Especially in light of the mainstream media and the radical left’s constant denials that moral absolutes exist, it has been astounding for me to watch their absolutist moral judgments of America, the President, and our military related to alleged abuse of and denial of habeas corpus for captured terrorist combatants. It seems that absolutism is verboten except when it comes to the U.S. military and the security of the free world.

This is not only sheer intellectual and moral absurdity, but furthermore is the suicidal ranting of autovorous, self-masticating, Western elites living in a psychological Utopian Oz totally unrelated to the real world. Such a Never-Never Land fantasy (or delusion?) has nothing to do with morality, for morality essentially has to do with ethical dilemmas that face real people in real life struggles in the real world.

First, in the real world, choices must be made between good and evil. For the sake of the secularists out there, let’s define "good" simply as "doing things that respect and preserve innocent persons’ rights to life, liberty, or property"; and let’s define "evil" simply as "doing things that rob innocent persons’ of those rights."

Second, in the real world, the use of physical force is amoral—the use of force is inherently neither moral nor immoral. Rather, the morality of force depends on whether it is used to do good or to do evil. To use force to respect or preserve innocent persons' rights is not only morally permissible, but in circumstances in which force is the only way to preserve innocent persons’ rights, force may be a moral necessity. On the other hand, to use force to do evil, to eviscerate an innocent person’s rights, is evil.

Third, in the real world, because of the perversity of evil and evil-doers, reality is that there are times when there is no good option available for good people. At times, the evil done by evil persons can limit the options available to good persons to only those that cause the loss of the rights to life, liberty, or property of some person(s).

One example is that of Nazi officers in WW II who were separating people to be loaded either into cars for concentration camps or cars for the ovens; and they would make a Jewish, Polish, or other unfavored woman choose from among her children one who would live while the others would die. If a woman refused to make the choice, all the children would be killed before her eyes.

So, the mother with indescribable horror of soul, picked her child that she thought had the best chance of surviving the camps as the one who should live. She did so with wretched horror, knowing that the moral choice—when there was no good choice available—was to make the least evil choice available was to allow at least one of her children to have life rather than having all of them killed.

Another example is our soldiers in wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and elsewhere who are confronted with a child on whom terrorists have strapped a bomb and then have made the child approach the soldiers’ position where the terrorists will explode the bomb, killing the child, the troops, and any innocent civilians near the troops. So, do our soldiers shoot the child before she gets to their position?

A decent soldier (or a non-combatant facing this situation) has no good choice. All he has are horrific alternatives all of which lead to some innocent(s) dying. So, in the real world, as unimaginable and soul-wrenching as it is to all of us who are protected from such choices by our soldiers, the soldier must make a moral decision that the least evil thing be done—either that the innocent child must die or that the child plus a number of other innocents die (by his bullet, but not by his hand—it is the barbarian who created this evil situation specifically to use the decency of our soldiers as a psychological weapon against them.

The problem is most of us in our society cannot fathom this kind of evil, but it is a reality in the real world. There are real people who are so evil that they use the decency of good people as a weapon to defeat them, to defeat us. When they do so, all we as decent people can do is to choose the lesser evil. To refuse to choose is to make a choice.

This is why police exist and have weapons. This is why we have the second ammendment. This is why our Declaration of Independence was written. It is why we we have an armed military, fight wars, and have nuclear weapons. All these things acknowledge the reality that at times we can only choose the least evil alternative from among a number of evil options.

With this reality in mind, let’s return to our original questions about United Flight 93 on 9/11.

Scenario 1 — What if a Special Forces or CIA officer had been on that flight and had been ordered by the President to kill the perpetrators and rescue the passengers? Would the President or the agent be tried for war crimes? If not, why not?

Scenario 2 — What if a government agent had learned of the plot ahead of time, captured one of the perpetrators and learned of the plan, but the captive has refused to give the flight numbers? Would it be a war crime for the agent to abuse the captive or for the President to approve the agent doing so?

For clarity concerning these questions, let’s use these three definitions of terms:

(1) harassment is engaging in acts (the sole purpose of which is to obtain information that would enable good people to stop a current or imminent attack against innocent civilians or combatants who are defending innocent civilians) that may cause the victim emotional or physical discomfort, but which cause the victim neither severe pain nor any physical injuries.

