Threat or Hot Air?

For more than thirty years, Chuck Colson has been working for prisoner rehabilitation and reform of the prison system in the United States.  He has also been a keen observer of the spiritual state of the country, and after having been involved as an insider in the political system, has been able to make some observations in that arena.  On Monday he shared this BreakPoint article with his readers:

    Just recently, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are "pollutants that threaten public health and welfare." The "threat" comes from the effects of man-made global warming.

    This ruling is the first step in regulating the very gas that makes life on Earth possible. If that sounds odd to you, it should. A lot of what is going on here has little, if anything, to do with public health.

    The EPA's "endangerment finding" classified CO2 under the Clean Air Act as a pollutant. EPA administrator Sheila Jackson said, "Greenhouse-gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations."

    There are many scientists who would disagree. The agency's findings came at a time when the science surrounding man-made global warming is more hotly debated than ever.

    For starters, there are good reasons to doubt whether, in fact, the globe is getting warmer. The data, as opposed to computer models, strongly suggests that the globe has been cooling for the better part of a decade. This inconvenient fact may be why the preferred expression has gone from "global warming" to "climate change."

    But history teaches us that climate is always changing. So the question becomes: What causes climate change? Again, many leading climate scientists insist, with ample evidence to back it up, that the warming that occurred during the 20th century resulted from natural causes and cycles.

    Finally there are those, like the Danish researcher Bjorn Lomborg, who insist that even if human activity is contributing to a warming trend, trying to regulate CO2 is the wrong approach. Lomborg says that "cutting CO2 simply doesn't matter much for most of the world's important issues." Lomborg says the goal should be "to do better for people and the environment." Thus, we should emphasize developing technologies that mitigate the harmful effects of rising temperatures and developing alternative energy sources.

    While these are all good points that are worthy of serious consideration, this issue isn't principally about science and sound policy. It's about reinventing the way people, especially Americans, live. The global warming crowd wants to change where we live, what we drive, and even what we eat.

    The kind of coercion needed to pull that off can only come about by using what Britain's Hadley Center, itself a proponent of man-made global warming, calls "misleading . . . apocalyptic rhetoric." Rhetoric such as Congressman Harry Waxman telling NPR that the North Pole was in danger of evaporating.

    Sadly, the biggest victims of this misleading rhetoric will be the world's poor. As Lomborg points out, "Carbon remains the only way for developing countries to work their way out of poverty. . . . No green energy source is inexpensive enough to replace coal now." And as I've said often on BreakPoint, from a Christian point of view, morally sound approaches to the environment must consider the plight of the poor.

    Calling CO2, a part of the natural ecosystem, a "threat" to public health brushes aside these concerns and lets the would-be social engineers get to work - work that may create serious problems now and for future generations.

It is a shame that so few people are willing to examine the motives of those who are pushing for such short-sighted public policies.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

Stop Spending Our Future

 

Did you vote for Obama?  "What Were You Thinking?"

Authoritarian Government

It seems to me that there are many aspects of the Culture Wars, but the conflict revolves around the key issue of what is Right and what is Wrong.  In that discussion, we find many areas of dispute, including but definitely not limited to the following:

Absolutes vs Relativism

Religion vs non-religion/secularism/pantheology

Political Correctness vs Free Speech

A High view of Live vs Abortion on Demand

Multi-Culturalism vs a blended, "Melting Pot" society

Feminism -- new roles for Women in our postmodern society

Homosexuality impinging on traditional marriage

Class consciousness -- hatred of "The Rich"

Academic Terrorism -- Whatever happened to scholarly discussion?

Freedom of Conscience -- will honest men be forced to act against personal principle?

These are significant issues, of great importance in our day.  Will we as Christians stand by while voices louder than ours present the other side, or will we stand up and make the Biblical case for a Christian World View?  How can we be Salt and Light in the world if we are unwilling to provide the savor and illumination the Bible calls upon us for?  In his day, Francis Schaeffer did not shrink from providing honest answers to honest questions, even when such answers may have repelled some of the questioners.  He was in the forefront of those who said that abortion was wrong.  He pointed out the logical conclusions and the eventual result of acceptance of abortion, and today we see euthanasia written into law.  He signed the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.  He pointed out the fallacy of going through life seeking only "Personal Peace and Affluence."

 

Mark Levin, in his book Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservitave Manifesto, makes the case that those who envision an all-powerful state are leading us toward a government of "soft dictatorship."  I commend his book to your attention, because many of the principles of a conservative political movement are those that derive from a Christian world view.

 

Then there's this quote:  "If we as Christians do not speak out as authoritarian governments grow from within or come from outside, eventually we or our children will be the enemy of society and the state.  No truly authoritarian government can tolerate those who have a real absolute by which to judge its arbitrary absolutes and who speak out and act upon that absolute.  This was the issue with the early church in regard to the Roman Empire, and though the specific issue will in all probability take a different form than Caesar-worship, the basic issue of having an absolute by which to judge the state and society will be the same.  Here is a statement to memorize: to make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it."  Sound familiar?  These are the words of Francis A Schaeffer, on page 256 of his book How Should We Then Live? (copyright 1983).  We would do well to consider them carefully as we look at the society in which we find ourselves living.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

Law by Elected Representation, or by Appointed Judges?

