WorldNetDaily: Why we love government

Walter E. Williams, Ph.D., is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He writes:

Unlike today's Americans, the founders of our nation were suspicious, if not contemptuous, of government...

Today's Americans hold such liberty-oriented values in contempt, and any presidential aspirant holding them would have a zero chance of winning office.

Today's Americans hold a different vision of government. It's one that says Congress has the right to do just about anything upon which it can secure a majority vote. Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery.

At least two-thirds of the federal budget represents forcing one American to serve the purposes of another...

In other words, once Congress establishes that one person can live at the expense of another, it pays for everyone to try to do so. You say, "Williams, don't you believe in helping your fellow man?" Yes, I do. I believe that reaching into one's own pockets to help his fellow man is both laudable and praiseworthy. Reaching into another's pockets to help his fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.

The bottom line: We love government because it enables us to accomplish things that if done privately would lead to arrest and imprisonment. For example, if I saw a person in need, and I took your money to help him, I'd be arrested and convicted of theft. If I get Congress to do the same thing, I am seen as compassionate.

This vision ought to bother the Christians among us, for when God gave Moses the commandment "Thou shalt not steal," I'm sure He didn't mean thou shalt not steal unless you got a majority vote in Congress.

WorldNetDaily: Why we love government

Should Christians Support Slavery? by Laurence M. Vance

Laurence M. Vance writes:

Should Christians support the government-enforced, involuntary slavery of human beings? ...

A greater evil, however, is that some Christians would support – right now, in the twenty-first century – not only government-enforced slavery, but government-mandated slavery.

The government-mandated slavery I am referring to is military conscription...

Now wait a minute, Mr. Vance. I thought you were talking about slavery? The draft isn’t slavery...

But I am talking about slavery. The draft is a form of slavery or involuntary servitude...

What else are you going to call the draft if it is not slavery or involuntary servitude? A young person is told that he must join the military. He is then told when to go to bed and when to get up. He is told when to eat and when to sleep. He is told to move here or move there. He is told what he is allowed to do and what he is not allowed to do. And worst of all, he is told that a certain group of people is the "enemy" and therefore must be bombed into submission or killed.

The draft is not at all about defending and protecting the country. It is about getting cannon fodder to fight in an immoral and unnecessary overseas war. How many young men who didn’t know where Vietnam was located would think of going there to kill or be killed unless they were forced to do so?

A real invasion of American soil would necessitate, not the conscription of young men to fight, but the need for Americans of all ages to wait in line in order to get a chance to shoot the invaders. Every able-bodied man (and even some women) would fight without having to be coerced or threatened.

The draft is something that all patriotic Americans should abhor because, as Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) has said: "A government that is willing to enslave some of its people can never be trusted to protect the liberties of its own citizens..."

It is too bad that more young men didn’t use whatever means they could, legal or otherwise, to avoid being sent to Vietnam. Fifty-eight thousand Americans and perhaps two million Southeast Asians are dead because millions of American soldiers obeyed the dictates of the state.

Why, then, would Christians who are opposed to slavery be in support of military conscription? The answer is because they are not opposed to the state. In fact, many Christians are in love with the state. Sure, they may complain about paying their taxes or following some regulation, get upset with Supreme Court decisions about abortion, and even get outraged about government-funded pornographic art, but when it comes to the subject of war and the military they lose their mind. Bombing, maiming, interrogating, and killing are okay as long as it is done in service for the state...

Even if they acknowledge that a war like the one in Iraq is unconstitutional and unnecessary – and even immoral and senseless – some Christians still say that the troops are not responsible and we should support them.

What are the Christians who live by the "obey the powers that be" mantra going to do when the state conscripts their young women? ...

What are these Christians going to do when U.S. troops are directed to attack American citizens in the name of fighting terrorism? Will they still encourage their children to join the military? ...

Christians who continue to defend Bush’s war of aggression in Iraq are in a state of denial. They refuse to believe that the president lied the country into war. They refuse to believe that loving one’s country has nothing to do with loving the government. They refuse to believe that being patriotic does not mean blindly following whatever the government says...

Should Christians support slavery in the form of military conscription? Of course not. The draft, whether into the military or into some form of "national service," is about serving the state...

