Other than in the past on a professional basis, when he wrote highly technical articles about IBM's AS/400 computer system, Brian Kelly receives no compensation for his work. Additionally, Kelly has not taken any donations or contributions other than for his US Senate Campaign of 2012. Mr. Kelly has recetly canceled his write-in campaign for the US Senate, and instead he endorses Tom Smith for US Senator from Pennsylvania v. Robert P. Casey Jr. If you would like to donate to the closed campaign to help defray costs, feel free to go to www.kellyforussenate.com and click the DONATE button. Your donations are most appreciated.
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Please enjoy the rest of this article.
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Some wise people and some not so wise have offered commentaries over the years on making mistakes. I submit a number of quotes below for your review. None are very long. I present them so that we can forgive ourselves for our own mistakes, and most importantly, so that we can remember not to make them again.
Some quotes are from great Americans and others are from noted philosophers. These should help us fully absorb the theme of this article. Enjoy!
The first quote is from Barack Obama himself early in his term. He wanted the world to know that America and Americans throughout history made lots of mistakes, but he, Barack H. Obama, was not part of those mistakes. Notice how careful he is to not implicate himself in America’s mistakes. He did everything but suggest he was really a Kenyan or an Indonesian. I am not the first to ask if deep down, this President really thinks of himself as an American.
1. I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.
Barack Obama
2. Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
Bruce Lee
3. The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.
Dale Carnegie
4. Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.
George Bernard Shaw
5. You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.
Sam Levenson
6. To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.
Plutarch
7. A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
John C. Maxwell
Think of all the good hearted Americans who looked at hope and change, and a fresh new face and what appeared to be an opportunity to have the first black person ever, not only become President but become the most successful President of all time. We were all hoping for that. I would bet that even those who did not vote for the President wanted him to succeed in making America better. The question we are left with after watching the President for four years is: “Was a better America something Obama really wanted?” Did our dreams for America have any chance with Obama as their caretaker? Do all of the President’s bad policies add up to big mistakes or are they the product of a fine tuned plan to weaken America? No matter how we look at it, the result of Obama is a big mistake for America and Americans. We must remember such egregious mistakes and never make them again.
Those who have not been paying attention would find that as a shock. But, then again, those not paying attention would more than likely not be reading this article.
Remembering mistakes is a great remedy to not repeat mistakes but only if you see your actions as being mistakes. So, if these notions put forth below are not mistakes by Obama, one who cares must ask the question: “Is Obama intentionally weakening the country?” Let’s explore this a bit:
First, let’s look at Defense. President Obama has rightly said that America cannot afford to be unprepared for the future. He is a very good speaker. Yet, he ordered that our active duty ground forces be cut to pre-9/11 levels. He also wants a nuclear free world and has been discussing unilaterally cutting American nukes and he has begun the process. To put that notion in perspective, in the 1980’s when the USSR was a recognized threat; we had over 12,000 missiles in our arsenal. In 2003, this was down to 5,000. Obama has recently been exploring cutting the current number down by an additional 80%.
An 80% reduction is far below the number permitted in our treaties with Russia. Why would we want to give the trustworthy Russians a break? This Obama decision would take us back to the 1950 levels when we were just beginning the arms race with Russia. It would place us on the losing side of the arms race. Just because you don’t want to be in a race, does not automatically mean that your opponent will act well if you hand them the victory without a race.
Strength through weakness is not going to make it in today’s tough world. Peace through strength is a far more effective mantra, and that is why after four years of weakness, we are in desperate need for a change at the top.
Iran would love to blow up a nice chunk of America when they build their first nuke just to show off. They’d also love it if a small fragment of their nuclear missile would break off over Israel on its way to the US and quiet that nation forever. Meanwhile Russia and China are becoming great friends while ramping up their capabilities to destroy US. Is Obama intentionally weakening the country or is this just a mistake?
The President added over $5 trillion to our total debt in just over three years. He has put our nation on the brink of bankruptcy. A bankrupt country cannot pay for its defense. Yet, despite our dire situation, the President continues to put our economy at risk by overspending, excessive borrowing, and by honoring one-way free trade agreements that are outsourcing the best American jobs to foreign countries. Is Obama intentionally weakening the country or is this just a mistake?
The President is quietly shutting down the coal industry in the US while China cannot buy enough coal from us. What is that they know that our President does not? Will President Obama begin to denigrate the coal states as selfish, looking out for their own interests, so he can look like the adult in the room, a ploy he likes to pull? He has been hampering the production of all energy, especially coal. But, this President does not like any natural and effective energy source including natural gas, oil, and nuclear energy. Yet, he has no problem wasting billions on energy sources that are unproven, such as wind, geothermal, bio, and solar. Rather than invest in things we all know will work, the President has made green energy more important as a notion than having enough energy to provide for America.
