Tag Archives: freedom

More Federal Arrogance

Posted on by
Reply

…EPA style.

Congressman Lamar Smith (R, TX) is highlighting [follow the links there for his letter to EPA Director Gina “Joe” McCarthy and for the EPA’s maps) a new example of this: EPA rule-making regarding waterways, particularly those on private land and how those private property owners must handle water on their property. In support of this new rule-making effort (although the EPA denies it’s in support), the EPA has generated highly detailed maps of every waterway in the US—down to what it classifies as “ephemeral streams,” or streams that only have water in them as a result of rain falling. Such “streams” include ditches on private property, runoff through a depression in someone’s yard, and so on.

EPA Press Secretary Liz Purchia insists, regarding any mapping effort related to this rule-making effort, that any maps actually related to their rule(s) would have to include ground surveys in order to support the proposed rule, and she said that would be “prohibitively expensive.”

We’re left to conclude, then, that the EPA is holding itself willfully ignorant of the extent and effect of its rule because finding that out would be inconvenient. Yet the EPA is going ahead with its rule, anyway.

Oh, and those extremely detailed maps—themselves expensive enough to generate that the EPA is reluctant to discuss the terms of the contract with the map generator—were generated on the taxpayer dime solely for…because.

Hmm….

Civics in Education

Posted on by
Reply

A great part of what ails our country is ignorance of our history and so of who we are—how the US came to be, how we got where we are today, the nature of our culture and ethnicity. This hasn’t been taught with any seriousness since the middle of the last century, beyond a couple of semesters of civics-like courses in high school and a once-over lightly few units of American and European history in grade school and junior high. Throughout the current century, civics, American history, the form and style of American governance, and the like almost are not taught at all. Symptomatic of this is the growing emphasis on identity politics and the differences among those who live in the US, rather than our share culture. Too often, we African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Chinese- or Japanese-Americans, etc. There’s too little thought given to the concept that we’re all Americans, full stop. American, albeit some of us might have African heritage, some of us might have Hispanic heritage, some of us might have Chinese or Japanese heritage, etc.

If we don’t know whence we—our nation—came, how can we be expected to understand who we are, or where we ought to go?

Civics, though, and Government also, and American history, English and European history, Western Civilization, are too important to be taught in a couple of semesters in high school with a few short programs in grade school and junior high school. These subjects must be taught, in depth, throughout every child’s K-12 education. Furthermore, they must not be taught from a moral equivalent or moral relativist perspective—our culture is at the core of our greatness, after all, and Civics and Government must be taught from that perspective. In the end, too, these courses need to be especially intensive for our immigrant children, as they’ll have, depending on their age when they enter our school systems, quite a bit of catching up to do.

It is, after all, how we came to be, how we arrived at our social compact, that led to our American ethnicity and our American culture—the very things that made us so powerful, so prosperous, and for which others from all over the world go to lengths they do (highly risky lengths in a large per centage of the cases) to become a part of.

Our culture and ethnicity can be preserved and strengthened only through the education of our children in these components of our culture. We need to go back to taking that seriously.

This also demonstrates the…foolishness…of the moral relativism (masqueraded often as “cultural proficiency”) of folks like Oxnard Union School District Superintendent Dr Gabe Soumakian, with his insistence that the patriotic chant of “USA! USA!” is—or may be in some mythical context—racist, himself racist. One might ask of Dr Soumakian whose cultural proficiency?

Federal Strings

Posted on by
Reply

…and Federal arrogance.

No police department should get federal funds unless they put cameras on officers, Senator Claire McCaskill (D, MO) said today.

“It seems to me that before we give federal funds to police departments, we ought to mandate that they have body cams,” McCaskill said.

Body cameras on cops may, in fact, be a good idea. However, that’s a thing to be determined by the locals for themselves. This is another example of how the Federal government seeks to control State and local governments in the place of the State’s citizens and the local community members.

Police departments and the communities that employ them would be well served to reject these Federal funds and all other Federal funds that come with strings attached. They would be well served to do so even if they already meet, of their own accord, the criteria mandated by any Federal string—accepting such funds would be nothing less than the camel’s nose in their tent.

