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David N. Mayer

Somebody’s Gotta Say It!

(Part II)

Part I of this essay, posted last week, reviewed Somebody’s Gotta Say It!, the new book by Neal Boortz, the libertarian radio talk show commentator.   It’s a splendid book, full of insightful, witty – and provocative – observations about what’s wrong with America today.   

Boortz’s book has inspired me to come up with my own list of observations about recent news items in politics and popular culture – some truths that are obvious to me but which aren’t being said in the “mainstream” news media. 

n     The “Iraq war” is largely unimportant, as a public-policy issue. 

Close readers of this blog may have noticed that my two-part, 11,000-word January essay on “The Prospects for Liberty” in 2007 did not once mention the so-called “war” in Iraq.  (Calling it a “war” is a misnomer:  the war, properly speaking, ended, successfully, with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical regime – yes, President Bush was right to announce “mission accomplished”; the continuing U.S. military presence in policing the nation against “insurgent” violence is better identified as the “occupation” of Iraq, not a war.)  The military occupation of Iraq is, indeed, one of the least important public-policy issues facing the United States today, in terms of its effect on individual liberty; it is negligible, in comparison with the continued growth of the welfare state (such issues as the expansion of Medicare, increased federal government regulation of education, and an increase in the federally-mandated minimum wage).  And history will judge George W. Bush’s greatest mistake – in terms of the damage his administration has done to individual freedom and the Constitution – to be either his expansion of Medicare or his horrid “No Child Left Behind” law federalizing government control over education, and not his use of the U.S. military in Iraq.  True, it’s sad that over 3000 Americans in uniform have died, perhaps needlessly, in Iraq – but that number only recently exceeded the number of innocent American civilians murdered by the al Qaeda terrorists on 9/11/01, and it still pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of American servicemen killed in Vietnam, where the draft law compelled them to fight a war that had even less to do with U.S. security than does the Iraqi occupation. 

n     The “Iraq war” is all about Demopublican/Replicrat partisan politics. 

What the “war” in Iraq is really all about – and the principal reason why the news media keep covering it as a top story – is simply partisan politics.   Anti-war stories allow the media to bash the Bush administration and to give their Democrat allies lots of cheap and easy publicity, for opposition to the U.S. military intervention in Iraq is about the only major issue that cleanly differentiates Democrats and Republicans today.  (Democrats compete with one another to see who can be most extreme in their anti-war, Bush-bashing rhetoric, while Republicans foolishly give knee-jerk support to Bush’s policies, no matter how foolish they are.  “Cut and run” versus “stay the course” – the shallowness of the slogans betrays the intellectual bankruptcy of both major American political parties today.   

n     Communist dictators are tyrants, too. 

Parade magazine recently published an article identifying “The World’s 10 Worst Dictators” (February 11, 2007).  Topping the list was Omar al-Bashir, dictator of Sudan since 1989, because of his ongoing human-rights abuses in the Darfur region, where over the past four years, at least 200,000 people have been killed by pro-Bashir forces.  North Korea’s mad Communist dictator, Kim Jong-Il, was ranked second, followed by Iran’s Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the Ayatollah whose 12-man Guardian Council really controls Iran’s theocratic state (although it is Iran’s president, Mahmoud “I’m-in-a-Jihad” Ahmadinejad, who gets the headlines).  The top ten is rounded out by Red China’s Hu Jintao, Saudi King Abdullah, Burma’s Gen. Than Shwe, Zimbabwe’s Robert Bugabe, Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi, and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.  The article also listed ten additional “contenders” for the title, including Russia’s head thug, Vladimir Putin, and Aleksandr Lukashenko, the Communist dictator of another former Soviet state, Belarus. 