He has given his cronies in companies like Solyndra billions in loans. These companies suck up taxpayer dollars and then they go bust, defaulting on the massive loans that Obama gave them.
Obama does not get it. Even after four years, he does not get it. Alternative energy simply does not work on a mass scale. Eighty thousand dollar electric cars do not work. Yet, the President says he is the best energy President ever. Meanwhile, Mr. Energy, our President, has encouraged coal fired power plants to shut down and he has presided over oil / gasoline refineries to go out of business. Oh, and did we mention that gasoline prices doubled on the Obama watch.
Can all of the closures in the refinery business have anything to do with the Energy President’s energy policy? In recent years refineries have been dropping like flies due to government legislative and regulatory effort. For example, refineries in Westville, NJ, and Yorktown, Va. are gone. One large refinery in southeastern Pennsylvania was shut down six months ago and another in New Jersey closed. For months a third large Philadelphia refinery has been up for sale and unless something is done soon, this too will bite the dust. More dad news includes the largest refinery in the world, located in the US Virgin Islands is scheduled to close. How does the Energy President explain this? What happens if the economy ever gets fired up again? What happens to the lost refinery capacities totaling over 1.5 million barrels a day. Refineries do not come into being overnight!
The energy assault is pushing for less and less coal fired plants. Will the US power grid eventually not be able to sustain the country as more and more coal fired plants go off-line? Meanwhile, the Energy President has blocked the Keystone Pipeline, thereby killing jobs and preventing needed oil from a friendly source from reaching its US destination. Does he want to starve the US from the energy it needs to survive? Will the White House set an example in Obama’s next term and choose to make do with heavy coats, rather than turn on their furnaces in the winter? Is Obama intentionally weakening the country or is this just a mistake?
The President has thumbed his nose at enforcing the immigration precepts in our Constitution and Federal Laws. He has made our borders insecure, and has no apparent concern for shutting out terrorists or illegal workers, who cross our borders at will. When states choose to do the immigration job for him, this President takes them to court. Is Obama intentionally weakening the country or is this just a mistake?
Our President finds himself frequently on the wrong side of the issues. He gives vocal support to the “Occupiers,” and tells local police not to mess with them even when they have clearly violated the law. Yet, he insults the moms and pops in the TEA Party as radical extremists. He advocates public union thuggism, while he chastises citizens who can’t pay the bloated salaries of public employees and their treasury busting retirement benefits.
He is fighting concurrent wars against the first amendment and the second amendment, and he is trying to ignite a war on women so he can blame Republicans. He has no respect for the Catholic Religion, challenges the Pope on religious issues, and yet goes out of his way to defend the Muslim Religion. He wants to redistribute the wealth of the rich, while his policies entice more and more of our most prolific taxpayers to leave the US for other countries. In less than four years, he has changed the US into a has-been welfare state with increasing levels of poverty. Is Obama intentionally weakening the country or is this just a mistake?
An email was circulating a few months back that asked this question: “If the President was in fact an enemy saboteur, trying to do everything possible to wreck America’s economy and our way of life, what would he be doing differently?” Is Obama intentionally weakening the country or is this just a mistake? More and more people are coming to the conclusion that it is intentional. Yet, from a people’s perspective, these are all big mistakes that this President chooses not to acknowledge as a reality. Thus he can never regret them or remember them as mistakes. For us, as we reflect on all the Obama mistakes, we must remember that the Obama Administration gaining any power at all was our biggest mistake.
Rush Limbaugh may have been the first to recognize where Obama wanted to take America and he was the first to suggest that it might be better if Obama failed in his goals for America. He took a lot of heat and was intentionally misquoted by the biased and corrupt, bought and paid for National media. Limbaugh was not looking for America to fail. Instead, he was concerned that if Obama succeeded, America would fail.
Most of us have arrived where Limbaugh was back then. Obama, the Pelosi-led 110th and 111th Congresses, along with his czars and his minions, are responsible for the fall of our country from international prominence. It sure will not get better if he has four more years to finish off this nation. Therefore, it is up to each of US to remember our big mistake of electing a narcissistic progressive socialist as the head of our state.
As a country, our biggest voting mistake of all time was when we permitted Obama to take over the Presidency in January 2009. Sorry for those of you that may have voted for him. Please do not make that mistake again. We elected Obama and a cast of hundreds of mistakes in Congress. Two years earlier with the Pelosi Congress, we began another run of big mistakes. For all of this, those who are not diehard progressives recognize that we got something we never expected.
