With Friends Like This...

I think there is more to this "provocateur" than meets the eye.

Progressives who say the election of Donald Trump was a cry of anguish from white America aren't entirely wrong—but the Left is uncharateristcally coy about who created such a relentlessly hostile atmosphere for ordinary, God-fearing, working-class white Americans that they took the drastic step of electing a fairly ridiculous reality TV star to the country's highest office.

                  - Milo Yiannopoulous, Diabolical, page 95

Republicans Lose the House -- and More?

My first thought Tuesday night when the TV news folk started declaring Republicans had lost the House of Representatives was, "ObamaCare stays."

Remember, Republicans took control of the House after vowing in the 2010 election to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They maintained that vow in the elections of 2012 and 2014, and voted several times in those three Congresses to actually do it -- though with a Democratic Senate and President, that was as far as it would go. Then in 2016 Republicans added the Senate to their control, while a President was elected on the Republican ticket. And now there was nothing to stop the Republican Congress from acting on their principled promises.

Except themselves.

Oh, sure, as a candidate and President, Mr. Trump has never been able to express opposition to ObamaCare with any enthusiasm, except possibly to "replace" it with essentially the same thing with his name attached to it. But that doesn't excuse the Republican Congress' inability to even present to the American people and the President what they had been promising since its 2010 passage into law. They failed.

And now, as in 2006 election in preparation for which a Republican Congress and President made the historic Democratic free-spending look like thrift, the Republicans have deservedly lost their House majority.

Pastor Zip: Freedom's Just Another Word

[Note: Reblogged from my Pastor Zip's Blog, where this appeared last February 20.]

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose," Janis sang in Kris Kristofferson's Me and Bobby McGee. That's what immediately came to my mind when Twitter (yes, Pastor Zip has a Twitter account, but only because NetworkedBlogs, which for free automatically forwards my blog posts to my Facebook page, does -- or at least did -- the same with Twitter; so every couple of days there's an e-mail from Twitter) wanted me see CNN's tweet, "Florida student Emma Gonzalez to lawmakers and gun advocates: 'We call BS'."

The thing is, what may fit the context of a song from the end of the '60s is not a civic reality. Freedom actually means you have everything to gain. And freedom means, conversely, you also have everything to lose. Miss Gonzalez tells of what she has been learning in her AP Government class. Well, thousands of years ago (as my 8th grade social studies teacher Ms. Greenman used to say) in my (11th grade) AP American History class I learned that our Founding Fathers, after winning their rebellion against the British Crown and the King's Parliament, intentionally devised a national government that would have limited ability to infringe upon rights that they regarded as "unalienable." Which helped us to understand the Bill of Rights, which we first learned about in plain old 4th grade Civics.

Other news reports today, which happens to be the national holiday usually called "Presidents' Day" -- though legally it's the observance of George Washington's Birthday -- have noted protests by young students across the nation, demanding that the President and the Congress "do something" in the light of the latest school shooting. And if I'm reading Miss Gonzalez' address rightly, she's saying something that many advocates of "gun control" have been saying for years -- that the Second Amendment, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," is outdated and ought to be set aside. And set aside now. If necessary, without the bother of actually amending the Constitution. In other words, to grant those two branches of the federal government powers that our governing authority says they do not have.

"Freedom's just another word for something more to lose..."

Letter to RNC Chair McDaniel

6 March 2017

Mrs. Ronna McDaniel
Chair, Republican National Committee
310 First Street SE
Washington, DC 20003

Dear Mrs. McDaniel:

I first became a Sustaining Member of the Republican National Committee in 1980, the first Presidential election in which I was eligible to vote. I was then a College Republican, working part-time. Even before that I had been active in Republican groups and campaigns, the highlight of which was to be among the young Californians who traveled to the 1976 (by bus) and 1980 (by rail) Republican National Conventions as volunteers for then-Gov. Ronald Reagan.