Although the article should be commended for including some the world’s worst Communist dictators, conspicuously absent from the list were the Castro brothers of Cuba and Venezuela’s  Hugo Chavez.  Fidel Castro had been included (in the No. 15 slot) on last year’s list; the only explanation for his omission this year is that he had “relinquished power” to his brother Raul on July 31, 2006 because of his illness.  But rights abuses still continue in Communist Cuba, under Raul Castro (Fidel’s long-time right-hand man) just as badly as under Fidel.  And Hugo Chavez continues to seize more and more power:  he recently was given the power to completely remake Venezuela’s economy (including the power to nationalize even more energy companies) by decree.  Proclaiming the law that gave Chavez these dictatorial powers, National Assembly President Cilia Flores proclaimed, “Long live President Hugo Chavez!  Long live socialism!  Fatherland, socialism, or death!”  (An apt phrase, revealing the nationalism and socialism that lies at the heart of Chavez’s appeal – just as it had to Adolph Hitler’s.  During a recent demonstration, hundreds of Chavez supporters wore red – the color of Venezuela’s ruling party – and waved signs that read, “Socialism is democracy.”  Chavez’s vice president, Jorge Rodriguez, thanking the National Assembly for providing the “gasoline” to start up the “engine” of societal change, stated, “We want to impose the dictatorship of a true democracy.”)   

Why are these left-wing dictators ignored by the Parade article?  One explanation is that its “Top Ten” list was drawn in part from reports from such groups as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which tend to overlook abuses of economic freedom and thus give exaggerated emphasis to “right-wing” dictatorships.  Like many academics, these “human rights” groups forget that one of the most essential rights – indeed, arguably the most essential, as it’s the basis for most other freedoms – is the sanctity of private property rights.  Socialism and Communism pose equal dangers to freedom as do other forms of collectivism – whether “right-wing” military dictatorships, Muslim theocracies, or rule by criminal gangs – and only the naïve or the biased believe that Hugo Chavez’s socialist dictatorship is somehow less threatening to freedom because it’s “democratic.” 

n     Congress should declare war on Iran. 

If Congress were really serious about fighting the war on militant Islamic terrorism, it would cease debating unconstitutional efforts to micro-manage U.S. military intervention in Iraq. (Whatever one thinks about the merits of President Bush’s proposed troop “surge” in Baghdad, it’s clearly within his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief to determine how many troops are needed to help keep the peace there.)   Rather, Congress ought to consider something that’s within its constitutional competence – its sole authority to declare war – and to debate seriously whether the United States ought to declare war on our real enemy, the Islamic militant government of Iran.   

Iran has not only defied the world – threatening international peace and particularly the national security of Israel – by continuing unabated its scheme to develop nuclear weapons, but it also has been shown responsible for much of the sectarian violence under which the people of Iraq – caught in the midst of a power struggle between Sunni and Shiite militants – have been suffering.  Iran’s support for Shiite militia by itself is sufficient pretext for the U.S. to declare war.  Sooner or later, we will need to face the threat to world peace and security that the radical Islamic government of Iran poses; what better time than now, before Iran fully develops a nuclear arsenal and while the U.S. already has a significant military presence in Iraq, an apt staging ground for the attack on Tehran? 

n     Congress should repeal the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” policy. 

One of the few (very few) good things about the Democrat majority in both houses of Congress is that it makes more likely the end of the silly “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that excludes openly homosexual men and women from the U.S. military.  That’s simply because one of the few (very few) good things about Democrats, generally, is that they’re somewhat less homophobic than Republicans, generally.   

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” was the policy approved by Bill “Slick Willy” Clinton in 1993, as a compromise between the military’s former policy banning homosexuals and a policy that would permit homosexuals to serve openly.   The policy allows gay men and lesbians to serve if they keep quiet about their sex lives; it also bars commanders from asking subordinates about their sexual orientation.  Like most compromise measures, “don’t ask/tell” pleases no one:  by encouraging secrecy and dishonesty, it fosters security risks and perpetuates homophobia – the real problem, an irrational fear of homosexuality – in the military.  It works injustice by removing otherwise-qualified military personnel merely because they’re honest about their sexual orientation.  Since the policy began, nearly 11,000 troops – the equivalent of an Army division – have been discharged.  And needlessly so, because a service member’s ability has nothing to do with his or her sexual orientation.  (Real problems with morale in the corps – such as sexual relationships between officers and enlisted personnel – are no more likely to occur among homosexuals as among heterosexuals.)  

