Executive Action

If the headlines in my news feeds are to be believed, we have gone from worrying about police brutality (Ferguson) to mass shooters (San Bernardino) to executive action mandating gun control.  Perhaps I've grown somewhat inept in age but I can't seem to find any headlines explain how the issues of police brutality, racial tensions or even the mental health issues of mass shooters have been solved but we are in a tizzy over Mr. Obama's executive orders.

The right are aghast and see the BATF agents storming into everyone's home even though the BATF is woefully undermanned to make such a scenario a reality.  The left feel their hearts aflutter for their "man", Obama, has finally shown what he is made of.  The problem is Mr. Obama's actions really don't do a damn thing except cost the taxpayer more money without reducing the threat of mass shootings/serial killers/terrorism.

That isn't just a snide comment by yours truly, just take a look at this article that appeared on Forbes last year about the costs of the war on terror.  According to Forbes, at the time of the article (Feb 2015) the war on terror has cost $1.7 trillion!  For that kind of money, there shouldn't be a terrorist left but of course that didn't happen.  But people are willing to believe that somehow Mr. Obama's final few executive actions will be different (either impacting gun owners or reducing gun violence).

Look at Chicago, Mr. Obama's old stomping ground.  The Windy City has some of the most stringent gun controls in the nation and yet it also enjoys one of the highest gun homicide rates.  Yes we need to address the gun violence but the solution won't come from some paper pusher in Washington.

But there is something else that should cause us alarm over Mr. Obama's expected executive action.  Namely, it could sent things in motion to create even more instability within the US.

The US landmass is too large and too far away from other countries to ever really face a large scale invasion.  Therefore if any nation would like to attack the US, it would be far easier to stir dissension amongst its citizens (which some extreme right wing goofs are already calling for in response to Mr. Obama's executive action).  Mr. Obama may be unwittingly playing right into this.  If a civil war is possible in the 21st Century US, we may just be seeing the beginning in 2016.  And wouldn't that make things a lot easier for our adversaries if we were all shooting at each other?