Presidential Hubris

6/28/2013 Presidential Hubris? Sometimes, when the President of the United States speeches about economic and technical subjects he cannot be taken seriously because he doesn’t appear to understand the subject well enough. That’s embarrassing. The latest one, about Global Warming, is a masterpiece of pure nonsense packaged as if the speaker has all the answers. It would be a joke if it wasn’t so serious. In my view, the Country just cannot afford a Chief Executive who is bound and determined to literally ruin the United States of America by denying our economy the “blood” it needs to function, i.e. cheap and abundant energy. It is all there for the taking but Mr.Obama doesn’t want us to have it. Who is he to decide that and on his own recognizance? Where are our Congressional representatives who should stand up and say: NO, Mr.President, that would be fundamentally destructive for the Country. Who is this man, who took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend” our Country? Is he faking it? Everyone knows that he loves to talk but his thinking about fundamental issues such as economics, energy, our deteriorating status in a dangerous world or our non-functional governmental operations is warbled, to put it mildly. For instance, he believes in the so-called coming “catastrophe” called Global Warming, without demonstrating even a simple understanding of the physics of climate variations. Whereas there is enough reliable scientific understanding available today to know that this “catastrophe”, due to the minor and natural increase in the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, is nothing to get excited about. There is no catastrophe leering at us, only at those who fail to educate themselves a bit on this CO2 subject. Carbon dioxide is a perfectly harmless gas, which we inhale and exhale 24 hours per day, to stay alive. Nature loves it, as demonstrated lately by the lush growths of plants compared to previous years. But notwithstanding these benefits, CO2 is used by certain politicians, scientists and environmentalists to scare us out of our wits by encouraging our President to promote the idea that we must sacrifice and reduce our economic and national future to save the world. This is poppycock but is meant essentially to compromise our economy and world fatally. In fact, this presidential litany, of what he plans to do to “reduce” CO2 levels, rings like a pseudo religious tenet to make the USA a weaker and less-threatening member of the world’s larger countries. But the way I see this American President is that he cannot possibly reconcile his oath to the United States of America given the many actions he either has taken already or is still planning to take. Yet, as long as he can get away with it, the country is bound to suffer more, economically and politically, as a result. Little more than a century ago it wouldn’t have made much difference to the world what we did here at home, but since 1945 we reluctantly inherited large, mostly thankless, international responsibilities. While the costs of this mammoth new task grew over the years, our economy expanded with it and was able to handle them pretty well. As a consequence, our political influence world-wide became a crucial aspect of the post-war international arena. The USA was literally seen and mostly accepted as the World’s Policeman. Somebody needed to do that and by and large the world economy and most countries benefited from this situation for 60 years. But Mr.Obama doesn’t see it that way apparently, preferring instead for the United Nations to become the World’s Policeman. Unfortunately, he hasn’t spelled out the consequences for the USA and the world at large of this very questionable concept, but disaster looms. Hence, at this moment it looks as if we are bound to find out the hard way how this may hurt us unless enough people in power come to their senses soon to prevent our country from losing its unique and historic raison d’être. That would be a calamity. So much for hubris! Frederik Engel Redding, CT.