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March 14, 2004

• To Rock the Vote, Knock It, or Block It
• Why I Still Like Bush (A Word to the Pseudo Cons)
  

What They Thought March 21, 2004

R.A. Hawkins
Jonathan David Morris

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Jonathan David Morris:
Creating Iraq In Our Image

So here we are, a year since the start of the Second Gulf War, and Iraq at last has an interim constitution. I'm guessing most columnists will go with straight-up retrospectives this week, but it's this constitution -- and the requisite sense of accomplishment -- I'd like to discuss.

Now, in 1776, you may recall the United States declared independence from King George III, and in so doing named three "unalienable" rights: (1) Life; (2) Liberty; and (3) The Pursuit of Happiness. There's no capital "P" on "Pursuit" in the Declaration. I capitalize it anyway. Happiness isn't the unalienable right here; its Pursuit is. Our Founders wanted a government "to secure these rights." For Happiness to be guaranteed, someone has to guarantee it -- at which point it stops being unalienable.

This point contradicts what we're seeing -- under U.S. supervision, no less -- with the creation of Iraq's new government. Case in point: Article 14 of their new constitution, which says, "The individual has the right to security, education, health care, and social security." What this means is the government's going to hand out its version of Happiness -- health care, education, etc. -- like American high schools hand out condoms. It's also going to "strive to provide prosperity and employment opportunities."

Well, I don't know about you, but from where I stand these "rights" sound a lot like entitlements. Is this supposed to be a constitution, or a stump speech for Dennis Kucinich?

I'm serious: On his campaign Web site, Kucinich mentions the "right of every American child to a high-quality free public education," as well as the right to water, the right to a job, the right to decent wages, and the right to a pension plan. Civil unions, too, are an "intrinsic right." And even D.C. has the "right" to statehood. His slogan might as well be: "Vote Kucinich. I'll buy you one of everything." The only thing missing here is a right to the kitchen sink -- and if you search around long enough, that's probably on his Web site, too.

Now, these are good things to have, mostly, but ask yourself: Are they rights? As P.J. O'Rourke once put it, "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free." Indeed, whereas the Pursuit of Happiness is of a kind with the right to Property, supplying "free" education and health care means taking other people's property to pay for it. Kucinich envisions a number of "rights" for the have-nots, but to secure them he'd strip the haves of every right they... well, have.

And that's where it starts to gets scary.

We talk about the separation of church and state in America. Yet our Declaration says men get their rights from "their Creator." Does this mean men who believe in God are the only ones with rights? Of course not. It means unalienable rights are unalienable because men are born with them. And it means a government's job is to secure these rights -- not to distribute them.

As genuine as its intentions may be, Iraq's constitution, like Kucinich's platform, promises rights that can only be granted by other human beings -- or specifically, by a government. This gives rise to a God-State (which need not be theocratic, per se). Why is that a problem? Because what rights a God-State gives, it can also take away.

But don't take my word for it. Just check out the dubious systems of social justice favored by tyrants like Saddam.

So now we've come to a point where we're asking, was this regime change worth our while? On March 17, 2003, Bush gave Saddam 48 hours to leave Iraq, saying there was "no doubt" the dictator continued to "possess and conceal" weapons of mass destruction. We now know Saddam did not have such weapons. David Kay confirms our intelligence -- like that of the U.N. and just about every other government -- was "almost all wrong." Somehow, Janeane Garofalo's the only one who got this right. So go figure.

But anyway, in defense of the war on Meet the Press in February, Bush said, "I'm not gonna leave [Saddam] in power and trust a madman." That Saddam wasn't fit for office seems to be a prevailing justification now. But while there's no doubt the Butcher of Baghdad was just that -- a butcher -- it's also true Saddam's fate was supposedly in his own hands. "If Saddam won't disarm," Bush said before the war, "we will lead a coalition to disarm him." What if he had proven his disarmament, then? In that case, as author Sheldon Richman puts it, "Bush's position implies that Saddam would have remained in power."

"But if Bush was prepared to leave him in power," Richman asks, "why does he now list Saddam's brutality against the Iraqi people as grounds for war?"

Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.

