January 23, 2006

America's Lock on Freedom
By Lady Liberty

We all want to keep ourselves, our families, and our property safe. That's why we lock our car doors and tell our kids not to talk to strangers. That's why some of us have alarm systems installed in our homes, and one reason many of us choose to have firearms. It's why we wear seatbelts and helmets; it's the bottom line in our reasoning behind getting regular medical checkups.

From smoke alarms to healthy eating, and from avoiding certain parts of town after dark to not running with scissors, safety is our bottom line. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to be safe! In fact, there are some who would consider protecting their families to be a sacred duty, and I'm hard pressed to find an argument against that thought. But no matter how hard we try, sometimes bad things happen. (Read the rest here)

A Bridge Too Far
By Emiliano Antunez

On January 9th, 15 Cuban rafters plucked a few days earlier from the decrepit and unused Flagler Bridge in the Florida Keys were repatriated to their communist gulag homeland. The reason given by the US Government was that these migrants never achieved “dry foot” status under the Wet Foot-Dry Foot policy. This decision was based on the fact that the bridge was no longer in use and did not connect to dry land, so it was considered “wet.” This is just one more example of the bureaucratically sick twist of semantics going on In Washington DC.

Wet Foot-Dry Foot is a presidential decree signed by former President Bill Clinton; it allows those Cuban migrants that reach land to stay, while those intercepted in the water are returned to Cuba. This policy reduces US immigration policy to the level of a game of tag or hide and seek. The game is a deadly one because it tempts Cubans on the island to make the dangerous voyage across the Florida straights, in which thousands have drowned or been eaten by sharks. In response to a South Florida Congressman in 2000, then candidate Bush needed Cuban-American votes in Florida and said he would review the policy, implying he would make changes. Six years later, President Bush has left the controversial and deadly decree untouched. (Read the rest here)

Searching for a New Direction
by Congressman Ron Paul - R - TX

The Abramoff scandal has been described as the biggest Washington scandal ever: bigger than Watergate; bigger than Abscam; bigger than Koreagate; bigger than the House banking scandal; bigger than Teapot Dome. Possibly so. It’s certainly serious and significant.

It has prompted urgent proposals of suggested reforms to deal with the mess. If only we have more rules and regulations, more reporting requirements, and stricter enforcement of laws, the American people will be assured we mean business. Ethics and character will return to the halls of Congress. It is argued that new champions of reform should be elected to leadership positions, to show how serious we are about dealing with the crisis of confidence generated by the Abramoff affair. Then all will be well. But it’s not so simple. Maybe what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg, an insidious crisis staring us in the face that we refuse to properly identify and deal with. (Read the rest here)

The Amazing Magic Wackety Wackety Money Machine
by Bob Wallace

Alan Greenspan: Wackety! Wackety! Wackety!

Pizza Deliverer: Hello? Did someone here order --- AHHH!! What the hell are you?!

Greenspan (chuckling): Scary, ain't I?

Deliverer: Dude, you look like an reanimated corpse! Kinda like that guy with all the knives in Hellboy! (Read the rest here)

Libertarian Proposals For The Constitution (Part One)
By Nathan A. Barton (TM and © 2006)

Any time we start a new year, we should accept the natural optimism of the season, looking for ideas and ways to make positive contributions, improve our situation, and encourage ourselves. As the days start to get longer, it is natural for humans to be buoyant and excited. As part of this, it never hurts to dream a little, to explore new ideas, and to set out some suggestions.

For 218 years, now, this grand Empire of ours has been served by the Constitution of 1787 - the world’s oldest and in many ways, over time, the world’s most effective. Conceived in deceit, ratified in fear, butchered by amendments and emasculated by a long string of tyrannous judges and cowardly, money-grubbing Congresses, it is still not a really bad document, even to a libertarian (although as an ararcho-capitalist, there are much better alternatives available). But it is not serving us well, and we know there is no possibility whatsoever of replacing it with something better, whether it be L. Neil Smith’s “Covenant of Unanimous Consent” or Robert A. Heinlein’s “Compact” or something else, such as adaptation of the Texas Constitution 2000 or my own Paha-Sapan “Covenant of Sovereignty”. While amending it FOR THE BETTER would be difficult, such an action would be at least within the realm of reason. (Read the rest here)

Double Standard Treatment For Child Abusers
By Carey Roberts

Heather Thomas of Fairfax, VA was arrested last week in the shaking death of her 6-day-old granddaughter. On Christmas Day Valerie Kennedy held her son in a tub of scalding water as punishment, causing his death. A few days later Genevieve Silva was arrested in Oklahoma on child rape charges for luring a high school student to run away from home.

Chances are you didn't read about these incidents in your local newspaper. Because when a man commits abuse, it seems the story is splashed all over the front page. But when the perpetrator is a member of the fairer sex, the story is relegated to the bottom of the Police Report on page C9. (Read the rest here)

A Tribute To Lee And Jackson
By Chuck Baldwin

January is often referred to as "Generals Month" as no less than four famous Confederate Generals claimed January as their birth month: James Longstreet (Jan. 8, 1821), Robert E. Lee (Jan. 19, 1807), Thomas Jonathan Jackson (Jan. 21, 1824), and George Pickett (Jan. 28, 1825). Two of these men, Lee and Jackson, are especially noteworthy.

Without question, Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson were two of the greatest military leaders of all time. Even more, the Lee and Jackson tandem is regarded by many military historians as having formed perhaps the greatest battlefield duo in the history of warfare. If Jackson had survived the battle of Chancellorsville, it is very possible that the South would have prevailed at Gettysburg and perhaps would even have won the War Between The States. (Read the rest here)

“War on Terror” Continues to Create Terrorists
By Ivan Eland

The CIA’s recent botched attempt to kill al Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman Zawahiri, in Pakistan illustrates why the Bush administration’s overly aggressive “war on terror” actually motivates terrorists to attack the United States. Certainly, capturing or killing the brains behind al Qaeda is an important goal. Unfortunately, in the U.S. method of warfare—which unduly emphasizes attrition, heavy firepower and sophisticated weaponry, even against guerrillas and terrorists—the technology of killing has outstripped the quality of human intelligence needed to hit the correct targets. The CIA’s unmanned Predator drone fired missiles that killed many Pakistani civilians, including women and children, but apparently not Zawahiri.

Making things even worse, the killing of women and children continues to spark public outrage all across Pakistan, leading to mass protests in all of Pakistan’s major cities and the trashing and burning of a U.S.-supported aid organization. Such public ire will make it even less likely that the United States will receive accurate future intelligence about where Zawahiri and his boss, Osama bin Laden, are hiding, even though the prices on their heads are substantial. (Read the rest here)

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