Anti-American Civil Liberties Union?

Though I am no student of all that the ACLU has accomplished, I know that it has taken up very important cases in the past. Many of which were of great importance. Being fairly young, and the media predominantly covering the most controversial of cases, most of the cases which I recall the ACLU being involved in have caused me to wonder if their sole purpose is to let murderers and rapists out on the streets. They usually talk with the press about how this person or that did not understand to what they were confessing, or the police missed one word of their rights, etc., but very rarely do they discuss the person's innocence.

While we need to protect an individual's rights it seems that they frequently do so at the expense of everyone else's rights.

Now in the war on terror they are some of the first to want to defend terror suspects. While I do not want a single innocent person jailed for terror, I also do not want a single guilty person to walk because of the ACLU. If they employ the same "technicality" tactics to get terrorists released for which they are famous, they should be ashamed. And we should not support them in those efforts.

Do you think they will? Just wait until you read the b.s. move the ACLU just made.

In January the ACLU, in order to improve their ability to raise money signed a contract with the federal government that they would not "knowingly" hire people on government terrorist "watch lists" (What American would want to hire someone on the list?) Well, Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, thinks he can hire all of the terror listed people he wants by stating, "I've printed them out [terror watch lists]... I've never consulted them," Since he never consulted (translation into English… read) them he did not “know” who was on the lists, therefore he could not “knowingly” hire them. And Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU board, agrees. The "knowingly" loophole was "a very reasonable, certainly clever interpretation."

What? Reasonable? Are the ACLU people nuts? Does this sound "reasonable" to you? Does it sound “reasonable” to ANYONE with a brain?

Being comprised of lawyers I suspect that the ACLU thinks that they have a legal loophole, which will at least keep them from jail. However, the term “knowingly” has been used in contracts for a very long time to prevent someone from accidentally breaching a contract. But, EVERYONE KNOWS that should a person CHOOSE not to make ANY effort to inform themselves of facts, that they are actually in violation of the contract. They are CERTAINLY in violation of the “intent.” And considering that the “intent” is to PROTECT America from TERRORISTS what kind of FOOL would even try to find a way around it?

This commonly used legal term has a universally understood meaning. If the AACLU is allowed to get away with this distortion then virtually ALL legal contracts in force today will have to be rewritten so as to close this nonexistent loophole. Which will, of course, cost MILLIONS or BILLIONS of dollars. That money will go to attorneys. The AACLU is mostly attorneys. Could they have another hidden agenda? Could they be trying to drum up work for themselves and their friends?

To summarize, the (A)ACLU uses trickery to hire suspected terrorists, and may be causing a cost to the American economy of MILLIONS or even BILLIONS of dollars. Does this sound like an American organization?

Al Qeada hires terrorists and they want to cost America MILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars.

Should the ACLU be forced to change its name to the Anti-American Civil Liberties Union? Would it be more appropriate?

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A Lie by Any Other Name

Senator Kerry has on several occasions stated that he spent Christmas Eve, 1968 in Cambodia. Every time that he states this it is SOLELY to point out the fact that the official United States LIE then, was that there were no U.S. troops in Cambodia at that time. He talks about the irony of possibly dying in a country that his government is LYING about HIS presence in. The ONLY point in ANY of the accounts he makes of this is to describe how TERRIBLE it is that his country was LYING, and to prove that they were LYING. He recited an account of this into the Congressional Record. He even wrote a piece for a newspaper. He really wanted the world to know that his country LIED.

It would appear from the big deal that Senator Kerry made of this, talking of how it is “seared” into his memory, that Senator Kerry HATES the fact that his country LIED about this. It would appear that Senator Kerry HATES LYING. One could conclude that John Kerry would not vote for a LIAR.

It has now been proven that John Kerry was NEVER in Cambodia! At least not anywhere near Christmas time. (After his campaign originally denied that he was EVER in Cambodia they were confronted with the Congressional record. Then, after a couple of days to decide a new strategy, they are now trying to say that it was some other date. Even though Christmas Eve was “seared” into his memory. If one is simply telling the truth does it take days to make it up?) John Kerry recited this story time and again to show how corrupt his country was (is). And in reality, John Kerry was showing his own corruption. During this campaign Senator Kerry has said that his patriotism was called into question over his votes on security issues, etc. I have not heard any serious opponents question this at all. I myself have not.

However, ANY American who would make up a total LIE for the sole purpose of making his country look bad IS NO PATRIOT!

Assume that our country really was lying about troops not being in Cambodia, when there were, as many probably honest people have stated. If some people LIE about it, then the credibility of the whole thing is drawn into question. How many others were LYING? Does Senator Kerry need to “belong” so badly that he would make that up? That is pathetic!

