There’s no free speech!

I hear this all the time, especially on the Internet.  There’s no free speech, my posts are being censored!  There’s no free speech, Helen Thomas (or General McChrystal) got fired!  Whaaaaaa!!!

This worries me because if people don’t understand what the First Amendment guarantees, that does not bode well for their understanding of the rest of the Constitution.  The Constitution makes a simple guarantee in regards to free speech: Congress shall pass no law abridging free expression.

That is all.  The Constitution only guarantees that the government may not abridge your right to free expression of certain types (generally, political) speech.  Once we leave the realm of government involvement, we are on private property, and the role of government more or less ceases.

When you are on private property, for example an Internet forum or comment site, the owner of the site can set their own terms for what they will accept and what they will reject.  In your relationship with your employer, your employer can set standards for acceptable conduct and unacceptable conduct.  There was a young soldier recently arrested for violating the “free speech” conditions of his contract by leaking material to the so-called press.

It is important for people to be generally happy.  A good, sound understanding of basic legal principles like this contribute to happiness.  One last, closing point.  The law and the legal system has nothing to do with “right” and “wrong”.  The legal system dispenses “justice”, which is the application of some certain law to a set of conditions.  Nothing to do with what’s right or wrong (that is what our so-called representatives try to encode in the law).  If more Americans understood all this, we would be a much happier country.  And a happier country is a better country.

G’day all, and may God continue to bless America!

CA to legalize pot?

It looks like California is set to take a run at legalizing marijuana, and I say “Right on!”.  I also say, “Wait a minute!”.  I think the supporters of this movement intend for legalization to mean “decriminalization” but for everything else to continue as today.  Hoo!Hoo!  What a giant mistake that would be!!!  Legalizing pot the way this proposal intends, without statewide regulation, will simply reduce consumer crime without fixing any of the other problems (and in fact, perhaps exacerbating them).

No legalization without regulation!

Legalization without regulation is fiasco.  Marijuana should be brought under a system similar to the alcohol and tobacco industries.  Growers, processors, distributors, retailers, and the product itself should be regulated, controlled, and taxed.  Without regulation of this sort, here’s what you will have:

1) Growers operating in anarchy, who knows what product they will produce, how much of it they’ve produced or whether they paid taxes on the proceeds?

2) Producers and distributors in rivalry with other producers and distributors, little change from the antisocial situation we have today, and again, no control of tax revenues.

3) Same story for retailers, with every pot shop becoming a mini-blight on the neighborhood.  Customers walking out of the store with a product that has no state revenue stamp to assure what it is, and that tax has been paid on it.

We know how to do this so that there is zero room for criminal activity and no loopholes through which tax revenue can escape.  Legalize pot ASAP, but don’t throw this into anarchy.  There are going concerns standing by who could handle the growing, production, distribution, and retail with appropriate measures to insure the law is complied with and taxes are paid.

No legalization without regulation!!!

G’day all, and may God continue to bless America!

Joe Barton

Joe Barton, ranking Republican on the energy committee, gave the Democrats the greatest of gifts with his defense of BP.

I don’t care where you come down on this, if you ring the stupid bell, it helps your adversary.  As you may know by now, I want to see pragmatism reintroduced, to assist with restoring prosperity for America.  Yet foo’s like Joe Barton, with their comic book political philosophy, are doing everything possible to give every advantage to the Progressives (Democrats).

Every Tea Party rally peals off more voters than it attracts.  This election in November was the Republican’s to lose (meaning, they had a great advantage to begin with, due to current events).  The fundamentalists in and around the Party (Limbaugh, Hannity, Palin, Tea Party, etc) are torpedoes in the engineroom.

Of course there is room in the Republican Party for all, but as long as the fringe is setting the agenda, and as in Joe Barton’s case, acting as spokesperson, the party is going to achieve less and fail more.  As you may also know, when the Democratic Party left me, I registered as a Republican.  Now I watch this party crumbling day by day, when it is so simple.  Be pragmatic, be principled, be expansive.  Don’t say goofy things (let the other side say the goofy things, that way you can come across as reasonable and responsible).  Remember this: that which appeals most to your base, are most repellant to the voters you need to win.

I pray for a change of government in November.  The Nation is on its knees.  We are at a watershed.

G’night all, and may God continue to bless America!

Lynn Woolsey has abandoned the President

There will be more to this piece, but I’m putting this stub up as a placeholder and to whet your appetite.  I intend to tell anyone interested how Lynn Woolsey has abandoned President Obama and the Democratic Party.  She left orbit some time ago and is now dragging her followers along on a one-way trip to an uninhabited rock.  And the rock is uninhabited for a reason: it is uninhabitable.

