The American Gardeners View of Obama's Head in the Sandbox Deceptions

There is a beauty to gardening. Gardeners are thinkers. And they are honest. They have to be. There is no way to lie or cheat at gardening. One is forced to plan, prepare, solve problems and work honestly else the evidence will be overwhelming that one has not done so.

This is my first year putting in a garden at this home. It has been quite an adventure. The large corner of the yard I designated for the better part of my vegetable garden is the domestic equivalent of a modern archeological dig. Part was apparently a mechanic’s junkyard. And another part was a former sand box. That is perfect, I reasoned, because the native soil, black as the ace of spades and pretty thick with clay, could use a bit of “sandy loam”. So I spread out the sand and turned it under. To my surprise, were many little toys—sandbox type of toys to which a two to four year old child would gravitate. My mind wondered.

I was transformed back to the day of my own children and their sandbox, which was, ironically, right next to my gigantic garden spot full of salsa type vegetable plants. I planted tomatoes galore, onions and peppers—a variety to give ample opportunity to create several kinds of salsa. My children’s sandbox, on the other hand, was far from an instrument of productivity.

It was the playground for vice and trouble. On one occasion, my children, in collusion with a neighborhood of children, decided to build a bon fire in the sandbox resulting in flames high enough to reach the branches of the towering trees above it. “What were you thinking?” I asked. “Uh dunno,” came the silly reply from not one but all the indicted children. Neighbors were sent packing. My children were banned from the pantry where matches were kept. Everyone was grounded from playing with cohorts for a few days. Suddenly my mind snapped back to an even older memory.

My oldest son, using his bubble lawn mower, nearly went over the edge of a steep embankment on our property, leading to a river at the bottom. As the weight of his small lawnmower overpowered his even smaller body, I turned my head in time to see him begin to slip over the side. But I caught his leg on the way down and pulled him up. Panic-stricken and trying to regain regular breathing, I asked, “You know you are supposed to stay away from the bank of the river: What were you doing?” “Uh dunno,” came the puzzled reply, as if nothing had or was nearly about to happen. My mind leapt forward to another day.

My boys were teenagers now. Bored out of their minds one day, they decided they were going to head to the high school near a relative’s home to play. (It is probably important to know at this point that my children were with those same co-conspirators from days gone by and bonfires raged in the back yard.) Thinking it a clever adventure they decided to enter the school. It did not strike then as odd that it was nighttime, dark, and the school was locked and abandoned for the day. Soon after they left, they were home again—after security showed up to investigate a possible burglary. I couldn’t resist, “What were you thinking?”

“Uh dunno.”

Reality is a rude alarm clock. There I was, raking and leveling my garden, taking out a periodic toy. After I finished preparing my garden with the right soil for it to flourish, I laid out a schematic, planned my strategy for keeping one kind of crop from being invaded by another and preventing contact with related crops so no cross-pollination would occur. Nothing is worse that a squash-flavored cantaloupe! Planning of plants that are different from each other but could work together to the advantage of the garden, rather than fighting for space and light, I arranged taller crops behind shorter ones that need more sunlight; and in front of those, like lettuce, that need a shield from heat by the piercing sun. This would assure that my plants would flourish, I reasoned.

It got me thinking: There are some basic, simple rules in nature and gardening: Take the time to plant well what you actually want to reap: Don’t put plants that aren’t good for each other together. Water. Get rid of the weeds. Be watchful of intruders, like birds, bugs, squirrels and other apparently ‘harmless” animals that would love to rob you of your booty. Then harvest when the time is right, when fruits are ripe and vegetables are tender. My mind flashed to the conundrum of less basic and apparently more convoluted issues, like the latest news of what is going on in the Middle East, and in particular Libya. It has become blazingly clear that if there ever were a slogan this President could use for his catchall style of governing, it would be “uh dunno”.

The war, oddly called Operation Odyssey Dawn would have been better named Awkwardly Done. It is doomed to add to the string of failed wars over the last four plus decades. As it is, Odyssey Dawn is code for “Operation Uh Dunno.” Mr. President, exactly why are we in Libya? Americans are bewildered and thinking “uh dunno.” The President has been mostly silent—body language for “uh dunno.” Mr. President, what is your international policy? Do you have one? Because Americans don’t know what it is. Nor does the rest of the world, it seems. His policy—or lack of a coherent one—is all over the map. “Uh dunno,” describes it. Well, Mr. President, could you at least give us an explanation for getting U.N. approval on this Libyan attack? Why did you do that instead of approaching Congress? “Uh dunno.” My mind flashed back to little boys with blank faces showing stunned surprise that I would ask such a question, when I knew the answer. Of course, like children caught in their stupidity or their vise, Obama really does know why he does what he does. The problem is that the honest answer would lead him to permanent grounding. And he knows it. So a sophisticated diversion of slippery-tongued diatribe is what we get. —In other words, “Uh-dunno.”

