An American Prophecy

The passage of ObamaCare (with all its corrupt bargains, un-Constitutional mandates and parliamentary skullduggery) has put the United States firmly on the road to decline and fall unless it can somehow be repealed by the Legislature (unlikely) or invalidated in the courts (even more unlikely based on the legal profession's long-standing love of Marxism, Socialism and all other social fads).

Now Mark Steyn has written a somber and probably accurate prophecy of what the future without the United States may hold. Writes Steyn,

Is America set for decline? It’s been a grand run. The country’s been the leading economic power since it overtook Britain in the 1880s. That’s impressive. Nevertheless, over the course of that century and a quarter, Detroit went from the world’s industrial powerhouse to an urban wasteland, and the once-golden state of California atrophied into a land of government run by the government for the government. What happens when the policies that brought ruin to Detroit and sclerosis to California become the basis for the nation at large? Strictly on the numbers, the United States is in the express lane to Declinistan: unsustainable entitlements, the remorseless governmentalization of the economy and individual liberty, and a centralization of power that will cripple a nation of this size. Decline is the way to bet. But what will ensure it is if the American people accept decline as a price worth paying for European social democracy.

The sad part? Speaking as someone with more than a casual knowledge of history, I think he's right. Decline is a choice, but history has proven time and again that most liberal nations eventually choose it. Athens, Rome, Byzantium and Britain are all great nations that allowed themselves (and in the case of Britain encouraged themselves) to grovel at their enemies' feet and profess their own inadequacies. So too does much of the self-elected elite in the United States celebrate barbarism and blindly follow social system and philosophies that have long been exposed as good only to the elites.

The United States has indeed had a great run, but once socialism has taken over, we are done as surely as the Western European nations who have lived off our backs for the past sixty years or so. And once America falls, who will protect Europe? Who will be the motor of the UN's corrupt coffers? As Steyn concludes.

One sympathizes with Americans weary of global responsibilities that they, unlike the European empires, never sought. The United States now spends more on its military than the next 40 or so nations combined. Yet in two rinky-dink no-account semi-colonial policing campaigns, it doesn’t feel like that, does it? A lot of bucks, but not much of a bang. You can understand why the entire Left and an increasing chunk of the Right would rather vote for a quiet life. But that’s not an option. The first victims of American retreat will be the many corners of the world that have benefited from an unusually benign hegemon. But the consequences of retreat will come home, too. In a more dangerous world, American decline will be steeper, faster, and more devastating than Britain’s — and something far closer to Rome’s.

And when that inevitable decline begins to make its effects felt, will the American media and Leftists who worked so hard to bring down their own country at last acknowledge their own responsibility for hat decline? Will they finally admit that they are the villains? Don't hold your breath.

Illegal lived on taxpayer money in DC

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we desperately need to fix our border security. And our immigration system. As reported in the Washington Examiner, an escaped Panamanian murderer lived high on the hog illegally in Washington DC for over a year - on the taxpayer's money! As The Examiner reported,

A Panamanian murderer who escaped a prison in the Central American country has been captured in the District, where authorities say he used a fake Social Security card to obtain federally subsidized housing and cruised around town in three luxury cars.

Barrera reportedly told authorities he used the bogus Social Security card to get the driver's license and secure his U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development subsidized apartment, court documents said. A property manager for Brookland Manor Apartments told authorities Barrera paid his rent for one year in advance.
Authorities also found that Barrera had three cars registered to his alias in the District: a 1998 Lexus, a 2003 Infiniti and a 2008 Acura.
Barrera reportedly told authorities he entered the United States by sneaking in through Mexico, the affidavit said.

I don't have any problem believing it. Our border authorities are disgustingly, horrifyingly incompetent. I am referring of course to the TSA, the Border Patrol, the Customs agency and any other federal agency charged with protecting our borders. These folks are always ready to read you the riot act when you complain about being profiled for the 1,000,000,000,000,000th time as a white male or as a white female. While they pass Hispanic and Arabic men and women (including fully robed and veiled women) without even so much as a tough query. But yet they consistently fall far short of the standard that we as American citizens have a right to expect. They can't even be bothered to find and deport the millions of illegals who hang out in parking lots waiting for under-the-table work. Nor do they bother to do any investigation into the H1B abuse that is rampant among employment agencies - especially those who specialize in using natives of the Indian subcontinent.

