Posted on 11/06/2012 10:23:38 PM PST by sauron
I'm in a state of shock, as we all must be tonight.
We're living in what seems to be a permanently divided red/blue nation.
This, despite four years of a poor record on economics, domestic and foreign policy. And our neighbors and coworkers--who must outnumber us--voted as if none of it mattered.
No president has ever needed more than four years to turn an economy around, but they feel that he can. No president has been re-elected with such high unemployment. The electorate clearly isn't thinking with the rational part of the brain.
Maybe I'm examining it from the wrong angle entirely. Perhaps it is because of the unemployment that he was re-elected? Are those dependent upon benefits voting their own economic self interest?
Are the "makers" now being permanently outvoted by the "takers"? Is it taxpayers versus tax consumers?
There are foreign policy implications, too. We'll never be on our feet in an economic sense. Not now. Europe had been looking to Uncle Sugar for some economic support to shore up their tottering spending-driven economies. It now looks like there won't be any funds forthcoming from Uncle for any of that. They're on their own.
I fear for Taiwan and Israel. He'll cut our nuclear arsenal down to the "high hundreds" (his own words). Iran will feel emboldened. China will feel emboldened.
On a personal level, Obama will not feel any need to moderate his views. He'll perceive this win as he did the last win (or any win, because he's a narcissist) as a mandate. Vindication of his views and policies. He's appealed to the most base instincts--class, race, gender--and divided us all against each other. He'll weaken the fabric of America, turn Americans against Americans. In other words, he'll do what he knows, what he was trained to do as a "community organizer". No other American president has spoken of "revenge" against other Americans, but he has.
He'll eviscerate NASA to a degree we cannot imagine. Any space missions (e.g., Mars Curiosity Rover, etc.) that yield results, knowledge, and pride will be curtailed. Any successful missions we've enjoyed during the last four years were launched in the prior administration, not conceived and launched during his own. There are thousands of unemployed NASA and contract firm engineers up and down the Florida "Space Coast" right now--they'll never work again, and that hard-won knowledge will be lost.
Obama was never a friend of the military. Look what he did, not one year ago: during the last budget battle, he was perfectly willing for soldiers'/sailors'/airmens' pay to be suspended until a budget could be worked out. He cancelled the F-22 program (just like Carter cancelled the B1 bomber, after years of R&D). Our military will atrophy and our adversaries--who are REAL, despite what liberals believe--will mark this historical opportunity.
We have a president who shows no flexibility in his thinking. He's doctrinaire and unadaptable. He seems wholly unable to compromise and uniquely unwilling to forge working relationships with congre$$ional leaders. This doesn't bode well. You'd think, after four years, that he'd have bothered to learn how to do so.
SO... WHAT DO WE DO?
1. Acknowledge that we're now the MINORITY in this nation. This will require a mental image change. This isn't the "America" we've been raised to know. This is an America that is suspicious of businessmen. The question is: Could Mitt Romney (our "electable" candidate) have won?
I don't want any recrimination against Romney. (No, he wasn't my choice, but I supported him.) He ran a much better campaign than McCain, who had no earthly chance to win at all. We should not turn bitter against each other; Obama has won--TWICE, now--and we have to accept the reality of a changed America that we're living in.
2. Remember that our neighbors, friends, family, and coworkers--in other words, our fellow Americans--voted for Obama. They won. Now, we've all got to live with the consequences. We can't change that fact. But, like a boxer, we don't have to stand and get hit and risk being knocked out--we have a few options. We can duck, dodge, and block. We're in the ring for four more years, but we have to remain standing and not get ourselves knocked out.
So we go into "turtle mode." We have to save money, pull out of the economy. If it tanks, well, let it. Increase family savings, don't eat out, don't spend unnecessarily. As a practical matter, there's really no other choice, now. Do at the family level what small businesses are doing in their own business interest. Retrench, pull back, turtle up. Withdraw into the shell.
Preserve your capital, cash, and mobility. People who perish don't have any mobility, so preserve yours. Develop knowledge, skills, and abilities that will serve you in hard times to come. A facility with language is the first key to mobility.
I personally believe that the worst thing that can happen will be a hard assault on our currency--this will be worse than any single policy that could be enacted--because everyone is dependent upon the dollar. It's the focal point, the common element, the "store of value" (as they teach in economics). If the dollar declines (and it will, it can't be the world's reserve currency forever) then prices will rise. Hyperinflation CAN happen. How do we defend against the decline of the currency itself?! We can't all sell gold to buy corn flakes as needed. Barter cannot work in a large country with a modern infrastructure.
3. Expect more gridlock. We probably won't see a federal budget passed (again!). I think we haven't had one in four years (?) and this will remain unchanged. I'm worried about the "fiscal cliff" and the sequestration's effect on our military.
Other nations in this level of trouble have nationalized assets of private companies and individuals. If you have an IRA, expect it to be seized, then incorporated into Social Security. Businesses will have whatever assets they are readily available and readily quantifiable taxed (a mild form of seizure) and so expect businesses to transfer vulnerable assets offshore, or convert them or shelter them. We'll have a government looking over your shoulder, folks, trying to ascertain what it can most easily take from you.
