Tag Archives: freedom

Whose Side?

Posted on by
Reply

On whose side is the current Pope?  What is his purpose, his goal?

First, the Pope condones covering up—even delaying a “conference” for chit-chat about the abuse for as long as possible—massive child abuse by Catholicism’s priests and bishops.

Now we have the Pope saying the Catholic Church—the Vatican—doesn’t even need to be the authority that selects the Church’s bishops.

…Catholic concession in a far-reaching deal between Rome and the Vatican announced Friday. The Vatican has agreed to recognize as legitimate seven Chinese priests who had been excommunicated by Rome for accepting their bishop hats without Vatican approval. Two bishops who had remained faithful to Rome will retire to make room for bishops more to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s liking.

What’s going on in the Catholic Church?

Government Diktat

Posted on by
Reply

California style.  That state has passed a law.

The law requires a company to appoint one woman to its board of directors by the end of 2019. By the end of 2021 a five-member board would need to have two women, while boards with six or more directors would need three. The Legislature, always alert to possible micro-aggressions, defines female as “an individual who self-identifies her gender as a woman, without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth.”

(One wonders whether the law would be satisfied by a male Board member self-identifying as a woman for the purpose of Board-related activities.  [/snark])

The number of women selected for Board membership has much to do with the lack of women with actual qualifications for those positions.  Forcing quotas onto private enterprises won’t produce qualified women out of thin air.

The lack stems from two major sources (among others).  One is the way we teach our girls and young women throughout K-16.  Our “educators” generally don’t push them as hard or in the same direction as they push our boys and young men.  This is an example of the bigotry of low expectations.

The other major source is in our various corporate cultures.  Women don’t get the same support, encouragement, or kicks in the fannies to do better that men do, so they don’t develop, over the course of their careers, the qualifications needed for Board seats.

Along these lines, women employees don’t spend the same continuous time on their careers as do men: many women take significant time off from their careers to have and raise children.  As a nation, we still haven’t worked out a way around this difference in time commitment.  Paid parental leave might be a step in that direction, but even were it, it’s wholly inadequate.

This law does not address any of these.

Timidity

Posted on by
Reply

Sadanand Dhume had an opinion piece in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal decrying Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ decision to cancel a contest through which ” participants were invited to lampoon the prophet Muhammad.”  Wilders pleaded “security concerns” because of some protests in Pakistan.

On the whole, I agree with Dhume.  However, I’m less concerned with Pakistani whinings than I am with the cowardice displayed by Wilders and his cronies in canceling their contest.

A few short years ago, a similar “Draw Muhammad” contest was held in Dallas. The terrorists who tried to disrupt that contest were stopped in their tracks by ordinary American citizens.  The Dutch are not Danes, but I wouldn’t have thought them this timid.

“Value-Charged”

Posted on by
Reply

A panel, the Texas Education Agency, that is “advising” the Texas State Board of Education wants to deprecate matters related to the Alamo and its defense by a band of heroic Americans (yes, I used those two terms.  Both of them).

The 7th grade social studies curriculum used to teach the defense of the Alamo currently uses the phrase siege of the Alamo and all of the heroic defenders who gave their lives there.  This panel told the SBOE to use only siege of the Alamo.  “Heroic,” they insist, is “value-charged.”

You bet it’s a value-charged characterization.  We shouldn’t hesitate to point out, even to emphasize, to the children to whom we’re teaching our history the trials, the costs, the lives paid by—the heroism of—those who defended us.  Here is a concrete example of what Thomas Jefferson meant when he described the fertilizer of our tree of liberty.

Far beyond that, we should celebrate our heroes.  Here is a concrete example of Benjamin Franklin’s meaning when he said that our republic can stand only if we are a virtuous people.

This group of alleged experts—they’re represented to be educators and historians—didn’t stop there, sadly.

They suggested deleting the Travis letter because they think when teachers talk about the Alamo they will absolutely mention it, but not having it outlined specifically just meant teachers would spend less time on it.

Why on earth should less time be spent on a letter, Travis’ Victory or Death letter, so central to the defense of Texas?  Why should our children spend less time learning their Texas history and this critical episode in their American history?

This is the letter—which I was taught way back when I was in junior high and ‘way up north in Iowa—that these personages consider too trivial to teach our children [emphases in the original]:

Commandancy of the The Alamo

Bejar, Feby. 24th. 1836

To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World—

Fellow Citizens & compatriots—

        I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna — I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man — The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat.  Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch — The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days.  If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country — Victory or Death.

William Barrett Travis.

Lt.  Col. comdt.

P.S. The Lord is on our side — When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn — We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves.

Travis

This performance of this panel of “experts” is shameful.

Trust and the FBI

Posted on by
Reply

Thomas Baker, a retired FBI agent, had some thoughts in the The Wall Street Journal about how to restore trust in the FBI. Naturally, I have some thoughts on those thoughts.

The centralization of case management at FBI headquarters. According to Florida Rep Matt Gaetz [R], an email from Mr McCabe said that Hillary Clinton would receive an “HQ special”—lenient treatment in the investigation into her handling of classified materials. Mr Wray has tasked Associate Deputy Director Paul Abbate to review how the bureau manages sensitive investigations.

That’s the wrong step. Director Wray needs first to explain why some investigations are more sensitive than others and then to eliminate that dichotomy.  All investigations are sensitive.  Or does Wray think some Americans are more equal than others?

Bad relations with Congress. The FBI needs to re-establish a climate of mutual respect with lawmakers. The “Gang of Eight”—congressional leaders and intelligence committee chiefs—is the time-tested vehicle for sharing sensitive information. The bureau should use it.

The only way the Bureau can be trusted to use it is with a 100% turnover of current FBI management.  And with a law requiring the FBI to turn over all materials subpoenaed—without redaction—within [24 hours] of the subpoena being issued.

A dysfunctional Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has said Congress will look at this after the midterm elections. But the FBI and Justice Department need not wait. They should adopt an internal standard to avoid the use of FISA to target an American citizen….

No.  Star Chambers, secretive or otherwise, have no place in a free republic. The FISA courts need to be done away with.  That should be the direction of Nunes’ “look at.”

A lack of emphasis on the Constitution. FBI special agents always have been instructed about the Constitution. But a new category of employee arose after 9/11. Intelligence analysts, who don’t directly interact with citizens in ways that touch on the Constitution’s guarantees, now play a major role in the bureau’s mission.  …  It is imperative that they, too, receive training about the Constitution.

No.  The FBI is a domestic police force, it is not a domestic spy agency.  Intelligence is the purview of the CIA, which already is enjoined (badly; enforcement needs to be stepped up) from domestic spying.  Leave the policing to the police and the spying to the spies.  Where there’s overlap, Congress and the public courts can work the question, Congress in the more general case and the courts on individual cases.

None of this will work though, without a wholesale replacement of FBI management from the middle layers all the way up.  Middle management on up and not just the leadership alluded to above because the cultural failure caused by the FBI’s politically appointed management has gone on for so long that it reaches that deep.  The fastest way to restore the FBI’s culture is to get rid of the current, dysfunctional culture’s practitioners and outright adherents.

It’s true enough that this will entail removal of some good people along with those who’ve failed their duty.  However, the failures within the Bureau are so rampant, wide, and deep that a scalpel cannot meet the task. The situation wants an axe.