as the black family disintegrates…..by Clayton I. Cramer…W.Post

Here we are, another Black History Month: time to lionize great black men and women of the past. Twenty-eight days to praise the first African American to do this and the first African American who did that. Another month of looking back with pride – as we ignore the calamity in our midst.

When Black History Month was celebrated in 1950, according to State University of New York research, 77.7 percent of black families had two parents. As of January 2010, according to the Census Bureau, the share of two-parent families among African Americans had fallen to 38 percent.

We know that children, particularly young male African Americans, benefit from parental marriage and from having a father in the home. Today, the majority of black children are born to single, unmarried mothers.

Celebrate? Let’s celebrate.

Three years ago, I wrote about young girls in our city who are not learning what they are really worth, young men who aren’t being taught to treat young women with respect, and boys and girls who are learning how to make babies but not how to raise them ["A Tragedy That Is Ours to Stop," op-ed, July 19, 2008].
Those conditions, the column suggested, find expression in youth violence, child abuse and neglect, school dropout rates, and the steady stream of young men flowing into the city’s detention facilities.
Boys get guns, girls get babies. To buttress that point, I referred to the Web site of the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, which posted maps from 2005 and 2006 identifying the location of juvenile arrests and births to 15- to 19-year-olds in the District. Neighborhoods plagued by youth violence, the maps showed, were the same neighborhoods where birth rates among teenagers were highest.

Fast-forward to 2008, the latest year for which the organization has such data. The statistics are updated, but little changed: The maps show that juvenile arrests and teen births are still clustered in the same areas of the city. The three jurisdictions leading in teen births and juvenile arrests were Wards 8, 7 and 5.

Ward 8, represented by D.C. Council member Marion Barry, is first, with a total of 1,487 teen births and juvenile arrests.

Council member Yvette Alexander’s Ward 7 ranks second with 1,386 combined teen births and juvenile arrests.

Third place goes to Ward 5, represented by council member Harry Thomas Jr.; it racked up 1,186 teen births and juvenile arrests.

This isn’t top-secret stuff. Nor is the pattern new. We don’t need maps to tell us what the problem of teen births means to the city.

We know that most teenage mothers don’t graduate from high school; that many of the youths in the juvenile justice system are born to unmarried teens; and that children of teenagers are twice as likely to be abused or neglected and more likely to wind up in foster care.

We know, too, that children of teenage parents are more likely to become teen parents themselves.

An intergenerational cycle of dysfunction is unfolding before our eyes, even as we spend time rhapsodizing about our past.

No less discouraging is the response that has become ingrained.

Sixteen, unmarried and having a baby? No problem. Here are your food stamps, cash assistance and medical coverage. Can’t be bothered with the kid? No sweat, there’s foster care.

Make the young father step up to his responsibilities?

Consider this statement I received from a sexual health coordinator and youth programs coordinator in the District concerning a teen mother she is counseling: “She recently had a child by a man who is 24 years old and has 5 other children. He is homeless and does not work, but knows how to work young girls very well. . . .This young man is still trying to have more children.”

He’s a cause. Our community deals with his consequences.

A 16-year-old mother who reads at a sixth-grade level drops out of school? Blame the teacher. Knock the city for underserving girls during their second and third pregnancies. Blast social workers for not doing enough to help children with developmental disabilities or kids in foster care. Carp at the counselors responsible for troubled youth in detention.

Sure, tackle the consequences. Construct a bigger, better, more humane safety net. I’m for that, especially where children are concerned. And the causes?

God forbid, don’t mention causes.

Celebrate? Let’s celebrate.

Clayton E. Cramer at Pajamas, Reviews Decriminalizing Marijuana

“DeCriminalizing Marijuana to Reduce Access to Minors;…not quite” is the title at Pajamas Media:

“Last year, I stirred up a hornet’s nest by explaining why I no longer supported decriminalizing marijuana. My reason for this was the longitudinal studies that strongly suggest that it at least doubles the risk that a person will develop schizophrenia after they start smoking pot.

Those at the greatest mental illness risk from marijuana use are teenagers and young adults. Your chances of developing schizophrenia decline dramatically by your late 20s. In the course of discussions in email, quite a number of people have made the argument that decriminalizing marijuana would actually make marijuana less available to minors than it is now.

