Some are offended at the President's use of the word 'ass'. Frankly I don't find it offensive at all. It's one of my own favorite words, as, for example if I were to say something like, "The POTUS is an ass." But never mind that just now.

It's not even offensive to me that he is looking for assess to kick. What is offensive is the general direction he's looking for this ass. This is a man who cannot call terroritists, well, terrorists. He's reluctant to use the word "enemy". He's not looking for any terrorist ass to kick. He's not looking to kick any Taliban ass. He's not looking for any Hamas ass to kick. He's not looking for any Hezbollah ass to kick. And he most certainly is not looking for any illegal immigrant ass to kick -- not that I have a problem with that one. (If anything he's probably more interested in kicking some Arizona governor ass.)

That is what is really offensive.


Share via Facebook

The furor over Arizona entails belief that it is a crime to be in the United States, but not in any single state, illegally, as well as that enforcement of immigration laws requires racial profiling when performed by state agents but not federal agents. Right. We all know how ethically up-standing the unfederal government is.

Limbaugh thinks what bothers the Left about Arizona is the left's need of illegal voters. Perhaps. But there is something else for the Left to worry about. For perhaps the first time since the 19th century we have a state taking upon itself to enforce the terms of the U.S. Constitution, in response to federal malfeasance.

If illegal immigrants don't have to obey federal immigration law, why should U.S. citizens obey a federal law requiring the purchase of health care insurance? Oh. Yeah. The unfederal government will actually enforce the latter. That's right. I guess the real question is: Will the unfed object to states passing laws making it a crime for state citizens to disobey the law requiring the purchase of health care insurance, or will the unfed be glad for the help?

Frankly, I think it would be great if we had immigration policies even half as sensible as Mexico's, with all of which I entirely agree and support, by the way.

Yes, I read the bill.

In the bad old days of private slavery, the overseers used whips to keep those slaves in line. Now in the good old days of public slavery the overseer uses fiat regulation to keep us in line. In the bad old days, if the overseer had wanted a slave to drive less, he'd give the slave a whippin'. Now, when they want us to drive less they give us a regulation.

There is a bit of common ground. In both cases, the overseers know it's all for the slaves' own good. After all, no one (no one in his right mind) can object to a clean energy economy, or saving the planet, or whatever they think is best for us all.

Yes, it will be good for us. Of course it will. Never mind that immigrants -- legal and otherwise -- seem not to share that conviction:

[E]conomic opportunities are universal. If you feel them and sense them, so do others outside the border — and they want to be part of it. If they don't feel them and sense them, maybe it is time to wake up and realize that they don't exist as they used to.

Time was when shelters just across the border, where people lived until they saw an opportunity for safe passage, were filled and overflowing. Now they are empty. Time was when the border-patrol vans and buses hauled people here and there, whereas now they just drive around on day trips, looking for some sign of life.

To have an "immigration problem" is enormously flattering for a country. For that problem to go away is a dark cloud, a bad omen, a sign that something is going terribly wrong. The absence of an immigration problem can quickly turn into an emigration problem.

[...]

Emigration out of the United States has been growing every year since 1991, from 252,000 in 1991 to 311,000 in 2005. I couldn't find data past that point, but can there be any doubt where we are heading with this? Low-skilled employees want nothing to do with us. High-skilled employees are not allowed in. Enterprise is being killed at every turn. It won't be long now before larger and larger numbers of people vote with their feet.

A final insult is how US tax law treats its emigrants from this country. It continues to tax them as if they were lifetime slaves. Wherever you go, the force is with you.

The heck of it is that all of this could be turned around today. A social consensus against tyranny can form and strengthen. It only takes political will to let freedom reign. ~ Lew Rockwell, here.

I wonder if that "jmwtex" guy (whom I mentioned just below) would favor abolishing the expatriation tax law on the grounds that it, like a woman being forced to carry a baby to term, is a form of slavery? I'll have to ask him.

Hip-hop is not torture, but that's something completely different.

John Demjanjuk is supposed to be extradited to Germany. He objects to the extradition on the grounds that he is going to be tortured. German authorities say no, he's not going to be tortured.

Now, the "torture" in this case is, according to Demjanjuk, the simple act of being transported to Germany at all, because his health is so bad, including pre-leukemia, kidney problems, spinal problems and gout (see here and here).

One can only believe that, for some people, justice sometimes requires a little torture:

Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center found irony in Broadley's argument for his client.

