The Last Angry Men

Border Security? Unrealistic. Solution: Invade the World!

2005-02-25T17:02:00.000-05:00

I ran across this debate over on Vox Day's blog. Putting aside his sophomoric attempts to slap a poster attempting to expose the agenda of the neoconservatives with the trusty "anti-semite" label, I want to draw your attention to Brian's comments, particularly with respect to immigration policy in the context of national security and the Iraq war.

Gregg, a fellow poster, asks what seems to me a perfectly legitimate question:

Riddle me this - If the Bush admin is so concerned about Terrorists, why doesn't he shut down the borders, get rid of driver license for illegal aliens and put a watch on all foregn visa's and kick them out when they expire. Do you think invading Iraq is a better option?

Brian's response?

So you think that we have sufficient manpower to seal the borders? How many people do you think that would take? We can't keep criminals off the streets in NYC with an enormous police force.

The fact that we would most definitely have "sufficient manpower" to stop the chaos at the borders if our troops weren't spread all around the globe defending borders in Europe, Iraq, and Korea doesn't seem to dawn on our friend. No, substantial immigration reform is, in a word, "unrealistic".

What is not unrealistic? Our current foreign policy - the idea of "transforming the Middle East" by spreading "freedom" and "democracy" by the force of arms, attempting to transplant political institutions developed over thousands of years in the Christian West to a part of the world that has never known it -- all because, we're told, America will not be safe until the Arab world has been "liberated". In other words, as Murray Rothbard put it in his cogent analysis of neocon foreign policy, "Invade the World!"

This view is, most importantly, an ahistorical one - there have been despotisms, not just in the Arab world, but all around the world since the founding of the Republic, yet this nation has been secure. A "world democratic revolution" propagated by a series of American military adventures will not cure terrorism, it will cause more of it. The terrorists do not hate us for our freedoms, co-ed education, or Las Vegas. They hate us for our policies. Until we recognize that we will be caught in a cycle of perpetual war with no way out.

Meaningless Words

2005-03-29T12:40:00.000-05:00

The political culture in twenty-first century America is something to behold. Here words, labels, definitions, and classifications have little or no meaning. Turn on your favorite cable news network and you are likely to see Democratic Party activist “X” debating some Republican strategist “Y”. Sure, X and Y spout their respective party lines and generally put on a good show, heck they might even yell at each other, but in the end that is all it really is – a show, whose observers rarely stop and actually think about the issues being talked about and most importantly the actual arguments advanced by our favorite talking heads. If genuine conservatives ever get around to this they will notice something very important: the “right-wing” Republican rarely disagrees with the “left-wing” Democrat on the desirability of the ends of a given public policy.

The whole debate about “reforming” Social Security provides an instructive example. On this issue in particular, both establishment Right and Left agree: we must “save” Social Security for future generations. Instead of advocating the abolition of this socialist, coercive, statist system, our “right-wing” champion merely lauds the prospect of the President “allowing” American citizens to put their Social Security funds in government-managed “private accounts.” But why would any conservative (or insert your favorite Cato Institute “libertarian” here) want to save this socialist gift of Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Forgive my ungratefulness, but since when do I need permission from the federal government to plan for my own retirement? Where does Article I Section 8 of the Constitution authorize Congress to establish a system of forced savings for the American people?

The major point here is that both “right” and left are in agreement on big, unconstitutional government – the fruit of my labor is not really mine per se, my economic fate is up to the whims of politicians and government bureaucrats. It should be clear that this reasoning is utterly unconservative, for in the historic conservative view, the people limit the size and scope of the state, wealth belongs to the individual, and government doesn’t “allow” citizens to keep their earnings because they do not belong to the state in the first place.

So in effect, what we have in modern America are two sides (and two parties) to the same big government coin dressed up with “conservative” and “liberal” monikers. Both agree on the ends but only disagree on the stylistic means. When either win, liberty and the Old Republic fade away just a bit more - think about that the next time you watch cable TV or listen to talk radio.

Natural Rights versus Artificial Constructs: Another UN Disgrace

2005-03-06T01:12:00.000-05:00

Normally, when public figures dealing in politics or social mores act contrary to my expectations or wants, I shake my head and bear it. I’m not happy, I’d like to see undone what they’ve done, and I won’t abandon my desire to see that change come about, but I am not shocked, I’m not surprised, and my view of the world isn’t drastically altered. I’ve come to expect failings morally and logically by the powers that be. That said, every so often, something comes along which not only shocks me, but lessens my faith in the world and humanity and general. Today, something came along.

And I can thank the United Nations for it. Allow me to explain.

When dealing with things of a political or social nature, one term that gets thrown around with more force and less sense than any other is “rights.” What constitutes a right is not concrete. Often, we think of rights as something which, no matter what, cannot be taken away from us, and we are born possessing them. In an effort to determine what rights are truly essential, efforts were made to boil the concept of rights into its most essential and most indispensable. This country was founded on the belief that there did exist rights, called “natural” by John Locke, which Jefferson said were given to us by God himself, indisputable and absolute, the existence of which is “self-evident,” that is, latently obvious and clear. These were life, liberty, and, depending on the author, property, estate, or the pursuit of happiness.

Remember that. Given to us by God, within the natural progression of things on Earth, unable to be taken away, and existing in a clear and obvious fashion, is the right to life.

Read this article.

An American delegate to an international, UN-sanctioned diplomatic conference, was openly jeered and harassed, which Reuters even admitted was “rare at the world body.” Why was she harassed?

Because, Sauerbrey, the head American delegate, wanted to include an amendment to a ten-year old document on women’s rights that would state that abortion was not a fundamental right. The amendment was dropped from consideration, under the improvised cover that the amendment was “redundant” and the point was made. However, the representative speaking for New Zealand, Australia, and Canada was quite clear that he felt the document protected women’s right to “control their own sexuality.”

Let’s be clear about what happened here. The main thrust of the American amendment would not have encroached upon any existing availabilities of abortion in the world. This isn’t a typical pro-life/pro-choice debate. The amendment merely stated that abortion is a matter of “national sovereignty,” and it is not a “fundamental” right. Basically, the United States wanted to make it clear that no international body could give people around the world the right to have an abortion as a fundamental human right; it’s a question for each country to decide on its own, in accordance with its own wishes, beliefs, and values.

The response from Europe, Asia, and Africa? Catcalls.

Did any nations agree with the American view? Yes: the Vatican City, Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. Unlike the United States, those four nations are staunchly Catholic, and Catholicism has among its strongest social views that the concept of abortion is wrong and that the unborn are as alive and deserving of rights as the born. These members of the family of nations, as equal as any other, had their fundamental cultural views treated thusly by this “diplomatic” assembly:

Mary Ann Dantuono, the Vatican delegate, was interrupted by shouts when she said the Catholic Church "would have preferred a clearer statement emphasizing that the Beijing documents cannot be interpreted as creating new human rights including the right to abortion."

Ms. Dantuono spoke diplomatically. Sadly, she was not afforded the same respect. And why, what caused this shameful abandonment of tact and the dignity of what the assembly attempted to accomplish? Defense of a mythical right to abortion.

This isn’t a question of whether abortion is right or wrong. I personally believe it to be wrong, but I’m not arguing that. That’s a topic for debate in the public spectrum, a topic in which people take sides based on deeply ingrained senses of experience, belief, and faith. Evidently, the majority of the world wishes that debate to be ended, and, tragically, they wish it to be ended in favor of the side which does not protect to the right to life.

Yes, how far we’ve come! The United Nations hesitates to defend the right to life for all, yet will consider abortion as a fundamental right. Abortion as a human right—is that what we really have allowed the concept of natural and human rights to become? Is that what was intended when it was decided that human beings ought to have their God-given rights defended?

A man named Thomas Jefferson once said:

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

How far we’ve come in 200 years! According to the UN, governments have no place preventing the destruction of human life. Once, “the first and only object of good government” was the protection of human life, now…? Who knows. The right to have abortions has become more important and deserving of animated defense. But…

“The right to development is the measure of the respect of all other human rights. That should be our aim: a situation in which all individuals are enabled to maximize their potential, and to contribute to the evolution of society as a whole.”

Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General, did not say that 200 years ago. He said it in, and intended it for, our day and age. His quote does not appear controversial, and probably was warmly received when said. Yet, what if he had implied that “all individuals” included human life unborn?

I view abortion as an unequivocal evil. But I didn’t set out to make that point today, or to arouse that debate at this moment. If the UN had its way, I would not be able to.

My point is this. To borrow a line from a song, “You can’t trust freedom when it’s not in your hands.” Meaning, the farther and farther away from you those making decisions for your life are, the less faith you can put in what they give you. Ever since the concept of rights and freedom exploded across the Western world in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, and had its victories, two trends have become evident. First, more and more freedoms are called “rights” and attached to the list with those rare rights considered unalienable. Secondly, the center of power moves elsewhere, consolidating far away from the participation of those who will be affected by its decisions. It took the form of centralization, to begin with, and then mutated into internationalization and multilateralism.

What happens? A force we can’t control, influence, or stop gives us rights we don’t want or need, at the expense of those which form the cornerstone of the land in which we live. Pro-life, pro-choice—it doesn’t matter. It’s a sad day to be a human being. Not because the amendment wasn’t accepted, or even because of the poor statesmanship that shouted it down; rather, it’s a tragic day because its times like these we see how far gone the concepts of individual freedom have become. What was once sacred, inalienable, has become subject to debate. When it is the very concept of human life put to question, it is very hard to say that the world has become a better place because of it.

The Dubai Experience and Iraq

2005-01-20T03:19:00.000-05:00

The beauty of treating one’s life like a liberal arts education is that by taking a juxtaposition of rugby, James Madison, and the city of Dubai, one can find answers to plaguing questions.

Among my predominant interests is the sport of rugby, specifically rugby union. I play it, I watch it, and any unclaimed hour of my time I’ll willingly devote to it. One such hour was watching the IRB Sevens on tape from Dubai on Fox Sports World.

Sevens is the term given to rugby played with shorter halves and fewer players. The game, as a result, is quicker and more wide-open. Dubai is a city in the United Arab Emirates, the financial and business capital of that country.

The tournament was interesting enough, including, among other things, a satisfying upset of the French by Portugal. Dubai boasts a very fine pitch, and the whole series of matches was sponsored by Emirates Air Lines. As I watched, a question crept into my mind.

You see, Dubai, besides rugby, hosts international golf and tennis tournaments, as well. It’s a city of commerce and finance, and Europeans pass safely in their time there. The standard of living seems pretty acceptable, the government is stable, and tourists seem to have no problem spending their time and money there. Yet, to the north, in Iraq, Palestine, and Syria, war and terror are constant realities. The UAE seems to have little in common with those states, and, depending on the depth of comparison, that view would seem to be correct. However, one overarching bond exists amongst them: they are all Arab nations.

How, exactly, does the United Arab Emirates succeed?

I posit this: the UAE succeeds because it is governed by a form of government natural and best-suited to the Arab world.

The UAE is somewhat like the United States in that it has a federal government. It is different from the USA in that the federal government is elected among the emirs of the constituent emirates, who are hereditary rulers. The CIA World Factbook bears this out: the country offers no suffrage to its people. Yet, it manages to survive, and, in my opinion, prosper.

This creates an interesting context for the Iraqi situation. Our current administration seems to feel that no nation can be peaceful unless it is a western-style democracy. Our full military effort at this time is committed to holding the country together so it can hold “free elections.” The specter of violence haunts these elections daily, with the added strain of the possibility of having to seal the borders of the entire nation the day they are to take place.

Now, what western-style democracy actually is, is a difficult thing to pin down. Is it European social democracy, English parliamentary democracy, or American federal republicanism? If it’s the third, and since our soldiers are doing the lion’s share of the dying in Iraq, it would follow that it would be, it might be helpful, at this time, to take a look at one of the framers of our federal government, the Father of the Constitution, James Madison, and what he might have to say that would be helpful in this situation:

Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Seems pretty straightforward. How about another big name from our founding, Thomas Jefferson?

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

Where could two of our most venerable framers have gotten such ideas? You might have heard of him. His name is Aristotle.

There are three systems of government diverging from the three “straight” systems: tyranny diverging from kingship, oligarchy diverging from aristocracy, and democracy diverging from polity. Each diverging system (parekbasis) is structured to operate to the advantage of the ruler(s); for example, democracy is rule to the advantage of the poor. None of the diverging systems aims at the profit of every type of citizen in common.

The “polity” according to Aristotle was a mixture of democracy and aristocracy. Aristotle characterizes the “worst” form of government as tyranny, which is “furthest” from polity, allowing for the reasonable conclusion that polity is the best. Polity is this view is the primitive form of what now call federal government, or government on different levels which have checks and balances on each other. That may sound familiar, as it was the government that Madison, Jefferson, and their contemporaries created for this country.

The similarity between Aristotle’s views on government and our Founders’ is not a coincidence. Aristotle is one of the cornerstones of western thought, and our framers drew heavily on him and other political thinkers. Why? So the United States would succeed where other experiments in popular government failed. In this sense, American government is the product of Western thought, a span of thousands of years of history and struggle unique to the Western experience.

To say that it can be translated into a foreign culture is not only painfully misguided, but a disservice to the battles fought to create it. What Iraq needs is American style government not in the sense of republicanism, but in the sense of a government created from the unique experiences of its people. True self-determination, as it were. If this requires the separation of Iraq, so be it. There will never be stability so long as the people there are under the control of an alien form of government. To them, American democracy is as foreign as socialist dictatorship under Saddam Hussein was.

The emirs of the UAE are uniquely Arab. They are also singularly successful. There will never be peace in Iraq until the people are governed how they see fit. The same goes for the rest of the Arab world, and, indeed, the rest of the world in general. What neo-conservatives need to realize is that outside of Western eyes, ballot boxes aren’t always the best solution.

Meet your new Attorney General

2005-02-08T18:15:00.000-05:00

As expected, last week the Senate confirmed Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States. Unfortunately, school and family obligations prevented me from building on part I of my conservative case against Gonzales' confirmation.

Although now it's too late, I believe its important for the American people to know about Mr. Gonzales' views on some very important issues - the Constitution, executive power, abortion, racial preferences, and illegal immigration to name just a few.

Race Preferences

Attorney General Gonzales is a staunch supporter of race preferences. As I noted last month, Gonzales played an instrumental role in watering-down the Bush Administration's legal brief in the University of Michigan race preferences cases (Gratz and Grutter).

Illegal Immigration

Gonzales believes, in a quite Orwellian fashion, that illegal immigrants are "lawful citizens" (beats me, I'm still scratching my head). This view undoubtedly inspired professional Hispanic advocacy group, The National Council of La Raza, to issue this endorsement.

Abortion

Last week marked the 32nd anniversary of one of the most blatant and flagrant acts of judicial imperialism in the history of the United States - I'm referring, of course, to Roe v. Wade, which completely usurped the rights of states and local communities to regulate abortion.

