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Iraq Veteran Victim of Government Abuse By Charlotte Iserbyt
35 Years After Attica, U.S. Prison System Remains An Abomination
Richard Weikart: Does Darwinism Devalue Human Life? Part 4
Richard Weikart: Does Darwinism Devalue Human Life? Part 3
Richard Weikart: Does Darwinism Devalue Human Life? Part 2
Does Darwinism Devalue Human Life? By Richard Weikart
Abuse of Force By Jon Christian RyterAbuse of Force By Jon Christian Ryter
Two very public stun gun incidents in September, 2007 caused ABC News to raise the question that should have been asked long before that day: "Are cops using Tasers too often?" (Quote from ABC News article, Sept. 21, 2007) ABC News reported that on Mon., Sept. 10, 2007 deputies from the Orange County, California Sheriff's Department shocked a 15-year old old autistic boy with 50 thousand volts of electricity because he was "acting suspicious," but without doing anything violent. Deputies found 15-year old Taylor Karras, who disappeared while attending a counseling session at the Orange County Regional Center in Westminister, was reported pushing a shopping cart down Newport Avenue. Police were asked to find the autistic boy by his mother, Doris Karras. Thus, the police knew the "subject" was a 15-year old with diminished capacity even though he stood 5'10" and had a beard. Karras told the Los Angeles Times that had the police officers spoken to her son in a non-threatening manner, he would have followed their directions without question or hesitation. A pedestrian spotted Taylor Karras 16 miles from the clinic in Tustin. The pedestrian called the Tustin police department to report a "suspicious" person. The Tustin police called the Sheriff's office which responded.
A spokesman for the Sheriff's Department, Jim Amormino, told ABC News "...the use of the Taser was definitely justified. The deputy had two seconds of contact with the suspect before he started screaming and running into traffic. If he hadn't been Tasered, he could easily have been killed by a car. The suspect, the officers, drivers on the road and pedestrians all could have been at risk if the suspect continued into traffic." Amormino said deputies were justified because when the officers commanded him to stop, Karras purportedly yelled something back at them and ran across Newport Avenue. Lost on Amormino in his justification to use a stun gun on a mentally challenged boy who posed no physical threat to anyone was the fact that stun guns are supposed to be an alternative to deadly force in subduing subjects who pose a deadly threat to law enforcement officers.
That same evening a University of Florida senior, Andrew Meyers (who was described by frequent Fox News guest correspondent Michelle Malkin as a "goofball," a celebrity-taunter and a YouTube publicity hound who was seeking his YouTube moment in history), staged his own date with the stun gun after Meyers grabbed a microphone in a roomful of people listening to Sen. John Kerry [D-MA] in order to ask the Senator a series of questions designed to provoke him—and campus police. Meyers wantd to know whether or not Kerry had ever been a member of Yale's Skull & Bones secret society. In Meyer's case, because he brought along his own videographer, we know he staged his own assault by campus police in order to achieve his own very painful 15-minutes of fame.
On Tuesday as Meyers was making YouTube fame pleading with campus police not to use the stun gun on him, University of Florida president J. Bernard Machen called the incident, and the arrest, of the college senior "regretful." Machen launched a university inquiry and asked the Florida Highway Patrol to investigate the justification of the campus police to use a stun gun on a student who simply refused to surrender a microphone. Like ABC News I found both stun gun assaults—and they were assaults—troubling.
Pulse technology energy weapons (stun guns) are dangerous even when used properly (which very few, if any, police departments do). Stun guns today are rapidly becoming "gender equalizers" for the "weaker sex" to deal with unruly men who are larger and stronger than they are. No police officer anywhere knows the health of any person they accost, and whether that person has a cardiac condition or some other health problem that would be aggravated by an electrical charge from a stun gun. Which means there is always a chance that a stun gun encounter can be lethal for a person who is pulsed—particularly when he or she receives several jolts. Stun guns are deadly weapons. They are substitutes for deadly force. Theoretically, that's why they were developed and put into use. Dropping a life-threatening, or bodily injury-threatening suspect with an electrical charge is better than dropping him with a 9mm slug.
According to the Taser™ website, their pulse weapons were designed to "...incapacitate dangerous, combative, or high-risk suspects who pose a risk to law enforcement officers..." and is "...a safer alternative to other uses of force." Most of the police agencies which use them abuse them. Stun guns were not designed to subdue 15-year autistic boys, nor were they designed to subdue college seniors who ask embarrassing questions to politicians.
On Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007, Christmas shopper Elizabeth Beeland, a 35-year old yoga instructor in Daytona Beach, Florida was questioned by a checkout clerk at Best Buy for using what the clerk described as a "suspect" credit card. The credit card was Beeland's. Embarrassed because she thought she was being accused of using a fraudulent credit card, Beeland began screaming at the clerk. The store surveillance videos show Beeland antagonistically confronting the clerk, with arms flaying. After Beeland turned and walked away from the checkout, off-duty, uniformed Daytona police officer Claudia Wright approached the departing customer and without any sign of resistance or provocation from Beeland, used her "gender equalizer" and shot Beeland in the abdomen with her stun gun, knocking her to the floor. Wright defended her action saying Beeland had been "verbally profane, abusive, loud and irate." Since when did loud and obnoxious become grounds for using deadly force? (Everyone—the police agencies which use them, the media that reports on the use and abuse of stun guns, the legal system and the general public—need to understand that since 337 people in the United States and Canada have died in stun gun incidents, it is potentially a lethal weapon that is used on people for crimes as minor as not moving fast enough when ordered by a police officer.)
Beeland, whose crime was cursing at a Best Buy clerk who embarrassed her, was charged with misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Daytona Beach city fathers would have been hard-pressed to make the resisting charge stick since Best Buy's surveillance video showed there was no confrontation with Wright, nor did Beeland resist. Wright, who was clearly out of her element, simply pulsed Beeland. I wonder how much Best Buy paid Beeland to settle what could have been a whopper of a lawsuit?
Furthermore, if the City of Daytona Beach was wise, they would either fire Wright or permanently put her on a desk. The American Civil Liberties Union joined the Florida fray after Daytona Beach police chief Michael Chitwood defended Wright's action. This was the first time the Daytona Beach police used a stun gun on a "subject" who was not confronting the police officer nor resisting arrest. Most certainly, if Wright is not fired, stun gun use will probably become more commonly used in Daytona Beach as a gender-equalizer.
When Milwaukee, Wisconsin armed their police force with 14 brand new Taser™ pulse weapons in March, 2004, their officers used it 105 times in the first 106 days—from March 16 to July 31—which amounts to once a day. Milwaukee police sergeant Mike Kuspa explained that "[w]hen officers have a new tool, they will use that tool more than any other tool they have on their belt as long as it fits the guidelines."
Statistics show that 96% of those shot with the stun guns were not armed and posed no deadly threat to police. Seventy percent of those struck by the pulse weapons were injured. In Milwaukee, according to Kuspa, the stun gun is an alternative to pepper spray. Yet, where Taser™ calls their pulse weapon "non-lethal," the Milwaukee police refer to it as "less-lethal" because the city can't be sure of the company's claim. "It could be lethal," he said. "May or may not."
Few restrictions in the use—or abuse—of stun guns by police officers are imposed on them by their respective municipal, county or State governments according to the American Civil Liberties Union. In their state-by-state investigation of stun gun abuse, the ACLU did an exhaustive study of how police departments regulate the use of stun guns, and the frequency in which victims of stun gun abuse die at the hands of police officers for "crimes" as minor as making chubby cops chase them. When the death rate from what should have been non-lethal stun gun incidents—and the potential for lawsuits for wrongful death began to rise throughout the nation, county coroners devised the medical diagnosis of "excited delirium" to explain how otherwise apparently healthy people could die from a non-lethal electrical charge. Since many of those who are stunned are drug abusers, many die from complications due to pharmacological intoxication and electrical shock. Some coroners attribute stun gun deaths to positional, or postural, asphyxia. Death results when the subject collapses into a breathing restrictive position—usually when the subject falls in a face-down position. Coroners, who realize the financial liability to their counties if death is attributed to electrical shock are reluctant to inscribe those words on the death certificates of those who succumb after being pulsed with a stun gun.
In Nov., 1993 47-year old James Borden was arrested by Monroe County, Indiana sheriff's deputies when they found him wandering aimlessly in a drug-induced stupor. Borden was transported to the county lockup without incident. He died in the jail because he was "dry-stunned in the buttocks" by a jailer because, he said, "...I asked Borden to lift up his foot to remove his shorts, but he was being combative and refused. I dry-stunned him in the lower abdomen. We got [him] to the booking area. Borden was still combative and uncooperative. I dry-stunned [him] in the buttocks." After the second the jolt, the jailer noticed that Borden was no longer responsive, and his face was discolored. He was dead. His capital offense? Being on drugs and not stripping fast enough to suit the jailer. The coroner listed a multiple choice cause of death: heart attack due to an enlarged heart, pharmacological intoxication, and electrical shock. The jailer was charged with two counts of felony battery and battery while armed with a deadly weapon.
When 48-year old Horace Owen broke into the Fort Lauderdale home of MacArthur Hodges on June 12, 2005, he was high on cocaine and hallucinating. Owen was screaming that someone was trying to kill him. Hodges called the Broward County Sheriff's Department to get the intruder out of his house. Deputies pulsed Owen. He collapsed. He was pronounced dead an hour later at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida. Ignoring the electrical charge that cause the heart arrhythmia, the coroner ruled that Owen's death resulted from pharmacological intoxication—due to a cocaine overdose. His crime? Breaking into someone's home because he thought his life was in danger. It was—at the hands of Broward County Sheriff's deputies.
Mental patients like drug addicts use chemical mood enhancers that compromise heart rhythm when electrical shock is introduced. On Jan. 12, 2005 the parents of 30-year old Greg Saulsbury called 911 asking for help with their son who was mentally ill. They were trying to calm him down. Instead of paramedics, Pacifica, California police arrived a few minutes later. The Saulsbury's assured the police their son had calmed down and they did not need help. Officers attempted to handcuff Saulsbury and take him into custody. He fought back. Police pulsed him several times. Saulsbury cried out to his father for help. When the elder Saulsbury tried to help his son, police pulsed him as well. As police dragged the father from the room, 30-year old Greg Saulsbury collapsed and died.
Two days before Christmas in 2004 Sacramento, California mental hospital patient Ronnie Pino, 31 shattered a glass door at the mental facility. Police were called. During the struggle to take him into custody, Pino was subdued twice with a stun gun. He died in the medical ward of the county jail.