Until our elected representatives take border security (and all other forms of national security) seriously, we are going to be in danger of a repetition of September 11, 2001. Except next time, it may not be so harmless as that attack was. And Barack Obama, Eric Holder and their fellow believers in the government will probably still blame George Bush.

Happy Birthday, Nat Cole

The Power Line crew reminded me that today is the 101st anniversary of the birth of the great Nat 'King' Cole. Although Cole himself lived in times of serious racial, he and the other great jazz musicians of that era managed to transcend it and produce some of the greatest music ever recorded. Read the whole thing.

Here is a recording of Cole's 'Mona Lisa', one of my favorite songs by the great vocalist/pianist.

Deeming without Doing

Since Congress thinks it is perfectly acceptable to pass legislation without actually voting on said legislation, why don't they extend that right to the rest of us.

Lucidicus has a novel idea. He tweets,

Perhaps taxpayers should "deem" their taxes to be considered paid without actually sending a check this year. http://bit.ly/dlnGAp

That goes in the same category as the novel idea that when Congress creates sweeping social engineering for the little people, they better apply it to themselves as well.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Is the SEC over-lawyered?

Well, Harry Markopolos certainly thinks so. As reported by Gordon Smith at The Conglomerate blog, Markopolos (who blew the whistle on Madoff) says in an interview with Deborah Solomon,

Solomon: Are you saying the S.E.C. under Schapiro is about to catch fraud on Wall Street?
Markopolos: She has the wrong staff. They’re a bunch of idiots there.

Solomon: What do you mean?
Markopolos: The five commissioners of the S.E.C. are securities lawyers. Securities lawyers never understand finance. They don’t have the math background. If you can’t do math and if you can’t take apart the investment products of the 21st century backward and forward and put them together in your sleep, you’ll never find the frauds on Wall Street.

Solomon: So why doesn’t the S.E.C. hire finance people? Why don’t they hire you?
Markopolos: They’re overlawyered. They’re poisoned by lawyers.

Smith has a possible solution - hire some financial experts! He writes,

We now require at least one member of the audit committee of a public company to be a "financial expert," but where are the financial experts at the SEC? Maybe bolstering the investigative staff with forensic accountants would be sufficient, but if the leadership sets the tone for the agency, wouldn't the appointment of commissioners with experience in forensic accounting be worth exploring?

Makes sense to me. Most lawyers have little expertise or real understanding of most of the fields they litigate. Kind of like....journalists!

Of course this is the government we are talking about. So if something actually makes sense, there is probably very little chance the lawyers who make up large sectors of the government will actually do anything constructive. That would reduce their opportunities for bribery and graft, after all! Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Journalists and History...

...don't mix it would seem. According to Tom Elia at The New Editor blog, the Chicago Tribune's Ron Grossman sent a copy of the photograph reproduced below to his newsroom. Recognize it?




A sample of the reactions from Mr. Grossman's supposedly elite colleagues are reproduced below:

While some instantly recognized the image, others couldn't quite place it.

"I know I ought to know it," one co-worker said. "It was in the movie, ‘Flags of Our Fathers.' " Some, seeing uniforms, realized it must be a war photo. Maybe Vietnam? One got the era right but the battlefield wrong. She guessed it was D-Day, not, as it was, the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima.

I have said many times before. Journalists are among the least skilled professionals in the world. They are not trained in any of the arenas they purport to explain to we the people and yet they expect those same people to listen to their analysis and instruction with respect and awe. Why? Tell me why should we give any respect or credence to what journalists say when they are so clearly deficient in both knowledge and comprehension?