One of the major arguments put forth by conservative proponents of President Bush's reelection was the terrifying idea of John Kerry appointing three or four justices to the Supreme Court. In order to prevent such a disaster from happening Kerry had to be stopped by all means (conveniently ignored is the fact that seven of the nine justices currently on the Supreme Court were appointed by Republican Presidents). Conservatives then, no matter how disgusted they were with Bush's fiscal irresponsibility, pandering on illegal immigration, and big government policies, were obligated to vote for him.

Enter Alberto Gonzales. When asked during his confirmation hearing for his views on Roe v. Wade, Gonzales replied:

Of course, the Supreme Court has recognized a right of privacy in our Constitution, and in Roe the court held that that right of privacy includes a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. A little over a decade ago, the court, in Casey, had an opportunity to revisit that issue. They made a -- they declined to overturn Roe, and of course made a new standard that any restriction that constituted an "undue burden" on a woman's right to choose could not be sustained. My judgment is that the court has had an opportunity -- ample opportunities -- to look at this issue. It has declined to do so. And as far as I'm concerned, it is the law of the land and I will enforce it.

A pretty remarkable statement from a nominee of a supposedly "pro-life" President - Of course, as I've documented elsewhere, the idea that this President is some sort of radical pro-lifer, hell bent on rolling back abortion rights, is just not supported by any rational consideration of the evidence.

Where are the conservatives in all of this? One can only echo 2004 Constitution Party Presidential candidate Michael Peroutka, who asks:

Where’s the outrage at Judge Gonzales’ refusal to say anything critical of the Roe v. Wade decision which is, arguably, the most appalling, un-Constitutional example of “judicial activism” in Supreme Court history --- a decision which simply invented a “right to privacy” which has resulted in the killing/murder of more than 40 million innocent unborn babies?

Its a good question and I'd love to hear a legitimate response to it that does not include the obligatory gestations about "the lesser of two evils" and fear mongering about the specter of a Kerry Administration. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a Kerry nominee responding to the question in any other way - American conservatives voted for this? Remarkable.

The Constitution and Executive Power

Aside from his strident support of Roe, perhaps the most disturbing thing about Gonzales are his views on the Constitution and executive power. In 2002, Gonzales cleared a US Department of Justice memorandum which argued that laws banning torture do "not apply to the president's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants" - a blatant assault on the principles enunciated not only in the Constitution, but Magna Carta as well - the idea that no one, not even Presidents are above the law. When given a chance to fully state his position during the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearing, Gonzales had this exchage with Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT):

SEN. LEAHY: Well, let me then ask you: If you’re going to be attorney general, and I’ll accept what you said, then let’s put on the hat, if you’re going to be confirmed as attorney general. The Bybee memo concludes that a president has authority as commander in chief to override domestic and international law as prohibiting torture and can immunize from prosecution anyone — anyone — who commits torture under his act; whether legal or not, he can immunize them. Now, as attorney general, would you believe the president has the authority to exercise a commander-in-chief override and immunize acts of torture?
MR. GONZALES: First of all, sir, the president has said we’re not going to engage in torture under any circumstances. And so you’re asking me to answer a hypothetical that is never going to occur. This president has said we’re not going to engage in torture under any circumstances, and therefore, that portion of the opinion was unnecessary and was the reason that we asked that that portion be withdrawn.
SEN. LEAHY: But I’m trying to think what type of opinions you might give as attorney general. Do you agree with that conclusion?
MR. GONZALES: Sir, again —
SEN. LEAHY: You’re a lawyer, and you’ve held a position as a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, you’ve been the president’s counsel, you’ve studied this issue deeply. Do you agree with that conclusion?
MR. GONZALES: Senator, I do believe there may come an occasion when the Congress might pass a statute that the president may view as unconstitutional. And that is a position and a view not just of this president, but many, many presidents from both sides of the aisle. Obviously, a decision as to whether or not to ignore a statute passed by Congress is a very, very serious one, and it would be one that I would spend a great deal of time and attention before arriving at a conclusion that in fact a president had the authority under the Constitution to —
SEN. LEAHY: Mr. Gonzales, I’d almost think that you’d served in the Senate, you’ve learned how to filibuster so well, because I asked a specific question: Does the president have the authority, in your judgment, to exercise a commander-in-chief override and immunize acts of torture?
MR. GONZALES: With all due respect, Senator, the president has said we’re not going to engage in torture. That is a hypothetical question that would involve an analysis of a great number of factors.

As distrubing as Gonzales' disregard for the principle of equality under the law and the idea that one man is above that law, was Gonzales' response to a series of Leahy questions centered on the issue of the indefinite detainment of so-called "enemy combatants", particularly when those "enemy combatants" happen to be American citizens. Apparently, ladies and gentlemen, "the people's attorney" believes the President of the United States has the power to slap the label "enemy combatant" on an American citizen, jail him or her, and essentially throw away the key - to hell with due process and access to legal counsel. Think I'm merely employing hyperbole? Think again.

SEN. LEAHY: I asked you if the president has that. Now in Hamdi, of course, they were talking about the -- oh, the AUMF, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. The Congress had voted on -- for military force in Afghanistan. Hamdi was picked up in Afghanistan.We had a second case, Padilla. There the court kind of punted it. They didn't answer the question. They said the jurisdiction was wrong; it was brought in the wrong court, should have been brought habeas corpus in another court.All I'm asking: Does the president -- the president -- today have the authority to hold a U.S. citizen incommunicado for an indefinite period of time in the United States?
MR. GONZALES: Well, the president does have the authority, under Hamdi -- that's what the court said -- is he could hold an American citizen -- let me be very, very clear. The United States government never took the position that a U.S. citizen detained by its government could not challenge the detention by the government.
SEN. LEAHY: But if you're held incommunicado and have no access to a lawyer or a court, isn't that kind of saying, "Yes, you could appeal to everywhere else, but we're not going to let you out of the cell, we're not going to let you talk to anybody, we're not going to let you have the court. We just want you to know you got all your rights."
MR. GONZALES: Senator, with -- respectfully, not only did Hamdi have access to the courts, he had such good access and such good representation by counsel that his case was heard all the way by the highest court in the land.And so the decision as to whether or not to provide access to counsel is probably one of the most difficult decisions that we have to confront, because there are competing interests here. As a lawyer, I have a great deal of concerns about not providing lawyers to American citizens that are being detained by this country. On the other hand, there's a competing interest of gathering information that this American citizen, this enemy combatant, may have information that may save the lives of American citizens. And our position has been -- is that we provide counsel as quickly as possible --
SEN. LEAHY: Well, that's --
MR. GONZALES: -- that the American citizen -- I'm sorry, Senator. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
SEN. LEAHY: No, no. I was just going to say we can go back to that, and we'll have to, because we're talking about a perfect world. If you do a dragnet, as we found out in some of these dragnets where people are held for a long time, we say, "Whoops, we got the wrong guy." We have --
SEN. SPECTER: Judge Gonzales, did you finish your last answer? Feel free, if you want to.
MR. GONZALES: That's fine. Thank you, Senator.

Conclusion

Needless to say, it will be interesting to monitor the exploits of Attorney General Gonzales over the course of the next four years. The prospects for those who adhere to the principles enunciated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights do not look particularly bright at this point. It is very clear that, unlike our forefathers, Gonzales believes the Constitution is a "living" document and that the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are essentially malleable to the changing of the political wind.

That this is a repudiation of historic conservative political philosophy should be obvious to any rational person no matter their ideological persuasion. Conservatives have traditionally held that our God-given rights are, as the Declaration of Independence declares, inalienable and that the only legitimate function of the state is protect those rights. Gonzales does not believe this and therefore he is simply not a conservative - no matter how many times Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh might claim otherwise.

Addendum (2/15/2005)

Not that this comes as any sort of surprise, but apparently Alberto Gonzales doesn't have much use for another one of the first ten amendments to our Constitution - the second:

The president has made it clear that he stands ready to sign a reauthorization of the federal assault weapons ban if it is sent to him by Congress. I, of course, support the president on this issues.

I like the Southern Party of Georgia's response:

This is disturbing. The Bush Administration nominee for Attorney General has his own version of the 2nd Amendment. He apparently has made a slight modification to the wording contain the real Constitution. According to the Gonzales's version of the Second Amendment it reads:
" ... shall be infringed."

Folks the 2nd Amendment is so clear, " ... shall not be infringed." Our Founding Fathers could have come up with different wording ... For example they could have used something like " ... shall be determined by Congress." or " ... shall be determined by President." But they did not. Ooopppss there is that word that both Bush, Gonzales, and many Republican and Democratic members of Congress seem to overlook - "NOT."

Our Founding Fathers also made provisions for changing the Constitution, Bush and Gonzales should read these provisions. If they disagree with the existing 2nd Amendment they should propose an Amendment - they should NOT just ignore the existing Constitution.

Not that this President's and this Administration's ignorance of the Constitution is new. It was ignored when the President of the United States took this country to war against an impoverished third world nation, crippled by decades of economic sanctions without a declaration of war from Congress, when he signed campaign finance reform into law, and when he helped nationalize education by supporting and signing the No Child Left Behind Act. All indications point towards four more years of more of the same - more fiscal recklessness, more constriction on freedom at home while "expanding liberty" by force of arms abroad, and aggrandizement of power in the centralized state.

Our pledge, here at The Last Angry Men, is to do whatever we can to expose, oppose, and repel this breathtaking drift away from the philosophy that governed the founding of this Republic. In this effort there will be no sacred cows on the Left or Right and no placement of party over principle - only a dedication to exposing the truth about government power and human nature.

Vintange Galasso: Celebrating King Day the Right Way

2005-01-17T01:17:00.000-05:00

I know what you're expecting.

It's MLK day...

I should write something here that absolutely destroys the man. I should post the comments from Boston University admitting King plagarized his doctoral thesis. I should post the excerpts from Rev. Abernathy's book that explain King's frequent and violent interactions with prostitutes. I should dig up the FBI's evidence of his elbow-rubbing with known Communist organizations. I should wonder why another file on King was sealed by a judge until 2037. I should bemoan the fact that this liar and hyprocrite was a given a national holiday, an honor bestowed on no one by name (remember that it's President's Day, not Lincoln and Washington's Birthday anymore).

But if I do, anyone who reads this is just going to think it's mere racist bluster from me. That I'm just jealous that he gets the honor over someone my people can identify with. They'll probably accuse me of making it all up.

Because the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King was a martyr. Just like JFK. Because generalized, mass media, popularized history fogs over the truth. Just like with FDR and Woodrow Wilson. Because he was black. Just like how avowed racists Malcom X and Elijah Muhammed get honored by the civil rights movement, as well. Because America is the home of false heroes, of the people terrified to offend. Just the kind of place that honors a man like King.

The sad part is...I back up what I say with facts. Sure, he lead some civil disobedience movements. But, to me, the real issue is that the reverend was morally bankrupt and the doctor plagarized his thesis. But the real issue isn't important, and the truth can't be known.

So I'm not going to write it. Why bother. Let kids enjoy their day off, after seeing the MLK cardboard cutouts hung up in their school and hearing all the repetitions of his "I Have a Dream" speech. Let them continue to be filled with the media's steady stream of "He was a Great Man, No Questions Asked." Let them have their minds made up for them. Let them embrace "diversity", while their own culture is destroyed, supplanted by a monochrome America that can worship all the rotten-at-the-core, plastic false idols it wants.

"But damn it, Galasso! He opposed racism! His faults are nothing compared to what he accomplished."

It's all a matter of perspective, I guess. For a man so unilaterally revered to have had such a terrible private life seems a bit hypocritical to me. I mean, David Duke is no more a racist than King was, just in reverse. And, Duke served in the military and hasn't been caught doing anything nearly as reprehensible. Duke even served honorably in the US House of Representatives. Yet, he'll never get anything near a holiday. To me, venerating King is alot like worshipping Reverend Moon. It's hard to believe in a Messiah who beats his wife and gets caught with illegal pornograhy. It should be just as hard to follow a man who takes credit for the work of others or a man of the cloth who can't keep his hands off whores.

"How dare you call the Honorable Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. a racist! He wanted a colorblind society!"

A colorblind society is racist, as it wishes to see other races, and their identities, dissolved. What's the best solution to the problem of White America? Get rid of it. With our immigrant situation as it is, monochrome America'll get itself tinted sepia real fast. Now what's so wrong with that, you may ask? My people are on the outside of that equation, that's what.

Unlike most of Euro-America, I'm proud of where I came from. For some reason, all they're proud of is where other people come from. The minorities, to their credit, have their own interests in mind. My people are too busy having MLK day programmes and showing off Latino executives. While Mr. and Mrs. Dedham, Massachusetts are proud of themselves for having "Afro-American" friends, their culture is being wiped away. To me, it's disgraceful to have let it occur so blithely. Every other ethnic group in this country has their agendas in order, why not mine? And, go ahead, call me a racist. I'm just saying what they've said. Just because you endorse their point of view and not mine doesn't make theirs any less similarly motivated.

So, yeah. I'm not going to attack the Rev. today. Why bother. No one'll listen. They'll either not stop shouting the white washed lies long enough to hear, or not take their earplugs of denial out long enough to listen to what they know is the dark truth.

I have a dream, myself. It goes like this: one day, Americans are going to realize they've been lied to, and refuse to hold people hostile to their morality and way of life in such high esteem.
Every day, I seem to wake up, and things stay the same.

And so it was written.

AG Galasso, 01/19/04

On Patriotism, World War I, and The Illusion of Victory

2005-03-08T17:29:00.001-05:00

June 22, 2002. It is a typical summer day in suburban Arlington, Virginia. High school students from as far away as California have come to Marymount University to hear lectures from prominent names in the conservative movement at the Young America’s Foundation National High School Leadership Conference. In a wood-grained lecture hall Anthony, I, and around 150 or so self-described conservatives watch and listen as Nigel Ashford, program officer at the Institute for Human Studies, takes the podium. The title of Ashford’s speech is “What Type of Conservative Are You?” a talk designed to address the differences within the larger conservative movement on foreign, social, and economic policy.

Around a quarter of the way through Ashford begins to discuss foreign policy, putting forth three general right-wing classifications: so-called “neo-isolationist," national interest, and global democrat conservatives. I was immediately taken aback when Ashford announced the latter’s agenda – that until the world is “democratic” America will not be safe and therefore we are completely justified in using our power to go around the globe bringing democracy and “freedom” to far away lands. To me the whole concept sounded positively Wilsonian. Woodrow Wilson was no conservative, I assured myself. After all, World War I – the war fought to “make the world safe for democracy” – was an utter failure, making the world safe for Bolshevism, Nazism, and fascism. While Wilson’s internationalism as expressed in the League of Nations would have imperiled American sovereignty if not for the efforts of conservative Senate Republicans.

