Wednesday, May 04, 2005

The Worst 21st Century American Enemy of Liberty So Far

There is one particular person who stands out in the early Twenty-first Century whom I designated as the worst American enemy of liberty so far. I say "so far" because the century is young and I greatly fear that a worse enemy of liberty will come along. The worst American enemy of liberty in the Twenty-first Century so far is such a formidable enemy that I really don't see how there could be a worse one later, but I have learned that no matter how bad things get, things can always get worse. (Of course, they can and do get better, too, and we can always hope for that.)
I was born at a time when the Republican Party was on a liberty kick. I cut my libertarian teeth on a strong support of Barry Goldwater for president in 1964. I read everything he wrote and it seemed that the word "individual" appeared in every line.
This, to me, was conservative Republicanism. Well, history was my worst subject in school, juxtaposed to lunch and gym. And it is just as well, because history was taught the way the establishment wanted it to be taught.
Obviously I have learned a great deal since then, and most of it I have relayed in this series. The Republican Party is anything but conservative, much less libertarian (that is, if conservatism is conserving the libertarian principles of the Founders). Except with that little one-night stand with freedom, the GOP has always gone out of its way to complete its own founding mission: to end the Founders' principles and replace them with the contrary, i.e. authoritarian, centralized, mercantilist, ever-growing, strong, top-down government. In fact, in 2004, the House of Representatives overwhelming passed a resolution praising Franklin Roosevelt and his legacy. The GOP had a majority and the clout to stop something like that, but they didn't. Disgracefully, only four Republicans joined libertarian Ron Paul (R-Texas) in voting against it (1).
The Republican Party found the person who can best promote its mission.
That person is the worst Twenty-first Century American enemy of freedom so far.
The worst Twenty-first Century enemy of liberty so far is the President of the United States, George W. Bush!
I am going to try not to make a long dissertation of this segment, although so much comes into my e-mail box, and even the mainstream news, every day that shows how hard President Bush and his administration are working to take more freedom away, that I could literally go on for years.
There is really no need to do more than point out some rather randomly selected examples of freedom lost in the past four years under this administration. Of course, under Clinton freedom sank. In fact, during Clinton’s term I looked forward to seeing him out. Little did I know! This is why I know enough to say that Bush is the worst enemy of freedom "so far." I thought Clinton was rock bottom, but he was far from that.
But, under Bush, our freedom has been falling like a stone thrown out of an airplane. Because we are all living with this administration, seeing it on TV, hearing it on the radio, and reading about it in the papers, and, I fervently pray, reading about it on the Internet, I do not need to relate a blow-by-blow account as I did (however briefly) with Lincoln and Roosevelt. The Internet is particularly important as this is the only place where you can get opinions that truly differ from the politically correct, pro-Bush (albeit some meekly critical of Bush), establishment opinions. Most of my references are therefore Web pages.
If you are a libertarian or leftist, you already know that Bush is totally against anything even remotely connected to freedom. If you are a Bush supporter, you are either overtly anti-freedom or you do not understand freedom.
If you are pro-Bush and think you are pro-freedom, I urge you now to go to
http://www.mises.org and obtain some work by Lew Rockwell, Murray Rothbard, or other authors listed. This is because I, as a born-again Christian, fully believe you are on the wrong path!
Having said that, let us examine a few of the ways George W. Bush has seriously undermined freedom, what little there is of it.