How Woolsey has abandoned President Obama, the Democratic Party, and all sense of responsibility and reason … more to come.

Okay, I’m back (thanks for the patience).  I was a lifelong Democrat, and a liberal Democrat at that.  My folks weren’t any of those Dixiecrats, traditional Democratic Southerners.  They were Northern, immigrant, borderline-Socialist Democrats.  And that’s what I grew up with, and it made a lot of sense in the 60’s, 70’s (except it was a little embarrassing when James Carter was President).  It made sense in the 80’s and 90’s, too.  But somewhere around the turn of the century, and I really don’t remember when, being a liberal Democrat began to lose its appeal.

I will admit freely, it may have been me.  Turning 50 puts a person in that range where, “If you aren’t a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart; if you aren’t a conservative when you’re old, you have no brain”.  But I do believe that the attraction of liberal Democratism began to fade for me with changes in the party itself.

The Northern, liberal Democratic Party of John Kennedy began to lose sway somewhere along the line.  The Progressive (and environmentalist) element of the Democratic Party led that party away from idealistic yet pragmatic policies toward the folly of radicalism.  I remember when Barbara Boxer entered the Senate for the first time, marching down the aisle with her fist thrust into the air.  I was put off by that, I didn’t care for the radical and violent imagery of that display, and it seemed to childish and ultimately unSenatorial.  And things just got worse from there.

The Progressive (environmentalists) are a radical group and they favor the words and images of violence.  To my personal recollection, this began with the “Billy Jack” movies of the, gosh, whenever that was … early 1970’s?  In those movies, a despicable right wing strawman was constructed so that the liberal hero, Billy Jack, could kick him in the face.  The fact is, the Peace Movement was absolutely loaded with rage, anger, and ultimately violence (hard to forget the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, the list just goes on). 

Finally, I suppose, at this point in my life and with the takeover of the Democratic Party by the Progressive (environmentalists), I am disgusted and repelled by the violence in words and imagery.  Andy “We Know Where They Live” Stern of the SEIU is just the latest and one of the more blatant practitioners of this “communication by confrontation”.  How often do I need to hear Chairman Mao’s quote that “power comes from the muzzle of a gun” before I begin to worry that someone is going to take that to heart?  This polarization, demonization, violence of words and imagery, and faux-revolutionary posturing are so much a part of the Progressive (environmentalist) movement that has taken over the Democratic Party that it is impossible for me to continue to associate myself with that group.

I left the Democratic Party and registered as a Republican to distance myself from that violence of words and imagery, to rebuke the polarization and demonization, and to deny the inescapably Marxist-inspired hatred of capitalism and corporations.

Of course, corporations, and capitalism in general, require government regulation and oversight.  But capitalism is undeniably the most effective and efficient organization yet devised for improving the lives of the greatest number of people.  No other form of economy has been as reliable or prolific in generating the widespread wealth that elevate people above famine, develop and provide public health and medical care, deliver the opportunity for education, and the chance for individuals to exploit their full potential.  Most emphatically YES, there are inequities, everyone doesn’t end up with the same amount.  Systems that try to accomplish that as a goal end up delivering orders of magnitude less overall … everyone outside the ruling elite suffers.

So not only have the Progressive (environmentalists) forced violence of words and imagery upon the entire Democratic Party, they have rejected capitalism and demonized corporations.  But it doesn’t stop there, hoho, ohhhhh no.  The Progressive (environmentalist) movement is absolutely determined to redefine basic principles of America.

I was recently in an online conversation with an avowed Progressive who claimed that our rights come from us, that our rights are “whatever we decide they should be”.  I argued vehemently that our rights come from the Creator, and quoted the preamble to the Declaration of Independence as prima facia evidence of such.  I was stunned when he responded that the Constitution said no such thing, and it, after all, is the law of the land.  Nearly (but not quite) dumbstruck, I explained to him that the Constitution did not repeal the Declaration of Independence.  And that the Founders originally had not intended to enumerate anything about rights in the Constitution, since they had already written their thoughts on that in the Declaration (the Bill of Rights was a necessary compromise, added later).  He then claimed that the Creator gave us the right to “independence from Britain”, but of course the Preamble itself easily refutes that particular idiocy.