Oh, but still -- some say -- the Middle East needs to be democratized. We will never have peace until this occurs. That's a tough nut to crack, for many Americans, because we were born into a democratic system, and because we'd feel guilty if we didn't share its freedoms with the rest of the world. As a former war hawk myself, I understand the mindset, and I believe many of their hearts are in the right place. But the world needs liberty, not democracy. And it's not the same thing.

So Iraqis can elect their own leaders now. So what? It's a step forward, that's for sure. But we can elect our own leaders, too. What's it matter if Republicans and Democrats are exactly the same? All we're picking is names and faces. The establishment wins either way.

Iraq's constitution, with its promise of health care and social security, grants rights contingent upon the existence of Big Gov't. To control this government, Iraq's much-discussed factions will remain at war. Like a timeshared condo, the country will rotate agendas, and someone, somewhere, will always be disaffected (Happiness for some, its Pursuit for others). With or without Saddam, all of Iraq must still be subjected to the whims of special interests.

Sound like someplace you know? Like America, maybe?

Well, make no mistake: Iraq's constitution wears the wounds of America's so-called "culture war," and resembles the creeping federalism against which our freedoms now fight.

For example, Article 12 states, "Discrimination against an Iraqi citizen on the basis of his gender, nationality, religion, or origin is prohibited." This reads like an application to work at Wal-Mart. Then there's Article 15(b), which says police "may not violate the sanctity of private residences," then gives judges the authority to allow it. And in much the same spirit, Article 16(b) assures us, "No one shall be deprived of his property except by eminent domain," thus proving once and for all that the common good -- i.e., what's good for the God-State -- trumps individual rights even after Saddam.

Article 17 is the worst one of all: "It shall not be permitted to possess, bear, buy, or sell arms except on licensure issued in accordance with the law."

As that great humanitarian and central planner, Chairman Mao, once put it: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." The Founding Fathers understood that an armed society deters absolute power. Our Second Amendment was meant to prevent the rise of men like Mao and Saddam. Yet, in spite of this tradition, America oversees the birth of democracy in a country where empowerment will be handed out like rations by the government.

I've never been to Iraq. I don't know what it's like over there right now, nor how it compares to a year ago. The fact that Saddam's out of power is wonderful, in and of itself, but he's captured now, and his sons are dead, and the WMD's just aren't there. If we're going to stay in Iraq till it's democratized, we should take a step back -- take a break from re-creating Iraq in our image -- and realize, on the anniversary of Shock & Awe, that there's something we can learn from their constitution. For it doesn't mirror our own Constitution, but the God-State we've become since it was written.

And if that's the brand of democracy we're exporting, how's it reflect on Americans back home?

Jonathan David Morris      Web Site       Contact

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Lady Liberty's "Their View" Contributors:

R.A. Hawkins
Richard Hawkins was born in Aurora, Colorado and grew up in Littleton, Colorado in a quiet little neighborhood nobody has ever heard of called Columbine Knolls. He has been married to the same woman for twenty-six years, and worked for the same aerospace company for twenty-eight. His primary interests over the years have been his family, sociology, mastering his survival skills, windsurfing, music, politics, raising wolves, art of all types, mycology, perma-culture, archeological anomalies, geo-politics and staying gainfully employed; not necessarily in that order. He often describes himself as a separate subspecies of human – ‘Eclecticus-Iconoclastimus’. His primary driving force is his unwavering belief that as sovereign citizens we are each responsible not only for our own beliefs and actions, but where those beliefs and actions take us in life: That the truly intelligent person learns to determine what the consequences might be for our beliefs and actions and then acts accordingly. Our individual actions always affect far more than we can imagine. R.A. Hawkins is the author of "Through Eyes of Shiva," available via Amazon.com. More of Mr. Hawkins' commentaries can be found on his web site, Entropical Paradise.

Jonathan David Morris
Jonathan David Morris is a political writer based in New Jersey. A strong believer in small government, JDM often takes aim at oppressive taxes, entitlements, and laws, writing about incompetence at the highest levels of culture and government. Catch his weekly ramblings on his web site.