"He wants to plead the sense of fairness that he regularly denied all of the victims at Sobibor," Hier said.

He called Demjanjuk's comparison of his planned deportation to torture "preposterous coming from a person that served the S.S. in a death camp. It is a preposterous argument and insulting to the survivors of the Holocaust."

Hier said that 250,000 Jews were killed at the camp and that none of the guards who worked there was blameless.

"You were there for one job: kill the Jews," he said. "And that's what they did full-time."

He called the evidence against Demjanjuk "overwhelming" (here).

Demjanjuk says it's torture. Hier says it isn't. Golly gee, Wally. What should we do?

Oh! I know! Let's ask His Beatitude -- may he live forever. He'll tell us what torture is.

Miguel Guanipa, here, describes "a federally sanctioned procedure that is performed on a daily basis in one of the most vibrant democracies on earth, and which has been in place for almost forty years." The procedure he describes is, in fact, part of the required curriculum at medical schools and executed by highly skilled, and highly compensated, professionals. It is also executed solely upon human beings who have committed no crime, a procedure liberals positively love and demand conservatives to embrace:

[I]magine for a moment that you have been assigned a couple of prisoners whom you have been given complete freedom to torture. Neither prisoner is aware of the fate that awaits them. You enter the room of the first prisoner and begin by tearing off one of his limbs. The prisoner -- who is not privy to the reasons why you have committed such a dastardly act against his person -- writhes in agony. You then proceed to systematically sever other vital organs. The prisoner tries to flee in desperation, but you have blocked the only exit through which he may entertain any hopes of escaping his torturer. What the prisoner doesn't know is that prior to the moment you entered the scene you had already planned for him to die before being eventually removed from this chamber.

After the job is finished, you enter the next room in which your next hapless victim waits. He is also unaware that you are about to inflict intolerable pain upon him. But this time you decide to employ a more effective method. You bind this prisoner, and then dip him in a tank full of a corrosive solution that will gradually eat at his flesh, obstruct his breathing, and bring about a slow but certain demise. Within minutes of being submerged in this tank the prisoner expires. You could argue that his death was somewhat more merciful than that of the first prisoner. Now imagine that you had been asked to torture these men, not because they were withholding actionable intelligence that could potentially save the lives of thousands of innocents threatened with imminent peril. It was not because they were active members of an itinerant terrorist organization responsible for wreaking havoc around the world. In fact, both these men were innocent human beings, physically incapable of defending themselves, who had been placed in these rooms through no choice of their own. To make matters worse, their painful deaths were commissioned by and discharged at the full behest of their closest family member.

Happens every day. Liberal Democrats and Moderate Republicans love it.

Field stripping, that is.




A little FYI, here. Yes, you can try this at home. Make certain first that you clear the weapon. And you will know you've re-assembled it properly if the weapon racks and cycles. Pull the slide back then pull the trigger.

Straight to the point: The release of the memos is part of the left's continued denial that the confrontation with terrorists is a war in any sense. It is a law enforcement matter, not a military one. And in law enforcement situations, suspects are not subjected to "harsh" treatment. You give them coffee, cigarettes -- you know, make them comfortable. Then you ask them, kindly and gently, whatever is on your mind.

It strikes me also, that this is part of the incremental stripping away of national sovereignty. In a world in which a "nation" is simply a formality, those things which used to be justifications for wars are now causes of legal action. Just as citizens of a city, county, or state don't carry on private wars with each other but go to court instead; just as citizens who are harmed do not take the law into their own hands and get justice for themselves -- nations shall not carry on private wars, or act so as to get justice for themselves by military means. As the nation-state must go the way of the dodo bird in favor of world citizenship, so must the freedom of a nation to see to its own security. It's a denial, if you will, of nations' rights. If there is to be world citizenship (Obama obviously thinks so), then there is, or must be (eventually) a world state. Since a state must have a monopoly on the use of physical force, it stands to reason that the world state must have this monopoly. For that to happen, the monopoly enjoyed by the nation-state must be dismantled. So, no private security ops for the nation-state and, hence, no prosecution of wars by nation-states. Well, that's what I think, anyway.

From what we've been told, one would think the legal advice given to the Bush administration amounted to, "Hey, torture is okay, and it's okay to use torture when interrogating suspected or known terrorists." In actual point of fact them memos examined each technique in punctilious detail. Indeed, use of the term memo has been somewhat misleading. Most people's experience with memos is with document of two or three pages in length. These memos are larger than that. The briefest of the memos is 18 pages.

