What They've Thought
Their View Archives

December 10, 2006

• The Zen of Suicide Bombing
• In Defense of Desk Rage
• Monetary Inflation is the Problem

December 3, 2006

• Our Disappearing Farmers, Dollars, and Future
• Clintons’ Cathartes Aura (A Buzzard's Eye View)
• Letters To Santa: D.C. Edition
• Rethinking the Draft

November 26, 2006

• The Californication of the Economy
• What A Fantasy
  (The Real Freedom Fighters)
• Embracing O.J.
• Milton Friedman 1912-2006
• 3rd String, But Still on the Team

November 19, 2006

• The Tyranny of Numbers
• Welcome Back The Draft (A Self-Fulfilling Prophesy)
• Conventional Wisdom Midterm Election Mailbag
• Demographic Reality and the Entitlement State

November 12, 2006

• Oil, Terror & Environmental Pipedream
• This Could Work
  (Sometimes It’s Better To Lose)
• Dances With Comcast
• Gun Control on the Back Burner

November 5, 2006

• Atheists! Who Are These People?
• Br'er Rabbit (Don’t You Feel Stupid Now?)
• If It's Broke, Fix It: How Republicans Can Win
• The NAFTA Superhighway

October 29, 2006

• A Muslim Manifesto for America?
• A.D.D.S. (American Democrat Dhimmitude Suicide)
• On Campaign Ads
• Do Tax Cuts Cost the Government Money?

October 22, 2006

• Making Sense of US Population Growth
• The Anti-Saints Fan
• “R” Stands for Reading Rat Race

October 15, 2006

• “Open Access” or Covert Propaganda?
• The "Chip 'n' Dale" Approach (Since Treason Doesn’t Work Anymore)
• Where Art Thou, FCC?
• Taxes, Spending, and Debt are the Real Issues
• Showing Students How Just Makes Sense

October 8, 2006

• Predicting Hurricanes. Not! [Part Two]
• A Taxing Situation
• Rethinking Birthright Citizenship
• Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Radical Islam

October 1, 2006

• Global Warming Scares Heat Up
• The Liberal Gestalt (Why Don’t Hugo And Chavez It!)
• Diagnosing our Health Care Woes

September 24, 2006

• Robbing Parents to Pay Teachers
• When Banning Smoking, Please Speak English
• When Banning Smoking, Please Speak English
• Amnesty and the Welfare State
• Battling the Education Hydra

September 17, 2006

• “Peak Oil” or Lots More Oil?
• The Real Tokyo Rose (Born on the Fourth of July)
• Nine-Eleven Five
• Immigration Reform in 2006?
• Keith Ellison: Will his oath be to Shari’a or Constitutional law?

September 10, 2006

• End the Tyranny of Homework!
• A Modern Day Tokyo Rose (A Real Dog of War)
• Industrial Hemp and Hurricane Katrina
• Elected Officials Threatening Property Rights
• Caving in the face of Union Politics

September 3, 2006

• California Commits Eco-Suicide
• Liberals and Truth: Keeping the Plame Alive
• Tonight, We Dine On The Virgin Mary
• A North American United Nations?

August 27, 2006

• Making Kids Eco-Crazy
• The Dogs of Politics (All Fleas Have Dogs)
• Why Desk Jobs Are (Mildly) Better Than School
• Lowering the Cost of Health Care
• And “W” takes the Series!

August 20, 2006

• Sabotaging U.S. Sovereignty
• Civilization’s Cycles
  (Spiritus Mundi)
• World Trade Center: See It Again, For The First Time
• Your Taxes Subsidize China
• Wal-Mart: Always Low Prices without Union Vices

August 13, 2006

• Lebanon, the Imaginary Nation
• Hypocrisy On Steroids
• The Threat of Rising Property Taxes
• Undermining the Covenant between Mother and Child

August 6, 2006

• Iran Declares its Nuclear Bad Intentions
• The Other Israel (India: A Power Waiting To Happen Again)
• Is George Bush An Idiot?
• What Congress Can Do About Higher Gas Prices
• Why Kids Can’t Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education