EDUCATION

The assault on liberty in education is mighty. Although President Bush preaches choice in education, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) says something entirely different (2). First of all, Bush is very much a believer in public (read government) schools, which simply means that the government should educate the children.
Why should government, which has been shown to be most inefficient and biased, be entrusted to educate? It probably depends on how one defines "education." Let's check Webster's 1979 Pocket Dictionary (which I happen to have on hand) for the word "educate." It says to "educate" is to develop knowledge, skill, or character. It seems to me that to teach a person to think things through independently for himself would be included. Can government do this? I suppose it can, as there are really some very good teachers in the public schools. But does it? Not as a rule, I believe, but maybe it does at some local levels if the schools are independent and decentralized enough.
But, No Child Left Behind is on the federal, not local, level. Remember, this is the same federal government that has been shown to strictly micromanage the whole country with no regard for the individual.
This is not even touching on the fact that nowhere in the Constitution does it say anything about federal involvement in education. That makes NCLB automatically unconstitutional!
All the talk about greater leeway and flexibility is empty when the Act calls for standardized testing, which would encourage rote learning in preparation rather than independent thought, and "corrective action" for schools where students do poorly on the tests.
NCLB also calls for some programs for pre-schoolers. This may sound good to families where both parents work, but I hear a major alarm when I think of placing children in government care during years that are highly important to the child in learning the difference between right and wrong, and forming habits and opinions that will carry over into the child's entire life. I believe that pre-schoolers need to get a good dose of opportunities to begin learning self-reliance and independent thought under the individualized guidance of their parents. Learning in a group from an agent of the state at this point is going to send the wrong messages, not just to the child, but to the parent.
Of course, all this comes with hefty federal funding, out of your pocket, of course.
Some states are now shying away from NCLB. This is one area where state nullification should be revived and used.
I may also mention that President Bush favors school vouchers. Now many libertarians, which included myself a decade or so ago, believe that these vouchers will help parents and students choose private education. They might indeed make it possible for families to pay for education in institutions other than public schools. But, one needs to remember that government money is always accompanied by government regulation. Vouchers, which help families pay for education, are like food stamps that help people pay for food. Parents present them to the school for tuition. However, only approved schools can accept the vouchers. To be approved, a school must meet certain requirements. This insinuates government intervention into private schools and tends to help compliant schools and hurt independent ones.
I am dwelling on this education issue because if we are ever going to become a free country again, people have to think for themselves. We have to be able to look at issues from many angles, not just one or two politically correct points of view. And, as long as government funds education, particularly at the federal level, this is not going to happen.
This is the real reason the Bush administration favors vouchers, and the reason libertarians, and everyone else, should oppose them.
There are a couple other points about Bush and education. One is that the government schools are now being used as a captive audience for military recruiters. Recruiters and their high-pressure, half-truth sales pitches are actually present on high school campuses, and high schools are even being required – as part of the NCLB Act – to send lists of upperclassmen to the government. (This is of course in addition to the mandatory self-registration with Selective Service for 18-year-old men.) Even the mainstream news has acknowledged this.
Also, the Bush administration is pushing for the compulsory "mental health" evaluations of all students, including preschoolers. This is a very dangerous proposition that will benefit no one but the drug companies (who manufacture the drugs given to, or forced on, those labeled "mentally ill") and other establishment interests.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a libertarian and the only member of Congress who consistently favors freedom (and therefore opposes Bush at every turn) has been fighting this tooth and nail (3).
The student evaluation program is to be modeled after the Texas Medication Algorithm Project. Now, the word "Medication" in it should send up a red flag immediately. There was a very informative article on this in a recent Mother Jones which every parent and teen should read (4).
It is bad enough that school kids be subjected to this intrusive testing and, possibly forced to use psychiatric drugs. This scheme may spread to other sectors of the population, such as seniors (5). I will be a senior in the not too distant future (not to mention a dissident which some consider pathological in itself). You will be a senior too some day. So, as the song says, "What are you going to do when they come for you?"
Private education, as long as it is truly free market education, is bound to be the best. Because parents have different ideas on child rearing and since children have very different temperaments, aptitudes, and learning abilities, it is important to have great diversity in schooling. If the market can provide 31 different flavors of ice cream (plus home-made ice cream), it can provide 31 styles of education to parents (plus home-schooling) to choose from. After all, how much more important to parents is education than ice cream? Home-schoolers can cooperate and form neighbor block schools, or do whatever their unique needs call for. They don't need government to tell them what to do. But the Bush administration wants all decisions centrally made in Washington.
One is bound to ask, how are people going to pay for this? In the absence of exorbitant taxes, and in the presence of more charitable giving (due to donors' lower taxes) this problem would be at least partly solved.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