Should Christians Support Slavery? by Laurence M. Vance

The Second Amendment, North Korea and Iran by Michael Gaddy

Michael Gaddy is an Army veteran of Vietnam, Grenada, and Beirut. He has some good food for thought on the clamor against the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea.

Serious supporters of the Second Amendment and the right to self-defense of one's person, family and personal property, fully understand the amendment has nothing whatsoever to do with hunting, skeet and trap, or Cowboy Action Shooting. It has to do with protecting ourselves from a tyrannical out-of-control government.

North Korea and Iran fear the same tyrannical government we do, and insist on being armed for the same reasons.

I know the above is going to be a hard pill to swallow for many – but the evidence is clear: a runaway government maneuvers to control the means of resistance from those it seeks to enslave...

If a criminal had threatened your family along with several other families in your neighborhood, and had then followed through with the threat; invading one of the homes and killing several in the family and then threatening others; would you not seek a deterrent to the possibility of a similar invasion and killing?

Again, I remind you: the governments both Iran and North Korea fear is the same government we fear will become tyrannical and necessitates our being armed to resist. If we fear our own government, why should other nations not fear it also?

Yes, we have been told the Theocracy in Iran and Kim Jung il of North Korea are nuts and fanatics. Have we supporters of the Second Amendment not had the same said of us by leaders in our government? Are we not often referred to as "gun nuts" and pelted with lies and distortions about who we are and what we believe?

Kim Jung il was said by one BBC report to "head a very secretive regime where no dissent is tolerated." Does the recently passed repeal of Habeas Corpus and the old "you are with us or with the terrorists" speech not speak of a similar regime here in our own country?

The last 3 years of the current administration have made it perfectly clear this government intends to become an empire and control the world’s resources – that includes its people. Those of us who support the right of self-defense and the right to be armed should fully understand why North Korea and Iran are determined to arm themselves: after all, only one nation on this planet has ever used atomic weapons on another nation. Why should that nation’s government not be feared? Would you not arm yourself against a criminal who threatens your very existence?

The Second Amendment, North Korea and Iran by Michael Gaddy

Not Yours to Take, by Carmon Friedrich

Thought-provoking article by a home school mom on expecting our neighbors to provide the books we want.

Carmon Friedrich writes:

While many would agree that the government school system is utterly corrupt and not worth keeping on life support, most homeschoolers are aghast when I suggest that government-operated libraries deserve a similar demise...

Folks, that money is not yours to take...

take a few minutes to read... Davy Crockett’s essay, Not Yours to Give. He tells about a wake-up call he had when running for re-election to Congress -- he realized that other people’s pockets were not to be pilfered, even for the best of causes. He points out that those who are so ready to avail themselves of the largesse of others become rather parsimonious if their own purse-strings are involved.

Local libraries are sacred cows for many people, especially homeschoolers...

The assumption that the tax-financed library should provide those things for one’s family is akin to saying government hand-outs are just dandy, as long as they provide for my kind of candy...

How conservative is it to promote limited government, decry pork barrel spending and welfare, criticize tax-funded education, yet avail ourselves of the so-called “free” library? Though it’s available to all regardless of race, sex, creed, sexual orientation, or income, public libraries are really just a middle-class entitlement program. They are also a handy venue for corrupting the values of the hapless children whose parents are not careful to protect them from the insidious influences lurking on their shelves. Those bad influences come in many forms, including the socialism that is inherent in the demand for government-financed libraries.

First spotted at LewRockwell.com (Reject Government Libraries by Carmon Friedrich).

Buried Treasure Books: Weblog » Not Yours to Take

Free People Are Better Drivers, by Alan Scholl

Alan Scholl writes:

Now some areas of Europe are doing away with other traffic restrictions after having the revelation that free people acting in their own self interest can be expected to behave in a rational and safe manner when on the road.

According to those who are pushing for the simplification of Europe's traffic rules, too many regulations make people irresponsible because they look to the state to tell them what to do...

The European experiment with reducing traffic laws would be nothing more than a curiosity if it did not serve as an illustration of an important fact, namely that government interference in most areas of daily life is both unnecessary and harmful. Just as the European cities that have reduced traffic regulations have seen accidents decrease, history has shown repeatedly that those societies that are most free, meaning those societies in which people are free to interact and cooperate without arbitrary regulatory interference, are the ones that experience the greatest degree of wealth production and cultural development. The real lesson of Europe's budding traffic libertarianism is that freedom works.

