The Other Sound of Freedom

I was up at 4am yesterday morning after sleeping most of the night in my chair watching Northern Exposure. I noticed after a bit that something seemed to be thumping around downstairs in the garage. I asked Sheila of the super sensitive ears if she heard it too and she confirmed that I was indeed hearing a regular thumping noise - two thumps every two or three minutes. It was the regularity of the noise that troubled me.

I got up and went out on the catwalk between our garage apartment and the landlord's house. In about a minute I heard the thumping sound again only this time it was clearly coming from outside. A couple of more double thumps and I could tell it was coming from the west of us. I've only heard that kind of sound coming from the direction of Ft. Lewis once before since we moved up here to Washington from Texas. Then, I thought it was a thunderstorm, something rare in this region. It wasn't a thunderstorm then. Nor was it now.

It was early morning gunnery practice. I confirmed it with a retired Army officer I know. It seems that the base conducts firing drills and maneuvers along with a lot of planes and helicopters flying around, which I've also noticed over the past week. My Army friend told me the military tends to flex its muscles quite loudly when things get unsettled here in the States. Apparently, they do it to impress the Chinese and Russian (and now Iranian) spies that if they are thinking of getting frisky during this period of unrest, they should think again. The military is warming up just in case they mistake some riots, flag-burning, resignations of political candidates and attempted assassinations as a sign of weakness. 

Japan and Germany made that mistake in World War II. Then we were still in the depression, half the country was flirting with communism it seemed, the president was in a wheelchair, and there were some serious anti-war protests going on. So the Axis decided to poke the bear and see what happens. 

When you poke the back end of the bear, you dang well better have a plan for dealing with his teeth and claws. And it better be one heck of a plan, because he's a huge bear and if you poke him, he's going to turn on you and reduce you to a bloody pile in short order. It was true then and though the tyrants of the world may think we're on the brink of a civil war and vulnerable, they obviously weren't paying attention in history class. 

Come after us, and they'll find us united in a heartbeat. Watch our military grow as enlistments explode. Watch our industry ramp up overnight. And see us lose patience with y'all's nonsense and come together in a breath-taking hurry.

Can't say they weren't warned. It's amazing how short politicians' memories, especially those that didn't grow up in the land of the free and home of the brave. Meanwhile, we're having howitzer practice just down the road at the break of dawn and I'm going to sleep like a baby.

Just sayin'

© 2024 by Tom King

Feminizing the Politburo - Obama Throws Like a Girl

This country's leadership has suffered an acute lack of testosterone in recent years. Congress has had it for far longer than the administration. The wimp factor is more understandable in Congress and probably a lot less harmful than it is in the presidency.   Leadership, no matter what gender the person in the main office is a masculine role.  There's a reason for that. Men tend to be goal directed problem solvers.Women tend to be conflict managers and nest builders.

A feminized approach to governance is necessarily a socialist approach.  Everything must be fair and by fair she means equal. No one must upset the social order.  There is a reason it was "Mother" Russia during the days of the Soviet Union.

The last high testosterone  president we had was Ronald Reagan and he scared the bejeebers out of the sissy pants diplomats in the Congress and even in his own administration.

Don't get me wrong - this is not some misogynist rant. Margaret Thatcher, who passed away today, had more leadership testosterone in her little finger than President Obama has in his whole cabinet. Women have a place in leadership.  Golda Meier was a tremendous leader.  There are plenty of other examples out there, but the point I want to make is that the style of leadership involved in mothering is different from that involved in fathering and not good will come of putting a mother of whichever sex in the big chair. There is a reason God set up families with male leadership.  The system works well. Dad's do well at driving the family agenda forward.  Mom does an amazing job of keeping the peace and soothing hurts and fixing boo-boo's. We need a government that leads like a father and governs like a mother.  Instead we have devolved into a nation that is led by Mom and governed by a cranky, paternalistic bureaucracy.

There is a reason God gave us fathers and mothers. The job of running a family, and - I maintain, a nation - requires both types of approaches.  They laughed at George Bush when he referred to himself as "The Decider", but he hit the nail on the head regarding what a president's job is. It is a matter of setting goals and achieving them. Such a task often requires upsetting people and even making them angry on occasion along the way to getting things accomplished that need accomplished. 

Lady Thatcher once said something to the effect that a nation that governs by consensus has no leadership.

The feminized diplomat worries about building consensus - making things fair and equal and preventing conflict.  When a hormonal North Korean Munchkin starts threatening to start a nuclear war, diplomats start waving their hands and running around squealing and in the process, may start pressing buttons in a panic.

Right now we need a steely-eyed, iron-nerved Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher.  Captain Prissy-Pants is just not to be trusted in situations where he doesn't have a teleprompter to instruct him. If the Munchkin does set off a nuke, the current bunch of little girls that make up our nation's leadership is far more likely to do something incredibly stupid in a panic. 

Where's a "Decider" when we need one.

Tom King -  (c) 2013