the Jeffersonian Democrat

What is Left? What is Right?

2006-09-03T05:37:00.000-04:00

The terms “liberal” and “conservative” were usable signs in a society in which the state was governed by politics. They are of little use in the 21st-century United States because “politics” no longer plays any significant role in governance.
In a dynamic and free republican society, citizens of similar ideas, values, and interests, and even inherited allegiances and inclinations, come together to seek representation, forming political parties as their vehicle in the contest with citizens of opposing tendencies. (In addition, in the United States, political representation has been geographically based rather than strictly a matter of parties.) Citizenship—participation in politics—assumes mental and material independence and a social identity pre-existing the state apparatus. None of these preconditions for politics any longer characterize the American regime.
Today congressmen do not represent their constituents but represent the state in its distribution of favors to their constituencies, and their tenure rests upon their success at this function. The relationship of president and Congress now resembles that of a Roman emperor and senate. And as in that historical case, a large part of the population is proletarianized, lacking the qualities for citizenship as it has been understood.
The American regime has reached a state of imperial bureaucratization in which institutions—not only parties, but armed forces, police, churches, media, charities, schools—exist to serve those who control and benefit from them rather than to carry out the social functions for which they were established. In the last two presidential elections not a single substantive issue was raised or contested. The nominating conventions did not debate and decide the positions they were to represent but merely ratified the dictates of the leader. Rather than the party representing the people, the people were sent forth to represent the party. The Republican conventions that nominated George W. Bush did not even allow a dissenting voice to be heard nor allow any statement that might distinguish their party from the opposition on any substantive matter. There was no politics at all—only marketing.
After the elections, it was seen that the parties, except at the fringes, do not disagree on anything of importance nor do they represent the people on any important issue—for instance, war, foreign aid, immigration, or quotas.
On behalf of the imperial bureaucratic regime, the Democrats absorb and defang whatever liberal inclinations remain in their constituency, and the Republicans do likewise for the conservatives. The only difference is that the Democrats institutionally are wired to keep up the momentum of an already liberal state, while the Republicans’ conservatism has always been a pure fraud.
If, as may be the case, a real politics is struggling to be born, one that involves representation of the interests and values of the remnant genuine elements of American society that have a reality apart from the state, then the terms “liberal” and “conservative” will not much apply. Politics against the imperial regime will have to be both defensive and radical, that is to say, it will have to be reactionary.

Clyde N. Wilson
August 28, 2006 Issue
Copyright © 2006 The American Conservative

Confederacy under attack... again

2006-07-30T07:04:00.000-04:00

I'm working on an alternate history piece. Not sure yet how long it will be. The gist of it is, The South wins. I explore how things might have been had the right side won in the 1860's. It's kinda my response to the yankee-liberal mush that Spike Lee is propagating with his movie "CSA". Anyone who has the slightest inkling of the history of the Confederacy, which ol' Spike obviously does NOT, knows that is not the way it would have gone down. The Confederacy as an imperialist superstate, conquering the entire western hemisphere?
Spike has obviously seen so much of the imperialist tendencies of the United States that he has imbued the Confederate foreign policy with those same tendencies. He has also imbued the Confederacy with a strong central government, which shows his laughable ignorance of the Confederate Constitution as well as non-centralist nature of the Confederacy itself. Such a government would be necessarily non-expansionist. In fact, it would be difficult to keep such a system from further reduction through secessions. This is due to the fact that secession is implicit in the ideology which is the Confederacy itself. It's actually pretty implicit in the US Constitution, also, though most seem willfully ignorant of this. But the Confederate Constitution makes no bones about the sovereign character of the States. Spike obviously didn't take the time to read it, though one would think someone doing a movie on the CSA would think that was necessary research.
The Confederate leadership had no designs on the United States. Never. Not even as an idea in the mind of Jeff Davis, who said "All we want is to be left alone." But Spike obviously never read anything about Jeff Davis.
Concerning the portrayal of slavery, with the CSA spreading slavery to all the Northern states. I wonder if Spike knows the reason the North originally gave up their slaves. Did they suddenly get a conscience and become overcome with guilt at the evil of slavery? And in one swoop strike the shackles from the poor slaves?
No.
Slavery faded in the North when it stopped being PROFITABLE. The colder climate in the north is not conducive to the agricultural use of slave labor. Plain and simple. So as the north gradually phased out slavery, did they free their slaves? The fact is, no they did NOT. They SOLD THEM TO THE SOUTH.
I wonder if ol' Spike ever read that little tidbit of history. I wonder if Spike ever did any research at all, beyond what he saw on a NAACP pamphlet. Further, as the industrial revolution cranked on, slavery would have phased out in the South as well. Does Spike think that the farm implements and machinery that radically changed the face of American agriculture would not have been available to a victorious Confederacy? No, I doubt Spike did much thinking at all. He just regurgitated the same tired yankee B.S. about the black-hearted, evil Confederacy. Since this yankee myth has no basis in fact, it doesn't require a whole lot of thought or even intelligence.
A yankee asked me once why I was still fighting the war. "Because y'all keep shooting at us," I replied. And here is a fresh volley from the vile malicious, hate-mongering yankee elite, in the person of Spike Lee, who is only the latest in a long line of yankee propagandists.
So I decided to respond, to write my own version of "what might have been", and maybe shed some truth on what the Confederacy was and is all about.