My first reaction when I first heard this claim made by William F. Buckley, Jr. many years ago was skepticism. Generally, making something illegal reduces consumption, not because potential consumers obey the law, but because illegality makes it harder to find the product. Run an ad or open a storefront selling an illegal product, and you will not be in business very long. The harder it is to find sellers, the less competitive prices will be. As the price of a commodity rises, it usually reduces demand for that commodity. There are other, very destructive effects from making it unlawful, but no advertising and rising prices will reduce demand.

Prohibition is actually one of the better illustrations of this. Cirrhosis of the liver is overwhelmingly caused by alcohol abuse — by some estimates, 95% of cirrhosis of the liver deaths are alcohol-induced. In the years before national Prohibition took effect in 1920, a number of states had passed state-level bans on sale and possession of alcohol. And what happened to cirrhosis of the liver death rates as states passed those bans?

Unsurprisingly, cirrhosis of the liver death rates started to rise (slowly) as Prohibition came to an end. The graph of alcohol consumption for the post-Prohibition period matches up quite well with the cirrhosis of the liver death rates. The most obvious conclusion is that Prohibition reduced alcohol consumption — and its repeal started it back up again. Whether you think Prohibition was “the noble experiment” or a completely stupid nanny-state idea, it does appear that it reduced alcohol consumption. What a surprise: laws do influence behavior.

A recurring claim is that marijuana is more available to teenagers than alcohol. Why?  Because alcohol, while regulated, is a legal product to sell. Those in the business of selling alcohol are terribly concerned about losing their licenses to sell, fines, even jail time — and so they have strong incentives to not sell to minors. Marijuana dealers, on the other hand, are already criminals — what is the government going to do to them for selling to kids?

This is a very logical argument. If we were making laws for Vulcans, instead of mere Earthlings, this impeccable logic would lead to a beautiful result: decriminalizing marijuana would make it less available to teenagers. There is one little problem: an ounce of experience outweighs a pound of theory. Here’s a recent Idaho Statesman article about what happened when the Boise Police Department went out to “sting” bars, restaurants, and stores by having minors go in to buy alcohol: “Two teams of police officers and 18- and 19-year-old teens visited 36 businesses over the weekend. Boise police say employees served the teens alcohol at eight of those businesses — five convenience stores, two restaurants, and a bar.”  Even worse, four of the eight violations happened after employees had checked the buyer’s ID that clearly showed that the buyer was underage.
This is not just a Boise thing. I searched news.google.com for the string “alcohol sting minors” and ended up with 232 news stories. In Midland, Texas, where Walmart failed. In Ontario County, New York, where police went into 40 liquor stores and 16 bars — and had six violations. In Visalia, California, where four of seven businesses were cited for selling to minors. In Grand Junction, Colorado, where 85 businesses were tested — and ten of them sold alcohol to minors. And these particular news stories were for two days, from January 17-18, 2011.

Now remember, these are regulated, licensed businesses that are getting caught — businesses that have strong economic incentives to obey the law. They have not only criminal liability for these sales, but a large potential civil liability if they sell alcohol to someone under 21. Yet either out of willfulness, incompetence, or carelessness, lots of businesses are breaking the law.

All of us know that the bigger source of alcohol for the under 21 set — and even more, the under 18 set — is not the clerk who does not check ID, or does not check it properly. When I was younger, if I was entering a store that sold beer, teenagers would approach me, asking me to buy them beer. (I told them no.) I also know that there were plenty of other young adults who were not so particular — especially since the teens would often offer the adult the opportunity to keep the change. I see no reason to assume that this same process would not be happening outside marijuana stores.

Of course, lots of alcohol moves from the liquor cabinet or the refrigerator without parental knowledge — and sometimes with it. There is no reason to assume that parents are going to be more careful or responsible with marijuana than they are with alcohol — especially when you read news stories like this gem from the January 18, 2011, San Francisco Chronicle: “Video of a marijuana puffing toddler has led to the arrest of a Southern California desert couple. San Bernardino County sheriff’s Deputy Lisa Guerra says she was tipped Saturday that 20-year-old Melanie Soliz and 24-year-old Blake Hightower were abusive parents who allowed their 23-month-old son to smoke pot.” Isn’t that cute? It appears that they videotaped their toddler emulating Mom and Dad by trying to take a drag on one of their pipes.

We already have a big problem with alcohol and minors — a bigger problem than we have with marijuana and minors. (Hmmm. The one that is legal is a bigger problem than the one that is illegal. But that must be just a coincidence.) If you want to argue that decriminalization of marijuana is a good idea, feel free to make that argument.  But can you drop this ridiculous argument that making it legal would discourage sellers from making sales to minors?”