Yet I did not always have this understanding. My high school history classes gave the standard account. The Germans waged an aggressive war against Great Britain and France while conducting a relentless submarine war, which ultimately led to the death of 128 American civilians traveling on the peaceful passenger liner, the Lusitania. Enraged by such brutality, Congress declared war on Germany before the American people responded by going to the Western Front in droves, saving civilization in the process. This is, no doubt, the understanding of the Great War many of my colleagues took to the YAF conference with them.

To understand my change of mind I must take you back to the time I really started to take a serious interest in politics – late 2001, just months after 9/11. While channel surfing I stumble across The News with Brian Williams on MSNBC just as a segment featuring Pat Buchanan begins. At the time, I was vaguely familiar with Buchanan, mainly due to the 2000 election and his stance on the immigration issue. Pat is on to discuss his new book The Death of the West, which chronicles the imminent fading away of Western Civilization and the European peoples who gave it birth. My father, as intrigued as I by Buchanan’s appearance, suggests a run to the local bookstore. Within days I finish the book, determined to do something to roll back the destructive forces that endangered the way of life I had taken for granted. Impressed by Buchanan, I go to the library and pick up another one of his books, A Republic, Not an Empire, a volume in which Buchanan argues for a foreign policy based on “vital national interests” in the context of a sweeping history of American international relations from Washington to Clinton. It is in this book that I read my first critical account of American entry into World War I and the consequences of that intervention – reverberating, ultimately in the death and destruction of World War II, which the vengeful Treaty of Versailles made an inevitability.

A matter of months later, at the YAF conference, I meet Anthony for the first time. He is also well aware of the true history regarding American intervention in World War I – a history he attempted to convey to others at the conference on a number of occasions with varying success.

Why weren’t the vast majority of those he talked to persuaded? I believe the answer lies in the way the other students defined conservatism - a concept influenced largely by the mass press and establishment conservative media. To these folks, a conservative in America isn’t necessarily one who lobbies for smaller government, balanced budgets, tax cuts, and pro-life causes. No, a conservative is one who loves America to the utmost, a patriot rising in opposition to those resentful old leftists on college campuses who blame America – the ultimate force for good the world – for humanity’s problems. Now there is nothing wrong with defending a nation’s honor against irrational and groundless attacks, but unfortunately, what the establishment conservative eventually adopts is a psychology as irrational as its leftist counterpart, taking on the mantle of a hyper-patriot, an unqualified apologist for everything America has done in the world. Therefore, it is no surprise that students sickened by “the blame America first” crowd would not be inclined to favorably view a critical examination of America’s role in World War I, or God forbid, suggest that the United States should have never gotten involved in the conflagration to begin with.

The consequences of this chauvinism are exhibited by the attempts of neoconservative publications like National Review and The Weekly Standard to run the paleoconservatives – folks like Pat Buchanan, Thomas Woods, and the late Sam Francis – out of the movement. In a post-9/11 the world, the paleos are supposedly damned for their opposition to the Iraq war and President Bush’s crusade to bring “democracy” to the Arab world along with their insidious suggestion that the terrorists attacked us because of our policies in the Middle East, not our freedom. How unpatriotic! The paleos must hate America!

Let it be said clearly: a legitimate love for America does not imply support for every foreign adventure in the history of this country, nor are you “unpatriotic” for recognizing historical mistakes that have cost future generations dearly – World War I being just one these indiscretions.

The Illusion of Victory

Enter Thomas Fleming. Fleming, a historian and novelist, is the author of The Illusion of Victory, a history of America in World War I. Over the course of around 500 pages, Fleming crafts a thorough indictment of Woodrow Wilson and his administration, both on the international and domestic front. It is a tale written in characteristic story-like fashion, full of villains, heroes, and sub-plots.

Fleming begins by setting the scene on April 2, 1917 as Woodrow Wilson, who had just months ago won reelection on the slogan “He kept us out of war,” prepares to ask Congress to declare war on Germany. We are then taken to the fierce debate in the US Congress, as anti-war and pro-war factions clash. Here we are first introduced to Senator Robert La Follette, a Wisconsin Republican, and strong opponent of US intervention. Within an impassioned address to the Senate, La Follette makes a point applicable to our time and the legions of supporters of the American invasion of Iraq who insisted that it was the duty of patriotic Americans to “support the president”:

Robert La Follete took the floor. He opened with a brief, almost curt attack on the idea that every senator should ‘stand behind the president.’ What kind of doctrine was that? he asked. What if the president were wrong? That was the crucial question every legislator had to ask. In this case, he knew of no course but ‘oppose the demands of the chief executive.’

The sinking of the Lusitania, the conventional catalyst cited for American intervention, is covered, albeit relatively briefly. Although I was aware that the supposedly peaceful ocean liner had on it thousands of pounds of munitions before I read this book, I did not know that the German government actually published several warnings to American citizens in New York papers urging them not to travel on the ship. While the Americans seethed in rage about Germany’s unrestricted U-boat warfare off the coast of Great Britain designed to prevent the British from getting munitions, the Wilson Administration turned a blind eye to the British blockade of Germany – a gross violation of international law – which kept out munitions and food, a policy purposefully crafted to starve the German civilian population, thus breaking the national will to fight on.

Fleming’s discussion of war propaganda is fascinating and infuriating at the same time. According to Fleming, the American media, led by Anglophiles in New England presented British propaganda about German “atrocities” as fact time after time. This culminated in a series of lies about Germany in Belgium. During the years before American entry into the war, the American people were told that “the Huns” participated in mass rapes of young women and nuns, grotesque mutilations, and speared Belgian babies with bayonets. In May 1915, Lord Bryce released a report – long since repudiated by most historians, including legendary defense attorney Clarence Darrow – claiming to “prove” the claims of German atrocities in Belgium. Predictably, America’s Anglophile media ate it all up, dutifully regurgitating British themes that, according to Fleming, “Convinced millions of Americans and other neutrals – the report was translated into twenty-seven languages – that the Germans were beasts in human form.”

On the home front, the British propaganda mill with assistance from President Wilson succeeded in inciting a voracious anti-German hysteria across the nation:

Coalescing with hate propaganda spewed by Wellington House and its American collaborators, these sentiments inspired the American Protective League and thousands of other freelance patriots to join a nationwide attack on German-Americans and the German language and culture […] An article in the Atlantic Monthly accused the German language press of mass disloyalty. The New York Times agreed that German-language newspapers never stopped trying to surreptitiously support Berlin’s cause.

Eventually, the hate manifested itself in the wanton murder of a German born baker named Robert Prager, who was beaten by a mob, draped in an American flag, and lynched just outside of St. Louis. Not all, however, were apologetic. According to Fleming, the Washington Post editorialized that the Prager murder was “a sign of a ‘healthful and wholesome awakening’ to the reality of Germany’s evil in the heartland.”

The Bill of Rights were another casualty of Wilson’s war to make the world safe for democracy, which Fleming documents with a thorough discussion of the Sedition and Espionage Acts. Like in the time of Abraham Lincoln, the Wilson administration used its power to illegally suppress publications critical of the President and the war effort, eviscerating the First Amendment along the way.

The latter portions of Illusion deal with peace negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles, and the League of Nations. Fleming shows The Treaty of Versailles with its proclamation of German war guilt and levying of astronomical war reparations payments as the grave and tragic injustice it truly was. In the context of the Senate’s debate over admitting the United States into the League of Nations, Fleming again shows us the real Woodrow Wilson – stubbornly unwilling to come to terms with Republican leader Henry Cabot Lodge who favored a treaty “with reservations” pertaining to American sovereignty and war powers. By this time, the President was gravely ill, his condition kept deliberately concealed by Edith Wilson (Woodrow’s wife) and the President’s cabinet. During this time period, Mrs. Wilson acted as a de facto President of the United States, making critical decisions in Woodrow Wilson’s name.

There is so much more regarding Fleming’s treatment that can be discussed, but at this point I highly recommend that you read his book for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

Back to Arlington

Woodrow Wilson, a historic icon of the neoconservatives, fits Nigel Ashford’s description of a “global democrat” well. From the evidence presented by Fleming in Illusion it should be clear to those professing a historic conservatism that he was not one, nor does he deserve to be honored by them. The Wilson Administration consistently demonstrated a lack of regard for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, greatly expanding government involvement in individual and business life from the Espionage Act to the institution of the progressive income tax.

In our present day, with President George W. Bush openly declaring his aim to foment a “global democratic revolution” the experience of America in the Great War is as instructive as ever. For Bush and the neocons that dominate his administration are the progeny of Woodrow Wilson. Indeed, they openly and proudly identify themselves with him.

Although it is understandable for some conservatives, exposed to the relentless musings of various multiculturalists within the academy, to have a knee-jerk revulsion towards historical criticisms of American foreign policy it is incumbent upon the Right to ask some very difficult questions about this administration and its foreign policy. For if the President and his advisors have it their way, the United States will be involved indefinitely in the Middle East, engrossed in the big government project of nation-building with no end in sight.

“He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him,” says the Old Testament book of Proverbs. For American patriots, the same can be said of those who offer only unvarnished support for the foreign policy status quo – a policy of interventionism and incessant meddling in the affairs of other nations. For proper love of country does not just imply a critical analysis of international relations, it demands it – for the policies of the present dictate the political conditions for future generations.

It's Been a While

2005-07-17T23:30:00.000-04:00

It's been over two months since I've written in this space - a consequence of the time restraints 15 credit hours of summer classes places on you.

During my hiatus, Aakash Raut was kind enough to invite me to guest blog over at his excellent University Blog. My sole entry focused on the Old Right and the importance of resurrecting it in order to roll back the size and scope of the federal leviathan.

Speaking of that Leviathan...

... it continues to grow and morph into something the Framers of our Constitution could hardly imagine. And, as is case for the bulk of the modern era, this latest expansion was aided and abetted by the Supreme Court of the United States.

In early June, the Court struck down California's statute legalizing medical marijuana by a 6-3 vote (Gonzales v. Raich). The constitutional reasoning for this assertion of federal police power: the interstate commerce clause.

The Constitution's interstate commerce clause (Article I, Section 8) gives Congress the power to "regulate interstate commerce." Originally intended to set up a free-trade zone amongst the states, the commerce clause has been used time and time again by the Supreme Court to justify expansion of the role of the federal government in the lives of American citizens.

In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Court upheld the constitutionality of federal regulation of locally grown wheat for personal consumption as stipulated by the Agricultural Adjustment Act - a legislative item part of FDR's New Deal agenda of central economic planning via cartels and price controls. Wickard provided a direct template for Bush Administration lawyers to argue the case for - and for the Supreme Court to ultimately justify - overturning the will of the people of California while authorizing criminal prosecutions of doctors who dare prescribe marijuana to patients in debilitating pain suffering from terminal illnesses.

The reaction of the political left to this decision has been interesting to watch. In my post on Aakash's blog I noted the sudden resurgence of interest among progressives in federalism and states' rights. Progressive concerns center around the Bush Administration and a Republican Congress using the power of the federal government to ease environmental regulations and generally threaten left-wing public policies in states like New York and California. While I applaud this nostalgia for Jeffersonian Republicanism within the Democratic Party, I can't help but believe it to be at best inconsistent if not disingenuous - especially in the light of modern American history.

In the 1940s, liberals were among FDR and the New Deal's biggest champions and they praised Wickard as a departure from the conservative jurisprudence offered by the Court throughout the 1930s. On a related historical point, it is interesting to note that during this time period it was the political left - led by FDR - that complained about an "activist" Supreme Court that was declaring many parts of the New Deal unconstitutional. Indeed, Franklin D. Roosevelt spearheaded an effort to appoint additional justices to the Court, thereby giving the Court a decisive progressive majority. Ultimately, Roosevelt's scheme to pack the Court would be one of his largest political setbacks as he watched the US Senate shoot down his proposal by a 70-20 vote and his New Dealers lose seats to Republicans in the 1938 midterm election.

Perhaps as a response to Roosevelt's Court packing campaign, the Supreme Court abruptly shifted its positions on the constitutionality of New Deal programs, ultimately leading directly to Wickard. Our historical detour aside, the main point here is that the political left cannot have it both ways. It cannot on one hand praise federal intrusion into the local affairs of rural farming communities in the name of command and control economics and condemn the specter of the Drug Enforcement Agency carrying off doctors who prescribe marijuana at the same time. The road to Gonzales v. Raich goes directly through Wickard.

The Court and Religion

In late June the Court upheld another honored modern usurpation of the Bill of Rights and the Tenth Amendment - the encroachment of the federal government on the rights of states and local jurisdictions to self-government on the issues of church-state relations, ruling that displays of the Ten Commandments are legal on state capitol grounds if they are accompanied by other secular symbols and illegal in state courthouses. Since Everson v. Board of Education (1947), legal commentators, professors, and ACLU attorneys have pounded an ahistorical view of the American Founding and the original intent of the First Amendment to the Constitution - a view the Court's decision was based on.

In Everson, Justice Hugo Black, writing for the Court's slim 5-4 majority, cited Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists calling for a "separation of church and state" along with Jefferson and James Madison's support for disestablishing Virginia's state supported church to lay the foundation for all modern jurisprudence on these issues. With regards to the classic left-wing claim that our Constitution is "alive" or "living" and that we should interpret it according to the "morality of the times" as opposed to the fashion in which the document was originally intended, it is important to point out that Black's legal reasoning is shrouded in an original intent analysis - the problem is Black and the Court completely maligned the original intent of the First Amendment and the establishment clause which was explicitly to forbid "Congress" (the federal government) from establishing a national religion thereby protecting the states and local jurisdictions from central government encroachment.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, being two of the biggest champions of states' rights and political decentralization in the early American Republic would have been horrified by Black's legal reasoning. So when Black cites Jefferson and Madison supporting the revocation of tax support for the established church in Virginia, it is vitally important to keep in mind that theirs was a position on state and not national policy. Neither Jefferson, nor Madison, nor anyone in the entire founding generation questioned the constitutional right of states to conduct their own religious affairs. Indeed, this is precisely what took place in early American history - Vermont had an established church as did the state of Massachusetts on into the 1830s. And again, no one questioned the legality of this arrangement nor did the federal government attempt to intervene.

Do not misunderstand my argument against Everson and modern church-state jurisprudence in general as an approval of state sponsored religion - it is not. I cite the actual record of American history to demonstrate how far the Court, contrary to its claims, has strayed from "original intent" and how ridiculous lawsuits against states and small towns that display religious symbols like the Ten Commandments are when the entire founding generation recognized the right of the people in their states to manage their own religious affairs - even to the point of establishing state churches.