The Lawless State

2006-07-26T06:24:00.000-04:00

THE LAWLESS STATE
by Joe Sobran
Sometimes the deepest changes in a political system sneak in almost unnoticed. So it has been in the United States, which has quietly shifted from being a decentralized federal republic to being a centralized democracy. Moreover, the actual power has shifted from the legislative branch to the executive. This would have startled the men who created that republic in reaction against the British monarchy, which they regarded as tyrannical because it concentrated so much power in one man's hands. Their faces would blanch at President Bush's casual claim that he is "the decider."
The big decisions, under the U.S. Constitution, were supposed to be made by the Congress, and "faithfully executed" by the president. Thus Congress declared war after Pearl Harbor and Franklin D. Roosevelt then (and only then) assumed the powers of commander in chief of the armed forces. But a few years later, Harry Truman took the country to war in Korea without Congress's authorization. Few seemed to notice that Truman had usurped a monarchical prerogative. That is, he had acted as a dictator. Neither Woodrow Wilson nor Roosevelt, both of whom had greatly expanded the executive branch, had dared go that far. Liberals are now rightly accusing Bush of grabbing power, but unfortunately nobody is listening. After all, we're used to overweening presidents by now, thanks in large part to those same liberals who have celebrated the "strong" presidencies of Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, and others. It was only during the Nixon years that they discovered the dangers of the "imperial presidency." During Roosevelt's four terms, conservatives had realized the same dangers of what they called "Caesarism," and to them we owe the Twenty-Second Amendment, limiting a president to two terms. But as liberal Democrats dominated Congress for decades, they began to see the presidency as their only hope of gaining power and forgot their principles in order to support Nixon, Reagan, and the first Bush.
Today, alleged conservatives favor the current Bush's "big-government conservatism," together with all the unprecedented warmaking and national security powers he asserts. Both parties oppose the old constitutional limits on executive power, except when they find some of those limits politically convenient for the nonce. Conservatives are apt to be outraged when the media reveal how far Bush has gone in transgressing private matters we used to assume were safe from government spying.
It's no use asking where the Constitution authorizes Bush's security measures. Instead of vetoing laws he doesn't like, he issues "signing statements" explaining how he will interpret them, thus substituting his own loopholes for proper vetoes. Liberals have been paving the way for a president like this for a long time, and they've finally gotten the "conservative" they deserve. They've done their best to make the Constitution so malleable as to be meaningless, without stopping to think that two can play that game. Now it's the Republicans' turn. The U.S. Supreme Court has finally shamed this administration into making a show of humanity to prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, but the liberal majority didn't really make much of a legal case for applying the Geneva Conventions to those prisoners. Bush's acquiescence was as arbitrary as his former rigor had been. He must have decided that the political cost and worldwide notoriety were just too much, if his own conscience didn't rebuke him for his indiscriminate harshness.
Even if you accept the dubious premises of the War on Terror, you may be uneasy at the indefinite detention of men who may be innocent on any reckoning. Do we really want to punish people for the bad luck of being swept in a dragnet? Don't we have enough enemies without that? On even the strictest reading, the Constitution may, and does, permit -- or at least doesn't forbid -- all sorts of things that are wrong or ill-advised on other grounds, such as the carpet-bombing of cities in wartime. And now that the Constitution has ceased to inhibit the government, its decisions have to be based on those other grounds, such as "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."
If the Founding Fathers could see us now, they'd surely ask, "How on earth did you get yourselves into this mess?" We've managed to do nearly everything the Constitution was designed to prevent us from doing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Read this column on-line at "http://www.sobran.com/columns/2006/060711.shtml".Copyright (c) 2006 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate, www.griffnews.com. This column may not be published in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate. You may forward it to interested individuals if you use this entire page, including the following disclaimer:"SOBRAN'S and Joe Sobran's columns are available by subscription. For details and samples, see http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml, write PR@griffnews.com, or call 800-513-5053."

Why Americans are so Angry

2006-07-02T07:39:00.000-04:00

by Dr Ron Paul, Congressman from Texas
Before the U.S. House of Representatives, June 29, 2006

