Written by Stephen Bowers
Here we go again. More insanity. Jimmy Carter has a solution. Remember him? His failed and inept foreign policies can fairly be said to have long ago started the slippery slide into the abyss of barbarity in the Middle East. But today he has a solution. As expected, it’s as dumb as the other stuff he came up with while he was at 1600 Pennsylvania. In response to the “Arab oil embargo,” he said, “turn down your thermostat and put on a sweater.”
In fairness, that was one possible response. Another response would have been to start developing America’s own oil reserves. Just a thought. It might have worked.
In fact, it might have prevented the vast shift of wealth from the United States to the house of Saud (which was birthed out of an assassination perpetrated by usurpers), which allowed a lifestyle for the royalty in the region far beyond what the rest of their citizens (or anyone else in the world) could imagine.
Another benefit of having developed our own oil reserves would have been to deprive the House of Saud the financial ability to bankroll the loonies who are all too willing to strap on a suicide vest (or 747) and earn a few thousand bucks for their surviving family members and, you know — allow the little ones to go to college; maybe Harvard, or maybe to the local university, which might have been built in Gaza had the resources not been diverted to the “tunnel project.”
Another big plan that slithered out from under the rock of Carter’s presidency was the creation of the Department of Energy, whose only goal was to assist America in becoming energy self-sufficient. Carter not only screwed up the Middle East, but his far-reaching influence also touches you each time you mutter obscenities while filling your own gas tank at the rate of $4 a gallon. One of my favorite things is watching old movies (10 or 20 years old) and trying to spot the gas prices of that earlier time. Watching Bruce Willis kill ersatz terrorists in “Die Hard” has a scene where his new buddy is buying doughnuts or HoHos at a gas station, which lists gas at $1.40 per gallon. I don’t know why I like seeing those prices. It must be something akin to intentionally cutting your own flesh to watch the bleeding. I also like looking for the Twin Towers in old movies set in New York City. (This is also twisted, but evidence of a different sort of sickness.)
A word of warning is appropriate if you watch “Die Hard.” The “terrorists” look almost wholesome by comparison to the modern real thing. Like puckish Boy Scouts. When I found myself admiring their shenanigans as cheeky and “fun-loving,” I suddenly got frightened by my own thinking and began wondering what blood would look like running down my own arm.
Stupidity is far-reaching and expensive. The results stick around. The Department of Energy has thousands of (apparently) useless employees earning big salaries and huge pensions. They also have thousands of independent contractors and consultants who also get big bucks and who are probably owned by politicians… our own politicians. Maybe there is a conflict. Maybe. Most of the cost at the pump is taxes. And those taxes go to pay for the geeks at the department and the consultants and contractors they employ. Maybe there’s a conflict.
And what is Carter’s grand idea this time? He thinks we should legitimize Hamas! Quit calling them terrorists. That is like legalizing marijuana. The cartels might lose some profit, but the consumption of that crap will not decline. Legitimizing Hamas as a new national entity might make them qualified for more American foreign aid, but it won’t diminish their hatred for Jews everywhere.
As before, Carter’s Really Big Dumb Idea is like the classic problem of quack doctors — they dose the sick patient so as to suppress the more inconvenient symptoms, but do nothing to abate the root cause, which makes the patient and his caregivers less inconvenienced as the patient slips away. This approach seems plausible to the doctors because they, like Carter, understand neither the disease nor the patient. The Israelis may be saved the inconvenience of greasing these rotten cowardly rodents every time they stick their heads out from their filthy tunnel system, but the Israelis will still have to kill them when they attack civilian hospitals, synagogues, and kindergartens. So where is the advantage, Mr. Carter? The body count will swell and include many innocents who would not have died but for the implementation of your recent Really Big Dumb Idea.
I’ve never forgotten the standing ovation Carter got upon entering a joint session after his election. The legislators went nuts. It was a riot! I wondered at the time, “What has this guy ever done; are Americans that stupid?” The last two presidential elections have proven my question was unintentionally rhetorical. And, in fairness to Americans, although Congress represents us, let’s hope they represent us only in the legislative sense, and not as a sort of “representational cross-section.”
I expect the Nobel Committee will give Carter a good look for his efforts. If Obama gets a Nobel for nothing, why shouldn’t Carter get one for a Really Big Dumb Idea? At least Carter put some energy into his idea, or some mental effort, albeit very little (although, for him, maybe it was a lot).