While many ACLU attorneys like to speak of the "right to choose" when it comes to abortion, they wholly deny the rights of local democratic bodies and city councils to choose to represent the religious tradition of those peoples in the public square. If citizens in Boise, Idaho want a display of the Ten Commandments in city hall, why does that profoundly affect me? If citizens of Vermont do not want them in the state capitol, then so be it - let local bodies decide. That is not, however, what many members of the ACLU want. While endlessly praising the virtues of "multicultralism" and "diversity" they seek to impose a rigid, nationalized, secular uniformity by bringing to bear the full power of the federal state, thereby eviscerating exactly the sort of "choice" the Bill of Rights sought to preserve - the right of the people to govern themselves.

The Trenton Circus: Government Unrestrained

2005-03-09T23:33:00.000-05:00

Among even self-professed conservatives, there exists only a faction dedicated wholly to the cause of Constitutional government. On the surface, if one chooses it to define it as such, it seems frivolous to worry about how closely the governing of the country follows the text of a 220-year old document.

Of course, those of us in the faction know there’s more to it than that. The short form is, Constitutional government is the rule of law and the rule of law is the hallmark of civilized society. But the short form is rarely sufficient. There is, naturally, more to it than that. The purpose of the Constitution is to restrain government. There is no more important aim for a people that desire their freedom and quality of life to remain intact.

The opposite result is government unrestrained. The best examples of this exist in the states, where the government is closer to the people, holds more power over them, and is still intended to be guided by a state constitution. In no state is the government more out of control and ineffectual than in my home state of New Jersey.

Welcome to New Jersey

The “Governor” of New Jersey is Acting Governor Richard Codey. He’s the person legally obligated by state succession to clean up the mess Gay-American and former Governor James McGreevey left in his wake. Had McGreevey resigned before Election Day, we in the state could have chosen a replacement, but you should know, if you don’t live here, that we don’t get much say about what happens in Trenton. Mercifully, we were spared from seeing US Senator John Corzine’s bizarre offer to “take over” come to fruition.

Well, Corzine evidently took offense to not being allowed to usurp authority in the state, as he decided he was going to become Governor, come hell or high water. No one seems to have informed him that Governor is a position of less power and prestige than US Senator, as he committed a fortune to being the Democratic candidate for Governor in the 2005 election. Every Democrat of note in the state endorsed Corzine, abandoning Codey in the dust. Of course, inexplicably, Codey has the highest approval rating for a New Jersey governor in two decades. The same principle that got us Codey as a governor is cheating him out of his chance to actually earn it; that is, New Jersey voters do not deserve to vote. The Democratic gubernatorial situation is perhaps the most glaring example favoring primary elections in the history of politics.

Conversely, the Republican situation, with seven, count ‘em, seven candidates vying for the nomination, is perhaps the most fitting argument against primary elections. The two front-runners are Bret Schundler, the reform candidate with an impressive record as Mayor of Jersey City who, as some are coming to regret, could not beat McGreevey in 2001, and Doug Forrester, who would have beaten the criminal Torricelli in 2002 for the Senate, had the Democrats not bent state law to exhume Frank Lautenberg and run him to victory. Schundler is the better candidate. Forrester has the money. The other five represent all ends of the Republican spectrum and are itching to play spoiler. The only certain outcome is a vicious and expensive primary that John Corzine can watch, laughing while reclining on a tremendous pile of money.

Schundler has integrity, a good record, and solid ideas. Why isn’t he the overwhelming favorite? The mainstream Republican Party hates him. Why? Firstly, he wants to clean up Trenton, and, as Schundler has stated as part of his campaign, and the indictments in Monmouth County prove, Republicans are just as corrupt in this state as the Democrats. Secondly, he’s a true, fiscally conservative, pro-life, right-winger. Our last Republican governor, Christine Whitman, decided to write a book about how too far right-wing the Republican party is. That pretty much sums up how welcome conservatives are here. It’s her party, too. It hasn’t been mine in a good long time.

So the election’s going to be a mess. Maybe that’s why Codey decided to avoid it, after all. He seems to be having a good time. Firstly, he's suspiciously still president of the State Senate, while governor. He then began things by getting into a fight with a talk radio host, which made for some interesting press. Nothing like bringing some dignity to the office after the McGreevy scandal, eh? He next decided to respond to the budget crisis with a joke: "The good news is, we're not bankrupt. The bad news is, we're close." But, he can be serious, too. Just look at his fool-proof plan for ending it: we’ll cut property tax rebates. Then we’ll appropriate a couple hundred million dollars for housing for the mentally ill, without the legislature voting on it or having a referendum. What? Then we’ll add a commission of eleven people to the state payroll, without the legislature voting on it or having a referendum. Then we’ll add some vaguely-defined, high-profile administrative positions to the payroll to placate the anti-corruption crowd. Then we’ll create the office of lieutenant-governor, for no reason, and give the office its own executive department. Sounds like a plan.

Now, with all this chaos, corruption, and confusion about, what exactly is the State Assembly doing to govern New Jersey? Why, they’re debating whether or not the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. Why? Because they got it in their mind to declare it “state vegetable,” even though it’s a fruit. Well, scientifically, a fruit it may be, but in the eyes of New Jersey state law, it’s a vegetable. Besides, we already have a state fruit, the blueberry, which was only named as such last year. Anytime you name anything “state” something, it involves proclamations, events, speeches, and tax money. We need a state vegetable like we need a lieutenant-governor. And as far as these state symbols are concerned, ask how many New Jerseyans what our state folk dance or state dinosaur are. That’s about how useful a state vegetable would be.

In addition, as I heard on New Jersey 101.5 this morning, some Assemblywoman proposed making gambling-awareness education a mandatory part of the school curriculum. That’s right. A state which funds its schools with lotteries, horse tracks, and Atlantic City wants to teach kids that gambling is wrong.

Government Unrestrained

You may be asking yourself, “who cares?” Apart from being worth a laugh, why should the machinations of New Jersey state politics be worth a second glance from anyone?

Because this is what happens when the people decide that government is the solution to every problem. When the government fails, it just piles more government on top of itself, creating a self-contained leviathan which can eventually shut the voter completely out and dictate how each and every person’s money is spent, lives are led, and children are educated with absolutely no say needed from the constituents. This is what the future will look like in America the more and more detached the Federal government gets from the Constitution and the influence of the American people.

Let me tell you, it’s not a pleasant state of affairs. It’s frustrating for the citizen, ruinous for the state, and does nothing to promote either efficient or virtuous government. It honestly is the closest thing to a monster that grows beyond its creator’s control that we will ever see in our reality.

Yet, all that needs to be done to roll it back, preserve our freedom, streamline government, and creative effective leadership is to follow the letter of the law. Is that really so unreasonable?

Remember, even a fruit can become a vegetable if the Leviathan says so. The more control we exercise over it, and not it exercises over us, the better.

In Memory of Sam Francis

2005-02-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

Samuel Francis (1947 - 2005)

On Tuesday night, Dr. Samuel Francis passed away from heart surgery complications. Francis, an outspoken conservative and syndicated columnist, was a steadfast ally in the fight against incessant global interventionism, big government, and mass immigration.

Dr. Francis was a man of courage, the type of gentleman who held steadfast to principle in the face of predictable left-wing denunciations and attempts by the right-wing establishment to purge him from mainstream political discussion.

As someone who has attended three week-long summer events put on by the Young America's Foundation, I will never forget a Francis column, penned in the summer of 2003, on the conservative movement's youth. I read the piece just after I got back from attending the 25th National Conservative Student Conference in Washington, D.C., where Anthony and myself met a vast assortment of Bushites, big government idolaters, and Republican party apologists. It rang true then and still rings true today.

As the neoconservatives agitate for more war in the Middle East, our borders are inundated with a flood of illegal aliens, and the Constitution is trampled in the name of "security", it becomes clear just how badly we need more men like Sam Francis. He will be sorely missed.

VDARE.com's Peter Brimelow on Francis

Dan Flynn on Sam Francis

Chronicles' Tom Fleming on Francis

Jared Taylor on Francis

A Paycheck for Armstrong

2005-01-16T15:30:00.000-05:00

As the USA Today first reported , Armstrong Williams, a "conservative" radio commentator and syndicated columnist was paid nearly $241,000 by the US Department of Education to promote the No Child Left Behind Act on his talk show.

Per Williams: “I wanted to do it because its something I believe in.” Rest assured then, dear taxpayer, that Mr. Williams’ support of NCLB had nothing whatsoever to do with a fat paycheck. No sir, money had nothing to do with it because this was a matter of principle. Williams was putting your hard-earned tax dollars to good use.

In a column apologizing to his readers (what about US taxpayers?), Williams writes, “People have used this conflict of interest to portray my column as being paid for by the Bush Administration,” and that “people need to know that my column is uncorrupted by any outside influences.” Of course, that Williams’ column was most definitely “corrupted” and “influenced” by his quarter-million dollar payday is evident to any honest observer of his record.

As Dan Flynn astutely points out:

In a May 16, 2001 column, Williams laments that ‘Bush scooped out the soul of his own education proposal’ and that ‘the spirit that ought to animate such legislation has been bargained away.’ After he got paid, Williams lavished unadulterated praise upon the No Child Left Behind Act.

And lavish praise Williams did. In a column appearing just days before the Presidential election Williams wrote:

[The] synthesis of government, individual responsibility and free choice is perfectly summed up by Bush's educational reforms. Against the backdrop of chronically underfunded schools that lack the wherewithal to educate low-income students, Bush has backed school choice options, which hold the promise of a new civil rights movement.

Williams' contention that Bush’s major educational reform – the No Child Left Behind Act – was a victory for “free choice” is a blatant contradiction both of the record and his own understanding of the legislation.

On this point, Flynn nails it again:

The Bush Administration dumped the No Child Left Behind Act's provisions regarding school choice to win over Democrats. Williams acknowleged this in his June 26, 2002 column: ‘Unfortunately, something happened on the way to Congress. On May 2, the school choice provisions were stripped from the bill.’

The fact NCLB’s school choice provisions were stripped away in order to build a bi-partisan coalition has not been lost on conservatives who see the legislation as a move towards greater federal control over education while the Constitution reserves the responsibility of education to the several states.

Also absurd is the contention of Williams and outgoing Education Secretary Rod Paige that this whole arrangement was perfectly legal. According to Paige, “All of this has been reviewed and is legal.”

“I’m not concerned about this witch hunt,” says Williams. “I know that I’ve done nothing wrong, nothing illegal.”

Federal statute barring taxpayer dollars from being spent on government propaganda aside, perhaps both men should take a look at what the Constitution says.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution explicitly spells out the “limited and enumerated” powers granted to the federal government while the Tenth Amendment reserves all powers not granted to the federal government to the people and the several states. Since the federal government is granted no power by the Constitution to play a role in education, Paige has been the head of an unconstitutional department for four years. The Republican Party as recent as 2000 recognized this fact in its party platform:

We recognize that under the American constitutional system, education is a state, local, and family responsibility, not a federal obligation. (emphasis mine)

Moreover, according to Article I Section 8, Congress is not authorized to appropriate any funds to pundits – on the right or left – to agitate for any sort of political agenda. This makes Armstrong Williams’ payday utterly unconstitutional and illegal. Yes Virginia, there is no “Armstrong clause” or "elastic clause" in the Constitution that can make this scam legal.

This episode provides just one more reason to take the advice of men like Reagan, abolish the Department of Education, roll back big government, and return education to states and localities.

No word yet from Rich Lowry and the boys at the National Review as to Williams’ long-term future in the conservative movement. At the Young America’s Foundation National Conservative Student Conference, Lowry, in response to a question I posed regarding a David Frum cover story deriding opponents of the war in Iraq as “unpatriotic conservatives” thundered about how he and the National Review were “policemen of the Right” after purging the opponents as people who “thought the North should have lost the Civil War, are intolerant of racial minorities, and are fellow travelers of our nation’s enemies” all to a raucous ovation from around 200 or so self-described conservatives.

This, sadly, is the state of modern American conservatism – opponents of big government projects such as “nation-building”, “democratization”, and constant American interventionism are to be shunned and subjected to assaults on personal character in major national publications while pundits like Armstrong Williams and other advocates of nationalized education are shielded. Yes indeed, the American Right is now an emissary of the centralized state.

Who Are We and Who Are You?

2005-01-29T16:31:00.000-05:00

For those who keep track of this sort of thing, we’ve made it to the run-off in Dan Flynn’s “best blog contest.” While compliments never get old, the criticisms interest me far more, and this entry is designed to respond to them in one broad sweep and show exactly what it is we’re hoping to accomplish.

There are those who will say our posts are too long. In addition, there are those who question why exactly we’re “angry,” and are put off by that characterization.

My response is simple: anything worth doing is worth doing right. Anyone can offer you an opinion; few can defend them. When you espouse contrariwise, reactionary points of view, you have to elaborate them in detail to even allow them a voice in the forest of screaming trees that is mainstream political opinion. Why so angry? Because things are not okay in the world today; the problems sit in the Middle East, in Europe, in Washington, DC, in our state capitals and at the core of American life. Most people, however, take an unfounded optimistic view of human nature, assuming people are at their essence good, and able to be understood. However, this demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of history and the human spirit: people can be good and virtuous, but they are not born that way, they have to work at it. And this work is not being done.

The whole situation resembles the game of “telephone” that I and many others played as children. The first person communicates an idea, and it gets passed down the line on this first listen, no questions asked. By the end, it’s all gibberish, but everyone thinks they’re on the same page.

The simplest way to demonstrate this is to look at the labels people give themselves. Politics is so far off-base in this country these days, that if you look closely at the labels, they make no sense in actual context. Words have meaning, and it’s important that those meanings aren’t ignored.

The two biggest dividing lines are the terms “conservative” and “liberal.”

Conservative, adjective:

“1. reluctant to accept change: in favor of preserving the status quo and traditional values and customs, and against abrupt change.”

Conservatism, historically, involves people like Klemens von Metternich supporting dynastic rule in the wake of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. That suits the definition: anti-revolutionary defense of the old order. The term has snaked its way to application in the modern political spectrum, usually applied to the “right-wing” Republican Party. Of course, the Republican Party’s journey leftward carried the word “conservative” with it and rendered it meaningless. True conservatives wouldn’t support an executive-branch led war of democratic revolution overseas or the continued and unceasing growth of the national government into more and more channels farther and farther away from the original intent of the Constitution. This led to an ideological split in “conservatism:” so-called “neo-conservatives” and “paleo-conservatives.”

Neo-conservatives, for obvious reasons, should not be allowed the moniker “conservative.” There’s nothing conservative about them; or, if there happens to be vestiges of conservatism left in them, it is merely used as bargaining positions in the act of compromise. Neo-conservatives are, in all actuality, democrats or centrists, the term we’ll use for what I would call “compromising conservatives.”

