Thursday, July 28, 2005

Blathering..

Another misguided Judge sputters foolishness in an effort to flaunt his ignorance and has much success. According to a report http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050728/D8BKE0R80.html U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour decided to equate fighters captured in Afghanistan and Iraq by our military units with people in custody by law enforcement personnel in the United States.

Foolishness prevailed, "We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel...The message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart."

Ahh how true and yet irrelevant. The courts have no authority to do anything to people captured by our military forces and held while there are still hostile zones. The idea that Judge Coughenour even needs to speak such idiocy says much about his inability to grasp the difference between what the military does and what civil police forces do.

There are many good reasons why there are not to be standing armies on US soil unless in a time of war: one usually less important one is that there is a different code of both behavior and responsibilities for the members of the military and a different legal system that operates inside of it as well.

This is another example of an activist judge who feels that being on the bench enables him to lecture and give social commentary. This behavior is more fit for Judge Judy than an active member of our district judges. Let him pat himself on the back for being so bold as to criticize something about which he seems to understand so little because at least the terrorist trash will be rotting for at least 14 years from the date of this sentencing and that I do not mind.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Can We Legislate Morality?

It's been said many times by many people that we should not legislate morality. On the surface this seems like something that is both true, and even possibly desired, but when one actually examines this statement we can see that it leads down the path of moral and philosophical relativism. To some this is still desirable, but I hope to illustrate why they are incorrect.

For example, there are those who consider some of the debates of today to be battles of morality and thus unfit for legislation: Abortion, gay marriage, drug laws, censorship, prostitution, and so forth and so on. They feel that some or all of these issues are all based on an idea of morality that not everyone may share. Because of this lack of universal consensus no action should be taken. Without engaging in an act of reductio ad absurdum (hopefully), if this were the case then we'd have no laws at all since there is no universal consensus about anything - even most murders and rapists can 'justify' their acts.

Let's take a look at some other examples that might enable us to understand that, yes, in fact we are engaging in legislating morality all the time. I found this example from Robert Bork in relation to some debate he was having regarding this issue and it is very striking and clear: Imagine a person who purchases a small island (part of the US though), and on that island he builds a large kennel where he breeds dogs and cats. No one can see nor hear these animals because of the location of the island and the kennel itself.

Every so often this guy goes out and he takes some of the cats and dogs and tears off their limbs and eats them while these animals watch. He then practices other various forms of torture and cruelty on them until they die a slow, horrible death. Most everyone would say this behavior is completely unacceptable, but on what grounds? Do animals have Constitutional rights? No, of course not. Animals do not pay taxes, cannot vote, and have no sense of duty, responsibility, or much of anything else - and in fact they are the property of this man.

Because we feel a sense of disgust, and to most of us it is wrong to do those horrible things, we make laws enabling us to help end the suffering of non-humans that are not even our own property. Based on that argument, should such laws based simply on our outrage and disgust even exist?

It is here that the libertarian arguments fall completely apart. Unless the person is a heartless sociopath, one would not want animal cruelty laws that prevent this type of behavior eliminated, but that very law is only based in emotion and forcing your own beliefs on others who do not feel the same way.

While many people also would like some (or all) drugs legalized, the same argument can be made about this. We, as a society, know the effects drugs have on the family, friends, and most everyone else even slightly associated with someone who is addicted to drugs. This can ruin a marriage, destroy childhoods, and of course drive a family into destitution before all is said and done. Because our society - as a whole - does not feel the individual liberty of using drugs freely is worth the trouble, we make them illegal.

Thus when some states vote on gay marriage, it should left to the states to decide what to do and not up to a federal court to strike down anti-gay marriage laws. If the people of certain states feel one way while those in another feel differently then it should be up to those places to decide. I hear some liberals paying lip service to this notion (only on this issue), but I'm willing to wager they'd be backing such groups as the ACLU who would sue in some federal court.