As a bonus question, with what side did Japan and Italy ally with during the First World War? And what were the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente? (Hint: One included Germany). No Googling!

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds. His money quote:

HOW IGNORANT ARE JOURNALISTS? This ignorant.

Google, China and Reality

Recently Google was hacked by reportedly Chinese hackers. This was reported at the time by a number of news outlets, including the Telegraph of London. The US media were conspicuously silent - no surprise there, since they have a long history of publishing propaganda that suits their agenda (and ignoring news that does not - see teh ACORn scandal that the MSM are trying to bury. Or the John Edwards love-child they hushed up while salivating over Tiger Woods and Mark Sanford's marital affairs. Remember any of these events?

• CNN colluded with Saddam Hussein to hide the atrocities that were ocurring in Iraq. Real atrocities, not the much-ballyhooed antics of some out-of-control prison guards.


• The New York Times colluded with Josef Stalin's massacre of Ukrainians in the person of their far-left propagandist Water Duranty - whose Pulitzer they have yet to admit was awarded on the blood of the people who desperately needed Duranty to tell the truth.


• CBS used forged documents to try to sway election results to elect their preferred candidate.

Now we learn, once again courtesy of The Telegraph, that the hacks may have been an inside job by Google's own Chinese employees. As the Telegraph article says,

Sources familiar with the situation told Reuters that Google is investigating the possibility that employees with access to specific parts of Google's networks could have played a role in the cyber attacks, which saw the email accounts of human rights activists compromised, and prompted the search giant to announce that it was considering closing its Chinese operation unless it could offer the country's citizens access to an uncensored web.

Hmm. No surprise there either. China, like most repressive, totalitarian governments, believes in free speech only for those with government authority behind them. Ordinary citizens are not allowed to exercise free speech - especially when said speech contains items that the Chinese government disagrees with. And when it comes to industrial espionage, the Chinese have been infamous for years for their aggressive thievery. The question is why we remain so ignorant that China and many other countries that wish us ill DO NOT PLAY BY OUR RULES! So why the HELL are we blathering about things like 'torture' that these buggers could not care less about. They want us destroyed.

China is a seriously imperialist power - their recent weakness vis-a-vis the West has only made them greedier to regain what they feel is rightfully theirs. Remeber what the REAL name for China is? Take a look at the characters - they mean 'Middle Kingdom' - literally the center of the world. And China behaved like that for centuries. Sheesh. Our government - especially clueless dimwits like Obama, Pelosi, etc - should all be taught a lesson in power politics. The Chinese are playing fo keeps. Are we?

As for the useless socialist cowards in Europe, I hope you're happy. You've done your best over the past sixty-plus years to undermine the United Sates - most recently in your dealings with Iraq and Iran. While the US pays for your socialist fantasies by protecting you. Well, hope you like what you get - you deserve it! See how you like kow-towing to China's wishes - I suspect you will soon be pining for the good old days when the US was a superpower.

Hat tip to my friend the Drunken Economist.

More Elitism...in Georgia???

In 2008, twenty-two Gerogia state legislators failed to pay taxes, according to a report filed at the time by the Associated Press. This year, twelve more failed to pay taxes, as reported by the Georgia Public Broadcasting website. Georgia's state legislature, which is currently led by Republicans, had an interesting response to this - they have a pending bill that would make it illegal for anyone who is delinquent on his or her taxes to serve. Said Republican State Senator Dan Moody, as quoted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,

“They’re being compensated with a part-time salary for a full-time job. “Hurting in the General Assembly should not come as a surprise to anybody.”

The best comment I have seen in years was posted at the bottom of the original story on the TaxProf Blog. Commenter Just A Grunt wrote,

There is no danger of any of these elected officials losing their seats. Just like the crop from last year, if any of the names are ever known they will turn out to be Democrats and as everybody should know by now this is known as a resume enhancement for them. Besides Democrat voters don't really care about issues, they just care about the (D) after the name.

Regrettably, I agree with him. And I wish that more of our so-called 'public servants' took the 'servant' part of their title seriously, instead of thinking they were some kind of aristocrat. Just a thought guys - 2010 elections aren't THAT far away...