Paleo-conservatives got their unflattering name in order to imply that their ideas are somehow anachronistic. However, this fails to take into account that paleo-cons have the most defensible political position in the world: they simply believe in the rule of law. The supreme law in this country is the US Constitution, which has a threefold advantage: it allows for strong and efficient national government, it allows for individual liberty, and it allows for self-government in the form of the states. You can’t argue with the law. Or, rather, you shouldn’t, but most do, especially in the other wing of the “conservative” movement. Paleo-conservatives are in actuality Constitutionalists, believers in law and order, individual liberty, states’ rights, and, believe or not, a strong Federal government within the bounds it has been given. It is tempting to refer to them as true conservatives, but I’d like to dissociate them from the Congress of Vienna and the dynastic regimes that gave birth to the term conservative and look at them as a uniquely American brand of politico.

And, now, the other side. Liberal, adjective:

“2. politics progressive politically or socially: favoring gradual reform, especially political reforms that extend democracy, distribute wealth more evenly, and protect the personal freedom of the individual.”

That’s all well and good, except for the fact that term liberal self-contradicts in its own definition. You can’t have government involvement (reform, distribution of wealth) and protect the freedom of the individual (another definition includes the line “[using] government power to promote social progress”). If you set out with a contradiction, your ideas are meaningless and nonsense. Liberals are actually socialists, and this is what they believe:

“1. political system of communal ownership: a political theory or system in which the means of production and distribution are controlled by the people and operated according to equity and fairness rather than market principles.”

The only way such a system could be brought about would be for the government to extend its hand into the affairs of business and society to tone down capitalism and widen the political base by extended suffrage and unchecked immigration. Income taxes and business regulations resulting in fines allow the government to take that money and redistribute it to the lower rungs of society, allowing the people greater control over the means of production through elections which promote anti-business elected officials.

Note that the ones not defending your God-given rights are the ones given nice-sounding names. So-called conservatives are protecting your values, liberals are making the world a better place, and neither are actually doing either, because words have no meaning in today’s political climate. The ones actually promoting freedom and traditional values are given a name implying that they’re a bunch of cavemen. Words have meaning, and no group of words has more meaning than the ones assembled in the US Constitution. Politics in this country has moved so far off-base that even those words begin to lose their meaning. That makes me angry. It should make you angry, too.

NB, for our readers

2005-01-24T02:19:00.001-05:00

Over at http://www.flynnfiles.com/ , scroll down to the entry for January 18th. James entered us in their "Best Blog" contest and the voting isn't really inviting a huge turnout. We want to get our name out there early, so go, and leave a comment, telling them the The Last Angry Men gets your vote. Just a few of us could be able to overturn the thing.

Thanks in advance.

An Academic Treatment of the American-Israeli Alliance

2005-12-16T18:22:00.000-05:00

We haven't given up on this, James and I. How people find time to "blog" on a daily basis, I'll never know. I was working full-time with Mathematica Policy Research out of Princeton, NJ in the spring and summer and now am back in college, at the University of Richmond. To give you a sample of what we work on in our daily lives, I'll present you with a paper I turned in which shows how our values permeate every aspect of what we do. The following was written for a public policy class. It's long--but I'd like to think it's worth a glance.
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With Friends Like These: A Re-thinking of the Israeli-American Relationship
By Anthony G. Galasso, Jr.

Introduction and Overview

American foreign policy in the Middle East is multi-faceted, involving a wide range of interests and dangers that need to be kept balanced in order to protect American national interests. The two major American interests in the Middle East are both fundamental and dire. They are national security and economic security: security against those in the region that undertake violent reprisals against America’s advancement of its interests; and security to keeping the oil flowing which runs through the veins of the American economy itself. In such a precarious situation, any matter of policy that hurts the United States in the region should be examined and reconsidered. To determine which initiatives are beneficial, and which are harmful, none should be spared from close scrutiny. The stakes are too high and the risk too great to continue along any course which endangers the balance that protects these vital American interests.

The United States’ longstanding policy of support for the State of Israel is one that requires such an examination. The alliance between the two nations has made itself open to criticism on several points. First, there is the fact that the United States is the primary arbitrator in the dispute between the Palestinians and the Israelis over the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and some view America’s relationship with Israel as rendering the impartiality necessary in such a role impossible. In addition, Arab resentment against Israel caused by that conflict is seen to lead to a “linking” of the United States with Israel, forcing the United States to bear a larger brunt of the hostility directed towards Israel in the region. Finally, there is also the argument that the alliance has become one-sided; Israel’s strategic importance has lessened since the end of the Cold War, continuing to arm the Israelis causes only instability in the region, which exacts to high of a cost for the United States in the context of American national security.

The Existence of American-Israeli Linkage

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Robert Malley, the Middle East Program Director of the International Crisis Group, summed up the problems the relationship between America and Israel has posed for America in the Arab world. In his eyes, America is hurt by “the perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the perpetuation of the perception, right or wrong, of excessive U.S. disengagement and excessive U.S. bias¹.” In other words, the failure of the United States to broker a lasting peace between Palestine and Israel has led to widespread resentment among Arabs, fuelled by an idea it is America’s favoritism towards Israel that has stalled Palestine’s attempts at freedom.

Malley is not alone in these assessments. Mahmood Monshipouri, chairman of the political science department at Quinnipiac University voiced similar concerns in a paper detailing what he termed the “paradoxes” of American foreign policy in the Arab world². The breed of radical Islam that the United States finds itself at war with currently has its roots in Arab defeats at the hands of Israelis in wars in which Israel was the recipient of vast amounts of American aid³. This extreme religious and political ideology is only intensified by what is seen as “contradictory U.S. diplomacy” in mediating between Israel and Palestine, where the failure of the peace process has created “enormous credibility problems for the United States”⁴. It appears to be the case that, due to American support for Israel, the United States is abetting the Palestinians’ plight while attempting to free them⁵. American stature in the region is wounded by forcing allied Arab nations, for instance the Gulf States and Egypt, to be silently complicit in this “double standard.”⁶ The difficulty is summed up by Monshipouri thusly: “With the United States playing the dual role of principal mediator of the conflict as well as [that of] the chief diplomatic, financial and military supporter of Israeli occupation forces, U.S. policy is mired in contradiction.”⁷

A Pew Research Center poll of “influential people in politics, media, business, culture and government” from around the world, including Islamic and Middle Eastern countries, seems to show that these views are widespread. 95% said “yes” when asked “Has the United States been too supportive of Israel?” 57% considered US support for Israel a major reason for dislike of America in their respective countries, while 33% considered it a minor reason⁸.

This linking of American and Israeli interests in the Arab mind jeopardizes other American initiatives in the region. In September of 2005, Pakistan and Israel held their first formal talks in history when Khurshid Kasuri, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan met Silvan Shalom, the Israeli Foreign Minister, in Turkey. What would seem to be a major step forward has caused civil unrest in Pakistan. Quasi Hussain Ahmed, the head of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the main opposition group to General Pervez Musharraf’s Pakistani government, publicly called for the “overthrow [of] the Musharraf government.” Another MMA leader warned that “steps taken towards recognition of Israel will be stopped by force.” Most troubling to American interests, however, is the fact that a protest against Israel sparked by Pakistan opening up diplomatically towards Israel doubled as a protest against the United States. American and Israeli flags were burned together. As protestors claimed “Israelis are murderers of Palestinians” and that “[t]he meeting was an insult to the sentiments of 150 million people in Pakistan,” Musharraf was denounced as a “stooge of…President George [W.] Bush,” and protesters maintained “[f]riends of Jews are foes of Muslims.”⁹

The confusing of the United States and Israel in the public mind in a place like Pakistan is dangerous. The United States has become increasingly reliant on Pakistan’s cooperation in its efforts to destroy global terrorism. To potentially lose Pakistan’s cooperation as a result of a wave of popular resentment would be a major setback; to have it happen due to Israeli actions where America and Israel have become inseparable in the public mindset is far worse. America’s position is tenuous enough in places like Pakistan due to the “war on terror;” the United States needs to be mindful of policy decisions which would make it even more precarious than it already is.

These opinions do not necessarily indicate that there is actually a double standard in American policy; they do, however, demonstrate that American efforts to promote peace in the Middle East are having the opposite of their intended affect. Instead of mitigating radical Islam, American policy is giving it strength. Why have the fortunes of Israel and the United States become so closely tied together in the Middle East? In order to answer that question, a deeper look at the American-Israeli alliance is in order.

The American-Israeli Alliance

The growth of the ties between the United States and Israel has been termed as moving “from handshake to embrace.”¹⁰. At the outset, the United States kept its distance from Israel, but beginning in the 1960s America began to offer military aid and view Israel as a strategic asset. By 1976, Israel was the largest recipient of American aid worldwide. In 1987, Israel was declared a “major non-NATO ally.”¹¹ Today the relationship is as strong as ever. What prompted this massive American investment in Israel? What value does the United States see in maintaining this alliance? And, are the answers to the previous questions still relevant in the face of a changing world?

Israel has, since the beginning of its existence, has depended on foreign aid for its national defense and sought a relationship with the United States¹². The United States hesitated in the first decade of Israel’s existence to deal them arms directly¹³. Mordechai Gazit, a Fellow of the Harry S Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace and the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at Hebrew University, relates an exchange between Prime Minister David Ben Gurion of Israel and American President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1955 and 1956, following the Egyptian arms deal with the Soviet Union. Ben Gurion directly asked for American arms, fearing a tipping of the balance of power with the new influx of Soviet weaponry into Egypt and that a lack of American aid would “leave Israel without adequate capacity for its self defence [sic]”¹⁴. Eisenhower refused, stating that “[w]e are trying to prevent an arms race in the region.” Eisenhower believed that Israel, because of its size and position, should not seek military equity with its Arab neighbors, but rather peace¹⁵. In response, Israel “completely rejected [Eisenhower’s] analysis” and sought a country who would sell them arms; they eventually reached an agreement with France that would last for a decade¹⁶. Gazit considers this episode to be “forgotten,” and with the changes that would come in the United States’ treatment of Israel, he would seem to be correct¹⁷.

The coming of the 1960s saw the United States change from a policy preventing arms races in the Middle East, to a policy of arms balance¹⁸. The change came with the Presidency of John F. Kennedy, who made the first direct arms sale to Israel in 1962¹⁹. Kennedy was also the first one to speak of a “special relationship” between the United States and Israel, making the claim to Golda Meir in 1962 “that in case of an invasion, the US would come to the support of Israel.”²⁰

Between 1962 and 1973, three important events would cement the newfound American-Israeli “special” relationship. First, in 1967, France would terminate arms sales to Israel, and Israel would prevail in the Six Day War. American military support to Israel increased 450% in the next year²¹. In 1970, the “Black September” crisis occurred in Jordan, which is considered the time Israel “proved its worth” to the United States²². Black September occurred when fighting broke out in Jordan between Palestinians there and the Jordanian army. Israel claimed at the time that Syria had invaded Jordan to aid the Palestinians. They were prepared to invade Jordan to repel the Syrians, but in the end the Jordanians prevailed²³. Israeli leaders such as the late Yitzhak Rabin claimed credit in preserving the Jordanian regime and proving to the United States that they and Israel had a common interest in the region²⁴. However, former US Ambassador to Qatar and political and economic consultant Andrew I. Killgore counters that claim. According to Killgore, Israel actually “did nothing” during the Black September crisis, and that the reaction of the United States was not so much gratitude, but fear that Israel would, in President Richard Nixon’s own words, “have demolished the Syrians and gone right on to Damascus.”²⁵ Still, Israel became to be seen as a “means to combat Soviet influence in [the] Arab world.”²⁶

Finally, in 1973, the third and strongest bond between Israel and the United States was formed in the Yom Kippur War. A surprise attack by Syria and Egypt took a heavy toll on Israeli forces, who were caught unaware and found to have severe strategic disadvantages in terms of manpower and readiness²⁷. President Nixon, to counter Soviet aid to Egypt and Syria, had American forces stationed in Europe open an “air bridge” to strengthen Israel.²⁸ Israel was bolstered enough to reverse their fortunes and eventually secured victory. During the Yom Kippur War, military aid from the United States to Israel increased 800%.²⁹ The commitment to Israel became a contentious issue, both because of the cost to American taxpayers and because of growing “Arab resentment over favoritism towards Israel.”³⁰ As Killgore phrases it, a “pattern” began to emerge: “Israeli ‘victories’ were being won at ever increasing cost to the United States.”³¹

Since 1976, Israel has been the largest recipient of aid from the United States, despite the fact that the amount of aid has tapered off slightly since it peaked at 4 billion dollars under the Carter administration in 1979³². The planned foreign operations spending bill for the fiscal year 2006, approved by the House and soon to pass the Senate, would include 2.3 billion dollars for Israel³³. To contrast, Egypt would receive $1.3 billion from the bill; Afghanistan, $430 million; Pakistan, $300 million; and the West Bank and Gaza Strip $150 million, which would not go directly to the Palestinian Authority but rather towards US Agency for International Development concerns.³⁴

In this thirty year time span, the United States and Israel have developed mutual strategic initiatives and held joint military maneuvers. American economic assistance to Israel was converted from grants to loans in 1981, Israel was named the “largest foreign participant” in President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, and in 1989 the United States agreed to keep a stockpile of military supplies available to Israel in the event of a crisis³⁵. In 2005, looking forward, not much has changed. President George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004 was hailed by Israeli newspapers: “The Friend Stays On,” and “Bush is Good For Israel” headlines read, and the opinion in the press seemed confident that “[t]he president will continue back up Israel’s military moves in the territories and supporting Sharon’s disengagement plan.”³⁶ Israel also sees America’s longstanding criticism of Iran as favorable, since Israel considers Iran its greatest threat in the Middle East.³⁷ President Bush seems to be on the same page. On February 18, 2005, the Daily Telegraph in London reported that when asked if he would support Israeli attempts to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, Bush answered:

“Clearly, if I was the leader of Israel and I’d listening to some of the statements by the Iranian ayatollahs that regarded the security of my country, I’d be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon as well. And in that Israel is our ally, and in that we’ve made a very strong commitment to support Israel, we will support Israel if her security is threatened.”³⁸

As different as the world is in 2005 when compared to 1976, one thing that has not changed is America’s commitment to Israel. Even with the end of the Cold War and the change of American worries in the Middle East from being caused by aggressive Arab nationalism to the threat of sub-national religion-inspired terrorism, the course of history and the stance of the current administration do not seem to indicate that any reduction in American support is forthcoming. With the violent ramifications of the linkage of America and Israel so readily apparent in the Islamic world, it comes time to take a look at this “special relationship” in another context.