Who will decide on the substance of laws enacted by legislature?  Will it be the representative government that is elected of, by, and for the people, or will it rather be appointed judges, sitting with lifetime tenure, who decide what is, and what is not, a constitutional law?  Will the basis of such decisions be the words of a timeless Constitution, or the "feelings" and personal opinion of whatever judge sits and rules upon it?

 

These questions becomes significant with the election of a president who has called for more activist judges.  Bob Unruh, writing today in World Net Daily, tells the story of one state's experience.

    Physicians in Montana could be facing "kill-on-demand" orders from patients who want to commit suicide if a district court judge's opinion pending before the state Supreme Court is affirmed.

    The case has attracted nominal attention nationwide, but lawyers with the Christian Legal Service have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the pending case because of what it would mean to doctors within the state, as well as the precedent it would set.

    The concern is over the attack on doctors' ethics and religious beliefs - as well as the Hippocratic oath - that may be violated by a demand that they prescribe deadly chemicals or in some other way assist in a person's death.

    M. Casey Mattox, a lawyer with the CLS, told WND that states allowing a "right to die" across the country - Oregon and Washington - include an opt-out provision for physicians with ethical or religious opposition to participating in killing a patient.

    Montana's situation, created late last year in a decision from First District Court Judge Dorothy McCarter in the Baxter et al. v. Montana case, is different. There is no provision for a doctor to refuse such "treatment" for a patient.

    In that case, Robert Baxter, 75, a retired truck driver from Billings who suffers from lymphocytic leukemia, filed the lawsuit along with four physicians in the state's district court system. They were aided in the case by the assisted suicide advocacy group Compassion & Choices, formerly known as the Hemlock Society.

    Baxter told the organization's magazine that society already provides death when animals are suffering.

    "I just feel if we can do it for animals," Baxter said, "we can do it for human beings."

    The CLS, joined by the Christian Medical Association, yesterday filed briefs asking the state Supreme Court to protect the conscience rights of healthcare professionals.

    The groups, representing more than 18,000 Christian medical and legal professions, are urging the court to reverse the district court's decision and recognize a right not to participate in assisted suicide.

    "The trial court's decision to create a constitutional right to 'obtain assistance from a medical care provider in the form of obtaining a prescription for lethal drugs' threatens the rights of healthcare professionals and institutions that hold sincere ethical, moral, and religious objections to participating in the intentional killing of their patients," Mattox said.

    "Medical professionals should not be coerced to violate the Hippocratic Oath in order to practice in Montana," he said.

    If a "right to die" is to be recognized, it should be developed from the people through the legislative process, not imposed by a single judge, the brief also argues.

    The district decision, the groups also point out,  would seriously undermine the relationship between doctors and patients. Patients could be uncomfortable knowing their doctor had provided a lethal dose to another patient, and doctors would have concerns about such demands from patients.

    "At a time when states are experiencing a healthcare shortage, making Montana the only state in the union to coerce professionals to assist in suicides could jeopardize the state's healthcare system," Mattox said.

    He told WND that the effort clearly is part of a nationwide agenda to impose and mandate ethical standards on Americans. Similar are the Obama administration's suggestions that pharmacists may not have the right to refuse to dispense abortion-inducing medications, and doctors may not have a conscience right to refuse to do abortions, he said.

    "I don't know where it's coming from, but there is certainly a push from government to tell people to set aside religious or ethical qualms and to abide by whatever the government tells you is appropriate," he said.

    Mattox said the state still has several weeks to file its briefs in the Montana case, and then there will be further arguments on behalf of requiring doctors to provide terminal treatment.

    "A mentally competent, terminally ill Montanan should have the right to choose a peaceful death, when confronted by death," Kathryn Tucker, Compassion & Choices director of legal affairs, told KTVQ-TV, Billings.

    But Montana Assistant Attorney General Anthony Johnston disagrees.

    Johnston told the television station, "The laws governing the medical profession say the medical profession is to heal, not to kill."

Is this what we've become as a country?  Am I the only one who remembers the recent case in Oregon where a person who couldn't afford life-saving treatment was told by the state that they would not help her get such treatment, but that they would pay for a physician-assisted suicide?  Check that organization that purports to be helping the dying truck driver; their mantra of "freedom to choose" sounds very like the "freedom of choice" touted by the pro-abortion lobby in our country. The only choice they promote or offer is death.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

Abortion and/or Torture

Meredith Turney writes Thursday at Townhall.com:

    President Obama took the occasion of his 100th day in office to publicly denounce the practice of interrogative waterboarding as torture. During his primetime press conference, the President justified his administration's ban on "enhanced interrogation techniques" by citing Winston Churchill's refusal to engage in torture during World War II: "Churchill understood, you start taking short-cuts, over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country."

    The "character of a country" - specifically America - is an issue every president grapples with. On the world stage, character - the ability to trust another nation's integrity - is critical. A country with inconsistent morals is a nation whose character cannot be trusted. Under the Obama Administration, America is perilously close to losing our moral integrity regarding basic human rights, especially the right to life.