This is a very dangerous tack being taken by the Progressive (environmentalists).  My correspondent was practicing the Progressive “talking points” for fundamentally rewriting who and what we are.  Anyone and everyone who is not a radical, extremist Progressive (environmentalist) needs to understand this “talking point” and be ready to respond effectively.

So on those grounds, I have left the Democratic Party.  I have no ill-will toward good faith Democrats, even liberal Democrats.  Anyone who accepts the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights for what they are, anyone who gives America credit where due, anyone who understands that no democracy pleases everyone all the time, anyone who accepts capitalism, any and all of those people are fine by me.  But the Progressive (environmentalist) element that has lodged itself like a cancerous tumor within the Democratic Party, and I can no longer be part of that.

Which brings me to Lynn Woolsey.  The Representative from the California Sixth Congressional District is the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.  It’s not just that she’s a really bad Congressperson, which she is (she spends more time giving speeches to an empty chamber than anyone else).  She is unresponsive to constituents, she has an ineffectual staff (indicating bad leadership), and she is arrogant (“they’ll learn to like it”).  Plus, she is the leading Progressive and poison to the Democratic Party.  On this, she has abandoned President Obama at just the time when he needs the good will and support of all Americans.

I honestly believe that now that he’s seen the reality of being President, Obama is trying to moderate some of his policies and messages (which, from the beginning, may have been more an appeal to the radical Progressives than actual belief).  In his eyes now, when he speaks, I see someone rapidly becoming a pragmatist.  But Woolsey and her pack are throwing childish tantrums to demand that the President follow their plan and the heck with whatever wreckage it inflicts on the Nation.  She threatened to vote against HCR because it wasn’t radical enough.  When the President is trying to lead us in a successful war against Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan, Woolsey continues to chastise him for everything we do there.

The Progressive (environmentalists) have driven all the good out of the Democratic Party, and now they have abandoned President Obama when he needs support more than ever.  I won’t associate with that movement, and therefore I had no choice but to leave the party of my parents.  I have found the Republican Party far more thoughtful, far more pragmatic, equally idealistic, and a whole heck of a lot happier and better adjusted than the Progressives.

The Progressive (environmental) movement is poisonous to America, perhaps even more poisonous than classic Marxism, because it masquerades as being “homegrown” and therefore somehow more “American”.  Fact is, the current Progressive philosophy grew out of post-WWI Leninism and Stalinism, before the Soviet Union became an international imperialist power (DNA from the Czars, after all), and ultimately collapsed of its socialism-induced inefficiency.  From 1928-1932, collectivization in the USSR was proceeding so quickly and (apparently) efficiently that Stalin had to issue a warning to his own people to not bite off too much.  These were the glory years of one socialist achievement after another, when those who shaped the New Deal were learning their socialism.

Woolsey is the leading Progressive, the den mother of the movement, she isn’t even be a Democrat.  As long as she is in the Democratic Party, I am out.  John Kennedy shared more with today’s Republican Party than he would have with today’s Progressives.  Speaking of which, and a closing final point, I have no tolerance for Progressive appeals that invoke the memory of “WWII and the Space Program”.  These are nothing but cynical and transparent appeals for united effort to accomplish one or the other of their cherished goals.

The America that won WWII and accomplished President Kennedy’s objective is almost, very nearly dead.  After 40 years of overbearing, increasingly intrusive, and ever more restrictive government, we are no longer that nation.  The Progressives have done everything possible to destroy that America, and now they want us to be stirred to their causes by those memories.  To those appeals, I have only “shut up and leave me alone” to say in response.

Okey, I’m done and out of here.  This topic needs more work, but I hope this gives you the basic idea.  Lynn Woolsey has led the Progressives to abandon our President when, whether we may have voted for him or not, he needs the support and assistance of all Americans.  Progressives like Woolsey will use anyone, anyway they please, for their own carefully concealed ends.  She has wrecked the Democratic Party, and now it is time to fire her.

G’day all, and may God continue to bless America!

Understand first, fix second

That is, how to get our economy out of the ditch and back on the tracks.  There are two extremes.  On the Left, the only acceptable solution(*)  is to “spend our way to prosperity”.  On the Right, it is “cut taxes, especially marginal income tax rates”.  The two sides are shouting at other across an abyss, neither side is moving, neither side has a fresh, new idea.  Meanwhile, America writhes in agony, the people becoming increasingly disenchanted, checking out in droves, retreating to every crazier extreme positions.

