At the Twilight's Last Gleaming: If we're nice to the bully, maybe he'll be nicer to us

January 22, 2009

If we're nice to the bully, maybe he'll be nicer to us

So. If we go easy on the enemy combatants currently residing at Gitmo, their brethren planning their next operation against Americans will let up on the carnage a little bit? Did I understand that correctly?

Fox News, January 22:

The closing of Guantanamo Bay detention center and using the Army Field Manual as the basis for all interrogation is aimed at protecting Americans, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday.

In his first press conference since President Obama was inaugurated, Gibbs said the orders "made America safer, made America stronger."

"The president believes that there's no more important job that he has than to keep the American people safe," Gibbs said at the White House press briefing room.

"The president believes that what he did today will enhance the security of the American people, that it lives up to our values as Americans, and that it will protect the men and women that we have in uniform," he said.

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What Happened to C-Pol?

For over a decade, this blog was called "C-POL: Constitutionalist, Conservative Politics". Over time, my deep-thought ponderings have been moving away from the rough-and-tumble of everyday political wrangling and toward the larger philosophical, ideological, and cultural currents of our age.

I've changed the title of the blog to highlight my conviction that the "fundamental transformation" (to adapt President Obama's phrase) of the United States that's currently underway is, in the long run, bad not only for this country but for the world in general.

Scoff if you must; I'm okay with that. I aim to make my case as time goes on. I'm okay with being on the "wrong side of history" if I'm actually right.

Why our country is where it is

As I have traveled across the country, I have been astounded just how many of our fellow citizens feel strongly about their constitutional rights but have no idea what they are, or for that matter, what the Constitution says. I am not suggesting that they become Constitutional scholars -- whatever that means. I am suggesting, however, that if one feels strongly about his or her rights, it does make sense to know generally what the Constitution says about them. It is at least as easy to understand as a cell phone contract -- and vastly more important.

-- Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, October 16, 2008 speech

The U.S. is not a democracy!

Q. If we are not a democracy, why are our officials elected by a majority of the people, and why are our laws passed by a majority of the lawmakers?

A. We are not a democracy because both the people and the lawmakers are limited by the fundamental law of the land, our written Constitution. Election by the people is not a grant of power beyond the constitutional limits of the office. A representative government limited by law is a republic, not a democracy. In a republic a majority of the people cannot vote away their own rights, or the rights of others -- unless ... unless they step outside the Constitution.

-- Preserve The Constitution, By Don Fotheringham (October, 1995)

The Cancer of Democracy

Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome.

— Lazarus Long, in Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset

At the Twilight's Last Gleaming

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January 22, 2009

If we're nice to the bully, maybe he'll be nicer to us

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