Be afraid, friends: Chicken Little says the sky is falling somewhere

By David McElroy · August 5, 2013

For several days now, the U.S. government has been doing its best Chicken Little impersonation — even though we still don’t know exactly where the sky is falling or how it’s supposed to be a big deal.

ABC News quotes a source who says the government doesn’t know an “exact target” for an attack, but then the source admits to not having a clue: “We do not know whether they mean an embassy, an airbase, an aircraft, trains,” the source said.

In other words, the sky is falling, but we have no idea what we’re warning people about. Or where it might happened. Or what might happen.

U.S. senators and congressmen sounded grim but vague when they made the rounds of television talk shows on Sunday. U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said the danger is “the most serious threat that I’ve seen in the last several years.” Rep. Michael T. McCaul (R-Texas) said, “And I must say this is probably one of the most specific and credible threats I’ve seen perhaps since 9/11. And that’s why everybody is taking this so seriously.”

U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) told Fox News that U.S. intelligence agencies have discovered a “very specific” threat because of “chatter” from phone conversations, computers, websites and other communication channels.

So if the government knows about a “very specific” threat, why doesn’t anyone know where it’s supposed to happen or what the attack is? Does the government define the word “specific” in a very different way than the rest of us do?

I’m not going to be cynical enough to say that there’s absolutely nothing going on and that the warnings are designed to create panic and a feeling that people need a powerful government to protect them, but I do think that’s the effect of such vague warnings, whether it’s intended or not.

The warnings are useless. If someone says that unnamed bad people are planning to do some bad thing at some unknown location at some unknown time — and doesn’t know whether it’s a building, plane, train or whatever that’s to be attacked — how is that a real warning? How is that anything other than scaremongering?

Of course, no Washington event — no matter how vague — can happen without being turned into partisan wrangling. Neoconservative Bill Kristol, for instance, used the warning as an excuse to attack the Obama administration, saying, “A year ago, the president said al-Qaida is on the run. And now we seem to be on the run.”

Government apologists are using the warning to bolster their case for the NSA snooping that has had some of us so concerned recently. We’re being told that without the NSA’s ability to spy on phone and computer communications, we wouldn’t have this “important” warning.

Where does this leave us? We’ve heard a lot of dire warnings in the last few days, but do we know anything that would allow anyone to avoid any specific threat? Not that I know of. Do we know in which city an attack might occur? No. Do we know whether the alleged attack is on a building or a plane or a bridge or a hotdog stand? No, we don’t. Is there anything you can do differently because of these vague warnings? Other than stay indoors and hide in a closet, not really.

What do we know? As far as I can tell, nothing. We just know that the alleged bad guys have been having a lot of “chatter.”

So it appears that we have given up our rights to government snoops in exchange for Chicken Little to go on television and vaguely wave his arms in the air and say, “Watch out! The sky might be falling!”

If Chicken Little keeps warning that something might happen, one day he’ll be right — and then politicians, bureaucrats, commentators and TV talking heads will all say, “See? We told you it was in your best interests to ignore the Fourth Amendment.”

And since most people seem to support the spying on our communications, there seems to be little the rest of us can do about it. I suspect that the people who founded this country would be shocked at how intrusive and all-powerful the government has become — and I think they’d be shocked by most people’s approval of the erosion of individual liberty.

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I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

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