    Obama has taken a seemingly unequivocal moral stand in favor of human rights by banning waterboarding, which he considers a form of torture. But juxtapose his moral outrage over torture with his nomination of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to lead the Health and Human Services Department.

    During her twenty-plus years as an elected official in Kansas, Sebelius has forged strong ties to infamous abortionist George Tiller. For $5,000, Tiller will perform any abortion, for any reason - including late-term abortions. The horror stories that have emerged from Tiller's clinic describe callous acts of aborting almost-full-term children. At this point in a pregnancy, these children most certainly feel the pain and torture of chemical injections, cutting, ripping and stabbing used in the abortion process.

    In May 2007, Bill O'Reilly directed the nation's attention to Tiller's Wichita "death mill" when he exposed Sebelius' veto of a bill that would have required Tiller to provide a specific medical reason for the late-term abortions he performed on viable fetuses. O'Reilly also brought to light the thousands of dollars Tiller had donated to Sebelius' various campaigns and related political action committees. "Now America is a great country, but this kind of barbaric display in Kansas diminishes our entire nation," stated O'Reilly. Indeed, the way we treat innocent life says just as much about our moral character as how we interrogate terrorists.

    Legislative attempts to end the brutality perpetrated by Tiller and his ilk have been repeatedly thwarted by Governor Sebelius. In fact, just prior to her Senate confirmation, Sebelius vetoed legislation in Kansas that would have provided greater oversight of late-term abortions such as those performed by Tiller. Refusing to hold accountable those with young life in their hands is - in the words of President Obama - "taking short-cuts" that corrode "what's best in a people."

    It is the height of hypocrisy to ban interrogation techniques on militant enemies of innocent life while refusing to ensure innocent life isn't carelessly discarded by ruthless abortionists.

    A few moments after President Obama was asked about the torture issue at his press conference, another reporter inquired about the controversy surrounding his commencement address at the staunchly pro-life University of Notre Dame. Now in a much higher pay grade than when he was last asked about his position on abortion, the reporter asked whether the president still intended to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would effectively remove all restrictions on abortion nationwide. Once again, President Obama hemmed and hawed, rambling on about what a difficult decision abortion is for women.

    As a state legislator in Illinois, Obama opposed the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act - a legislative response to botched late-term abortions where babies were left to die by starvation.

    The President wants to appear unequivocal about his "moral" decision to ban torture because he considers it inhumane. But his equivocal response to the issue of abortion, and his votes against banning the barbaric partial-birth abortion - which constitutes true torture by any reasonable standard - reveal an inconsistency at best.

    Congressional Democrats have been quick to call for investigations of and possible criminal prosecution for "harsh interrogations" of terrorists. But many of these same politicians have remained mute on Sebelius' connection to a notorious abortionist engaged in abominable abortion practices.

    As the President explained the torture ban during his recent press conference, he observed, "In some cases, it may be harder, but part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy."

    Perhaps we walk a thin line in determining the definition of torture and its use in national security, but when it comes to preventing the needless pain and suffering of children, America should hold true to our ideal of protecting all innocent life.

It is indeed a sad day for our country when the elected government feels more compassion for those who would destroy America than for the unborn babies in our midst.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

The Question that Didn't Get Asked

From The Heritage Foundation today:

 

While pressing Obama on a variety of national security questions, the White House press corps failed to ask: "Mr. President, if your administration is already claiming credit for jobs created in this economy, when can the American people start holding you accountable for all the jobs lost?"

 

Obama's desire to escape all accountability for his economic policies was also on display earlier in the day when he told a town hall in Missouri: "We inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. That wasn't me." Oh really? The Associated Press fact checked Obama's claim and reports:

Congress controls the purse strings, not the president, and it was under Democratic control for Obama's last two years as Illinois senator. Obama supported the emergency bailout package in President George W. Bush's final months - a package Democratic leaders wanted to make bigger.
...

  He's persuaded Congress to expand children's health insurance, education spending, health information technology and more. He's moving ahead on a variety of big-ticket items on health care, the environment, energy and transportation that, if achieved, will be more enduring than bank bailouts and aid for homeowners.

  The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated his policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years, even accounting for his spending reduction goals. Now, the deficit is nearly quadrupling to $1.75 trillion.

 

The cost of Obama's massive spending explosion is about to hit home. The Treasury Department announced yesterday that it is going to step up the issuing of 30-year bonds to cover the hundreds of billions of dollars the Obama administration is spending on bailouts and stimulus. A special advisory committee to the Treasury then warned, "Treasuries will probably not receive the same favorable demand treatment from either source over the coming quarters." Translation: foreign and domestic investors are going to demand significantly higher interest rates in exchange for buying the avalanche of new bonds.

 

Higher interest rates will strangle our economic recovery. Congress and the President should do the opposite of what they apparently intend: They should cut taxes on productive activities, not increase them. They should cut spending, not increase it. And rather than increase government spending with new entitlements like a government-run health plan, they should reduce future entitlement benefits to give credit markets some confidence that U.S. policymakers have not entirely abandoned fiscal discipline.