I have long suspected that the speed limit fetish in the United States leads to reduced personal responsibility, without a corresponding increase in public safety. It would be interesting to know more about the philosophical debates that took place when legislators first started enacting speed limit laws.

Free People Are Better Drivers | The John Birch Society - Truth, Leadership, Freedom

Judge Monroe misquoted by letter writer

Following is my letter to the editor which ran in The Republic (Columbus, Indiana) Saturday, 28 Oct 2006.


I was dismayed when I read the letter to the editor of Sept. 30 from Jeff West.

Mr. West alleged that Judge Chris Monroe was very harsh toward him at his visitation hearing and that the judge also told him in a hateful voice that "God is not in this courtroom, and he cannot be your witness today."

I do not know Mr. West at all, and I do not know Judge Monroe very well.

I stewed for about three weeks wondering whether and why Judge Monroe might have said such a thing. But I also kept thinking of the words of a very wise man, "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him."

So I e-mailed my concerns to Judge Monroe Oct. 21. The judge promptly composed a thoughtful reply to my e-mail and also gave me a phone call to discuss his reply.

At his invitation, I went to the courthouse today and we listened to most of the 25-minute public recording of the hearing for Mr. West. I concluded that Mr. West had seriously misquoted the judge.

When Mr. West began to affirm a statement with the phrase, "as God is my witness," I heard the judge briefly interrupt him. I believe the point he was making was that Mr. West had no need to add any confirming oath or affirmation to his words, but to simply give his testimony, without adding any additional claim that he was telling the truth.

The actual words the judge used to make this point were "God's not going to testify here today... that's not really helpful."

I wrote these down while listening to the recording about six minutes into the hearing. The recording is still available if anyone else cares to confirm it.

I did not hear any indication that Judge Monroe ever said anything about God's not being in the courtroom. In fact, the subject of religion came up several times during the hearing, and I thought that the judge always treated Mr. West's religious beliefs with respect.

I also did not detect any overall tone of harshness nor hatefulness in the judge's comments. There are three letters that Mr. West wrote to his wife. They are also in the public record for anyone who wishes to view them.

In these letters, Mr. West admits to serious moral shortcomings in his life, including lying and unfaithfulness. The judge sternly reminded him that his loss of fellowship with his son was a result of his own actions and choices.

The apostle Paul wrote, "For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad... But if you do wrong, be afraid... For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer." (Romans 13:3-4)

God also commissions judges in 2 Chronicles 19:5-7, saying "He appointed judges in the land... and said to the judges, 'Consider what you do, for you judge not for man but for the LORD. He is with you in giving judgment.'"

Mr. West, Judge Monroe, and I all claim to be followers of Christ.

It appeared to me that Judge Monroe made a good-faith effort to fulfill his God-given responsibility to hold Mr. West accountable for his actions.

Perhaps Mr. West chose to interpret the judge's stern demeanor in fulfilling this responsibility as harshness or hatefulness.

As Paul Harvey might say, now you know the rest of the story.


Letter: Tape indicates judge misquoted by letter writer

Letter to the editor: Candidate omitted from S41 Right to Work survey

Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 13:12:30 -0400
To: "John Harmon -- therepublic.com", "Johnson County Daily Journal -- thejournalnet.com"
Subject: Letter to the editor: Candidate omitted from S41 Right to Work survey

I received a political mailing today from the Indiana Right to Work Committee based in Indianapolis.

I am not very familiar with this organization, but they claim to endorse no candidates and to be a nonpartisan organization.

The cover letter says that they sent their 2006 candidate survey to all candidates for the Indiana House and Senate.

The subject is whether Indiana workers should be forced to join or support a labor union as a condition of employment.

Unfortunately, the survey only includes results for two of the three registered candidates for State Senate District 41.

Whether due to design or carelessness, the survey lists candidates Greg Walker and Terry Coriden, but fails to include Kenn Gividen.

I support the right of Indiana residents to work without having to join or support a labor union. This right is not currently protected by Indiana laws.