Congressman Marty Meehan (D.-Mass.) has introduced in Congress a bill called the “Military Readiness Enhancement Act,” which would repeal the “don’t ask/tell” policy, allowing homosexual men and women to serve in the military without any restrictions.  When the bill was introduced in Congress last year, it had 122 co-sponsors, but it died in the Republican-controlled Congress.  Meehan’s bill already has more than 100 co-sponsors, including some Republicans.  Generally (as I like to tell my students), bipartisan support is a sure sign that proposed legislation is a bad idea (why else would it get support from both Demopublican and Replicrat politicians?), but this one proposal might be the exception that proves the rule. 

n     Congress should repeal federal education laws. 

President Bush has been lobbying Congress to reauthorize the “No Child Left Behind Law,” the signature program of not only his education policy but also the “big government conservatism” that, sadly, has characterized his presidency.  No doubt, the effort to reauthorize this monstrosity will also get some bipartisan support – providing further proof for my general rule of thumb about the dangers of bipartisanship.   

This is one issue where principled Republicans (if there are any left in Congress) ought to part company with Bush and instead vote according to the Constitution, which delegates the federal government absolutely no authority to legislate whatsoever regarding education, a matter that our system of federalism (and the general provision of the Tenth Amendment) leaves to the states.  The problem with federal education policy isn’t something that needs additional fine-tuning from Washington; the problem is the existence of federal policy of any sort.  The basic problem with education in the United States today is that far too much of it is controlled by the government, state and local as well as federal.  (Ending federal government controls over schools would be a good start at real reform, which ought to culminate in the end of all government control over education and the total return of education to those who truly and exclusively ought to be responsible for it, the parents of school-age children.)  Members of Congress ought to take seriously their oath to support the U.S. Constitution and immediately begin voting to repeal all federal laws dealing with education – starting with Bush’s law.  

n     President Bush should immediately pardon Scooter Libby. 

Earlier this month former vice presidential aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby was found guilty by a federal jury of the supposed “crimes” of obstruction of justice, lying to FBI agents, and perjury before a grand jury.  Libby, who was Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff before he resigned in 2005, faces up to 25 years in prison and a possible $1 million fine when he is sentenced on June 5.  Yet Libby is totally innocent of any wrongdoing; the actions for which he was convicted are not real crimes at all (or at least they shouldn’t be, in a free society).  The real crime in the Libby case is the prosecution itself and what it represents:  a dangerous attempt, by the political enemies of the Bush administration, to criminalize policy differences.

Libby’s conviction is the culmination of a two-year investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald into the case involving the “leak” to the news media of the identity of a CIA official, Valerie Plame, who was married to former ambassador Joe Wilson, a critic of the Iraq war.  As I have previously written (see my discussion of the CIA “leak” scandal in my entry “B.F.D.,” Feb. 23, 2006), the real scandal in this case is the prosecution itself.  Just as with the prosecution of Martha Stewart – who was similarly charged with the “crime” of lying to federal agents, when the government was unable to prove any underlying offense of insider stock trading – this case sets an ominous precedent that ought to concern all Americans.   As the Wall Street Journal noted in an editorial last fall, “The indictment itself contains no evidence of a conspiracy, and Mr. Libby has not been accused of trying to cover up some high crime or misdemeanor by the Bush administration.  The indictment amounts to an allegation that one official lied about what he knew about an underlying `crime’ that wasn’t committed.”  This prosecution involves, “at bottom, a policy dispute between an elected Administration and critics of the President’s approach to the war on terror, who included parts of the permanent bureaucracy of the State Department and CIA [Mr. and Mrs. Wilson]. . . . [This] indictment looks like a case of criminalizing politics” (“Obstruction for What?”  Oct. 29-30). 