University professors are being pressured to toe the politically correct line. Now, this might or might not be coming directly from the Bush administration or even the federal government, but the trend to take the middle of the road and not stand out definitely originates from government, especially in government universities.
Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado at Boulder (6) and Professor Hans Herman Hoppe of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (7) are the most publicized cases of professors who have spoken their minds and taken severe consequences. Dr. Churchill has written a politically incorrect piece on why he believed the 9-11 terrorist attack occurred. Dr. Hoppe made a politically incorrect but very reasonable statement by any standard about economic time preferences (i.e. present vs. future orientation). These caused a firestorm among the speech police at their respective universities and caused both of them anguish and financial cost, and could have cost them their jobs, even though both institutions swear up and down a reverence for academic freedom.
There is academic freedom all right, until you rock the boat.
There seems to be an atmosphere of intimidation and line toeing. What is happening in the classroom is also happening in newspaper editors' offices. The mainstream media, for the most part, will not deviate from the party line (or the two party lines, if you prefer, the liberal and the conservative, which are both pro-big government, the difference being in the details only). The assumption is that the government is the solution to problems, and that, in election years, the only candidates worth reporting on are the two Big Government party candidates.
THE LAW PROFESSION
You would think that the law profession and the federal government would be getting along fabulously. In some ways, they are, for so many laws are on the books now that it is almost impossible not to run afoul of the law, and it is only a matter of time before one needs legal help for all manner of issues, ranging from making a will to being defended from a murder accusation, and all things in between such as ascertaining compliance with the crazy-quilt of hair-splitting regulations, or with increasingly complicated tax laws.
Lawyers, like undertakers, are virtually guaranteed a clientele. So, they have reason to love big government. However, lawyers are now being intimidated by the government to be careful about the kinds of cases they take on. If a lawyer defends someone in court who is accused of being a "terrorist" (whether or not there is any actual evidence that the defendant may actually be a terrorist, or has simply been labeled a "terrorist" because someone in power does not like him), the lawyer may be prosecuted himself. The lawyer, of course, is only giving the defendant the legal help he is legally entitled to in making his case for the trial that the Constitution guarantees. But lawyers are now being intimidated into refusing to accept certain cases, such as those involving "terrorism" (broadly defined by the law) and drugs. It is a blatant attempt to stifle dissent.
Take Lynne Stewart, for example (8). She defends such clients, and as a dissident, who knows, I might need someone like her some day. So might you. Of course, most of us cannot afford a high-profile lawyer like Ms. Stewart (although she does do some pro bono work), but some day we might need someone who dares to buck the system. Dissidents, especially minorities, are going to go down. We have seen precedents for locking up dissidents and minorities. If dissident lawyers are convicted of conspiracy for having worked for a client, they are canaries in the coal mine whom the rest of us will follow.

