Category Archives: morality

Bergdahl and Deal Making

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Power Line‘s Paul Mirengoff made a number of points about the Obama “exchange;” I’ll add just a couple.

…President Obama was motivated less by a desire to bring back this particular prisoner than by a desire to make a deal—almost any deal—with the Taliban. Obama himself tipped his hand when, in announcing the deal, he said it could “open the door for broader discussions [with the Taliban] about the future of [Afghanistan] by building confidence.”

Mirengoff added

But who doubted that deals can be made with the Taliban? A deal can be made with anyone if it is one-sided enough.

Indeed. And after initially (or so Obama’s minions claim) holding out for a grand bargain,

A senior administration official said “we didn’t achieve as much as we would have liked, but neither [did we achieve] nothing.” Instead, “we have created precedent and a basis that might well provide an opening in the future,” he asserted.

Well, no, you didn’t. A precedent in this venue requires that both parties to agree that it is one or that one party has the power to enforce its terms in later efforts. This isn’t an American superior court where precedence has force regardless of agreement (you’d think a Constitutional scholar like our President would understand that). On the other hand, the Taliban did set a very critical precedent. They’ve demonstrated that they have the power to enforce their precedential terms onto this administration at will.

And this: only a partisan hack could think trading five four-star generals for a single sergeant is a good deal. Or a community organizer out of his depth.

For Progressives, Some Lives are More Important than Others—A Follow-up

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A bit over a year ago, I wrote about King Cove, AK’s, attempt to get an 11-mile road built to Cold Bay so they could get folks quickly to Cold Bay’s all-weather airport and thence to a hospital. For 30 years, the Feds have been blocking King Cove’s road because the lives of animals are more important than those of the humans who live in King Cove. And die there, as 19 have, recall, over the last three decades because they couldn’t get to medical treatment in time.

Here’s the current status of that shameful situation.

A group of native tribes in Alaska is suing the Obama administration after being blocked for years from building an emergency road from their fishing hamlet to a vital airport over preservation concerns.

The suit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Alaska, claims the Interior Department’s refusal is a violation of federal law and argues no other reasonable transportation alternative exists.

They say they know taking the issue to court will likely make an already lengthy process even longer but say they have exhausted all other options.

And this from Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Senator Lisa Murkowski (R, AK):

Secretary [of the Interior Sally] Jewell has ignored the King Cove folks for six months—despite her very public promise to find a viable alternative to the land exchange.

You can imagine their frustration with Interior when they can’t even get Jewell to acknowledge them. Jewell may be hoping this issue just going away, but it won’t. The people of King Cove are fighting to keep their families safe—that’s not something you give up on.

Recall that the land swap Jewell refused involved 43,000 acres elsewhere in Alaska for the 1,800, or so, needed for King Cove’s short road.

But Jewell thinks the lives of bears, caribou, and birds are more valuable than the lives of a few hundred financially poor Aleut native Americans.

Who’s More Valuable?

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A soldier of questionable motive, but who acted deliberately and wound up in enemy hands, or a soldier of clear motive, but who made a traffic error and wound up in an “ally’s” jail?

Obama announced Saturday in a dramatic Rose Garden news conference that five Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay would be exchanged for [Army Sgt Bowe] Bergdahl, a 28-year-old infantryman held captive for five years by the terrorist group. The swap angered many in the military and on Capitol Hill, because it went against long-standing policy of not bargaining with terrorists.

On the other hand, we get

Although [Marine Sgt Andrew] Tahmooressi is not a prisoner of war, he served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and now suffers post-traumatic stress disorder, according to his mother, Jill Tahmooressi. Friends who have visited him in [the Mexican] prison say he has been tortured and threatened with rape and death, and they question whether the administration is doing enough to help him.

Congressman Duncan Hunter (R, CA) observed

[A]s far the Administration went for Bergdahl, Andrew Tahmooressi is still stuck in a Mexican jail for making a wrong turn, and the only thing grabbing the president’s attention so far is an online petition that forces him to respond.

If he responds to the petition at all. In the meantime, neither our Secretary of State and ex-motor boat skipper, John Kerry, nor our President and ex-community organizer, Barack Obama, have troubled themselves to pick up a phone and make a call to Mexico.

It’s pretty clear where this administration’s values lie. Keep it in mind this fall.

Religious Freedom

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Lebanon High School Principal Kevin Lowery gave a commencement address to his high school students. In the course of his speech, he spoke repeatedly of God and His role in our individual lives and in the life of our nation. Among other things, he reminded his students that our national motto is “In God We Trust,” and that it is imprinted on all of our currency. He gave a short history lesson, generally absent from the classes, that Francis Scott Key’s original version of our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” made references to God.

Lowery also wryly noted during the May 23 commencement that even though “God is reflected in the very fabric” of the nation, it would be inappropriate to mention The Almighty at a secular ceremony.

“So while it would not be politically correct for us to have an official prayer this evening,” he said, “I would like for us to have a moment of silence in honor of tonight’s graduates. Thank you. And just in case you’re interested, during my moment of silence, I gave thanks to God for these great students, their parents, their teachers, and for this community.”

A YouTube clip of Lowry’s address is here. Among the comments on the clip, Dave Muscato, Public Relations Director for American Atheists, had this to say:

I find this extremely objectionable. I think it’s clear that Kevin Lowery violated the spirit of the First Amendment separations of religion and government. This was an underhanded and dishonorable way for him to forcibly inject his personal religious views onto his students and the others present and into his role as a government official.

That’s…unfortunate. I find Muscato’s comment extremely objectionable. I think it’s clear that David Muscato is trying to violate the spirit of the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion. This is an underhanded and dishonorable way for him to forcibly inject his personal religious views onto children and the others present and an abuse of his role as gadfly.

Minimum Wage and Morality

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Seattle has passed an ordinance that will raise the minimum wage private businesses in the city must pay to $15/hr. The wage increase will take effect in stages over a few years, starting next April. I’ve written elsewhere (here, for instance, and here) on the economic utility of raising the minimum wage.

What about what a government-imposed minimum wage does to a worker’s morality? A Seattle home health worker earning $10.95/hr had this to say about her situation and Seattle’s minimum wage mandate, as summarized at the first link, and also quoted there:

[She] is looking forward to the way a higher wage will help her support her three children.

She said she and her three kids are living with her brother because she can’t afford an apartment of her own even though she works full time. “This will make changes to myself and also a lot of other people in my shoes.”

She says that like family taking care of family is a bad thing. But why shouldn’t family take care of family first, rather than strangers being forced to do so ahead of family? Plainly, this family does not need the outside help; they just find it…convenient.