I am alerting other voters who receive this mailing that if you want to know where the third candidate stands on this issue, you will need to look further than this "nonpartisan" voter education mailing.

You have my permission to publish this as a letter to the editor.

Letter: State should be in Central zone

My letter to the editor, published Saturday, 8 July 2006.


We have now lived through our first three months in recent history of daylight-saving time. In June and July we observe the more conspicuous peculiarities of staying on Eastern time rather than going back to Central.

The longest day of the year was June 21 — almost 15 hours of daylight. If we had only 60 minutes of daylight shifted from morning to evening that day, sunrise would be 5:32 am, midday 1, and sunset 8:28 pm.

Instead, our earliest sunrise of the year is 6:17 am, our latest midday is 1:50 pm, and our latest sunset is 9:14 pm.

These later times illustrate that we have about 105 minutes of daylight shifted from morning to evening in Columbus. Compared to Central time, this is about three times further than necessary from the DST “design goal” of 60 minutes.

I have heard mixed feelings about this 45-minute excess of evening daylight compared to “nominal” DST. For example, one of my coworkers says he enjoys the extra time for a longer bike ride after work. But, like poet Robert Louis Stevenson, he notices that it is harder to get his visiting grandchildren to sleep when they “have to go to bed by day.”

I frequently hear those with early morning jobs and appointments lament the difficulty of trying to fall asleep while it is still light out, or of getting up by dark on midsummer mornings, when it is “supposed” to be light out.

Indiana is the narrowest state split into two time zones. The next wider is Idaho — more than twice as wide as Indiana. The entire state of Indiana falls well within the natural boundaries of Central time. All 92 counties were on Central time for more than four decades (1918 through 1961). The sun takes 60 minutes to cross each of the 24 time zones. It takes just under 13 minutes to cross from our eastern to our western border. I.e., Indiana is about one-fourth of a time zone wide.

By contrast, Alaska is about 18 times wider than Indiana. It takes about 228 minutes for the sun to get from one side to the other. It is wide enough to be in three or four different time zones and yet it is virtually all on one time zone. Indiana is so narrow it makes me wonder what the feds were thinking when they ever carved us into two time zones in the first place.

The predominant reason Gov. Mitch Daniels gave for pushing Indiana back onto DST was the economic benefit and increased efficiency for business of changing time with the rest of the country. It only stands to reason that putting the whole state back on a single time again would be even less confusing, and therefore even more beneficial for Hoosier businesses.

In their 2006 ruling on Indiana’s time zone, the DOT wrote that their decision was meant to allow communities to fully assess the impact of DST observance. They also reminded governmental representatives that they are free to petition at any time for further changes to the time zone boundary.

Now that we have had a chance to assess the impact of DST on our daily lives, I see much to be gained, and little to be lost, in urging our governor and state legislators to ask the DOT to put the whole state back on Central time again.


Letter: State should be in Central zone

Modern Medicine’s Sleight of Hand by Bill Sardi

Why the claims for preventive prescription drug use ought to be taken with a grain of salt.

Modern Medicine’s Sleight of Hand by Bill Sardi

Congressman Tom Expresses Disappointment at Pence’s Immigration U-Turn

Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Chairman of the 97-member House Immigration Reform Caucus, expressed disappointment at Rep. Mike Pence’s policy shift on immigration reform. At a Heritage Foundation speech this afternoon, Pence presented what he called “a rational middle ground… between amnesty and mass deportation” that turns its back on a enforcement-first strategy, grants rogue employers amnesty, and would in effect reward illegal aliens for breaking the law...

“Unfortunately, like the President, Pence is breaking from House conservatives who remain steadfast in their support of a security-first approach to immigration,” said Tancredo...

Pence wants to start the new foreign worker program before border security is even proved effective, which is the same strategy that was used in the 1986 amnesty. Twenty years later, the U.S. got amnesty as promised but no border security.

“Pence’s W visa... gives the Administration exactly what it wants: unlimited foreign workers first, enforcement later or never,” said Tancredo...

The Pence plan includes no prevailing wage standard for foreign workers... In fact, almost all current visas require employers to offer the job to American workers before seeking foreign labor, but with no enforcement mechanism, the requirement is laughable.