WAR

Now, it is generally believed that President Bush took us to war in Iraq on false pretenses. Knowledgeable people thought so from the start, but this is not actually the main reason to oppose the war. There never was any evidence that Saddam Hussein had any weapons of mass destruction, but Bush proceeded anyway, and now he has been forced to admit the truth. However, he still claims that it was right to go to war in Iraq!
Bush is now claiming that the removal of Saddam Hussein from power and the ushering in of democracy were the main objectives, even though Saddam was no threat to the U.S. (even though Bushites described Saddam as "another Hitler,” thus trying to scare the American people again). Bush seems to want us to think the war was a mission of mercy and that the Iraqis are better off now that we have removed Saddam. That is, at least in part, highly questionable.
Obviously, the loss of life, particularly innocent life, is the most important reason to oppose war. But there is another reason that is a close second. That is the inevitable loss of freedom. The Founders knew this. They also knew better than to get into entangling alliances, as they understood that meddling in the affairs in other countries would only cause trouble.
But the American people are as docile now as they were during the Roosevelt administration, and they are being fooled in all the same ways. They are rallying behind Bush, using mindless slogans, and are sometimes more than implying that we who are questioning the Bush policies are unpatriotic.
The meddling and playing policeman of the world has done nothing but ruin lives and make enemies. Some of these enemies will sink to the level of the 9-11 terrorists. I believe strongly that this was the main cause of the 9-11 attacks. Had we minded our own business this previous century, not only would those 3,000 people still be alive, but millions more would be too, and we would all have a far better quality of life.
The Civil War and World War II are the two cases I have used to show that war causes political power to gravitate to central government. And, like Lincoln and Roosevelt before him, President Bush is anxious to accumulate as much power to himself as possible. This war is clearly about power. As the left points out, it is about oil too; oil is power. And, in order to get into the war, the American people were deceived again (9).
It has become abundantly clear that this Iraq war is to benefit Bush's big business cronies (Halliburton is but the most conspicuous example), his top administration cronies, many of whom have big business ties, and himself. Also, he wants a jump-off point in the Middle East from which to launch wars on other nations in the area.
The war is being justified by the prospect of "democracy" and "freedom" which we are told will make life better for the Iraqi people. To cram this form of government and a dose of the American system (remember Clay?) down their throats is of the infamous Jacobin tradition (10), along with the lies that are told to fool the public into accepting the Bush rhetoric.
We are also being told that a "capitalist" economic system will bring prosperity to Iraq. Of course, as we have seen, the Bush administration and most of the public do not have a clue what capitalism is, and we might as well read "mercantilism" or even out-and-out socialism.
This paternalist approach has never worked, and an American imposed government is more than likely to be overthrown by Islamic fundamentalists, instituting a dictatorship worse than that of Saddam Hussein. This is what happened when the Ayatollah overthrew the Shah of Iran.

MEDICINE

The Bush administration, as we all know, is up to its eyeballs in drug control. I will not touch on the bulk of the insane war on drugs except to say that it is an egregious assault on liberty (not to mention your pocketbook) that has landed millions in jail. In fact, the U.S has the highest prison population per capita than any other country, which is generally known. What is not generally known is that about half of these people are there only because of the insane war on drugs (11). My own opinion is that this insane war has never prevented one person from using one drug even one time, but it has ruined many lives. Having said that, there are a couple of specifics that I want to deal with.
One is that the insane war on drugs has invaded doctors' offices (12). Doctors have been harassed and prosecuted for prescribing pain medication that the Drug Enforcement Administration has arbitrarily decided on a one-size-fits-all basis is too much. This has intimidated doctors into under-prescribing or even avoiding pain management altogether. This means needless suffering for patients as law enforcement agents are telling doctors how to prescribe.
The other thing is that marijuana has been found to be an excellent medical treatment for a variety of serious illnesses. My very good friend, Steve Kubby, is an adrenal cancer survivor of thirty years. Adrenal cancer is always fatal in five years or less, but Steve survived, and doctors are sure it is because of the marijuana (13).
Many states have passed propositions by very wide margins to legalize the use of marijuana under a doctor's supervision. These state laws are all tiny baby-steps toward freedom, but the Bush administration, like the Clinton one before it, is enraged. In complete defiance of the Tenth Amendment, the DEA has raided many legal growers and even hospices, and arrested both doctors and very sick patients (14). The federal government will not even consider allowing or conducting research (not that it is a legitimate function of the federal government to conduct scientific research), much less rescheduling the drug in a more reasonable way. In fact, quite the contrary. Ever since the plant was banned in 1937 under Roosevelt's watch (why am I not surprised?) enforcement has waxed and waned, but today under Bush it is stricter than ever (15).

(There is an exception to what I just said. From a few years ago, this AP story: MEDICINAL POT PIONEER ROBERT RANDALL DIES IN HIS HOME JUNE 2, 2001 - Robert Randall, who made history in 1976 when a court gave him access to government supplies of marijuana to treat his glaucoma, died at his home of AIDS-related complications. He was 53. A federal court ruled 25 years ago that Randall's use of marijuana was a medical necessity. Two years later the government cut off his access to marijuana. Randall sued for reinstatement of the drug and won. He kept on smoking pot with federal permission until his death.Supposedly there is a farm in Mississippi where the feds grow their marijuana.)