"What Were You Thinking?"

The ANTI-'Fairness Doctrine'

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, the very first entry in our Bill of Rights passed on March 4, 1789, reads as follows: ''Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [emphasis mine]

 

The current congress has no problem with most of the mainstream press, and the three major television networks; for some reason they all seem to have the same political biases and support all the socialist programs that are being foisted on what is, for the most part, a politically uneducated public.  As long as the mainstream media pushes the leftist agenda, and continues their fawning love affair with the current occupant of the Oval Office, they are safe from the scorn of Democrats.

 

But these leftists, in Congress and in the mainstream media, cannot stand to have their policies and opinions -- their agenda -- held up to the light of day by those who oppose them or who support an alternate view.  They are not content to reply and rebut the opposition; they rather do all they can to demonize people who hold views other than their own(see this posting of February 27, and especially this article from January 31).

 

Many people have held forth on the possibility that this congress will reprise, and the president sign, a new incarnation of the old "Fairness Doctrine" to provide direction to use of the public airwaves  Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would have us believe that it will provide a more fair, balanced expression of opinion.  Others have suggested that it will rather reduce the radio spectrum to a bland sameness that is less informative and more irrelavent to public discourse.

 

But few of those who have opined on the subject carry as much weight as does a member of the Supreme Court.  Justice Clarence Thomas, a man who knows the depths of hatred from the political left better than most, has shared his ideas, and a column on World Net Daily today brings them to the public.  The Fairness Doctrine is, says Justice Thomas, a Deep Intrusion into the rights of broadcasters:

 

For the first time, a U.S. Supreme Court justice is offering some legal insight about the so-called Fairness Doctrine, suggesting the off-the-books policy could be declared unconstitutional if it's revived and brought before the bench.

  In written discussion on yesterday's ruling cracking down on indecent language on television, Justice Clarence Thomas called the policy "problematic" and a "deep intrusion into the First Amendment rights of broadcasters."

  The doctrine requiring broadcasters to air opposing viewpoints on controversial issues was brought to an end in the 1980s under the direction of President Ronald Reagan's Federal Communications Commission.

  There has been widespread fear, though, the policy could be resurrected during the term of President Barack Obama.

  The Pacific Justice Institute, a California-based legal group specializing in the defense of religious freedom  and other civil liberties, is calling the remarks by Thomas "very significant."

  "To my knowledge, this is the first time a sitting Supreme Court justice has weighed in on this issue," Matt McReynolds, a PJI staff attorney, told WND.

  "It could potentially take a lot of steam out of the movement from those who want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. It also provides a lot of ammo to those who have been saying it's unconstitutional. Now we have some validation from a member of the court."

  Thomas is questioning the viability of Supreme Court precedents dating back to the 1960s, long before the explosion of media sources beyond radio airwaves.

  "The text of the First Amendment makes no distinctions among print, broadcast, and cable media, but we have done so," Thomas noted.

  "It is certainly true that broadcast frequencies are scarce but it is unclear why that fact justifies content regulation of broadcasting in a way that would be intolerable if applied to the editorial process of the print media."

  He also noticed "the number of over-the-air broadcast stations grew from 7,411 in 1969 ... to 15,273 by the end of 2004."

  If Congress and the president bring the doctrine back to life, there is no doubt lawsuits will fly.

  "We are prepared to take legal action should it be reinstated," said Brad Dacus, president of PJI. "Justice Thomas' opinion is very encouraging to everyone who believes in free speech and government non-interference with public debate."

  Meanwhile, as WND is also reporting today, the leader of a newly formed public awareness campaign to alert U.S. citizens about an effort to stifle free speech says he expects local "boards" will be assembled within 90 days to begin censoring talk radio, a move that will come as an "Arctic blast" against the expression of opinion in the United States.

  "I think the FCC is on the cusp of enacting regulations that would fundamentally alter the traditional American assumption that we have the right to share and debate political opinions," said talk-show host Roger Hedgecock, whose new initiative is called "Don't Touch My Dial."

  "The assault on the First Amendment that is being planned by the government and the extremist Left is not limited to their desire to silence conservative talk radio," Hedgecock said.

  "Newspapers and television are not immune to the anti-First Amendment efforts that are at work here. In addition, the Internet is also a target for receiving the restrictive aspects of the so-called 'Fairness Doctrine.'"

This assault by the left on what is one of the basic tenets of the Constitution is unconscionable, and should be opposed by Thinking People everywhere.  If only the government has the right to propogate ideas, what happens to discussion?  Let me suggest that those who oppose discussion of any view other than their own, do not have a view that can stand scrutiny.  We should be very, very careful.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

Security Before Politics

This article was written by Porter J. Goss, and published on Saturday, April 25, 2009 in the Washington Post newspaper.

    Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now.

    A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaida. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a onetime briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.

    Today, I am slack jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

    Let me be clear. It is my recollection that: 
-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high value terrorists.
-- We understood what the CIA was doing.
-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.
-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.
-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaida.

  I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security adviser and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.