Oooh, girls don't like geeks...

Or so moans Jeanna Bryner in a sob-story on the dropping numbers of women in computer science written for MSNB's Live Science portal. Writes Bryner,

The stereotype of computer scientists as geeks who memorize Star Trek lines and never leave the lab may be driving women away from the field, a new study suggests.

And women can be turned off by just the physical environment, say, of a computer-science classroom or office that's strewn with objects considered "masculine geeky," such as video games and science-fiction stuff.

Oh, the poor dears and their tender little sensibilities. Over a hundred years ago, English novelist Jane Austen wrote a novel entitled Sense and Sensibility that clearly showed the superiority of sense over sensibility. At the end of the novel, the character whose sensibilities had previously dominated her decisions realized that common sense was superior to being driven by her emotions (sensibilities). Women have been telling the world that they are equal (and for some feminists, more than equal) for many years. Thus, they have abrogated their privilege to being allowed to claim some 'sensibility' problem, in my view.

Let's turn the argument on its head. Most women-dominated professions decorate their offices with fluffy, girly things and engage in water-cooler discussions that mot men would find utterly inane. Men do not feel comfortable in such surroundings, but it is a rare man who speaks up to complain about this overly feminine, masculine-unfriendly atmosphere. Men prefer a different sort of atmosphere and women should accept it. If a profession is male-dominated as computer science is, then women need to realize that most of the atmosphere will be more masculine than they might prefer, just as men who enter occupations that are female-majority, like teaching or nursing, need to understand that football posters and discussions of the latest tech gadgets are unlikely to occur with any frequency. Both need to adjust.

This is not to say that women should be deliberately made to feel uncomfortable, any more than men should be made to feel uncomfortable. but both sexes have top understand that the majority is probably not thinking about that - they are creating an atmosphere that is best sited to themselves. men have long since accepted that idea. It is time and past time for women to do the same. And sob-stories like Bryner's do not help that progress.

Rules are for the Little People, Part...

I've lost count. How many members of the Obama Administration is this now who apparently believe that rules are only for their subjects constituents?

Meet Cindy Padilla who, according to Dan Riehl, got a lengthy vacation - very likely paid for by taxpayers - while she dealt with the results of a DWI conviction. Can you imagine any normal person getting that kind of treatment? No, neither can I. Just one more example of how the Washington crowd in general, and Democrats and Obama staffers in particular, seem to believe that rules are for the little people.

And as a bonus, the Associated Press, which originally reported this story, didn't feel the need to include her political party affiliation. Need we guess? Of course she is a Democrat.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Another One Bit The Dust...

According to CBS News (yes, the 'fake-but-accurate' people, so take this with a LARGE grain of salt), an unmanned drone attack in Pakistan killed Al-Quaeda's number three commander, one Abu Yahya al-Libi. The United States has yet to confirm the reports.

Good job, U.S. Armed Forces! Note to President Obama - kill these cowardly murderers faster, please.

Congressional Power Grab - Athletics Edition

The United States Constitution clearly spells out the areas in which the U.S Congress is entitled to exercise authority. I don't recall college athletics as being mentioned anywhere in the actual text of the Constitution. However, this has not stopped some of the Constitutionally illiterate members of Congress from attempting to impose their authority on yet another area where they ought to leave well enough alone. According to an Associated Press report posted on FoxSports.com today, U.S. Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who really should know better, sponsored a law to force the NCAA to have a playoff. The AP reported,

A House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine a national champion, over the objections of some lawmakers who said Congress had more pressing matters on its plate.

The only Representative to vote No was Democrat John Barrow of Georgia.

"With all due respect, I really think we have more important things to spend our time on," Barrow said before the vote, although he stressed he didn't like the current Bowl Championship Series, either.

