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Commentary from Members
and letters to the editor written by our members.
Saddam Deserved to be Ousted by Melody Worsham
Gene Taylor's Position on Medical Marijuana by Wayne Parker
Response to Karl Mertz by Melody Worsham
A Reply by Wayne Parker
Communism and Capitalism by Wayne Parker
Corruption by Wayne Parker
Nazism by Wayne Parker
Saddam Deserved to be Ousted
By Melody Worsham
Yes, it is being sold to the public to keep them from seeing a blatant lie originating from our own president. If the war was truly justified, then he should have allowed it to be debated on honest merits. If it were justified, he would not have needed to lie.
This lie costs thousands of American lives.
I wonder how it would have been handled if a Democrat president had told this many lies that caused us to 1) go to war on false pretenses and 2) divert our attention from terrorism and our winning battle in Afghanistan.
We had al Qaeda on the run when we invaded Afghanistan. We had the support and sympathies of neighboring countries. Pakistan alone captured over 400 terrorists trying to cross their borders from Afghanistan in the first few months of our siege. Then, when we diverted our energies to Iraq, the Arab world predictably became suspicious of our motives. We began to lose support from other countries in the area. We diverted much-needed military power from Afghanistan to Iraq, and now we don't catch as many terrorists.
We cut our own throats in many ways by deciding that Saddam was a primary target at that moment. Terrorism should have remained our primary focus.
I don't think it was worth it at all.
Saddam deserved to be ousted, but not in exchange for our preliminary success at destroying terrorism. With a weakened Iraq, we now have more places for terrorists to hide out and thrive. Our military is weary, worn out, frustrated and incapable of fighting terrorism with the needed fervor. They are spread out too thin to be effective anywhere.
We have lost credibility in the world arena. We are sacrificing liberty for a little safety. We are kept in a perpetual state of fear. We have sacrificed Constitutional principles to attack a sovereign nation and maintain secrecy in the highest parts of our government.
None of this is healthy, nor was it ever justified.
Posted on 7/14/2004
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Gene Taylor's Position on Medical Marijuana
By Wayne Parker
Now, recognizing that the term "common good" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution, I must conclude that the Congressman meant "General Welfare."
However, although it is believed that this term "amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the....general welfare," such is not the case.
In fact, the term I just stated in quotations is actually included in Federalist 41, in which James Madison scornfully ridiculed that popular notion of the "general welfare" clause.
The question we need to be asking is how a sitting Congressman can swear an oath, on the Bible, SIX TIMES, to defend and uphold the Constitution when apparently he doesn't even understand the basic terms of the document.
Interestingly, throughout the interview the Congressman justified his policies by continually referring to the "majority" that supports him.
The Founders, in their wisdom, had a profound distrust for the popular will.
Alexander Hamilton pointed out, "The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right."
Public support for a drug war that has had TERRIBLE consequences for everything which this nation once held dear (without achieving ANY positive results) proves the Founders' wisdom.
We're all familiar with the term "The blind leading the blind." Well, by Congressman Taylor's own proud admission, it is the blind majority, and not the Constitution, which guides his decisions.
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Response to Karl Mertz
By Melody Worsham
You state that you support "free and fair trade with countries that share our appreciation for justice, human rights, and a clean environment." Well, our nation currently leads the world in justice applied only to those who can afford it ($), human rights violations, and pollution. So, this means you support trade in all countries of the world, as it should be. The US is not the Moral Authority of the world; and our taxes or military should not be used to force other countries to comply with American Standards of Commerce or Ethics.
You also presume that the answer to juvenile delinquency is more law enforcement. Since when did we Americans give police officers the task of raising our children? One of the most disconcerting issues we face today is that law enforcement (with our government's blessings) is forcing more and more kids to grow up in a penal environment.
To top it off, you support Internet filters in libraries. Since when were libraries a primary source of pornography? It's all relative anyway. My grandmother thought it was pornographic to show her ankles in public! You are simply trying to be the arbiter of right and wrong in a nation that needs a leader, not another narrow-minded politician practicing hegemony.
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A Reply
By Wayne Parker
This is not a "strength" of the document. It is a weakness of character and an ignorance of history on the part of our people and politicians. If the Constitution can be "re-interpreted" to meet "modern" needs, then it is not a Constitution at all.
The men who composed the Constitution CLEARLY understood, by a thorough assessment of history and human nature, that government's natural tendency is to accumulate power unto itself, at the expense of everyone's liberty. This is why they wrote strict guidelines establishing what the Federal government can do, and what it can't.