And on what grounds might they sue? The Fourteenth Amendment of course!
See reference: http://grimkoalas.blogspot.com/2005/07/argument-for-states-rights.html

Thursday, July 21, 2005

'Uprising cards' all the rage in Nablus

I missed this 2003 article, sadly enough. I guess there's a nifty trading card game in the Palestinian occupied areas that immortalize all sorts of types of people... great for kids of all ages:

AP, NABLUS, WEST BANK
Thursday, Dec 25, 2003,Page 7

Advertising Palestinian children are collecting cards showing gunmen and soldiers the way kids in the US trade baseball cards, and some educators are concerned that the hobby is helping to breed a new generation of militants.
The cards are an enormous hit, according to Majdi Taher, who makes them. He said that 6 million cards have been sold over two years and 32,000 albums this month alone in the two main population centers of the northern West Bank -- huge numbers for a territory in which about 1 million Palestinians live -- and he plans to expand his business.
The card craze reflects reality in the West Bank, where three years of Palestinian-Israeli violence has become the dominant reality for children. Israeli soldiers enforce curfews, confining residents to their homes, and often carry out raids in towns and villages looking for militants.
Sometimes children throw rocks at Israeli soldiers or are caught up in exchanges of gunfire. At least 319 Palestinian children under the age of 18 have been killed in the conflict.

A Palestinian girl displays a collage of picture cards featuring scenes of the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank town of Nablus on Tuesday.PHOTO: APIn the West Bank, Palestinian militants carry their weapons openly on the streets and gain the adulation of the young. More than 100 Palestinian suicide bombers have carried out attacks against Israelis, becoming folk heroes in their home towns.
The collectible cards depict real-life Middle East action figures familiar to the children: An Israeli soldier shooting a large gun, a soldier forcing Palestinians off their land, a small Palestinian child dressed in militant's clothing holding a toy gun and Palestinian boys throwing stones.
The albums are sold in cardboard boxes shaped like Israeli tanks and include a dedication from Nablus governor Mahmoud Alul.
A child who fills an album with all 129 pictures can win a computer, a bicycle, a watch or a hat.
Some teachers and parents are concerned about the new fad, trying to forbid their children from buying the pictures, saying they are teaching children violence and forcing them to grow up too quickly.
"I take hundreds of these pictures from children every day and burn them," said Saher Hindi, 28, a teacher at a Nablus elementary school. "They turn children into extremists," she said.
The desire to fill the albums has captivated children in Nablus and Ramallah, teachers say, keeping them from their homework as they spend all their money on the cards.
It's a business success for Taher, who said he plans to expand the sale of the cards and albums to other West Bank towns.
The former candy salesman said he means for the album and pictures to be a history lesson.
Children who are now seven cannot remember incidents from the start of the fighting three years ago, he said.

Monday, July 18, 2005

What Rudolph and Fundamentalism DO Have in Common

In an effort to paint Christians and Christianity as bad as Islamic Fundamentalists, you know, the 'Taliban-wing' of US government, as Senator Tim Johnson has put it (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/05/26/politics1456EDT0622.DTL) , we've had Eric Rudolph added to the list just for good measure. The problem is, the United States has put him away for a very long time (4 life sentences), and - in his own words - he prefers Nietzsche to The Good Book. And since one of Nietzsche's most oft-quoted statements is "God is dead" I wonder how that'll square with the left's desire to place Rudolph in the same line as hard-core Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists.

Certainly, Rudolph qualifies as a complete outcast from civilization and, to me, is a perfect candidate to ride the lightning into oblivion. Feel it, tough guy.

It's not because I am particularly fond of abortion clinics, anyone who's read some of previous posts would know that, but I also not fond of those who wish kill those who's inclinations do not mesh with their own. We are a society with the rule of law, and because of this he should put his efforts at convincing others his way is correct rather than killing people. And with so many modern tools (i.e. the internet and blogs) once can make headway by presenting cases in the same way.

There is one other aspect of Rudolph that came to light to me as a revelation (excuse the New Testament reference - purely coincidental) and that has to do with those certain others who decide that they need to blow up people - people who have no power to change politics or social structure - Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists.

While I just said that the left is wrong for putting the two together one can wonder why I am now lumping them right back together. The answer is simply this: Mentality.