The Question of National Security

At this point, it is apparent that in the Islamic world, America and Israel are seen as one and the same, with a common interest and common goals that are widely considered injurious to Arab and Muslim interests. This view comes from over 40 years of American support for Israel, which has only ever increased during that span of time. Even if the monetary figure of actual aid given was reduced, as it was in the early eighties, the level of military investment and the extent to which Israel’s existence was a priority for the United States reasonably justifies the opinion that where and when Israel moves, the United States moves also. However, the world is a very different place now than when the Israeli-American relationship began. The Soviet Union is no longer there to funnel arms to Arab states. With the overthrow of the Iraqi government, Israel no longer faces a conventional military threat from an Arab neighbor. The problem, for both Israel and the United States, involves sub-national terrorist groups who use unconventional warfare to further intermingled political and religious goals. The power of these groups is such that they’ve struck American interests worldwide, most dramatically on American soil itself. The question that American foreign policymakers should ask themselves is: with the world as different as it is now, and with the United States facing the threats it does, is the relationship with Israel worth the investment, when viewed in terms of our national security?

Indeed, some critics would argue that the United States has always put more into the alliance than it has received in return. There has often been tumult between Israel and the United States. In the fight for Israeli independence, the Soviet Union, and not the United States, was Israel’s first target for an arms supplier. Israel triumphed in large part to arms procured from Soviet satellite Czechoslovakia. In the words of historians Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley, “Israel was born, thanks in large part to Russian military support and American negotiating skill.”³⁹Russian support for Israel would be sacrificed within the decade when Nasser’s Egypt became the Soviet Union’s foothold in the Middle East.⁴⁰ In 1967, during the Six Day War, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, which was in international waters off the coast of Gaza. Thirty-four sailors were killed, and 174 others were wounded. Israel claimed they mistook the ship for an Egyptian ship and that the ship was inside of the war zone, claims that are disputed by the surviving sailors themselves and government officials such as former Secretary of State Dean Rusk⁴¹. Also, in the late seventies and early eighties, Israel repeatedly used weapons sold to them by the United States for defensive purposes in offensive operations, in violation of US law: in Lebanon in 1978, 1979, and 1982, and against an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.⁴² More recently, the United States has been put in the awkward position of having to allow Israel to act in violation of UN Security Council resolutions while at the same time attempting to uphold them by force in places such as Iraq⁴³. In all cases, however, the United States did not allow these difficulties to prevent the relationship from growing. The importance which the United States has placed in Israel throughout the years has allowed Israel a degree of American indulgence few other nations enjoy.

The net effect of this deep but troubling relationship has been threats against American security, both in terms of safety and economics. The oil producing nations of the Middle East, whom the United States depends on for energy and who depend on the United States for defense, are faced with populations who see the Palestinian struggle as their own and are fiercely anti-Israeli. Also, American policy towards Israel since the Kennedy administration has focused on arms balance between Israel and its Arab neighbors. However, with the changes that have occurred since that time, that arms buildup has actually contributed to instability in the region. Arms sales, both to Israel and Arab states, has militarized the region and stifled democratic change by reinforcing power-driven regimes⁴⁴. Now that Israel stands alone in terms of conventional military might, the Israeli nuclear arsenal, unacknowledged officially but believed to exist, has served as a pretext for other states to develop weapons of mass destruction to counter, such as Iran and previously Iraq⁴⁵. In short, the American bolstering of Israel has caused two major threats to two fundamental foreign policy goals: national security is threatened by the unrest, instability, and militarization of the region, and economic security is threatened by the precarious position of the oil states, caught between the pro-Israel United States and their anti-Israel populations.

Conclusion and Recommendations

In short, the United States’ long and checkered history with Israel has jeopardized our interests in the region and threatened our national security. President Eisenhower’s “forgotten” recommendation to avoid a Middle Eastern arms race—forgotten certainly by Israel and Eisenhower’s successors—seems to take on new relevance in the current context.

What can be done? Total abandonment of Israel would be an unwise and shortsighted solution. The immediate answer for the United States is to bring about a fair, equitable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recognized this in a February 2004 Senate hearing on the Israeli peace process entitled The Middle East: Rethinking the Road Map :

Conflict in the Middle East is one of our most intractable foreign policy problems. It has brought not only bloodshed and suffering to the people of Israel and Palestine, it has contributed to the poisoned ideology of radical Islamic extremists who have perpetuated terrorist acts on people in countries all over the world. American national security would be dramatically improved by the achievement of an Arab-Israeli peace agreement.⁴⁶

Mahmood Monshipouri agrees, not just in terms of national security, but also in terms of economic security: “Many oil experts concur that the best way to preserve stability would be to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”⁴⁷

What can be done that has not been attempted before? Robert Malley put a new direction in his testimony before the Senate on the future of the “Road Map to Peace” between Israel and Palestine. He places the blame for failures to broker peace in the conflict as due to a “lack of engagement” and a “lack of resolve.” This peace process should become America’s number one foreign policy priority. First, the United States and Israel would not be making the decisions alone, but in concert with Arab leadership and the European Union. They will collaborate in a plan that will not attempt to bring about peace in incremental steps, as has already been done, but within a larger framework with definite goals that would be publicly supported by Arab leadership. From there, mutual security guarantees from Palestine and Israel would be given to the multi-national group. This group will then oversee the transfer of power to the Palestinians and ensure a orderly exit of Israeli forces. This would prevent the shock and disorder than an immediate withdrawal and turnover to the Palestinian Authority would create. And third, and most crucially, the plan would be submitted to both the Israelis and the Palestinians in a referendum, as both parties have come to accept the two-state solution.⁴⁸

Malley goes on to add that a change in Palestinian leadership should not be a condition of any peace plan. Also, the territory allotted to the Palestinians needs to be contiguous and enough to make a viable state. The Palestinian authority would have to guarantee security during Israeli pull-outs, and Israel should not make up for land lost in Gaza with harsh countermeasures in the West Bank.⁴⁹

Malley’s plan is important because it includes measures that have been lacking in previous attempts in the peace process: first, it brings in Arab and European states to minimize the stigmatized appearance of the United States and Israel existing in opposition to the Arab world and Europe. Second, it allows for Palestinian popular sovereignty and legitimacy of Palestinian leadership, making it seem like a truly impartial, mutually achieved agreement. Third, it includes the support of Arab leadership, which will increase the legitimacy of the plan among the Arab people, who are extremely sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. And, fourth, and most importantly, Israel would be restrained from repressive security measures and attempts at land grabs from Palestinian territories, which fuel Palestinian unrest, thanks to international guarantees.

The plan would require a serious commitment of American patience and diplomatic effort, but the potential for a peaceful and just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would improve the United States’ position in the region, by reducing the plight of the Palestinians and restoring some measure of credibility to American diplomacy. It would be much more beneficial for American security and economic interests than the status quo ever has been or ever will be.

In the long run, the best course of action for American foreign policy in the United States would be a reappraisal of our relationship with Israel. The principle behind it would be undoing the years of arms buildup, and focusing on equity in terms of prosperity instead of armaments. Of the $2.3 billion that will be appropriated to Israel in 2006, $240 million of it consists of purely economic assistance. By contrast, of the $1.3 billion that will be given to Egypt, $495 million will be purely economic assistance.⁵⁰ Israel receives more money for its military, while Egypt receives a greater share for economics. If future foreign policy focused on reducing military aid while sustaining or increasing limits of economic aid, three positives would occur: first, Israel would lose its position as the largest recipient of American aid due to reasons of need alone. This would weaken negative American-Israeli linkage while at the same time in no way constituting an abandonment of Israel. Second, Arab nations would receive aid based on their great need, increasing Arab prosperity through American investment while at the same time reducing the arms buildup in the region. Third, the overall cost to the American tax payer would be reduced, while at the same time the amount of funding being devoted to positive ends is increased. America will no longer be spending vast amounts of money simply to endanger itself.

In short, Israel was seen as a means to an end: to serve as a counterbalance in the region to Soviet arms and Arab nationalism. However, as Israel grew, strengthened by a singular outpouring of American aid over the course of decades, it became too powerful and ended up tipping the balance of power in its favor after initially being seen as disadvantaged. The price of Israel’s success has been high for the United States, both monetarily and in terms of prestige and security in the Middle East. The cost is simply too much as far as America’s national security is concerned. The world has changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War and policy needs to be able to adapt. The lessons learned from the American-Israeli experience should be that promoting regional stability through an arms race has backfired. The initial goal of American policy in the region, peaceful co-habitation, should be revisited. To do so would create a better life for all parties involved, and contribute more in terms of security and success to American interests. America’s wealth and influence could very easily serve as a peacemaker, instead of an arms dealer. While this shift will require a new redoubling of effort and many risks, our national security is too important to continue gambling on the status quo.
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Notes:

1. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee of Foreign Relations, Hearing on the Middle East: Rethinking the Road Map, Panel Two, 108^th Cong., 2^nd sess., 2004. Lexis-Nexis Academic (29 November 2005).

2. Mahmood Monshipouri, “The Paradoxes of U.S. Policy in the Middle East,” Middle East Policy 9, no. 3 (2002): 65. Expanded Academic ASAP, InfoTrac (29 November 2005).

3. Monshipouri, 67.

Andrew I. Killgore, “Israel: No Strategic Asset,” Journal of Palestine Studies 14, no. 2 (1985): 223. JSTOR (29 November 2005).

Martha Wenger, “US Aid to Israel: From Handshake to Embrace,” Middle East Report, no. 164/165 (1990): 14-15. JSTOR (29 November 2005).

4. Monshipouri, 67-68.

5. Monshipouri, 68-69.

6. Monshipouri, 68.

7. Monshipouri, 69.

8. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Has the United States been too supportive of Israel or don’t you think so?” Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 19 December 2001. Polling the Nations, (29 November 2005).

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Do you think each of the following is a major reason, a minor reason, or not much of a reason that some people in our country dislike the US? Support of Israel,” Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 19 December 2001. Polling the Nations, (29 November 2005).

9. Agence France Presse, “US and Israeli Flags Torched in Pakistan Protests over Bilateral Talks,” Agence France Presse—English, 2 September 2005. Lexis Nexis Academic (1 December 2005).

10. Wenger, 14.

11. Wenger, 14-15.

12. Mordechai Gazit, “The Genesis of the US-Israeli Military Strategic Relationship and the Dimona Issue,” Journal of Contemporary History 35, no. 3 (2000), 413. JSTOR (29 November 2005).

13. Wenger, 14.

14. Gazit, 413.

15. Gazit, 413-414.

16. Gazit, 414.

17. Gazit, 413.

18. Gazit, 414.

19. Wenger, 14.

20. Gazit, 414-415.

21. Wenger, 14.

22. Wenger, 14.

Killgore, 223.

23. Killgore, 223-224.

24. Killgore, 224.

25. Killgore, 224.

26. Wenger, 14.

27. Killgore, 222-223

28. Encylopaedia Britannica, online ed., s.v. “Israel.” Encyclopaedia Britannica Online <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-219432> (1 December 2005).

Killgore, 222-223.

29. Wenger, 14.

30. Killgore, 223.

31. Killgore, 223.

32. Wenger, 14.

33. Marty Speck, “Senate Set to Clear Foreign Operations,” CQ Weekly, November 2004. Lexis-Nexis Academic (30 November 2005).

34. Speck.

35. Wenger, 15.

36. Agence France Presse, “Israeli Press Hails Election Victory for Close Friend Bush,” Agence France Presse—English, 4 November 2005. Lexis Nexis Academic (1 December 2005).

37. Agence France Presse, “Israeli Press.”

38. Francis Harris, “America Would Back Israeli Attack on Iran,” London Daily Telegraph, 18 February 2005, 16. Lexis-Nexis Academic (1 December 2005).

39. Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (New York: Penguin, 1997), 100-101.

40. Ambrose and Brinkley, 157-158.

41. Jim Ennes and Joe Meadors, USS Liberty Memorial, 2005, (1 December 2005).

42. Wenger, 14-15.

43. Monshipouri, 72.

44. Monshipouri, 73.

45. Monshipouri, 74.

46. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee of Foreign Relations, Hearing on the Middle East: Rethinking the Road Map, Panel One, 108^th Cong., 2^nd sess., 2004. Lexis-Nexis Academic (29 November 2005).

47. Monshipouri, 70.

48. U.S. Congress, Panel Two.

49. “Statement of Robert Malley, Middle East and North African Program Director, International Crisis Group,” Hearing on the Middle East: Rethinking the Road Map, 108^th Cong., 2^nd sess., 2004. Lexis-Nexis Academic (29 November 2005).

50. Speck.

The Gonzales Nomination, Part I

2005-01-31T23:48:00.000-05:00

Despite a contentious confirmation hearing, all indications point towards, Alberto Gonzales, President Bush’s nominee for attorney general (and by the way, in case you missed the 31,527 mentions of this fact in the press, the first Hispanic to be nominated to the post and a veritable minority “conservative” supreme if you listen to Sean Hannity) being confirmed by the United States Senate sometime this week.

Gonzales’ nomination has stirred controversy on both the right and left.

Conservatives and pro-lifers have focused on a ruling made by Gonzales while he was on the Texas Supreme Court that allowed a 17-year-old girl to get an abortion without notifying her parents in spite of a Texas parental notification law. This decision seems consistent with Joseph Farah’s claim that Gonzales believes the Constitution is a “living document” – words often used by lawyers and judges who have sought to use the judiciary to impose a social agenda on the American people.

A point of history seemingly lost on conservatives who support Gonzales’ confirmation is the instrumental role he played in shaping the Administration’s position on two of the most important cases involving affirmative action/racial preferences in recent years – cases involving the University of Michigan undergraduate (Gratz v. Bollinger) and law school (Grutter v. Bollinger) admissions system. Gratz held that race preferences were illegal because “the procedures employed by the University of Michigan’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions do not provide for a meaningful individualized review of applicants.” Whereas, in Grutter the Court found that the law school’s method of review does provide an individualized review process and therefore validated giving minorities preferential treatment on the basis of the “compelling state interest of diversity”. Stripped of its rhetorical veneer the Court essentially struck down a rigid quota system while providing a nod and a wink to the policy of university administrators who are allowed to discriminate against better-qualified white applicants in the service of a loosely defined social engineering objective.

The President’s response?

I applaud the Supreme Court for recognizing the value of diversity on our Nation's campuses. Diversity is one of America's greatest strengths.

So where does Gonzales fit into all of this? According to CNN’s Robert Novak, the Bush Administration, led by Solicitor General Ted Olson, originally planned to file a brief opposing any consideration of race by public universities, that is, before Gonzales intervened:

Gonzales, who has publicly supported racial preferences, revised the petition. Accepted by the president, it advocates the desirability of government-sponsored diversity if achieved short of quotas.

In other words, the legal reasoning put forth by the Court in Grutter is totally congruent with Gonzales’ legal philosophy on this matter. The entire tale of how Bush and his advisors were able to skillfully appease the Republican Party’s conservative wing by denouncing “quotas” while simultaneously assenting to Gonzales’ tortured (no pun intended) Constitutional argument, which essentially allows for what amounts to a stealth quota is intriguing and I will not attempt to rehash it here. Suffice it to say, the President’s handling of the affirmative action cases and his choice for attorney general provide two more examples amongst a litany of betrayals of his conservative base.