(*) In my last task before I retired, I was routinely lectured by the IT Director about the difference between a “requirement” and a “solution”.  He would say, “You can’t go to solutions until you’ve defined the requirement.”  Entering all this as an IT amateur, I figured it was all just more bureaucratic double-talk, intended to prolong the process and avoid ever producing a tangible product.  In the end, I came to understand his meaning.

Cutting taxes and/or increased spending are both “solutions”.  The politicians, and the public, are screaming to throw one or more solution(s) at the problem before they understand the problem, much less have a defined “requirement”.  There is no place for solutions until the problem is understood.

This flawed process of solutions without understanding will probably go on as long as external forces allow it, then it will collapse.  The second, far less likely, scenario is that three or four opinion leaders on each side will realize that the adults are gone, no one is going to save them from destroying their Nation, they’ll have an “Ah!Ha!” moment and realize they are now responsible.  At that point, pray God, they will call a truce and begin working on an understanding of the long term problems, and then possibly solutions.  Then again, maybe that’s just my crazy optimism and uncrushable hope for America.

The problem we confront is a loss of our manufacturing base.  I’ll pick a number here and say that 30% of the population doesn’t need and doesn’t care about the manufacturing base.  They are academics, entertainers, entrepreneurs, government workers, etc, etc.  Or they just don’t work and support themselves at all.  The other 70%+/- of the population needs a job to go to work at where, through their skill and efforts, they can add sufficient value to the process and product to justify a wage that will support them, plus at least one additional person.

There is nothing to replace those jobs.  We cannot all be entrepreneurs, comedians, government workers, songwriters, or unemployed.  No matter what education you give folks, 70% will, by their very brain wiring, need a job where someone else takes care of creating the infrastructure so they can concentrate on what they do within that infrastructure.  Those manufacturing jobs bring prosperity wherever they go, and right now while we struggle mightily to avoid facing the truth, those jobs are bringing prosperity to China and other points “over there”.

Protectionism won’t work and we shouldn’t even think about it.  There are other policy tools available to insure that American workers have a fair shot at a job that will allow them to add value to process and product, and allow them to support self and family.  Without addressing these underlying structural issues, spending more money or cutting taxes is simply pouring fresh water into the ocean.

What can you do?  Demand that your politician, or candidate, explain the problem to you before proposing solutions.  Then challenge any assumptions with facts and probing questions.  Be persistent, have faith, never lose optimism.

G’day all, and may God continue to bless America!

Fire Lynn Woolsey – Hire Jim Judd

I’ve mentioned before that I want to fire Lynn Woolsey, Representative from the California 6th Congressional District (Marin and most of Sonoma Counties).  I’ve also mentioned supporting Jim Judd before.  Now I want to tie these two together, and explain why.

Jim and I don’t agree on everything, in fact there are areas where we disagree quite a bit.  And I’m in no way obliged to support him, I’m a newly registered Republican and still a little uneasy in that suit of clothes.  But I urge you to make the choice in November, and cross party lines if necessary, to cast your vote for Jim Judd for Congress.

Here’s why.  First, from a standing start, he put together a campaign with organization, ideas, and energy to trounce his more experienced primary opponent.  Starting with a vote base of zero, he outpolled his opponent by 2-1.  This is a very impressive achievement and bodes well for his ability to run a staff and be effective in Washington.

Second, Jim has clear core values that allow anyone to figure out where he’s going to come down on any issue, now or in the future.  He isn’t a policy wonk, with elaborate positions and explanations on every issue.  He knows what he stands for, and so can you.

Third, this is a watershed year.  After decades of dire warnings regarding the federal budget deficit, we have reached the end of our rope.  We either do something now, or events will take on a life of their own.  Jim is on the right side of this watershed, and Lynn Woolsey is on the wrong side.

That’s enough to convince me.  But perhaps you’re looking for a reason to not vote for Lynn Woolsey.  Here’s what I have to offer you.  First she is remote and unresponsive.  Frankly, despite numerous attempts, I have never received anything like an acceptable reply to any issue from her or her office.  Her office door is locked, with a peephole and a “Please knock” sign.  She deigns to lecture her constituents (“You’ll learn to like it”).  She has been in government too long, and has become too arrogant.  She spends excessive amounts of time giving speeches to an empty House chamber, just grandstanding.

So with that I close, asking you to give consideration to this Jim Judd guy.  G’day, and may God continue to bless America!

Coming to agree with Obama

When this story first broke, I thought to myself, “What a hypocrite!”.  What is this fraud doing, criticizing the online information culture when he so assiduously and effectively used that culture to get elected?  What’s he trying to do, pull up the drawbridge behind himself, lock away all the cool stuff for himself?