To Rudolph, he might have thought that ridding the world of those who kill unborn children is, in a way, an act of defending the unborn. This argument has been posed by some, and it is a thought - if you subscribe to the willingness to destroy the rule of law in the process.

To Islamic terrorists, the Western World is a cancer - it is home to The Great Satan - and it must be brought down. There is no negotiating with Satan, and as such there is no negotiating with the West. No matter what the cost, no matter what the risk, a unified Arab state must come into existence and Islam - Wahhabism or some other element - must be the form of all policy and doctrine.

Since the United States is the largest exporter of ideas and objects that directly go against this idea, it is only natural that these people hold nothing but disdain in their hearts for us. The fact that if the US were to stop exporting these items and ideas, the other nations of the west would have follow suit or they'd face the same 'punishment'. This eludes them currently and many mistakenly feel that simply not fighting in a place like Iraq will keep them free from these terrorists.

It is because of this need to build an Islamic empire that these people will never tire, and giving them dane-geld will not make them stop - it will only make them feel legitimatised - and then they will move forward quicker - not slower - than before. It is the same thing with Rudolph, or any other person who defies the rule of law in an effort to make their form of 'how things should be' a reality - this mentality cannot be challenged because they do in fact have their own logic and their own rational plan of action.

It is, has been, and always will be an 'us versus them' struggle, but it is not purely racial, religious, nor even economic struggle, although those elements are used to justify many actions; it is a battle of ideologies and this is why educated people are willing blow themselves up even before the poor and 'downtrodden'. The left's complete failure to understand that is exactly why the left is currently unfit to lead this nation.

Friday, July 15, 2005

If

I've always liked this, though I've forgotten about it for some time...


IF
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Money and Evil

I heard it again the other day and, despite hearing it so many other times, I was still caught amiss. I heard it as plain as day and with so much confidence one would think it had to be the most obvious of truths the world had ever known: "Money is the root of all evil."

What a foolish line that has been perpetuated and enforced by those who know not what they say. There is an excellent rebuttal to such a line in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand that parts of it most be quoted:

"Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor- your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?"

I'd like to take it a step further and actually entertain the idea of a society without money.

Without a currency of exchange we'd be forced into a system of bartering good and services for other goods and services. This might not seem so drastic until the thought of how quickly we'd decline into a very deep and complete Second Dark Age.

For example, if I knew how to produce insulin, but there were no diabetics, I'd be without any skill and left to hopefully tend a field for a farmer. If I knew how to produce insulin, but the person who needed it was a lumberjack but I did not need wood what would happen? We'd have to come to some agreement that perhaps I needed clothing, and he'd go about and get me some. What would he do until he found some clothes? What would he do next time when I didn't need any more clothing?

What about that farmer who has a field of wheat. What if people in his village didn't want to trade much with him, or even worse, what if he had no need to trade with them? Could he trade enough to get transport to a different village where he might be able to trade more? All of our lives would be taken up with bartering just in order to make ends meet.

Money give us the ability to have a market, a place where a clerk will buy various wares and then hold them until someone else comes looking. The market would be centralized and well known so to attract the largest amount of people - thus ensuring the greatest amount of good and services.

I didn't have time to discuss the foolishness of her statement, but I certain wish people would follow their statements to their logical conclusions. The best quote comes from that book, and sums up people, generosity, greed, and of course money quite well:

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires...
"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent."

I certainly do believe that if you are a good person, you will now be a well-off good person with more ability to do good; if you are the most mean and nasty person having money will only permit you to be mean and nasty in new and 'exciting' ways. But in the end your motives will forever be your own.

A Poem Only Too Fitting

This was written by Rudyard Kipling about the Viking Raids upon England in the hay day of the Norsemen, but the idea of Dane-Geld as a ransom and blackmail is very timely:

Dane-Geld
by Rudyard Kipling

IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:-
"We invaded you last night - we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:-"Though we know we should defeat you,
We have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to says:-

"We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Still have doubts?