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R.A. Hawkins
The New Face of America
(Ranting Sheep Are But A Tempest In A Tea Pot)

Although it is as amusing as it is frightening, the Internet provides some real insight into modern America and what it has become since 9/11. Quite simply it has gone back to being exactly what it was before 9/11. I think the word schizophrenic describes it nicely. Paranoid is another word for it too. What I see out there these days reminds me of what this country was like when Bubba was running the show. He talked a lot about the burnings of black churches even though the only church he ever saw burned was a white one and he was party to it. But like America the paranoid schizophrenic I digress.

We have become a boiling sea of ranting sheep with everyone afraid of one thing or another. My favorite fear is the Patriot Act. I get a lot of email about what is in the Patriot Act. At times my horns pop up and I ask them which section of it bothers them the most. If they answer with a section out of it, it is without fail, out of the version that Daschle introduced and not the one that actually passed. “Bzzzzzzzz! Wrong answer!” Most people don’t even know what is in it, yet they rant without end. I have a much better idea for all of you who are afraid of that act. Well, not yet I don’t. I’ll continue on a bit about the changing face of America, and then I’ll tell you what real men do about it. Trust me it has nothing to do with ranting.

I was introduced to the best junk science page through an email this last week. I had one person emailing me about taking it for a spin. I kept getting his letters about how we did 9/11, not a bunch of terrorists. On this site I found a classic article that shows the level of thought that goes into these sorts of things. It was about how much thermite would have had to be used to bring down the towers because the burning fuel wouldn’t have done it alone. The writer was kind enough to write ‘abstract’ at the top of his article so I didn’t email him, just the guy that sent me the link. The author seemed to know a lot about thermite except for the fact that thermite is simply an aluminum fire with the aluminum extracting the oxygen from the rust. That would provide the heat required to bring the whole thing down. Never mind the fact that the upper part of one hundred and sixty tons of concrete doesn’t do well when exposed to the 800 degrees from the burning fuel along with the added heat of an aluminum fire. When the concrete gives way, the shock waves passing up and down the building will be worse than TNT and that will finish the job. I told the guy that he would be holding on to some theory on some webpage and that would be the entire premise upon which his beliefs were based. Then he sent me that link just as I predicted. Did it bother me? Not one bit. I have become used to America looking like this these days

Here is what America should be looking like though. The Canadian border would be closed tighter than a crabs butt. It’s time to stem the flow of Russian, Chinese and terrorist agents into this country from up there too. There should be a flood of illegal immigrants being pushed back to Mexico where they came from. All of them should be carrying notes to Vicente Fox to the effect of “Get your act together or you’re next. We in America would like to know why your people keep coming up here to get away from you. Oh and that water thing? Don’t push your luck. We’ve had it with you withholding water and instead, sending a flood of illegals, drugs and terrorists our way. Signed Dubya

“PS. If you don’t think we’re serious ask Qadafi since you can’t ask Uday or Qusay.”

Anyone who is found to be working with terrorists in any way goes halfway to camp X-ray. There they are dropped into the ocean with four buckets of chum per person and told to swim. Yes I know that would effectively purge the US of liberals. So what?! They just arrested another one the other day for actively trying to help Iraq win the war against us. What a surprise.

In this ‘America should be’ there is no Department of Homeland Security. The existing agencies are simply staffed and funded properly and allowed to do their job. They don’t worry about what Bill and Hill, Kerry or the rest of the liberals think about them at all. There is also no Patriot Act because the people, instead of wondering what the government was going to do to help and protect them, are doing what they should be doing. Like these guys: http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/ and these guys: http://jihadwatch.org/.  There are a lot of groups and people like this; only most don’t have web pages. They get no rewards other than having done the right thing and the occasional article where they read about something they brought about. Because they do what they do, they seldom get email from ranting sheep: They get emails from the bad guys. They do it all for the thrill of doing the right thing.

For those of you who consider yourself to be a conservative, have the integrity to question yourself when you find yourself agreeing with the Socialist left-wingers. The people of Spain didn’t stop to consider that and now Socialists rule them. You don’t want to be an enabler for the same kind of Al-Qaeda ‘election experiment’ here do you? Only liberals want that. Make no mistake kids; Al-Qaeda will learn from what happened in Spain. Will you?

Leave the Liberal Herd! Swim Upstream! Be on America’s side! It’s exhilarating!

R.A. Hawkins       Web Site       Contact