Reagan Exposes Another Lefty Rule: “The only good conservative is a dead conservative.”

In today’s Boston Herald Jonah Goldberg writes, “Left does right about”

“The only good conservative is a dead conservative. That, in a nutshell, describes the age-old tradition of liberals suddenly discovering that once-reviled conservatives were OK after all. It’s just we-the-living who are hateful ogres, troglodytes and moperers.

Over the last decade or so, as the giants of the founding generation of modern American conservatism have died, each has been rehabilitated into a gentleman-statesman of a bygone era of conservative decency and open-mindedness.

Barry Goldwater was the first. A few years ago his liberal granddaughter produced a documentary in which nearly all of the testimonials were from liberals like Hillary Clinton and James Carville. Almost overnight, the man whom LBJ cast as a hate-filled demagogue who would condemn the world to nuclear war became an avuncular and sage grandfather type. Down the memory hole went one of the most despicable campaigns of political demonization.

Then there was William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review, the magazine I call home. For more than four decades, Buckley was subjected to condemnation for his alleged extremism. Jack Paar (the Johnny Carson/Jay Leno of his day) was among the first of many to try to paint Buckley as a Nazi. Now, Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times [NYT] book review section, who is writing a biography of Buckley, insists that Bill’s life mission was to make liberalism better.

But it’s Ronald Reagan who really stands out. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Gipper is enjoying yet another status upgrade among liberals.

Barack Obama took a Reagan biography with him on his vacation. A slew of liberals and mainstream journalists (but I repeat myself) complimented Obama’s State of the Union address as “Reaganesque.” Time magazine recently featured the cover story “Why Obama (Hearts) Reagan.” Meanwhile, the usual suspects are rewriting the same columns about how Reagan was a pragmatist who couldn’t run for president today because he was too nice, too reasonable, too (shudder) liberal for today’s Republican Party.

On one hand, there’s something wonderful about the overflowing of love for Reagan. When presidents leave office or die, their partisan affiliation fades and, for the great ones, eventually withers away. Reagan was a truly great president, one of the greatest according to even liberal historians.

While the encomiums to Reagan & Co. are welcome, the reality is that very little has changed. As we saw in the wake of the Tucson shootings, so much of the effort to build up conservatives of the past is little more than a feint to tear down the conservatives of the present.

It’s an old game. For instance, in 1980,  quirky New Republic writer Henry Fairlie wrote an essay for the Washington Post in which he lamented the rise of Reagan, “the most radical activist of them all.” The title of his essay: “If Reagan “Only were another Coolidge.”

As an add on here the following is a video of President Reagan’s farewell address to the public in 1989:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKVsq2daR8Q

Did Obama Cancel National Day of Prayer in 2009? Snopes Tells Its Story

Mr. Obama recently has discovered going to Church…..a pattern noticeably increased  since mid November, 2010.    In his presidency Obama is a public  man.   He appears to enjoy performing in public, speaking often, telling people lofty things and proceeds to price America into its financial death.  He is a Progressive.

I received an email from a Prager group devotee today.   It contained pronouncements that America’s National Day of Prayer had been canceled by President Obama in May of 2009.

Obama the duplicitous?    from CNN, April, 2009.

For the past eight years, the White House recognized the National Day of Prayer with a service in the East Room, but this year, President Obama decided against holding a public ceremony.

“Prayer is something that the president does everyday,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday, noting that Obama will sign a proclamation to recognize the day, as many administrations in the past have done.

Asked if Obama thought his predecessor’s ceremonies were politicized, Gibbs said, “No, I’m not going to get into that again.

Snopes is an explainer of truth from the shades of the  politically Left.   It usually quotes  a challenged claim and judges it True…or False….and might give or  might NOT give a further response.   In this case:

Snopes offers the Quote in question:   “President Obama has decided that there will no longer be a “National Day of Prayer”  held in May.  He doesn’t want to offend anyone.  Where was his concern about offending Christians last January when he allowed the muslims to have a day of prayer on the capitol grounds?

Verdict:     FALSE

Snopes does add an explanation which includes:  “Observers of the National Day of Prayer took place throughout the US in 2009 and 2010.  The status of the National Day of Prayer is currently somewhat uncertain, though, as on 15 April 2010, a federal judge ruled in favor of a challenge brought by the Freedom from Religion Foundation.”