  Circuses are not new in Washington, and I can see preparations being made for tents from the Capitol straight down Pennsylvania Avenue. The CIA has been pulled into the center ring before. The result this  time will be the same: a hollowed out service of diminished capabilities. After Sept. 11, the general outcry was, "Why don't we have better overseas capabilities?" I fear that in the years to come this refrain will be heard again: once a threat or God forbid, another successful attack captures our attention and sends the pendulum swinging back. There is only one person who can shut down this dangerous show: President Obama.

  Unfortunately, much of the damage to our capabilities has already been done. It is certainly not trust that is fostered when intelligence officers are told one day "I have your back" only to learn a day later that a knife is being held to it. After the events of this week, morale at the CIA has been shaken to its foundation.

  We must not forget: Our intelligence allies overseas view our inability to maintain secrecy as a reason to question our worthiness as a partner. These allies have been vital in almost every capture of a terrorist.

  The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality.

  Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to nonstate actors but is, regrettably, the only question this administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking risks, our intelligence officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost.

  The days of fortress America are gone. We are the world's superpower. We can sit on our hands or we can become engaged to improve global human conditions. The bottom line is that we cannot succeed unless we have good intelligence. Trading security for partisan political popularity will ensure that our secrets are not secret and that our intelligence is destined to fail us.

  The writer, a Republican, was director of the CIA from September 2004 to May 2006 and was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004.

Read a Summary of the High Value Terrorist Detainee Program. It probably comes as no great surprise that congressional Democrats and their willing accomplices in the mainstream media are again telling outright falsehoods to their constituency.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

Internet Fairness Doctrine?

One would think that Attorneys at Law, people who have had legal training and are licensed to practice in these fifty states (not 57 as the current occupant of the Oval Office once said), would have a firm grasp of the intention of the Framers of the Constitution when they drafted the First Amendment.  Yet at the same time as they are contemplating a renewal of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" for the public airways, aimed at shutting down any dissenting opinion on talk radio, the current administration in Washington is looking at doing the same thing to those of us who offer an opinion on the internet.  World Net Daily reports this morning:

 

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama's nominee for "regulatory czar" has advocated a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet that would require opposing opinions be linked and also has suggested angry e-mails should be prevented from being sent by technology that would require a 24-hour cooling off period.

    The revelations about Cass Sunstein, Obama's friend from the University of Chicago Law School and nominee to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, come in a new book by Brad O'Leary, "Shut Up, America! The End of Free Speech." OIRA will oversee regulation throughout the U.S. government.

    Sunstein also has argued in his prolific literary works that the Internet is anti-democratic because of the way users can filter out information of their own choosing.

    "A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government," he wrote. "Democratic efforts to reduce the resulting problems ought not be rejected in freedom's name."

    Sunstein first proposed the notion of imposing mandatory "electronic sidewalks" for the Net. These "sidewalks" would display links to opposing viewpoints. Adam Thierer, senior fellow and director of the Center for Digital Media Freedom at the Progress and Freedom Center, has characterized the proposal as "The Fairness Doctrine for the Internet."

"Apparently in Sunstein's world, people have many rights, but one of them, it seems, is not the right to be left alone or seek out the opinions one desires," Thierer wrote.

    Later, Sunstein rethought his proposal, explaining that it would be "too difficult to regulate [the Internet] in a way that would respond to those concerns." He also acknowledged that it was "almost certainly unconstitutional."

    Perhaps Sunstein's most novel idea regarding the Internet was his proposal, in his book "Nudge," written with Richard Thaler, for a "Civility Check" for e-mails and other online communications.

    "The modern world suffers from insufficient civility," they wrote. "Every hour of every day, people send angry e-mails they soon regret, cursing people they barely know (or even worse, their friends and loved ones). A few of us have learned a simple rule: don't send an angry e-mail in the heat of the moment. File it, and wait a day before you send it. (In fact, the next day you may have calmed down so much that you forget even to look at it. So much the better.) But many people either haven't learned the rule or don't always follow it. Technology could easily help. In fact, we have no doubt that technologically savvy types could design a helpful program by next month."

    That's where the "Civility Check" comes in.

    "We propose a Civility Check that can accurately tell whether the e-mail you're about to send is angry and caution you, 'warning: this appears to be an uncivil e-mail. do you really and truly want to send it?'" they wrote. "(Software already exists to detect foul language. What we are proposing is more subtle, because it is easy to send a really awful e-mail message that does not contain any four-letter words.) A stronger version, which people could choose or which might be the default, would say, 'warning: this appears to be an uncivil e-mail. this will not be sent unless you ask to resend in 24 hours.' With the stronger version, you might be able to bypass the delay with some work (by inputting, say, your Social Security number and your grandfather's birth date, or maybe by solving some irritating math problem!)."

    Sunstein's nomination to the powerful new position will require Senate approval. He is almost certain to face other questions about his well-documented controversial views:

 

-- In a 2007 speech at Harvard he called for banning hunting in the U.S.

 

-- In his book "Radicals in Robes," he wrote: "[A]lmost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine. And if the Court is right, then fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms."