Patrick Fleming, 35, of Metairie, Louisiana had been arrested on drug charges several times. On Dec. 4, 2004 police sought to arrest him on a warrant of criminal family neglect (deserting a spouse and children and rendering them destitute). Police shocked him once as they attempted to cuff him. When he was booked, he became combative again. He was stunned again. It appears he was not given medical attention. He died in his cell the next day.
The parents of Ricardo Zaragoza, 40, of Elk Grove, California could not get their son to go to the hospital for scheduled mental health exam. Zaragoza was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. While he was taking his medications, he had not eaten in several days. When he refused to go to the hospital, his parents called 911 on Nov. 8, 2004. Sacramento sheriff's deputies arrived at the home. Zaragoza was in his bedroom and refused to come out. Deputies entered the bedroom and sprayed him with pepper spray and shocked him twice with a stun gun. Zaragoza stopped breathing and was pronounced dead. Cardiologist Dr. Kathy Glalter, a UC Davis Medical Center electrophysiologist who specializes in sudden death heart rhythm orders was at a loss to explain not only Zaragpza's death but that of Gordon Rauch as well. Both men were diagnosed with mental illness. Both were taking medications. Both were shocked with stun guns. And both died as a result of the electrical shock. Glaltier said that much more research is needed to definitively show the effect of stun guns on people taking prescription medications or illegal drugs, or whether those with preexisting heart conditions are more at risk of sudden death. Dah.
Like Zaragoza, Rauch met his death at the hands of the Sacramento sheriff's department. His appointment with the grim reaper took place on Aug. 17, 2003. Rauch's father called the police and said his son, who was medicated with psychotropic drugs, had threatened to kill him. Police said Rauch charged them when they attempted to take him into custody. Two officers shot him with their stun guns simultaneously. Rauch fell to the floor. Officers said he "went limp" when they cuffed him. He died about an hour later.
Neighbors called Miami-Dade police on Sept. 20, 2004 to report that 40-year old John Merkle, a lawyer with a serious drug problem was running through the backyards of the neighborhood with a big stick, acting erratically. Police found him in an abandoned home beating the walls and smashing the windows with the stick. Ordered to drop the stick, Merkle did so. But, according to police, when they attempted to take him into custody, he fought back. They shot him with a stun gun. Police said Merkle was feverish and asked to lay down. Police ordered him to lay on his stomach. Merkle stopped breathing. Police said he was high on cocaine. The coroner ruled Merkle's death was caused by excited delirium associated with cocaine use.
Experienced police officers are trained to recognize drug intoxication. With police departments around the country seeing an influx of sudden death due to "suspects" who experience cardiac arrest triggered by cocaine or methamphetamine intoxication it would seem, by this time, police officers would have an inkling that known addicts were likely candidates for cardiac arrest if shocked multiple times with a stun gun. It would seem the risk of killing suspects who [a] do not pose a deadly threat to law enforcement officers who are [b] attempting to arrest them for misdemeanor offenses whose penalty would likely be a fine or a weekend in jail. When police officers abuse the authority with which they are entrusted, they need to be held accountable. Likewise, when a coroner or medical examiner fabricates causes of death to protect the police or the purse of the county, that coroner or medical examiner needs to lose his or her medical license and face appropriate charges.
To explain how otherwise healthy people could suddenly collapse and die after being shocked several times with long bursts from a stun gun, medical examiners coined the term "excited delirium" to explain sudden death from electro-muscular disruption. Unfortunately, "excited delirium" is not a clinical term nor does it describe a recognized medical condition. It's a made-up phrase for a made-up condition that exists only to insulate law enforcement agencies from allegations of excessive force, and to attempt to absolve them of blame for killing subjects who, 99 times out of a hundred committed minor misdemeanors that would result in fines and not imprisonment. When police officers use deadly force to subdue US citizens even lowlife US citizens—over trivial matters, then those police officers must be forced to answer for the deaths caused by those incidents. Police officers cannot be allowed to use deadly force unless their lives are threatened by equal deadly force.
Yet we are asked to accept, as rational, police officers using weapons only slightly less lethal than firearms, to subdue subjects whose only crime might be disrespecting them? Or, a college senior who refuses to surrender a microphone at a John Kerry Rally at the University of Florida? Or a 15-year old autistic boy who runs across four lanes of traffic, forcing a couple of overweight cops to chase him? Or, a woman whose only crime was knocking over a cardboard floor display rack in a Hallmark store?
On Nov. 26, 2005 Tracy Rene Shippy went to a Hallmark Gold Crown store in Fort Myers, Florida and asked store employees to call the police because she had just been in a fight. Before the cops arrived, Shippy knocked over the display rack. Employees called the police again and reported that an unruly customer was agitated and knocking over displays. It appears that Shippy may have been suffering from cocaine toxicity and, if so, she very likely simply stumbled into the display. When police arrived, one officer tackled Shippy and handcuffed her. That agitated Shippy even more. Sgt. Joseph More of the Lee County Sheriff's Dept. shot her with a stun gun. Instead of falling with flaying arms, Shippy became even more agitated and began kicking the two deputies who were dragging her to the police cruiser. More shot her with the stun gun at least one more time. Each burst was reportedly longer than the one before it bcause they did not seem to have any affect on Shippy. Finally, Shippy began foaming at the mouth. She was suffering from cardiac distress. There is no police transcript available that details how many times Shippy was shocked. Remember also, that throughout this ordeal, Shippy's hands were handcuffed behind her.
Police records show that paramedics were called at 7:08 p.m. Fifteen minutes later her face turned blue. She was unresponsive. She was pronounced dead at the Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center shortly after 8 p.m. Her death certificate indicates she died from "excited delirium." Kicking over a cardboard display rack at a Hallmark Gold Crown store turned out to be a capital offense for Tracy Rene Shippy. At no time were the lives of the Lee County sheriff's deputies threatened by the handcuffed woman.
If you listen to law enforcement officials or their public relations spinmeisters they will assure you that stun guns are used only on violent offenders, or on those who threaten cops with physical violence. However, the reality doesn't match the rhetoric. The youngest person on record disabled by a stun gun was a 6-year old Miami boy who was threatening to cut himself with a piece of glass. In another incident with a minor child, a police officer was physically forced to chase down a 12-year old who was attempting to skip school. To teach her a lesson the cop, who chased her in a foot race, brought her to her knees with a stun gun. Once again, the 12-year old posed no threat to the police officer. He used the stun gun on her not to defuse a volatile, life threatening situation, he did it because he was mad. Both incidents show an abuse of force. Both police officers should have been terminated.
A Rock Hill, South Carolina police officer used a stun gun to subdue a 75-year old woman whose only crime was becoming distraught when asked to leave a nursing home after getting upset because she couldn't find the room of a sick friend. In April, 2005 a Minnesota man died after local police shot him with a stun gun because he refused to stop shouting in the middle of the street. A Riviera Beach, California police officer used a stun gun on a derelict he found sleeping on a park bench. Awakened abruptly, the homeless man cursed at the officer and refused to let the cop search him for "contraband." The derelict died. Homelessness is now a capital offense in Riviera Beach. And, about the same time at the Houston County Jail in Georgia, a man died after being jolted three times with a stun gun. His crime? He refused to pay a $700 fine.
Pulse technology energy weapons (stun guns) are the most abused weapons used by America's local, county and State law enforcement agencies. It is time those agencies were held accountable for those abuses. As the rising death toll for the use of pulse technology affirms, stun guns do not represent the use of "non-lethal" force. Rather, as defined by the Milwaukee police department, stuns guns are merely "less-lethal" than firearms. Yet, they are used to subdue people for the most minor infractions of the law.
Let's suppose for a moment that the Minnesota man who died after being pulsed with a stun gun because he was standing in the middle of the street shouting at drivers and pedestrians, was shot with the officer's 9mm handgun. What would happen to the cop? He would have been charged with wrongful death. Today, he would be just another inmate in a correctional facility. Why should those who "accidentally" kill a citizen with a "less-lethal" weapon be excused? Because every State that uses pulse technology energy weapons (stun guns) defines their use as a non-lethal use of force, arguing that if they are used properly, stun guns are safe law enforcement tools, and when death occurs it's merely a freak accident.
Fifty-six year old, wheel chair-bound schizophrenic Emily Marie Delafield of Green Cove Springs, Florida would disagree that stun guns are safe if she was still alive. Police were called to settle a family spat on April 24, 2006. When Green Cove Springs police arrived, Delafield was holding a hammer and, according to the two officers, James Acres and Barbara Luedtke, a kitchen knife. They ordered her to drop her weapons. She refused. The police were in no danger from the 56-woman even though Luedtke said it appeared that Delafield was going to throw the knife at them. Delafield's medical problems severely limited her range of motion so, while she may have been able to raise her arm, it was unlikely she could have thrown the knife. Over the past couple of years police had been to her home a total of 28-times. Everyone in the Green Cove Springs police department knew, or knew of, Delafield. She lived with an oxygen tank which was attached to her motorized wheel chair. This alone should have told the officers she was "at risk," and being pulsed just one time could have had fatal consequences. Only Officer Luedtke, using the female officers "weapon of choice"—the gender equalizer—pulsed her nine times. Acre pulsed her once. Fifty thousand volts coursed through her body for 121 seconds. She died. The State of Florida ruled Delafield's death a homicide. The prosecutor decided it was a justified homicide because Delafield had two weapons. Regardless what the State's attorney said, Delafield's death was not justified since the officers should have had every expectation that pulsing her ten times for 121 seconds would result in her death. Three months after Delafield's death the medical examiner had still not issued a cause of death, or produced a death certificate for Emily Marie Delafield.
On June 7, 2005 47-year old Russell Walker died after being pulsed three times by Las Vegas police. Police were summoned to a local hotel around 8 p.m. where Walker was causing a disturbance. Officers pulsed him with a stun gun when he resisted their attempt to handcuff him. After he was handcuffed, Walker began struggling again. Again, they stunned him. Still struggling he was shocked a third time. He stopped breathing. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital at 9 p.m. There is no way Vegas police were threatened with "deadly force" from Walker since two of the three jolts he received from the stun gun came after he was handcuffed. Walker continued to struggle only because police were using unnecessary force to restrain him. The coroner ruled that Walker died from a heart arrhythmia during restraint procedure." In reality, Walker died because police used deadly force where it should not have been an option since Walker had already been restrained and, handcuffed, posed no threat to police.