I pondered to myself, the “why?” Why would anyone want to look stupid, or be suspected of incompetence when they were not? That answer came easily. The Constitution.

The Constitution holds no ruthless penalty for stupidity or incompetence, other than the humiliation of a failed attempt for a second term—knowing, at least expecting, as the Framers did, that the People would fire an incompetent president. But the Constitution does have penalties for deliberate sabotage of the nation’s welfare, loss of national security, rape of liberties, and designing a deliberate attempt to surrender the country to another. At its worst, that is called treason.

If it were just a lack of expertise in one area, I would not have gotten so irritated as I thought and hoed. Many presidents, have difficulty in one realm of their duties or another. But this is neither an issue of incompetence nor a lack of thorough forethought. In fact, though I’m certain that the President, in some respects may innocently be a bumbling buffoon, maybe, I would rather give him better credit. He deserves it. What he seems to be is more a mixture of many faces: bumbling, as he touches his nose to the dirt in an awkward bow to—up until that moment—equal foreign dignitaries; defiant toward the Constitution, many times twisting it; and other times completely ignoring it, such as turning to the U.N. rather than his constitutionally appointed council (we call the Congress) for a determination on war. He was cowardly when averting the Senate on significantly important administrative posts; was a bully when leaping on a chance to attack one of his own states—the border state of Arizona, infested with a deeply oozing canker from invasion across the international border—when trying to defend themselves against that invasion, (which the Federal government is Constitutionally bound to protect from insurrection and invasion, by the way). But then, when another state, Utah, creatively legislates to violate and usurp Federal control and jurisdiction of immigration so they can create an open door for illegals to enter before May 11, 2011, his Cabinet is conspicuously silent. If one were not watching copiously they would find Obama’s policies dizzying.

It is not simply that Mr. Obama is being guided, instructed, and persuaded by those who have unscrupulous designs, irrefutable as that may be as days pass and evidence piles, but that he has layers of personal protection while he rapidly maneuvers the United States into the hands of not one, but many enemies—most notably the nations of Islam weirdly combined with Communist cabinet members. Creating—or allowing—this kind of chaos will provide the ultimate fertile ground Obama is planning for that a bumbling buffoon could never methodically plan.

I let my garden rest. Rather, I rested from gardening. But when I returned days later, weeds were emerging, and it was clear I needed to guard my tender crops from the ravaging hunger of blujays, robins and obese squirrels, who had begun to pick off seeds. Easily done, I thought. A couple hours later, synthetic look-alike snakes rested among the crops. That kept the invaders out. Again, I recalled the condition of America that Obama has put us in. I remembered a new report of another accosting by TSA of a little girl, and I beat the weeds with my hoe.

The new TSA policy of Whole Body Imaging that displays invasive detail of the anatomy, and “pat-downs” that are demoralizingly intrusive to the point that any other citizen who engaged in the same behavior toward another would be sentenced for sexual abuse and have a nice term lease at the state penitentiary are examples of Obama strategy. I believe he is testing the waters to see just how submissive and ignorant of their rights and dignity Americans are. It is imperative in determining the best opportunity for an easy revolution of the government—dissolution of the Constitution that the people would accept with little revolt. Granted, TSA policy is a wholesale violation of the 4th and 5th amendments, to say the least. But the ignorant-on-its-face montage Obama displays to the public and the nefarious pattern that is emerging show two different faces of the man. To Obama, the fact that Former Homeland Security Chief, Michael Chertoff, who is also owner of The Chertoff Group that markets Rapiscan, a major provider for whole body imaging machines, and periodic companion of Obama on long distance trips, it is another “uh dunno” moment. What else would he do under the guise of national security, to nurture his collusionist courtship along with other financiers such as George Soros, the latter who makes his millions at the sacrifice of people and countries? Yet, he refuses to close or protect the borders or improve immigration policy. And makes statements regarding businesses where he may have no friends, such as this one, directed to the oil industry, referring to eliminating their tax breaks, “They’re doing just fine without [it].” But we’re not.