 

-- In his 2004 book, "Animal Rights," he wrote: "Animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives ..."

 

-- In "Animal Rights: A Very Short Primer," he wrote "[T]here should be extensive regulation of the use of animals in entertainment, in scientific experiments, and in agriculture."

    "As one of America's leading constitutional scholars, Cass Sunstein has distinguished himself in a range of fields, including administrative law and policy, environmental law, and behavioral economics," said Obama at his nomination of his regulatory czar. "He is uniquely qualified to lead my administration's regulatory reform agenda at this crucial stage in our history. Cass is not only a valued adviser, he is a dear friend and I am proud to have him on my team."

    O'Leary disagrees.

    "It's hard to imagine President Obama nominating a more dangerous candidate for regulatory czar than Cass Sunstein," he says. "Not only is Sunstein an animal-rights radical, but he also seems to have a serious problem with our First Amendment rights. Sunstein has advocated everything from regulating the content of personal e-mail communications, to forcing nonprofit groups to publish information on their websites that is counter to their beliefs and mission. Of course, none of this should be surprising from a man who has said that 'limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government.' If it were up to Obama and Sunstein, everything we read online - right down to our personal e-mail communications - would have to be inspected and approved by the federal government."

Read that last once more.  Do you want the government routinely reading your e-mail, inspecting it for acceptable content, and then either passing or denying it's delivery to your intended reader?  I can't conceive a less palatable concept to anyone who loves liberty, yet this "leading constitutional scholar" (BHO's words) would deny the right of self expression to all Americans.  Can you imagine the size and scope of that bureaucracy?  Why is it that Democrats want to stop any dissenting opinion?  Is it because their own viewpoint is so weak that they find it difficult to defend?  I'm still searching for an honest liberal ...

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

Government vs. Conscience

In his daily Breakpoint e-mail, Chuck Colson addresses the constitutional question of where Human Rights come from.  Quoted  below, you can find it on the BreakPoint Archives as well.

 

    As I've said before on BreakPoint, the Obama administration is planning to revoke the Bush-era "conscience clause" that protects health-care workers from having to perform procedures that violate their conscience - procedures like abortion.

    A leading postmodern scholar, Professor Stanley Fish, defended Obama's stance recently in the New York Times. Fish's reasoning should disturb anyone who believes that human rights come from a higher source than government.

    Fish's argument relies on 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. To Hobbes's, "the Law is the public Conscience" and must take precedence over the judgments of an individual's "private Conscience" so that government can maintain order.

    Fish points out that the U.S. Supreme Court "has ruled that when the personal imperatives of one's religion or morality lead to actions in violation of generally applicable laws - laws not promulgated that is, with the intention of affronting anyone's conscience - the violations will not be allowed and will certainly not be celebrated."

    Well, that's true to a point. But Fish is being disingenuous when he speaks of "laws not promulgated with the intention of affronting anyone's conscience." Of course laws aren't passed deliberately to offend people, unless the lawmakers are deranged. But there are undeniably cases in which the law attempts to force decent people to act against their conscience in matters of justice and human rights.

    Has Fish forgotten that this country used to have a law forcing the return of escaped slaves? Today, we rightly regard people who disobeyed that law as heroes. While the ownership and mistreatment of human beings may have been legal, it was immoral to the core.

    It is also immoral for human beings to be involved in the deliberate taking of innocent human lives. As Professor J. Budziszewski notes, that is one of those things "we can't not know." And we know it because there is an authority higher than human government from which we derive our rights, and that authority has written His law on every human heart.

    The principle is set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the cornerstone of American government: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

    When health-care professionals refuse to perform or assist in an abortion because it violates their conscience, they are obeying a Higher Authority and His laws - the laws to which He holds every human being.

    This is a principle articulated by great saints like Augustine and Aquinas and at modern times by Martin Luther King, who, in his famous letter from a Birmingham jail, echoed Augustine: "An unjust law is no law at all."

    To argue that human law must always supersede conscience is an invitation to tyranny. The Bill of Rights is an acknowledgement that certain rights - like freedom of religion - are simply, or should be, beyond government's reach.

    Let's hope - and pray - that the Obama administration will decide not to force medical professionals to choose between their consciences and their livelihood. For their sake, and for the sake of all of our own freedoms.

 

It appears that the current administration intends to continue leading the people of the United States away from the dictates of conscience, and the truths of Scripture, in order to further their extreme liberal agenda.  What will be next?  Read the Declaration of Independence, which includes this line at the second paragraph:  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

100 Days in Office, Obama coronated [sic] Messiah

This item from World Net Daily this morning (Sunday, April 27, 2009):

 

    On his 100th day in office, President Obama will be "crowned" in messianic imagery at New York City's Union Square.

    Artist Michael D'Antuono's painting "The Truth" -- featuring Obama with his arms outstretched and wearing a crown of thorns upon his head -- will be unveiled on April 29 at the Square's South Plaza.

    According to a statement released about the portrait, "The 30" x 54" acrylic painting on canvas depicts President Obama appearing much like Jesus Christ on the Cross: atop his head, a crown of thorns; behind him, the dark veil being lifted (or lowered) on the Presidential Seal. But is he revealing or concealing, and is he being crucified or glorified?"