This would make another case for state nullification.
We need a free market in medicine. The federal nanny state, both paternalistic and sternly authoritarian, only stands in the way of doctors’ trying to help patients regain their health.
As this was being completed, I read that Canada is about to permit the use of what is being called "liquid marijuana" (16), which is an extract from the cannabis plant. This really pleased me, not only because it is a major victory for patients, but it is a mighty blow to the Bush administration from the north.
Drug prohibition is particularly ironic when we realize that the Bush administration, as we saw above, is gearing up to dispense psychiatric drugs involuntarily to school kids.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

I touched on the media in the segment on academic freedom, as both are covered by the First Amendment.
Newscasts are obviously slanted in favor of big government. This has been going on for decades. The government looms big in the news as though it were the center of the universe. Recently it has become overt. The prohibition of drugs is assumed as if it were a law of nature like gravity. More money is assumed to be the cure for poor student performance. Gang violence is assumed to be the result of not enough money for police on the streets or too many guns in the hands of private citizens. The crowded conditions in prisons are assumed to be because there is too little money for prison construction. In other words, the deeper government digs in your pocketbook and the bigger it grows, the better things will be.
This needs to be questioned. The fact that drugs and guns are illegal gives rise to a black market in both, raising the prices of both so much that buyers must rob and steal to have enough money to support their drug habits or defend themselves from rival gangs. The proliferation of unnecessary and unconstitutional laws, as I have stated already, is putting people in prison who really do not belong there. But the mainstream media will not question the party line.
An example: I live near an Air Force base. Often one can hear their military planes roaring overhead. A local newscaster described this as "the sound of freedom." Say what? Another example: About three years ago a local woman, driving drunk, caused a serious accident that killed a woman and disabled the woman's sister. The newscaster said that she had driven under the influence a few times before, and had been let out of jail simply because the jail was too crowded. Again, what? Nobody questioned why the jail was so full.
Meanwhile, a LSD violation can get one put away for life, and the Bush administration is trying to get a law passed that would mandate five years for anyone who gives marijuana to a person under the age of 21.
Not only that, very often the news that is covered is secondary to more important issues. Rather than keeping close track of what the Bush administration is doing, the media cover items that divert the public's attention. While the PATRIOT Act was being hammered out by freedom arch-enemy John Ashcroft and others behind closed doors for a Congress-stooge to introduce, while the Homeland Security Department was being planned and salivated over by Bush (despite his empty protests), and while the Intelligence Reform Act was in the works, the media was focused on Scott Peterson, Michael Jackson, runaway brides, cats in Wisconsin, how wonderfully we are doing to free Iraq (yeah, right) and other such items. Now, as long as people are interested, these are indeed news items (the true ones, that is), but how important are they compared to our precious Bill of Rights? The Bush administration is sneaking around whittling away at our rights, and our attention is diverted.
Radio and TV stations have to kowtow to the federal government for licenses. Penalties are very severe for the most insignificant violation, or even being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Look at the fines imposed on TV stations that happened to carry the Super Bowl in 2004. During half time, as we all know, Janet Jackson's bare breast was shown. It happened suddenly and no TV station could know to block it. But that doesn't matter; our gold-digging government slapped hefty fines for this inadvertent crossing of the censors' line. This was big news, not because of this assault on the First Amendment, but because the "progressively educated" simpletons get their tails in a king-sized knot over God's most beautiful design, the human body.
We need to remember that the power to censor programs that you think are indecent, or send a bad message, is also the power to censor programs that you believe send a good message (17).
The mainstream media is cowed. This was made obvious during the 2004 election when almost nothing of third party candidates was heard.
McCain-Feingold has intimidated political advertisers even further by censoring ads by non-incumbent candidates. Harry Browne and Ron Paul went to court to end that censorship, but lost (18). Now, attempts are being made to use this law to censor blogs, such as my own. (Guess I should save up for some fines, because the Alice Lillie blog will not be censored.)