I have been involved in politics for over 30 years and have never seen the American people so angry. It’s not unusual to sense a modest amount of outrage, but it seems the anger today is unusually intense and quite possibly worse than ever. It’s not easily explained, but I have some thoughts on this matter. Generally, anger and frustration among people are related to economic conditions; bread and butter issues. Yet today, according to government statistics, things are going well. We have low unemployment, low inflation, more homeowners than ever before, and abundant leisure with abundant luxuries. Even the poor have cell phones, televisions, and computers. Public school is free, and anyone can get free medical care at any emergency room in the country. Almost all taxes are paid by the top 50% of income earners. The lower 50% pay essentially no income taxes, yet general dissatisfaction and anger are commonplace. The old slogan “It’s the economy, stupid,” just doesn’t seem to explain things
Some say it’s the war, yet we’ve lived with war throughout the 20th century. The bigger they were the more we pulled together. And the current war, by comparison, has fewer American casualties than the rest. So it can’t just be the war itself.
People complain about corruption, but what’s new about government corruption? In the 19th century we had railroad scandals; in the 20th century we endured the Teapot Dome scandal, Watergate, Koreagate, and many others without too much anger and resentment. Yet today it seems anger is pervasive and worse than we’ve experienced in the past.
Could it be that war, vague yet persistent economic uncertainty, corruption, and the immigration problem all contribute to the anger we feel in America? Perhaps, but it’s almost as though people aren’t exactly sure why they are so uneasy. They only know that they’ve had it and aren’t going to put up with it anymore.
High gasoline prices make a lot of people angry, though there is little understanding of how deficits, inflation, and war in the Middle East all contribute to these higher prices.
Generally speaking, there are two controlling forces that determine the nature of government: the people’s concern for their economic self-interests; and the philosophy of those who hold positions of power and influence in any particular government. Under Soviet Communism the workers believed their economic best interests were being served, while a few dedicated theoreticians placed themselves in positions of power. Likewise, the intellectual leaders of the American Revolution were few, but rallied the colonists to risk all to overthrow a tyrannical king.
Since there’s never a perfect understanding between these two forces, the people and the philosophical leaders, and because the motivations of the intellectual leaders vary greatly, any transition from one system of government to another is unpredictable. The communist takeover by Lenin was violent and costly; the demise of communism and the acceptance of a relatively open system in the former Soviet Union occurred in a miraculous manner. Both systems had intellectual underpinnings.
In the United States over the last century we have witnessed the coming and going of various intellectual influences by proponents of the free market, Keynesian welfarism, varieties of socialism, and supply-side economics. In foreign policy we’ve seen a transition from the founder’s vision of non-intervention in the affairs of others to internationalism, unilateral nation building, and policing the world. We now have in place a policy, driven by determined neo-conservatives, to promote American “goodness” and democracy throughout the world by military force – with particular emphasis on remaking the Middle East.
We all know that ideas do have consequences. Bad ideas, even when supported naïvely by the people, will have bad results. Could it be the people sense, in a profound way, that the policies of recent decades are unworkable – and thus they have instinctively lost confidence in their government leaders? This certainly happened in the final years of the Soviet system. Though not fully understood, this sense of frustration may well be the source of anger we hear expressed on a daily basis by so many.
No matter how noble the motivations of political leaders are, when they achieve positions of power the power itself inevitably becomes their driving force. Government officials too often yield to the temptations and corrupting influences of power.
But there are many others who are not bashful about using government power to do “good.” They truly believe they can make the economy fair through a redistributive tax and spending system; make the people moral by regulating personal behavior and choices; and remake the world in our image using armies. They argue that the use of force to achieve good is legitimate and proper for government – always speaking of the noble goals while ignoring the inevitable failures and evils caused by coercion.
Not only do they justify government force, they believe they have a moral obligation to do so.
Once we concede government has this “legitimate” function and can be manipulated by a majority vote, the various special interests move in quickly. They gain control to direct government largesse for their own benefit. Too often it is corporate interests who learn how to manipulate every contract, regulation and tax policy. Likewise, promoters of the “progressive” agenda, always hostile to property rights, compete for government power through safety, health, and environmental initiatives. Both groups resort to using government power – and abuse this power – in an effort to serve their narrow interests. In the meantime, constitutional limits on power and its mandate to protect liberty are totally forgotten.
Since the use of power to achieve political ends is accepted, pervasive, and ever expanding, popular support for various programs is achieved by creating fear. Sometimes the fear is concocted out of thin air, but usually it’s created by wildly exaggerating a problem or incident that does not warrant the proposed government “solution.” Often government caused the problem in the first place. The irony, of course, is that government action rarely solves any problem, but rather worsens existing problems or creates altogether new ones.
Fear is generated to garner popular support for the proposed government action, even when some liberty has to be sacrificed. This leads to a society that is systemically driven toward fear – fear that gives the monstrous government more and more authority and control over our lives and property.
Fear is constantly generated by politicians to rally the support of the people.
Environmentalists go back and forth, from warning about a coming ice age to arguing the grave dangers of global warming.
It is said that without an economic safety net – for everyone, from cradle to grave – people would starve and many would become homeless.
It is said that without government health care, the poor would not receive treatment. Medical care would be available only to the rich.
Without government insuring pensions, all private pensions would be threatened.
Without federal assistance, there would be no funds for public education, and the quality of our public schools would diminish – ignoring recent history to the contrary.
It is argued that without government surveillance of every American, even without search warrants, security cannot be achieved. The sacrifice of some liberty is required for security of our citizens, they claim.
We are constantly told that the next terrorist attack could come at any moment. Rather than questioning why we might be attacked, this atmosphere of fear instead prompts giving up liberty and privacy. 9/11 has been conveniently used to generate the fear necessary to expand both our foreign intervention and domestic surveillance.
Fear of nuclear power is used to assure shortages and highly expensive energy.
In all instances where fear is generated and used to expand government control, it’s safe to say the problems behind the fears were not caused by the free market economy, or too much privacy, or excessive liberty.
It’s easy to generate fear, fear that too often becomes excessive, unrealistic, and difficult to curb. This is important: It leads to even more demands for government action than the perpetrators of the fear actually anticipated.
Once people look to government to alleviate their fears and make them safe, expectations exceed reality. FEMA originally had a small role, but its current mission is to centrally manage every natural disaster that befalls us. This mission was exposed as a fraud during last year’s hurricanes; incompetence and corruption are now FEMA’s legacy. This generates anger among those who have to pay the bills, and among those who didn’t receive the handouts promised to them quickly enough.
Generating exaggerated fear to justify and promote attacks on private property is commonplace. It serves to inflame resentment between the producers in society and the so-called victims, whose demands grow exponentially.