    Even the title of the piece, "The Truth," suggests a play on biblical themes, as Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

    "More than a presidential portrait," writes D'Antuono on a website touting the painting, "'The Truth' is a politically, religiously and socially-charged statement on our nation's current political climate and deep partisan divide that is sure to create a dialogue."

    Like others in the news who have depicted Obama in Christ-like imagery, D'Antuono insists he isn't claiming the man is Messiah, but only inviting "individual interpretations."

    "'The Truth,' like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder," claims the exhibit's press release.

    D'Antuono even invites the public to email him with reactions to the piece, answering his posed question, "What's your truth?"

    As WND has reported, D'Antuono follows others who have cast Obama in messianic imagery.

    In January, artist Matthew J. Clark paraded a sculpture of Obama riding a donkey and preceded by waving palm fronds, reminiscent of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem in the 21st chapter of Matthew as foretold by the prophet Zechariah: "Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass."

    Like D'Antuono, Clark was also unclear about whether his piece was proclaiming Obama to be the Christ or making some social commentary. Clark's website described the sculpture in vague terms:

    "This project was inspired by my thoughts about 'icons' and religious symbols and whether they represent truth or merely represent," Clark's website reads. "The sculpture poses a question that relates to social conventions, metaphysics, and the collective response of society in reaction to fearful and uncertain times, but doesn't impose an answer. For me, it has much more to do with the general public as followers than any leader granted power."

    Others, such as Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, have been far clearer in their nearly religious adoration of Obama. As WND reported, Farrakhan declared last year that when Obama talks, "the Messiah is absolutely speaking."

    Addressing a large crowd behind a podium with a Nation of Islam Saviour's Day 2008 sign, Farrakhan proclaimed, "You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn't care anything about. That's a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking."

    Farrakhan pointed out that the man Nation of Islam followers refer to as "the Savior," Fard Muhammad, had a black father and a white mother, just as Obama did.

    "A black man with a white mother became a savior to us," he said. "A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall."

    WND previously reported a website called "Is Barack Obama the Messiah?" capturing the wave of euphoria that followed the Democratic senator's remarkable rise.

    The site is topped by an Obama quote strategically ripped from a Jan. 7 speech at Dartmouth College just before the New Hampshire Primary in which he told students, "... a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote" for Obama.

    WND also reported on near-religious experiences surrounding Obama on the campaign trail, as supporters who came to hear him speak on several occasions fainted in the middle of the candidate's speeches. As WND reported, some compared the fainting to fanatical swooning in the midst of a mesmerizing preacher; others, like radio host Michael Medved, thought the collapses were staged moments; and still others believed it was simply a matter of people standing in the crowds too long and growing dehydrated.

    P.J. Gladnick of NewsBusters, in an article about D'Antuono's painting on the eve of the Obama administration's 100-day-mark, notes that the messianic parallels begun early in the presidential campaign don't seem to be stopping:

    "The artist quite clearly portrays Obama as a latter day Christ-like figure, considering the outstretched arms and the crown of thorns. Obama worship, complete with halo images, has been noted before," writes Gladnick, "but it was nothing compared to current expressions in awe of 'The One' as we approach his hundredth day in office on Wednesday."

My friends, this just gets weirder and weirder.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

A Jobs-Killing Bill

From the Heritage Foundation this morning:

 

    Testifying on Capitol Hill yesterday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Transportation Secretary Roy LaHood, and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson all pitched the latest cap and trade bill in the House as a "jobs bill." Jackson told the House Energy and Commerce Committee, "This is a jobs bill, and it is a jobs bill that focuses our country's energy on the growth industry of the future." But when Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) asked Jackson how her agency was able to release a cost estimate of the bill after she admitted she had not even read it, Jackson replied: "We had to make assumptions." You know what happens when you make assumptions, don't you?

    The "preliminary analysis" released by Jackson's EPA found that cap and trade would cost the average American household an extra $98 to $140 a year. These numbers are far below most academic studies of cap and trade legislation. For example, a study done by MIT Professor John Reilly found that a scheme modeled after the far more lenient Warner-Lieberman cap and trade bill would cost the average American household a combined $3,900 every year in higher energy costs and taxes. Our own Center for Data Analysis shows Lieberman-Warner would have cost the U.S. economy $4.8 trillion by 2030.

    And then there are the Americans that will lose their jobs completely due to cap and trade. Affirming his belief that carbon taxes would create jobs, Secretary LaHood emphasized "especially green jobs." And what exactly are green jobs? No one knows.

    An academic study of eco-leftist rhetoric released earlier this year shows that there is no standard definition of what a green job is, and most studies that purport to show green job creation ignore the other jobs that are destroyed by energy taxes. When "green jobs" are well defined, studies show that alternative energy policies kill more jobs than they create. President Barack Obama loves to cite Spain as an example of his preferred green job future but a study released last month by researchers at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos shows that for each job created in Spain's renewable energy industry, 2.2 jobs were destroyed elsewhere in the economy.