GUNS

The establishment has nearly everybody fooled about gun rights. I want to dispel a few superstitious myths about guns.
For one thing, guns are inanimate objects. They have no will and they cannot do anything any more than your table knives can. Therefore, they do not commit crimes, nor are they dangerous. What do commit crimes and are dangerous are certain people. It is those people that need to be stopped and not any inanimate objects.
A gun is a very good tool for self-protection from those dangerous criminals. People who carry guns are much less apt to be crime victims. If people are allowed to carry open or concealed guns, everyone is safer, and that includes those who choose not to carry. If the criminal knows that law-abiding citizens often carry, he or she will think twice before committing a crime. He does not know who is carrying and who is not, and he is not about to ask.
It is the responsibility of the individual to know what he or she is doing when handling a gun. It is also the responsibility of a parent to teach a child, and to decide when a child is old enough to handle a gun. It is also an individual's responsibility to make sure the gun stays out of the hands of careless or ignorant people. There does not need to be a single law on the books regulating guns and gun owners. There are already laws on the books holding people responsible for what is theirs and for the safety of their young children.
Not only that, but the Second Amendment is very clear on the subject. "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." The last time I checked, "shall not be infringed" meant shall not be infringed. And the Second Amendment applies to individuals, not any collectives. All the other rights listed in the Bill of Rights are individual rights, and so is that one. The idea that the right to bear arms is a "collective right" is pure nonsense.
President George W. Bush is against the right to bear arms. Make no mistake about this. He said so himself on a few occasions. One time I particularly remember was his acceptance speech after being nominated as the Republican Presidential candidate in 2000. I saw this with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears (live on TV). And that is what I consider proof positive. He said that he would call for the enforcement of all the federal gun laws on the books. The Convention cheered mightily. The Republican Party is for gun control, just as the Democratic Party is (19).
There are 20,000 federal gun control laws on the books. Every last one of them is unconstitutional and a threat to the freedom and safety of every person in this country, and President Bush wants them enforced.
More recently, the "Assault Weapons" ban expired. The establishment tried to get it renewed, but it was, fortunately, stalled. Bush made it clear that he would sign it into law and had his pen all ready.
As I have been saying, and as my 2004 candidate for president, Libertarian Michael Badnarik said, there is absolutely nothing good about the PATRIOT Act (nothing Constitutional, either) and it must go. However, there is one thing in there that is not so bad, and should be improved upon and passed by itself. That is the one thing in the Act that the Bush administration is dragging its feet on. It is a provision that airplane pilots can carry guns in the cockpit.
I have always thought that the horrendous terrorist attacks of 9-11 could have been averted completely, or at least minimized if someone on those planes had been armed, but they were not. The terrorists committed their crimes with box cutters. Box cutters! All these law-abiding citizens were helpless! And look what happened!
The Bush administration is reluctantly allowing a few armed pilots, but a pilot needs to run a terrible gauntlet, which includes much personal time and expense, to say nothing of a psychiatric exam, to be certified. So, in reality, no progress has been made in that area.
What more proof could you ask? Bush is for gun control, and it has nothing to do with a good aim either.
Then, there is the left. As sophisticated as they are compared to Bush supporters (that is not saying much), they have been snookered into believing that gun crime is caused by too many guns on the streets rather by than criminals who commit the crimes. They want to ban guns, and then maybe gun crime will go away. Well, if guns did not exist, there would be no gun crime. True. But, to ban and confiscate guns will not reduce gun crime. The criminals will evade the ban one way or another. Only the law-abiding will obey the ban, making them more vulnerable than ever.
The left is calling for a situation where only crooks and government officials (sometimes the same thing) will have the guns. This is a major disconnect. The left is always, and often correctly, criticizing government actions: police brutality, unfair courts, laws skewed to favor the powerful, etc. Why do they want that bunch to have all the firepower?
It is the responsible, law-abiding citizen who should be armed, and should have to seek permission from nobody! This will add exponentially to our street safety, not to mention keep our government in line!
Of course, Bush does not want the people to keep the government in line. He wants the government to keep the people in line, and that is the real reason he favors gun control.