Incidents like these, where handcuffed suspects are shot with stun guns, are becoming so numerous that it's impossible to keep track of them. In a tragic incident in Madera, California, police officer Marcie Noriega was one of nine officers who responded to a disturbance at an apartment complex on Oct. 27, 2002. Among those arrested was Madera Torres. Torres was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police vehicle where he tried to kick out the vehicle windows. In an attempt to subdue the handcuffed prisoner, Officer Noriega decided to use her "gender equalizer. " She mistakenly drew her 40-caliber Glock instead of her Taser. Noriega fired one slug into Torres' chest and killed him. The prosecutor declined to indict her. Because there was no "intent of criminal negligence" or "aggravation," he said he probably would not be able to get a conviction. Yet "civilians" whose "non-criminal intent" negligence in car accidents results in the death of others are not only charged with second or third degree manslaughter for the deaths they caused, they are almost always convicted.
Every day police officers all across the United States face growing danger while carrying out their duties. Over 18 thousand law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty in the United States since States began to keep a public record of those deaths. Two hundred-sixteen of them were women. Last year, the names of 145 peace officers were added to the roster of those who gave their lives in the line of duty. Being a police officer in an era of increasing lawlessness in America as druglords import armies of thugs to protect their turf is almost as dangerous as being a soldier or Marine in a war zone. The stress police officers face is unlike the stress 9-to-5er or factory shift workers face in their daily routine. They are forced to make split-second decisions that affect lives. Sometimes those decisions are wrong and people die. That was the case with Marcie Noriega and Madera Torres. Torres was drunk and belligerent. He paid for his stupidity with his life. The city of Madera and the State of California decided not to prosecute Noriega. They were wrong. The incident was a tragic accident. Noriega pulled the wrong trigger on the wrong weapon and a man who did not deserve to die for trying to kick out the side window on a police cruiser died.
Torres is dead because Noriega acted irresponsible. Had Noriega pulled her Taser and not her Glock and subdued the already handcuffed and subdued Torres with less than lethal force, she should have still faced charges for pulsing a handcuffed subject who was in custody and could not subject her or anyone else to physical injury.
Police officers are not granted the broad license to maim or kill subjects or suspects who are not attempting to use equivalent force against them. The US Commission on Civil Rights states that "...in diffusing situations, apprehending alleged criminals and protecting themselves and others, police officers are legally entitled to use all appropriate means, including force." First, appropriate force can be used to apprehend alleged criminals and/or to protect themselves and others from the threat posed by the subject, suspect or wrongdoer. Once the subject is apprehended, handcuffed and in custody, the law assumes that the threat to life and limb is abated. The use of what was, minutes before, appropriate force then becomes excessive, unreasonable, and not necessary to take custody of the alleged wrongdoer.
Left in the air during the act of apprehension is just how much force is "reasonable and necessary." Courts in different jurisdictions define "reasonable and necessary" differently, thus the broad yardstick in what is, or is not, allowed under the law is too elastic. Clearly, the unnecessary use of force is the application of force where there is no justification for its use. The excessive use of force is the application of more force than required when some force is needed. Pulsing a subject with a 50 thousand volt jolt whose only "crime" is not moving fast enough to suit a police officer is excessive force. In most jurisdictions in the United States, once a subject is subdued and handcuffed, he or she is no longer construed to pose a threat to the officer or to others. To jolt them with a stun gun after they are handcuffed and physically in custody is, by definition, the use of excessive force.
Police officers who use excessive force, regardless how volatile the communities in which they live and work, must be prepared to face criminal charges for their conduct when they succumb to the use of excessive or abusive force, particularly when that abusive force causes the loss of life using law enforcement tools that are supposed to be "less than lethal." There should be a common sense rule in play for law enforcement agencies that says people most likely to suffer a sudden death cardiac event are those under the influence of either illegal drugs or legal prescription pharmaceuticals and therefore subject to cardiac arrest. And even more obviously at risk for sudden death cardiac events are those who are confined to a wheel chair, using oxygen, or who are just plain old and infirm. Also at extreme risk are children and adolescents. Common sense dictates that when groups at high risk for sudden death cardiac events are jolted with high voltage electrical charges death is very likely going to result. When police officers opt to use what has become the most convenient disabling devise regardless of the consequences, they need to be held accountable when at risk people die.
This article is has been reprinted with permission of the author: Jon Christian Ryter
Jon Christian Ryter's Conservative World http://www.jonchristianryter.com Embedded Links:
'University of Florida senior, Andrew Meyers'
Stun guns are a substitute for deadly force. They should be used only when the officer's life is threatened. By Jon Christian Ryter (Jon Christian Ryter's Conservative World) http://www.jonchristianryter.com/Plain_Talk/071026.html 'When Milwaukee, Wisconsin armed their police
force with 14 brand new Taser™ pulse weapons' Death by Stun Gun By Jon Christian Ryter (Jon Christian Ryter's Conservative World) http://www.jonchristianryter.com/2006/042806.html Related Posts:
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry VA Still Using War Veterans as Guinea Pigs By Jon Christian RyterVA still Using War Veterans as Guinea Pigs
By Jon Christian Ryter
The US government has a questionable history of using military personnel as guinea pigs to determine the potential health risks soldiers experience when they are exposed to caustic and sometimes deadly agents. During the period between the two world wars soldiers were deliberately exposed to mustard gas. Between 1945 to 1955 military personnel were exposed to radiation from nuclear bomb tests. In experiments conducted by the CIA and the US Army Biomedical Laboratory (under Project MKUltra), veterans were given the psychedelic drug Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, more commonly known as LSD. None of the military subjects given the drug consented to be guinea pigs, nor were any of them advised that LSD could cause long-term bizarre hallucinogenic psychoses. The experiments took place because the CIA and military intelligence believed LSD could be effective in interrogations and, the military believed, mind control. Some believed that LSD might lead to a cure for schizophrenia. When they realized LSD caused the problems they were trying to cure, the military moved on, leaving their victims to cope with the problems they induced.
In the 1960s and 1970s, military personnel in Vietnam were exposed to herbicides like Agent Orange. In the Gulf War US military personnel were tasked with the responsibility of burning up Saddam Hussein's recovered caches of chemical and biological weapons whenever and wherever they were found. The soldiers were not told that the weaponry they were destroying contained toxic chemicals and biological agents that could do serious harm to them if they breathed the toxic fumes. Confirmed by testimony from scores of military victims in sworn US Senate testimony in 2002, few if any of the military guinea pigs were informed of potential health risks from exposure or consumption of the chemical or biological agents. In fact, it is doubtful that the officers of these men even knew what it was they were destroying.
The worst experiment by the US government thus far exposed is reminiscent of the sadistic experiments performed by Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele at Auschwitz in 1942. In 1932 the US Public Health Service initiated a study known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The subjects were uneducated black sharecroppers who contracted syphilis. When World War II broke out, all of the subjects were drafted into the army where they could be completely controlled by the Public Health Service. All of the subjects were denied any medical treatment for syphilis. They were simply told they had "bad blood" and there was nothing that could be done for them. The study tracked two generations of their families. Of the initial participants of the study, 28 died from syphilis and slightly more than 100 died from complications caused by syphilis. Forty wives and 19 children got the disease. And the US Public Health Service got reams of data about how syphilis progresses and how it passed from infected mothers to their offspring.
In 2005 the United States, in a joint operation with Israel, created the world's first Star Wars weapon—the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response [PHASR] laser rifle, cloning the sci-fi weapon used by Darth Vader's clone troopers in the Star Wars film odyssey.
When the US government unveiled the weapon three years ago, it was met with mixed reviews in the global community—with most views being negative because the world's limited experience with laser weapons has been negative. Every laser weapon design to date has caused permanent harm to whomever or whatever has struck with the laser beam. Laser weapons capable of blinding enemies were developed in the past but were banned under a 1995 UN convention called the Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons. Blinding lasers have been used by the "former" Soviet Union and Red China (our trading partner in the Far East who uses their trade dollars to develop even more sinister weapons to use against us).
Our enemies around the world (most of whom pose as friends and trading partners) are trying to have the PHASR classified under the Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons in order to have it outlawed. The Department of Defense [DoD] argues that the PHASR is a "non-lethal" weapon (when what they mean is that it has non-lethal characteristics in the form of a controlled low-power laser beam that merely stuns the person struck by it). But even the low-intensity laser beams can permanently blind a human target even though it only stuns them with a non-lethal burst.
While the United States has working PHASRs, several other countries around the world are working on their own prototypes. In a time of war, what is touted as a non-lethal weapon today will become a very lethal weapon tomorrow. On the battlefield, those targeted who are not killed outright will be maimed for life in a new generation of human carnage. The DoD said the PHASR contains an adjustment called the "eye-safe ranger finder," that theoretically lets the person using the weapon adjust for distance to keep the laser from eye-level. This of course, assumes that on the battlefield today's soldiers all march in formation like the Redcoats during the Revolutionary War.
Because of continued bad press around the world, in Nov. 17, 2007 recently-fired Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne (former under-Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld) publicly suggested testing the PHASR on US citizens in "crowd control" situations. When civil rights groups objected, Wynne said: "If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartme situation." As part of the federal bureaucracy that has a long term history of using US soldiers as guinea pigs, using the nation as a reservoir of citizen guinea pigs did not sound foreign to Wynne, nor did it to anyone else in the federal government. However, where Uncle Sam can control its liability when the military uses soldiers as guinea pigs, State, county or local governments that use what is touted as "non-lethal" military weapons on American citizens will find themselves hardpressed to escape liability when untrained police officers (or even marginally-trained local cops) miscalculate the adjustments on the "eye-safe ranger finder," and blind a crowd of protestors, or a belligerent homeless drunk cursing at the cops, that city, county or State will get a real taste of what criminal liability really means.
Yesterday's guinea pig issues aside, today the Veteran's Administration has some 1,200 ongoing clinical studies which are using 4,796 veterans as guinea pigs. The largest study being conducted at this time is that of exploring the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD] on affected soldiers. It is believed by the government that over 830,000 veterans have some form of PTSD—which is just about everyone who has served in a war zone. No human can witness the horrors of war and walk away unaffected by the carnage. Since the invasion of Iraq, over 40 thousand soldiers who have been diagnosed with, and/or treated for, PTSD. Some 4,796 of them are currently enrolled in the PTSD studies. Those clinical studies are not problematic, and are helping the VA diagnose and treat PTSD.