And as the Journal observed in an editorial last summer, “If there’s any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has been allowed to waste so much government time and media attention.”  Now that “Scooter” Libby has been convicted – becoming, in effect, either the administration’s scapegoat or its “fall guy” – much harm has been done to this one man, whose career has been destroyed and who is about to lose his freedom and wealth as well.  President Bush would be wisely exercising his constitutional prerogative to issue a pardon exonerating Libby – and he should do so immediately, to ensure that justice is done for this man who greatest “crime” was having a faulty memory.  As George Mason University law professor Ronald A. Rotunda wrote in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (“The Case for a Libby Pardon,” March 7), the presidential pardon is especially appropriate here, in a case that ought never to have been initiated:  “special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald never charged anyone with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 – the job for which the Department of Justice appointed him – after he quickly determined that there was no violation of that law,” even after it had been revealed that it was former Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage who “outed” Ms. Plame, who once held non-official cover status in the CIA.  (As I previously noted, the real scandal here might be why Plame’s husband, Joe Wilson, a former Clinton administration official and a critic of the Bush administration, would be selected – was it because of his wife’s intervention?  The Wilsons deny it – for the politically-sensitive mission of investigating Saddam Hussein’s possible dealings for uranium “yellow cake” in Niger.  If anyone had been prosecuted over this ridiculous melodrama, perhaps it ought to have been Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, for treason.  Now, that would have been a story!) 

The framers of the Constitution gave the president virtually unlimited discretionary power to issue pardons.  A skeptic of the Constitution, anti-Federalist leader George Mason, warned in 1787 that future presidents might abuse the pardoning power by shielding criminal co-conspirators from prosecution; over two centuries later, Bill Clinton proved Mason to be prescient by abusing his pardon power to free Susan McDougall, a co-conspirator with Bill and Hillary Clinton in the Whitewater land fraud.  (That was one of many last-minute pardons issued by Clinton in the waning moments of his presidency.)  If Clinton could so abuse the pardoning power to exonerate a real criminal, then Bush ought to use the power to free Libby, an innocent man.

n     It’s way too early for the media to be covering 2008 presidential candidates, especially when they’re such a mediocre bunch. 

With spring 2007 still ahead around the corner, it will be nearly a year and a half before the November 2008 elections – and yet, sensible Americans already are sick of the news media’s exhaustive coverage of next year’s “race to the White House” (Another indicator of the leftist media’s political bias, presumably, is their eagerness to anoint George W. Bush’s successor, whom they hope will be a Democrat.)  What makes the political horserace so nauseating as a topic is the fact that the field of contenders thus far is so mediocre, little more than just a bunch of nags.   

Of all the announced candidates of the two major parties, only one – Congressman Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican from Texas – is a consistent, principled defender of individual rights and limited government (and thus the only candidate who truly takes seriously the oath to support and defend the Constitution).  Yet Paul, a former presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, unfortunately shares with “capital-L” Libertarians the inability to offer pragmatic proposals for incremental change to restore government to its legitimate sphere; and like many Libertarians today, his anti-war principles blind him to the real dangers that militant Islamic terrorism poses to American national security.   

Of the major candidates, the most interesting – and undoubtedly, the most formidable (as honest Democrats would admit) – is Rudy Guiliani, who’s rapidly overtaking John McCain as the Republican front-runner.  Guiliani’s widely popular, for good reason – his superlative leadership as mayor of New York City at the time of the 9/11/2001 militant Islamic attacks – and he’s perhaps the best hope the GOP has for restoring its limited-government philosophical foundations.  (A recent fundraising letter from Rudy nicely describes the Republican Party as “The Party of Freedom,” in which he argues that “[a]t our best, we believe in giving people more control over their own lives.  This principle runs through the policies that unite us as a party:  keeping taxes low and cutting the size of government, finding market solutions to generational challenges such as entitlement reform, and increasing opportunity through education reforms like school choice.”)  Little wonder that the Democrats’ allies in the “mainstream” news media would like to stir up opposition to Rudy from within the Republican Party, from social conservatives who might have qualms about his pro-choice position on abortion or his personal life (the fact that he’s twice-divorced and apparently has become estranged from his 21-year-old son).  (Smart conservatives would set aside such qualms as irrelevancies and focus instead on Guiliani’s proven leadership ability and superb electability, his appeal to political independents, which makes him such a threat to the Democrats and their strategists.) 

Here are some other brief observations on the leading candidates thus far: 

Hillary Clinton is a cold, power-hungry bitch.  Everything she does or says has only one objective – to further her quest for power, to control other people’s lives as much as possible.  There’s no need to elaborate further on this one.  There’s a legal phrase that aptly applies:  res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself.