The so-called torture memos can be accessed here. Enjoy. With the release of these memos, outlining in great detail how we go about "torturing" people (including the very tight controls employed), we are probably out of reliable interrogation techniques. Now terrorists, if there really are any (clearly His Beatitude is doubtful), will be able to provide more intelligent SERE training for their "high level" operatives. There is nothing like knowing what to expect to help get you through potentially stressful situations. The worst part of almost anything is not knowing what to expect, and about how long it will last. Knowing exactly how you are going to be "tortured", and for how long, should be of inestimable benefit to terrorists -- if there were any, which there aren't. There can't possibly be: the President wouldn't make useful information available to an enemy.

Apparently, any technique which involves anything more aggressive than asking, "Do you have any plans to commit terrorist acts, specifically, to kill or otherwise harm anyone, anywhere, at any time; and, if so, what, specifically, are these plans?" is torture. Oh, I forgot to add, "Pretty please, with baklava smothered in syrup."

Hugh Hewitt makes a relevant point about the most heinous of these torturous acts:

As the commentators show their feathers to each other, see if any of them cite a single vote by the Senate or the House to define waterboarding as torture throughout the years when the Congress was fully aware of the practice. The DOJ legal analysis was the best effort of front-line lawyers in the aftermath of a massive attack on the United States. Their Congressional critics of today who did not demand a defining vote on what constituted torture are the worst sort of hypocrites. They are the lawmakers, and chose --even when House and Senate were controlled by Democrats from January 2007 to the present-- to avoid passing a law bringing clarity to the very gray areas of the law of interrogation.

When it comes to statutory provisions, the more specific the law the better; and the easier it is to prosecute violators. As it is, there is too much subjectivity in the law against torture. Heck, teenagers think, and act like, they're tortured if you take away their iPods, cell phones, or (God forbid) ground them.

We are, as many have observed, witnessing an attempt to criminalize dissent, specifically: dissent from leftist interpretations of the laws, or even just leftism itself. And to think, they accused the Bush administration of doing so. What's bad for the goose is good for the gander, I suppose.

P.S.

The relevant statutory provisions (which are cited in the memos) are as follows:


(a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.

[P]retenses that they have "Saved the Country," and "Preserved our Glorious Union," are frauds like all the rest of their pretenses. By them they mean simply that they have subjugated...an unwilling people. This they call "Saving the Country"; as if...any people kept in subjection by the sword (as it is intended that all of us shall be hereafter)...could be said to have any country. This, too, they call "Preserving our Glorious Union"; as if there could be said to be any Union, glorious or inglorious, that was not voluntary. Or as if there could be said to be any union between masters and slaves; between those who conquer, and those who are subjugated. All these cries of having...[established] "a government of consent"... are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats...when uttered as justifications... for now compelling...anybody to support a government that he does not want. ~ Lysander Spooner, "No Treason", No. 6, XIX. (Emphases mine.)

As anyone who listens knows, Rush Limbaugh is quite at ease with the U.S. being a super-power. Consequently he was unhappy with what he called Obama's "World Apology Tour", and with this op-ed piece published in several central and south american papers, because he's helping the rest of the world in take us down a notch, which they desire to do because they object to our being the world's lone super-power. I make no secret of being no great fan of the current occupant of the Oval Office. And I made no secret that I wouldn't be a fan of his opponent's administration. So, in general, I share Limbaugh's antipathy for the present adminstration. But there is an element of Limbaugh's thinking, on the subject of super-powers, that concerns me.

Conservatives' inability (especially -- no surprise -- neo-conservatives) to see the relation between our super-power status and the loss of freedoms they (rightly!) complain of has bothered me for some time; but it has really come to a point in the last several years. I was never a big fan of our "superpower" status, specifically, being one of only two super-powers. I liked NATO because I thought it could be an alliance of super-powers, an alliance of free nations against the communist barbarians; but that was short-lived. What can I say? When you are young and hopeful, you tend to act young and hopeful. I hadn't realized, until I was part of NATO, how comfortable Europeans are with socialism. And once you're comfortable with socialism, buying communism isn't much of a stretch.

But never mind European style, democratic, socialism.

