John ("Just Some Poor Schmuck") Dunshee has some goodquestions about the alleged U.S. attack on alleged civilians in a onetime Taliban snakepit in Afghanistan -- where U.S. forces were looking for Mullah Omar when the "massacre" occurred.
One point John overlooks in his treatments though, but made plain in Fox News's coverage, is that the governor of the province where this occurred, is demanding the U.S. hand over the informants who told our boys where to attack.
Ri-i-i-i-ight. And what else would you like us to do, Governor? Station ICBMs outside your offices, and let you have the launch codes? Show your men how to set the targeting systems? Oh, these missiles can easily cover the distance between -- speaking hypothetically as you say -- here and Washington, D.C. Is there anything else we can do for you..?
Michael Ackerbauer of Pray Naked says in a comment below that his comment feature is being neglected. It's one thing for comments to be, as Patio Pundit says, a blessing and a curse -- but zero feedback is zero blessing. So pay Mike a visit -- in a body stocking if you're bashful -- and leave a comment.
Just above the signatures on the allegedly secular Constitution of the United States of America is the following:
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth
Today's lead editorial in The Washington Times is the Declaration of Independence. There are some passages I'd like to highlight.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; For protecting them by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; For imposing taxes on us without our consent; For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury; For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences; For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies; For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments; For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every state of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance, to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Fireworks shows -- both at home and in big public displays -- are as much a part of the Fourth of July as hot weather and patriotic (or in some cases, pseudo-patriotic) newspaper editorials. And so are tut-tuts from well-meaning types about how little actual regard is being shown for what Independence Day commemorates.
I somehow doubt that the meaning of Independence Day is in danger of being lost -- this year least of all. After the most horrific attack on America, the people of this nation are not going to forget, much less deny, what makes it greater and more wonderful than any other. There is no place on earth where freedom is enjoyed more widely and with greater latitude than right here.
Independence Day is not about our military might, although that is clearly a result of what Independence Day means; nor is it about our unparallelled prosperity, although that too is made possible by what this day is about. Our unprecedented individual liberty is what has made our prosperity possible, and that prosperity is what makes it possible for a nation where only those who wish to serve do so, to have the most formidable military capability ever seen in human history.
America is not perfect, because wherever its inspiration may come from, it remains a thing made and maintained by fallible mortal men. Yet it is the freest, richest, mightiest nation ever known.
Let us have our picnics and our pageants. Let shopkeepers festoon their stores with flags and bunting in hopes of attracting customers. Let politicians bloviate in hopes of attracting votes. Let the Enlightened tut-tut if it makes them happy.
Living in America is reason enough to be full of joy.
[WARNING: The following may be offensive to Michael Newdow, though it shouldn't be and is not meant to be.]
Most gracious and loving Father, as we celebrate today the gift You have bestowed upon this nation, and upon we whom You have seen fit to bring here, please bless us and protect us and our loved ones from those who would cause us harm because of their hatred for this nation and what it represents. Please reach into their hearts and show them why their hatred is wrong, and why we are not their enemies. Let our joy be today unblemished by fear or grief, by hurt or anger. Let all Americans share in this day in their way, with brotherhood outshining our differences. Amen.
Somebody has a Law to the effect that your expenses will always increase to match (or exceed) your income. The late Sen. Everett Dirksen, he of "A billion here, a billion there, soon you're talking about real money" fame, might have had a corollary for government spending programs and available revenue.
And then there's the Toolbox Corollary. No matter how big your toolbox is, it will eventually be so jam-packed that you won't be able to close it, and you'll need to buy a bigger one.
Ya see, turns out the federal income tax rolls have been trimmed in such a way as to make the proportion of taxpaying Americans smaller even as revenues skyrocket (the present economic stutter-step notwithstanding). Gradually, if this trend continues, we're going to see a nationwide disconnect between the taxpayers and the electorate.
It leads me to speculate on whether it might be salutary -- in the extremely unlikely event that it could be brought about (constitutional amendments out the effin wazoo) -- to require anyone showing up to vote to present a receipt bearing that person's name for some substantial tax payment during the past year. How high the standard is set would depend on how much we want to stipulate the payment of taxes as a condition of full citizenship. A few cents' sales tax could be enough if things haven't gotten too far out of whack. At the other extreme there could be required payment of the federal income tax plus two state or local taxes. This would require tax-sparse jurisdictions to enact more different taxes just to broaden people's opportunity to qualify to vote.
More people paying taxes means more people caring about the tax burden. Fewer non-taxpaying voters means political constituencies for drunken-sailor spending programs would shrivel in a hurry.
The hosts at The Truth Laid Bear and Dreaded Purple Master have both blogged on the ruling in Newdow v. Congress today, and both are hanging a lot on the idea that children in schools where the Pledge of Allegiance is recited, are pressured into reciting it.
Of course Michael Newdow himself didn't raise the issue of coercion -- he was objecting to the two words, "under God", because he doesn't want the G-word tainting anything related in any way to the government. Had coercion been an issue at all in the lawsuit, and if there had been any merit to such a complaint, the 9th Circus could simply have found, under a 1943 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, that California and the school district had acted unconstitutionally -- without even touching on the words.
I argued to Bear that coercion was not an issue, but his answer is that pressure surely must have existed. However I'm confident that our courts have long understood the difference between official coercion and peer pressure. Sorry, friends, there just isn't any "there" there. Coercion, pressure, whatever you call it, you're hanging your argument on a definition of compulsion that no responsible court would uphold.
Which is not to say that the 9th wouldn't have gone for it...
UPDATE: I forget now whether it was Bear or Dan who used the phrase in arguing his position -- maybe both have used it -- but there was something about how, if we are to have a "truly secular society", God must be removed from the Pledge.
Well, as currently interpreted, the Constitution does mandate a secular government but not a secular society. So like the words "under God" themselves, the question of a secular society is rightly a political one. Supporters of this notion will have to convince the American people that a secular society is a good thing. Just as soon as they themselves figure out how it differs from a secular government.