July 30, 2006

• No Liberals in My Foxhole!
• Liberal Lojic (Double Take On a Double Standard)
• Fun With Hitler
• IRS Threatens Political Speech

July 23, 2006

• Do it Now or Do it Later?
• Iran and I Won (The Downside of Elections)
• World War III

July 16, 2006

• The Fate of Lebanon and the Rest of Us
• Mister Energy (Or Mister Kticulturennticulturedy)
• What Happens In Vegas... Happens In Vegas
• Federal Reserve Policy Destroys the Value of Your Savings

July 9, 2006

• Water’s Nice, But Not as Ice
• The Founding Fathers Order Cheesesteaks
• The Worldwide Gun Control Movement
• All the Shouting is Taking Us Nowhere

July 2, 2006

• Are You Bored with Global Warming?
• Demotivation As Motivation (Smiley Faces With Bullet Holes)
• How To Not Be An Aggressive Driver
• A New Declaration
• Equitable Education is Possible

June 25, 2006

• Islam’s Lethal Certitude
• As Above So Below (Equilibrium Equals Gridlock)
• The Baby Shiloh: Chosen By God To Stop Global Warming
• Congress Rejects UN Taxes
• Reading Between the lines

June 18, 2006

• Past and Future Holocausts
• On Decency and the Death of Zarqawi
• Why Won't Congress Abolish the Estate Tax?

June 11, 2006

• Drilling for the Future
• Pretzel Think (Emoti-Cons on Parade)
• What's The Deal With "Seinfeld?"
• A Free Market in Gasoline The Annual Foreign Aid Rip-Off
• A Brief History of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

June 4, 2006

• Throw the U.N. on the Ash Heap of History
• Thank God for Barry Bonds
• A Free Market in Gasoline
• Are guns to blame for Murder-Suicides in Switzerland?

May 28, 2006

• Has John Kerry Morphed into Al Gore?
• Pseudo-Intellectual Insurgents (On the Nature and Origins of Liberalism)
• On Barbaro: The Horse That You Hold Dear
• Stop the NAIS
• The Arrogance of the Not-My-Fault Generation

May 21, 2006

• Predicting Hurricanes. Not!
• Civility (When Four Year Olds Rule)
• Love Me, Hate Me: George W. Bush and the Pursuit of Presidential History
• The Declining Dollar Erodes Personal Savings
• Why Should We Tolerate Guest Workers?

May 14, 2006

• Drug Choices, Bad Choices
• Conventional Wisdom vs the World
• True Foreign Aid

May 7, 2006

• Late Word from the Oil Patch
• Paying The Price (The Other Side Of Free Choice)
• An Open Letter to the FCC
• Foreign Policy, Monetary Policy, and Gas Prices
• Measuring Achievement Against Objectives

April 30, 2006

• An Inconvenient Al Gore
• Euphenasia (May Day Suicide)
• A War on Iran is a War on America
• Policy is More Important than Personnel
• The Customer is Always Right

April 23, 2006

• Goose-Stepping Iranians
• Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed (Conspiracy or Stupidity - Who Cares?)
• The Hidden Threat America Faces That Not Even Securing Our Borders Can Solve
• Sanctions against Iran
• A Think Tank’s Credibility Tanks

April 16, 2006

• Homeland Security? You’re Kidding, Right?
• Try Being Honest For Once (Why The Fear?)
• The Truth! (As We See It): A Special Note From The White House
• Don't Complicate Immigration Reform

April 9, 2006

• The American Empire
• If You Love Your Country, You Should Question 9/11
• Cough Up
• A Battle Cry for Freedom

April 2, 2006

• The Attack on the U.S. Dollar and Energy Needs
• Corruption (Gas Pains)
• How Our Shortsighted Media Got Us Into War
• Making the World Safe for Christianity
• Love of Country

March 26, 2006

• Re-Thinking Iraq
• Murder By Dearth (Professor Plum in the Library w/o a Clue)
• The Failure of the Iraq War
• The Perils of Economic Ignorance
• Sticks and Stones Can Break my Bones