Part II: Gonzales, Torture, and the Constitution

Reagan Contra Lincoln - and Harry Jaffa

2005-07-25T14:12:00.000-04:00

Professor Thomas J. DiLorenzo calls it "Lincoln's Specatular Lie" - Abraham Lincoln's claim that the states do not possess sovereignty because the federal government preceeded and therefore created the states. In reality, the exact opposite is true: the states preceeded and created the Union.

With the Declaration of Independence - which DiLorenzo correctly describes as a declaration of secession from the British Empire - the thirteen colonies seceded as individual states. This sovereignty was later affiirmed in the precursor to the Constitution - the Articles of Confederation, a governing system created by the thirteen states for their common defense.

In ratifying the Constitution itself, the states entered the compact individually. Morton Borden, editor of a 1965 edition of the Antifederalist papers claims that "the people" of the states as a whole ratified the Constitution and that it was the intent of the Framers to establish a "sovereign whole" separate from the thirteen states. However, this runs against the original understanding entirely, as DiLorenzo documents:

No less a figure than James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, explained in Federalist 39 that the Constitution as to be ratified by the people "not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong" (emphasis added).

Lincoln admirer and neoconservative Harry Jaffa of the Claremont Institute has fashioned a career out of perpetuating Lincoln's logic and the concept of "secession as treason" in general.

In the midst of the War in Iraq, neoconservatives like Jaffa have invoked the name of Ronald Reagan to justify our war of "global democratic revolution," implying that the Gipper would have supported such an attack. When folks like Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes trot out this point on Fox News it is never challenged - not that that this is surprising considering the utter lack of right-leaning voices on Fox that aren't neoconservatives.

While the late President Reagan has been recast in the popular mind - particulary among young conservatives - as a full-fledged neoconservative, it is interesting to note that Reagan disagreed with Lincoln - and by extension Harry Jaffa - about what (the states or the federal government) created what first. In his First Inaugural Address, Reagan declared explicitly:

It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government. (emphasis mine)

There you have it: Reagan contra Lincoln - and Jaffa.

The Jury is Still Out on John Roberts and Other Court Thoughts

2005-07-21T15:23:00.000-04:00

Perhaps out of relief that President Bush did not nominate someone like Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, conservatives throughout the country seem to be in a state of euphoria over the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. Alas, celebration to me, at this point, seems premature.

Those who hope to overturn Roe v. Wade have latched onto a legal brief Roberts signed off on as a member of George H. W. Bush's Administration to argue that the pro-life movement should throw their lot in behind the nomination. However, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2003, Roberts dutifully pledged to uphold the Roe precedent saying, "Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. ... There's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent." In light of this evidence, my friend Aakash Raut, prudently argues for conservatives to proceed with caution:

Whoa there - Let's slow down, guys...
The thing is, I don't recall having heard of Judge Roberts before tonight. And I know I'm not the only one... Many of his positions are unknown, especially since he doesn't have very many of his views on the official record. He did inveigh against Roe, but only as a representative of his then-client, the Bush 41 administration. Same goes for his filing in favor of the Playboy Channel's First Amendment "rights." I just saw the interim president of Planned Parenthood on Scarborough Country, who said: "This may surprise you, but we're [not taking a position on Roberts]"... They just don't know enough about him. Neither do we.
I think that conservatives need to be very careful before getting excited about this nominee... And we have to be wary of basing our reactions to his nomination upon the fact that liberals will be opposing him.

Despite the intense protest coming from the likes of the National Abortion Rights Action League, raising the specter of Roberts joining a Court majority that would overturn Roe, all evidence points to that decision remaining a staple of American law for many years to come. Assuming - and that is a very large and completely unsubstantiated assumption at this point - that Roberts would vote to overturn Roe, a 5-4 pro-Roe majority consisting of Justices Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter, Kennedy, and Breyer would still reign.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the entire controversy surrounding the Court is how accepted the philosophy of judicial supremacy has become in American politics. Specifically, I'm referring to the concept - popular on the right and left - of appealing to the Court as the highest authority in the land on Constitutional issues. Want to strike a blow for the pro-life movement? Do you oppose affirmative action? How do you feel about the use of medical marijuana? All you have to do is get the right people on the Supreme Court to have your political views imposed on the entire country.

For more than thirty years now, conservatives have adopted a strategy of "capturing the Court" to rescind the advances of a cultural revolution hostile to traditional morality and the Christian religion in particular. They have marched hand-in-hand with the Republican Party, donated large amounts of time and money to the partisan cause, and urged the election of GOP presidents in the hope overturning decisions like Roe. What has it gotten them? A Court - 7 of 9 justices of which were appointed by Republicans - that rules in favor of race preferences in the name of "diversity," overturns state sodomy laws, and is generally deferential to federal power.

"American conservatism is a failure," wrote the late Dr. Sam Francis in his 1993 book Beautiful Losers. "Virtually every cause to which conservatives have attached themselves for the past three generations has been lost, and the tide of political and cultural is not likely to anytime soon." Twelve years hence, it is difficult to look back and not agree with Dr. Francis' assessment. One of the biggest reasons for this failure - particularly the failure of cultural conservatives - is the Court takeover strategy.

The startling fact is that Congress, under Article III Section 2 of the Constitution, has the power to overturn Roe v. Wade by simply asserting its authority to limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. This would, in effect, return the issue of abortion to where it was decided from the founding of the country to 1973 - to the people of the several states. Adopting a strategy of persuading the Congress to exercise this power would be infinitely more wise and efficient than playing the Supreme Court game.

Benedict XVI on War

2005-04-30T21:14:00.000-04:00

Due to academic obligations, I have not had an opportunity to post here in a good while. The school year is winding down and only final exams stand between myself and summer.

On April 23, I submitted the following letter to the editor of Raleigh's News and Observer regarding an article by the American Enterprise Institute's pro-Iraq war Catholic theologian Michael Novak:

Michael Novak is partially correct when he writes that the label of “neoconservative” is a “peculiar” one for Pope Benedict XVI. Inactuality, Cardinal Ratzinger’s views on issues of war and peace arediametrically opposed to an ideology that calls for a “global democratic revolution” brought about by the force of American arms.

During the run-up to the Iraq war, Novak and fellow neoconservative William Bennett traveled to the Vatican in an attempt to sway Rome from its opposition to the US invasion. Their arguments were heard and politely rejected. Pope John Paul II went on to call the war “a defeat for humanity” drawing the ire of neoconservative websites and publications. Cardinal Ratzinger also spoke out against the Iraq war; forcefully arguing that it did not meet the “just war” criterion enunciated by the Christian church from Augustine to Aquinas.

Ratzinger, as Novak correctly points out, is no theological "liberal." Benedict XVI's theology is a classical conservative one, not only on right to life issues, but also on war in particular. Ratzinger's choice of naming himself after Benedict XV who urged for a peaceful and immediate end to another war "to make the world safe for democracy” (a crusade, I might add, that was thoroughly supported by promulgators of the "social gospel" and many within liberal Christianity in general) further demonstrates the new pope’s dedication to the historic principles of the Christian church in the face of calls from Novak and his ideological ilk to recognize the “new paradigm” brought about by 9/11. To America’s slide towards aggressive, pre-emptive, and perpetual war the Vatican has shouted, “halt!” One can only hope that all Christians, particularly "conservative" ones, take notice.

(Update: The News and Observer ran this letter on May 2)

Fleming Takes Notice

Thomas Fleming, author of The New Dealers' War among other titles and one of my favorite historians is one of a few who has tried to bring attention to Ratzinger's choice of papal name. In this article, Fleming touches on the importance of Benedict XV's work to bring about an end to World War I along with the signficance of Benedict XVI's German background.

Two Year Anniversary of Firdos Square Farce

2005-04-12T11:50:00.000-04:00

Two years ago today, I was driving home, somewhere on I-440, listening to the radio when Rush Limbaugh started hailing what he described as a crowd randomly gathered in Firdos Square in Baghdad vociferously celebrating the US-led "liberation" of Iraq by toppling a statue of Saddam Hussein. The "Maha Rushie" was beside himself with praise about how the War Party had been vindicated by the jubilation of the Iraqi people.

Turns out the whole thing was a media-made farce.

As Harry Browne, a former Libertarian Party Presidential candidate writes,

[...] it was all an illusion – the kind created by the best
magicians.
There were three elements in the illusion:
1.) The statue was actually toppled by U.S. Marines using their own equipment – not by Iraqis.
2.) The Marines first draped an American flag over the statue’s face,
but then realized that this would make it too obvious that the Marines had come to occupy, not liberate, Baghdad.
3.) The square wasn’t filled with thousands of Iraqis. Only a hundred or so people witnessed the event. The few people there weren’t oppressed Iraqis – celebrating the event with joyous relief that their years-long oppression in Baghdad had ended. The people crowded around the statue were mostly members of the Iraqi National Congress – an organization of Iraqis who had been living outside Iraq, and had been flown into Iraq just before the event.

It is time to add this event to a long line of outright lies and blatant deceptions surrounding this undeclared, unconstitutional, and unjust war of "global democractic revolution."

As We Go Marching: Inauguration Reflections

2005-01-25T18:30:00.000-05:00

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. - George W. Bush, January 20, 2005

The world must be made safe for democracy.
- Woodrow Wilson, April 2, 1917

Once upon a time, there was an American Right that espoused a political philosophy rooted in a realistic view of the world predicated on an Augustinian view of human nature.

These old-style conservatives were not utopians. They were intensely skeptical of government’s ability to regenerate mankind, particularly on an international scale. They were extremely cautious in the realm of foreign policy if not downright non-interventionist. They opposed the centralized state and sought to roll back the federal leviathan while staunchly supporting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

One of the most prominent members of the Old Right was a man whose name you will not see in the pages of the National Review or hear on six hours worth of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity daily radio shows.

John T. Flynn was a political commentator, columnist, and critic of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. Perhaps best known for his role in the America First Committee, which sought to keep the United States out of World War II, Flynn was an articulate champion of the Constitution and economic freedom.

Flynn was a man who consistently put principle over politics, despite the professional and personal costs. Flynn felt the full brunt of these costs – in no small part due to his relentless criticisms of the Roosevelt Administration – when, in 1939, an outraged FDR wrote a private letter to the editor of the Yale Review describing Flynn as a “destructive rather than constructive force” whose writings “should be barred […] from any presentable daily paper, monthly magazine or national quarterly.” According to historian John Moser, Roosevelt’s request had a silencing effect as it became "clear that by late 1940 fewer and fewer of Flynn’s manuscripts were finding their way into print.” This process culminated in November 1940 when the editor of the New Republic announced that the publication would no longer carry “Other People’s Money” (Flynn’s column).

Over Christmas break I read two of Flynn’s most prominent works – As We Go Marching and The Roosevelt Myth. The latter meticulously documents FDR’s prolifigate spending, Congress’ unconstitutional $3 billion mass appropriation to be spent at the President’s leisure, Roosevelt’s war on the Supreme Court, and the use of New Deal agencies and federal money to coerce American citizens into supporting the President’s favorite political candidates.

A particularly hard-hitting facet of this book is its analysis of US foreign policy during World War II. Flynn takes us back to the writing of the much-ballyhooed (at least at the time) Atlantic Charter, a document that declared American and British support for the principle of self-determination for the small nations of the world. Within a matter of pages Flynn paints the dreary picture of the Yalta Conference, where the United States and Great Britain surrendered Poland and Eastern Europe into the hands of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. At this point, Flynn refers back to the Atlantic Chater and provides a devastating critique with the great fireside chatter’s own words.

As We Go Marching, written in 1944, is a different type of book. What makes it so effective is its historical analysis of the rise and reign of fascism in Italy and Germany in the context of the New Deal. According to Flynn, fascism in both Italy and Germany consisted of a regimen of economic planning, political centralization (particularly in the realm of the executive branch), and militarism. Flynn then points out the striking similarities between Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration and Mussolini’s cartels, Roosevelt’s wholesale disregard for the Tenth Amendment and the way in which Mussolini and Hitler ran roughshod over the jurisdictions of local communities, and the massive build-up of the warfare state in all three nations.

In the realm of foreign policy, of particular note is the chapter on American Imperialism. Flynn takes us back to the time of America’s acquisition of the Philippines, quoting large portions of the Congressional Record with Senators talking of America’s “divine mission” to spread democracy and freedom around the world (sounds familiar doesn’t it?). Flynn notes how the wisdom of our forefathers was seemingly forgotten during this entire debate – the fact that we had a Constitution, which granted the federal government a set of limited and enumerated powers (the power to “spread democracy” by force of arms is not one of them) was disregarded in the brave new world.

Flynn’s essential point is implicit within the book’s title – that as we, quite literally, went marching around the world in the name of stomping out fascism we witnessed the rise of a fascist state at home. That as we joined the noble crusade for “freedom” and “democracy” abroad those values were simultaneously damaged beyond repair on the domestic front.

This brings us to the President Bush’s Inauguration speech. The neocons, ever the admirers of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, have been beside themselves with adulation. According to National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, Bush is a “revolutionary”. Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard beams:

INFORMED BY STRAUSS and inspired by Paine, appealing to Lincoln and alluding to Truman, beginning with the Constitution and ending with the Declaration, with Biblical phrases echoing throughout -- George W. Bush's Second Inaugural was a powerful and subtle speech.

The President may have started this chilling speech with a reference to the “durable wisdom of our Constitution”, but the rest of it contradicts the wisdom of the Framers of that document. In his farewell address George Washington talked about avoiding “entangling alliances” with an emphasis on American independence. Jefferson spoke of “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” and John Quincy Adams said of America that “she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.”

According to Bush, “Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our Fathers.” Perhaps if the President considers “our Fathers” Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt, he may be on to something, yet this was not the original vision of the Founders, nor is it a conservative one.

As Pat Buchanan pointed out on last Thursday night’s Scarborough Country:

It's the defiance of the farewell address totally of George Washington about foreign entanglements, all the rest of it. John Quincy Adams said we go not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. We are the champions of freedom everywhere, but we are the vindicators only of our own. This is thrown in the trash can.

Indeed, as an exchange between a commentator on the liberal Air America radio network and Larry Kudlow, a National Review and CNBC stalwart demonstrates:

SEDER: Honestly, you know, it was President Adams who I think said America should not be going out into these foreign wars to export freedoms. We should be a beacon and a light and an example, but we shouldn't be getting involved in these type of wars. It just doesn`t work that way.

KUDLOW: Well, with respect to Washington, who I adore intellectually and morally, Washington, Adams, Jefferson and so forth weren't faced with jet fighters use as homicide bombers in a world of weapons of mass destruction. I mean, citing John Adams to me is an extreme example of pre-9/11 thinking.