(2) Abuse is engaging in activities (the sole purpose of which is to obtain information that would enable good people to stop a current or imminent attack against innocent civilians or combatants who are defending innocent civilians), which activities result in the victim receiving only temporary pain (the painful activity ends at least as soon as the immediate threat has concluded AND the pain does not endure beyond 15 minutes after the cessation of the activity) and/or only superficial injuries.

(3) torture is to engage in activities that cause prolonged pain or injuries that persist significantly beyond the conclusion of the known imminent threat OR a pattern of repeated abusive activities occurring over an extended period of time unrelated to any known, specific threat.

Based on these definitions, in Scenario 2, would it be a war crime for the agent to engage in harassment or abuse (but not torture) to gain the information required to save the lives of 40 innocent passengers? Whether or not it is a crime, should the agent do so anyway?

Scenario 3 – Suppose it is not just passengers on Flight 93 that are threatened, but a large cruise ship with hundreds of passengers controlled by terrorists and a large dirty bomb or nuclear weapon on board. The agent has learned from the captive terrorist that the ship is going to enter New York City’s harbor and then detonate the bomb. Would it be moral for our agent to harass and abuse (not torture) one or more captives in order to discover what ship will carry the terrorists into the port of our greatest city and annihilate so many innocents that it would make 9/11 seem trivial in comparison? If it is moral for the agent to do so (or even monstrously immoral to refuse to do so), should it be a crime? And if so, why would it not be a crime to shoot down a flight with 40 innocents on board as the lesser evil, but it would be a crime to torture rather than kill the evil perpetrators?

Scenario 4 – This is the same as scenario 3, with two exceptions. First, you are the agent involved. Second, your wife, children, entire extended family, and most of your friends live in the New York City area. You know that if you don’t get the necessary information in the next 24 hours, many of them will die immediately—along with 100’s of thousands of others—with several times as many dying slow, excruciatingly painful deaths.

What would you do? What is moral for you to do? If you do that, should you be a criminal under federal or international law? Should you be a hero whose action saved millions of lives and yet, for the same decision, be legally charged for horrific crimes against humanity?

If your answers concerning the morality of the decision differ from your answers about what the laws should be related to this decision, then you are in the curious position of saying that those who risk their lives to protect the rest of us and who face the psychological burden of making such horrific choices should have the additional burden placed upon them of having to choose between doing what is right and humane or doing the the thing that keeps them out of criminal trouble. I ask you, "Is it just possibly immoral for us to put those who lay down their lives in order to do good, i.e., to fight to protect the lives, liberty, and property of innocents from evil aggressors, in the position of having to make such an untenable choice?"

I believe such unrealistic condemnation of all harassment and abuse as being war crimes is not merely incredibly naive, but is delusional to the point of psychosis, is despicably evil, and most importantly, is flagrantly dangerous for free peoples when we are at war for our survival against monstrously barbarous totalitarian fascists. Rather than attacking and interrogating our soldiers and security forces, we the people need to begin interrogating our politicians, prosecutors, judges who take these positions and annulling the powers that we the people bestowed upon them for the principle purpose of protecting our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

don – 7/17/08

If you love America or care about the future security of your family or nation, and you haven’t seen the video of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s 80-minute interview last Thursday, with reporters and members of the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle, you have to do so.

Since most people do not have time, or the patience, to sit through an 80-minute interview of Nancy Pelosi (unless you like watching grass grow), Media Research Center has gratefully edited out her statements made at the 62-minute mark of the interview when she credits the recent downturn in violence in Iraq—which actually indicates according to Al Qaeda’s own appraisal that they have lost in Iraq—to the efforts of Iran and their President "I’m mad and all in a wad" to negotiate peace there.  She

These people who are the leaders of the Despotcratic Party simply are children who are not serious about our security and cannot be trusted with control of the U.S. military—the greatest demonstration of our love not only for our own people, but for the people of the world because the arrival of our troops on any scene IS the arrival of freedom!  But the Democrats rather give credit for peace to Totalitarian terrorists than give credit to our troops who purchase freedom with their blood, sweat and tears.

And you may want to contact CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, the NYT’s, LATimes, and Fox to find out why they have not been willing to play this clip. Why is Media Research Center (MRC.org and their Newsbusters site having to make it available. AMAZING!