March 19, 2006

• The Illegal Immigration Time Bomb
• The Idiots and The Oddity (Liberals, Greek Action and History)
• It's Time To Forget September 11th
• Congress Should Read the Bills Before they Vote!
• It’s Time to Revisit the Electoral College (Redux)

March 12, 2006

• Endless Environmental Lies
• McCain Not So Able (Eye On The Leftwing Whiners Circle)
• By a Show of Hands, Who Cares About The First Amendment?
• How Government Debt Grows
• Genocide Has Become Benign

March 5, 2006

• Thinking Like an Arab
• Formulaic Thinking (Of Meat Grinders and Men)
• More Hits from the Conventional Wisdom Mailbag
• International Taxes?
• Will Political Correctness Indoctrinate our Youth?

February 26, 2006

• What’s So Great About Ethanol?
• When Weakness Rules (Short Circuits)
• In the Age of Terror, a War on Torino
• The Port Security Controversy
• Teaching with Laptops

February 19, 2006

• Playing God and Stealing Land
• Meet The New Bosses (Same As The Old Bosses)
• Unlike You, I Have Nothing Smart To Say About Those Anti-Muslim Cartoons In That Danish Newspaper
• The Ever-Growing Federal Budget
• The U.S. Supreme Court in History and Today

February 12, 2006

• Addicted to Nonsense
• Frozen In Time (Greco-Roman Sculpture and National Policy)
• The First Annual State of the Union Wet T-Shirt Contest
• A Real Washington Scandal
• Jeb and George Bush: True Education Reformers

February 5, 2006

• You’re Under Surveillance
• Strategy Versus Tactics (Them and US)
• Right Brain + Left Brain = No Brain
• Federalizing Social Policy
• Is a Bilingual Society a School Mandate?

January 29, 2006

• Smearing Conservative Writers
• D.A.M. (Mothers Against Dyslexia)
• Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Gore
• New Rules, Same Game
• Education’s Iron Curtain

January 22, 2006

• Partisanship + Stupidity = Democrats
• The Bridge To Eternity (American Democratic Dissociation Syndrome)
• The Sad, Impending Demise of Napoleon Dynamite
• Federal Courts and the Growth of Government Power
• “Heads” Bin Laden Wins, (Turning) Tails, Bush Loses

January 15, 2006

• Animal Loving Freaks
• Pat Robertson Sings The Blues
• Scandals are a Symptom, Not a Cause
• Stossel Launches Potent Strike for Education Revolution

January 8, 2006

• An Attack on Iran is Inevitable
• Conventional Wisdom Answers Your Letters
• Politics and Judicial Activism
• Actions Speak Louder Than Words

January 1, 2006

• Global Predictions for 2006
• A Modest Proposal (How To Plug the National Security Leak)
• 2005: The Year In Headlines
• Peace and Prosperity in 2006?

• 2004 Archives
• 2005 Archives

What They Thought December 17, 2006

Alan Caruba
R.A. Hawkins
Jonathan David Morris
Rep. Ron Paul
Nancy Salvato

Click here for columnist bios

Alan Caruba
The Russians Have Never Stopped Spying on Us

It is not for nothing that Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Republic, is a former member of the KGB. From its earliest days, Soviet Russia maintained a vast army of spies around the world and penetrating the United States remained high on its list of priorities.

In 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Robert Hanssen, an FBI special agent who was a Russian spy, judged to be one of the most damaging moles in U.S. history. As Bill Gertz, a Washington Times reporter, notes in his latest book, Enemies: How America’s Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets—and How We Let It Happen, “Today, nearly 140 nations and some 35 known and suspected terrorist groups target the United States through espionage, according to intelligence officials.”

“Over the past several decades, foreign agents have penetrated every U.S. national security agency except the Coast Guard. That includes the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Department, the State Department, and the Energy Department.”

My thoughts turned to espionage as the saga of the murder of Alexander Litvenko, a former member of the KGB’s counterintelligence now known as the Federal Security Service (FSB) unfolded. In 2000, he had fled with his wife and son to Great Britain where he was granted asylum. He became an author and outspoken critic of the Putin regime.

