harmonicminer

I have been thinking a lot about the future lately.  In some respects my future now is perhaps more uncertain than it’s ever been.  While pondering the imponderables of what tomorrow may hold, lately I find myself frequently recalling a scene from a Tom Hanks film.  “Cast Away” was made in 2000, and stars Hanks as a man who survives a plane crash only to be stranded alone on a desert island for two years.

The scene I keep thinking about is at the very end of the movie.  Hanks, starting his life over after being rescued, is standing in the middle of an intersection of two country roads somewhere in a very rural part of Texas.  He looks in each direction, his eye following the roads as far as he can see, as he contemplates his future.  He is at a point in his life where he can literally just get in his car and drive in any direction he chooses for as long as he chooses.

I often take my dog for a walk late at night.  Sometimes she and I stop in the middle of an intersection near my home as we return from our walk.  Like Hanks’character in the movie I look in all four directions and try to imagine what it would be like to have the freedom to choose to travel in any direction.  It’s been a very long time since I had that kind of freedom.  For I cannot take any road I choose.  I must take the road that leads to home, to family, and to the life I lead.

I am not complaining.  I am very blessed.  But with age comes family, career, and a host of responsibilities.  And with age comes a life that in some ways offers fewer choices, or… perhaps it’s better to say it is a life made up of consequences from choices past – mostly good, some not so good  – that lead to other choices.

In my job as a teacher I am surrounded daily by very bright, happy, and generally motivated young college students who have their entire lives ahead of them.  As they approach graduation they are nearing an intersection in their own lives.  How thrilling it is for them to be able to travel down any road they like, for as long as they like. I’ll admit a little part of me is jealous. OK, sometimes maybe more than a little.  For I cannot just take any road as they can – most of my choosing time is behind me.  (I think I’m starting to understand the concept of mid-life crisis…)

Young people, enjoy the intersections in your lives.  Yeah, they are scary at first.  But each one is a great adventure, and they get fewer and further apart as you go on down the road.

Ah, that Robert Frost – he was on to something!

Armed TSA Agents Threaten Travel Journalist

At 7:00 p.m. on December 29, armed TSA agents banged on the door of photojournalist and KLM Airlines blogger Steven Frischling’s Connecticut home. “They threatened me with a criminal search warrant and suggested they’d call up my clients and say I was a security risk if I didn’t turn over my computer to them. They said ‘we could make this difficult for you,’” Frischling told me in a telephone interview the following afternoon. By then, TSA had removed Frischling’s computer from his home, made a copy of his hard drive, and returned the computer to him.

The federal agents, dispatched form the Transportation Security Administration’s Office of Inspection, had wanted Frischling, a respected travel journalist, to name names. They wanted Frischling to tell them who had given him “TSA Security Directive SD-1544-09-06,” which Frischling and another blogger had posted online three days earlier.

“It was a double-edged sword for me because I did not know who sent me the document. And it was absurd because that document had been seen by approximately 10,000 airline personnel around the world, including personnel in Islamabad, Riyadh, and Nigeria, so the idea that it was somehow in their control” was false, Frischling said.

Frischling explained that he posted the document because he wanted people to be able to read it and form their own opinions and ideas about it. The document was not marked “classified,” and it had already apparently been posted on some airline websites. The email had been sent to him anonymously from someone with a gmail address. TSA believed it was one of their own and wanted to know who, exactly.

For Frischling, thinking beyond the immediate safety of his three children — alone with him in the house — was difficult. His wife works at night and was already gone.

“I stood talking to the agents with my three-year-old in my arms,” Frischling told me.

While the agents were intimidating him, he feared if he were to be arrested then his children would be left without a parent present. He telephoned an attorney, who suggested he cooperate with TSA since there was no federal shield law to protect him in matters deemed national security threats. Besides, the agents “made it clear that if I said ‘no’ to letting them have my hard drive, they were going to come back with a search warrant,” Frischling explained.

If this report does not make you lividly angry, if it does not provoke a certain amount of adrenalin, if it does not leave you wanting take specific action against government goons who abuse their authority, you are already a sheep, I’m afraid.

And the wolves have your number.

We are individually and corporately responsible to fight this sort of thing.

The issue almost doesn’t matter that led the federal thugs to this man’s door.  They should have gotten a warrant first, or stayed in their office.  This kind of intimidation is not appropriate in any case except perhaps with known criminals or terrorists.  It certainly isn’t appropriate for private citizens with no criminal background or intent, and is especially egregious when used to intimidate journalists.

I know who the criminals are in this story.  Of course, if this had been done in the Bush administration, perhaps under color of the Patriot Act, the media would have been all over it.