John Fund, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, wrote last Friday:

Fund then illustrates Obama’s tendency toward misstatements, miscues, and mistakes with:

1- His incorrectly stating in New Mexico on Memorial Day weekend that his uncle helped liberate the victims of Auschwitz, when in fact it was his great uncle who helped liberate Buchenwald. Earlier in 2002 he had said his grandfather knew U.S. troops who had liberated Auschwitz and Treblinka, both of which were liberated by Russian troops alone.

2- On Memorial Day, still in New Mexico, Obama appropriately said that the crowd was gathered to honor America's "fallen heroes", then going on to note that many of those fallen heroes were present with them in the audience as he spoke.

3- Earlier in May, he said that the U.S. had 57 states.

4- Barak Hussein Obama in May said in Portland, Ore., that Iran doesn't "pose a serious threat to us," saying that "tiny countries" with small defense budgets aren't much cause to worry. Iran in fact has around one fourth the population of the U.S. and is engaged in a expansive military development and is extremely close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Obama the very next day had to backtrack, noting that for years he had "made it clear that the threat from Iran is grave."

5- Two weeks ago Obama said in Orlando that he would meet with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez and would include in their discussions Chávez's support of the Marxist FARC guerrillas in Colombia. However, the very next day he insisted in Miami that any country supporting the FARC should suffer "regional isolation." Fund notes that Obama advisers "were left explaining how this circle could be squared."

6- Obama said last year in Selma, Ala., that his birth was inspired by events there which took place four years after he was born.

7-. Last April he denied that the handwriting is his on a questionnaire on which, as a state senate candidate, he stated that he favored a ban on handguns. His campaign now argues that—even if it was his handwriting— this doesn't prove that this was his true position because he may not have read the full questionnaire.

8- Last July in a presidential debate, Obama pledged to meet the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Syria and Cuba without any precondition. He said that President Bush’s refusal to do so was "ridiculous" and a "disgrace."

When Obama was overwhelmed with criticism, he dug in rather than relent, claiming, in defense of his position, that John F. Kennedy's 1961 summit with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna was a crucial meeting that led to the end of the Cold War.

This in spite of the fact that Kennedy himself admitted he was unprepared for Khrushchev's bullying. "He beat the hell out of me," Kennedy confided to advisers. Khrushchev described Kennedy to his Politburo as weak. This perception led to the Berlin Wall being erected just two months later. . . where it stood for 28 years!

Fund then notes:

Of course, all of this concern with Obama’s misstatements and factual errors is of great concern. But even of greater concern are the extremely radical leftist positions of Obama of which he is clear, uncompromising, unrelenting, and unapologetic, but about which the mainstream media does no reporting and asks no questions—positions that would alienate many Americans including many Democrats and many African Americans.

These controversial positions include full term abortions (the murdering a children while they are being born), the dismantling of America’s ability to defend itself from terrorist and totalitarian states who are rapidly growing super power military status to use against us, and his commitment to a radical "gay" agenda including the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which will result in gay marriage as the law of the land.

The only way to understand the U.S. Congress, and especially the liberal and moderate Democrats who control it with the few Republican liberals is that they suffer from some desperate obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) that causes them to create a crisis for American citizens in order to be able to be the heros who rush in and try to save us from the crisis. Then to save us, they create a worse crisis which will again require them to again save us in an even bigger way.

That is the only way to understand their repeated behavior with the economy, jobs, energy, national defense, NAFTA, forest fires and natural catastrophes, medical care and insurance, ad infinitum is that they have a disorder like Manchausin's where they create a problem in order to get the attention (and bribes) they desire when they rush in to save the public from the condition they created. Or maybe they have an OCD like pyromaniacs with savior complexes like the volunteer fireman who starts apartment buildings on fire in order to gain the attention they acquire for rushing in the middle of the night to announce the fire and rescue victims.

For instance:

The economy: The economy is booming, so they say that businesses are making too much money, and they increase taxes. This causes the economy to slow down, so we have federal or state budget deficits. So, to save the government, they increase taxes. Which causes business ventures and investment to dramatically slow, so money going to government decreases further and businesses begin to leave to more business-friendly economies, which puts people out of work and decreases tax revenues. So, they again increase taxes.

Jobs: Their economic and tax decisions, as just discussed, decrease domestic production and jobs, so the supply of workers decreases as the jobs available decrease. This results in lower wages. So, the pyromaniacs that started the fire rush to the rescue, installing higher minimum wages. Which causes employers to move more jobs overseas where more laborers are available at lower wages, or businesses replace workers with automated machines that now cost less than the workers. So, Congress threatens to punish corporations for such decisions, which causes the corporations to move more jobs overseas where the businesses are appreciated rather than villified.