Barrow is right that this should have been hastily voted down, but he has his rationnale a little mixed up in my opinion. The United States Constitution's clear text on Congressional powers is pretty simple. As follows:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

I don't see anything in that text that allows Congress to regulate whether or not college football's Division One schools have a playoff system or not. It is obvious that the current system is a pathetic disgrace, the more so since every other division in college football has a playoff system. However, until the schools themselves decide to change things, Congress should focus their attention on things that are within their province. The utterly unconstitutional power grab by the EPA with their recent decision to class carbon dioxide as a pollutant - never mind that CO2 is a substance that is vital to human life on Earth - as a pollutant would be a good place to start.

It would be nice if our Congresspeople were actually cognizant that Congress - like the President and the court system - are not granted the power to do whatever they wish. There are limits on government power in the Constitution. If only our government would actually respect them!

Boxer: Leaked emails are 'crime'

So, California junior senator Barbara Boxer has decided that it is a crime to blow the whistle on a massive fraud. According to The Hill, Boxer is planning to hold criminal investigations into the hacked emails depicting the cover-up, lies and manipulated data produced by the University of East Anglia's global warming factory.

According to TheHill.com, Boxer is quoted as saying,

"You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate,'" she said during a committee meeting. "Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I'm looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public."

So Boxer is unhappy with leaked data? Where was all this outrage when the New York Times was breaking laws left and right to blab national security secrets all over its front pages? Front pages that are currently bereft of any mention of the fraud being perpetrated by the global warming - oops, sorry - Global Climate Change proponents. Where was her outrage when the CIA was leaking left and right to try to undermine a sitting President?

It seems to me that the Left only cares about leakers who leak when a Republican Administration is in power. Funny how Obama, even though he is continuing virtually every single one of the previous Administration's policies, doesn't seem to have that problem. This tells me that the bureaucracy in Washington is so highly partisan and so hostile to Republican office-holders that they will commit treason - which is then facilitated by their allies in the media like Eric Lichtblau and James Risen - if they think it will hurt a Republican. Never mind what the results may be for the United States - these partisan hacks care only about putting their preferred political allies into power.

I think that it is time to flush out the entrenched bureaucracies in Washington. Dissolve the CIA. Get rid of all the various bureaus and let's start over. And this time, let's see if we can find patriots, not political partisans. Every member of the bureaucracy, just like every elected official, takes an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. Isn't it time that we demanded that they actually adhere to the oaths they willingly take, instead of preferring to cherry-pick the ones they wish to follow? It's time that they were called to account. And it is time that the government either enforced the laws - including forcing journalists who help lawbreakers to name their sources - or cease pretending that these laws even matter. You can't have it both ways.

Gay Lobby Loses....Again

You mean not only so-called 'red' states are ignorant and tyrannical? New York's state Senate kills gay marriage in New York.

This seems like a tempest in a teacup in many ways, but the underlying issue is one that we would do well to remember. The Left (and yes, this includes the militant gay lobby) has always been about the tyranny of the minority. And as I have written before, despite the gay lobby's in-your-face tactics and attempts to paint the issue as one of civil rights, most people simply do not agree that marriage is a right. And no minority has a right to dictate to a majority what that majority's idea of social normality should be. Absent some violation of civil rights (race-based discrimination, for example), the majority has the right to set their own standards. And homosexual behavior is simply not a normal social standard of behavior. This does not change my stance that government ought to get out of the entire debate and let the churches determine what marriage is or is not. But when a standard is as long-established as marriage, there is little reason to change it (again absent some violation of civil rights).

Ultimately, the people have the right to set their own standards and despite their enablers in the media and the support of large swaths of government, the gay lobby has failed to make a convincing argument. Instead, they have engaged in hateful, violent rhetoric against anyone who stands against them.

The worst part for the gay lobby is that in ultra-Left/liberal New York, a good percentage of the senate Democrats voted against it. Wonder how long it will take the gay lobby to call them insulting names and hurl hateful rhetoric in their direction?

Media (Un)Ethics

The media loves to destroy careers and damage peoples' lives. if someone is unfortunate enough to be in the media spotlight due to their iridescent talents, that person can count on being treated like the subject of the Truman Show. Especially if something in that microscopically-studied life should happen to occur that promises lots of free publicity for the jackals of the Press.

