Archive for September, 2006
by Thomas E. Brewton
An example of this bewilderment is liberal columnist Froma Harrop's current piece titled Islamic Terror's Endless 'Root Causes'. She writes:
"That Islamic terrorists hate the United States is an all-purpose explanation. Dig deeper into the reasons for that hatred, though, and the confident answers of "expert opinion" don't quite satisfy.
"Since that gruesome blue-sky day, Islamic radicals have staged more attacks and have been foiled in others. But try to find a connecting theme, other than psychosis. There's only a pile of shifting motives."
Why not believe what the terrorists themselves tell us is their reason for 9/11 and similar attacks around the world?
Osama Bin Ladin has proclaimed unequivocally, many times, that Al Queda envision themselves as reviving the campaign begun by Mohammed in 622 AD to establish a universal Islamic Caliphate and carried on ruthlessly for a thousand years thereafter.
In 622 AD the Mediterranean basin political states were almost all Christian. Mohammed's Islamic military forces began systematically conquering, looting, and subjugating those states to Islam. The men resisting Islam were slaughtered and the women and children sold into slavery.
In addition to acquisitive instincts for other people's property, Muslims were driven by Allah's command in the Koran to convert everyone, everywhere to Islam, a name that in English means submission.
Efraim Karsh, in his April, 2006, article in Commentary noted:
"As the 14th-century historian and philosopher Abdel Rahman ibn Khaldun wrote, "In the Muslim community, the jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Islamic mission and the obligation [to convert] everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force."
As more and more Americans decide to label themselves “Independent” rather than Republican or Democrat, the time has come for another label to become popular. In like manner, columnists and political professionals like to categorize elected and appointed officials – even the general public – as either conservative or liberal. But President George W. Bush, who enjoys calling himself a conservative, has so remarkably departed from conservatism that those who have long labeled themselves conservative have abandoned the term.
There is a far better label for those who value limited government, fiscal discipline, noninvolvement in foreign struggles, and undiluted independence. It is “Constitutionalist.” Anyone who believes that those who swear an oath to abide by the venerable document’s strictures is neither a conservative nor a liberal. Usage of the term “Constitutionalist” may even have the added benefit of encouraging many to revisit the Constitution to find out how far our leaders have strayed from its wisdom.
We are in a world of hurt if our Constitution is abandon as it is with many of our elected federal officials.
Congress wants to know why two border agents doing their job, stopping an illegal Mexican who was transporting 743 pounds of marijuana. Both agents are facing up to 20 years for shooting and wounding the illegal smuggler. Congress wants an investigation and the President to pardon these two agents who were doing their job.
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton sought out the wounded smuggler in Mexico in order to pursue charges against the border agents. Sutton has a history of pursuing cases against law enforcement officers.
CNS News reports:
"These were good agents doing their job," said Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.). "There is something that stinks to high heaven."
On Feb. 17, 2005, U.S. Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean were on duty when they encountered Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila in a van carrying 743 pounds of marijuana. When the agents tried to stop Aldrete-Davila, he fled. Unable to shake the pursuing agents, he abandoned his van and continued running toward Mexico.
The agents' version of what happened next contradicts Aldrete-Davila's testimony. The one thing all agree on is that, while fleeing on foot, the illegal alien and drug smuggler was shot. Aldrete-Davila was treated at a hospital in El Paso and then returned to Mexico.
After learning of the shooting, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton sought out Aldrete-Davila in Mexico and offered him immunity from prosecution if he would return to the United States to testify against Ramos and Compean.
The initial immunity offer covered Aldrete-Davila's illegal entry into the U.S., the drug smuggling and his unlawful flight from the agents to avoid arrest. Sutton expanded the immunity to include a subsequent drug offense, when Aldrete-Davila tried to smuggle another 1,000 pounds of marijuana into the United States.
"The Justice Department says they don't have the resources to secure our borders, but somehow they found the resources to send agents to Mexico to find Aldrete-Davila and prosecute these agents," Tancredo said.
Rep. Red Poe (R-Texas) said the Justice Department is "on the wrong side" of this case.
Is the justice department working for the government of Mexico?
In a report in World Net Daily:
A plan that would cut off the pipeline of taxpayer money that now flows into American Civil Liberties Union coffers has been advanced by the House Judiciary Committee.
The Public Expression of Religion Act, introduced by Indiana Congressman John Hostettler, now will move to the full House for a vote, he said in his announcement this week.
In an earlier post, ACLU Accused of Profiting at Taxpayer Expense:
The veterans organization, the American Legion, is behind the push to stop taxpayers money going to the ACLU. Many of the ACLU's legal agenda includes fighting against monuments and other public displays that display any religious symbol.
This outcry against the ACLU was because of there attempt to remove the veteran's monuments, Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial in California and a cross on a rock outcrop erected by veterans as a memorial to World War I veterans in 1934 in the remote Mojave Desert.