To see how far we've come, using Mr. Taylor's idea of a constitution, we must only consider that the original intent of our Constitution was for the Federal Government to be an agent of the individual states; an arbiter of disputes between states as well as a provider of common leadership in times of national crises. Clearly, now, it is the MASTER of the states, imposing one-size-fits-all "solutions" which usually cause more harm than that which they're "supposed" to cure. This includes "international solutions" as well.
The Second Amendment was written to ensure that, as a last line of defense (after the Constitution had been "variously interpreted to fit the climate of each new era") the people would still have the means to defend their few remaining liberties.
Modern "intellectuals" may quibble about the Constitution's wording, but its intent is indisputable. The success of the "living, breathing document" attitude toward the Constitution will be the death of this great Republic. It is already the cause of our severe illness.
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Communism and Capitalism
By Wayne Parker
I agree our economic embargo has a significant negative affect on Cuba, but Cuba's poverty is its own creation. Until the demise of his sugar daddy, the Soviet Union, Castro forbade Cuban citizens to produce more food and goods than he deemed they needed. Any "excess" was confiscated by the state. Now that his welfare train has been derailed, he's allowing his citizens to become entrepreneurs. What does this say about Castro's own opinion of the efficacy of communism? (not to mention his opinion of the evils of free enterprise)
As for Cuba's gun control, Castro didn't support that until he was in power. Then he used his power over his unarmed citizens to destroy his political opposition. Young Elian Gonzalez, the boy mentioned in Mr. Watson's letter, is lucky if he has grandparents, since Castro imprisoned, tortured, and murdered 100's of thousands of people in that generation. Oh! But that was for a noble cause, right?
Cuba is just like all the other communist and socialist countries in the world; poor and desperate. Whereas capitalism is criticized for creating wealth amidst poverty, communism is known for increasing poverty where it already existed.
With all the forceful evidence all over the world (and throughout human history) proving the failure of communism, I find it utterly incredible that we still have people who think such a philosophy can work.
If we're such a bad country for children, perhaps Mr. Watson would tell us why people from all over the world are desperately trying to reach our shores.
And while he's at it, tell us how many Americans are seeking citizenship in China, Russia, or North Korea!
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Corruption
By Wayne Parker
Mr. Lanquist was decrying the tremendous influence exercised over our governments by "super-rich corporations". He is certainly correct in his concern. However, in his letter, he unwittingly admitted to contributing to the corruption by supporting a candidate who called for universal health care, and stating that it is in Mississippi's best interests to seek Federal grants.
The essence of government is force. The only legitimate use of force is in defending one's person and property.
A government limited to that role would benefit all citizens equally. Thus, no one would have the incentive to influence it to serve them more than their neighbor.
A government that uses its force to favor a particular group, however, must do so at the expense of another group. Governments can't give something to someone without first taking it from someone else. Consequently, the group that will be forced to fund the government handouts will want to influence the government to pick on someone else.
The notion that governments should do more than simply ensure justice has, as Mr. Lanquist pointed out, had a very corrupting affect on all levels of government. Once people accepted the idea of "government as Santa Claus" the contest boiled down to that of who would have the most money to influence it. Guess what? The "super-rich" corporations will always win that one.
The only difference between the Liberals and Conservatives, on the one side, and the "super-rich corporations" on the other, is that the corporations have more money. Mr. Lanquist is simply complaining that he's being beaten at his own game.
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Nazism
By Wayne Parker
When people think of Nazism, all they think of is "racism". That is only a very small part of what was wrong with Nazi Germany. We have racism in this country, yet we don't have people being hauled off, en masse, to death camps.
The difference, of course, is in what the Nazis saw as the purpose of government, and what our Founding Fathers envisioned. Our nation's founding philosophy was that a nation exists solely to protect the citizens of that nation; that the various governments in our nation were simply extensions of the individuals they served.
The founding principle of the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party was that the individual was only as important as his service to the "common good". Thus, it became morally acceptable to round up people who refused to submit their lives to the "will of the people" as defined by the government. The Jews were not the first to be rounded up. The free-thinking intellectuals went before they did.
The mass murders in Nazi Germany were just one example of what has happened in other "socialist paradises" such as the former USSR, China, Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam, as well as all the socialist countries in Africa and South America.
We cheat ourselves out of an important lesson when we focus on the Nazi regime's racist policies and ignore the philosophical premise that allowed them to carry out those policies.
As I said before, we have flawed people in our country, just like anywhere else. The threat lies in creating a government that enables them to legitimize their actions.
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