After expanding my research to Internet forums and discussion boards outside my normal round of regular places, I am now coming to agree with President Obama (and other commentators).  The Public Square is being filled with the noisiest, more narrow-minded, most intransigent, least thoughtful, most ideologically rigid, most ill-mannered and uncivil population assembled since, probably, well I don’t even know!

Clearly, it’s one thing to disagree on issues.  It’s another thing altogether to simply repeat unfounded positions with increasing volume and fervor while increasing the attack quotient on anyone who disagrees.  That is what’s going on at a lot of Internet forums and message boards, even those that are “moderated”.  I personally believe that there is a real risk here.  That the risk is of splinter groups (either organized, or more likely simply rallying around existing hatreds or heeding the call if Internet-based urban legends) using this environment to polish their message, recruit convert, indoctrinate, and coordinate the efforts of a zombie Internet Army of the Undead.

Oh, well, that’s just me.  Everyone can and should make their own decisions about how much or how little to participate in the Internet “social fabric”.  I offer this only as my personal words of caution … most of the stuff on the Internet is wrong.  And a lot of it is based on hatreds and prejudices that the people who foster it on the Internet would never voice in real life.  Of course, there is a risk to abandoning the environment.  That removes what little fresh air and light that is brought to these splinter venues by thoughtful, reasonable citizens.

I do appreciate your time, and hope you will think about this issue and make your own decision.  Perhaps President Obama just didn’t state the case clearly and sort of mangled the message by including entertainment devices.  He also probably didn’t want to just open fire the way we denizens of the Internet are so prone to do <g>.

G’day all, and may God continue to bless America!

Freedom of speech in the public domain

Howdy, all.  You’re probably not aware that I’ve spent the last couple days over at the HuffingtonPost forums, drawn like a moth to the flame.  The place is crawling with self-proclaimed Progressives jumping up and down to defend Helen Thomas and blame Israel for “all these problems”.  Come to find out, after a couple days there, it turns out to be a “write only” media.  Nobody reads what anyone else posts, it’s more like a graffiti wall for folks with few analytical or writing skills.  Kind of like a really bad graffiti wall.

One topic that came up over and over again was freedom of speech.  Multitudes of posters there were sputtering and spewing over how poor old Helen was only expressing her opinion, and any consequences from that go against her freedom of speech.  This deserves a quick look.

The 1st Amendment says that the government may not abridge the free expression of political views.  The government is restricted from interfering with free speech.  Employers are not.  The 1st Amendment regulates affairs between government and citizen, not between employer and employee.

Don Imus was fired for making a famously inappropriate comment in public.  Helen Thomas was … well, whatever … for an equally inappropriate comment in public.  This is the prerogative of their employers.  In neither case did they forfeit life or liberty.  They lost their jobs.

Employers can, have, will, and do decide what public (and perhaps private, I’m not sure on that) speech is acceptable from their employees.  If you disagree with an employer’s decision, the recourse is simple.  Write to them, complain about them, stop patronizing them, open a business to compete with them.  Whatever, just don’t waste everyone’s time whining about “freedom of speech”.

Boy, I’m glad I got that off my chest.  I can’t tell you how frustrated I got with post after post wailing and weeping and indicting the United States for “hypocrisy” due to their own ignorance of the Constitution.  G’day all, and may God continue to bless America!

Oppressed vs Oppressor

In a forum today, responding to a post that claimed “as liberals, we always side with the oppressed versus the oppressor” I wrote this reply.  This is my post here, for today:

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And people will continue to argue about who’s the oppressed, and who’s the oppressor. This tends to perpetuate the argument without really moving anything forward. As a liberal, if I were one, I would be more interested in a question like, "Who will establish a more equitable court, where a defendant from the ‘other side’ can get a fair trial?" (*) I’m not saying I know the answer to that, only saying that a question like that can lead to truths that advance the dialog.

(*) If you read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre it will provide the background for what I just wrote. British soldiers killed 5 American civilians on the streets of Boston. They were tried in American court, by Americans, defended by John Adams. Six were acquitted. Two were convicted of manslaughter and branded on the thumb. A nation or culture that provides that kind of justice system has proven itself worthy of ‘siding with’. So I propose the question, rather than "oppressed and oppressor" how about "and who is it that provides justice to those whom they disagree with?"

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Anyway, G’day all and may God continue to bless America!