Still, there is more to the story than this begnign explanation above.    Here is another source refering to the same claim in question:

Summary of the eRumor:   This is a forwarded email that says that President Obama cancelled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House.  The email also says that the White House participated in a Muslim Prayer Event in Washington D.C. and that the President said that the United States is no longer a Christian nation.

The Truth:   The National Day of Prayer is celebrated in the United States every year on the first Thursday in May but President Obama did not have a ceremony at the White House in 2009.  On May 7, 2009, the President did issue an official proclamation in observance of the National Day of Prayer.   According a statement by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the President would be spending some time in private prayer that day – “as he does every day.”  A spokesperson from the National Day of Prayer task force told TruthorFiction.com that the 2010 event, now in its 59th year, is scheduled for May 6th but there is still no word from the Obama Administration regarding ceremonial observance at the White House.  The spokesperson also said Evangelical leaders were invited to gather for a ceremony of prayer and commemoration in the East Room at the White House during the years that President George W. Bush occupied the Oval Office.    The myth that the White House ceremony is a 21 year tradition is a fabrication.  The National Day of Prayer task force, in a May 4, 2009 USA Today released a statement saying, “While there will be tens of thousands of prayer gatherings throughout the nation, on May 7th, the Obama Administration announced there will not be a White House Observance for the National Day of Prayer this year, contrary to the administrations of President George W. Bush, President George H. W. Bush, and President Ronald Reagan. A White House Observance was not held during the administration of President Bill Clinton.”   Additional confusion has been sparked over a Muslim prayer event that was scheduled in September 25, 2009.  There was no official White House ceremony for this event.   Some forwarded emails included a photograph of President Obama removing his shoes as he prepared for the prayer event.   The photograph was taken prior to the President’s tour of a Mosque in Turkey.   Truth of Fiction findings are posted at this link:  Muslims Pray at the Capitol United States Is Not A Christian Nation? President Obama did say “we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation” in Turkey but this quotation has been taken out of context.  The President said, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, or a Jewish Nation or a Muslim Nation.  We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

American Citizens Defending Life, Limb, and Property, Beware! …. Lefty Courts Back Criminals

From the Strib 5 Feb 2011:   “Arizona:   Court upholds verdict against vigilante

A federal appeals court upheld a verdict that a rancher must pay $87,000 to four illegal immigrants he detained at gunpoi8nt while they crossed his property.  The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco found that the 2009 civil judgment against Roger Barnett was proper and that the jury should not have been instructed that they could find Barnett acted in self defense.”

Despite the liaison between some Big Businesses dealing with the criminal immigrants and the  establishment American Marxists and Progressives such as those who control “justice” in the  9th Circuit Courts, Americans must rally to regain American control of the country’s business and judicial worlds.

What may be thought  good for Big Business may NOT be good for the nation and the nation’s welfare.

America is being invaded by criminals.  It is a  primary responsibility of the Federal Government to defend our nation’s borders.   PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS INTENTIONALLY COUNFOUNDED THAT RESPONSIBILITY AS A MATTER OF LEFTWING POLICY.

It is very democratic for a nation’s population to protest peacefully in public against govenment tyranny.  Every American should be proud thus far of the peaceful grass roots movement of the Tea Party.

More work is needed.

A Video of Islam, the Religion of Peace, and Its Teachers Teaching Peace

As we know from news around the world Islamists and Drug Dealers from Mexico are settling down in our American neighborhoods anxious to spread their Peace potions among  our American young.   Both are encouraged to do so by our Obama administration in chorus with the nation’s universities as the cornerstone to expand  its policies of MULTICULTURALISM to replace the out-of-date traditional American Christian culture and its devotion to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  

In this video below we shall have the pleasure of meeting some of the fine people who have been so kind telling us all we want to know about Islam, the Religion of Peace.

As you have read recently, the American Democrat Party considers the nation’s federal Constitution an old piece of paper which no longer has value in our New Age Communities of Forced Equality.

The following is a video showing the peacemakers of Islam, the Religion of Peace,  who have spread its message along the streets in the United Kingdom’s capital city, London and elsewhere.      The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg and the President of the United States speak very highly of these pacifists and have both welcomed them to build a special home for themselves adjacent to Ground Zero in New York City.    Click here for Islam, the Religion of Peace:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLYlfSrAF2E&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLYlfSrAF2E&feature=related

A Video of Peaceful Islam Coming to Your Neighborhood Soon

Peaceful Islam coming to your neighborhood soon is shown welcoming itself at your doorstep.