Tiger Woods is one of these unfortunates. The man is a supremely skilled golfer. He is athletic, rich, attractive to the fair sex and seemingly lives the Perfect Life. But he is also an intensely private person off the golf course. He doesn't appear on frothy 'celebrity' shows. He doesn't appreciate fake topless shots of his wife. And he certainly doesn't enjoy the media intruding into what he does off the golf course. All of which stands should be uncontroversial. But the media can't let it go. In a world populated by self-serving trash like TMZ and Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr (who calls himself Perez Hilton), if the media cannot catch a celebrity in an embarrassing, headline-provoking scandal, they are perfectly prepared to create it out of whole cloth.

Such is the case here. The undisputed facts are these:

1. The National Enquirer magazine published a story claiming Mr. Woods had an affair with a woman.


2. Both Woods and the woman (Rachel Uchitel, 34) promptly denied the report.


3. Mr. Woods and his wife may have had an argument, possibly caused by the Enquirer's story. No physical force has been reported to have been involved.


4. Mr. Woods left the house at a very early hour and was involved in a minor automobile accident.


5. Mrs. Woods assisted in rescuing her husband, who suffered minor injuries.

As far as I am aware, no laws were broken by either Mr. or Mrs. Woods. However, the media, having created the situation that caused the problem, are now in full-throated roar demanding that Mr. Woods somehow owes them an explanation.

Er, how to put this in language our logically- and ethically-challenged media will understand? NO. Tiger Woods owes the the press nothing at all. In addition, unless some evidence emerges that he broke the law in some manner, neither does he owe the police an explanation. Jason Whitlock, one of the very few members of the press who has both respect for others' privacy and common sense (he was virtually the only member of the national media to get the Duke Rape Hoax right), put it best in his column this morning, writing,

The media members/outlets asserting Tiger Woods owes the public and the Florida Highway Patrol an explanation for a fender-bender and his wife's jaws-of-9-iron rescue owe America an explanation for their self-serving jealousy and obvious stupidity.
...

The price of fame and wealth should not be the sacrifice of marital privacy. Tiger Woods plays golf for our enjoyment. He didn't marry Elin Nordegren for our entertainment.

Jason Whitlock gets it. Why don't the rest of America's supposedly 'professional' press corps? The media does not have a right to invade the privacy of people just because their professions bring them into the public eye.

America's media has a lot of problems, from their abject failure to actually display any professional objectivity (11 'fact-checkers' for Sarah Palin's book, zero for Barack Obama's or Joe Biden's)to their complete failure to accurately inform the American public about many important stories currently ongoing (ACORN's corruption, the University of East Anglia's emails, etc.). But while they don't seem to have enough time to actually deal with actual issues of real importance to most Americans, they do have enough time to descend on a professional athlete who has done nothing wrong and try to wreck his life. For shame!

Courts Destroy Citizen Rights, Part 2,000,000

It has always been my understanding that the courts' major job is to ensure justice and uphold the law of the land. Pity that so many of them seem to have signed on to the statists' big government mantra. Starting with the empowerment of government over citizens in the Progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century, the courts have steadily ceased to perform their role as limiters of government's constant power grabs.

The latest example of courts riding roughshod over citizens' rights occurred in Brooklyn, New York. The New York Supreme Court ruled that the government could use eminent domain to force homeowners and businesses to give up their property so that a multi-millionaire developer could build a new sports arena among other things.

The main problem, as I see it, is that the Founders supposed that the government would not attempt to engage in mass redistribution of wealth at the expense of their subjects - er, I mean citizens. Therefore, they wrote in the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution (which statement is echoed in the New York Constitution),

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Note that nowhere do they specifically say that property may not be taken for public use. Nor is there any mention that property may not be taken for private use. Thus the government is not breaking the letter of the law, though they have long since broken the spirit into a million little pieces (see Kelo).