The economic impossibility of this system guarantees that the harder government tries to satisfy the unlimited demands, the worse the problems become. We won’t be able to pay the bills forever, and eventually our ability to borrow and print new money must end. This dependency on government will guarantee anger when the money runs out. Today we’re still able to borrow and inflate, but budgets are getting tighter and people sense serious problems lurking in the future. This fear is legitimate. No easy solution to our fiscal problems is readily apparent, and this ignites anger and apprehension.
Disenchantment is directed at the politicians and their false promises, made in order to secure reelection and exert power that so many of them enjoy.
It is, however, in foreign affairs that governments have most abused fear to generate support for an agenda that under normal circumstances would have been rejected. For decades our administrations have targeted one supposed “Hitler” after another to gain support for military action against a particular country. Today we have three choices termed the axis of evil: Iran, Iraq or North Korea.
We recently witnessed how unfounded fear was generated concerning Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction to justify our first pre-emptive war. It is now universally known the fear was based on falsehoods. And yet the war goes on; the death and destruction continue.
This is not a new phenomenon. General Douglas MacArthur understood the political use of fear when he made this famous statement:
“Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.”
We should be ever vigilant when we hear the fear mongers preparing us for the next military conflict our young men and women will be expected to fight. We’re being told of the great danger posed by Ahmadinejad in Iran and Kim Jung Il in North Korea. Even Russia and China bashing is in vogue again. And we’re still not able to trade with or travel to Cuba. A constant enemy is required to expand the state. More and more news stories blame Iran for the bad results in Iraq. Does this mean Iran is next on the hit list?
The world is much too dangerous, we’re told, and therefore we must be prepared to fight at a moment’s notice regardless of the cost. If the public could not be manipulated by politicians’ efforts to instill needless fear, fewer wars would be fought and far fewer lives would be lost.
Fear and Anger over Iraq
Though the American people are fed up for a lot of legitimate reasons, almost all polls show the mess in Iraq leads the list of why the anger is so intense.
Short wars, with well-defined victories, are tolerated by the American people even when they are misled as to the reasons for the war. Wars entered into without a proper declaration tend to be politically motivated and not for national security reasons. These wars, by their very nature, are prolonged, costly, and usually require a new administration to finally end them. This certainly was true with the Korean and Vietnam wars. The lack of a quick military success, the loss of life and limb, and the huge economic costs of lengthy wars precipitate anger. This is overwhelmingly true when the war propaganda that stirred up illegitimate fears is exposed as a fraud. Most soon come to realize the promise of guns and butter is an illusion. They come to understand that inflation, a weak economy, and a prolonged war without real success are the reality.
The anger over the Iraq war is multifaceted. Some are angry believing they were lied to in order to gain their support at the beginning. Others are angry that the forty billion dollars we spend every year on intelligence gathering failed to provide good information. Proponents of the war too often are unable to admit the truth. They become frustrated with the progress of the war and then turn on those wanting to change course, angrily denouncing them as unpatriotic and un-American.
Those accused are quick to respond to the insulting charges made by those who want to fight on forever without regard to casualties. Proponents of the war do not hesitate to challenge the manhood of war critics, accusing them of wanting to cut and run. Some war supporters ducked military service themselves while others fought and died, only adding to the anger of those who have seen battle up close and question our campaign in Iraq.
When people see a $600 million embassy being built in Baghdad, while funding for services here in the United States is hard to obtain, they become angry. They can’t understand why the money is being spent, especially when they are told by our government that we have no intention of remaining permanently in Iraq.
The bickering and anger will not subside soon, since victory in Iraq is not on the horizon and a change in policy is not likely to occur.
The neoconservative instigators of the war are angry at everyone: at the people who want to get out of Iraq; and especially at those prosecuting the war for not bombing more aggressively, sending more troops, and expanding the war into Iran.
As our country becomes poorer due to the cost of the war, anger surely will escalate. Some of it will be justified.
It seems bizarre that it’s so unthinkable to change course if the current policy is failing. Our leaders are like a physician who makes a wrong diagnosis and prescribes the wrong medicine, but because of his ego can’t tell the patient he made a mistake. Instead he hopes the patient will get better on his own. But instead of improving, the patient gets worse from the medication wrongly prescribed. This would be abhorrent behavior in medicine, but tragically it is commonplace in politics.
If the truth is admitted, it would appear that the lives lost and the money spent have been in vain. Instead, more casualties must be sustained to prove a false premise. If the truth is admitted, imagine the anger of all the families that already have suffered such a burden. That burden is softened when the families and the wounded are told their great sacrifice was worthy, and required to preserve our freedoms and our Constitution.
But no one is allowed to ask the obvious. How have the 2,500 plus deaths, and the 18,500 wounded, made us more free? What in the world does Iraq have to do with protecting our civil liberties here at home? What national security threat prompted American’s first pre-emptive war? How does our unilateral enforcement of UN resolutions enhance our freedoms?
These questions aren’t permitted. They are not politically correct. I agree that the truth hurts, and the questions are terribly hurtful to the families that have suffered so much. What a horrible thought it would be to find out the cause for which we fight is not quite so noble.
I don’t believe those who hide from the truth and refuse to face the reality of the war do so deliberately. The pain is too great. Deep down, psychologically, many are incapable of admitting such a costly and emotionally damaging error. They instead become even greater and more determined supporters of the failed policy.
I would concede that there are some – especially the die-hard neoconservatives, who believe it is our moral duty to spread American goodness through force and remake the Middle East – who neither suffer regrets nor are bothered by the casualties. They continue to argue for more war without remorse, as long as they themselves do not have to fight. Criticism is reserved for the wimps who want to “cut and run.”
Due to the psychological need to persist with the failed policy, the war proponents must remain in denial of many facts staring them in the face.
They refuse to accept that the real reason for our invasion and occupation of Iraq was not related to terrorism.
They deny that our military is weaker as a consequence of this war.
They won’t admit that our invasion has served the interests of Osama Bin Laden. They continue to blame our image problems around the world on a few bad apples.
They won’t admit that our invasion has served the interests of Iran’s radical regime.
The cost in lives lost and dollars spent is glossed over, and the deficit spirals up without concern.
They ridicule those who point out that our relationships with our allies have been significantly damaged.
We have provided a tremendous incentive for Russia and China, and others like Iran, to organize through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. They entertain future challenges to our plans to dominate South East Asia, the Middle East, and all its oil.
Radicalizing the Middle East will in the long term jeopardize Israel’s security, and increase the odds of this war spreading.
War supporters cannot see that for every Iraqi killed, another family turns on us – regardless of who did the killing. We are and will continue to be blamed for every wrong done in Iraq: all deaths, illness, water problems, food shortages, and electricity outages.
As long as our political leaders persist in these denials, the war won’t end. The problem is that this is the source of the anger, because the American people are not in denial and want a change in policy.