Please click on the following video to view Peaceful Islam introducing Peace  your new neighbors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE3BDYeSB88&NR=1

Chris Christie Calls Police Union Contract Unrealistic…..in our time of economic troubles

Governor of New Jersey explains with regret……”I’m sorry.   I understand your concerns, but we haven’t the money.  This is the economic reality we live in!”    Christie has called for a 2% raise limit on all state employee salaries.

Click here for another outstanding performance from America’s antiObama:

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/pubs/mcc/videos.aspx

Special thanks goes to Mark Waldeland for alerting me to this video.

A Call for Unity in Protecting Religious Freedom in America!

“ORANGE, Calif. — Religious groups should unite to protect the religious freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, said Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a speech Friday at Chapman University law school.

He called religious freedom one of the Constitution’s supremely important founding principles.

“We must never see the day when the public square is not open to religious ideas and religious persons,” Elder Oaks said. “The religious community must united to be sure we are not coerced or deterred into silence by the kinds of intimidation or threatening rhetoric that are being experienced.

“Whether or not such actions are anti-religious, they are surely anti-democratic and should be condemned by all who are interested in democratic government. There should be room for all good-faith views in the public square, be they secular, religious or a mixture of the two.”

In his speech, Elder Oaks cited a number of religiously diverse examples and leaders in highlighting his four points on preserving religious freedom:

Religious teachings and religious organizations are valuable and important to a free society, thus “deserving of their special legal protection.”

Religious freedom “undergirds the origin and existence of this country and is the dominating civil liberty.”

The constitutional guarantee of free exercise of religion “is weakening in its effects and in public esteem.”

Such a weakening can be attributed “to the ascendancy of moral relativism.”

Religious individuals should insist on their constitutional right and duty to exercise their religion, to vote their consciences on public issues and to participate in elections and debates, Elder Oaks said.

He called for a unified, broad coalition defending religious freedoms — a proposal that doesn’t require common doctrinal ground between faiths but a shared belief that the rights and wrongs of human behavior have been established by a Supreme Being.

“All who believe in that fundamental should unite more effectively to preserve and strengthen the freedom to advocate and practice our religious beliefs, whatever they are,” he said. “We must walk together for a ways on the same path in order to secure our freedom to pursue our separate ways when that is necessary according to our own beliefs.”

Elder Oaks added he is not proposing “a resurrection of the so-called ‘moral majority,’ ” — which was identified with a particular religious group and political party — nor an alliance or identification with any current political movement.

“I speak for a broader principle, nonpartisan and, in its own focused objective, ecumenical,” he said.

Of his four points, Elder Oaks spent most of his time on the third, offering a number of trends “eroding” both the protections provided by the free exercise clause and its historical public esteem.

He quoted Cardinal Francis George, the then-president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who referred in a 2010 BYU speech to “threats to religious freedom in America that are new to our history and to our tradition” — including threats to current religious-based exemptions from participating in abortions and the development of gay rights and the call for same-sex marriage.

Said Elder Oaks: “Along with many others, I see a serious threat to the freedom of religion in the current assertion of a ‘civil right’ of homosexuals to be free from religious preaching against their relationships. Religious leaders of various denominations affirm and preach that sexual relations should only occur between a man and a woman joined together in marriage. One would think that the preaching of such a doctrinal belief would be protected by the constitutional guarantee of the free exercise of religion, to say nothing of the guarantee of free speech. However, we are beginning to see worldwide indications that this may not be so.”

He labeled as alarming recent evidences of a narrowing definition of religious expression and an expanding definition of “the so-called civil rights of ‘dignity,’ ‘autonomy’ and ‘self-fulfillment’ of persons offended by religion preaching.”

And he took exception to the suggestion by President Barack Obama’s head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that a “sexual-orientation liberty” could become such a right that it should prevail over a competing “religious-belief liberty.”

“Such a radical assertion should not escape analysis,” Elder Oaks said, because it condemns the notion of a centuries-old fundamental right of freedom of religion to becoming recast as a simple “liberty” ranked among many other liberties. It also would create sexual orientation as a fundamental right called “sexual liberty” and to the conclusion that religious expressions can be overridden by a fundamental right to “sexual liberty.”

The result: Legal definitions of traditional marriage and family are deteriorating and under attack.