Officials noted someone would have to drive 11 miles off the highway "to be offended" by the cross in the Mojave Desert.
There had been no complaints against the memorial in 60 years, until the ACLU sued to have it removed, and then asked for and got $63,000 in "extortion" fees.
"The American Legion," said former American Legion National Commander Tom Bock, "is in full support" of the plan. He said it would take away the authority of judges to award attorney fees to the ACLU in lawsuits under the Establishment Clause.
The law, approved in 1976, originally was to help individual citizens bring lawsuits against state officials who had deprived them of their constitutional rights. However, Hostettler believes it has been abused by groups like the ACLU, who claim any public official who expresses religious beliefs or displays a memorial with religious imagery, like the crosses at Arlington National Cemetery, is promoting the "establishment of religion."
For example, in 2001 Iowa county officials removed a Ten Commandments monument from a courthouse lawn rather than face the attorney's fees threatened. And in 2004, Los Angeles removed a tiny cross from the county seal when it was threatened with those fees. (Source: World Net Daily)
As in most cases presented by the ACLU, a threat to sue usually forces the plaintiff to pay fees (usually taxpayer's money), rather then go to trial and pay higher fees in a case that the ACLU would probably lose.
This weekend, Canadian Action Party/PAC flies the Canadian Flag upside down at their Convention as a sign of distress and resistance against the North American Union
We will be flying the Canadian flag UPSIDE DOWN as a signal of distress and resistance against the integration of Canada with the USA and Mexico into the new entity of a North American Union that media and government pretends is not happening, although the restructuring is almost complete, and is in total violation of citizen constitutional rights.
"The plan is to create the NAU incrementally," Fogal told WND, "because if any of the three governments were up front about their true intentions, the SPP plan would never fly."
Fogel used strong language in expressing to WND the focus of the Canadian Action Party to bring the SPP and NAU to the attention of Canadians.
"The rapid integration of North America into one entity ruled by an unaccountable, unrepresented and unelected group cabal of administrative executive branch officials is treason pure and simple," she said. (Source: WND)
From last year's post, Beware! – North America Continental Integration via SPP:
While most Americans remain unaware, President Bush and top officials in his administration are implementing plans to cancel U.S. sovereignty and form a new “North American Community” that will merge Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), the arrangement calls initially for legalization for millions of Mexican illegal immigrants, practical destruction of any remaining border security, and the transfer of huge amounts of U.S. aid to bring Mexico’s primitive economy more in line with its northern neighbors. The SPP has been jointly agreed to by Canadian Prime Minister Martin, Mexican President Fox, and Mr. Bush.
If this plan is ever implemented, all three signatories will not be in office. Canadian Prime Minister Martin lost his post in last years election as did Mexican President Fox in this year's election. And President Bush would have completed his eight years in office.
Congress appears to have had enough of the activist Supreme Court and their law making decisions. Several bills have been presented that will stem the Court from acting out of the bounds. Article I of the U.S. Constitution spells out the authority to make laws in our country to Congress, not the Supreme Court. Article III spells out the limits of the Supreme Court. It is no wonder that Article I is five times larger than Article III.
These bills will keep the Supreme Court in check.
• H.R. 1100, Marriage Protection Act of 2005:This bill would keep federal courts and the Supreme Court from reviewing cases related to Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman.
• H.R. 4364, Public Prayer Protection Act:
The Supreme Court would not be allowed to review any “establishment of religion” cases involving public prayer by a government agency, officer or agent.
• H.R. 4379, We the People Act:
“The Supreme Court of the United States and each Federal court shall not adjudicate: “(A) any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion; “(B) any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or “(C) any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation; and “(2) shall not rely on any judicial decision involving any issue referred to in paragraph (1).”
Conspiracy theories about 9/11 have been able to grow in part because we haven't done a good enough job of keeping the facts before the American people and debunking the myths.
by Sharon Hughes
'Back to school' no longer stands out as September's main event to me …ever since 9/11.
It's hard to believe that September 11, 2006 marks five years since the devastating terrorist attacks on America. I for one believe it is extremely important to remember and recount what happened that day, so that we don't lose sight of the nature and goals of the enemy we face in this war on terror.
I've heard some say we need to 'move on', that we've 'remembered' enough. Others question if it's too soon to remember through movie images such as Flight 93 and World Trade Center. Still others, such as Bill Clinton try to censor accounts such as "The Path to 9/11" which airs this September 9th and 10th on ABC.
Five years later there are still those who believe and promote 9/11 conspiracy theories, such as Kevin Barrett who will teach a class on Islam at the University of Wisconsin this fall, despite the protests over 60 state legislators. He is a hero to conspiracy theorists. The community of 'believers' who propagate their 9/11 conspiracy 'doctrine' over the internet and in articles and even books have even found their way to air their theories C-SPAN. As WorldNetDaily reports: some of the conspiracy theories that began almost immediately after the attacks of 9/11 include: "4,000 Jews had supposedly been warned to stay home from the World Trade Center that day; Flight 93 had been shot down over Pennsylvania by the U.S. military; George W. Bush's delay in ending his visit with elementary school students when told of the World Trade Center attacks signaled that perhaps he had prior knowledge of the events" ….that 9/11 events were an 'inside job.' Time magazine talks about Why 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Won't Go Away this week.
