Sometimes you just can’t be friends

I read a book not long ago that gave advice on how to be comfortable talking to people in every situation.  One of the points the book made that stuck with me is that not everyone you meet is going to like you and that it’s best not to make universal likability one of your goals in life.  You just have to be yourself and associate with people who appreciate your personality (if there are any such people.)

That little piece of advice came back to me last week as I watched some of our foreign embassies get attacked and a group of our diplomats get murdered in cold blood.  All of this happened because one man in America made a very amateurish film that ridicules the Islamic religion and some people believed that justified destroying the people and facilities meant to promote good relations between our country and theirs.

These people simply don’t like us.  Specifically, they don’t like the fact that we allow our citizens to express themselves on any subject without fear of retribution from the government.  We have a very basic disagreement with such people, not just about government, but about a basic question of what is right and what is wrong.  I don’t believe there is a way to bridge that gap, and I don’t believe that we should even try to.

The way I see it, there is no shade of gray here.  The man who made the film that has some of the more excitable elements of the Islamic religion up in arms was exercising his right to self expression under the Constitution.  People have every right to be offended by his movie and to say so, but that’s their only recourse in our system of government.

Not everyone seems to agree though.  Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said that “the United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”  I disagree, Madame Secretary.  The United States does not (or at least should not) “deplore” any particular view of any particular religious idea.  As individual citizens we can express any opinion we like on the subject, and our government ought to have our back on the matter regardless of what anyone else feels about the opinions we express.

The appropriate response from our government to the violent protests over this film should instead have run something along these lines:

“In the United States, every citizen has a legal right to express his or her own opinion on any religious matter without interference from the government.  The man who made the film that has offended so many Muslims around the world speaks for himself and not for the government or any other citizen of the United States.  He has broken no laws in our country and will not be arrested or otherwise harassed by our government.  Any acts of violence directed at American citizens or American interests around the world will be considered unjustified acts of aggression and will not be tolerated.”

And what should we do about people burning our embassies and attacking our diplomats?  Obviously we either need to commit the resources necessary to protect our people and facilities or withdraw completely from these countries until they reach a stage of civilization that has advanced beyond the “peasants with pitchforks” manner of dealing with those who don’t see the world the way that they do.

As far as giving financial aid to these countries, it should be an easy call to stop sending billions of dollars to places where our citizens are being murdered and our flag is being burned in the streets.  I’m not sure how a country that is drowning in debt like ours justifies doling out money to foreign governments in the first place, but surely we don’t want to throw our deficit-dollars at places where the people long to see our blood running in the streets, do we?

Hoping Mitt has something up his sleeve

When Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan as his running mate, I have to admit that I allowed myself to get a little excited.  Ryan made a name for himself by authoring a budget in Congress that would have addressed our deficit situation in a meaningful way, one that actually specified where much-needed but unpopular cuts need to be made.  It never had a chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate of course, but the fact that Ryan had put his name on this plan and had then been selected as Romney's running mate gave me some hope that the Republican ticket would take on the issue of our financial insolvency in a direct and realistic manner.

And then they had their convention and I had to wake up from that silly dream.

Romney's acceptance speech was especially disappointing in that regard.  He had the country's undivided attention and this was his best chance to set the tone for the campaign.  And what did he do with the opportunity?

He told us that he loves his wife, his kids, his parents, and his country.  He told us that he believes in hard work and freedom and personal responsibility.  He told us that he doesn't think Barak Obama has done such a bang-up job in the last four years.  In other words, he shoveled out the same sweet-smelling, content-free BS that politicians from both parties like to feed us every election.  He gave us no specifics, just vague promises to do better than the other guy.  There was certainly no mention of what kind of budget cuts the Republicans would make to get us back in healthy financial shape.

The closest thing we got to actual policy discussion in Romney’s speech was his five point plan to create 12 million jobs.  (Yes, apparently Republicans now agree with Democrats that the federal government can "create" jobs.)  Buried in point 4 of his plan to put us all back to work is a promise to "cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget."

The one thing that he should have devoted most of his speech to - the looming financial disaster we face if we don't somehow get our federal spending reigned in - gets a scant dozen words jammed in with promises to dig for more coal and establish new trade agreements.  And this little snippet of policy discussion was of course dwarfed by the touchy-feely "please like me - I'm really a great guy" portions of his speech.

From what I understand that was the plan his handlers had in mind for his address – to “humanize” him and make people feel like they could relate to him.  That's because many voters supposedly choose a candidate based on how much they like them.  Those would be the voters who apparently are unaware that our government is flying our country into the side of a freaking mountain.

I don't care if Mitt Romney is a human, an alien, or a high-tech robot as long as he has the intelligence and backbone to tell us that we have to cut our spending to survive, and then tell us where he'd make those cuts.  But I'm sure his advisors are telling him that approach is not likely to deliver him the election.  And they are probably right.  The opposition would cut him to shreds if he started talking about cutting back on entitlement spending, which would have to be a part of any realistic plan to walk us back from a financial cliff.

I can only hope that Mitt does have a secret plan to reel in our out-of-control federal spending that he intends to implement if he wins this sad reality show that we call a presidential campaign.  We already know what the Obama plan consists of - tax increases and more government spending.

So I'll take whatever's behind door number 2, I guess, and hope for the best.