4. Expect hard times ahead. Virtually nothing you believe in, nor hold dear, will be respected. Some of the things you hold dear will even be outlawed. Just ask the Christians and Jews (I won't say Catholics, because they don't have a monopoly on this) who are being required to pay for "reproductive services" (a euphemism) wholly in conflict with their core religious beliefs.
Expect condemnation from your friends, neighbors, family, and coworkers because of your noncompliance or noncomformity. Be prepared to accept the new reality of the New America you'll be living in--even mild criticism of policy will be regarded as racism, and any dissent will be regarded with suspicion.
Expect your government--which, like a cancer, appears to have metastacized--to begin acting like it has no bounds, no restrictions. Agencies will begin to exercise authority unthinkable in the past. TSA and searches. EPA and regulatory impacts affecting the 2nd Amendment (bullets do have lead in them, and that harms the environment) and impact on businesses and farms. The IRS is now going to monitor, on an individual level, your health care, for Heaven's sake. Who could have imagined that five years ago?
So...what do we do? I never answered that. I'm too stunned. The best answer I can give is this: We need to be salt and light.
Cessation. Now. We will never be united.
This is a most bitter dissappointment.
4 more years of this recession.
We are now Greece.
The forces of evil have won.
This is what Americans want I suppose we deserve it.
God save us.
You forgot number 5, reproduce.
For the first time in my life, and I say this as a once-proud Academy grad and former AF pilot/veteran....I’m looking at the expat route. Seriously. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, but after tonight, I realize the United States I grew up in is now officially dead.
No answers here. I just need to let this all sink in.
I’m watching these clueless people on TV bang their flags together to the music to celebrate Obama’s win. They’re all so young. They will grow older, and be paying for their decision for a long long time, as will we all. You know the floor will be covered with flags at the end of the night.
I’m sorry for my children. They voted for Romney, but will need to live with the consequences of what happened tonight. My one son is a Marine in Okinawa. I hope somehow he gets to stay there for the next 4 years, but of course, like most younger Marines, he want to see some action. I wish he had a CIC who cared.
My heart goes out to Israel, and to the families of the souls lost in Benghazi, who our president will not even acknowledge.
May God help him.
I go to my grave not understanding this day.
“what do we do?”
Thanks for the words.
Perhaps we should research what others have done in the past during times of economic, moral and social collapse?
I started having bad feelings about the election around 10:30 this morning as I became aware of the people who voting at our polling place. Many were on disability, SSI, Social Security or some kind of gov’t dole. Not all but enough that it was noticeable. A lot of these were young people too. Such a shame. They will never know what true freedom is. I am just sick over the whole thing.
I was in a Bible Study Monday night. I said I thought Romney would win, and he would win big. Another woman said she didn’t think so. She thought this country had become so evil, and those of us who knew better had become so passive, that the Lord would give us over to ourselves.
I think she’s right.
We are as united as North and South Korea.
This is old news. What are you shocked about? Obama played a dirty game, and he won. And why are you advising people to go into “turtle mode?” Turtle mode is why we lost this election. People need to voice their values, FOR A CHANGE. People need to speak out and vote for true conservative candidates FOR A CHANGE. People who are in a position to do so should put more people to work FOR A CHANGE. I repeat: turtle mode is why we lost this election. If you want change, you have to effect change, and Romney didn’t convince enough people to do this. I gag as I watch Obama take the stage. It is a disgrace. But the country will be lost until someone steps forward to lead us in a different direction.
Sick of being a turtle. F them.
Something radical happened within me tonight.
I went into an election watching event with an idea that I knew my country well.
I left with the undeniable horror that I had not known my country at all.
This is not the country I grew up in.
It is time (as it always is) to draw very near to God. We are in uncharted water.
“Cessation. Now. We will never be united”
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Sadly, I think that I have to agree. We are at a point in
this country that we are so divided, that it is the same as
a couple that has irreconcilable differences.
A divorce seems the only solution. I say we begin the process
ASAP.
Well said, sir.....May God help us all.
My fear is that once Obama packs the Supreme Court, evangelical Christianity will be outlawed soon after as hate speech, much as Europe has already done.
At that point, I don’t know what to do. I will not compromise my beliefs, but where do I go? Is there any place on Earth left that will respect my religious views?
Am I doomed to a life in prison or worse? What of my children and grandchildren? Do they give in, flee, or do they sit in jail with me?
Something radical happened within me tonight.
I went into an election watching event with an idea that I knew my country well.
I left with the undeniable horror that I had not known my country at all.
This is not the country I grew up in.
It is time (as it always is) to draw very near to God. We are in uncharted water.
__________________________________________________________________________________
I am in exactly the same place as you are. The country that
I knew and cherished as a child and young adult is gone. I loathe the Federal Government. I only believe in Texas now.
I will stop referring to myself as an American. Now I
am just a Texan.
As you said we are in uncharted water. What happens now is
anybody’s guess, but the chances of meltdown into social
chaos just went up dramatically.
I have believed the same for quite a while now, that God has forsaken this nation because of its great sins. It would explain all of the closed minds and hard hearts out there.
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