Policy changes in wartime are difficult, for it is almost impossible for the administration to change course since so much emotional energy has been invested in the effort. That’s why Eisenhower ended the Korean War, and not Truman. That’s why Nixon ended the Vietnam War, and not LBJ. Even in the case of Vietnam the end was too slow and costly, as more then 30,000 military deaths came after Nixon’s election in 1968. It makes a lot more sense to avoid unnecessary wars than to overcome the politics involved in stopping them once started. I personally am convinced that many of our wars could be prevented by paying stricter attention to the method whereby our troops are committed to battle. I also am convinced that when Congress does not declare war, victory is unlikely.
The most important thing Congress can do to prevent needless and foolish wars is for every member to take seriously his or her oath to obey the Constitution. Wars should be entered into only after great deliberation and caution. Wars that are declared by Congress should reflect the support of the people, and the goal should be a quick and successful resolution.
Our undeclared wars over the past 65 years have dragged on without precise victories. We fight to spread American values, to enforce UN resolutions, and to slay supposed Hitlers. We forget that we once spread American values by persuasion and setting an example – not by bombs and preemptive invasions. Nowhere in the Constitution are we permitted to go to war on behalf of the United Nations at the sacrifice of our national sovereignty. We repeatedly use military force against former allies, thugs we helped empower – like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden – even when they pose no danger to us.
The 2002 resolution allowing the president to decide when and if to invade Iraq is an embarrassment. The Constitution authorizes only Congress to declare war. Our refusal to declare war transferred power to the president illegally, without a constitutional amendment. Congress did this with a simple resolution, passed by majority vote. This means Congress reneged on its responsibility as a separate branch of government, and should be held accountable for the bad policy in Iraq that the majority of Americans are now upset about. Congress is every bit as much at fault as the president.
Constitutional questions aside, the American people should have demanded more answers from their government before they supported the invasion and occupation of a foreign country.
Some of the strongest supporters of the war declare that we are a Christian nation, yet use their religious beliefs to justify the war. They claim it is our Christian duty to remake the Middle East and attack the Muslim infidels. Evidently I have been reading from a different Bible. I remember something about “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
My beliefs aside, Christian teaching of nearly a thousand years reinforces the concept of “Just War Theory.” This Christian theory emphasizes six criteria needed to justify Christian participation in war. Briefly the six points are as follows:
War should be fought only in self-defense;
War should be undertaken only as a last resort;
A decision to enter war should be made only by a legitimate authority;
All military responses must be proportional to the threat;
There must be a reasonable chance of success; and
A public declaration notifying all parties concerned is required.
The war in Iraq fails to meet almost all of these requirements. This discrepancy has generated anger and division within the Christian community.
Some are angry because the war is being fought out of Christian duty, yet does not have uniform support from all Christians. Others are angry because they see Christianity as a religion as peace and forgiveness, not war and annihilation of enemies.
Constitutional and moral restraints on war should be strictly followed. It is understandable when kings, dictators, and tyrants take their people into war, since it serves their selfish interests – and those sent to fight have no say in the matter. It is more difficult to understand why democracies and democratic legislative bodies, which have a say over the issue of war, so readily submit to the executive branch of government. The determined effort of the authors of our Constitution to firmly place the power to declare war in the legislative branch has been ignored in the decades following WWII.
Many members have confided in me that they are quite comfortable with this arrangement. They flatly do not expect, in this modern age, to formally declare war ever again. Yet no one predicts there will be fewer wars fought. It is instead assumed they will be ordered by the executive branch or the United Nations – a rather sad commentary.
What about the practical arguments against war, since no one seems interested in exerting constitutional or moral restraints? Why do we continue to fight prolonged, political wars when the practical results are so bad? Our undeclared wars since 1945 have been very costly, to put it mildly. We have suffered over one hundred thousand military deaths, and even more serious casualties. Tens of thousands have suffered from serious war-related illnesses. Sadly, we as a nation express essentially no concern for the millions of civilian casualties in the countries where we fought.
The cost of war since 1945, and our military presence in over 100 countries, exceeds two trillion dollars in today’s dollars. The cost in higher taxes, debt, and persistent inflation is immeasurable. Likewise, the economic opportunities lost by diverting trillions of dollars into war is impossible to measure, but it is huge. Yet our presidents persist in picking fights with countries that pose no threat to us, refusing to participate in true diplomacy to resolve differences. Congress over the decades has never resisted the political pressures to send our troops abroad on missions that defy imagination.
When the people object to a new adventure, the propaganda machine goes into action to make sure critics are seen as unpatriotic Americans or even traitors.
The military-industrial complex we were warned about has been transformed into a military-media-industrial-government complex that is capable of silencing the dissenters and cheerleading for war. It’s only after years of failure that people are able to overcome the propaganda for war and pressure their representatives in Congress to stop the needless killing. Many times the economic costs of war stir people to demand an end. This time around the war might be brought to a halt by our actual inability to pay the bills due to a dollar crisis. A dollar crisis will make borrowing 2.5 billion dollars per day from foreign powers like China and Japan virtually impossible, at least at affordable interest rates.
That’s when we will be forced to reassess the spending spree, both at home and abroad.
The solution to this mess is not complicated; but the changes needed are nearly impossible for political reasons. Sound free market economics, sound money, and a sensible foreign policy would all result from strict adherence to the Constitution. If the people desired it, and Congress was filled with responsible members, a smooth although challenging transition could be achieved. Since this is unlikely, we can only hope that the rule of law and the goal of liberty can be reestablished without chaos.
We must move quickly toward a more traditional American foreign policy of peace, friendship, and trade with all nations; entangling alliances with none. We must reject the notion that we can or should make the world safe for democracy. We must forget about being the world’s policeman. We should disengage from the unworkable and unforgiving task of nation building. We must reject the notion that our military should be used to protect natural resources, private investments, or serve the interest of any foreign government or the United Nations. Our military should be designed for one purpose: defending our national security. It’s time to come home now, before financial conditions or military weakness dictates it.
The major obstacle to a sensible foreign policy is the fiction about what patriotism means. Today patriotism has come to mean blind support for the government and its policies. In earlier times patriotism meant having the willingness and courage to challenge government policies regardless of popular perceptions.
Today we constantly hear innuendos and direct insults aimed at those who dare to challenge current foreign policy, no matter how flawed that policy may be. I would suggest it takes more courage to admit the truth, to admit mistakes, than to attack others as unpatriotic for disagreeing with the war in Iraq.
Remember, the original American patriots challenged the abuses of King George, and wrote and carried out the Declaration of Independence.
Yes Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of anger in this country. Much of it is justified; some of it is totally unnecessary and misdirected. The only thing that can lessen this anger is an informed public, a better understanding of economic principles, a rejection of foreign intervention, and a strict adherence to the constitutional rule of law. This will be difficult to achieve, but it’s not impossible and well worth the effort.