“The House’s strategy in H.R. 4437 was to fix the illegal alien problem by enforcing the law. Over time, as illegal workers cannot obtain jobs, they go home because they have no other option open to them. Pence takes a much different approach: fix illegal behavior by legalizing it,” said Tancredo. “As a conservative and a friend of Mike Pence, I am baffled by his shift on immigration. I hope he reconsiders his position and returns to an enforcement-first position.”

Congressman Tom Expresses Disappointment at Pence’s Immigration U-Turn

Time Changed -- Curious Inklings

I enjoyed your thoughts on the daylight saving time clock changing.

Sadly, moving back to Kokomo won't help anymore. As of April 2006, the whole state of Indiana now observes daylight saving time with the rest of the country.

Unfortunately, it's still hard to figure out what time it is in Indiana. Indiana's legislators and governor, and the bureaucrats at the U.S. Department of Transportation, saw fit to leave Indiana as the narrowest state split between two time zones. The next larger state split between two zones is about three times wider than Indiana. I believe Indiana is the only state originally well within the confines of a single time zone (central time) to be split into two zones by the federal government.

Most states have gone the other way. E.g., Ohio was originally split down the middle between eastern and central but now lies entirely in eastern.

Most of Indiana now lies in the eastern zone. If the Indianapolis clocks read noon at midday today, the sunrise would be 4:37 am and the sunset 7:23 pm. If we had sixty minutes of daylight shifted from morning to evening (the nominal goal of daylight saving time), sunrise/set today would be 5:37 am and 8:23 pm -- plenty of time for after-work chores and recreation before dusk at 9 pm. Instead, because of the lunacy of putting the majority of the state in the eastern zone, we get a sunrise/set of 6:20 am and 9:05 pm -- 102 minutes shifted from morning to evening -- and it doesn't really get dark until 9:30 to 10:00.

Bill Starr
Columbus, Indiana
Tue, 30 May 2006, 7:37 pm EDT

Time Changed -- Curious Inklings

Theodore Roosevelt on immigration

Timely words from the past for the U.S. today.

From More Liberty, 23 April 2006.

"The following is one of my favorite thoughts on the issue of immigration. It's from President Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to the American Defense Society in 1919, 10 years after his presidency."

--Lou Dobbs, CNN Commentator

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

--Theodore Roosevelt, 1919

Congressman John J. Duncan, Jr.

Few protections for migrants to Mexico

I had this called to my attention by the "More Liberty" newsletter.

http://www.moreliberty.org/more_liberty/2006/week16/index.html

Points out Mexico's inconsistency with how they demand that their illegal immigrants to the U.S. be treated.

Few protections for migrants to Mexico

WorldNetDaily: Airport screener 'roughs up' woman, 83, in wheelchair

This kind of airport "security" doesn't make me feel any safer. How about you?

WorldNetDaily: Airport screener 'roughs up' woman, 83, in wheelchair

WorldNetDaily: Washington drowns in Republican red ink

Move over Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The 21st century Republicans have outpaced you in federal government spending growth – and it's not a record all members of the GOP are pleased about...

WorldNetDaily: Washington drowns in Republican red ink

GOP spending habits obscene

Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist. He writes:

NOT SO LONG ago, in a country that now seems far, far away, Ronald Reagan said: "...we don't have deficits because people are taxed too little. We have deficits because big government spends too much..."

Last week, a Republican Senate voted to raise the debt ceiling to nearly $9 trillion. Senators quickly passed a record $2.8 trillion budget. What would Reagan say now? ...

That Republicans are outspending the most reckless 1980s Democrat (and 1960s Great Society Democrats and 1940s FDR Democrats) is the sorriest spectacle of all.

The Senate vote increased the debt ceiling for the fourth time in five years. The statutory debt limit has now risen by more than $3 trillion since President Bush took office. That any Republican majority could preside over such fiscal irresponsibility is grounds for revoking their party membership...

Why should Republicans be re-elected when one of the major reasons the GOP exists is to reduce the size and cost of government...

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, "This budget could be the final nail in our coffin if we don't watch it." He said GOP spending habits are demoralizing voters...

The Bush administration has sired the biggest new entitlement program in history -- a prescription drug benefit for the elderly. And let's not forget "No Child Left Behind," which massively increased federal education spending.