The duty of government to protect and defend

Okay, I’ll admit that this topic comes to mind after reading some (many? most?) of the posts defending Helen Thomas.  The posters, in a pattern, ignore the real problem with what Thomas said (“…they should go back to Germany and Poland…”) and instead throw everything but the kitchen sink at Jews in general and Israel in particular.  One of the fixtures that they sling is the allegation that the Israeli (and, unspoken though it is, Egyptian) blockade of Gaza is “illegal”.

This doesn’t make me mad, but it does make me sad.  There are so many people in America today who simply don’t understand what government is, what it derives from, and what it’s legal powers are.  This is so bad, it helps to fill our prisons to overflowing with people who didn’t get it.  It leads to so many unhappy people, because when people are at odds with the society they live in, they ooze unhappiness.  The antidote to being at odds with the society is to understand it.  Like in this classic video, where comedian Chris Rock explains what I’m about to write about.

But I know there are fellow citizens out there who still think it’s “wrong”, so let’s take a little look here.

People have agreed to establish governments because properly instituted governments keep life from turning into a free-for-all, where the strong take and the weak perish.  Governments are established to enforce rules that elevate humanity above the status of predator or prey.  Everyone in the world has agreed to this, and we’ve even set up a council of governments, called the United Nations, to coordinate all this.

So, governments are not just like you or I.  Governments have powers that you and I don’t.  In establishing the government, we agree to imbue that agency to act in our behalf with powers we deny ourselves.  The government can do things to you that you are not allowed to do to your neighbor.  Some still don’t get it, or like it, or agree with it, but you know what?  The only way that matters is that they will continue to be in discord with their own society.

So government is given a duty to protect the public safety and enforce the laws, and a monopoly on coercion.  They establish a police force, which is given responsibility and authority for the day-to-day operation of law enforcement.  When a private citizen encounters a police officer, they are not encountering a peer.  That person in uniform is not a neighbor, he represents the government (and the will of the people).  It is a crime to fail to cooperate, much less to resist arrest or to attempt to flee.

If a citizen thinks that the police officer is acting wrongly, you know what?  The citizen still needs to comply with the police.  The right or wrong of the encounter will be decided later.  Police (and prosecutors and judges) who act unlawfully are tried and convicted and jailed all the time.  Police are not perfect, they are human.  Expecting or demanding perfection is just a subterfuge, laying a groundwork for getting away with acting illegally.  There is judgment involved in law enforcement, there is judgment involved in law, for goodness sakes.  We’re not dealing with chemistry or physics, much less mathematics, here.  There will be law, there will be enforcement, there will be human judgment, get used to it.

This concept addresses part of the anti-Israel movement in regards to the blockade of Gaza.  Never mind that Egypt, has been imposing substantially the same blockade (so why single out Israel?).  Never mind that the blockade is a result not of civilian Palestinian acts, but of the conduct and intentions of Hamas.  Never mind that Hamas has fired a barrage of rockets into Israel from Gaza.  Let’s just look at the issue of blockades.

Sovereign nation-states may legally impose a blockade.  This is the prerogative of nation-states, under United Nations law, intended to allow nation-states the inherent right of self-defense while avoiding the degeneration of conflicts into “predator and prey”.  As above, judgment is involved, and the question of whether Israel’s blockade of Gaza is legal or not is not an absolute “yes” or “no”.  Historically, when that has been the situation, the presumption of international law is to side with the nation-state, I suppose figuring that they have the best idea of what is needed for their own security.

There are regions all around the world that host both sovereign nation-states and coexisting terrorist organizations.  Ireland, Germany, and Japan at various time have all had this experience, and we here in the United States continue to experience this with our own militias and other underground organizations.  The sovereign nation-states may act with authority under international law, the co-located terrorist organizations may not.

Do we simply think that Western Civilization is wrong, that all governments (except the ones we think we agree with) must fall, and that anything resisted by a mob must be evil?  That would certainly lead to thinking that what Israel did on that flotilla (clumsy and stupid thought it was) was equivalent to piracy or terrorism.  Was Timothy McVeigh acting with a legal and/or moral authority that was equivalent to that of the FBI?  No, he was a terrorist, regardless of how “justified” he may have thought himself over the debacle at Waco.

There are people who are just plain angry at the world, because they don’t understand how the world works.  They are angry to the point of spiteful hatred toward President Bush, and just can’t let go.  But now they’re getting angry at President Obama, because they thought they’d see these “injustices” made right, when in fact there was really only a little that needed fixing.  I can only hope that someone, all of us, each of us, will take the time to talk to these angry people and explain this to them.

G’day all, and may God continue to bless America!