As for this “seared” memory, if someone does something and then forgets having done so, this can be attributed to a poor memory. However, if someone does NOT do something and then “remembers” it, is this not a symptom of some psychosis? Getting a date wrong, forgetting someone’s name, etc. we have all done. But ask yourself this. Have YOU ever remembered doing something which NEVER HAPPENED?

In addition to outright LYING, this also applies to anyone who distorts the truth and misleads people into believing that our country, or its leadership is bad. If you present the truth, without distortion, without placing “facts” out of chronological order to trick people into believing a lie, and the result is that our country is not as good as we want it to be then so be it. However, if an American makes, for example, a movie in which truth is distorted and the viewer is deceived into believing things NOT true, in order to make America look bad, that filmmaker IS NO PATRIOT!

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Mutually Assured Destruction

During the “Cold War” we avoided a nuclear “hot war”, one with shots being fired, by the United States and the Soviet Union having enough nuclear firepower to each “assure” the other that a nuclear attack would cause an annihilating retaliation. Therefore, why would anyone wanting to live start a war which insured his or her own destruction? This used offensive weapons (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles with nuclear warheads) as defense against the offensive use of similar weapons against us. This theory was called Mutually Assured Destruction. This worked. Well, it worked to keep the cold war from becoming hot, but who wants to live in constant fear of nuclear holocaust? So Ronald Reagan introduced a truly defensive weapons package, the Strategic Defense Initiative, or S.D.I. sometimes referred to as “star wars”.

S.D.I. became a political issue almost immediately and was widely opposed by those on the democratic side, including John Kerry. Some believed that it would not work. Some simply opposed it because a Republican proposed it. Some actually argued that if we had this, that Mutually Assured Destruction would only work one way. We could fire a nuclear “first strike” at the Soviet Union and they could not hit us back because of this protective umbrella. So they actually did NOT want this protection for us in order to protect the Soviet Union. I never understood that last one, “Don’t defend yourself because your enemy will be defenseless.”

Despite the fighting, some steps were taken toward S.D.I. If the system or a part thereof ever was deployed I have not heard of it. But, I suspect that it would be higher than top secret and I would not have the security clearance. There is disagreement to this day as to whether or not the technology could accomplish its task, that being to destroy Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles fired at the U.S. before they could cause their devastation. But, there is little disagreement among thinking people that it was one of the biggest factors, if not the biggest factor in bringing about the end of the cold war. President Reagan was once at a nuclear summit with the Soviets when he was told in no uncertain terms that the U.S. had to abandon S.D.I. before any nuclear reductions could be discussed. President Reagan stated that the talks were over and left. At that very moment the Soviet leadership knew that they could not keep up with the U.S. building offensive AND defensive weapons, and thus was the beginning of the end of the cold war. The Soviets were soon back at the bargaining table, this time with hat in hand.

You may be asking, what in the world does this have to do with today?

First, let’s compare and contrast today’s enemy, terrorists, with yesterday’s enemy, the Soviet Union. Yesterday’s enemy was a country with clear borders, a military taking commands from the top, and they had a will to live. Mutually Assured Destruction worked because they did not want to die. The leadership understood this, and kept their military in line. And having a stationary position in the world, we could easily see to it that the correct people “paid” should there ever have been an attack.

Today’s enemy is not limited to one geographic location, frequently lower level operatives make decisions without the leadership’s direct orders, and at least some the low level foot soldiers are willing to die for their cause. The bin laden’s don’t have the guts to kill themselves for the cause, but the little guys get sent on suicide missions all of the time. Their Assured Destruction does not work because, at least the little guys expect to die anyway, even if the terrorist leadership wanted to stop things, some of the little guys either could not be reached, or would fight on anyway. And, had we wanted to kill bin laden and some top aides in September/November, 2001, we could have dropped some nukes in Afghanistan and probably accomplished that, but that would have killed a whole lot of innocent people along the way. America would not do that. Terrorists know this, and they counts on it. Like a child hiding behind his mother’s skirt for protection, terrorists hides among innocents for their protection.

Second, let’s compare and contrast strategies. We have already established that Mutually Assured Destruction will not work with this new enemy. However S.D.I., if it works, could help against this new enemy. Not in the same way. Against the Soviets S.D.I. meant that in a conventional type war (conventional in that it is state on state) using unconventional weapons, the Soviets knew they would loose. They eventually collapsed under the financial pressure of trying to keep up. The leadership of the terrorists already knows that they cannot win. And if they thought it through, the rank and file would too. This does not stop them.