Problematic are many of the 940 PTSD veterans who are enrolled in one specific smoking cessation program—for $30 per month to be a guinea pig for Uncle Sam. The vets in the smoking cessation program were given a variety of methods to end their smoking addictions. Of them, 143 veterans were given an experimental smoking cessation drug called Chantix®. Two weeks after the VA began the Chantix® study in November, 2007, the US Food & Drug Administration [FDA] advised the VA that Chantix® appeared to cause hallucinations, psychotic behavior and that some subjects taking the drug had attempted suicide. On January 18, 2008, Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company that developed Chantix® updated the warning label on Chantix® to read: "Patients who are attempting to quit smoking with Chantix should be observed for serious neuopsychiatry symptoms, including changes in behavior, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior."
But, not even the warning from the FDA and the label update by Pfizer suggested to the VA that they might think about terminating the study since every person in it were already burdened with PTSD. Because they signed informed consent cards, and affirmed they understood there might be a risk in participating in the clinical study, the VA did not fully notify the test subjects that the side affects from Chantix® might include suicide or, at least, suicidal behavior. The VA did modify its consent form—for new participants. The change noted that side affects could include "...anxiety, nervousness, tension, depression, thoughts of suicide and attempted and completed suicide." It is unclear what, if any, additional warnings were given to the vets who were currently enrolled in the Chantix® test. When Congress got wind of the fact that the VA waited three months before notifying the clinical test subjects of the potential risk for PTSD victims to use Chantix®, Congressman Steve Buyer [R-IN], the ranking GOP member of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs asked the VA why they failed to warn test subjects that the drug might make them suicidal, the VA responded that warnings about suicide were omitted from the notification letter because many veterans are elderly or have eyesight problems. Buyer was among the first to demand an immediate inviestigation of the Veterans' Administration.
When he heard the VA's response to Buyer's question, retired US Marine Lt. Col. Roger Charles, editor of Defense Watch and the Internet newsmag, Soldiers For The Truth and soldiersforthetruth.org founded by author and former Fox News correspondent Lt. Col. David H. Hackworth who died in 2005. Col. Charles, who is now carrying Hack's baton, said the VA's reply was the "...most pathetic excuse that can be dredged up. It's insulting. And then, to brag you got it done in three months because of a cumbersome bureaucracy? What if people's lives were at risk—oh, wait...they were!"
Arthur Caplan, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania told the Washington Times that when "...you're taking advantage of a very vulnerable population, people who have served the country, and the agency that's responsible for their welfare isn't putting their welfare first, that's a pretty serious breach of ethics." Caplan further noted that the Veterans' Administration gets an "F" for its conduct, and that it should terminate the smoking cessation program immediately. "Continuing it," he said, "doesn't make any ethical sense."
That fact that the VA is continuing the test, makes you wonder how much money, per head, the VA is receiving for conducting the test, or which Veteran's Affairs Committee member is doing favors for lobbyists for Pfizer? Of the 143 veterans taking Chantix®, 21, or roughly 15%, have reported adverse side affects. The most vocal of those 15% is James Elliott a chain-smoking Army sharpshooter who was diagnosed with PTSD after 15 months in Iraq as an Army sniper.
When Elliott came home from Iraq in 2004 he brought his nightmares with him. Exploding bombs. Body parts and dogs eating corpses in the street. And, most of all, the vision of a child's head—blown from its body—laying in the street. After being treated at the VA, the symptoms of PTSD disappeared. He enrolled in college and was earning high grades when the VA offered veterans $30 per month to join a smoking cessation program. Within a week or two Elliott's nightmares returned. He would awaken, thrashing in bed, screaming for air strikes, and reliving every vivid detail of watching friends get hit by enemy fire and bleed to death before his eyes. Day by day, night by night, the nightmares got worse until they morphed into daytime hallucinations His mind told him that people walking down the street were suicide bombers wearing bomb belts. He became certain that cars parked in front of homes were actually IEDs—improvised explosive devises.
On Feb. 5, 2008 Elliott cracked. He took his loaded .40 caliber automatic pistol and left the house. When his girlfriend discovered his gun was missing, she called the police. Knowing he was a hallucinating skilled sniper the police would not have been blamed if they took him down with firearms. Instead they used a stun gun, and dropped Elliott with an electrical charge after Elliott taunted them to shoot him. As he was being transported to the local police lockup, Elliott asked the arresting officers why they didn't shoot him, adding that "...I would have shot me." Eliott told the media that "...the carrot they dangled in front of my face was $30 a month for the three year program. I knew it was a research project, but I also needed he money."
Col. Charles noted that the "...the idea that you would take people already diagnosed with mental issues and give them a drug hat appears, early on, to have some likelihood of exacerbating such issues. I understand they want vets to quit smoking for inancial, health, and moral issues, but I don't uinderstand whu they would give it to...veterans who served their country and picked up mental issues. I would think you'd go the extra mile to keep them from jeopardizing their ability to function ormally."
As Caplan noted that the VA's behavior in the antismoking study violates the basic protection of humans in medical xperiments, the White House defended the action of the VA—which continues to test Chantix® on veteran guinea pigs. The ederal Aviation Administration [FAA] has banned airline pilots and air traffic controllers from using the drug due to potential side effects. Politicians on both sides of the aisle jumped into the fray, with most calling for an investigation of the VA. Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Daniel K. Akaka [D-HI] has promised an investigation by his ommittee.
Even presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee oted that: "I was very concerned to read [in the] Washington Times...that the Dept. of Veteran's Affairs has yet again failed to ake appropriate steps to safeguard the health and well-being of veterans participating in drug trials." Obama called the testing outrageous and unacceptable, but fell far short of demanding that all clinical trials using veterans as guinea pigs be suspended.
But, what shocked me most was that not one Congressman or Senator was shocked that veterams were being sed as guinea pigs.
Because this use of America's "expended" warriors has been going on since World War II. The politicians were only shocked hat the veterans weren't advised that the latest drugs used in latest clinical tests utilizing the neediest and most desperate walking wounded warriors could cause them to hallucinate or, worse, kill someone or commit suicide. We, as a Nation, condemn the horrors of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Birkenau and the other extermination camps of the Third eich, yet Josef Mengele is alive and well in the Dept. of Veterans' Affairs.
Once again, you have my two cents worth on this subject.
This article is has been reprinted with permission of the author: Jon Christian Ryter
Jon Christian Ryter's Conservative World http://www.jonchristianryter.com Related Posts:
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry Troop Support is a Longtime, Expensive Debt By Marvin ReadTroop Support is a Longtime, Expensive Debt
By Marvin Read
Among the debts created by our American adventure in Iraq is the horrible price that military men and women have paid in order to participate.
There are those who suffered the ultimate cost, the almost 4,000 who have returned in coffins, and the approximately 29,000 who have been wounded, and have come home missing parts and bearing scars both physical and psychological.
Too, there are the thousands who, while fighting to "spread democracy," have suffered failed or failing marriages, lost their employment, endured financial difficulties that stress their at-home families, or have been burdened by the post-traumatic shock disorder that prevents them from living normal lives.
Whether to the families of the deceased or to the soldiers who have endured whatever sort of hardships and their families, we owe them big time.
Even if it's an all-voluntary military we're running here, each and every single person who has shipped out has given up his or her time and been put at risk for . . . well, for whatever.
The "Support our troops" motto has got to mean more than the warm fuzzies evoked by the magnetic stickers on cars. It's got to mean that the American nation makes up insofar as possible - in cash, in treatment, in medical care, in therapy, in support of whatever kind - for whatever the Marines, soldiers, pilots and seamen have lost.
There should be no military person hobbling on prostheses who is not helped until his dying day, years away, as a way of the government's saying, "Thanks for answering our call. We're in your debt."
There should be no soldier with proven PTSD who does not receive whatever therapy is needed for as long as it's needed, without having to jump through interminable hoops to get it.
If a soldier's being away in the Mideast causes hardship to spouses and children, then it is up to whomever to ease or even erase those difficulties. No spouse and no child should be threatened financially or otherwise because dad or mom is off fighting the government's war.
Bottom line: To support the troops means to support their families and dependents as well.
Let no one complain that such support is too expensive. If we can shell out a half-trillion dollars we didn't have to fight this war - with many billions more yet to be expended - then we've got to come up with whatever amount it's going to cost to take care of these warriors and their families - for the rest of their lives, if necessary. That's what justice demands, and it's all part of the cost of making war.
We learned from the February 2007 Walter Reed Hospital scandal that it's all too easy to assume we are doing the best we can with our returnees, our injured, our maimed, when in fact, we treat them like no-longer-useful, discarded tools.
If that sort of negligence could happen in the nation's premiere medical-military facility, and if it took a newspaper to uncover and expose it, what other weaknesses plague those who deserve Class-A treatment?
It took National Public Radio to uncover and expose the frequent attempts by officers to demean and dismiss their soldiers' claims of PTSD - sometimes humiliating them or simply refusing treatment, or even sending them back to active duty untreated. In what other ways are we not supporting the troops who hobble home?
The bottom line is that it is inhumane, unjust, un-American and totally unacceptable to let those who have given so much to end up with inadequate care. A government that sent them to war and put them in harm's way cannot abandon them, ever.
If, for all practical purposes, money is no object when it comes to declaring and executing a war, then money can be no object in caring for the military and their families with utmost care, human dignity and with the aim of rehabilitation.
February 16, 2008
This article has been reprinted with permission of
the author: Marvin Read, Pueblo Chieftain (Colorado)
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry Serene Earth: It Would Need New Viewpoint By Marvin ReadSerene Earth: It Would Need New Viewpoint
By Marvin Read
Tom Brokaw's new book, "Boom! Voices of the Sixties," re-tells the story of Astronaut Jim Lovell and his view from the Apollo 8 spacecraft on Christmas Eve 1968.
Lovell saw Earthrise, 240,000 mile away, as he and fellow astronauts Jim Borman and Bill Anders looped around the moon.
Quoting Lovell, Brokaw writes: "At one point I sighted the Earth with my thumb - and my thumb from that distance fit over the entire planet. I realized how insignificant we all are if everything I'd ever known is behind my thumb."
I'm not sure that "insignificant" is the feeling I'd get, but I suspect that there'd be a different perspective about life. One supposes that Lovell's view was worth a lifetime of waiting for, and that if every one of Earth's inhabitants could get just a few seconds of the sight, we'd likely all have a different and perhaps more balanced approach to our life on this planet.