BUSH APPOINTEES

Because President George W. Bush is solidly against the rights of the individual, it is a sure bet that his appointees will be too. We know the records of appointees in the first four years Bush was in office.
I will briefly discuss a very few of his most prominent recent appointees, but in my opinion our greater fear should be of his lesser ones, such as federal judgeships, for if you are accused of a victimless crime or a crime you did not commit, and you are a dissident, God help you if the judge is a Bush appointee.
Michael Chertoff is the appointee as head of the juggernaut Homeland Security department. He is known to be against any individual rights at all. He helped to write part of the PATRIOT Act that has even some Republicans worried about freedom (20).
The most recent nomination of Bush (and at this writing his appointment is not secure) is John Bolton to the post of United Nations Ambassador. The left is saying that Bolton is "anti-U.N." and that this appointment shows that Bush is not really pro-U.N. (21). This is the wrong appraisal in my opinion. President George W. Bush is extremely in favor of world government, and while the U.N. is a very long stride in that direction, it does not have to be by the U.N. I think Bush would just as soon see the world governed from the White House, even though I am sure he realizes it will not be by him because of the time it would take to accomplish this. He knows that if this does happen, he will go down in history as Lincoln and Roosevelt did, an American icon who was tough, decisive and did ever so much "good." Right now, John Bolton is just the person to get the ball rolling on this goal. Bolton's "opposition" to the U.N. was based on the fact that the U.S. was not unilaterally calling all the shots rather than being based on a desire to decentralize decision-making and maximize individual liberty. As a fringe benefit to the Bush agenda, Bolton may add to the unrest the war is causing, opening the door wider for the Bush administration to crack down further on civil liberties on the home front.
Another note about John Bolton: Some gun-rights groups have praised his nomination because he apparently sympathizes with gun rights, and the U.N. is about as anti-gun as it is possible to be. By "disarmament," they mean the disarmament of you, not any government. However, I doubt that Bolton's pro-gun stance will be helpful. For one thing, that is just one issue and it will take a back seat to other issues. Not only that, Bolton may cave on the issue. I know only what I have read about him, and not him personally. Therefore, I must assume he will be likely to cave. After all, consider who appointed him!
John Negroponte is President Bush's choice for "Intelligence Czar." Negroponte was deeply involved in the war in Iraq, from the deception regarding weapons of mass destruction to the bombing of Fallujah (22). I might as well also point out that the Presidential Commission on Iraq that "investigated" the deception in early April, 2005, found no guilt of pressure on the part of anybody instigating the war (23). Well, surprise, surprise. Who do you think appointed the commission? Negroponte is reputed to condone outrageous human rights violations (24).
Alberto Gonzales, newly appointed to freedom's archenemy John Ashcroft's old post of attorney general, has been in the Bush administration since its start in 2001. He was Bush's White House Counsel, and one of his first acts was to help President Bush do away with the requirement that non-classified presidential records be made public twelve years after the end of the president's term. This law, the Presidential Records Act, was passed in 1978 in the wake of freedom-enemy Richard Nixon's crimes. Gonzales covered up some of President Reagan's papers that would have embarrassed some Bush administration higher-ups (25). President Bush issued an executive order on November 1, 2001, that overturned the Act. Gonzales is now being vocal in his call for the extension of the PATRIOT Act.
Porter Goss became CIA head honcho under Bush. His dream is for the president to be able to direct CIA agents to arrest American citizens in law enforcement operations right here in the States without notifying Congress and, accordingly, Goss had a bill introduced to that affect. Currently the CIA is only allowed to function outside the country (26).
It is abundantly clear from the staff Bush is lining up and the laws that are being passed (27) that many major blows to liberty have been dealt and are being dealt by the Bush administration. What will the future hold? Because we have more than three years left for the Bush administration, I cannot be very optimistic. And, because it has been shown that neither of the major parties cares at all about individual rights, and because the lapdog media will not bring the public's attention to alternatives, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
It is incumbent on individuals to do what they can to stay out of the line of fire even as they work for the revival of liberty.