I've made bold a certain portion on the article from the Telegraph in London, (click headline to see actual text) just help show you what I said not a day ago in the previous post. The Left just does not get it.

The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as "terrorists", it was disclosed yesterday.
Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as "bombers".
The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments".
Consequently, "the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding" and its use should be "avoided", the guidelines say.
Rod Liddle, a former editor of the Today programme, has accused the BBC of "institutionalised political correctness" in its coverage of British Muslims.
A BBC spokesman said last night: "The word terrorist is not banned from the BBC."

Monday, July 11, 2005

Patton or Churchill (not the Chruchill you might think)

The differences in tactics for combating terrorism proposed by the left versus the right are more than subtle. For the most part the left does not really have any ideas at all - they simply are the party of "No." and so it goes.

The 'best' ideas the left can muster is to play defense and hope (certainly not pray) that it is enough. The left will blame capitalism for so much of the world 'hating' us as well, and of course terrorists are the poor people who have no hope for anything else.

While we do indeed need to have a solid defense - one which I feel could be made stronger - we also need an offense as well, and it must be a convincing one. How many wars have ever been won by being on the defensive?

Did the Maginot line with the day for France? Yes, it did make the Germans go around it, but in the end all the defense structures did not do much at all except perhaps help keep construction companies going because of all the business. Even France's tanks were made for a defensive war with the Char weighing in at 68 tons, and capable of an overland speed of a mere 8 miles per hour. The idea? Make it heavy, big, and thick in order to withstand a pounding.

Even when faced with the idea that Germany would attack her, France played the game of defense to the extent of not wanting the British Expeditionary Forces to even fly patrols over Germany, and denied permitting them bomb Germany held positions until it was, obviously, too late.

Also, a quote by Patton says something very worth reading: "In landing operations, retreat is impossible, to surrender is as ignoble as it is foolish… above all else remember that we as attackers have the initiative, we know exactly what we are going to do, while the enemy is ignorant of our intentions and can only parry our blows. We must retain this tremendous advantage by always attacking rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, and without rest."

With a nation to protect retreat is also impossible, surrender is as he says it is, and the next part is worth a second look: When you attack you decide the place and time, the numbers to send and the targets and mode of attack. The only think the defenders can do is hope to spoil that attack. If you, the attacker, notice the situation is not to your advantage you do not attack, pull back and wait.

So we can either play defense and slowly watch our civilians die at the hands of motivated attackers while we do nothing but wring our hands and condemn such activity, or we can in fact explain to them and anyone else who might need to remember that we are not in favor of war, but we will not back down from it, either.

The mistake the left makes is saying that they do not like war -- as if this is at all an important statement. I doubt you'll find too many Americans like war at all, but what the difference is understanding that war - aggressive war - is the only way to take the pressure off the defense.

Now, with London having experienced what it has, we hear again from the same voices who refuse to understand anything about the situation, that we are so unsafe and the bombings are proof of this lack of security.

Do these people honestly think that terrorist cells were simply sleeping since Madrid, and before that 9/11? Who feels comfortable thinking that our safety as a nation should be tied to the ideas of the intellectual left like Ward Churchill, the 'professor' in Colorado, who said, " On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens along with some half-million dead Iraqi children came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well.The Iraqi youngsters, all of them under 12, died as a predictable - in fact, widely predicted - result of the 1991 US "surgical" bombing of their country's water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other "infrastructural" targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depends for its very survival."

Of course, the Oil for Food program didn't help, and neither did a decade of Saddam doing next to nothing to help his own population WITH the money from the Oil for Food program, but Ward is tenured, thus untouchable. We all should be rather familiar with his most famous line: " More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."

Yes, such profound wisdom from the left is hard to duplicate. Sure, he's tried for a while now to backtrack over his exact words, but is anyone actually going to believe it? If so, I'd like to sell them a bridge.

No, the leftists do not really give a damn about it at all. They'd rather understand those who wish to kill us than to kill them first. To these relativist thinkers, 'us versus them' is an idea as out of touch as 'good versus evil', though I do not see them flocking to live in places like Syria, North Korea, or backwater China.