Silencing the enemies of Russian ambitions has a very long history including the famed ghulags of the Stalinist era.

Americans these days are prone to worry about whether the government is listening into their phone conversations, despite repeated confirmations that the National Security Agency is listening to calls from overseas to suspected Islamic terrorists located here. The notion that everyone’s phone calls are being monitored is fairly idiotic given the volume and the utter waste of resources with which to spy on Americans who pose no threat of terrorism.

There was a bit of a flurry of outrage over recent remarks by Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, who suggested that listening in on our enemies, particularly those here in America, was a good idea since they intended to kill us all. Common sense like that always gets liberals atwitter. As some sage noted, the First Amendment is not a suicide pact.

Some lunatic Muslim convert, seized with “Instant Jihad Syndrome,” was recently arrested by FBI agents after he confided to informants that he intended to kill a lot of people while they did some Christmas shopping in a mall. Kudos to the FBI.

However, Gertz notes that “The FBI has continually resisted efforts to change, even in the aftermath of the Hanssen case and the September 11 attacks. The need for change applies at all levels, from high-level officials to agents in the field.” This is not good news. Indeed, Gertz asserts that, “The FBI has failed to protect its people, its secrets, and U.S. national security.”

Enemies devotes an entire chapter to “Russia’s Aggressive Espionage” and this included planting a spy in the U.S. Central Command’s warfighting headquarters in Doha, Qatar, where he transmitted the details of the 2003 invasion plans to his controllers who, in turn, gave them to Saddam Hussein.

The two most devastating spy cases in recent times involved Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, both Americans and both of whom were spying for Russia. According to Gertz, “There are as many Russian spies in the United States today as there were during the Cold War.” The book also documents Red China’s successful espionage program.

There is, in fact, no good news in Gertz’s book. “The CIA’s once-proud Directorate of Operations has been decimated by retirements and low morale. By 2005, the agency had fewer than 1,000 case officers in the field. Many CIA stations had been reduced to single CIA officers who acted as little more than liaison officers with local services.”

On the cusp of 2007, this should signal why we probably do not know what Iran is up do. Or North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and a laundry list of nations and non-state groups like al Qaeda that would like to see the greatest experiment in democracy and capitalism come to a nasty end.

And, finally, Americans have just put the power of Congress into the hands of a group of people who would much rather “talk” to our enemies than kill them. Our enemies have no such qualms. As easily as they would kill Alexander Litvinenko, we can look forward to more efforts to encourage America to self-destruct.

The ancient Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu, long ago wrote that the greatest skill in war is to defeat of one’s enemy without firing a shot.

R.A. Hawkins

R.A. Hawkins is on a brief hiatus as he puts the finishing touches on one book and works on another. His columns will continue to appear here on a sporadic basis until he returns to his regular weekly writing schedule.

R.A. Hawkins       Web Site       Contact       Back to Top

Jonathan David Morris
When I Was Your Age, All The Kids Wanted Hoverboards

It amazes me how 20 years have passed since Cabbage Patch Mania and people are still camping out for “hot ticket” Christmas toys. A couple of weeks ago, people were paying two to three or even four times the sticker price just to get their hands on PlayStation 3s and TMX Elmos. Do you honestly not understand the Overhyped Christmas Toy Process?

Step 1: The toy industry announces a toy that’ll be out in time for Christmas.

Step 2: The toy industry fails to make enough of that toy in time for Christmas.

You don’t need to stab someone. You don’t need to camp out. Whatever toy you want will be widely available by March of next year. You won’t have to search for it; it’ll be sitting there, staring you eye-to-eye every time you walk through the toy store.

But no. No. You just have to have it now.

You seem to think that having it now will somehow make it better.

Well, I’ve got news for you kids today: At least you can have a PlayStation 3 now. At least you can have the latest iteration of Touch Me & I’ll Sue Elmo.

You know what I wanted when I was your age? A hoverboard.

Guess what: I’m still waiting.