Maybe we'd realize that we truly are fellow riders on a globe - one human species sharing space with untold animal and plant species, relying on the same ecosystem for light, air and water. We'd see, from that spaceship platform, a world free of the political divisions and borders that mark our maps. Perhaps we'd understand that all the planet's water belongs to everyone, and that humans would be far better off if they were free to peacefully roam, play and work wherever they will on the blue ball we call Earth.
If we were to look at Earth from that vantage point, might we not begin to realize that the world belongs to no one in particular and to everyone in general, that the body of water we call by different names - this ocean, that sea, this gulf, that bay - is really one oceanic expanse broken up here and there by chunks of land?
Would we finally accept that the invisible envelope that surrounds the planet is a shared, communal atmosphere, and that water and air polluted in this place is surely able to spread and do damage as they move over and around the planet?
As we look at the so-called bright blue marble and note its background - the near-infinite expanse we call space, our place as a puny planet belonging to one star in a vast Milky Way that itself is but one small galaxy among billions - surely each of us, presidents and politicians, kings and princes, soldiers and sailors, bankers and entrepreneurs, would realize we're no more nor less significant than peon and fisherman, pacifist or tree-hugger, homeless and hungry, convict or whore.
How is it, we might be forced to wonder, that we, or some of us - this writer or that one; this philosopher or that; this political party or another; this Ahmadinejad, Bush, Musharraf, Kim, Bhutto or Putin - are a nearly infinitesimally small part of the workings of a system that demands guardianship, not domination, and stewardship, not nationalist dominion?
One suspects that the planet seen from up there would be enveloped in characteristics not much observed or felt from down here: serenity and peace. The Earth would float silently, the sounds of gunshots and bombs, argumentation and fighting, hatred and discord muffled and swallowed by distance and the calm, black sky.
Brokaw recounts that, as the three astronauts radioed Christmas Eve greetings to the world, their words were taken from the book of Genesis, first chapter: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. . . . And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering of the waters he called Seas; and God saw that it was good."
But that was then and this is now. We could all use Lovell's reinvigorating view of the planet, our position in it and its position in the universe so that we might work to remake our habitat as God created it: good.
November 17, 2007
This article has been reprinted with permission of
the author: Marvin Read, Pueblo Chieftain (Colorado)
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry Needles or Gas, Bullets or Gallows: Executions Wrong By Marvin ReadNeedles or Gas, Bullets or Gallows: Executions Wrong
By Marvin Read
It's nearly Christmas and I'm not getting much mail. Let's see if we can stir up a little.
Let's begin by pointing out that two more men were executed this week in the United States, bringing to a little more than 1,000 the number of people put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Stan Tookie Williams, 51, took the syringe early Tuesday in California for four murders 26 years ago, and the next day, John B. Nixon Sr., 77, met a similar end in Mississippi for a 20-year-old killing. Both men went to their deaths insisting on their innocence.
Williams' case earned wide attention because of claims the gang founder had been rehabilitated during his prison years and had worked extensively to prevent young people from joining gangs.
A scan of the statistics shows that 22 of those executed in 32 states were under 18 when they were killed; 831 were dispatched by lethal injection, 152 electrocuted, 11 in a gas chamber, three by hanging and two by firing squad. Of those who died with a squirt, zap, hiss, thud or bang, more than a third were black, and a few more than a third of all executions took place in Texas.
No matter the age, race, location, gender or crime that led to the executions, all were wrong, the act of a native human desire for revenge that is masked with the faux dignity of state-sponsored punishment.
In a nation that labels itself Christian and touts, at least at election time, a desire to protect the unborn because those lives - real or potential, depending on one's view - are important, there is a contradiction.
Either all life is important or else its worth is arbitrary, leading to determinations that no human should have the burden or right to make.
The Old Testament is replete with the eye-for-an-eye style of justice that inspires so many. But often ignored is the divine sense of mercy-filled justice surrounding the Bible's "first recorded murder," when Cain, who killed his brother in a fit of jealousy, is spared by God and is sent instead to exile, marked with a protective sign lest anyone try to kill him (Genesis 4:15).
When Jesus happened across a group of men about to legally kill a woman for adultery, he prevented her stoning. Indeed, for a figure who is the model for those who call themselves "Christian," Jesus' life was about loving, forgiving and mercy, even though his life ended with execution.
Unlike the murders that send most people to death row (crimes usually occasioned by rage, malice, drugs, alcohol, outright craziness), executions by definition are premeditated, cold-blooded, even if carried out in the name of justice. The state's executions are the ultimate in cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
And, alas, those who die at the hands of the state are disproportionately poor and members of minorities.
A state surely is right to defend itself against immediate international or even civil threats, but the death penalty is not that; it is the killing of a prisoner who could be dealt with by less harsh, life-respecting means. It is, in a gruesomely real sense, a mirroring of the very act it condemns.
We the People, once upon a time, talked about absolute, Creator-endowed, inherent and inalienable rights, among them life itself, for which reason government should be instituted and to which it ought to dedicate itself.
To boil it down: Though sanctioned by courts and preachers alike and historically a symbol of the way we handle killers, executions aren't particularly humane, Christian or American.
December 17, 2005
This article has been reprinted with permission of
the author: Marvin Read, Pueblo Chieftain (Colorado)
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry The Fear Factor By Dr. Ron PaulThe Fear Factor By Dr. Ron Paul
While fear itself is not always the product of irrationality, once experienced it tends to lead away from reason, especially if the experience is extreme in duration or intensity. When people are fearful they tend to be willing to irrationally surrender their rights.
Thus, fear is a threat to rational liberty. The psychology of fear is an essential component of those who would have us believe we must increasingly rely on the elite who manage the apparatus of the central government.
The statement “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin. It is clear, people seek out safety and security when they are in a state of fear, and it is the result of this psychological state that often leads to the surrender of liberty.
As Washington moves towards its summer legislative recess, indications of fear are apparent. Things seem similar to the days before the war in Iraq. Prior to the beginning of the war, several government officials began using phrases like “we don’t want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” and they spoke of drone airplanes being sent to our country to do us great harm.
It is hard to overstate the damage this approach does psychologically, especially to younger people. Of course, we now know there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, let alone any capacity to put them to successful use.
To calm fears, Americans accepted the patriot act and the doctrine of pre-emptive war. We tolerated new laws that allow the government to snoop on us, listen to our phone calls, track our financial dealings, make us strip down at airports and even limited the rights of habeas corpus and trial by jury. Like some dysfunctional episode of the twilight zone, we allowed the summit of our imagination to be linked up with the pit of our fears.
Paranoia can be treated, but the loss of liberty resulting from the social psychology to which we continue to subject ourselves is not easily reversed. People who would have previously battled against encroachments on civil liberties now explain the “necessity” of those “temporary security measures” Franklin is said to have railed against.
Americans must reflect on their irrational fears if we are to turn the tide against the steady erosion of our freedoms. Fear is the enemy. The logically confusing admonition to “fear only fear” does not help, instead we must battle against irrational fear and the fear-mongers who promote it.
It is incumbent on a great nation to remain confident, if it wishes to remain free. We need not be ignorant to real threats to our safety, against which we must remain vigilant. We need only to banish to the ash heap of history the notion that we ought to be ruled by our fears and those who use them to enhance their own power.
July 30, 2007
Dr. Ron Paul, an obstetrician, is a Republican member of Congress from Texas E-Mail
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By Dr. Ron Paul
Recently, the General Accounting Office studied nineteen instances where the President issued so-called “signing statements.” In such statements, the President essentially begins the process of interpreting legislation – up to and including declaring provisions unconstitutional—hence often refusing to enforce them.
The GAO study found that in nearly 1/3 of the cases studied, the administration failed to enforce the law as enacted. This approach is especially worrisome for several reasons.
First, these signing statements tend to move authority from the legislative branch to the executive, thus upsetting our delicate system of checks and balances. Next, these statements grant the President power not given by the Constitution, allowing him to usurp powers of the judicial branch. Finally, the idea of agencies refusing to enforce the law as enacted sets precedent for the type of run away administrative actions our constitution was expressly enacted in order to avoid.
Although these signing statements are at record high numbers, the problem is not with a single administration. Contrary to the claims of those who raise this issue for purely political purposes, the most significant challenge to liberty presented by these statements is that they can serve to further erode our constitutional republic.
I have long been skeptical of the line item veto on spending bills for the same reason I oppose these signing statements. The legislature should not yield its authority to the executive. Our constitutional republic demands that all branches of government understand and respect our system and jealously guard their own prerogatives.
In modern Washington nothing is more misunderstood, and less appreciated, than the genius of republicanism. Presidents issue signing statements that effectively “approve in part and reject in part,” laws of the land—even though there is no constitutional provision for such a process. In addition, Congress cedes its powers at the crucial moment when a decision on whether or not a war is to be fought will be made, only to then criticize the effort it could have used its powers to stop.
In his Notes on Virginia, Thomas Jefferson spoke clearly and directly about the idea of elected representatives delegating their responsibility to other branches of government, saying in no uncertain terms that since such representatives had received their authority by delegation from the people-- expressly for the use as representative-- the legislature had to choose to either use the authority granted or return it to the people. In other words, there is to be no delegation of authority from the representatives to the executive branch of government.
Concerns with signing statements ought to include a concern for the health of our constitutional republic, it ought not to be based upon the political battle of the day. Regardless of whether the President is named Bush or Clinton, and without respect to any particular political interest, we in Congress need to fulfill our oath of office and protect and defend the constitution and our republic. Our constituents deserve no less, and should demand it of all of us.
July 9, 2007
Dr. Ron Paul, an obstetrician, is a Republican member of Congress from Texas E-Mail
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry In the Name of Patriotism (Who are the Patriots?) By Dr. Ron PaulIn the Name of Patriotism (Who are the Patriots?)
By Dr. Ron Paul
Hon. Ron Paul of Texas
In The House of Representatives May 22, 2007 For some, patriotism is “the last refuge of a scoundrel.” For others, it means dissent against a government’s abuse of the people’s rights.
I have never met a politician in Washington, or any American for that matter, who chose to be called “unpatriotic.” Nor have I met anyone who did not believe he wholeheartedly supported our troops wherever they may be.
What I have heard all too frequently from various individuals is sharp accusations that because their political opponents disagree with them on the need for foreign military entanglements, they were “unpatriotic, un-American, evil doers deserving contempt.”