Hint: people who make threats to intimidate the innocent ARE the bad guys.

A point that needs some stress is that the French obsession with “equality” led to the murder of many thousands in the Terror that followed the French Revolution.   It was simply a violent expression of class warfare, pure and simple.   In fact, the French experience and perspective of that time was a major inspiration for the totalitarian movements of the 20th century.

In the interest of time, Dennis Prager can only brush on this point, but it is perhaps the most critical of his presentation, because it is the least understood by people who point to European “democracy” and assert it is “as good” as the American republican approach.  In fact, about all they have in common is that votes happen, and do change things in the government, and there is some form of rule of law.  But the assumptions from which the governments proceed are largely different, a point that is lost on those who want to emulate the European model.

Here is a trinity of trinities:

Liberty, equality, fraternity  -  France

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness  -  USA

Peace, order and good government  -  Canada, other Commonwealth nations

Note well:  the restriction the French phrase places on liberty is the emphasis on equality, which can only be enforced by government.  The restriction placed on liberty in the USA phrase is only that which interferes with another’s right to live, or unjustly fetters another’s right to pursue his own happiness.  The Commonwealth model doesn’t even discuss liberty.  All three items in it involve government power to bring about ends.

The main point here:  the French and Commonwealth versions are mostly about what it is the responsibility of government to DO.  The USA version is mostly about what the government should NOT do.

There is a simple reason, which Prager mentions:  in the American model, rights are understood as given by God, and merely recognized by government, which is what makes them “unalienable.”  In the other models, rights are granted by government, as long as they don’t get in the way of other ends that are equally or more important, like “equality” or “order” or “good government.”

And that’s the critical element in American exceptionalism.

h/t:  CFC

In Germany, home schooling is simply illegal. Is that going to happen in the USA, too?

N.H. High Court to Hear Case of Girl Ordered Out of Homeschooling

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has agreed to take up the case of a Christian girl who was ordered out of homeschooling and into a public school.

Attorneys for 10-year-old Amanda Kurowski argue that the lower court judge overstepped its authority when it determined that it would be in the best interest of the student to explore and examine new things, other than Christianity.

“Courts can settle disputes, but they cannot legitimately order a child into a government-run school on the basis that her religious views need to be mixed with other views. That’s precisely what the lower court admitted it is doing in this case, and that’s where our concern lies,” said Alliance Defense Fund- allied attorney John Anthony Simmons of Hampton.

The daughter of divorced parents, Amanda has been homeschooled by her mother, Brenda Voydatch, since first grade. Her father, Martin Kurowski, is opposed to homeschooling, arguing that it prevents “adequate socialization” for Amanda with other children. He requested that she be placed in a government school.

In the process of renegotiating the terms of a parenting plan for the girl, the Guardian ad Litem – who acts as a fact finder for the court – reported that Amanda was found to “lack some youthful characteristics,” partly because “she appeared to reflect her mother’s rigidity on questions of faith.”

Ms. Voydatch insisted that she does not push religion on Amanda and said her daughter’s choice to share her religious beliefs is a free choice.

The court, however, determined that “Amanda’s vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to the counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view” and that enrolling her in a public school would expose her to a variety of points of view.

At the same time, the court found the girl to be “well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising, and intellectually at or superior to grade level.”

Nevertheless, Judge Lucinda V. Sadler approved the GAL’s recommendation earlier this summer and ruled that it would be in Amanda’s best interests to attend a public school in the 2009-2010 academic year.

Simmons filed a motion to reconsider and stay the order. But the judge denied the motions and stated that the girl “is at an age when it can be expected that she would benefit from the social interaction and problem solving she will find in public school, and granting a stay would result in a lost opportunity for her.”

ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson responded, “We are concerned anytime a court oversteps its bounds to tread on the right of a parent to make sound educational choices, or to discredit the inherent value of the homeschooling option. The lower court effectively determined that it would be a ‘lost opportunity’ if a child’s Christian views are not sifted and challenged in a public school setting. We regard that as a dangerous precedent.”

Watch this, from Lord Christopher Monckton, chief policy advisor to the Science and Public Policy Institute.

I haven’t heard much about this from other sources…. I’m trying to get more information about it.  But if this fellow isn’t exaggerating, this is looking really ugly.

More info here and here and some especially scary nonsense from Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister.

Star Parker on Cavuto

Only a few comments to make.

General Petraeus is a great general, in a dozen different ways.

The injured serviceman, and his family, are incredible examples of why the USA is still free.

But that is no guarantee for our future, if a time comes when such people are no longer to be found among us.

