We Asked For This

When I was very young, Jimmy Carter was President. I don't remember much of his presidency, but I do remember the Iranian hostage crisis and skyrocketing gas prices. Someone created a Misery Index during the Carter years to try and measure the malaise that defined his stint as President. I never thought that we would see again in my lifetime any President who would rival or surpass Carter's ineptitude. Boy was I wrong.

I grew up during the Cold War. We were taught in school what to do during a nuclear strike and learned such phrases as "mutually assured destruction" and "perestroika". During those days, the Russians shot down a Korean airliner. The world and President Reagan was outraged. That event brought us closer to nuclear war with the USSR than any other event during the Cold War. However, we had a leader in the White House. In fact, the Iranian hostages were released the day Reagan was inaugurated. The Cold War was won because President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher stood together against all odds, for truth. They were unafraid to call evil, evil--to call out communism for what it was and is. And the world knew that here were two leaders who would not tolerate terrorism, thuggery and international bullying.

Fast forward to today. How shall we measure the depths of Obama's damage to this nation? The Obama Misery Meter? The Pits of Despair-o-meter? There is a phrase in scripture from the book of Hosea: "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind..." (Hosea 8:7) We, as a nation, have created this monster. We have begun to treat Presidential elections like student body elections. We have lowered ourselves to voting for the most popular, the cool kid, the kid who promises the best dances and refreshments. Or, and worse yet, we have elected a president out of racial guilt, to do penance for our slave history. Sadly, none of those are valid reasons to elect anyone the President of the United States. Undeniably, it is the most powerful office in the world. Although the President only technically answers to U.S. voters, the decisions made from that office affect the entire world. We as voters have not taken our responsibility seriously and have not made serious choices about the presidency. Therefore, was are reaping the whirlwind.

The world we live in has become increasingly chaotic for years. But the tumult swirling around us today is the direct result of electing someone to the office of President for all the wrong reasons. Domestic and foreign policy established by this administration has us reeling on so many fronts the damage is almost incalculable. At home, our fragile economy is stacked on a house of cards made up of artificially low interest rates, the FED printing money and the devaluing of the dollar. We then add to that mix the self-destructive policies fostering illegal immigration and state-mandated/funded "health care" (i.e. Obamacare) and trillions of dollars of national debt and we are destined for a fall. When the crash comes, and it will come, it will be epic. The course we are on is unsustainable.

On the foreign front, we have lost the respect of friend and foe and can see those repercussions in every current foreign event. Germany, our ally, just expelled our CIA station chief as punishment for our repeated spying on a nation we claim as a friend. It is rare for our enemies to take such a step; it is unheard of for an ally. Israel has been placed in the most precarious situation since their inception because of our foreign policy double-speak in the region. Muslim extremists who will NEVER concede the right of Israel to exist have heard loud and clear from Obama that he is not committed to Israel's security. Lip service only goes so far. They know he will do nothing but talk and that has emboldened and encouraged their jihad. That applies to the blossoming "caliphate" in Syria/Irag, the chaos left in the wake of the Arab Spring in Eqypt, Libya and Syria, Boko Haram's open mockery of our "foreign policy" twitter campaign to bring our girls home, Putin's efforts to destabilize Ukraine, and recently another atrocity with the shooting down of a passenger jet over Ukraine. 

The United States of America is not a perfect nation. We have our share of mistakes, missteps and blatant wrongs. But, we also have done many, many things right. We have liberated all of Europe--twice. We have tried to be on the right side of history and help those who desire freedom. Our approach has not alway been right, but our intentions for the most part have. When we are strong, we strengthen our allies and give them a sense of security in an insecure world. When we are strong, our enemies know that there are places you do not go without consequence. "Peace through strength" as it was called by Reagan is the most we can ever hope for in the real world. It would be nice to have "Whirled Peas", but it never really gets much further than the beauty pageants. We live in a world filled with hate and anger. We didn't foment it, we didn't foster it, we didn't cause it. All we can ever really do is hope to keep it at bay by being strong, standing for what is right and encouraging those who are willing to give their lives to truly be free. Obama has done the exact opposite and left an unsure world more so. We have become unreliable, waffling, inconsistent pansies and the world knows it.

President Reagan was the direct result of the Jimmy Carter years. Will we do the same after the Obama train-wreck? We, the voters, are the only ones who can fix this problem. If we sober up and start acting like adults and take our voting responsibility seriously, we might be able to start the long, slow turnaround required to get us back on course. Only time will tell. If we don't, our generation will be responsible for the most precipitous decline of the greatest nation that ever was.