The simple fact is this: a super-power, no matter how benevolent, no matter how "democratic", simply cannot be ruled with a republican form of government, though it will maintain the facade of republicanism -- for a while, anyway. And you cannot believe in the consent of the governed without having the view of states' rights which I have and, as a consequence, you cannot be a fan of your nation's super-power status. Indeed, a confederacy (which is what we confederates believe the Constitution created, consistent with the notion of the consent of the governed) could never have become a super-power. How can that possibly have happened with constituent members (whose taxes will fund the super-power) free to leave the so-called union with impunity?

Put simply, it could not have happened. A super-power, member-states of which can freely leave, is a super-power which is always on the brink of extinction. That is why Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father of "Crony Capitalism", and his ideological descendants (proponents of the American System), who sincerely desired a mercantilist empire of their own, don't like confederacies. They would be so proud of what this country has become, even including the recent bailouts.

Conservatives like to believe they favor states' rights, just shy of talking secession. And when I converse with them and they discover my heresy, they give the nod to states' rights and invoke "federalism" but quickly point out that the United States would never have become the power we are today had the war for southern independence been successful. Being a super-power is, apparently, an unqualified good, such a good, in fact, as to require a limitation on the right of a state to give its consent to the central government. Anything which would upset that status is an unqualified evil. (Or, they point out, that the United States would be two countries, instead of one, as if unification is, again, an unqualified good. Well, it is for a mercantilist, anyway. Not so hot for freedom lovers, though.) So, for the sake of being a super-power, the rights of states must be limited.

One of my first responses is, "What United States? There are no united states. The word united connotes freedom: the states are freely united. But they are not freely united, not anymore. They are dominated. A little freer, perhaps, but they are united in the same sense as the members of the former Union of Soviet Swallowed Republics were united. They aren't united; they are unified, sort of like a team of horses. A team of horses, hitched to the same wagon, are not united; they are unified. They do not pull together; they are harnessed and then driven together. They are driven by a master, a central, controlling master, who drives the team in pursuit of his own goals, his own vision. The master may graciously, from time to time, inquire of the team as to their own preferences, goals, visions, whatever; but, in the end, if theirs do not cohere with his own, then his own shall prevail. The vision of the master makes the liberties of the horses a relatively minor consideration. The horses must all go in the same direction; some curtailment of freedom is to expected -- for the great good of the whole team. (As if the horses, who didn't ask to be on any team in the first place, should care about the needs of the team, which are not really the needs of the team but the desire and vision of the wagon-master.)

If the rights of states must be limited for the sake of being a super-power, it stands to reason that individual rights must also be limited, again, for the good of the whole. Your neighbors may believe that your use of your property must be limited so as not to adversely affect your property values. It just goes on and on.

I know: it sounds like confederate sour grapes. But if you're still with me, consider this. The language employed to discuss our super-power status is instructive. Consider the phrases "a super-power" or "the lone super-power", and note the singulars. How does a fifty state union become a or the super-power? They don't, but a fifty member dominion can do so. These are not united states: they are unified states. And there is a difference.

And so long as Rush Limbaugh and his fellow travelers are enamored of the super-power, the simple fact of the matter is that the encroachments upon freedom will continue. They may be halted occasionally, or slowed down, but only temporarily. The reason is quite simple: secession, even if only a last resort, was the only true check upon unlimited federal power. As Woodrow Wilson once wrote, the outcome of the War for Southern Independence established the principle that the federal government is the judge of the limitations of its power. Thank you, Yanks.

Lord Acton understood the relation between state rights and totalitarianism, as he wrote to General Lee (4 November 1866):

Without presuming to decide the purely legal question...I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. The institutions of your Republic have not exercised on the old world the salutary and liberating influence which ought to have belonged to them, by reason of those defects and abuses of principle which the Confederate Constitution was expressly and wisely calculated to remedy. I believed that the example of that great Reform would have blessed all the races of mankind by establishing true freedom purged of the native dangers and disorders of Republics. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.

General Lee definitely understood it, as he responded to Lord Acton (15 December 1866):

I yet believe that the maintenanceof the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it. I need not refer one so well acquainted as you are with American history, to the State papers of Washington and Jefferson, the representatives of the federal and democratic parties, denouncing consolidation and centralization of power, as tending to the subversion of State Governments, and to despotism.

There is no such thing as a super-power with a republican form of government, at least not for long. When the Romans acquired super-power status (albeit by means somewhat different from our own) they lost their republic. To be truly consistent with their profession, freedom lovers should stop being so devoted to the Unified States as a, or the, super-power, in preference of a union, a real union of free and united states.