Paying Ransom

Posted on by
Reply

Although I’m writing this article in the context of terrorist kidnappings, it should be noted that the principles discussed apply to any form of kidnapping.

The beheading of freelance journalist James Foley has forced a new debate between the longtime US and British refusal to negotiate with terrorists, and Europe and the Persian Gulf’s increasing willingness to pay ransoms in a desperate attempt to free citizens.

The case:

The dilemma: How to save the lives of captives without financing terror groups and encouraging more kidnappings.

Here’s the misunderstanding:

By paying ransoms, governments in the Mideast and Europe have become some of the biggest financiers of terror groups. By refusing to do likewise, the US and Britain are in the thankless position of putting their own citizens at a disadvantage.

The utilitarian side of this is that the ransoms do two things: they reward the terrorists for their labor—ransoms are nothing more than wages for work done—and ransoms fund terrorists’ future activities, from additional kidnappings as a continued source of funding to additional acts of outright terror.

As State’s Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf has indicated, ISIS already has collected millions of dollars in ransoms this year alone. That funds far more than additional kidnappings (although the ROI on kidnappings certainly has been attractive in its own right), it pays for a lot of terrorism, and not only for ISIS but for their clients. Those millions of dollars, also, is money with which to buy nuclear weapons from Iran and/or northern Korea.

Here’s Clinton Van Zandt, the FBI’s former chief hostage negotiator:

…government-paid ransoms help create “a growing cottage industry in kidnap ransoms.”

“You may get that person back that time, but what you’ve done is put a price tag on the head of every American overseas. And you’ve advertised that we pay to get Americans back.”

The moral side of paying ransom is quite simply stated: those who pay put the one they think they’re rescuing at risk of further kidnappings, both from the original kidnappers and from others who are looking for funding. Worse than that, those who pay the ransom are extending that risk to complete strangers. By making kidnapping a profitable enterprise, those payers make everyone a potentially profitable target for the project.

Paying the ransom also makes the payer, morally if not legally, an accessory to the crime: it’s tantamount to aiding and abetting; in the case of terrorists, it’s the moral equivalent of giving aid and succor to the enemy in time of war.

Clearly, then, the ones who put others at disadvantage are those who pay the “kidnappers” for their labors. And these also put their own citizens at greater risk by demonstrating empirically the returns to be had from the labor.

On the other hand, there is a morally, as well as politically and fiscally, sound alternative: to attempt rescue of hostages. That was how the US freed hostages in Colombia in 2008, for example, and Israel rescued hostages in Entebbe in 1976. That such efforts aren’t universally successful is demonstrated by the American attempt with Foley, the Son Tay raid in 1970, and the raid into Iran in 1980. However, it’s entirely too likely (although not certain) that the kidnapped victims will be killed, anyway. Such rescue attempts represent the only legitimate means, and they don’t pay the terrorists for their kidnapping labors.

This is, to be sure, a tough decision to make, wrought with emotion, but for all that, it’s the only right answer. We cannot betray the victims or their honor by attempting to purchase a sometime, ephemeral release.

—–

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

And

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods….

The Democrat’s View of “Justice”

Posted on by
Reply

[State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D, MO)] predicted Friday that if prosecutors don’t win a conviction against the police officer who shot 18-year-old Michael Brown, it could trigger a new wave of unrest in Ferguson.

“There’s several people out there including the protesters that I’ve been with this morning who seem to feel as though there won’t be a conviction,” she told Fox News.

“If that happens, we’re going to have exactly what you saw two weeks ago, with a lot of tear gas going all over the place.”

There is, after all, only one Politically Correct outcome, and the facts don’t matter. Chappelle-Nadal will be sure and join the protestors to ensure the right outcome is achieved. Never mind a jury’s verdict.

And

[Senator Claire McCaskill’s, D, MO] office said Friday that the Department of Justice hasn’t given a timeline for the federal investigation, which centers on whether a civil rights violation occurred when officer Darren Wilson fatally shot the unarmed Michael Brown on Aug 9.

Nor will DoJ give a timeline. They’ll also not release their results until after the grand jury, and if necessary the subsequent trial, reach the wrong answer.

Because, votes.