The 'real' Y2K problem By Lewis J. Goldberg As we approach New Year's Eve 1999, it seems less likely that the world will erupt in chaos. Of course, the truth remains to be seen, but all indications point to minor disruptions, not Armageddon, as people like Gary North would have us believe. Yes, I have my wood burning stove hooked up and ready to go. We bought extra peanut butter and will probably fill a few rinsed out milk jugs with water, just in case. What help that would be if things really did go sour is probably minimal, but it makes one feel as if they are 'preparing.' If our precious infrastructure were to collapse, most of us would have to abandon our current homes and move closer to a water source. America would start looking like a third-world nation in a hurry (a meaningless term were the 'first-world' to collapse.) There is much concern that our military is ill-prepared for Y2K. It should be some comfort to note that if our military is not ready, our potential enemies are probably not doing too great either. Even the terrorists would have to be using outdated junk to bypass the Y2K bug, but given the size of Osama Bin Laden's bank account I'd say that's doubtful. Last week, a spokesman for the Russian military declared that there will be no accidental launches of nuclear weapons, and that their missile systems were immune to the Y2K problem. Translation: Our missiles wouldn't launch if we wanted them to. Aside from civilization collapsing or world war breaking out, what threat is there? It is the threat of our sitting president deciding that he likes being president a little too much and declaring martial law the first week of January 2000 to quell the so-called 'crisis.' During the past year, I have written much about Bill Clinton and his brand of tyranny. Since the failure of the attempt to remove Clinton from office, these rantings are mostly self-serving; a catalyst for avoidance of the same mistake in 2000 at best, hammering of moot points to the annoyance of many at worst. Provided our American system holds up, we will be rid of the Clinton administration on January 20, 2001. Whether a Gore administration would be 'Clinton, Part II' remains to be seen. The odds are that Gore would be his own man, as he and Clinton do not seem like very close buddies, regardless of what they present in public. The general public would probably label me a right-wing extremist for thinking so ill of Clinton. I base my opinion on the actions I observe from our president, not on knee-jerk, pitchfork, 'kooks-with-shotguns-up-in-the-hills' politics. It started in the beginning with Hillary-care, the proposed federal takeover of our nation's hospitals (and one-seventh of the economy.) Clinton has installed loyal cronies in all departments to implement his totalitarian policies. We've seen our property rights eroded through aggressive use of the Bureau of Land Management and the EPA. Our public schools have been perverted, through the Department of Education (with the cooperation of the teacher's unions,) to eliminate the goal of teaching students to be able to think for themselves. They are now taught what, not how to think, on a host of issues that have nothing to do with traditional education. The Surgeon General's post has been used as a platform to degrade the morality of our nation's youth. The Department of Energy has been used to assist in the payoff of Clinton's political allies in Communist China, who were instrumental in getting him reelected. Executive Orders have been issued to chaotically unbalance political power in favor of the federal government in general, the Executive Branch in particular. The Justice Department is about to be used to further injure our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as they prepare to sue the gun industry. All this adds up to a power-hungry president who seems to have plans that extend beyond the normal eight-year span of influence accorded such individuals. My intent here is not to rehash each issue; they've all been done to
death by myself and others. We need to view the current administration
with fear as the biggest and best excuse for a manufactured crisis approaches.
Thomas Jefferson once said that the beauty of the Second Amendment is
that it is unnecessary until they try to take it away. Let's hope 'they'
don't, and this New Year's Eve celebration is as boring and uneventful
as all the rest of them. Truly, I will not breath easy until our next
elected president's hand is on the Bible. Lewis J. Goldberg is web master of PlanetGoldberg and a contributor to Enter Stage Right |
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