The long and short of it is this. You can't have a free country and be a super-power, any more than you can have a free country and be a socialist power. My problem with His Beatitude is not that he's harming our super-power status. My problem is that he's not really big on freedom.

I was so glad to hear my Governor not shy away from the possibility of secession, when asked about it by a reporter at the "Tea Party" in Austin, Texas. That Perry -- not too shabby...for an Aggie.

"[P]rophecies of what the courts will do...and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
There must be a civil right to trespass. How else to explain a thirty-two million dollar lawsuit, by 16 Mexican nationals, in which the defendant, Roger Barnett, is said to have violated their civil rights?

They trespassed on his land, known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as "the avenue of choice" for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally. He stopped them at gunpoint. Now, they sue him for $32 million dollars.

You have to love the way some people attempt to subvert the law to their purposes. One of the counts alleges that the Barnett conspired, in violation of 42 U.S.C. §1985(3), to deprive Plaintiffs of their right to interstate travel. (See Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment , p. 2.) Note the logic: the right to interstate travel implies the right to trespass on private property. Want to go from Texas to Kentucky? Forget the highways; hop in a four-wheeler and drive in a straight line. And if any property owner objects, just assert your right to interstate travel. Beautiful. Reminds me of that line from Beverly Hills Cop: "What's the charge for getting hit by a car? Jay-walking?"

Barnett's attorney presented a strange argument against this charge:

[I]llegal aliens have no constitutional right to interstate travel. It would seem counterintuitive to maintain that an illegal alien, who is subject to arrest and removal by the government at any time (as indeed Plaintiffs were removed), and whose interstate transportation is a felony, 8 U.S.C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(ii), possesses a constitutional right to travel within the United States; at the very least, this would be a strange species of “constitutional right.” (Defendant's Motion , p. 7, emphasis mine.

No kidding. You don't have a right to be here in the first place. Indeed, your being here (as a consequence of an illegal border-crossing) is a violation of federal law. So, you have no right to interstate travel. That's deep.

In his essay, "The Path of the Law", Justice Holmes wrote, "The primary rights and duties with which jurisprudence busies itself...are nothing but prophecies.... [A] legal duty...is nothing but a prediction that if a man does or omits certain things he will be made to suffer in this or that way by judgment of the court."

In case Justice Holmes's style is a bit difficult to grasp, whenever someone says, "You have a legal duty to perform some act R," what he really means is, "I predict that if you do not perform R the court will make you suffer in some way," (e.g., by throwing your butt into jail). "You have a duty" is, therefore, nothing but a threat of force.

Conversely, a legal right is nothing but a prediction that if a man does or omits certain things he will not be made to suffer in this or that way by judgment of the court. It's getting more and more difficult to know what our rights are, not because we can't read the Constitution (that's easy enough, which is why so many people don't like it), but because we can increasingly not predict those things for which a court may make us suffer.

And that's limiting ourselves to what courts decide. Juries are entirely unpredictable. A woman sues McDonald's because the hot coffee she spilled on herself was, well, hot. And the jury awards her damages. (You can read an interesting 2004 legal discussion of this case, here.)

I suspect Barnett's in trouble and will probably have to sell his ranch to pay the damages.

Okay, actually, he joined al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Texas Fred comments:

I have, for several years now, been highly critical of what I consider to be a lack of war fighting ability on the part of former president George W. Bush. Ladies and Gentlemen, before this is over, Mr. Bush may appear to have the war fighting acumen of Gen. George Patton.

I don't care who you are, that's funny.

I had mixed feelings about Gitmo. On one hand, I think any nation should be careful about treating all foreign nationals within its borders as if they all were citizens. On the other hand, once a government has certain powers against non-citizens, it could also one day be empowered to use those powers against citizens, in the name of national security, especially if those citizens are "dis-loyal" -- making them even worse than aliens. On yet another hand, I've never liked the idea of fighting the war on terror as a simple law enforcement problem like, for example, the war on drugs (of which I'm not a fan), treating terrorists like soldiers, or even mercenaries. (And I really like mercenaries!)

My biggest problem with keeping the detainees at Gitmo was the whole idea of keeping them there because it would have been illegal, here, to hold them in the way we were holding them there. It's a what-happens-at-Vegas-stays-at-Vegas sort of thing. If you can't do it within your own borders, it sends the wrong sort of message.