[Reagan] left the presidency with a surplus. So did Bill Clinton. That a GOP Congress and administration are engaging in such spending is obscene. Little will change if we vote in Democrats. who also have engaged in deficit spending. What to do?

Maybe it's time for a strong third party, or failing that, another revolution.

ContraCostaTimes.com | 03/22/2006 | GOP spending habits obscene

WorldNetDaily: Fight for your right to third party

Doug Powers writes:

Come on, third parties – it's time to gallop into Washington, D.C., in a Trojan horse

WorldNetDaily: Fight for your right to third party

Sri Lanka clocks go back to Tiger time as experiment fails

Maybe the Indiana legislators and governor could take a lesson from this episode 9,000 miles away.

The Associated Press writes:

Sri Lanka is to revert to its previous time zone from April 14 after a failed experiment, lasting nearly 10 years, aimed at maximising daylight hours.

As the country's traditional new year begins clocks will be set five and a half hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, falling in line with the rebel Tamil Tigers, who refused to make the switch a decade ago.

In 1996 Sri Lanka advanced its clocks by an hour, then later that year dropped back by 30 minutes.

But the hoped-for cut in electricity consumption did not happen and the move was unpopular as it had upset children's bedtimes.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Clocks go back to Tiger time as experiment fails

Sink the Dubai Ports Deal!

R. Cort Kirkwood has been writing about American politics and culture for more than 20 years. Regarding the proposed management of U.S. ports by an Arab company, he writes:

Our ports are gateways to America, and it does not make sense to put them under the control of a foreign power -- particularly an Islamic regime tied to al-Qaeda...

If the deal goes through, an Islamic regime will control shipping on the eastern seaboard of the United States...

What the president knew and when he knew it will remain a mystery, but whatever he knew, he knows enough now to threaten vetoing a suggested congressional measure to investigate the deal. This veto threat comes from a supposed conservative... who has never uncapped the veto pen during his five years in office. Not once has Bush seen a spending bill cross his desk that could be cut by a mere penny. But suddenly he sees a bill that merits the veto.

The Bush administration would put a despotic Islamic regime, whose potentates and bankers boast significant ties to al-Qaeda terrorists, in charge of American shipping... The deal is yet another plot, approved in secret, which would undermine American national security and sovereignty for the benefit of the transnational political and commercial plutocrats who manage government and business across the globe...

Unsurprisingly, the government secretly sanctioned the deal...

One marvels that Bush appointed an executive of DPW to a marquee position in his administration, yet knew nothing of the deal that the executive’s employer was consummating to establish financial control of major American ports...

Aside from all this, the Times reported, the deal never received the 45-day review required by U.S. law... Bush officials, apparently, did not believe the company’s owner, a foreign government, warranted that review. The Committee on Foreign Investment was created specifically to review such transactions...

Average Americans are tugging their chin whiskers, wondering whether Bush and his crew are rowing around with one oar... Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda used the UAE, a small country on the Persian Gulf bordering Saudi Arabia and Oman, as a logistical and financial base of operations for the attacks...

Bush’s approval of the sale of our ports to the UAE represents a deal with the devil where American security and sovereignty are concerned. And if those aren’t concerns enough for Bush and his understrappers, then perhaps the UAE’s dismal record on human slavery and child welfare needs considering. The UAE is a major destination for women sex slaves... as well as imported child slaves, stolen or purchased from other countries, who serve as camel jockeys. A law passed in April 2005 supposedly outlawed the practice, which features oil-rich sheiks gambling on the races, while the children, who run the risk of being trampled to death, train in the burning dessert, live in hovels, and beg for water...

Whatever happens with the ports deal, Americans need to know this latest scheme to undermine American national security and sovereignty is of a piece with nearly everything else this administration has done or failed to do. Bush not only refuses to stop illegal immigration from Mexico, but also suggests a “guest-worker” entitlement that would permit the alien horde to establish a permanent presence on American soil. He also supports handing Social Security benefits to these criminal aliens. The tsunami of illegal immigrants across the southern border poses a domestic security threat not just because so many are drug dealers, rapists, and murderers, but because Islamic terrorists can sneak across the open border unnoticed amid the tide.

Aside from that, the Bush administration hasn’t stopped the unimpeded flow of government-authorized immigrants and visitors from Islamic countries...