The answer, I regret to say, is a Constitutional amendment stating that no private property can be seized for any reason save those specifically stated, and that under no circumstances can private property be seized for transfer to any non-public use. We have a government and a court system that wants to impose government oversight over every aspect of its citizens' lives. The only way to prevent this is to specifically bar the government and the courts for being allowed to impose. We have gone a long way down the road to serfdom already and unless we act, we will wake up in a feudal system - which of course is precisely what the big government proponents in the courts and the government want - a hierarchy where they may enjoy the fruits of everyone else's labors.

The Tarkanian Touch

In the interests of full disclosure, I was never a big fan of Danny Tarkanian when he played basketball at UNLV and I have a long-standing contempt for his father Jerry. However, the Danny Tarkanian for Congress campaign has come up with one of the most hilarious political advertisements I have seen in a long time. As both Ed Morrissey and Jim Geraghty have said - watch this before YouTube pulls it for copyright infringement.

Danny Tarkanian advertisement:

Liberal Arrogance - and Guilt

It has been noted many times that the modern American Left - which includes a large percentage of the Democratic Party - seems to be more interested in controlling every aspect of the Little People's lives than they are in anything else. Evidence for this proposition includes the massive government power grab of the financial, automotive and health care industries, as well as the ever-increasing reams of regulation that are mainly spearheaded by the Left.

However, there is another piece of evidence for the predilection - the tendency of self-professed 'elites' in the United States to try to force Americans to pronounce foreign words exactly as a native speaker would. Food Critic and Top Chef judge Toby Young mercilessly exposes this affectation in his Spectator column today, writing,

In the States, pronouncing foreign words ‘correctly’ is a high-status indicator. It’s not just about demonstrating your racial sensitivity. It’s a way of advertising your membership of the elite. Saying ‘py-el-a’ rather than ‘py-ay-a’ is to risk being thought of as lower class.

I don’t mean that they’re concerned about appearing not very well travelled, though that comes into it. It’s more a question of manners. Not tiptoeing around other cultures is considered impolite. To make a ‘racially insensitive’ remark is to reveal a lack of familiarity with the code. They’re worried about appearing ignorant, but not of other cultures. What concerns them is that people might think they don’t know the form. Being politically correct is also socially correct — which helps explain its ubiquity. When a political trend is reinforced by snobbery it becomes an irresistible force, which helps explain the success of the environmental movement.

As a speaker of Japanese, I am well-acquainted with the fact that a Japanese person will not pronounce English words in precisely the same accent as a native American. Words are spoken differently by different cultures. For instance, in English Roma is Rome, 東京 is Tokyo, and Paree is Paris. In Japanese London is 'Rondon' and Los Angeles is 'Rosu'. And why not? Making an effort to pronounce words correctly when speaking a foreign tongue aids communication. However, when speaking English, I do not labor to pronounce foreign words as they would be in their native tongue - I give them the common English pronunciation.

In essence what these elitists are doing is trying both to show their elite status and to force everyone to meet their own narrow ideas of what is 'correct'. As Mr. Young so correctly concludes,

A world in which all ethnic groups speak slightly differently, following their own idiosyncratic rules when it comes to pronouncing words not in their language, is preferable to one in which everyone is forced to pronounce things ‘correctly’ by a bunch of guilty white people. In the end, that’s more ‘imperialist’ than saying ‘py-el-a’.

I could not agree more. Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Is Major Hasan a Traitor?

Austin Bay makes a strong case in his StrategyPage column today that the answer may be yes. Writes Bay,

One word aptly describes Ft. Hood mass murderer Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan: traitor.

Traitor is a tough word. It doesn't smudge and squish. "Traitor" draws a hard line, one that sharply divides essential life-determining values and marks a defining personal choice between the profound and the profane.

