Category Archives: Progressives

by Barry Kelly | October 29, 2014 · 7:35 am

INSIGHTS 169: OBAMA’S IMMIGRATION WEB

Watch carefully as President Obama spins his immigration web. The purpose is not to help Hispanics or to fix a national disgrace. Like all web weavers what the web traps is for them. Obama executive orders or agency directives on immigration are to make the Hispanics believe he cares about them and to show Hispanics and others that the Republicans are against immigrants and their children. The president’s web is spun with a weave of inter-tangled issues. Look closely and you will find in the immigration web these issues.

Border Security

All Americans and all Hispanics know the border is not secure and if you are caught, you will soon be released in America. No matter how many Democratic border governors preach the border is secure we know it is not. When Republicans push for border security, Obama twists their concern for border security into an issue that reads “Republicans do not want Hispanics in America.” The border is open because Obama and his progressive lemmings want as many Hispanics crossing into America as possible for Hispanic votes for Democrats.

Work Permits

As part of immigration legislation, work permits are a good thing but we must also be aware that adding more potential workers to the workforce does not help citizens looking for work. Once we get the progressives’ feet off the brake of economic growth we will need the Hispanic workers. Their work ethic and entrepreneurship will be welcome in the economy. The Obama message regarding work permits is: “Republicans do not want Hispanic workers unless they can get away with very low wages and no benefits.”

Amnesty

This is a word that has no place in immigration legislation. It is only a word that stirs up Republican and labor union fears. Does it mean immediate citizenship? No! Does it mean no more fear of deportation or court appearances? Maybe. But this word has no positive connotation. It is only web material that makes meaningful legislation and the necessary bi-partisanship more difficult. It is, however, an issue progressives use to destroy the opposition. Is that you?

Citizenship Path

These two words add nothing positive to Immigration legislation. Any immigration bill will have not one, but several paths to citizenship. For instance, military service for a stated number of years, competence in the English language and American history, and no record of felonies. That should be enough to qualify for American citizenship. Obama progressives make real legislation difficult by hinting at paths to citizenship that are ill-defined or not acceptable by the opposition just so they can preach, “Republicans don’t ever want Hispanics to become American citizens.”

Don’t get caught in Obama’s immigration web. It will not be easy to escape the web spinner’s goal of progressive one-party rule in America.

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.

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Filed under Barry Kelly, Conservative views, democrats, Eight Decades of Insights, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, political solutions, Politics, Progressives

Tagged as Immigration, socialism

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.

INSIGHTS 166: UNDERSTANDING THE RELIGION

To understand your opponent’s beliefs, you need to take the time to identify their core beliefs. Today, I’ll look at what I believe are the core beliefs of those who are left of center along the political divide.

All of us must recognize that the core beliefs of political parties, religions, social groups, and even sports teams have beliefs that are a mixture of facts, myths, tradition, and emotional ‘need-to-believe’ items. I believe the core values or beliefs of liberals start with the tenet that capitalism is essentially evil and it needs constant and extensive regulation to mitigate the damage that it does. Certainly the liberal/progressives working in the Obama administration have pumped out thousands of regulations that affect commercial activities of corporations and small businesses. For everyone to ‘have a fair shot’ like the liberals want, they believe capitalism must be drastically controlled.

The pay gap between CEOs and workers must be reduced. Liberals believe in deficit financing because it is necessary to fund welfare programs and other important government spending. Keynesian monetary policies, based on the belief that a nation can spend its way to prosperity, are a mainstay of liberal economics. This theory was extensively tried during FDR’s terms. FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. finally convinced his boss that deficit financing was not working. Nevertheless, ‘spending to prosperity’ is still a core liberal/progressive belief.

The liberal core belief on tax policy is that taxes on the rich and corporations should be high enough to fund extensive welfare programs. They are not concerned about the number of people on welfare. A high percentage of the population on welfare and paying no income taxes is a good thing. The government is doing the right thing when it takes care of people by welfare programs. This belief does not make the connection between high taxes on the rich and corporations and the failure of the economy to grow and produce jobs. Tax policy is a primary tool to income redistribution. Interestingly enough, liberals never point out the high salaries being paid to Hollywood and sports figures. They receive their wealth because they earn it when the rest of us are willing to pay for the products they produce. This is capitalism but it doesn’t apply to other commercial ventures.

The necessity for big government with increased centralization of government is another core belief of liberals. To manage education, commerce, welfare, law enforcement, health care, communications, and tax collection, a large centralized federal government is necessary. Liberals believe big government is not a bad thing for it protects and enhances freedom and individual choice.

The ‘big government is good’ belief does not extend to the Department of Defense. Nearly all liberals believe the defense budget should be cut and the savings allocated to welfare programs. Sounds good, but the basic responsibility of the government is to protect the people. The connection between cutting defense and reducing the ability of the government to defend us is not made. Even today President Obama is moving forward with his goal of cutting the armed forces back to pre-WWII levels.

Liberals/progressives believe that a small elite group of liberals can better manage the government than the free-for-all political system set up by the Constitution and years of tradition. This is why the liberal media and universities do not do their job of keeping government honest. Our founders knew liberty requires eternal vigilance. This belief is not part of the core beliefs held by the liberal/progressive elite in America.

Perhaps the biggest plank in the liberal platform is a deep guilt about American wealth and power. Why else would students studying at Harvard, recently vote that America is a bigger threat to world peace than ISIS? My worry is that by the time these smart wonderful kids learn the truth about their country and the world, it will be too late for them and the rest of us.

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 159: FLAWED VISION OR ANTI-U.S. AGENDA?

Normally when a president gives a speech to an international audience, the president and his staff carefully craft the message he is to deliver. The Obama White House is no different. They never miss a chance to get their message out. They are very good about keeping all their key members on the message.

What message was the president reading off his teleprompter this past week in front of his international audience? Was it that ISIS is a bad group that needs to be checked and all concerned nations should join him in the fight against ISIS? Sounds right. And he did ask for support.

The second message seemed to be that while these people are bad, they are not radical or extremist Islamists. In fact, he never used the words “radical Islamists.” He said America will never wage a war against Islam, going on to say there is no “them or us.” We have millions of Islamic members in America, he said, as if to say a war against Islam would be a war against our own people.

The president has a hard time with using words to describe terrorism inflicted on others by followers of Islam. Remember he and his attorney general still refer to the murdering of service members at Fort Hood by a self-avowed Islamist shouting “Allah Akbar” while firing into an unarmed group of service men and women as “work place violence.” The president and his attorney general have never used the Islamic label in any situation involving terrorism. (Hope the next attorney general can break this mold.) It is clear all Islamists are not terrorists but nearly all recent terrorism attacks have been done in the name of Islam by the terrorists. What is the problem with recognizing reality?

This president acts as if he doesn’t like America or its historical past. Does he really think the shooting of a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, is equal to the beheadings and murders of thousands of people judged to be unbelievers by ISIS? If not, why even raise the issue? The case in Ferguson is still under investigation and until the grand jury makes the evidence public, everyone, including our president and Eric Holder, should be quiet about the issue. It may not be exactly the way they would like it to be.

I suspect the president is so mired in the anti-colonial socialist past of his historical view that he has trouble seeing reality in some cases. Unfortunately, those cases sometimes involve national security. A lot of American blood and treasure have been spent by brave men and women to defend us from radical jihadists. How can we win the struggle against radical Islam if our leaders cannot even recognize the issue and call it by name? Your call: flawed vision or an anti-U.S. agenda?