    We live in a fiercely competitive global marketplace. If carbon taxes were a sound way of creating jobs and economic growth our global competitors would be jumping at the chance to adopt them. Instead we see the opposite: China has said they will never sacrifice their economic growth to reduce carbon emissions and India has called the trade off between carbon caps and economic growth "morally wrong." The smarter way to insure against the possible risks of global warming is to enact policies that will ensure robust economic growth. History shows that richer is greener.

Do you suppose those assumptions made by Jackson's underlings at the EPA are listed in the report?  I bet not, at least for public consumption.

 

Read more about the Myth of "Green Jobs" at the Heritage Foundation web site.  And be sure to read the comments, because many of them are as informative as the article itself  FWIW, I have a neighbor who works in the "Wind Energy Industry."  He tells me that all the parts of these giant windmills are built in SouthEast Asia...

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

Beauty Pagaent 'Controversy'

Read the article and Watch the Video --

Question: Is there, or is there not, a radical homosexual agenda being played out here?  Would she have won the contest had she answered differently?

Are You an 'Extremist'?

Doctor Thomas Sowell writes today:

    While the rest of us may be worried about violent Mexican drug gangs on our border, or about terrorists who are going to be released from Guantanmo, the director of homeland security is worried about "right-wing extremists."

    Just who are these right-wing extremists?

    According to an official document of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, right-wing extremists include "groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration." It also includes those "rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority."

    If you fit into any of these categories, you may not have realized that you are considered a threat to national security. But apparently the Obama administration has its eye on you.

    According to the same official document, the Department of Homeland Security "has no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence." But somehow they just know that you right-wingers are itching to unleash terror somewhere, somehow.

    So-called "honor killings" by Muslims in the United States, including a recent beheading of his wife by a leader of one of the American Muslim organizations, does not seem to arouse any concern by the Department of Homeland Security.

    When it comes to the thuggery of ACORN -- its members harassing the homes of bankers and even the home of Sen. Phil Gramm when he opposed things ACORN favored -- the Department of Homeland Security apparently sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil.

    Maybe they are too busy worrying about right-wing "extremists" who don't like abortions or illegal immigration, or who favor the division of power between the state and federal governments established by the Constitution.

    In one sense, the Department of Homeland Security paper is silly. In another sense, it can be sinister as a revealing and disturbing sign of the preoccupations and priorities of this administration -- and their willingness to witch hunt and demonize those who dare to disagree with them.

    Reportedly, the FBI and the Defense Department are cooperating with the Department of Homeland Security in investigations of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. That people who have put their lives on the line for this country are made the target of what is called the Vigilant Eagle program suggests that this administration might be more of a threat than the people they are investigating.

    All this activity takes on a more sinister aspect against the background of one of the statements of Barack Obama during last year's election campaign that got remarkably little attention in the media. He suggested the creation of a federal police force, comparable in size to the military.

    Why such an organization? For what purpose?

    Since there are state and local police forces all across the country, an FBI to investigate federal crimes and a Department of Justice to prosecute those who commit them, as well as a Defense Department with military forces, just what role would a federal police force play?

    Maybe it was just one of those bright ideas that gets floated during an election campaign. Yet there was no grass-roots demand for any such federal police nor any media clamor for it, so there was not even any political reason to suggest such a thing.

    What would be different about a new federal police force, as compared to existing law enforcement and military forces? It would be a creation of the Obama administration, run by people appointed from top to bottom by that administration -- and without the conflicting loyalties of those steeped in existing military traditions and law enforcement traditions.

    In short, a federal police force could become President Obama's personal domestic political army, his own storm troopers.

    Perhaps there will never be such a federal police force. But the targeting of individuals and groups who believe in some of the fundamental values on which this country was founded, and people who have demonstrated their patriotism by volunteering for military service, suggests that this potential for political abuse is worth watching, as Obama tries to remake America to fit his vision.

This Country just gets scarier and scarier.  I keep wondering what kind of world our grandchildren will live in, once Barack Hussein Obama gets done with it.

 

This column is posted here -- http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell042109.php3

An archive of Dr. Sowell's columns -- http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell.html

 

Good God, people!!  "What Were You Thinking?"

Sarah talks about Trig

Protesters or Terrorists? Update #2

In 2006, Hillary Clinton said the following:  "I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration." 

 

But to listen to some of the Lefty Liberals today, you would think that Democrat politicians like Hillary Rodman Clinton are the only ones allowed to disagree with a sitting administration.  Au contraire, mon frere!  As long as BHO is conducting the business of the United States in a manner inconsistent with the principles laid down by the founding fathers, thinking people everywhere will continue to express their disagreement.  They will continue to carry the debate forward, trusting that as an increasingly bloated government bureaucracy intrudes even further into their lives, even those now supporting the Lefties will come to their senses.

 

"Ignorance" can be remedied by education, but "Stupidity" is the most expensive commodity in the country today.  "Willful Ignorance" is the most egregious component of Stupidity, and unfortunately seems to be a state of bliss for those who helped elect BHO..

 

"What Were You Thinking?"