It would be more likely that we would find such people if the media reported more stories like this, instead of the constant anti-military drumbeat that is all too common.  The media has reported on precious few of the heroes of the last 8 years…  to its great shame.

Not very long ago, it was assumed that the US ability to project power with carrier battle groups was sufficient to deter the Chinese from an attempt at military reunification with Taiwan. But while we’ve been busy elsewhere, the the Chinese have been busy, too, according to a recent RAND report.

The new report, in typical RAND style, uses sophisticated modeling to simulate a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in the 2010-2015 timeframe, including a preemptive ballistic missile bombardment, a cyber assault on the island’s infrastructure and a Normandy style amphibious landing.

In a 2000 report that looked at a similar scenario, RAND predicted a bloody repulse for the attacking Chinese as Taiwanese and U.S. aircraft savaged the Chinese air fleet and seaborne landing force. However, this time around, RAND sees China establishing air superiority over the strait within hours of the first shots being fired.

How to explain such a reversal? Primarily, it’s due to China’s burgeoning stock of increasingly accurate short range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), around 1,000 of which are deployed opposite Taiwan. Launching a preemptive strike, RAND figures that with 90 to 240 SRBMs, China could: “cut every runway at Taiwan’s half-dozen main fighter bases and destroy essentially all of the aircraft parked on ramps in the open at those installations.” Follow on bombing raids by Chinese aircraft armed with precision bombs would destroy any surviving Taiwanese aircraft parked in hardened shelters.

The questions I have are two:

1) Will the USA do what needs to be done to protect Taiwan, including making it very clear to the Chinese that the USA is militarily commited to Taiwan’s independence?

2) Will the USA let the Chinese know that in the event of an invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese, the Chinese can simply kiss the US market goodbye, and no, we won’t be paying back any of our loans?  You don’t pay back the money you owe to the neighborhood bully in the next block.

This is going to be the premier test case of whether engagement and economic relationship with a potential foe trump the simple desire for power. That’s been the assumption of US foreign policy for awhile, now. Thomas P. M. Barnett thinks so.

I hope he’s right.  But I think it will aid the Chinese in reaching the proper conclusion if we build two more carrier battle groups and park them in the Taiwan Strait, and sell the Taiwan government some seriously powerful weapons.

Call it peace through superior firepower.

Victory for Freedom of Conscience at Grand Valley State University: Music Department Axes Political Litmus Test

Grand Valley State University (GVSU) has promised to remove “demonstrated commitment to the principles of diversity” from the stated job requirements for prospective faculty seeking appointment to GVSU’s Department of Music. The department will restate its requirements in terms of relevant experience, not vaguely worded personal commitments regarding a controversial political issue. The change, which came after FIRE asked GVSU to restore freedom of conscience on its campus, is a fresh reminder to public universities that they cannot require prospective faculty to demonstrate personal commitment to “the principles of diversity,” any more than they can require a commitment to “patriotism,” “objectivism,” or “communalism.”

This is exactly right, of course.

Yet, even with this result at GVSU, a great many college and universities insist on clauses like this in job announcements, contracts, evaluative mechanisms, syllabi, etc. Diversity is the new green mud. When all the other monkeys in the cage are rubbing themselves with green mud, you’d better start scooping it up yourself.  Monkeys caught not wearing green mud will be disciplined.

Since diversity is so thoroughly associated with the Left, such clauses amount to a demand that all viable candidates must be Leftists, or pretend to be.

CURE | Root of nation’s economic crisis is moral crisis (much more at the link, all worth reading)

A travesty of justice has occurred in Oakland, California. But realities surrounding this local issue point to how the economic crisis in our nation is symptomatic of and flows from a deeper fundamental moral crisis.

A black pastor awaits sentencing, which could amount to two years in prison and $4,000 in fines, for standing outside an inner city abortion clinic holding a sign saying “Jesus Loves You & Your Baby, Let Us Help You,” and offering pro-life literature.

Walter Hoye, founder and chairman of the Issues4Life Foundation, was found guilty of “unlawful approach” under the “Access to Reproductive Health Care Facilities Ordinance” enacted in Oakland in 2008.

Under the ordinance, it is prohibited, within 100 feet of the entrance to a “reproductive health facility,” to approach within eight feet of a client “for the purpose of counseling, harassing, or interfering” with that person.

Imagine if a black “minister” like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton had been standing in the same place holding a sign that said, “Abortion is a civil right! God Bless you for having the courage to do it!” Does anyone reading this think they would have been arrested, detained, or even talked to by law enforcement? This is simply a case of law in the service of evil, and giving permission for evil speech (the real “hate speech”), while denying the gentle expression of simple truth.

