Tag: liberty

Fundamentally Asinine Administration

If you had any doubts that the FAA’s (see post title for definition of acronym) flight regulations regarding anti-terrorism were completely insane, there’s this, courtesy of the Air Finance Journal:

Before deploying from Savannah, Georgia to Iraq by a chartered airliner, the troops of the 48th Brigade Combat Team, a National Guard unit, had to go through the same security checks as any other passengers. Lt. Col. John King, the unit’s commander, told his 280 fellow soldiers that FAA anti-hijacking regulations require passengers to surrender pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters. “If you have any of those things,” he said, almost apologetically, “put them in this box now.” The troops were, however, allowed to keep hold of their assault rifles, body armour, helmets, pistols, bayonets and combat shotguns.
[Via Political Diary, emphasis added. –R]

Are you sleeping?

Tony Blair, British Prime Minister:

“September 11 for me was a wake up call. Do you know what I think the problem is? That a lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again.”

The Long War or the Short Surrender

This is the third and final part of a series on national security run in the pages of The Federalist Patriot. This part can be found in today’s issue (PDF file), and is reprinted here with permission.

Continue reading “The Long War or the Short Surrender”

Our modern hubris

Senator Rick Santorum, (R-PA):

A generation ago, liberals figured out something that most conservatives couldn’t have dreamed of in their worst nightmare. A few well-positioned autocrats can do what most Americans thought, and the Constitution says, takes two-thirds of the Congress and three-quarters of the state legislatures to do: namely, change the Constitution to mean whatever they want it to mean. The plan was simple. Put justices on the Supreme Court, backed up by lower court judges, to “modernize” our Constitution by fiat, with the claim that Supreme Court decisions, whether based on the words of the Constitution or not, have the same status as the Constitution itself.

How often do we hear that our founding compact needs to be a living, breathing document whose meaning changes with the times? Never mind what the words of our Constitution actually say; never mind the clear intent of the Constitution’s writers and signers; never mind two hundred years of judicial interpretation; never mind the centuries-old wisdom of the common law: We are much wiser today than our predecessors. Or so goes the liberal boast. In fact, it is said, we are now able to see just what they were “getting at” even better than they could — as if the U.S. Constitution were only a “nice try” at a plan of government.

Conservative vs liberal approach to law

Star Parker:

The characterizations we most commonly hear in contrasting liberal and conservative judges tend to use phrases such as “activism” vs. “restraint,” and approaching the Constitution as a “living document” vs. focusing on “original intent.”

However, I think asking a more fundamental question sheds light on why our society’s most vulnerable _ the poor and otherwise disenfranchised _ need conservative judges. We should be asking: “What is the purpose of the law?”

In this sense, I would contrast a conservative-vs.-liberal approach as the former viewing the core purpose of the law as individual protection and the latter relating to law as a tool for social engineering.

Providing the tools for homeland defense

Yesterday’s Federalist Patriot (PDF file) contained part two of the series on U.S. National Security. Titled “Homeland Defense,” it discusses the steps taken since 9/11, including the Patriot Act, and looks forward. I’ve reprinted it below.

Continue reading “Providing the tools for homeland defense”

Why bother with CC?

Unlike Jeff, I don’t hate Creative Commons. I just don’t see the point. I believe we’re much better off working with our legislators to getting copyright lowered, back toward something resembling what the Founding Fathers intended.
Update, 8:45 PM CST: In the August issue of Wired (archive not posted online at the time of this writing), in the “Posts” section, there is a little blurb on Creative Commons, targeted at the right-leaning talk show host the left loves to hate, Mr. Limbaugh:

Hey, Rush! Ever Heard of the Creative Commons?
“There are some things [from my show] that we can’t [podcast] yet, like music because of copyright problems. … But just want to tell you we’re continually working on it. … I know the Millennium Copyright Act is what this is all about, and until that’s changed, none of this is going to change.”
From The Rush Limbaugh Show
June 14, 2005
Rush Limbaugh, talk radio host
Now, unless I’m completely misunderstanding, I don’t believe, Wired writers, that the Creative Commons would be of help in this situation. Whatever music Rush is referring to, my guess it is of one of two natures.
First, he’s talking about music they use to lead in and out of the show from commercial breaks. This music is more often than not popular music from the last three or four decades, and is the copyrighted material of those artists. Creative Commons would play no role.
Second, the music referred to could be the parody songs some times featured on the show. More often than not, these songs are not the copyrighted property of The Rush Limbaugh Show or the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, parent company of the show. These parody songs are often the property of a third-party artist. Again, Creative Commons would play no role. So I’m not sure why Wired feels the need to slam CC on Rush…

Throwing down the gauntlet

Despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Democrats and the rest of the Left, the President stuck to his guns and nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court. The not-so-loyal opposition has already begun to put its foot in its mouth, as the President dares them to raise a ruckus over a nominee they unanimously confirmed two years ago to the appellate bench.
Hinderaker’s take on Leahy/Schumer:

[I]t was fun to see Pat Leahy and Chuck Schumer on television tonight; they looked just awful. After President Bush’s terrific, upbeat presentation of Roberts, and Roberts’ graceful, brief talk, Leahy and Schumer sounded like they had just dropped in from another planet. They were dour, hateful, and came across as sad and pathetic minions who have been sent on a hopeless mission by their bosses at “People for the American Way.”
Hugh thinks the Roberts’ nomination is a “home run,” and from what I’ve read, it sounds that way. Let’s just hope and pray fifteen to twenty years from now, he’s still in the Rehnquist-Scalia-Thomas mold, and not drifting aimlessly as O’Connor ended.

Teaching the Constitution

Cal Thomas:

The president and those who wish to see the Constitution restored to its “original intent” need to reteach it if they are to overcome the liberal orthodoxy expressed by the late Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and echoed recently by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that “the Constitution is what the judges say it is.”

Try that at the supermarket. Is a pound what the shopper says it is, or do scales, which rely on a standard, determine a pound’s true weight? Would we get away with telling a police officer who pulls us over for speeding, “I decided that 70 miles per hour is 55 for me”?

Why, then, this constantly changing Constitution that is in the minds of liberals to be altered like a suit of clothes to fit the wearer, rather than a document to which all must conform if the general welfare is to be promoted?

It is because those revisionists know they can’t use the legislative process to ram through any of their social engineering ideas. … They know the people (with the possible exception of a majority in Massachusetts) would vote them out of office and so they turn to unelected judges, appointed for life, to do their ideological dirty work for them.

If the Constitution is to again be seen as a finished document that has been refinished in recent years, the president must foreswear any talk of “moderation” and “conciliation” in his choice of court nominees. Truth cannot be moderated.

[…]

The president owes the country an ideological battle, which he can win if he is willing to fight it. By virtue of his office, he commands attention unavailable to anyone else. He should not only campaign for his nominee(s), he should act like a teacher, quoting the Federalist Papers and the Constitution and making his case that this great document served America well until some judges began tampering with it.

Cause and effect: Defining the enemy 2

Cal Thomas:

It matters little that “the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists,” to quote a familiar Western mantra. It matters a great deal that most terrorists are Muslims. The sooner Western leaders and Western media begin stating what is obvious to most people; the quicker the real root cause can be dealt with.

The excuses given by Westerners and many Muslim clerics for terrorism are just that: excuses.