To add, research shows effective preventive measures for terrorism are found in other segments of the travel process and among specific profiles, which have nothing to do with color and everything to do with a pattern of intent. Most terrorists are discovered far back in the early process of booking the flight and further back, to the process of entering the United States or an ally country long before standing in a line of passengers politely awaiting a forced violation of their person. The President’s pattern, once appearing ignorant, confusing and inconsistent, is clearly emerging. The pattern is simply to practice fascism in destroying any semblance of constitutionality in our nation. If he can say, “uh, dunno,” he escapes the charges and sentence of treason, or at the very best, the heavy arm of Congressional scrutiny in an impeachment hearing.

But the President’s tactics underestimates the response by Americans and thus the outcome of his plans. Americans will fight the invasion of their garden irrespective of a gardener who says he intends to take good care of it, but his actions show a completely different objective. It would be like claiming to protect the garden by hoeing the sandbox instead. Either he is stupid, or he believes everyone else is.

The irrational stream of actions appear inconsistent, but following the stream, as with this latest escapade in Libya, is consistent to his purpose but without thought to the real outcome of that purpose. It is not the one Obama anticipated he will achieve. What he is actually doing is tantamount to planting a packet of seeds everyone thinks will be watermelon, Obama thinks are beets, but are really dandelions. It seems obvious that Obama wants Americans to believe he is engaging in a democratic crusade similar to Bush’s freedom cause in Iraq. Putting aside the obvious difference in how the two engagements came about—one through Congress and the other blatantly ignoring it and the War Powers Act of 1973, (read: Constitutionality), Obama is, at the least, in serious need of some good old fashioned agrarian know-how. Take the time to think through the entire outcome. Don’t put us in a bad spot. Find allies to help us grow, rather than bad associations that make us fight. Give us lots of room to grow. Get rid of pesky varmints that want to invade our territory; and don’t allow future intruders to invade our space. Make a plan that can be seen by everyone with an expected result.

While this would be the strategy of someone who really wanted success, it is not Obama’s. The President is not a gardener. In fact, his strategy is akin to deciding to deliberately do everything possible to destroy the garden so he has a reason to buy the high-rise condo instead. Which is actually what the purpose of all the bungling is. Fail for an opportunity’s sake.

The latest crisis is no less confirming of all the previous ones. Because conservatives in the House promised their constituency they would work to balance the budget and significantly reduce government spending now and over time, House Republicans have refused to approve any budget that included large amounts of spending and that does not support those promised cuts. This, as the news—so well covered said, led to a standoff and possible shut down of government. An opportunity arose: The President called the Senate President, House Leader, and other key negotiators together to his office to work out a deal. A day after this visit, the sides agreed and a budget compromise for that spending bill was reached. But Mr. Obama declared after the announcement that he would veto it. —He is hoeing the sandbox and not the garden. Another budget bill is coming forth, with barely any budget cuts. It will undoubtedly lead to another impasse. Even though Mr. Obama has insinuated that there will be no debate about “family planning” (code word for abortion), this latest bill reduced Medicare and eliminates spending to Planned Parenthood in lieu of huge budget slashes. It is the bill Mr. Obama has insinuated he will veto.

My mind meandered through time to numerous Obama lapses of clear thought. During his campaign, then Senator Obama declared that closing Guantanamo was not only the right thing to do but insinuated that there were no excuses why the facility was still be open, as it would be an easily accomplished task to close it. There were no excuses. Keeping it open was tantamount to crimes against humanity. But now, two years later, the President has not only left it conspicuously open but finally said it would remain so.

His solution to a burgeoning budget, an atmospheric climb in debt, inflation, and unemployment all have had one solution: More government is the answer, he declared with believable conviction. What that meant, as Vice President Biden so aptly stated to defend his boss, is borrowing to reduce debt. The pen is mightier than just about everything, it seems, (even sound math and the hoe), especially when signing bills for spending. The so-called stimulus proved to do nothing more to the economy than increase the tax burden upon the backs of babes yet to be born and line the pockets of those same huge organizations and financiers. Undaunted by minor details, Obama got his magic pen out again signing more legislation for more free money in further stimulus that stimulated nothing short of American rage. Ignoring Congress’s Constitutional duty by attacking another country—and supporting the side with the worst radical Islamic group; stifling the economy by sabotaging budget bills; placing moratoriums on certain industries without cause, resulting in doubling in gas prices since he took office; a chronic misuse of his authority as Commander in Chief, and on and on, all hinge on one answer: “These things take time,” he has said. Translation, “uh dunno what I’m doing.”

It occurred to me that Mr. Obama had never gardened a day in his life. If he had, he would have appreciation and integrity for the simple truths life—they apply to running a country. —Take time to plant well what is best to reap; don’t put us where we don’t get along and will fight to grow. Keep out invaders—don’t let them take over our land. Start and end with a plan. Get rid of intruders threatening life and preventing growth and opportunities to be productive. And understand that there is no cheating in the garden: the evidence will reveal the gardeners intent.