We all need to pray for Walter Hoye, for him to have courage and the support he needs to pursue his appeals. A donation might be in order, too.

And we need to pray for America, which has simply lost its way.

Here is the now-infamous quote from President Obama on the subject of proposed nationalized health care and and those who oppose it:

But I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.

Compare his statement with the following quotes on the subject of protest and dissent. All but one of the persons cited below are Democrats. The last quote is from a significant and influential German Nazi. I threw it in there as a nod to Nancy Pelosi, who seems to be fascinated with all things Nazi these days. I will leave it up to you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions. In the mean time, if you haven’t already done so, be sure to report this blog to flag@whitehouse.gov. There is definitely something “fishy” about this posting!

We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

Martin Luther King Jr.

We do not move forward by curtailing people’s liberty because we are afraid of what they may do or say.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

Harry S. Truman

I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.

Hillary Clinton

We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans…

Bill Clinton

Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive.

John F. Kennedy

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

Edward R. Murrow

Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.

Hubert H. Humphrey

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Theodore Roosevelt

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Joseph Goebbels

Is the USA a “Christian nation”? Depends on what you mean by that, I suppose. But its origin in Judeo-Christian principles is clear, based on founding documents, acts of congress and presidents, and the writings of the founders.  The recognition and celebration of that heritage has been nearly universal among US national leaders until very recent times.  You can decide if that was a good thing, or a bad thing, but you can’t pretend it is a non-thing.

It is bizarre that the official US position about Honduras’ current political situation is to condemn the people who resisted an illegal takeover of Honduras by a wanna-be dictator for life.

The way in which nearly all the world’s media portray the legal, Supreme Court-ordered ouster of President Manuel (Mel) Zelaya is one major reason for the universal opprobrium. Because military men took part in the deportation of the sitting president, it has been portrayed as a classic Latin American “military coup,” and who can support a military coup?

The lack of context in which this ouster took place has prevented the vast majority of the world’s news watchers and readers from understanding what has happened.

I wonder how many people who bother to read the news — as opposed to only listen to or watch news reports — know:

– Zelaya was plotting a long-term, possibly lifetime, takeover of the Honduran government through illegally changing the Honduran Constitution.

– Zelaya had personally led a mob attack on a military facility to steal phony “referendum” ballots that had been printed by the Venezuelan government.

– Weeks earlier, in an attempt to intimidate the Honduran attorney general — as reported by The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady, one of the only journalists in the world who regularly reports the whole story about Honduras — “some 100 agitators, wielding machetes, descended on the attorney general’s office. ‘We have come to defend this country’s second founding,’ the group’s leader reportedly said. ‘If we are denied it, we will resort to national insurrection.’”

– No member of the military has assumed a position of power as a result of the “military coup.”

– Zelaya’s own party, the Liberal Party, supported his removal from office and deportation from Honduras.

– The Liberal Party still governs Honduras.

So, Dennis Prager has asked you, did you know those things? If you didn’t, and you’ve been watching/reading the news, you’ll have to ask yourself why didn’t you know them.  Hopefully you’ll come to the correct conclusion about the slant of US major media, which never saw a left-socialist South American dictator it didn’t like.

As we’ve commented here before, the actions of the Honduran military were legal, and supported by the Honduran Supreme Court AND by the political party of the Zelaya himself. 

I have absolutely no idea what’s behind Obama’s support of Zelaya…  except that maybe he recognizes a fellow traveler.

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick says that Obama’s statements on Israel/Palestine, North Korea and Iran are irrational because they ignore facts on the gound:

Netanyahu’s speech was an eloquent, rational and at times impassioned defense of Israel. For Israeli ears, after years of former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni’s continuous assaults on Israeli rights, and their strident defenses of capitulation to the Palestinians and the Syrians, Netanyahu’s address was a breath of fresh air. But it is hard to see how it could have possibly had any lasting impact on Obama or his advisers.

To be moved by rational argument, a person has to be open to rational discourse. And what we have witnessed over the past week with the Obama administration’s reactions to both North Korea’s nuclear brinksmanship and Iran’s sham elections is that its foreign policy is not informed by rationality but by the president’s morally relative, post-modern ideology. In this anti-intellectual and anti-rational climate, Netanyahu’s speech has little chance of making a lasting impact on the White House.

Of course, there is hardly such a thing as a “fact” to the more extreme post-modern moral relativists, and certainly no such thing as “right and wrong,” except when it comes to carbon cap and trade, of course.

Read the whole thing, where Ms. Glick very clearly makes her case.