The original American patriots were those individuals brave enough to resist with force the oppressive power of King George. I accept the definition of patriotism as that effort to resist oppressive state power. The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility, and out of self interest -- for himself, his family, and the future of his country -- to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state.
Resistance need not be violent, but the civil disobedience that might be required involves confrontation with the state and invites possible imprisonment.
Peaceful non-violent revolutions against tyranny have been every bit as successful as those involving military confrontation. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. achieved great political successes by practicing non-violence, yet they themselves suffered physically at the hands of the state.
But whether the resistance against government tyrants is non-violent or physically violent, the effort to overthrow state oppression qualifies as true patriotism.
True patriotism today has gotten a bad name—at least from the government and the press. Those who now challenge the unconstitutional methods of imposing an income tax on us, or force us to use a monetary system designed to serve the rich at the expense of the poor, are routinely condemned. These American patriots are sadly looked down upon by many. They are never praised as champions of liberty as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have been.
Liberals, who withhold their taxes as a protest against war, are vilified as well—especially by conservative statists.
Unquestioned loyalty to the state is especially demanded in times of war. Lack of support for a war policy is said to be unpatriotic. Arguments against a particular policy that endorses a war once it’s started, are always said to be endangering the troops in the field. This, they blatantly claim, is unpatriotic and all dissent must stop. Yet it is dissent from government policies that defines the true patriot and champion of liberty.
It is conveniently ignored that the only authentic way to best support the troops is to keep them out of dangerous, undeclared, no-win wars that are politically inspired. Sending troops off to war for reasons that are not truly related to national security -- and for that matter may even damage our security -- is hardly a way to “patriotically” support the troops.
Who are the true patriots: those who conform or those who protest against wars without purpose? How can it be said that blind support for war, no matter how misdirected the policy, is the duty of the patriot?
Randolph Bourne said that “war is the health of the state.” With war, he argued, the state thrives. Those who believe in the powerful state see war as an opportunity. Those who mistrust the people and the market for solving problems have no trouble promoting a “war psychology” to justify the expansive role of the state.
This includes the role the federal government plays in our personal lives as well as in all our economic transactions. And certainly the neo-conservative belief that we have a moral obligation to spread American values worldwide, through force, justifies the conditions of war in order to rally support at home for the heavy hand of government. It is through this policy, it should surprise no one, that our liberties are undermined, the economy becomes overextended, and our involvement worldwide becomes prohibitive.
Out of fear of being labeled unpatriotic, most citizens become compliant and accept the argument that some loss of liberty is required to fight the war in order to remain safe. This is a bad trade-off in my estimation, especially when done in the name of patriotism.
Loyalty to the state and to autocratic leaders is substituted for true patriotism—that is, a willingness to challenge the state and defend the country, the people, and the culture. The more difficult the times, the stronger the admonition becomes that the leaders be not criticized.
Because the crisis atmosphere of war supports the growth of the state, any problem invites an answer by declaring “war” -- even on social and economic issues. This elicits patriotism in support of various government solutions while enhancing the power of the state. Faith in government coercion and a lack of understanding of how free societies operate, encourages big government liberals and big government conservatives to manufacture a war psychology to demand political loyalty for domestic policy just as is required in foreign affairs. The long term cost in dollars spent and liberties lost is neglected as immediate needs are emphasized.
It is for this reason that we have multiple perpetual wars going on simultaneously. Thus the war on drugs, against gun ownership, poverty, illiteracy, and terrorism, as well as our foreign military entanglements, are endless.
All this effort promotes the growth of statism at the expense of liberty. A government designed for a free society should do the opposite: prevent the growth of statism and preserve liberty. Once a war of any sort is declared, the message is sent out not to object or you will be declared unpatriotic. Yet, we must not forget that the true patriot is the one who protests in spite of the consequences, condemnation or ostracism, or even imprisonment that may result.
Non-violent protesters of the tax code are frequently imprisoned—whether they are protesting the code’s unconstitutionality or the war that the tax revenues are funding.
Resisters to the military draft, or even to selective service registration, are threatened and imprisoned for challenging this threat to liberty.
Statism depends on the idea that the government owns us and citizens must obey. Confiscating the fruits of our labor through the income tax is crucial to the health of the state. The draft, or even the mere existence of the selective service, emphasizes that we will march off to war at the state’s pleasure. A free society rejects all notions of involuntary servitude whether by draft or the confiscation of the fruits of our labor through the personal income tax.
A more sophisticated and less well known technique for enhancing the state is the manipulation and transfer of wealth through the fiat monetary system operated by the secretive Federal Reserve. Protestors against this unconstitutional system of paper money are considered unpatriotic criminals and at times are imprisoned for their beliefs. The fact that, according to the Constitution, only gold and silver are legal tender and paper money is outlawed, matters little. The principle of patriotism is turned on its head.
Whether it’s with regard to the defense of welfare spending at home, confiscatory income tax, an immoral monetary system, or support for a war fought under false pretense without a legal declaration, the defenders of liberty and the Constitution are portrayed as unpatriotic while those who support these programs are seen as the patriots. If there’s a “war” going on, supporting the state’s efforts to win the war is expected at all costs. No dissent!
The real problem is that those who love the state too often advocate policies that lead to military action. At home they are quite willing to produce a crisis atmosphere and claim a war is needed to solve the problem. Under these conditions the people are more willing to bear the burden of paying for the war, and to carelessly sacrifice liberties which they are told is necessary.
The last six years have been quite beneficial to the “health of the state,” which comes at the expense of personal iberty. Every enhanced unconstitutional power of the state can only be achieved at the expense of individual liberty.
Even though every war in which we have been engaged civil liberties have suffered, some have been restored after the war ended, but never completely. This has resulted in a steady erosion of our liberties over the past 200 years. Our government was originally designed to protect our liberties, but it has now instead become the usurper of those liberties.
We currently live in the most difficult of times for guarding against an expanding central government with a steady erosion of our freedoms.
We are continually being reminded that “9/11 has changed everything.” Unfortunately, the policy that needed most to be changed—that is our policy of foreign interventionism—has only been expanded. There is no pretense any longer that a policy of humility in foreign affairs, without being the world’s policeman and engaging in nation building, is worthy of consideration. We now live in a post 9/11 America where our government is going to make us safe no matter what it takes. We’re expected to grin and bear it and adjust to every loss of our liberties in the name of patriotism and security.
Though the majority of Americans initially welcomed this declared effort to make us safe, and were willing to sacrifice for the cause, more and more Americans are now becoming concerned about civil liberties being needlessly and dangerously sacrificed. The problem is that the Iraq war continues to drag on and a real danger of its spreading exists. There’s no evidence that a truce will soon be signed in Iraq, or in the war on terror or drugs. Victory is not even definable. If Congress is incapable of declaring an official war, it’s impossible to know when it will end. We have been fully forewarned that the world conflict in which we’re now engaged will last a long, long time.
The war mentality, and the pervasive fear of an unidentified enemy, allows for a steady erosion of our liberties, and with this our respect for self reliance and confidence is lost. Just think of the self sacrifice and the humiliation we go through at the airport screening process on a routine basis. Though there’s no scientific evidence of any likelihood of liquids and gels being mixed on an airplane to make a bomb, billions of dollars are wasted throwing away toothpaste and hairspray and searching old women in wheelchairs.
Our enemies say boo, and we jump, we panic, and then we punish ourselves. We’re worse than a child being afraid of the dark. But in a way, the fear of indefinable terrorism is based on our inability to admit the truth about why there is a desire by a small number of angry radical Islamists to kill Americans. It’s certainly not because they are jealous of our wealth and freedoms.
We fail to realize that the extremists, willing to sacrifice their own lives to kill their enemies, do so out of a sense of weakness and desperation over real and perceived attacks on their way of life, their religion, their country and their natural resources. Without the conventional diplomatic or military means to retaliate against these attacks, and an unwillingness of their own government to address the issue, they resort to the desperation tactic of suicide terrorism. Their anger toward their own governments, which they believe are co-conspirators with the American government, is equal to or greater than that directed toward us. These errors in judgment in understanding the motive of the enemy and the constant fear that is generated have brought us to this crisis where our civil liberties and privacy are being steadily eroded in the name of preserving national security. We may be the economic and military giant of the world, but the effort to stop this war on our liberties here at home in the name of patriotism, is being lost.
The erosion of our personal liberties started long before 9/11, but 9/11 accelerated the process. There are many things that motivate those who pursue this course—both well-intentioned and malevolent. But it would not happen if the people remained vigilant, understood the importance of individual rights, and were unpersuaded that a need for security justifies the sacrifice of liberty—even if it’s just now and then.
The true patriot challenges the state when the state embarks on enhancing its power at the expense of the individual. Without a better understanding and a greater determination to reign in the state, the rights of Americans that resulted from the revolutionary break from the British and the writing of the Constitution, will disappear.
The record since September 11, 2001, is dismal. Respect for liberty has rapidly deteriorated.
Many of the new laws passed after 9/11 had in fact been proposed long before that attack. The political atmosphere after that attack simply made it more possible to pass such legislation. The fear generated by 9/11 became an opportunity for those seeking to promote the power of the state domestically, just as it served to falsely justify the long planned-for invasion of Iraq.
The war mentality was generated by the Iraq war in combination with the constant drum beat of fear at home. Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, who is now likely residing in Pakistan, our supposed ally, are ignored, as our troops fight and die in Iraq and are made easier targets for the terrorists in their backyard. While our leaders constantly use the mess we created to further justify the erosion of our constitutional rights here at home, we forget about our own borders and support the inexorable move toward global government—hardly a good plan for America.
The accelerated attacks on liberty started quickly after 9/11. Within weeks the Patriot Act was overwhelmingly passed by Congress. Though the final version was unavailable up to a few hours before the vote—no Member had sufficient time to read or understand it—political fear of “not doing something,” even something harmful, drove Members of Congress to not question the contents and just vote for it. A little less freedom for a little more perceived safety was considered a fair tradeoff—and the majority of Americans applauded.
The Patriot Act, though, severely eroded the system of checks and balances by giving the government the power to spy on law abiding citizens without judicial supervision. The several provisions that undermine the liberties of all Americans include: sneak and peak searches; a broadened and more vague definition of domestic terrorism; allowing the FBI access to libraries and bookstore records without search warrants or probable cause; easier FBI initiation of wiretaps and searches, as well as roving wiretaps; easier access to information on American citizens’ use of the internet; and easier access to e-mail and financial records of all American citizens.