A few supporters of Obama will say he is no different than past presidents. Of course we know that to be untrue by the pattern of their policies, not a cherry-picked decision here and there to compare. Past presidents, on both sides of the isle, pale in comparison to Obama’s deliberate pattern of pretending ignorance and sometimes incompetence through constant “uh dunno” answers and actions, as protection against the greater and deliberate destruction of America’s Constitution. This can be seen through the flagrantly obvious: No other president in the last century has had the advantage of a very vocal American population willing to defend the Constitution as Obama has had at his disposal, despite his apparent unwillingness to hear them. It is no wonder, really. While Americans are gardening and can see with plainness this evidence of the work, Obama is in the sandbox. The saddest part is that when The People ask the President why he is in the sandbox, he will say, “uh dunno,” even though we really know precisely why.

Federal Shut Down not a Solution to Budget Discord

If the House of Representatives does not come up with an interim budget bill, the Federal Government will technically shut down after this coming Friday. Of course, the chances of that happening are not particularly high. But suppose it did?

Proponents of shutting down the federal government rally behind the idea that the federal government is so ridiculously large and the debt toll so debilitating that doing so is justified. But those who advocate this strategy lack imagination to what that could mean. The Federal Government is actually mandated to perform certain tasks as defined in the Constitution. Which means that as much as 'de-funding' is a mechanism for stopping unconstitutional acts from moving forward, negligently letting the Federal Government shut down--including departments mandated by the Constitution are, in theory, unconstitutional.

We know most liberals don't want the Federal Government to shut down. But this situation brings forth a compelling argument by conservatives opposed to letting the Federal Government shut down as well. For one, whether conservative or liberal it is unconstitutional for the Federal Government to ignore its responsibilities to the states for the post office, postal roads; patents, trademarks, and copyrights; protection from invasion or attack, maintaining the various branches of the military--which also includes, by the way, those in harm's way overseas in the newly created war against Libya. A shut down would also include stopping proceedings on bankruptcies, regulating money (that would be our economy), inferior courts (Federal courts in every state), and stopping all funds to states' departments that are not funded from previous interim budget bills. Putting aside whether those are duties expounded upon in the Constitution or not, stopping then would result in stopping state budgets as well. Not passing an interim bill would also include, of course, closing of the capitol.

While it is easy to sympathize with those who are disgusted with the bloated federal government--its size, its cost, and its usurped power--balanced only by its generalized stupor of reason, it is neither effective nor productive to resolving those problems by a shut down of the Federal Government. A shut down is not a solution to the problem of overspending or unconstitutional behaviors. This strategy is like instituting a binge/purge program to loose weight. The problem remains.

Consider these scenarios with a shut-down: First and foremost would not be my postponed letter from Aunt Betsy, but enemies that, knowing exactly what we do--have the advantage knowing that a possible shut down may be eminent--could take advantage of such a weakness. Attacks would not be followed by defense, unless the federal government didn't have to call foreword any reserves, nor promise income not already dispensed through the previous temporary budget to other military personnel.

In addition, states would pay dearly. Never mind the point that many state budgets consist of Federal mandates forcing the States into unconstitutional functions. The point now, is that they are funded in this manner, and there are citizens of various states, that will suffer instead of those culpable. State roads and highway construction and maintenance would suffer. Schools would suffer immensely, since much of their funding comes through money appropriated based upon NCLB compliance. In part or in whole, everyday functions that go thanklessly unnoticed, or cantankerously cursed--but still a thoughtless given, will stop.

A federal shutdown is also expensive. It will lead to the exact opposite result that the shutdown--like a massive demonstration--was expecting to produce. Regardless of whether we want less government interference--and that is the goal, if we look at the directives in the Constitution, the solution cannot be an all or nothing approach to a Federal Government. That would be to step back in time to the pre-convention era, during the Confederacy, when the thirteen states were suffering from lack of funding on the federal level. No services to the umbrella of states were able to be performed. And the states were in jeopardy of attack for lack of protection. Government confusion resulted. That battle has already been fought. That war already won. The solution already created.

Neither the problem, nor its solution, is an all or nothing conundrum. Rather, it is simply a matter of the will to govern according to the intent of the Constitution, void of irresponsible frittering away of American resources. A shut down is the American constituent's lazy-man solution to the problem, for it requires nothing of them, just as it requires nothing of their representatives. The real solution is for Americans to step up, speak up, and inform their representatives that they must responsibly fund the Federal Government or someone else will be appropriating money instead. We cannot afford any other options.