Liberty Maven

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” – attributed to Abraham Lincoln at age 28

by Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution

Originally published Thursday, May 28, 2009 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article6389.html

There’s an interesting essay that the great American thinker Lysander Spooner once penned in 1867 entitled “No Treason.”   To very briefly summarize this document, Spooner points out that there is no treason committed by those who disagree with Constitution of the United States. Recently a friend brought this up to me for a rather heated debate – which might have something to do with the fact that my pen-name since I started writing is “the Champion of the Constitution.” (photo)

This article is my attempt to recap this conversation and add some points I’ve had after some time for reflection. While I concede the point that there is no treason in disagreeing with the Constitution – although it’s quite different if you happen to be a politician who swore to uphold it – it is my firm belief that in our day and age we must rally around the Constitution.

First, yes, it is true that neither I nor you signed the Constitution.

Yes, it is also true that neither did our parents or grandparents.

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After backtracking on a previous promise to release photos of alleged prisoner abuse, a new report casts doubt on Obama’s honesty in stating the photos were “not particularly sensational“  – a justification for his change of heart. While the photos have not been released to the public, some journalists were given access to the classified photographs – and have begun to reveal what they saw. A report claims that the photos depict instances of torture, including rape of both male and female prisoners, in addition to other forms of sexual abuse, which occurred at Abu Ghraib and several other prisons in Iraq.

The Pentagon has already quickly denied the report’s accuracy, but with the government refusing to release the photos to the public they are also denying themselves any ability to fully refute the claims made against them – assuming the claims are false. I simply don’t understand how the Obama administration can, on the one hand, attempt to downplay what is depicted in the photographs, and on the other think it too dangerous to release them to the public.

While the stated fear is consistently that releasing the photographs may “inflame anti-American opinion, and … put our troops in greater danger,” isn’t the fact that torture and prisoner abuse took place really what will inflame opinion? Covering up what happened – and ineffectively at that – simply raises more questions and keeps the issue at the forefront. While Obama rightly states the abuse to be unacceptable, without an open process – without proper transperency – it creates and fosters a culture where abuse could spring up under the protection of the government not wanting to reveal what is essentially embarassing to them.

Until the photos are fully released, the continued spectre of what they may be hiding will do noone any good – nor will the slow, inevitable drip by drip reveal of details from people who have seen them. On this one, I agree with Martin Garbus at the Huffington Post – releasing all of the photos now and coming clean is the only way to begin the process of truly moving forward. But not only that, it’s the only course which would actually save lives, not merely veil an embarassing truth.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state … this violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people.” — P. J. O’Rourke

* The planned re-design of the economy through a “cap and trade” system to limit CO2 emissions
* The planned re-design of our health care system by increasing government involvement at all levels
* The massive expansion of the money supply by the Fed, which threatens hyper-inflation

But will the media and the American people be able to maintain an adult focus on any of these issues, or will they instead spend the next few weeks obsessing about the merits and de-merits of one person — President Obama’s new nominee for the Supreme Court.

Sadly, American adulthood is sometimes more fiction than fact. We predict that the national discussion will now focus on the new Supreme Court nominee and that most of the debate will resemble a high school campaign for class president. It will be driven by adolescent partisan tribal loyalties, and will overlook one overwhelming fact…

Any Supreme Court nomination made by any president from either party is almost certain to be bad. To think otherwise is to ignore history. Remember, for instance, the Kelo decision, in which…

* Supposedly liberal justices endorsed using the coercive power of the state to enrich corporations, yet…
* joining the liberal justices with the deciding vote was the now-retiring Justice Souter, who had been appointed by a supposedly conservative president

Partisan political appointments are no different than partisan political elections. They serve the interest of the political class, NOT your interest. We’re reminded of the spot-on way “The Onion” satirical newspaper summed up a recent election. Their headline read, “Politicians Sweep Midterm Elections.”

Exactly.

No matter whom you elect, the politicians win. No matter whom a president appoints to the Supreme Court, the politicians win. And every time we expend energy debating personalities, labels, or political parties, the politicians win.

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