A Journal for Western Man
Part II
G. Stolyarov II
The Republicans have attempted to quell the rising anti-corporate sentiment by proposing merely stricter penalties for violators, but they could not impel themselves to reject the Sarbanes Bill, which creates an independent board to oversee accounting fraud, another bureaucracy to monitor corporations before a violation even occurs! This applies not merely to known criminals but the entire U.S. economy, inflicting extortion upon innocent and well-to-do entrepreneurs for their less competent peers' faults. Every manner of career possesses superlative and sub-adequate performers. Does that imply that Big Brother must hold Engineer A liable because Engineer B has constructed a faulty bridge, or penalize Doctor A because Doctor B has inflicted heedless harms upon a patient during an operation?
The masses do not seem to recognize the menace looming over them not so much in the minuscule problem, but in its supposed remedy. Democrats in the meantime subtly undercut President Bush's base of support by claiming that he and his cabinet are lapdogs of the corporate world and hinting at President Bush's alleged misconduct in the sale of Harkin Energy stock, for which he had been cleared by the Justice Department multiple times, but which nevertheless plants the necessary seeds of suspicion into the masses who irrationally perceive him a crook merely because the word "misconduct" triggers an instant impulse of antagonism within them and frequently does not permit them to analyze the accusation in detail. If these plans for reform are to proceed as they do currently, who shall become crowned with the hero's wreath? Why who else except the great statist crusaders against Big Business, the Democrats? Already a FOX poll has shown that 43 per cent of Americans believe the Democrats to be more "competent" economic leaders while 42 per cent apply this label to Republicans. The GOP is losing momentum, and shall continue to do so if the economy is allowed to resume its collapse via government regulation.
The President has already surrendered immense ground to the very adversaries who seek to undermine his reputation and policy initiatives. Yet this Gordian knot can be cut simply with a sword, one which will save the businessmen of integrity, revive the popular backing the President had maintained during the War on Terror, and neutralize the most significant external threat to United States security. News of corporate fraud must be swept from the headlines by a development of greater urgency, a tactic that worked during President Clinton's ludicrous attempts to fight terror, one that will linger at present due to the nature of the circumstances involved. The United States, guided by an executive order fully within the President's authority, must initiate a full-scale military operation against Saddam Hussein and his cronies in Iraq.
At what time? The sooner this occurs, the more desirable it will be. This logical next step in the War on Terror will encompass at least as great a time period as the fighting in Afghanistan, for Hussein possesses a more substantial military and greater political backing than did the Taliban. However, like the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan, assistance from within can be found in both rival underground political cliques and Kurdish guerillas. It is not to be feared that the United States will fail in this endeavor. American military strategy is oriented on the principle that no single soldier is expendable, that every resource must be utilized to the utmost efficiency with stringent planning beforehand. Casualties will be as or more minimal than those experienced during the Persian Gulf War, and nations such as Israel and Great Britain, America's ardent advocates, are likely to flock to our aid. But the visionary leadership that President Bush had demonstrated during the endeavor in Afghanistan will continue to rally public support for his administration and conservative policies in general.
The more impulsive portions of the populace, which nevertheless comprise an immense portion of America's voters, are more likely to respond not to their recollections of several months ago but to the reports on their television screens at the moments. Given sufficient time, they will again regain the patriotism and respect for the American institutions of capitalism, financial freedom, and property rights which had been directly violated by the terrorists of September 11th. Just like Bush, Sr., approval ratings during the Persian Gulf War had peaked at 92 per cent, Bush, Jr., can expect a similar recovery. If the developments in Iraq conclude in mere months and the Democrats do not by then cool their statist banter sufficiently, the missile-manufacturing theocracy of Iran is a potential next target, or the feudal battleground of Somalia which is a haven for various anti-Western fundamentalist factions. Lacking the momentum to promulgate further abominations in the manner of the Sarbanes Bill, the Democrats will also fear the label of "un-patriotism" which will likely be placed upon them by public opinion and concentrate on the War on Terror once again, becoming susceptible to Bush's agenda, not the other way around.
The cries for corporate regulation will subside and competent businessmen will be permitted to produce away without the malignant eyes of bureaucracy monitoring their every move and attempting to entangle them in the web of contradictory violations. Fraud will be exposed not in the cases where artificial minutiae are bypassed but when customers and investors have genuinely suffered as a result of the company's lack of integrity. The guilty party will lose their business and profit, as they deserve, while the innocent will be left to their own meritorious designs. Hussein will find his proper place within the gas chamber for the atrocities of genocide and terrorism he had either advocated or directly commissioned. And conservatives can hope for a firm hold on government to check intrusions against the individual liberties which render this country great, until 2008 at least. All depends now on whether our President possesses the wisdom to wield the mighty sword in his hands.