It's not that I have a problem with things like water-boarding. I don't. But if you have that sort of confidence, you should do it here. And if you don't do it here because, among other things, you know that the courts would probably put a stop to it. Then it just looks like you're trying to operate outside the law, which, of course, you are.

As a practical matter, one could argue that we needed a place like Gitmo in order to fight this war on terror. As a philosophical and military-science matter, one might consider that the need for a place like Gitmo may have served better as an argument on the impossibility of actually, and successfully, fighting a war on terror.

It's still amusing though, to see a Gitmo detainee (innocent as the wind-driven snow) leave his prison -- free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last -- and go join his compatriots in al-Qaeda.

Because of what Paul says in Romans 13:1-7, some Christians can almost worship the state. Paul says obey the governing authorities (and above those governing authorities was Caesar) and so we do, almost uncritically.

There was, of course, that little incident in 1776. And a whole lot of Christians supported it. The same thing happened in 1861.

What explains this? The Calvinistic view of the state, how it arises, what are its benefits and what are its detriments.

Man is created from man, and by virtue of his birth he is organically united with the whole race. Together we form one humanity, not only with those who are living now, but also with all the generations behind us and with all those who shall come after us pulverized into millions though we may be. All the human race is from one blood. The conception of States, however, which subdivide the earth into continents, and each continent into morsels, does not harmonize with this idea. Then only would the organic unity of our race be realized politically, if one State could embrace all the world, and if the whole of humanity were associated in one world empire. Had sin not intervened, no doubt this would actually have been so. If sin, as a disintegrating force, had not divided humanity into different sections, nothing would have marred or broken the organic unity of our race. And the mistake of the Alexanders, and of the Augusti, and of the Napoleons, was not that they were charmed with the thought of the One World Empire, but it was this–that they endeavored to realize this idea notwithstanding that the force of sin had dissolved our unity.

In like manner the international cosmopolitan endeavors of the Social-democracy present, in their conception of union, an ideal, which on this very account charms us, even when we are aware that they try to reach the unattainable, in endeavoring to realize this high and holy ideal, now and in a sinful world. Nay, even Anarchy, conceived as the attempt to undo all mechanical connections among men, together with the undoing of all human authority, and to encourage, in their stead, the growth of a new organic tie, arising from nature itself – I say, all this is nothing but a looking backward after a lost paradise.

For, indeed, without sin there would have been neither magistrate nor state-order; but political life, in its entirety, would have evolved itself, after a patriarchal fashion, from the life of the family. Neither bar of justice nor police, nor army, nor navy, is conceivable in a world without sin; and thus every rule and ordinance and law would drop away, even as all control and assertion of the power of the magistrate would disappear, were life to develop itself, normally and without hindrance, from its own organic impulse. Who binds up, where nothing is broken? Who uses crutches, where the limbs are sound?

Every State-formation, every assertion of the power of the magistrate, every mechanical means of compelling order and of guaranteeing a safe course of life is therefore always something unnatural; something against which the deeper aspirations of our nature rebel; and which, on this very account, may become the source both of a dreadful abuse of power, on the part of those who exercise it, and of a continuous revolt on the part of the multitude. Thus originated the battle of the ages between Authority and Liberty, and in this battle it was the very innate thirst for liberty which proved itself the God-ordained means to bridle the authority wheresoever it degenerated into despotism. And thus all true conception of the nature of the State and of the assumption of authority by the magistrate, and on the other hand all true conception of the right and duty of the people to defend liberty, depends on what Calvinism has here placed in the foreground, as the primordial truth –that God has instituted the magistrates, by reason of sin.

In this one thought are hidden both the light-side and the shady side of the life of the State. The shady-side for this multitude of states ought not to exist; there should be only one world-empire. These magistrates rule mechanically and do not harmonize with our nature. And this authority of government is exercised by sinful men, and is therefore subject to all manner of despotic ambitions. But the light-side also, for a sinful humanity, without division of states, without law and government, and without ruling authority, would be a veritable hell on earth; or at least a repetition of that which existed on earth when God drowned the first degenerate race in the deluge. Calvinism has, therefore, by its deep conception of sin laid bare the true root of state-life, and has taught us two things: first –that we have gratefully to receive, from the hand of God, the institution of the State with its magistrates, as a means of preservation, now indeed indispensable. And on the other hand also that, by virtue of our natural impulse, we must ever watch against the danger which lurks, for our personal liberty, in the power of the State. -- Abraham Kuyper, "Calvinism and Politics," Lectures on Calvinism, here.

