Back in 2008, I created a new Political Science course for my UCLA students. It was called: “Presidential Politics & Homeland Security” (Poli Sci 149).
On day one of class I posed seven questions to my students and, during the duration of the course, motivated them to think analytically about each using a rational thought process. These concepts were also the topics they could choose from to write their Term Paper.
I always encouraged my students to adopt any political perspective they desired as we considered and debated the different possibilities. I’m hoping these seven questions will force you to use the analytical part of your brain, and provoke you to think rationally as well:
1. Is your personal freedom a critical component of Homeland Security?
2. Who protects your individual liberty and sovereignty as an American citizen?
3. One of the major reasons the Soviet Union collapsed was the overt presence and insidious pressure of 143 different nationalities combined within the borders of one nation. Could too much diversity cause America to collapse as a free nation?
4. Will the United States of America survive until 2025?
5. From a Homeland Security perspective, does it really matter who is our President?
6. Could the USA collapse due to an external threat?
7. Could the USA collapse due to an internal threat?
Here is the opening lecture from Poli Sci 149 at UCLA, and it was intended to be highly provocative in nature.
(Quotes from numerous authors are utilized: Robert Heinlein, H. L. Mencken, Bertrand Russell, Edmund Burke, Samuel Adams, Julius Caesar, Lee Iacocca, Benjamin Franklin, Hanah Aendt, Helene Carrere D’Encausse, etc).
As a Political Science Professor, I’ve come to the conclusion that most American citizens would sooner die than think; and in fact they do so. In reality, most people cannot think, and the vast majority of the remainder will not think.
Those Americans who do think can’t seem to do it very well. The tiny fraction of individuals who think regularly, accurately, creatively and without self-delusion, these are the only people who count, in the grand scheme of complex human relations.
In the most general terms, government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens and giving it to another class. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless array of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule humanity. Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. In the end, the people will lay their freedom at the leader’s feet and say to him, Make us your slaves, but please feed us.
If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Feel free to crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
The government consists of a gang of men and women exactly like you and me. They have no special talents for the business of government. They have only a talent for getting elected and for holding onto their office. Their principle device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get on their own, and to promise to give it to them if elected to office.
Nine times out of ten that promise is worth absolutely nothing. It doesn’t pass the 30/30 Test (30 seconds/30 feet). The tenth time is made good only by looting citizen A to satisfy citizen B. In other words, government is a broker of pillage and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.
And, in my humble opinion, there is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. The one absolutely certain way of bringing the nation to total destruction, of preventing all possibility of it’s continuing as a sovereign nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.
Am I the only guy in this country who is fed up with what's happening today inside America? Where is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a waterfall.
We've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind. We can't even properly clean up after a hurricane, much less build a hybrid car.
But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, Stay the course. Stay the course? You've got to be kidding me. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums in Congress out. ALL OF THEM........!
Now you might think I'm getting a little crazy. That I've gone off my rocker. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The most famous business leaders in America today are not the innovators, but the guys in handcuffs, doing a “perp walk” on the evening news.
While we're fiddling around, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking the hard questions of politicians and candidates.
That's not the promise of the America my great grandparents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?
I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.
The Biggest C-Word in the English language is CRISIS…! Leaders are made, not born. And, Leadership is forged during times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on a desk, or in the Faculty Lounge, and talk theory.
Or send someone else's kids off to fight a war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world starts tumbling down.
Today, we have an Islamo-Communist sitting inside The White House and he is methodically trying to destroy America. I can’t believe that the American people aren’t seeing what Mr. Obama is doing to this great nation. May God have mercy on our souls.
On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than at any other time in our national history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Our nation was and still remains in a Hell of a Mess.
So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with Radical Islam, and nobody wants to accurately call it that. We're running up the biggest national debt and deficit in the history of the country.
We're losing our manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are all moving offshore. We're getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy.
Our schools are the worst in the world. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way.
These are times that cry out for leadership and we have given the reigns of the presidency and all of its political power to an Islamo-Communist because we wanted to be fair and elect someone just because of his race.
We don't have time to be fair. We need a strong, conservative, patriotic leader. But when you look around, you've got to ask: Where have all the leaders gone?
Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I hope you get the point.
Name me a leader who has a better idea for Homeland Security than making us take our shoes off in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy called the Department of Homeland Security, and all we have the courage to do is react to things that have already happened?
Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to Hurricane Katrina, or demand accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm.
Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Well guess what people? Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.
Why are we allowing people to build in flood plains anyway? If you build in a flood area, expect to be flooded and deal with it. Don't expect the Government to bail you out.
Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. All they seem to be thinking about today is getting themselves bigger salaries and bonuses.
Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when “The Big Three” referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it? Likely nothing!
Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or properly managing the health care problem. Their silence is deafening.
These are the crisis situations that are eating away at the fiber of our great nation, and milking the middle class dry. I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your butts, do nothing and remain silent while our Democratic Constitutional Republic is being hijacked, and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity.
What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on CNN or Fox News will call them a derogatory name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change? I honestly don't think any of you have one!
Have you had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America.
In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crisis situations.
The 'Kennedy Assassination'
The 'Vietnam War'
The 1970s oil crisis
The struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.
If I've learned one thing, it is this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines, waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play in America.
That's the challenge I'm throwing in your direction, right this very second. It's a call to 'Action' for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late. But it's getting pretty close.
So let's shake off the crap and go to work. Let's tell the fools in Congress we've had enough. Make a real contribution by discussing this lecture with everyone you know and care about. America’s future is at stake and it is in severe jeopardy!
Here’s Dr. A's Analysis:
There is no security for honest men if you don't believe that evil men will do all possible evil.
In the not too distant future, we are going to be forced by the magnitude of circumstances to develop a ruthless resolve as a country.
When that fateful day finally arrives, we will begin to treat people who want to murder our citizens and destroy our nation in the callous and cold-blooded fashion they deserve.
America's ultimate survival and longevity as a free nation, depends on developing and incorporating this style of brutal behavior, at least until the internal and external threats subside and we can return to the normalcy of our "sleeping giant" syndrome once again.
Let Freedom Ring.
God Help Us.
Speak the Truth.
Endure the Consequences.
Randy Arrington, PhD
(Where Have All the Leaders Gone by Lee Iacocca was used as the basic Model for this Lecture/Article)
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