Instead of working for America and for Americans, the new government and its new leaders worked instead for their ideology and against the American way of life. With no jobs to be found and the worst economy since the Great Depression, we are paying big time for these mistakes. We cannot afford to make such mistakes again.
Therefore it is vital that we remember all of these mistakes—the Senate and the Presidency—in particular. We can never let anything like this happen again. With excessive spending in the last two years of the Bush Administration, the 110th Pelosi-led Congress got us moving on a path of ruin, and helped bring about the major 2008 crises. The 111th Congress was the most corrupt in history, and Obama played them as the Pied Piper with a big flute. In 2010, the House was basically replaced because they were so bad for America that even long-asleep Americans came out to vote. The Senate survived because of Republican-in fighting.
Unfortunately as I write, progressive socialists now control the Senate, and thus, what could have been a great countervailing government is at a standstill. Meanwhile the President unilaterally and unconstitutionally continues to pen executive orders and authorize regulations that are helping to dismember the country. In 2012, when we vote, it is imperative that we finish the full job by replacing all 33 Senators with Conservatives while sending the Marxist in chief back to Chicago. Americans know how to remember and how to correct our mistakes.
The irony is that with the hope and change and the best wishes of most Americans, including me, though I admit to voting for McCain, Obama could have been the person to become the best President of all time if he were somebody other than himself. Why a theoretically smart man like Obama did not go this way must have a lot to do with an uncontrollable sense of ideology from a source that is not American. Obama either forgot or never knew that most Americans actually love the United States. We love where we live. We love America. Whether Obama loves America or not, I cannot remember any other President in my long life where their patriotism was even a question. My gut says this President cares only about himself and to the extent that it plays well in Peoria, he is coerced to pretend to care about Americans.
Our President is clearly an excellent orator, just a hair less great than the master spokesman, Bill Clinton. It seems that I have heard him speak hundreds of times, yet he often does exactly the opposite of what he says he is doing or is going to do. I can’t believe him and I no longer believe that he cares at all about me or America.
Without naming names, we can ask ourselves why we are spending more than we have when we know that the solution to our fiscal problem is to reduce spending. We can ask ourselves why we are taxing ourselves to death when the solution is to reduce taxes and give people money to spend. We can ask ourselves why, when Americans are out of work, are we issuing over six million visas each year for foreigners to walk into our country, legally, to take many American jobs.
Why are we forgiving the four or five million illegal foreign nationals that hold entry level jobs that our children would love to haver? Why, at a time when we are most vulnerable to an oil cut-off from our enemies across the globe, and we have proven that the US has more oil and gas reserves than any country on earth, are we not issuing permits to make us self sustaining on energy? Why would we not permit our friendly neighbor to the north to ship oil via pipeline to the US rather than stink up our harbors with vessels from enemy states? Why is our government so big and so fixated on making big mistakes when we cannot afford it?
I can go on. The answer to all those questions is that we made a fundamental mistake… a big mistake. We thought that under the mantra of hope and change, we would get a kick start for America and Americans. But, our President obviously has a different agenda as his record on all of our needs is less than zero. The President tries to make things worse every day, and his success adds to our misery index. Have you seen an honest political ad from our President yet? I mean an ad that says “I screwed up only according to your standards. According to mine, I am right on track.”
If our President cares at all about America and Americans, judging from his behavior and his respect for America and Americans, it is not very much. I will agree that as a person who seems to care about the poor, our President would be happy to give poorer Americans dimes from the US Treasury to help them out. How many dimes will it take to keep an American from the poor house?
When you are deciding who to vote for in November, remember that if you want to reach out and get a dime, Obama is your man, without a doubt. You will get your dime. But, if you want to reach out and get a job that pays enough for your family to all be college educated, and for you to partake in the American Dream, Obama won’t help you. He can’t help you as it is against his core beliefs. Moreover, he has no way to help you because he does not really want you to have a job. However, he does have lots of dimes that your neighbors “gave” him in taxes. If you are willing to give him kudos for the help, he’d be happy to keep you on dimes all your natural life. Will you be bought off by Obama dimes?
When I go into the voting booth this November, I will remember Barack Obama as the biggest mistake that Americans have ever made, and I will do my best to undo that mistake. I hope you do likewise.
Remember Mistakes!
Sometimes mistakes can be undone!
Brian Kelly is a business owner and former assistant professor at Marywood University; he and his wife live in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Kelly is running for Senate in his state and believes limited government brings liberty and freedom.
About Brian Kelly
Brian Kelly is a business owner and former assistant professor at Marywood University; he and his wife, Pat live in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Kelly ran for COngress and for the US Senate in his state and he believes limited government brings liberty and freedom. Brian's 48th book is titled, Saving America, The How-To Book. It is available at www.checkoutking.com and www.itjungle.com.