The attack on privacy has not relented over the past six years. The Military Commissions Act is a particularly egregious piece of legislation and, if not repealed, will change America for the worse as the powers unconstitutionally granted to the Executive Branch are used and abused.
This act grants excessive authority to use secretive military commissions outside of places where active hostilities are going on. The Military Commissions Act permits torture, arbitrary detention of American citizens as unlawful enemy combatants at the full discretion of the president and without the right of Habeas Corpus, and warrantless searches by the NSA (National Security Agency). It also gives to the president the power to imprison individuals based on secret testimony.
Since 9/11, Presidential signing statements designating portions of legislation that the President does not intend to follow, though not legal under the Constitution, have enormously multiplied. Unconstitutional Executive Orders are numerous and mischievous and need to be curtailed.
Extraordinary rendition to secret prisons around the world has been widely engaged in, though obviously extra-legal. A growing concern in the post 9/11 environment is the federal government’s lists of potential terrorists based on secret evidence. Mistakes are made and sometimes it is virtually impossible to get one’s name removed, even though the accused is totally innocent of any wrongdoing.
A national ID card is now in the process of being implemented. It’s called the Real ID card and it’s tied to our Social Security numbers and our state driver’s license. If Real ID is not stopped it will become a national driver’s license/ID for all America.
Some of the least noticed and least discussed changes in the law were the changes made to the Insurrection Act of 1807 and to Posse Comitatus by the Defense Authorization Act of 2007.
These changes pose a threat to the survival of our republic by giving the president the power to declare martial law for as little reason as to restore “public order.” The 1807 Act severely restricted the president in his use of the military within the United States borders, and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 strengthened these restrictions with strict oversight by Congress. The new law allows the president to circumvent the restrictions of both laws. The Insurrection Act has now become the “Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act”. This is hardly a title that suggests that the authors cared about or understood the nature of a constitutional republic.
Now, martial law can be declared not just for “insurrection” but also for “natural disasters, public health reasons, terrorist attacks or incidents” or for the vague reason called “other conditions.” The President can call up the National Guard without Congressional approval or the governors’ approval and even send these state guard troops into other states.
The American republic is in remnant status. The stage is set for our country eventually devolving into a military dictatorship and few seem to care.
These precedent setting changes in the law are extremely dangerous and will change American jurisprudence forever if not reversed. The beneficial results of our revolt against the king’s abuses are about to be eliminated and few Members of Congress and few Americans are aware of the seriousness of the situation. Complacency and fear drive our legislation without any serious objection by our elected leaders.
Sadly, those few who do object to this self evident trend away from personal liberty and empire building overseas are portrayed as unpatriotic and uncaring.
Though welfare and socialism always fails, opponents of them are said to lack compassion. Though opposition to totally unnecessary war should be the only moral position, the rhetoric is twisted to claim that patriots who oppose the war are not “supporting the troops”. The cliché “support the troops” is incessantly used as a substitute for the unacceptable notion of “supporting the policy” no matter how flawed it may be. Unsound policy can never help the troops. Keeping the troops out of harm’s way and out of wars unrelated to our national security is the only real way of protecting the troops. With this understanding, just who can claim the title of “patriot”?
Before the war in the Middle East spreads and becomes a world conflict, for which we’ll be held responsible, or the liberties of all Americans become so suppressed we can no longer resist, much has to be done. Time is short but our course of action should be clear. Resistance to illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of our rights is required. Each of us must choose which course of action we should take—education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience, to bring about the necessary changes.
But let it not be said that we did nothing.
Let not those who love the power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty.
Dr. Ron Paul, an obstetrician, is a Republican member of Congress from Texas E-Mail
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By Dr. Ron Paul
“…man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.” —Ronald Reagan
We’ve all heard the words democracy and freedom used countless times, especially in the context of our invasion of Iraq. They are used interchangeably in modern political discourse, yet their true meanings are very different.
George Orwell wrote about “meaningless words” that are endlessly repeated in the political arena*. Words like “freedom,” “democracy,” and “justice,” Orwell explained, have been abused so long that their original meanings have been eviscerated. In Orwell’s view, political words were “Often used in a consciously dishonest way.” Without precise meanings behind words, politicians and elites can obscure reality and condition people to reflexively associate certain words with positive or negative perceptions. In other words, unpleasant facts can be hidden behind purposely meaningless language. As a result, Americans have been conditioned to accept the word “democracy” as a synonym for freedom, and thus to believe that democracy is unquestionably good.
The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this, as evidenced not only by our republican constitutional system, but also by their writings in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere. James Madison cautioned that under a democratic government, “There is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” John Adams argued that democracies merely grant revocable rights to citizens depending on the whims of the masses, while a republic exists to secure and protect pre-existing rights. Yet how many Americans know that the word “democracy” is found neither in the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence, our very founding documents?
A truly democratic election in Iraq, without U.S. interference and U.S. puppet candidates, almost certainly would result in the creation of a Shiite theocracy. Shiite majority rule in Iraq might well mean the complete political, economic, and social subjugation of the minority Kurd and Sunni Arab populations. Such an outcome would be democratic, but would it be free? Would the Kurds and Sunnis consider themselves free? The administration talks about democracy in Iraq, but is it prepared to accept a democratically-elected Iraqi government no matter what its attitude toward the U.S. occupation? Hardly. For all our talk about freedom and democracy, the truth is we have no idea whether Iraqis will be free in the future. They’re certainly not free while a foreign army occupies their country. The real test is not whether Iraq adopts a democratic, pro-western government, but rather whether ordinary Iraqis can lead their personal, religious, social, and business lives without interference from government.
Simply put, freedom is the absence of government coercion. Our Founding Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else. States, not the federal government, were charged with protecting individuals against criminal force and fraud. For the first time, a government was created solely to protect the rights, liberties, and property of its citizens. Any government coercion beyond that necessary to secure those rights was forbidden, both through the Bill of Rights and the doctrine of strictly enumerated powers. This reflected the founders’ belief that democratic government could be as tyrannical as any King.
Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.
The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants, always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive-- and thus incompatible with freedom. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government.
The political right equates freedom with national greatness brought about through military strength. Like the left, modern conservatives favor an all-powerful central state-- but for militarism, corporatism, and faith-based welfarism. Unlike the Taft-Goldwater conservatives of yesteryear, today’s Republicans are eager to expand government spending, increase the federal police apparatus, and intervene militarily around the world. The last tenuous links between conservatives and support for smaller government have been severed. “Conservatism,” which once meant respect for tradition and distrust of active
government, has transformed into big-government utopian grandiosity.
Orwell certainly was right about the use of meaningless words in politics. If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to deceive us. We must reassert that America is a republic, not a democracy, and remind ourselves that the Constitution places limits on government that no majority can overrule. We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless designations of “liberals” and “conservatives,” in favor of an accurate term for both: statists.
Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word.
*Politics and the English Language, 1946.
February 7, 2005
Dr. Ron Paul, an obstetrician, is a Republican member of Congress from Texas E-Mail
Article References:
George Orwell: Politics and the English Language (1946)
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry The First Amendment Protects Religious Speech By Dr. Ron PaulThe First Amendment Protects Religious Speech
By Dr. Ron Paul
Hon. Ron Paul of Texas
In The House of Representatives April 2, 2003 Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce legislation restoring First amendment protections of religion and religious speech. For fifty years, the personal religious freedom of this nation's citizens has been infringed upon by courts that misread and distort the First amendment. The framers of the Constitution never in their worst nightmares imagined that the words, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech......." would be used to ban children from praying in school, prohibit courthouses from displaying the Ten Commandments, or prevent citizens from praying before football games. The original meaning of the First amendment was clear on these two points: The federal government cannot enact laws establishing one religious denomination over another, and the federal government cannot forbid mention of religion, including the Ten Commandments and references to God.
In case after case, the Supreme Court has used the infamous "separation of church and state" metaphor to uphold court decisions that allow the federal government to intrude upon and deprive citizens of their religious liberty. This "separation" doctrine is based upon a phrase taken out of context from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists on January 1, 1802. In the letter, Jefferson simply reassures the Baptists that the First amendment would preclude an intrusion by the federal government into religious matters between denominations. It is ironic and sad that a letter defending the principle that the federal government must stay out of religious affairs. Should be used two hundred years later to justify the Supreme Court telling a child that he cannot pray in school!
The Court completely disregards the original meaning and intent of the First amendment. It has interpreted the establishment clause to preclude prayer and other religious speech in a public place, thereby violating the free exercise clause of the very same First amendment. Therefore, it is incumbent upon Congress to correct this error, and to perform its duty to support and defend the Constitution. My legislation would restore First amendment protections of religion and speech by removing all religious freedom-related cases from federal district court jurisdiction, as well as from federal claims court jurisdiction. The federal government has no constitutional authority to reach its hands in the religious affairs of its citizens or of the several states.
As James Madison said, "There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation." I sincerely hope that my colleagues will fight against the "gradual and silent encroachment" of the courts upon our nation's religious liberties by supporting this bill.
Dr. Ron Paul, an obstetrician, is a Republican member of Congress from Texas E-Mail
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry What Does The First Amendment Relly Mean? By Dr. Ron PaulWhat Does The First Amendment Relly Mean?
By Dr. Ron Paul
The entire nation seemed to condemn last week’s federal court ruling that the pledge of allegiance cannot be recited in schools. The notion that the phrase "one nation under God" renders the pledge unconstitutional is ridiculous to most Americans, who strongly believe that expressions of religious belief should be an integral part of public life. Yet although the public outcry against this terrible ruling is understandable, the real issue of religious freedom has not been addressed by Congress or the media.
The judges who made this unfortunate ruling simply do not understand the First amendment. It does not bar religious expression in public settings or anywhere else. In fact, it expressly prohibits federal interference in the free expression of religion. Far from mandating strict secularism in schools, it instead bars the federal government from prohibiting the pledge of allegiance, school prayer, or any other religious expression. The politicians and judges pushing the removal of religion from public life are violating the First amendment, not upholding it.
It’s important to recognize that the First amendment applies only to Congress. Remember, the first sentence starts with "Congress shall make no law..." This means that matters of religious freedom and expression should be decided by the states, with disputes settled in state courts. The First amendment acts as a simple check on federal power, ensuring that the federal government has no jurisdiction or authority whatsoever over religious issues. The phony "incorporation" doctrine, dreamed up by activist judges to pervert the plain meaning of the Constitution, was used once again by a federal court to assume jurisdiction over a case that constitutionally was none of its business.