A defensive effort, while needed, will only work if we have people and resources going after both nations and groups inside of nations who wish us harm. We must get them first because if we do not, they will certainly not wait to 'understand us'.

Democracies and Freedom

Democracy and a free society has enabled the United States and in fact most every nation that has made an honest attempt at creating one, to be the most successful nations the world has ever seen.

Democracies in a free society have given us all previously unheard of freedoms and previously unpreserved rights all the while fighting and pushing back tyranny whenever the democracies have tried - isolating dictators and those who chose to rule by fiat and force over their populations, if not outright removing them from the face of the earth.

The only thing stopping democracies from continually doing this is the fact that the population in them usually does not feel the urge to rid the world of these regimes. Democracies have lead to 'enlightened' societies who like to fancy themselves so profound and wonderful that the rest of the world is too ignorant, the rest of the world is not cosmopolitan enough to know what to do; and to these types the rest of the world isn't worth saving. After all, according to them, nothing is black and white - who needs to be saved?

These types of people, all the while, try to sooth their minds - and those they try to convince - that if people live in squalor and under a dictator it is by choice and they wonder out loud asking, "Who are we to impose our ways upon them?" Maybe they like it.

When some nations do something they call 'going it alone', they boggle at the lack of a committee, and proclaim that - in the case of Iraq - there are bigger fish to fry. Of course, if asked if they'd support frying any of those bigger fish they quickly turn back to the argument that we should not impose our way of life upon others and that gets back to the top: They do not care what happens to the world because they really are not part of it.

People who call themselves 'citizens of the world' would do well saying that outside of the gates of the fortress our society provides for them. Would that stop them from being beheaded? This counterfeit altruism and confused worldliness does nothing to help anyone not attending their exclusive functions; and then it only pushes back the fact that they know is true: IF it were not for this society they probably would not be able to do what they currently do (especially if they are an entertainer).

Because of this nagging reality they go around and hold concerts and speak about the problems of far-off places because distance keeps it all so much more sanitary. Because they are so out of touch with reality and stand for nothing themselves, when they finally find a pet cause it becomes an obsession and they must recruit others to this belief because it does in fact replace religion for them.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

A violation of the First Amendment?

As is a habit of mine, since traveling was not something to be done this weekend, I decided to - almost at random - find an old text and read it. This can lead to some very, very interesting and also some very, very boring times.

Today, again rather randomly, I picked the Northwest Ordinance. It seemed harmless enough and it wasn't very long either so I thought it a good pick. It was ratified July 13th, 1787 in order to give laws to the territories which might otherwise be lawless. It was also an indicator, a sort of guide, of what was at the very least expected of these territories if they ever wanted to apply to become states in the Union.

It spells out some boundaries, but it also spells out some rights and also what is expected of the governing bodies therein. This is pretty dry, though some of the language used is so much more beautiful and in fact much clearer than our current modern tongue that it does sometimes seem we're taking steps in the wrong direction when it comes to modes and styles of communication.

It would seem that, at the heart of the document, lies a very antiquated idea regarding that horrible beast called religion. Yes, even this document makes mention of religion - not a wall separating church and state - but in fact an inclusion.

Article III starts off by stating: "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

Religion, morality and knowledge all placed on the same level of importance, and the audacity to list knowledge as the LAST!?!?!? Even in this seemingly innocuous document one can find religion. What were the founders thinking?

Pardon the sarcasm from above (that's not a reference to the heavens - no pun intended), but it certainly does seem that 'We the People' are handed a very poorly construct lie about the place religion and morality are to sit in our public lives. It is truly no wonder why there is so much hostility towards religion by those who have only heard the dominant voice of the atheists and those who despise religion so deeply since we heard those voices daily.

This brainwashing has been going on for quite some time and it has been erroneously supported by courts and judges who did not like the subject to the point where anyone who now says otherwise is considered to be some sort of Bible-thumping pusher of values.