Thus does the government spend less time performing constitutional and legitimate duties, such as controlling immigration and providing for national security, and more time supporting a massive, intrusive, and unconstitutional “homeland security” agency with the authority to trace the activities of everyone in the country...

In the same way, perhaps if the Bush administration were not waging an unconstitutional war in Iraq, it could spend more time and money controlling immigration here, which would obviate the unconstitutional, garrison-state security measures that harass law-abiding citizens...

The government now wants to scrutinize the private lives of all Americans: their financial transactions, their e-mail, their phone calls, and their political activities. Someday, the government may force real Americans to carry identification cards. Already, uniformed federal police search old ladies at airports and harass men who have received the nation’s highest decoration for bravery...

Thus has Bush promised to veto a bill that would provide some measure of national security, and a cadre of internationalists and global elites who care nothing for American sovereignty support him...

Average Americans might wonder why any foreign company, state-controlled or not, is running an American port, the way companies from Singapore, Japan, and Denmark run them now...

Thus, this sale. It is another piece of the plan, which includes subverting national sovereignty via immigration and billion-dollar global transactions, to cede control of American business, government, and institutions to the corporate, political, and cultural elites who contrived and command the plan, and will augment their considerable powers at the expense of the consumers and taxpayers who unwittingly support the nefarious enterprise.

It mightn’t matter to Bush and Wall Street’s elite who runs America’s harbors, industry, and commerce. But it might just matter to the average Joe, who wants physical security for his family, a job that pays a living wage, and an economy that flourishes — not wilts. Americans must ask themselves: “Would anyone approve this mad idea for the ports but a man who has gone mad, or a man who isn’t mad at all but perfectly sane, whose loyalties lie not with his people and his country, but with a grandiose liberal abstraction that travels hidden under such disingenuous names as equality, democracy, rights, and freedom?”

Further, Americans must ask themselves: “Despite blustery claims from defenders of the Bush administration that Bush is doing what’s right, is the administration loyal to U.S. citizens and doing what’s right for them, or only to itself and to the rootless elites who empower it and thereby profit from the concentration of political and financial power among the few at the expense of the many?”

An empowering of the elites in our society would explain the threat to veto. Until the average American understands this truth and does something about it, he will toil in futility for Bush, Cheney, and the elites who are plotting America’s demise.

What You Can Do

Readers are encouraged to contact their U.S. senators and representatives urging them to pass legislation blocking the Dubai Ports deal.

Sink the Dubai Ports Deal! (by R. Cort Kirkwood)

Decision hurts state wineries

The editors of the Richmond Palladium-Item have a good editorial on this bill. As they point out, there does not need to be any conflict between active lawsuits and new legislation, as long as the new legislation is not retroactive in scope. Senator Garton makes the claim that everyone would start bringing their lawsuits to the legislature if they do not follow this policy. That assumes that every litigant would be able to find a sympathetic lawmaker and would be willing to wait through the months the legislature is not in session on the gamble that they might pass favorable retroactive legislation.

Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton exercises a selective respect for the independence of the judicial branch of government.

The Republican Senate leader last week unilaterally killed a bill that would have allowed wine to be shipped to customers in Indiana, a move that, left unchallenged, could cause great damage to the state's promising homegrown wine industry...

Garton killed the bill arguing, speciously, that because there is a lawsuit pending by Indiana wineries, "it will not be considered further by the Senate this year."

"We are not the judicial branch of government," the Republican leader said.

Consider the ramifications of Garton's position. Want to stop a bill, any bill, from making its way through the Indiana General Assembly? Apparently, all it takes is the filing of a lawsuit? Now consider the hypocrisy.

The Legislature is not, as Garton asserts, the judicial branch of government...

About 30 wineries in the state get up to 40 percent of their sales through mailed shipments, according to state winery officials who say that many could be forced out of business if the Legislature fails to act.

Gov. Mitch Daniels needs to enter this fray forcefully and on behalf of the state's wineries, which are important to the state's tourism and economic development. The days of legislatively picking winners and losers among the state's diverse and competitive alcohol beverage interests must fall beneath the weight of open markets.

Palladium-Item - www.pal-item.com - Richmond, Ind.