Treason is one of the few crimes specifically defined in the text of the United States Constitution. As defined in Article Three, Section Three,

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Well, then. Major Hasan was a voluntary member of the United States Army, sworn to protect the United States and furthermore, he was a member of the Army Medical Corps, sworn to serve his fellow soldiers. He voluntarily swore two oaths to that effect. Yet he opened fire on his unarmed fellow soldiers, on a military base on his country's soil. He did not take the honorable course of resigning and seeking to fight as a part of our enemies' forces, but instead hid behind his rank and shot down his fellow soldiers when they could not defend themselves. I would say that this meets the characterization of 'levying war' as well as 'adhering to their enemies'. Taken together, this is a pretty clear picture of a traitor. Colonel Bay compares Hasan with Benedict Arnold and I believe that to be a fair analogy but I would classify Hasan's acts as even more despicable than Arnold's.

Bay also takes to task journalists and activists like Joe Klein and the partisan hacks at MoveOn.org for abusing the word treason - a word that in some cases (ie. Eric Lichtblau and James Risen) actually applies better to those same abusers. Bay says of these contemptible members of the chattering class,

Self-styled mainstream journalists with no regard for the awful moral weight and terrible consequences of the actual act of sedition heedlessly employ the accusation as a word weapon to thwart discomfiting political criticism. For example, Time Magazine's Joe Klein wrote this past Oct. 23 that "some of" what Fox News presents ("peddles" was Klein's verb) "borders on sedition."

Klein's rash innuendo (so indicative of people who live in a relatively safe world protected by cops and soldiers) is lightweight prostitution compared to the thoroughly dirty work of the hard left propagandists at MoveOn.org, who all but called Gen. David Petraeus a traitor.

This is unfortunately true. Many members of the left like to throw around words like this in an attempt to silence their political opponents. However, treason has a deeper meaning - simply disagreeing with a President's policies, and pointing out the flaws and problems with those policies, is not treason. That is dissent, and is the lifeblood of a free country. The Left, however, prefers to silence their adversaries than to hold an open debate. I would suggest that my readers, such as they may be, might want to take note of that tendency. Republicans and conservatives are not known for silencing debate - quite the contrary. It is the Left who wishes to shut down open discourse, whether by the Orwellian 'Fairness Doctrine' or by cruder threats, such as frivolous lawsuits or even using their SEIU shock troops.

Did Major Nidal Malik Hasan commit treason? Based on the available evidence the answer appears to be a resounding yes. I fully support a full investigation in a military courts martial. However, should the resulting judgment agree with this assessment, we can only hope that a military overcome with dangerous political correctness can and will take the necessary steps to execute him for actions against the men and women he was sworn to protect and serve.

AP Rewrites History for Muslim Sniper John Muhammad

Today's AP article on the Yahoo! News site regarding the impending execution of convicted Virgina sniper John Muhammad is almost breathtaking in its politically correct craven-ness. Muhammad and his accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, confessed that they were undertaking a home-grown jihad against Americans in support of their Muslim brethren overseas. In addition, drawings done by Malvo in jail leave no doubt that the two were inspired by Muslim theology.

However, the Associated Press cannot bring itself to admit what is well-known. Instead, in an article on Yahoo! News today, reporter Dena Potter writes,

The motive for the shootings remains murky. Malvo said Muhammad wanted to use the plot to extort $10 million from the government to set up a camp in Canada where homeless children would be trained as terrorists. But Muhammad's ex-wife has said she believes the attacks were a smoke screen for his plan to kill her and regain custody of their three children.

Um, no. Muhammad and Malvo were unrepentant Muslim terrorists. Their aims, as presented in court and reported at the time by the New York Sun newspaper, were to terrorize American cities and ultimately create a force of of like-minded terrorists to spread out and execute similar terror missions in other cities. At no time did either Muhammad or Malvo try to deny that Islamic teachings formed a major part of their inspiration. In fact, in his courtroom testimony, Malvo specifically said that Muhammad had introduced him to the Nation of Islam teachings.

So we must ask ourselves - is Ms Potter ignorant or is she simply following the meme and is unable to think for herself? Based on the AP's track record, I would suspect the latter. Remember - it's only news if it fits the narrative.