Even in the Northwest Ordinance it seems that the need for a combination of those three very important factors was perfectly understood. And people could run around with guns, crime was less, and the communities were actually groups of people with whom you might want to actually get to know and socialize.
But now… well… we don’t have religion, morality is crumbling, but we do have LOADS of knowledge.

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Joseph Hooker and the Press

Having spent a more than a few weekends either at Gettysburg or Antietam, or reading about them as much as possible since I now live within an hour of Gettysburg, and an hour and a half from Antietam, I happened to run across something from Major General Joseph Hooker written to Major General Halleck that make me chuckle appreciatively:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, June 19, 1863. (Received 12 m.)
Major-General HALLECK:
I have just been furnished with an extract from the New York Herald of yesterday concerning the late movements of this army. So long as the newspapers continue to give publicity to our movements, we must not expect to gain any advantage over our adversaries. Is there no way of stopping it? I can suppress the circulation of this paper within my lines, but I cannot prevent their reaching it to the enemy. We could well afford to give millions of money for like information of the enemy.
JOSEPH HOOKER, Major-General.

Major General Halleck's reply is telling as well:

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 19, 1863--1.55 p.m.
Major-General HOOKER, Army of the Potomac:
I appreciate as fully as yourself the injury resulting from newspaper publication of the movements, numbers, and position of our troops, but I see no way of preventing it as long as reporters are permitted in our camps. I expelled them all from our lines in Mississippi. Every general must decide for himself what persons he will permit in his camps.
H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief.


Yes, at one point it was up to the military and even the generals themselves to determine who was permitted in a military camp, on the march, and so forth. At the same time that this was true, we still had a media too self-serving to understand the need to report movements and actions not DURING them, but only after them.

For a long time I've considered the U.S. media to be a bit anti-U.S., but in the end I've come to feel that they really don't want the United States to falter or fail, they just want to be there in case we do. "If it bleeds, it leads" is more than a motto, it really is a way of life for the reporter, journalist, or whatever else one might wish to call them. If Union soldiers pass through a town the media honestly think it is in the best interest of someone to report it - preferably with numbers like head counts and time of day.

I recall something Dennis Prager said on his talk show not long ago (I don't know the exact quote): The media does not seem to ask itself, "What might happen if I report on this? What will the results be? Could it harm people who otherwise might not be? Is the story worth it?"

He's absolutely right with that observation. The news only seems to care for shock-value and to be the first with it. When people die in Afghanistan because people don't bother to do their job at a newspaper, the regret is not there and the apology seems forced or contrived. I used to also think this to be a more modern creation, but perhaps it appears that way because of the huge size and role played by the media today.

Of course Joseph Hooker resigned his command not too long after this communication and only a few days after that a completely unorganized George Meade fought in and around that little Pennsylvania town that has become immortalized… unfortunately it seems some traits of the media are as timeless too.

Friday, July 08, 2005

States Rights - The Common Citizen

While the previous post dealt more with the idea of States' Rights on the level of the Constitution, the Founders, and the more intricate levels of government in general, this post aims to focus the attention on why the states and not the federal government should have more authority in our daily lives.

Simply put, if one lives in Montana, it is easier to think that the mayor and city officials of Huntley (this is just as an example) knows more about, and honestly cares more about the people there than the county of Yellowstone. Yellowstone County, in turn, knows more about, and honestly cares more about the people of Huntley than the capital city of Helena does. Helena knows more about, and honestly cares more about the people of Huntley than those folks in Washington, D.C. Those folks in Washington, D.C. know more about, and honestly cares more about the people in Huntley than the types sitting in the U.N.

Why might this be so? Local control is the answer and very key in everything we do. When you literally drive to someone's house, or wait in the lobby at the Town Hall, your voice means much more than if you are only another number is a large and easily forgotten, ignored, or otherwise lost in a sea of people, ideas, and voices. While I do not doubt that many people in Washington, D.C. do want the best for this nation, the town of Huntley, Montana really means nothing in the overall scheme, but is sure means a lot to the county officials of Yellowstone, and obviously to the people who run that very town as well. And it is in THAT very order mentioned that power and authority should come about. It needs to be local authority and up, not federal authority and down.

