barry Kelly | October 6, 2014 · 7:30 am

INSIGHTS 162: A DIFFERENT KIND OF BOOK

Nearly four months ago I published my first non-fiction book titled INSIGHTS: Transforming America – Is This What We Fought For? I wanted to write abook that would explain to all Americans what the progressives’ transformation of America means and how it is being accomplished. I have a couple of degrees in political science from respected universities, have travelled widely, lived abroad for years and, after retiring from the CIA, served as a special assistant to President Reagan for National Security Affairs. I tell you all that to support my

Barry Kelly shakes hands with President Reagan in the White House.

claim that I could have written a book for academics and political theorists. Instead, I wanted to write a book for the people who don’t have time to research and study national and world affairs. They are too busy trying to keep families together and get the bills paid.

Because living in today’s economy takes so much time and effort, people shouldn’t find out when it’s too late that their freedom of choice has disappeared. Freedom often slips away slowly, and piece by piece. Unless you’re paying close attention, you won’t notice government has grown beyond need, and power has been centralized by an elite political group. There is nothing new here. History tells us successful radical left-wing political groups have always ended up in tyranny, even though that may not have been the original intent.

I work with a near-perfect editor and a small but very talented publisher. The combination of the two put out a very professional product. Ingram and Amazon distribute the books worldwide. The downside is that we don’t have the contacts to publicize my books. People buy books when someone they know and respect recommends the book. With that truth in mind, we wrote to 20 well-known conservative politicians and leaders. We received some very nice responses from a few of them but nothing to help getting the message out. The price of the paperback and digital versions is very affordable.

To me, getting the message out to help change the direction President Obama and his progressive followers are guiding the nation, is far more important than any profit. It may sound strange but I’m depending on the people to get the message out to the people. Word Press, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Goodreads are the social media I’m using to get the message out.

I believe in the value of never giving up. I now have another book, INSIGHTS: Stepping Stones to Tyranny, under pre-publishing review at the CIA. This book should be published in the next month. It’s too late for the mid-term elections, but right on for the next two years and a chance to use the ballot box to sweep the progressives out of office. This book is also written for the people. It explains the progressive process and their use of issues in a step-by-step approach that is meant to be read bit by bit and thought about. Please leave any ideas you may have about getting the message out in the comments box.

Thank you from an old Cold War warrior who doesn’t want to see our cherished freedoms gained at such a cost be lost without notice. Peace through strength.

INSIGHTS 161: ERIC HOLDER’S END GAME

theblaze.com

Where do attorney generals go when they leave office? Most just follow the path of retiring generals of our military forces and just fade away or become talking heads. I can’t see our activist AG just going quietly into semi-retired obscurity. He is not yet finished.

In the progressive’s game plan, the control of the Supreme Court is the way they protect progressive gains and carry their socialist agenda forward. What is the top rung for any AG? It is certainly not becoming a part-time player on the ‘talking heads’ bench.

The top rung of the AG ladder ends in the Supreme Court. That is where their legacies can be protected and pushed forward. Of course, there has to be a vacancy on the court. No president, not even Roosevelt or Obama, can expand the court. Several Supreme Court justices are nearing or past a retirement date.

Justices, either liberal or conservative, know the game. They only retire when a like-minded jurist can be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. If the Republicans take control of the Senate in the 2014 mid-term election, President Obama surely recognizes he would have a hard time getting an activist progressive nominee through the Senate.

I believe it was always Mr. Holder’s ambition to continue his socialist agenda on the Supreme Court after serving the president as the chief law enforcement official in the land. He has admirably protected the president from the scandals of the “Fast and Furious” gun running to drug cartels to the IRS’s flagrant partisan discrimination persecution of conservative political groups seeking legal tax exemption status.

Mr. Holder, as the protector of the president, has done an excellent job and deserves being repaid by President Obama. However, his strident partisan approach to enforcing the law of the land, selectively according to the progressive agenda, will make it nearly impossible to get any conservative votes in the Senate for him.

This reality dictated the timing of Mr. Holder’s resignation. If he is going to realize his dream of sitting on the Supreme Court, the president must nominate him while Democrats (progressives) control the Senate. It just may work. If it does, we will have a hard-core activist socialist on the high court for a few decades. Watch for the ‘going out the door’ law enforcement rules he sends out from his office such as anti-profiling.

Don’t confuse Eric Holder with real law enforcement.