To those familiar with the conservative battle against “judicial activisim”, Kudlow’s response sounds eerily familiar to the grandiose claims of liberal jurists and legal elites about a “living” or “breathing” Constitution, with provisions completely malleable to the whims of five justices on the Supreme Court.

I thought conservatives sought to preserve the principles of the past and apply them to the problems of the present. What we are engaged in presently is not a battle between whether or not historical positions will be applied to the problems of our post-9/11 world, it is a question of whose positions – those of the Framers and the Western Christian tradition, or those like the Jacobins who exalt the state and believe that all that matters is “security” and that the ends justify the means.

While the President talks incessantly of “expanding freedom” and As We Go Marching abroad, tyranny at home continues to grow while our Constitutional liberties are assailed by the Patriot Act, campaign finance reform, assault weapon bans, and nationalized education. And with both major national parties in lockstep and four more years of Mr. Bush's leadership to boot, there appears to be no end in sight.

If a shred of our Constitutional liberty, as understood by the Founders of this country, is to survive on into this century it is past time for conservatives to investigate the writings of John T. Flynn and others like him.

Hopefully, Lasting Influence is a Fitting Enough Tribute

2005-02-17T22:20:00.000-05:00

I haven’t been doing my fair share of the writing around here lately, and I’m aware of that. I’ll spare you with a drawn out apology about work schedules and my personal life and simply say that with everything going on, this venture seemed to lose a bit of importance, in the grand scheme of things.

News I received yesterday changed that opinion and made me realize how important what James and I are doing is. That news was James telling me that Sam Francis had died.

To explain why exactly someone like me would be stirred by the death of someone whom I’ve never met and only knew in the most tangential of senses, I need to revisit the death of perhaps the most prominent conservative of all time, Ronald Reagan.

I was in my car listening to the radio on New Jersey State Highway 184 heading towards my home town of Perth Amboy when I heard the news. The fact that I remember that shows that it hit me pretty quickly and at decent force. Having hardly been conscious of the world around me when he concluded his presidency, I felt slightly awkward at feeling upset over the death of a public figure. I didn’t know them personally, they knew nothing of me. Why would it be of any more than passing concern? I tried to reason this out when talking with a friend about it and I reached the following conclusion: it was so upsetting because one of the few people in the world who stood for something good is gone, and there is no replacement in sight.

The same can be said about the death of Sam Francis.

He was a rare combination of someone who was both intelligent, on target in their view of the world, aggressive in defending their position and knowing that they’re right, and completely unwilling to compromise, even in the face of repercussions. There are precious few people about whom all of the aforementioned characteristics apply.

My first exposure to his writing came when James, an avid reader of his, suggested I put him down on our YAF conference evaluation form as a speaker we’d like to see at future conferences. I balked because I was unfamiliar with him and his writing, which James supplemented by sending me some of his writing that he felt was pertinent to my views from Vdare.com. I was won over instantly and can credit Sam Francis as a very meaningful influence of the writing you’ve seen here.

Once again, one of the few people in the world who stood for something good is gone. And while no true replacement will ever really materialize, I can attest that this site will do its utmost to do what he did: portray the world as it really is, intelligently and rightly, and never once compromise in the knowledge of being in the right. The Last Angry Men could never hope to be as well versed as Sam Francis, can only dream of his success, but will always keep his message alive, and do its best to be among the few promoting the good in the world today.

The Death of the Republican Revolution

2005-02-15T12:23:00.000-05:00

In 1994, Republicans wrested control of Congress from the Democrats for the first time in generations. Running on an ambitious platform, Republicans pledged to make the federal government more fiscally accountable, reform the welfare system, pass a balanced-budget amendment, institute Congressional term limits, and generally roll back big government.

Over ten years later, many of the dreams that accompanied that political earthquake have been dashed, as a Republican President and a Republican-controlled Congress pass all sorts of entitlement programs, farm subsidies, corporate welfare, and increase the size of federal government at a rate unseen since Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society."

The New York Times had an interesting piece on this over the weekend:

If the history of the Republican revolution were being written today, a single overarching question would have to be answered: Whatever happened to the promise of smaller government?

Answer? Intimidated by the public response to the 1995 government shutdown and yearning to continue to hold the reigns of political power, the Republicans tossed the promises out the window in a proverbial orgy of spending, waste, and pork. This graphic, from the New York Times, really says it all.

Paul against the Empire

2005-02-08T00:05:00.000-05:00

Fortunately, there are still some members of Congress who truly get it - that the federal government is not omnipotent, that the Patriot Act represents a flagrant assault on the Bill of Rights, that fomenting a "democratic revolution" around the world is not one of the "limited and enumerated" powers delegated to the central state by Article I Section 8, and that the Tenth Amendment really does exist. One such member is Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx). A staunch defender of liberty under the traditional American definition, Paul is a medical doctor and was the 1988 Libertarian Party candidate for President.

On the topic of foreign policy Paul's views are in the tradition of Old Right stalwarts Garret Garrett and John T. Flynn. Adamantly non-interventionist, Paul often invokes the name George Washington when talking about the necessity of staying out of "entangling alliances" and Jefferson when advocating peace, trade, and friendship with the world's nations. Paul is one of the only members of Congress who sees the folly of the great project of "democratization" - "Democracy is not freedom," Paul writes, "Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom."

Paul opposes the war in Iraq and was one of only six GOP members of the House to vote against the resolution "authorizing the use of force" against Iraq - citing the fact that Congress illegally and unconstitutionally transferred its sole power to decide whether or not to take the nation to war to the President.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Paul even tried to bring the whole specter of "just war theory" into the debate. Arguing that the Iraq War violated the principles enunciated by St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Paul had a predictable run-in with resident Republican Party shill Sean Hannity on Fox News' debate show Hannity and Colmes:

HANNITY: [...] You have said the Christian definition of war doesn't fit in this example.

PAUL: That is correct.

HANNITY: Hang on. And you said, quote, "It says there has to be an act of aggression, and there has not been an act of aggression against the United States by Iraq." Well, by that definition, your Christian definition, I'm using your words...

PAUL: Not my Christian definition. It's been around since St.
Augustine.

HANNITY: All right, but -- but that's...

PAUL: Sean, you've got recognize that.

Well, Hannity never did, and probably never will "recognize that" - along with legions of other self-described conservatives and churchgoing "values voters" across the country. Rest assured though, they will sleep pleasantly tonight believing strongly that it doesn't matter that the war flouts these traditional concepts. You see, dear reader, all that matters now is that we're fighting for "democracy" and "freedom". The fact that this war was not legitimately declared and that Iraq was not an imminent threat to the United States doesn't mean a thing. Throw all of that out the window - the "global democratic revolution" is on the march and it does not look like its advocates will be halted by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or appeals to historic Christianity.

It's More Real than You Realize: Lynyrd Skynyrd and Conservative Pessimism

2005-02-02T08:36:00.000-05:00

James related to me an incident from a North Carolina State University College Republicans meeting he attended. He and the speaker, whom he characterized as a “pro-choice, moderate Republican,” engaged in an exchange that saw the speaker call James too “pessimistic” and too “idealistic.”

I wasn’t aware that one could be a pessimistic idealist, but as I demonstrated in my last post, words get thrown about in mainstream politics with little, if any, regard for their denotations. Connotative meaning is much more highly valued (see: War on Terror, i.e., undeclared war on an abstract concept). But, I like to respond to criticisms, so I’ll take on one of the views of that speaker.

No, it won’t be that we’re pessimists. I can’t argue that. I’m a world-class pessimist, and James still puts me to shame. Rather, I’d like to argue that we’re not really idealists.

Intellectuals can often run into a trap of being idealists. It’s not that hard; once you start dealing almost exclusively with theory and abstract concepts, it becomes too easy to structure your worldview based on them. James and I are fairly intellectual. Still, what we’re here to say isn’t idealistic; it’s simple, common-sense criticism grounded firmly in the very much real world of law and modern culture.

To show just how down to earth we are, I’m going to present to you a series of quotes demonstrating fears and concerns similar to ours from a source that could certainly not be accused of high-minded, intellectual idealism: Lynyrd Skynyrd.

For those who don’t know, Lynyrd Skynyrd is a Florida-based southern rock group that had a string of hits in the early to mid-seventies before a plane crash ended the band’s initial run. The surviving members and some replacements re-united in 1987 and the band continues to tour and release albums. Pre-1977 Skynyrd wrote songs from the perspective of young, rebellious Southerners singing about their real lives and perspectives. Indeed, some of their songs provide useful excerpts, for instance, “Things Goin’ On:”

Too many lives they've spent across the ocean.
Too much money been spent upon the moon.
Well, until they make it right,
I hope they never sleep at night.
They better make some changes,
And do it soon.

Or another, a ballad concerned with preserving the rural Southern way of life against the onslaught of urban and suburban sprawl, "All I Can Do Is Write About It:"

Do you like to see a mountain stream a-flowin'?
Do you like to see a young’un with his dog?
Did you ever stop to think about, well, the air you’re breathin'?
Well, you better listen to my song.
And Lord I can't make any changes;
All I can do is write 'em in a song.
I can see the concrete slowly creepin',
Lord take me and mine before that comes.

But for the purposes of this post, I’m more concerned with post-1987 Skynyrd. As they’ve aged, they’ve changed their tone to become a working man’s band, writing songs that would identify with their mostly older audience. The songs are mostly about workand traditional values, but they also provide a useful perspective into the working man’s fears about the world he’s living in.

For instance, take the song “All Funked Up” (“Funked” serving here as a euphemism for the “f” in “snafu"):

Tornados spinnin', I sit here grinnin';
I think we've all seen this movie before.
This is confusin', almost amusin';
It's hard to tell up and down anymore.
When did it get so crazy, how did we lose control?
Everybody’s shouting, how bad it really sucks.

Situation normal:
All funked up, We're all funked up.

We had some leaders, and they were cheaters,
But they came out smelling like a rose.
We should reject them, but we respect them
For what they do when the door is closed.
Nothing in this world a simple man can do;
Stand up and be counted, ain't you had enough?

In the same vein is “The Way:”

Well the sun don't shine where it used to,
And the angels are hidin' their heads.
People don't listen to their hearts anymore,
Seems the good men all are dead.
There ain't no right, wrong, no in between;
That ain't the constitution that they wrote for me.
Got our heads stuck in somethin' overseas,
Standin' ass-deep in hypocracy…

Why all these feelings of worry and disgust with the modern political climate? Because it offends their basic sensibilities. What are those? They’re summed up in “Red, White, and Blue:”

My Daddy worked hard, and so have I:
Paid our taxes and gave our lives
To serve this great country.
So what are they complaining about?

Yeah, we love our families, we love our kids;
You know it is love that makes us all so rich.
That's where we’re at,
If they don't like it they can just…
Get the hell out! Yeah!

My hair's turning white,
My neck's always been red,
My collar's still blue.
We've always been here,
Just trying to sing the truth to you.
Yes, you could say,
We've always been,
Red, White, and Blue.

Now, I’ve seen this version of Lynyrd Skynyrd live, and so has James. We can both attest that this is a band very much in tune with its enthusiastic fan base. The people at these concerts certainly agree with what’s being said in these songs. That’s a lot of patriotic people with solid values, who are hard workers. It’s also a lot of people who are unhappy with the direction things are taking in this country. A lot of pessimists.

Our complaints aren’t just ideological discontent. They’re very real fears about our present and our future. A lot of people out there feel the same way. We’re just trying to give it a voice.

Book Review: 'When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country', by G. Gordon Liddy

2005-01-24T02:58:00.000-05:00

One of the principal advantages of the National Conservative Student Conferences that the Young America’s Foundation puts on in the summer is the discounted books available from the speakers at the conference. The novelty of a half-price book combined with the immediate possibility of having it signed by the author is enough to encourage buying stacks of them, though they can often be of specious quality.

You see, political books fall into distinct categories. There are the landmarks, and then there are the functional equivalents of roadside stands. There’s usually a lot of open space from landmark to landmark, so the enterprising will put up cheap wooden stands to hawk items of immediate convenience to passers by. The quality isn’t stellar, the staying power is minimal, and no one pretends its any more than a simple way to cash in on the immediate circumstances. Of the latter type, these are the books you see glutting bookstores, written weeks after an event, usually with loud dust jackets and a stern-looking picture of the author on the cover.

Most of the books one buys at YAF fall into that category. A precious few are the aforementioned landmarks. Some, however, are a useful middle ground. They bridge the gap, portraying sound ideas in an accessible, easy-to-read format. This includes G. Gordon Liddy’s When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country.

The main idea of the book follows the title. America was once free, now it is not. This is furnished with a broad range of examples consisting of both Liddy’s personal experiences and his social commentary. Chapters cover topics ranging from guns, to marriage, to the military, to principles of education and self-reliance. Bizarrely, the book also includes an ending appendix chapter about Watergate, which one can only assume was too scant to stand alone, and the end of this book is as good a place as any.

The question is, why would anyone want to read around 190 pages of Liddy’s opinions? This is where the matter of the book’s true value comes in. If you agree with Liddy on most points, the book’s value is negligible, unless you’re of the mould that really, truly enjoys “amen corners” and constant affirmation of your own viewpoints. You won’t learn much new here. Conversely, those opposed to Liddy’s viewpoints will not be converted, as there is a considerable lack of depth, and no footnotes or sources. No, the true value of the book belongs to the undecided and the uninformed: those who believe what they believe simply because they haven’t heard anything else.

To wit, I’ve met, in my day, a few fairly conservative people who are education majors. Their conservatism goes out the window when it approaches matters of education. They assume the Federal government should have its hands in it, because they’ve never been presented a real alternative. Well, Liddy’s chapter on education is a very solid introduction on how to have good education in this country without federal control. He doesn’t go into deep, detailed or technical arguments, but his opinion is well-founded and interesting, and if someone’s opinion happens to be the only one they’ve heard voiced, it could be of service to them.

The chapter on education is Liddy’s best, followed by his chapter on marriage and relationships, which is brutally honest, managing to be both realistic about human nature and within the parameters of conservative values. His chapter on the right to bear arms would also be useful to someone uninformed about the topic. The chapter on the military is interesting, though his views are slightly hackneyed and predictable. The same can be said for the chapter on self-reliance. Concerning the Watergate chapter, I’m not entirely positive that was written for anyone but Liddy himself. The entire book, however, is written very well, and Liddy’s writing style is very engaging and intelligent, with his distinct personality always in full view.

In short, I’d put this in the “easy listening” section of political writing. The initiated of the conservative cause will find little new here, though it can be nice to read something you agree with for a couple nights. This book is really best for those who aren’t quite sure what they believe yet. Liddy’s arguments conducted well-enough to be a fitting introduction to good, social conservative ideas. If you have someone you’d like to help bring around to your side, this is the book for them. It’s an entertaining, quick read, and they might learn a thing or two.

Recommendation: Recommended, but only for specific audiences.