July 1, 2006
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
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Burn that sucker

2006-06-24T15:22:00.000-04:00

The United States Senate has recently taken up the issue (again) of flag-burning. Yes, they again seek an Amendment to the Constitution outlawing the practice of burning the "American flag".
On its face, this seems a laudable cause. What American does not feel a sense of anger, or at the very least is troubled, when one sees the "Stars and Stripes" being set ablaze on television, usually by some left-wing nut or a protester of middle-eastern decent. I have no great attachment to the Flag of the US empire (a.k.a. the "American flag"), yet even I am somewhat bothered by it's burning. A nation's flag is a powerful symbol, and it is the ultimate act of disrespect and disdain to set it afire. There is no nation that I hate so much to burn their flag, the US empire included.
With that said, I would also like to say that I am strongly against an amendment banning the act of flag burning. Flag burning is an act of protest, however offensive, and so is protected speech, under the First Amendment. How can the First be said to apply to such acts as exotic dancing the feces-art of New York's sorry art galleries, and yet not extend to a true act of protest. The right of protest was the reason the First amendment was put in there in the first place. Our forefathers understood well what an evil, terrible thing government is and can be. The First was one of their safeguards against that beast. I would add that it was illegal in Germany during the 30s and 40s to burn a swastika. A flag burning law is the act of a government that protects the symbols of its own power, before it protects the liberty of the people. Like the "Pledge of Allegiance" that many if not most kids have been forced to chant at some point in their childhood, it is the act of a government that would compel people to be patriotic, and compulsive patriotism is not patriotism at all.
This amendment will likely pass at some point, as America drifts further and further into despotism. The day it passes and becomes law, thats when I reach for my lighter.

Bush selling out our sovereignty, again.

2006-06-15T06:41:00.000-04:00

News today that Bush plans a North American "super-state", involving free movement and commerce among the US, Canada, and Mexico. And presumeably a common, North American "border". I was talking with my girlfriend about this and she asked me why they wanted to do this. I didn't have an answer. I don't know why there is the tendency to centralisation that always seems to go hand in hand with government. I do know that it threatens my liberty, and the liberty of all Americans, as well as the sovereignty of our States and our country.
This was the reason that guys like George Washington warned us of "entangling alliances." Alliances like the UN, NATO, NAFTA, and now this... When are we going to start putting our liberty and our sovereignty above convenience and profit? When will the States stand up and assert themselves to rein in this overreaching Empire?
We should all watch this story very closely as it develops.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50618

Defending Southern Heritage? Sober Up!!