If terrorist were to get their hands on some old Soviet nukes, the Mutually Assured Destruction theory would not stop them. Who would we fire back at? However, if we had a S.D.I. in place, that may stop the missiles. This would protect us, and give us time to determine where they came from and take out the enemy.

Those who opposed the S.D.I. program in the 80’s were proven wrong when it played such a key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today, had the S.D.I. program been fully backed in the 80’s it is possible that we could have a fully deployed S.D.I. If we today had a fully functional S.D.I. the threat of a terrorist using ICBM’s against us would be reduced. I do not know a lot about the science. I do not know if the program could work. I do know that a lot of people smarter than I say that it can be done. As well a lot of people smarter than I say that it cannot be done. If the former are correct, then it would appear that not only were those who opposed the program wrong in the immediate need, as has already been established, but they may have cost us a tremendous tool to use to defend us against a terrorist who gets a hold of a nuke in the future.

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Make up your own mind!

In Whom Do You Have Blind Faith?

If you have read much that I have written you probably know that I do not agree with ANYONE all of the time. I have people with whom I agree more often than others, but I do not blindly agree with ANY man or woman or group of men and or women. My wife and I were once discussing the fact that I do not always agree with the pastor of our church, and she asked if I wanted to change churches to one where I could always agree with the leadership. I told her that I agree with most of what he says but that the day I agree with everything from any human’s mouth is the day I stop thinking for myself. I believe this whole-heartedly. If you tell me that you believe all of what ANYONE says (even me, persuasive though I may be), I know that either you are lying to me, or you don’t think things out for yourself.

In a political debate with others, I frequently offer examples of my disagreements with the candidate of my choice while asking for examples of their disagreements with the candidate of their choice. Their ability, or lack thereof, to disagree with their candidate shows their intellectual honesty, and lets me know if I am wasting my breath talking to them.

Why did I go through all of this?

Within a day or two of the release of the 9-11 commission, Senator Kerry stated that, as president, he would implement ALL of the recommendations of the commission immediately. The report being hundreds of pages long means that this was before he was even able to read them. What if they suggested that we institute martial law and suspend the rights protected by the constitution? Most would agree that this would probably reduce the terrorism threat in our country, but most would also agree that we do not want to go there. One could argue that Senator Kerry knows the commissioners and knows that they would not recommend anything so ridiculous. As I stated earlier, I could not have that much blind faith in any man or woman, let alone ten. And I have little trust in the decision-making abilities of anyone who would implement a recommendation before knowing what it is. It is frightening to think that anyone wanting to be president could blindly follow a group of ten people without wanting to at least review the results BEFORE declaring that they should ALL be implemented.
Kerry says we are at war and the president should be “ahead of the curve”, not behind it. Yet he criticizes the president for taking care of Saddam BEFORE he was able to harm the U.S. directly, EXACTLY the kind of thing that John Kerry is talking about. If we had arrested the 19 hijackers on September 10th, 2001 we would never have known the devastation they would have caused, and John Kerry today would probably be speaking on the evil republicans arresting these poor foreigners and keeping them in prison without due process. By the way, if you could go back in time and arrest those 19 on the 10th, and send them to Guantanamo, how long do you think they should have to stay there? Keeping in mind they did not kill thousands of people, they only planned to do so.

Just as I mentioned that I do not agree with anyone all of the time, I rarely disagree with anyone all of the time either. As for Kerry, I probably agree with about half of what he said in his acceptance speech the other day. His speech indicated that he would deal with terrorism in virtually the same way that Presidents Bush has, and will. However, it was easy to see that he was quite uncomfortable making these statements, which are mostly in direct contradiction to his actions. Example, Senator Kerry voted to delay the start of the Homeland Security Department, since September 11th, about a half dozen times. Yet he says that he would implement all of the 9-11 commission recommendations, immediately, before he even read them, trying to make it look as though the president is moving too slow on the 9-11 report, when Senator Kerry personally slowed the Homeland Security Department, which goes hand in hand with the 9-11 commission’s report which a President Kerry would supposedly implement immediately.

So, it would seem that a President Kerry would have waited for the 9-11 report, then IMMEDIATELY create something like the Homeland Security Department. But he would not have created it before the report as President Bush did. What was that Senator Kerry was saying earlier about someone being ahead of the curve, and someone being behind the curve on terror? Does Senator Kerry believe what he says? He has to act fast. Or does he believe what he does? He drags his feet. I can agree with what he says on this issue. I cannot agree with what he has done on this issue.

Read more about it, then…

Think for yourself!

Make up your own mind!