National Defense: Liberals and leftists in congress and the media attack the U.S. as seeming too "unfriendly" and imperialistic when we use our military to defend innocents in the world from totalitarians. So, congress, to prove we are not the evil empire, withdraw our troops from protecting some innocent peoples. Thus, the totalitarians increase those who join their side with the evidence that America will not defend itself or its allies. So, attacks increase against America. So, liberals in congress announce it is because our might has made the world dislike us, and they promise to reduce our might and to talk more with the aggressors. Which weakness encourages more attacks against us, requiring the liberals to save us from our aggessive tendencies and to further disengage in the world and to disarm our military.

NAFTA: The lack of free trade is hurting us and making products cost more. So, we open the doors to 3rd world producers who have to meet none of the fiduciary, safety, environmental, or regulatory standards that our domestic producers must meet. So, they undercut the costs of our domestic producers, putting domestic producers out of business. So, we are flooded with dangerous products are products whose production in 3rd world countries does immense damage to the environment, and we put our workers out of work. So, our companies that have to survive begin to move production overseas, which Congress will save us from by creating penalties on companies that do so, driving more companies and jobs overseas, and forcing us to depend on more and more products than contaminate the environment or that are themselves dangerously contaminated.

Forest Fires and Natural Catastrophes: Congress, because it increases their tax base, allow homes and businesses to build up in areas that place inhabitants at high risk due to hurricanes that will flood these areas and close off avenues of escape (e.g., New Orleans, Texas coast south of Houston, etc.), to mud slides, flooding rivers, earth quakes, etc. So, millions move into these areas. And a catastrophe happens, placing thousands out of homes. So, Congress pays to rebuild those same areas, bringing millions back into the areas at huge cost, only to have those populations grow, and increase the numbers of inhabitants at great risk, only to have to show we care by rebuilding all over again. Or Congress and the EPA restrict home owners from cleaning out brush in fire prone areas, only to have billions in property lost and lives lost, only to rebuild again.

Medical Care and Insurance: Congress lectures companies for not providing care and insurance to high risk individuals at no extra cost, and requires companies to cover people for all kinds of risks for which they may not be at risk—a one covers all policy, rather than allowing individuals to shop for the coverage they need without having to pay for things they don't need. So, costs go up. So congress lectures companies, and forces them to care for, cover, or sell to people who are at high risk, greatly increasing costs for everyone. Then congress drags the companies in and lecture them about their outrageous costs.

Energy: Congress prevents energy companies from producing energy with oil, coal, gas, and nuclear development and refining. So, the supply decreases, and we become dependent upon nations intent on destroying us who can use our funds to build up their military and supplying of terrorists who war against us. And they impose endless regulation on domestic suppliers that cause their costs to soar, when international suppliers do not suffer those regulations and related costs. So, our costs for energy soar. And congress then brings in our energy suppliers, ridicule and blame them, and increase their costs again by increasing the taxes they have to pay. Which results in domestic companies like Amoco to go out of business, selling out to companies like BP. And then Congress and liberal candidates for President threaten to punish companies that move overseas.

The only hope we have is that there are new miracle drugs for OCD that frequently do not even require therapy and can cause people to overcome OCD's they have of which they are not even aware. I suggest that we require all water fountains in Washington, D.C., and the entire beltway areas to use a water source which has these therapeutic drugs for OCD to be injected into the water supply.

The crises from which we might be delivered could potentially save America and move our economy to even higher planes than yet achieved.

Lo and behold, the Democrat Party, as well as liberal Republicans, both of whom opposed a preemptive war in Iraq—in lock step with the radical Marxists of Daily Koss, Democrat Underground, MoveOn, and other George Soros funded totalitarians (even though Iraq was not preemptive because Saddam had been attacking our fighter jets for years, and in spite of the fact that preemption is not a new theory, but was actually fostered by JFK during the Cuban missile crisis)—now advocate a preemptive war!