2006-06-14T19:56:00.000-04:00

by Clyde Wilson

Many good people have been working in recent years to preserve public acknowledgment and celebration of our Confederate history. Our fights have been largely defensive reactions to the innumerable strokes of our enemies, and most of them have been defeats. Our enemies control most of the 'respectable' political, religious, educational, business and media institutions of American society, including nearly all 'Southern' institutions.
We have lost in part because many defenders of our symbols have not understood the nature of the battle.
Southerners are a conservative people. They prefer the traditional to the abstract and are slow to adopt new theories (one of the several characteristics that distinguish them from other inhabitants of the United States). This is a good and healthy virtue, but like all virtues it can, if we are not careful, become a self-defeating rigidity. The conservative philosopher Russell Kirk contrasted mere stand-patter conservatism of the dull-witted or poor in spirit who reject anything new with the true conservatism of an Edmund Burke or a John C. Calhoun who perceived that it was necessary to change in order to conserve because new conditions had created new threats to our patrimony.
Unfortunately, too many spokesmen in the fight for Southern heritage are stand-patters, i.e., dinosaurs on their way to extinction. They are trying to live in a world that they grew up in but which does not exist any more. The world that they grew up in accepted Southerners and Southern heritage as a positive part of America. That world began disappearing a half century ago and is almost gone.
After Reconstruction, which all sensible Northerners came to realize had been a grievous mistake, most Americans, North and South, took the Road to Reunion. Southerners had to agree that they were glad that the Union had been saved and a stronger America had emerged. (They were already genuinely glad of the end of slavery.) For the most part they did this with sincerity and enthusiasm (they had to if they had any hopes of personal success). Southerners became good and loyal members of the new America. They have lived up to that pledge every generation since, in fact have been the most loyal of all Americans and done more than their fair share in every war.
As their part of the bargain, Northerners acknowledged that Southerners had been brave and honourable in their war for independence, and their heroes, like Lee and Jackson, would be celebrated as AMERICAN heroes. (There were always a few old Yankees around who wanted to exterminate the rebels, and indeed there still are, but they were a minority.)
This is why The Birth of a Nation creation of D.W. Griffith, son of a Confederate soldier, could be regarded as a national epic at the beginning of the twentieth century. Will Rogers, another son of a Confederate soldier, was a national institution and he and Shirley Temple and many others portrayed very sympathetic Southern characters in the films of the 1920s and 1930s.
Gone With the Wind, book and movie, was an all-time best-seller in the North as well as the South. Every major male non-Southern Hollywood star in the 1950s and 1960s portrayed a heroic Confederate: Erroll Flynn, John Wayne, Clark Gable, Allan Ladd, Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Montgomery Clift, Henry Fonda, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Widmark, to name just a few. In all his best movies, John Wayne is a Confederate: Red River, The Searchers, and True Grit, the last two based on Southern novels.
Confederate flags were seen among American fighting men, in real life and film, during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Douglas Southall Freeman’s R.E. Lee and Lee's Lieutenants were celebrated as accounts of AMERICAN military valour. When President Roosevelt inaugurated the first completed dam of the TVA, he did so on a platform that flew US and Confederate flags.
THAT WORLD DOES NOT EXIST ANY MORE! DEFENDERS OF SOUTHERN HERITAGE SHOULD STOP ACTING LIKE IT DOES. The people who want to do away with Confederate symbols are not people who will come around when you argue a little historical interpretation with them, or when you point out (as you know to be true) that your forebears were not fighting for slavery, or prove that you are a loyal American whose heart contains no hate and violence.
They do not care! They have no heritage of their own and do not know what a heritage is. They believe in their own self-interest and fashionable abstractions. We do not and will not in the foreseeable future live in a world where Southern heritage will be publicly honoured except by us. We live in a regime where Confederate symbols are scheduled for complete obliteration. At present, we can expect no help from our own institutions, the politics of Southern states being dominated primarily by Big Business. (A phone call from the president of NationsBank or the publisher of a big newspaper carries more weight with any politician than 20,000 Confederates at a rally, or any number of personal visits from earnest citizens. This is a fact.)
The Compromise is broken. Why this happened would take several books to explain. Northern society has periodically gone through fits of fanaticism which have focused upon us. When was the last time you thought about telling people in New York or Seattle what to do? Never, because it is not a part of our national character as Southerners. But hundreds of thousands of Northerners are thinking about you and about their right to suppress your evil ways. In their fantasy world, which is the only culture of any significance they have, YOU are the evil obstacle to making the world perfect. They have always been that way.
It has nothing to do with you. It is their problem. It has nothing to do with the South except that the South lies convenient for their aggressions. They cover up their emptiness, hatred, hypocricy, and insignificance by identifying you as the Enemy. This is the way Puritans behave when they lose their religion. Our forefathers saw this clearly. It was that kind of society and people that they fought to be free of !
Many of our official defenders have not figured out that the Compromise no longer exists. In a recent legislative election in South Carolina, the leftwing candidate brought out a bevy of veterans and SCV members to publicly condemn the conservative candidate because the conservative candidate was a Southern activist who allegedly would not repeat the Pledge of Allegiance.
It was as if the conservative candidate was one of the spoiled Yankee children who promoted treason in time of war in the 1960s. These good people are too blind to figure out that those 60s traitors are now in power in America and are the ones who are hellbent on using their power to destroy every last vestige of our Southern heritage and identity!
This unfortunately represents the attitude of too many flag defenders. One despairs at such blindness. The compatriots I am talking about, however, can be educated. I have seen it done. Democrats and Republicans both, of the ruling establishment, are relying on this kind of stupid 'patriotism' to kill off challenges to their power. Southern heritage is the first casualty of that power.