(1)
http://www.thelibertycommittee.org/update03.22.04.htm Snyder, Kent, "Republicans Praise New Deal Socialism." Also see
http://www.thelibertycommittee.org/hjres87.htm
(2) http://www.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/execsumm.html
(3) http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2004/tst09104.htm Paul, Ron, "Forcing Kids Into a Mental Health Ghetto"
(4)
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/medicating_aliah.html Waters, Rob, "Medicating Aliah." This article shows what is really going on with the TMAP and gives one child as an example of what can happen to an individual. I deeply fear that this child's entire life will be adversely affected, that is if she is lucky enough to have what can be described as a life at all after what was done to her by the state of Texas, whose ex-governor is none other than the worst Twenty-first Century American enemy of liberty so far.
(5)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/13/health/13depress.html?th&emc=th Santora, Marc, and Benedict Carey, "Depressed? New York Screens People at Risk"
(6)
http://www.kersplebed.com/mystuff/s11/backlash.html
(7)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe15.html
(8) http://www.lynnestewart.org
(9) http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul241.html Paul, Ron, "Who's Better Off?" before the House of Representatives 4-6-05. This is a must read! It really says it all when it comes to war. Also see
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul144.html Paul, Ron, "The Crime of Conscription," 12-9-03.
(10) Ryn, Claes G. America the Virtuous The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire, Transaction Publishers, 2003, New Brunswick, N.J.
(11)
http://www.mpp.org/arrests/arrests.html This shows the rise in the number of marijuana arrests for this versatile and innocuous plant alone.
(12)
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3727 Balko, Radley, "Bush Should Feel Doctors' Pain," April 4, 2005.
(13)
http://www.kubby.com
(14)
http://www.safeaccess.org
(15)
http://www.mpp.org/prohfact.html This gives a rundown of marijuana prohibition F.D. Roosevelt through G.W. Bush.
(16)
http://www.mpp.org/releases/nr20050419.html
(17)
http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=3
(18)
http://www.realcampaignreform.org/articles_and_essays.htm
(19) The Libertarian Party is also for gun control, the right kind: "Aim!!"
(20)
http://www.newswithviews.com/Briley/Patrick4.htm Briley, Patrick, "Chertoff Created Terror Pretexts for U.S. Police State," Feb. 21, 2005. Newswithviews.com is a wealth of information and ideas.
(21)
http://www.alternet.org/story/21730 Barry, Tom, "The Armageddon Man." April 12, 2005. Bolton, a GOP loyalist for decades, is a real neo-conservative hawk and is a Bushite in most other respects as well. However, the article says he is opposed to "the U.N. and all global governance...not controlled by the U.S. government" (emphasis mine) and that the U.S. government disclaimer is the main point. This is what President Bush wants, world government by the U.S. government. Also, see
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/13/wbolt13.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/04/13/ixworld.html (This is a long url so be sure to pick it all up.) Harris, Francis, "Bush's Nominee for U.N. Post 'Abused and Threatened his Staff,' Congress Told." April 13, 2005.
(22)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wanniski/wanniski69.html Wanniski, Jude, "Keep Your Eyes on John Negroponte." April 14, 2005.
(23)
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2005/04/09/989932.html (Another long url.) Margolis, Eric, "Bush Rewards His Failures." April 10, 2005.
(24)
http://www.apfn.org/APFN/NEGROPONTE.HTM "The Case Against John Negroponte."
(25)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/bovard7.html Bovard, James, "Bush's Presidential-Papers Power Grab." April 16, 2005.
(26)
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5675992/site/newsweek Isikoff, Michael, and Hosenball, Mark, "Goss's Wish List."
(27) On April 21, 2005, the U.S. Senate unanimously (99-0) passed President Bush's request for an "emergency" $81 billion to fund continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Very often bills, hundreds or even thousands of pages long, are passed by Congress without even being read. The White House can and does sneak a number of anti-freedom measures into these bills. This has turned our Congress into a rubber stamp. Downsizedc.org is promoting a bill requiring the word-by-word reading of future bills.

1 comment:

Michael Morrison said...

There are knee-jerk Bush supporters, robot-like Republicans who "think" only two-dimensionally who will be mumbling, "She's a (expletive deleted) Kerry supporter ..."
It's a shame so many people don't make more effort at understanding, at knowledge, who will then learn there are other choices voters and others could make.
Alice, you have provided a valuable service.