As noted by George Will in his column today:

Well, I suggest that we need a preemptive war to protect humanity from aggression by predatory animals. After all, everyone led by Al Gore is aware of the fact that humanity is a threatened species. I mean, look at AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Why, if you believe in an era of special effects and computer generated images—along with the sky is falling hysteria that manipulates data by pre-selection of the sources and time spans of data used based upon its seeming support of a theory, you know that this wondrous Hollywood production (After all, can there be any reality east of Hollywood?) proved that the survival of life on earth is rapidly ending (how else can we explain the population explosion—a vain and frantic effort to survive the annihilation that has already begun (and according to Ted Dansen's inerrant prophecies has already concluded)?

So, what option do we have but to start a preemptive war against the bears, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, sharks, child molestors and illegal aliens who increasingly are killing lone hikers, bike riders, and children playing in their back yards or parks they are visiting with their families? It is simply of surviving the coming destruction of human life on earth due to the natural world rising up against us. No, we aren't yet a threatened species, and in fact we may never be—it is only a matter of what could happen based upon speculative computer models using preselected data unsupported by any objective facts. But, hey, if we are going to change national policy so that gasoline and oil is unaffordable and our national security is threatened by our giving our wealth to totalitarian states whose goal is to destroy us based on unsound theories, can't we at least do the same to protect our children from predators who are obviously out to destroy our children?

Thomas Sowell in his classic work on economics described the naive people who fail to do "Second Stage Thinking". What this means is that decisions that are intended to change people’s behaviors inevitably cause unintentioned changes in behavior as well as the intended changes. That is because the intended changes bring about a new reality to which people make further adjustments.

For instance, raising taxes on profits may be intended to increase the amount of money received by the government. But a secondary response to higher taxes is that people abandon investment plans in businesses and industry which chances of being profitable were low in the first place. If increased taxes makes the cost greater, and therefore further decreases the chance of making a profit, the would be investors decide not to talk the risk, or to start the new business somewhere else where the taxes will be less. So, employees that would have been hired for the new business are not hired, they are not paid wages, they do not spend their wages, other businesses do not receive the revenue that their spending would have created, and the overall economy grows less than it would have with the new startups. Consequently, less taxes (rather than more) flow into the government coffers.

This lack of second stage thinking is the reason for the cost of oil and the resulting rising cost for gasoline and everything else that is transported with or made from oil products. Radical environmentalists (anti-capitalistic Marxists in green drag) have control of congress, who stops oil exploration, drilling, and refining for 30 years in order to "save the environment". That is the first stage goal.

But an unintended consequence of this behavior is that the supply is decreased, thus increasing the cost, and also that control of the oil supply is granted to 3^{rd world nations, many of whom are our enemies, placing our security at risk. And beyond these devastating consequences, the 2nd stage furthermore actually undermines the alleged first stage goal of helping the environment by granting oil production and refining to third world nations whose dictatorial leaders don’t care a wit about the environment and absolutely do not have the protections of the environment built into their collection and refining processes.}

And who created this debacle as has been predicted for years as being inevitable given our limits on drilling and production for the last 30 years? Congress . . . and the radical leftist environmentalists to whom the Democrats in Congress have sold their souls and the nation.

Tired of paying more at the pump? Want it to stop? Attack the congressmen in the House and Senate who stop oil drilling and production for their naive, myopic, first stage thinking that cannot see past the money the enviro-Marxists are stuffing into their pockets.

Some of you are offended that I would even spell out the "name that shall never be spoken"! It is truly amazing that political correctness has gotten to the point that saying a person’s name (not a disparaging nickname) is evidence of dirty politics to say the least, and possibly of overt racism. This is just too stupid to listen to.

If Barak Hussein Obama finds his name insulting or belittling, then he should change his name. It’s not hard to do, and he is a lawyer and Senator. One would think he could figure it out. I worked for Family Protective Services, and I encountered children being saddled with names that were disgusting and humiliating—names for various body parts, personal human activities, products not discussed in public, and references to random objects (like "Blue Bird". "Sail Boat", "Barbie Que", etc.). I considered this to be a from of child abuse that is not recognized by the law. A child should not be persecuted with a name for which his or her parents are responsible.

However, once one is an adult, he can change his name, and then can legitimately insist that using his "given" name is insensitive and intentionally disrespectful. If Obama is embarrassed by his name being used, then he should change it. Until he does so, it is fair for others to assume he has some affection for the name, and certainly it is absurd to say that anyone using the name of a prominent public figure is somehow an intentional insult that reveals anything about the one using the name other than respect for the person who wears the name.