This also permits a level of 'experimentation' otherwise impossible. While I personally find the ideas of many people living in California (for example) quite daft, it is always better to be able to prove it is daft by the results of actual attempts than to sit around and 'prove' it daft by arguing hypotheticals.

If a city, or in fact an entire state wish to try something different, then this model gives them the most flexibility and grants them the most autonomy one can find. It is why cases like Reynolds v. Sims and so many others are completely beyond understanding of a Supreme Court who wishes to centralize power and concentrate it in the hands of the few. If Alabama wants to make up how its state Congress is formed and assembled, then why does anyone from New York need to chime in and tell them that they cannot?

Before Roe v. Wade, the states decided the issue of abortion as they saw fit and the more liberal states could do their thing and the more conservative states could do as they pleased as well. This made for no surprises, and at the same time if you did not approve of this, or other situations in the state (one way or the other) you could do two things: Convince people to change the laws by rational argument, or simply move to a state that suited your tastes better. But then came along amysterious usurper of a third option called substantive due process, and what havoc on the states has it wrought.

Centralization of power is always the goal of despots and tyrants, and as a nation we must be weary of those who desire to bleed the authority of the states dry and put the control into the hands of the few.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

An Argument for States' Rights

One of the greatest usurpations of power from the states by the federal government was the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment. Whether or not this was intentional is irrelevant since, in the end, this is exactly what happened.

The Seventeenth Amendment (17th) over-wrote Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution itself which stated, "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote", with, "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures."

To many this was a great idea as it broadened the idea of democracy by permitting even more direct election to the people of the nation, but it also had another effect: it eliminated all say that state government had in federal politics.

When the Senate was elected by the state legislatures it was the responsibility of the Senators to monitor bills as to how they'd affect the state in which they resided. This was a way of monitoring and keeping in check federal demands and spending that might affect the states.

For example if you were a state that did not have a large budget, and the state legislature - those who put you in the position of Senator - could not afford to alter the budget as might be required by a piece of US Congressional legislation, the Senator would vote it down and the state's budget would be maintained. This was a great tool when it came to being able to limit taxation and spending at the national level. This in fact happened many times, and one of the more recent examples is the Americans with Disabilities Act which requires all sidewalks to be wheelchair-friendly at all intersections. The federal government decided it knew best for all of the nation by making cities and towns pay the expense of legislation in which they had absolutely no say.

This is not to say that the ADA is a horrible idea, but the enactment certainly has much to be desired. While there was a 'grace period' in implementing the policy, the fact still remained that the states had no direct say in that matter either.

The original idea was that one branch of the Legislature would be elected by the people, and the other branch elected as a voice of the governments of the individual states. While some argued that before the Senate was elected popularly, there was much corruption, I challenge them to find out how angelic our current Senators may in fact be.

Of course, the idea that all elections should be 'one person, one vote' is no where mentioned in the Constitution or elsewhere, but the idea survived even a Supreme Court challenge in Reynolds v. Sims; a case where the State of Alabama has set up their state Legislators as the US Congress had: one house represented a district of a certain amount of people, the other house represented geographically defined districts in an effort to not shut out people who represented a minority voice (like farmers and others living in rural areas). Here the Warren Court made the useless but profound sounding declaration that, "Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests. As long as ours is a representative form of government, the right to elect legislators in a free and unimpaired fashion is a bedrock of our political system." He went on to say, " We agree with the District Court, and find the federal analogy inapposite and irrelevant to state legislative districting schemes. Attempted reliance on the federal analogy appears often to be little more than an after-the-fact rationalization offered in defense of maladjusted state apportionment arrangements."

Thus, without a Senate to defend the rights of the state legislations, no bills were drafted to give the states the ability to decide how local and state elections should be arranged. It seems Chief Justice Warren decided that that federal model could not have been an inspiration to the states when deciding how to set up their legislatures. Amazing how much knowledge he must have to accurately assess that.

The amount of power taken from the states is also a direct result of another amendment that also played a role in Reynolds v Sims: the fourteenth. If the federal government is ever to be reeled in, we must reduce the authority of it, and give the authority back to the states, and the people respectively.