Similarly, the mythical separation of church and state doctrine has no historical or constitutional basis. Neither the language of the Constitution itself nor the legislative history reveals any mention of such separation. In fact, the authors of the First amendment- Fisher Ames and Elbridge Gerry- and the rest of the founders routinely referred to "Almighty God" in their writings, including the Declaration of Independence. It is only in the last 50 years that federal courts have perverted the meaning of the amendment and sought to unlawfully restrict religious expression. We cannot continue to permit our Constitution and our rich
religious institutions to be degraded by profound misinterpretations of the Bill of Rights.
I previously introduced legislation entitled "The First Amendment Restoration Act" to address this kind of judicial overreach and reassert true First amendment religious freedoms. The bill becomes especially timely now, as it clarifies that federal courts have no jurisdiction whatsoever over matters of religious freedom. It also restores real religious freedom by making it clear that the federal government cannot forbid expressions of religion, including the Ten Commandments, in either public or private life.
July 1, 2002
Dr. Ron Paul, an obstetrician, is a Republican member of Congress from Texas E-Mail
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry Were the Founding Fathers Wrong about Foreign Affairs? By Dr. Ron PaulWere the Founding Fathers Wrong about Foreign Affairs?
By Dr. Ron Paul
Last week I appeared on a national television news show to discuss recent events in the Middle East. During the show I merely suggested that there are two sides to the dispute, and that the focus of American foreign policy should be the best interests of America - not Palestine or Israel. I argued that American interests are best served by not taking either side in this ancient and deadly conflict, as Washington and Jefferson counseled when they warned against entangling alliances. I argued against our crazy policy of giving hundred of billions of dollars in unconstitutional foreign aid and military weapons to both sides, which only intensifies the conflict and never buys peace. My point was simple: we should follow the Constitution and stay out of foreign wars.
I was immediately attacked for offering such heresy. We’ve reached the point where virtually everyone in Congress, the administration, and the media blindly accepts that America must become involved (financially and militarily) in every conflict around the globe. To even suggest otherwise in today’s political climate is to be accused of "aiding terrorists." It’s particularly ironic that so many conservatives in America, who normally adopt an "America first" position, cannot see the obvious harm that results from our being dragged time and time again into an intractable and endless Middle East war. The empty justification is always that America is the global superpower, and thus has no choice but to police the world.
The Founding Fathers saw it otherwise. Jefferson summed up the noninterventionist foreign policy position perfectly in his 1801 inaugural address: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations- entangling alliances with none." How many times have we all heard these wise words without taking them to heart? How many champion Jefferson and the Constitution, but conveniently ignore both when it comes to American foreign policy? Washington similarly urged that the US must "Act for ourselves and not for others," by forming an "American character wholly free of foreign attachments." Since so many on Capitol Hill apparently now believe Washington was wrong, they should at least have the intellectual honesty to admit it next time his name is being celebrated.
In fact, when I mentioned Washington the other guest on the show quickly repeated the tired cliche that "We don’t live in George Washington’s times." Yet if we accept this argument, what other principles from that era should we discard? Should we give up the First amendment because times have changed? How about the rest of the Bill of Rights? It’s hypocritical and childish to dismiss certain founding principles simply because a convenient rationale is needed to justify foolish policies today. The principles enshrined in the Constitution do not change. If anything, today’s more complex world cries out for the moral clarity provided by a noninterventionist foreign policy.
It’s easy to dismiss the noninterventionist view as the quaint aspiration of men who lived in a less complicated world, but it’s not so easy to demonstrate how our current policies serve any national interest at all. Perhaps an honest examination of the history of American interventionism in the 20th century, from Korea to Vietnam to Kosovo to the Middle East, would reveal that the Founding Fathers foresaw more than we think.
April 15, 2002
Dr. Ron Paul, an obstetrician, is a Republican member of Congress from Texas E-Mail
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry The Electoral College Serves to Protect Liberty and Statehood By Dr. Ron PaulThe Electoral College Serves to Protect Liberty and Statehood
By Dr. Ron Paul
As this column is written, America still does not know the final results of the 2000 presidential election. After a long and bitter campaign fight, neither party is ready to accept defeat gracefully. The margin of victory for either candidate will be exceedingly narrow, and challenges to the validity of the results surely will follow. Both campaigns may bring legal actions which could take months to resolve. Should Governor Bush prevail despite having lost the popular vote, we may see proposals in Congress to eliminate the electoral college. Angry calls to obey "the will of the people" will be heard in Washington and the popular media. The pundits will argue that it is not fair to deny the presidency to the man who received the most total votes. After all, to do so would be "undemocratic."
This argument ignores the fundamental nature of our constitutional system. The Founding Fathers sought to create a loose confederacy of states, joined together by a federal government with very little power. They created a constitutionally limited republic, not a direct democracy. They did so to protect fundamental liberties against the whims of the masses. The electoral college likewise was created in the Constitution to guard against majority tyranny in federal elections. The President was to be elected by the states rather than the citizenry as a whole, with votes apportioned to states according to their representation in Congress. The will of the people was to be tempered by the wisdom of the electoral college.
By contrast, election of the President by pure popular vote totals would damage statehood. Populated areas on both coasts would have increasing influence on national elections, to the detriment of less populated southern and western states. A candidate receiving a large percentage of the popular vote in California and New York could win a national election with very little support in dozens of other states! A popular vote system simply would intensify the populist pandering which already dominates national campaigns.
Not surprisingly, calls to abolish the electoral college system are heard most loudly among the liberal/collectivist elites concentrated largely on the two coasts. Liberals favor a very strong centralized federal government, and have contempt for the concept of states' rights. They believe the federal government is omnipotent, and that individual states should not have the power to challenge directives sent down from Washington. Their real goal is the abolition of statehood, because strong states represent a threat to their centralized collectivist agenda. The electoral college system threatens liberals because it allows states to elect the President, and in many states the majority of voters still believe in limited government and the Constitution. Citizens in southern and western states in particular tend to value individual liberty, property rights, gun rights, and religious freedom, values which are abhorrent to the collectivist elites. The collectivists care about centralized power, not democracy. Their efforts to discredit the electoral college system are an attempt to limit the voting power of pro-liberty states.
With the presidential election still undecided, America is at an historic crossroads. Neither candidate will enjoy a public mandate or the usual honeymoon period in the White House. The partisan rancor is likely to increase in Congress. The already narrow Republican majority in the House has diminished, while the Senate may well be evenly divided between the parties. A lame duck congressional session is scheduled to complete the unfinished appropriations bills for 2001, which could not be finalized in the poisoned atmosphere before the elections. Relations between Congressional Republicans and the administration have deteriorated in the aftermath of presidential vetoes of hard fought legislation. This divisiveness underscores the larger issue facing the nation in the electoral college debate, which is the conflict between collectivism and freedom. Perhaps the uncertainty of the recent elections will cause Americans to rethink the role of the federal government in their lives.
November 13, 2000
Dr. Ron Paul, an obstetrician, is a Republican member of Congress from Texas E-Mail
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http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry The Blessings of Liberty at Christmas By Dr. Ron PaulThe Blessings of Liberty at Christmas
By Dr. Ron Paul
As a strong believer in liberty and constitutionally limited government, I often find myself opposing Congress and the administration on a wide variety of legislative and policy matters. The fight to preserve and restore liberty seems endless, and it is tempting for liberty-minded Americans to feel overwhelmed by the battle. Oftentimes the outlook from Washington appears bleak; new threats to freedom arise constantly. Yet while freedom indeed requires eternal vigilance, we also must remember to take time to reflect upon and celebrate our great fortune as American citizens. The Christmas holiday provides us an opportunity to turn our attention away from the political landscape, and focus on our families and loved ones. It is very important that we appreciate the blessings of liberty we all enjoy as Americans, blessings which are easy to overlook when we are caught up in our daily lives. Our freedom is our greatest national treasure and resource. Countless thousands have died protecting it in wars; countless others have risked everything to reach American soil. As you celebrate the holidays with your families, I urge you to celebrate our freedoms as well.
America is the only nation truly conceived in liberty. The Founding Fathers, weary of oppression and taxation by a faraway king, made the heroic decision to secede and stake a claim to their own nation. They sought to disavow centuries of tribal warring, medieval feudalism, and collectivist rule by tyrants of every stripe. For the first time in human history they created a governmental system where the state existed to serve the individual, rather than vice versa. It is impossible to overstate how radical this notion was at the time (and still is today). They created the first society where individual human happiness was held up as an ideal. The limited state established by the Constitution was charged with fostering that happiness by protecting property rights and preventing aggression. The courage of our Founders, clearly demonstrated in the resulting secessionist war with England, was fueled by their unquenchable desire to be free. Their daring set the stage for the emergence of the America we enjoy today.
225 years later, our undeniable status as the greatest nation on earth is due to our origins as a free society. America is a place of unequaled prosperity. Our capitalist economic system, which is the only system compatible with freedom, creates affluence far beyond that of any other country. Capitalism provides the incentive for tremendous individual achievement, which benefits society as a whole. Americans of all economic classes enjoy a better standard of living and greater opportunities than the inhabitants of any other nation.
Innovations in medical science, particularly preventative and emergency care, allow us to lead happier and healthier lives than ever before. These innovations, combined with improvements in diet, have vastly increased our average life expectancy. New drugs permit us to eradicate or lessen the severity of a multitude of diseases. Young Americans today can look forward to leading far longer and more comfortable lives than their parents and grandparents.
The American information technology industry continues to lead the world. Our software and internet companies dominate the worldwide marketplace (not coincidentally, high tech is our least regulated industry). Talented individuals in technological fields have come to the U.S. from around the globe, increasing our competitive advantage. The technological boom of the past decade, and the resulting rise in technology markets, was largely an American phenomenon. America is poised to continue to lead the world in information technology in the new century, to the benefit of all Americans.
Liberty is the cornerstone upon which the greatness of America is based. Our prosperity and status as a world leader surely will continue if we strive to foster liberty at home. The challenges before us are great, but we must never forget to appreciate the wonderful liberty we enjoy every day.
December 25, 2000
Dr. Ron Paul, an obstetrician, is a Republican member of Congress from Texas E-Mail
Related Dr. Ron Paul Article:
Christmas in Secular America By Ron Paul
(Ron Paul Library, Dec. 29, 2003) http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=337 Related Posts:
Truth Point Article Selection 1: Dr. Ron Paul http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3328.entry Truth Point Article Selection Index
http://truthpoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3E1C89D2FC2BD759!3402.entry |
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