“All of this shows an alarming trajectory of events pointing toward constraining the freedom of religious speech by forcing it to give way to the ‘rights’ of those offended by such speech,” Elder Oaks said. “If that happens, we will have criminal prosecution of those whose religious doctrines or speech offend those whose public influence and political power establish them as an officially protected class.”

Comment:  I cannot think of an American Constitutional Right that today is more abused that the Right of Religious Freedom.   Why has the American Christian establishment  been so shy, so silent about the abuses thrust upon it by the Progressives and Marxists of the Left’s ‘New Age America?’

Where is Christianity’s unified defense of traditional marriage in the country?   Why aren’t concerned Christian leaders allerting the citizenry, as Dennis Prager has so many times,  of all of the negatives resulting from this assault on the Family?    Do  Christian leaders view the present condition of the American family healthy and satisfying for a civilized society?    Who teaches our children goodness,  the professors of  the Black Studies, Women’s Studies, and Gay and Lesbian Studies university LEFT?

Christianity has a great message for civilized people.  I believe history, left to the truly inquisitive and honest vindicates Christianity beyond all other movements as humanity’s greatest civilizing force.   Where is this voice today?

(The above article was written by Scott Taylor, Deseret News.  Thanks go to Prager activist, Kathryn Woolley, for sending in the article.)

The Plagues of Egypt….(It’s difficult to understand today if you know nothing about yesterday!)

by Walter Russell Mead at The American Interest:

“The Obama administration is now living through one of the oldest and most difficult recurring problems in American foreign policy: what do you do when revolution breaks out in an allied country?

The only clue history offers is not an encouraging one: there is often no satisfactory resolution of the dilemmas revolutions present.

In 1789 Americans watched the progress of revolution in their closest ally.  King Louis XVI, whose decision to back the colonists with money, ships and troops forced Britain to recognize American independence, was tottering on his throne.

 

The French Revolution (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

In 1917, as the United States moved toward entry into World War One, Americans watched the February Revolution drive Tsar Nicholas II from his absolute rule in one of our key allies in the conflict we were about to begin.

In 1948-49 the Truman administration watched as communist forces systematically defeated the nationalists in the Chinese Revolution.  At the dawn of the Cold War, the most populous country in the world fell under communist rule.

Ten years later the Eisenhower administration watched Fidel Castro seize power in Cuba and begin the process that would betray the hopes of Cubans and turn this neighboring state into a firm ally of the Soviet Union.

And in 1978 the Carter administration watched helplessly as mounting public anger in Iran drove one of our important Cold War allies from the throne.

None of these precedents will cheer up the White House.  In all these cases, the United States failed to find an effective policy response to the revolution, and each time the foreign revolution created thorny political problems for the sitting president.  George Washington’s administration was poisoned by infighting between supporters and opponents of revolutionary France.  Woodrow Wilson sent troops to try to suppress the October Revolution in Russia — a measure that did nothing to help him as opposition to his post war plans grew and his personal popularity declined.  The Truman administration was politically sapped by the deepening backlash over its alleged indifference to the communist triumph in China — and the victorious Chinese communists supported North Korea’s invasion of the South, forcing Washington into the devastating and politically ruinous Korean War.  The fear of looking weak after the Bay of Pigs and the establishment of a Soviet beachhead in the western hemisphere contributed to the decisions by JFK and LBJ to commit themselves more heavily to South Vietnam.  The Iranian hostage crisis sapped Jimmy Carter’s political strength and his failure either to liberate the hostages or to negotiate successfully for their release helped Ronald Reagan defeat him in his 1980 quest for re-election.

So one lesson of history seems clear: President Obama should brace himself.  When revolutions in friendly foreign countries break out, American presidents frequently face unresolvable dilemmas.  Sometimes there aren’t any good answers and no matter what you do, you will suffer.

Not that snarky pundits will cut you any breaks.  Journalists and professors are almost always sure that there is an easy answer to various tough policy problems and that any failures by our political leaders reflect incompetence or malevolence.  The Obama administration may well fail (indeed it probably will fail) to find an elegant method of handling the crisis in Egypt — but the world is a complicated place and all of our options in Egypt have serious drawbacks.

Revolution is a constant in modern life, and especially in the many societies around the world where rigid political systems and authoritarian governments make peaceful and gradual change impossible.  Today we are watching the progress of what increasingly looks like a revolution in Egypt, and once again an important ally of the United States is falling from power in the face of widespread dissatisfaction with his rule.