Terrorism More Properly Defined

The term terrorism is often misused, both by those who wish to purposefully obfuscate what it might mean, and also by those who have much more honest and good intentions, but in the end but do the term a disservice by not articulating why something many be considered a terrorist act.

Definitions in the dictionary are too vague and can be misapplied too readily.

"The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

This is a start, but it is not specific enough either. For one thing, the term 'lawful' is meaningless since any revolution would be considered unlawful as well, but the actions would not very well be the work of terrorists. Following the idea of revolutionaries, let's look further…

"… violence by a person or an organized group…", I'm still not seeing the difference between the the revolutionary and the terrorist.

"… against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments…" This still does not draw a distinction between the actions of a military force, a revolutionary, or a terrorist. Now some may say, "But to coerce a society or government is EXACTLY what terrorists want to do.", but to that I would reply, "And so did the Allies when we demanded the surrender of the Japanese after blowing up cities full of people. We could not kill every soldier, so we had to bring the national government and its people to their knees."

"… often for ideological or political reasons." This is slightly better since we moved for militarily reasons, though obviously politics and ideology mattered since we had to fight a Bushido-driven warrior class, but in the end what is missing? Something must be or all those leftist professors are right when they say that a terrorist to one is a freedom fighter to another.

The part that is missing is the purposeful killing of non-combatants as an primary method of reaching one's ends. This is why the term 'collateral damage' is so important - in any combat situation there will be non-combatant deaths, but the method in which this happens is of paramount importance. If the deaths happen because a military force is attempting to eliminate opposing forces then those deaths are not an act a terror, though to those affected the acts are terrible. If the deaths happen in a metropolitan subway and in and of itself is the 'attack' thus leading to the deaths of people simply living their lives, then the act should be considered a terrorist activity.

If one agrees with this idea of what terrorism is then we need to also back down on some other charges of terrorist that really are not. One would be the bombing of the USS Cole. This action may have even been done by a group known to use terrorist activity, but the target was not non-combatants, it was a military ship with military crew stationed in a foreign port.

As an American, I despise the attack and hope all are caught and dealt a similar fate, but by definition, it was not terrorism any more than a U-Boat attack at night during the Second World War.

The Barracks in Beirut in the 1980s is another non-terrorist act. Its mission was simple: Remove the US forces from the region by directly attacking them. While these people did in fact use methods commonly employed in terrorist attacks, the attack was once again against a military force - not non-combatants. And while some non-combatants might have died, it was not the focus of the attack, and the attack certainly would not have happened if the military force was no there. Again, as an American I despise it, but it does not fit the more accurate definition.

Why is such a definition important? Simply because if not then most violence in general is 'terroristic'. If someone gets in a fight at the schoolyard because there is a bully, then since the violence is being used to coerce someone on the ideological grounds that bullying is wrong, what does not fit the definition?

The current vague and general definition can be misused to stylize Israeli forces who knock down a house as terrorists, as well as when allied forces bombed German cities, and of course the use of nuclear bombs on Japanese population centers.

Yes, it can be argued that the bombing of German cities could be justified as an attempt to slow down the production of the German war machine, and it could not be helped if people living in cities like Dresden ended up dying, but then could not Osama also say the same thing about 9/11 as an attempt to strike at the economic muscle that drives our large and expensive military as well?

This is why the distinction must be made - if we do not define it as: "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group with the designed and purposeful killing of non-combatants as an primary method of reaching one's ends - often as the means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments, mainly for ideological or political reasons."
With this definition in place the leftists, nor terrorists, have any way of manipulating the moral high ground of arguments. Definitions are key because in this, and any other environment, people play on the lack of solid definitions, and the lack of popular understanding of various terms in an effort to manipulate those who do not possess clarity on the subject matter.

Horribly sporadic posting

I apologize for my sporadic posting for months on end now - beeing busy with other stuff, but I have been still getting in the mix and reading both current events and more historical things as well. Posting will pick up.