WAKE UP! It is not 1945 any more, or even 1975. You can either honour your Southern heritage and preserve your Southern identity, or you can give unthinking obedience to the America of today. You cannot do both without engaging in self-defeating contradiction.
HERE ARE A FEW SUGGESTIONS:
*Don’t compromise. Compromise is only a defeat and a springboard for another attack. Don’t think that being a good sport will make the other side good sports. Who follows an uncertain trumpet? You will probably lose. But a loss on principle preserves a rallying point. John C. Calhoun says: a defeat on principle is not an overthrow, while a victory by compromise is a defeat.
*Be worthy of your ancestors. Don’t be a goody goody 'American' humbly begging to be allowed to keep a shred of your heritage. You are a member of a great people under attack who have been betrayed by their leaders. It is needed to defend the Southern people here and now and not just the noble Confederate soldier.
*Think like a Southerner. Lay claim to all your heritage! We cannot defend only our Confederate forebears, as important as that is. They are but a part of Southern history. Lay claim to all of Southern history and culture, from Captain John Smith and Pocahontas to Dale Earnhardt. To concentrate on Confederate history alone is to concede to the enemy that the Confederacy can be segregated off as an evil episode of slavery and treason. It also plays into the North’s everlasting tendency to claim anything Southern that is good, as 'American,' that is, non-Southern. George Washington is just as Southern as Robert E. Lee. Thomas Jefferson is just as Southern as Jefferson Davis. Andrew Jackson is just as Southern as Bedford Forrest. Alvin York, and Audie Murphy, and the Alamo are just as Southern as Stonewall Jackson.
Avoid argument with the enemy and concentrate on educating yourself and members of our people, especially the young, not forgetting the many Yankees of good will. In Heritage-Haters you are dealing with people who send their children to private schools while busing yours and still think they are morally superior to you because they are in favour of busing and you are not. They are not interested in debate or evidence. Remember, they are not attacking your great-grandfather’s war: they are attacking you! And, as we learned in the flag fight in South Carolina, this goes double for the academic 'experts' in the war era, who are even less interested in evidence and perspective than the ordinary flag hater.
*Don’t be discouraged. So beautiful and powerful is our heritage that it has taken them decades to cut away as much as they have. It will take some time and hard work to recover lost ground.
*If you have to argue, turn the tables. There is little profit in talking about slavery in today’s climate. If you must discuss slavery call it 'domestic servitude,' which is what it was. Most importantly, point out that, sure, the South did not want outside interference with its domestic servitude, but the North was NOT fighting to end slavery! The significant factor is the North’s motives! They are the ones who invaded us, violating the fundamental American principle of the consent of the governed. Most people who think they are aggreived about slavery neither know nor care anything about history. They are really aggrieved about the segregation that marked more recent times.
If you must debate don’t make indefensible statements that will be laughed out of court, like 'the war was not about slavery', 'most Southerners did not own slaves', and an exagerated count of black soldiers in the Confederacy. Yes, the war was partly about slavery, though not on their side and not as centrally and in the way that they claim. By counting families, or households, approximately one-fourth of Southerners were owners of domestic servants, almost all of them of a few people (1-4) who lived and worked closely with the family. Yes, there were a great many black Confederates who helped sustain the armies and the home front, but not as enrolled soldiers.
*My standpatter compatriots, if you want to be a good American as defined by the ruling institutions today, forget about your Southern heritage. But most Southerners care for family, place, Christian social order, courage, loyalty, honour—all things besieged in America today. That is, after all, why we love our heritage.
*Stop supporting federal government wars out of unthinking loyalty. For a long time the US armed forces had a chilvalric Southern flavour. They now combine all the worst aspects of bureacracy, imperialism, graft, affirmative action, and Political Correctness, in an atmosphere of moral depravity.
*Cure yourself of Republican party thinking. What further proof is needed that the South and Southerners have nothing to expect from the Republican 'conservatives' except payoffs to individuals to betray their people? As the Rev Robert Lewis Dabney pointed out long ago, the Northern 'conservatives,' in the entire course of American history have never conserved anything. George W., though raised in Texas, suppressed innocuous Confederate plaques. McCain, though a descendant of Confederates, branded our flag as a hate symbol to be suppressed. The Republican governor of New York banished the Georgia flag. Shortly after their candidate was elected President, the Wall Street Journal and National Review published pieces ridiculing Southern conservatives. The message was clear: Give us your votes and shut up.
The worst thing that can happen to the South is to be turned into an appendage of the bland, principleless elements represented by the Republican party. Think like a Southerner, not like a knee-jerk 'conservative.' If Jesse Jackson causes a ruckus in Decatur, Illinois, applaud him. You can be sure that if he was making trouble in your town, Decatur, Illinois, would be cheering him on. They just don’t want him to bother them.
Dr Clyde Wilson is a published author, a professor at the University of South Carolina, and one of the founding members of the League of the South

the Jeffersonian Democrat - defined

2006-06-14T19:42:00.000-04:00

A Jeffersonian Democrat is a true federalist, believing in a limited government, republican in form, existing only for very specific and defined functions, and with checks and balances on all levels, particularly at the State level. The States themselves should be the ultimate check on the central government, as they stand for the rights of individuals against the central government, and should be the final arbiters of the Constitution. To the Jeffersonian Democrat, the States themselves are sovereign, and only delegate certain powers to the central government for the purpose of convenience and expediency. To the Jeffersonian Democrat, the First Amendment is there to protect religion from the influence of government, not the other way around. To the Jeffersonian Democrat, an armed populace and an active press are the best deterrents against tyranny.
-- Gray Ghost