The state, because of sin, is a necessary evil. And because it bears the sword, in the end the only reliable weapon to be used in keeping that sword in check is another sword.

According to Ron Paul, that's the wrong question.

[I]n light of the election, many are asking: What is the future of the Republican Party?

But that is the wrong question. The proper question should be: Where is our country heading? There's no doubt that a large majority of Americans believe we're on the wrong track. That's why the candidate demanding "change" won the election. It mattered not that the change offered was no change at all, only a change in the engineer of a runaway train.

So, where are we heading?

The march toward a dictatorial powerful state is now in double time.

On his view, the Republicans have lost credibility in the struggle against this outcome by embracing the very ideas that speed it on its way. To have credibility, Republicans should embrace the following:

• Limited government power

• A balanced budget

• Personal liberty

• Strict adherence to the Constitution

• Sound money

• A strong defense while avoiding all undeclared wars

• No nation-building and no policing the world

How can a party that still pretends to be the party of limited government distance itself outright from these views and expect to maintain credibility? Since the credibility of the Republican Party has now been lost, how can it regain credibility without embracing these views, or at least showing respect for them?

Really.

It's been slowly dawning on me for some time, but I finally saw it last night watching yet another Democrat campaign commercial in which the candidate asserted the need to finally capture Osama bin Ladin.

Ostensibly, though they don't come right out and say it, capturing OBL will be the end of the War on Terror.

Hell, if that's all it takes, let capture the SOBs responsible for poverty and drugs. We can have the audacity to hope that there is only one guy ultimately responsible for each of those evils. So, let's go get 'em.

Or, employing another Democrat strategy, we could, after decades of failure in the wars on drugs and poverty (versus only five years of failure in Iraq) just summarily declare an end and bring the troops home.

One can imagine a crowd once hearing a little speech like that, once upon a time.

Biden wants a pass where none has been granted the current President.

"There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."

Now that’s rich. Unpopular decisions, therefore sound decisions.

You’re going to think what we do in response to a certain crisis is wrong, but go along with us anyway. This, supposedly, is precisely what John McCain has been doing the last eight years.

I wonder what this test will be. The suspense is killing me.

Maybe they’ll pass laws, or just issue executive orders, similar to the Alien and Sedition Acts, (see and cf, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions) or take some of the same actions towards dissenters as Woodrow Wilson during WWI. Perhaps they’ll issue an executive order limiting salaries to $300,000.00 net after taxes (that’s 25,000.00 in 1943 dollars, adjusted for inflation). In other words, the marginal tax rate on salaries after $300K would be 100% -- by executive order. I’m sure they won’t confiscate any gold which any citizens may own.

Gosh, whatever they do, I sure hope it’s not something which would be called unconstitutional if done by a Republican administration.

No. They would never do anything like that.

Okay. And we also cannot allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. And we won't take military actions off the table, nor give the U. N. a veto over us.

But if we can work diplomatically with Iran, and reduce our oil consumption, and reduce the amount of refined fuel they import then we can demand Iran change her behavior.

Now there's a good question: Would we commit troops in defense of Israel unilaterally or await a decision of the U. N. Security Council?

I don't think referring once again to the "without pre-conditions" meme is the best strategy here.

We can't allow another holocaust to occur.

The simple fact of the matter is that Russia has an objective. I doubt anything short of her accomplishing those objectives will satisfy her. At some point, interference in her attempts to accomplish her goals will spark war, cold or otherwise.

There we go with rush to war in Iraq and forgetting about bin Ladin.

Oh, yes, Obama, if we just cut down our oil consumption that'll weaken Russia because she won't be getting our petrol dollars.

Because we're the only oil customers in the world.

How can we avoid another Cold War?

Why not ask how we can avoid any war, cold or otherwise?

Some people think it was Plato, but I think it was Santayana who said only the dead have seen the end of war.

Sad, but I believe it's true.

Yes, Senator Obama, we'll just make the Iraqis take more responsibility.

Wait a minute. Obama says that if Pakistan is either unable or unwilling to take out bin Ladin then we should. He also says that he did not say we should invade Pakistan.

Wow. There must be some logic here that I just can't understand.

But in all fairness, Senator McCain, Obama did not say he would attack Pakistan.