Blaming last year's published Prophet Mohammed cartoons as an excuse for jihad against innocent civilians has surfaced again.
One of the main suspects, Youssef Mohammed el Hajdib who was arrested last month in Germany's failed bomb attack is blaming last year's published cartoons as an 'attack' on Prophet Mohammed. He also blames the death of al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for his failed bombing attempt..
The bombs did not explode because of faulty timed detonators. But the two men were serious about their plot, Mr Ziercke said, and had studied the German rail timetables for weeks, possibly even since the start of the row over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed last year.
According to another account of the police findings, published today in the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the men initially planned to strike during the World Cup football finals hosted by Germany in June and early July. (The Australian News)
If the Christians and Jews responded in like manner to the offensive anti-=Christian and anti-Jewish cartoons published published in Arab newspapers there probably would not be any jihadists left to complain. But at least the Christians and Jews have more common sense over the cartoons issue.
By Thomas E. Brewton
Edward A. Kole emailed a request for the source of my characterization of the legal precepts of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. as "the law is no more than whatever a particular judge declares it to be in a specific case."
There is no single statement to that effect by Justice Holmes of which I am aware. That is my summation of his views.
I should add that this summation also accounts for my assessment that Holmes was our first socialist Supreme Court Justice.
Justice Holmes was a hero to liberals for one simple reason: he advocated revamping the law to facilitate the triumph of the brand of liberal-socialism then called Progressivism.
Holmes, of course, is hailed as the progenitor of the loose collection of views called legal realism. Other advocates of legal realism forthrightly declared that the law is whatever a judge rules.
My characterization of Justice Holmes's views is based on the following:
1. The common law, as Mr. Kole has noted in prior postings on this website, is judge-made law, within the confines of legal precedent and long established custom. Holmes in his 1881 "The Common Law" espoused the view that judges should abandon precedent and tradition wherever they conflicted with current social-science ideas of public benefit.
2. Holmes flatly rejected the concept of natural law or of any sort of higher law as a basis for judges' decisions (see his 1918 essay, "Natural Law.") He also wrote that the concept of morality should be banished from the law. Law was to be simply a method for imposing penalties upon people who acted in prohibited ways.
Natural law, before the French Revolution, was an important basis of European jurisprudence, including Hugo Grotius's seminal work on international law, a current-day liberal shibboleth. It was also a foundation block of Christian theology after Thomas Aquinas's 13th century "Summa Theologica."
Most importantly for us, natural law was the ruling paradigm for the people who settled the British North American colonies in the 17th century.
The Declaration of Independence clearly being based upon John Locke's conception of natural law as embodying inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property, and the Constitution being built upon the same foundational ethos, Holmes is simply declaring, if nothing else, that the clear understandings of those who wrote those two documents is not binding upon a judge, who is free to make up the law to suit his own sociological views.
For Holmes, truth was no more than the currently dominant public opinion (see point 6 below).
It is unfortunate that today's societies still have not learned from history, and are condemned to repeat the mistakes of past history. Are we heading into another "Dark Age"? The evidence appears that we are.
by Rev Michael Bresciani
People who have their wits usually try to learn from their past mistakes. Whole nations work to avoid the pitfalls of yore. But will the entire globe learn from its past dark history. Sadly, it doesn't look that way.
We teach our collegians well about the period known as the dark ages but do we thoroughly explain what brought on this horrible period across the globe? With little fanfare the answer to that question is an unequivocal no.
Let's do the math here. The marriage of civil and ecclesiastical power is without dispute the singular cause of the horrors of the dark ages. When the authority of the state and the church are wed, people suffer. The equation goes like this. If I am a Muslim, Christian, Catholic or Jew I may practice my religion without fear of persecution, reprisal or rejection. I still must obey civil law but the judicial body won't besiege me with charges for the beliefs I hold about God and faith.
When any particular religion becomes the state sanctioned religion then I can be prosecuted for my lack of compliance. Once Catholicism was the state sanctioned religion and for one thousand years the Pope ruled across the globe, with an iron hand. Some say the reformation ended that and some like to call it the recovery, that is, the recovering of the simple gospel message and the abandoning of the burgeoning religious rules and mandates of the church. Is Islam bringing this kind of terror into civilization again?
In America the idea of the separation of church and state is all that stands between us and that kind of tyranny. Of course the separation of church and state is mostly a perception and not actually a law. The law in America simply states that the congress will not make any laws governing religion. This is a law we can live with in the most literal sense of the word. In Islamically ruled nations not believing in the state sponsored religion can and does cost lives.