In most cases, revolutions happen to those who deserve them.  Louis XVI had many good human qualities, but the system he ruled was too corrupt, too dysfunctional and too out of touch to endure.  The tsarist autocracy in Russia was both incompetent and vile.  The Shah’s vicious security apparatus and his wanton disregard for the traditional values of the peoples of Iran united the whole country against him.

President Mubarak is of this ilk and from a human rights perspective any comeuppance he gets will be richly deserved.  Although the Mubarak era has significant accomplishments to its credit, the Egyptian system is dismally corrupt, incompetently managed, and rests on unspeakable brutality.  It is past time for this system to go, and when the Egyptians saw the cynical preparations underway to install President Mubarak’s son as their next leader, they exercised what our founding fathers would surely consider their natural and inalienable right of revolution in trying to send him away.

Americans should never forget that our own system rests on two acts of revolution.  The first was the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in which the British (with enthusiastic support from most colonists) kicked out an abusive monarch and transferred the throne to rulers who promised to respect the rights of Parliament and people.  The second of course was the American Revolution when we rejected Parliament’s attempt to rule us without our consent.  The United States has revolution in its DNA and America’s deepest values tell us that revolutions like those in France, Russia, Iran and Egypt are the last defense of humanity against the establishment or the perpetuation of tyranny.

All of this is true; none of this helps American governments figure out what to do when revolutionary upheaval breaks out in a key foreign ally.  It is almost never the right choice to help the challenged government cling to power by using American forces and resources to crush the uprising.

Yet distancing ourselves from a weakening ally is not always cost free.  President Mubarak is not the only ruler with a questionable human rights record that the United States works with in this messy world.  If the US simply abandons him at the first sign of trouble, what kind of ally do we look like to our other smelly friends?  Do they start looking toward countries like China or Iran whose backing might be more reliable?  Will that make us happy?  Will it advance human rights?”

Comment:   It is in my blood by education and common sense to believe in democracy, not just the voting kind popularity contests, but clean meaningful elections selecting ones leaders…..whether a culture is deemed ready for them or not…..

“Being ready for democracy”  is a ludicrous concept.  Something lefty college professors might smoke this over, but it has little realistic value when a population in our modern world  is stirring  for change……After more than two centuries of democratic institutions and a ethos which commands its citizens to be democratic, (until this recent generation) many Americans aren’t ready for democracy in their own country…..President Obama being an example.  Democracy interferes with their demand and power to make people do what these leftwing  power people command.

One million citizens of a nation rallying for change in the streets is impressive.   Yet, Egypt has a population of, and I am guessing, 70,000,000.   Who knows what the results would be if a free and honest election were to be taken tomorrow, whether Mr. Mubarak should remain or go as the nation’s ‘sovereign’.

I was and am critical of Obama’s arrogant demand for Mubarak to leave Egypt “NOW”….this nose -in-the-air  college grad student  who belongs to these American leftists who politick against sending democratic “seeds” throughout the impaled world, denouncing  America for impressing upon others our ‘primitive’ Protestant Christian ethic of democracy and competitiveness.   Obama is good at staging matters.

Yet, it is good to see that the president is touched at least a teeny bit, by this  Protestant America tenet,  by pandering democracy to the young bucks in the streets of Cairo….the million or more of them….and their demands  for democracy, whatever they think democracy means, and the removal of their president, Hosni Mubarak..

Obama  and his fellow Democrats of the Leftwing variety are  very talented in the art of pandering.  

Yet, as a democrat to my bones, I was proud that president Barack said the American thing, but my brain told me at the time “I don’t think this is a wise statement to be made in public.  It may sing well among the demonstrators, but not with those in the Egyptian governing network who have to do something about protecting its population which is not bellowing out in the streets.”

Why would Mubarak and others in his government want to demonstrate to the world they take orders like dogs from their American masters?

Of course  voting, that is, democracy’s essential  pagentry  is more effective when some democratic institutions  are place and mean something.  

Barack and American victory should be the establishment of democracy in Egypt……making it clear that this is an American purpose in modern life……SHARE DECMOCRACY.  That is one reason I really like G.W.Bush over his shortcomings.

I think I would have referred Obama to keep his public mouth quiet for once, and work with Egyptian authorities, including Mubarak, to assist them rather than pretend to dictate to them what the Egyptian government should do.

But, Obama has never shown any interest in working with folks not of his clone.