       John McCain is a big-government megalomaniac.  In essence, he’s Hillary Clinton on testosterone.  Only non-conservatives could regard McCain as a “conservative,” for on most important issues, he sides with big government.  As Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, observed in a recent op-ed, “The McCain Record” (Wall Street Journal, March 13), McCain was one of only two Republican senators to oppose the 2001 tax cuts and one of only three GOP senators to oppose the 2003 reductions; his record on regulatory matters reveals “a pervasive mistrust of the free market and individual choice,” including his support for government price controls on Medicare prescription drugs and his opposition to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska – and, of course, his signature legislation, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulation law, which Toomey aptly describes as “the greatest modern infringement of the First Amendment right to political free speech.”  The cover article in the current (April 2007) issue of Reason magazine similarly exposes McCain’s big-government megalomania; as its title says, “Be Afraid of President McCain:  The frightening mind of an authoritarian maverick.” 

Barack Obama is a fraud.  The freshman Democrat U.S. Senator from Illinois claims to offer a fresh alternative to partisan politics, but both his actions and rhetoric reveal that he’s just another left-wing partisan Democrat, favoring such things as the “cut-and-run” strategy in Iraq and more socialized medicine.  More ominously, as journalist Erik Rush wrote in a recent expose, “Obamination” (Feb. 20), behind the “mainstream” façade there might be a truly radical agenda.  Obama belongs to a church on Chicago’s South Side that espouses overtly racist black separatist ideology.  “Is Obama seeking to be our first black president, or our first stealth black nationalist president?” Erik (who happens to be black himself) asks. 

n     Al Gore is a big, fat idiot – and a hypocrite. 

Amidst all the other nonsense in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s hysterical, fear-mongering film (celebrated as a “documentary,” but really a work of science fiction) about the supposed dangers of global warming, is the claim that “air travel produces large amounts of emissions, so reducing how much you fly by even one or two trips a year can reduce emissions significantly.”  Meanwhile, Gore uses a fuel-guzzling private jet to fly all over the world, merely to promote his film.  And as the Tennessee Center for Policy Research recently reported (“Al Gore’s Own Inconvenient Truth,” Feb. 27), Gore’s mansion in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville uses more than twice the electricity in one month than the average household does in an entire year. (By the way, the bullshit in Gore’s film has been thoroughly exposed by Christopher C. Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in Chapter 10 of his new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism, and by Dr. Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia, in his Feb. 23 op-ed, “Inconvenient Truths: Novel science fiction on global warming.”  And for a real documentary that shatters the myths, see the excellent British video “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” which as Robert Bidinotto notes, is the film that really ought to have won the Oscar for best documentary.)

 n     Keith Olbermann is the biggest asshole in the world. 

The host of MSNBC’s Countdown, Keith Olbermann (an arrogant jerk who rose above his level of competence when he moved from sportscasting to political commentary), has a feature on his program called “Worst Persons in the World” in which he attacks those people whom he calls “the mortal enemies of honesty and dignity, of selflessness and class.”  There are three categories, starting with the bronze “Worse,” followed by the silver “Worser,” and climaxing with the gold “Worst.”   With his trademark deadpan delivery, often accompanied by a cocked eyebrow and a sneer, Olbermann inevitably betrays his own left-wing political biases by picking conservatives and libertarians as the objects of his derision; whenever political public figures are at issue, Olbermann virtually never criticizes anyone who’s left of center.  (For example, it’s not surprising that one of his recent choices for “Worst” person was Neal Boortz, because of the negative things Boortz wrote about government schools and teachers’ unions in his new book.  Apparently, people who believe that more government controls are the solution to society’s problems are Olbermann’s idea of “good” people, epitomizing “selflessness” and “class,” if not honesty and dignity.)  His most frequent target?  FoxNews’ Bill O’Reilly, with whom Olbermann seems to have an unhealthy obsession.  Perhaps it’s apt:  one asshole deserves the other.  

  | Link to this Entry | Posted Monday,  March 19, 2007 | Copyright © David N. Mayer