Stick that in your disc drive and play it.

When I was 11, Robert Zemeckis released the second installment of one of the most important movie trilogies ever: Back to the Future, Part II. It starred Michael J. Fox, Michael J. Fox, Michael J. Fox, and Christopher Lloyd. It also starred a flying DeLorean. But most importantly, it starred a freaking hoverboard.

Everyone I knew wanted a hoverboard that Christmas. We didn’t get one that year. Or any year after that.

Cynics said hoverboards never existed. We knew they were wrong. We had friends who had cousins who lived in California, who saw hoverboards in Toys R Us all the time.

I’ve been patiently waiting since 1989 to finally step foot on one of these things. I probably wouldn’t know how to ride one. In all likelihood, I would fall off and scrape my elbow, just like every time I’ve tried to ride a skateboard. This doesn’t matter to me. I would take one for the team.

Unlike you, I understand there’s a gift much bigger and better than instant gratification. Unlike you, I realize there is more to life than being the first kid to tickle an Elmo on your block.

For me, and for thousands of people like me, time is standing still right now. It will never be The Future until Toys R Us carries hoverboards. It will never be a new day, and we will never grow up—not until we know that hoverboards have arrived.

So don’t tell me you “need” a PlayStation 3 for Christmas, you spoiled little post-9/11 American brat. You know what you need? A sense of perspective.

Patience comes to those who wait.

Jonathan David Morris      Web Site      Contact     Back to Top    

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
Who Makes Foreign Policy?
December 11, 2006

The Iraq Study Group released its report last week, giving the president several recommendations to consider in prosecuting the war. Similarly, the incoming Democratic leaders in Congress promise to urge the President to take a new course in Iraq. Meanwhile, one newly elected member of Congress was asked on national television about the Iraq war. She responded by saying she had no real opinion, and that foreign policy was “up to the president.”

In each instance, it is assumed that the president will make Iraq policy. I’m not talking about the details of actual military operations in Iraq; I’m talking about the broader policy questions of how long our troops will stay, how many will stay, and how victory will be defined.

The media, Congress, and the American public all seem to have accepted something that is patently untrue: namely, that foreign policy is the domain of the president and not Congress. This is absolutely not the case and directly contrary to what our founding fathers wanted.

The role of the president as Commander in Chief is to direct our armed forces in carrying out policies established by the American people through their representatives in Congress. He is not authorized to make those policies. He is an administrator, not a policy maker. Foreign policy, like all federal policy, must be made by Congress. To allow otherwise is to act in contravention of the Constitution.

Library of Congress scholar Louis Fisher, writing in The Oxford Companion to American Military History, summarizes presidential war power:

The president's authority was carefully constrained. The power to repel sudden attacks represented an emergency measure that allowed the president, when Congress was not in session, to take actions necessary to repel sudden attacks either against the mainland of the United States or against American troops abroad. It did not authorize the president to take the country into full-scale war or mount an offensive attack against another nation.

But it’s not simply the decision to wage war that is left to Congress. Consider also the words of James Madison:

Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws (italics added).

So Congress is charged not only with deciding when to go to war, but also how to conduct — and bring to a conclusion — properly declared wars. Of course the administration has some role to play in making treaties, and the State Department should pursue beneficial diplomacy. But the notion that presidents should establish our broader foreign policy is dangerous and wrong. No single individual should be entrusted with the awesome responsibility of deciding when to send our troops abroad, how to employ them once abroad, and when to bring them home.

This is why the founders wanted Congress, the body most directly accountable to the public, to make critical decisions about war and peace.
It is shameful that Congress ceded so much of its proper authority over foreign policy to successive presidents during the 20th century, especially when it failed to declare war in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, and Iraq. It’s puzzling that Congress is so willing to give away one of its most important powers, when most members from both parties work incessantly to expand the role of Congress in domestic matters. By transferring its role in foreign policy to the President, Congress not only violates the Constitution, but also disenfranchises the American electorate.

Rep. Ron Paul      Web Site      Back to Top

Nancy Salvato

No column this week.