I have since contributed annually as an RNC Sustaining Member, but I was increasingly dismayed in the latest years there was both a Republican Congress and Republican President as they further expanded, rather than reduced, the Federal Government’s role in our lives, most dramatically in education and health care, while Republican Congressmen simultaneously used earmarking to escalate, rather than eliminate, Washington’s spendthrift ways. Our Party deserved to lose Congress in 2006 because we weren’t legislating or acting as Republicans.

Nevertheless I continued my RNC Sustaining Membership. Party leaders said they learned their lesson and, once returned to control of Congress because of their firm opposition to ObamaCare, proved it by regularly voting to repeal it. In the 2012 election I gladly voted for, and made a small contribution to, your uncle’s Presidential campaign largely because he clearly articulated that the key difference between RomneyCare and the supposedly “identical” ObamaCare was that the Democratic law federalized a matter properly left to the states.

The morning after the 2016 election, I awoke content that, while he has not yet shown me that he is much of a Republican, a President Trump means Republican principles again have a chance to be enacted. But this can happen only if the President and the Congress act as the Republicans they have been elected to be. Alas, what I’ve seen in news reports ever since the election is discouraging.

After the last Census, I was re-districted from Congressman Shock’s “safe” Republican district to a “safe” Democratic one, and last November Illinois’ Republican Senator lost his bid for re-election. It seems that as a life-long Republican I have only one way to voice how seriously I consider this matter -- for our Republican party and for the Republic itself. Enclosed without payment are my 2017 RNC Sustaining Membership form and card. Please send them back to me when this Congress repeals ObamaCare, as the Party has been promising to do since its enactment, and I will gladly contribute the requested $85 renewal (an increase from last year’s $75, and a further increase from 2015’s $65). But not until then. And please tell this to the other Republican leaders in Washington, D.C.

Yours truly,

(The Rev.) Steven P. Tibbetts

cc: The Hon. Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House; The Hon. Darin LaHood, Member of Congress

N.B. To date I have received no response.

President Trump's Inaugural Address

As a statement of principals to launch his administration, President Trump's inaugural address resonates surprisingly well with this American Whig. Of course the Devil is in the details, but the principles he presented both domestic and foreign fit well with those of American Whiggery.

With regard to foreign affairs, I especially liked a section that echoed of the great John Quincy Adams:

We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world – but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example – we will shine – for everyone to follow.

As for domestic matters, I must confess to some amusement over the pundits' shock tonight over his bleak description of the state of our cities and towns. Do they not pay attention to what they shout every time government social spending is up for discussion? How dare a Republican (or at least someone nominated by that party) President agree with them! Then again they've been busy since the election doing so many of the very things they expressed horror over before it.

Anyway, here is President Trump's inaugural address, as posted by the White House with emendations from his actual delivery. God grant him wisdom and strength as he serves the people of the United States.

Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, fellow Americans, and people of the world: thank you.

We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people.

Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come.

We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done.

Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent.

Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.

For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.

Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.

Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.

The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.

Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.

It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.

This is your day. This is your celebration.

And this, the United States of America, is your country.

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.

January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.

The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

Everyone is listening to you now.

You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.

At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.

Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves.

These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

We are one nation – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.

For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry;

Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military;

We've defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own;

And spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.

We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disipated over the horizon.

One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind.

The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world.

But that is the past. And now we are looking only to the future.

We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power.

From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.

From this day forward, it’s going to be only America First.

Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.

We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.

I will fight for you with every breath in my body – and I will never, ever let you down.

America will start winning again, winning like never before.

We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.

We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation.

We will get our people off of welfare and back to work – rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.

We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American.

We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world – but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.

We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example – we will shine – for everyone to follow.

We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones – and unite the civilized world against Radical Islamic Terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.

At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.

The Bible tells us, "how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity. "

We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity.

When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.

There should be no fear – we are protected, and we will always be protected.

We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement and, most importantly, we will be protected by God.

Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger.

In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving.

We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action – constantly complaining but never doing anything about it.

The time for empty talk is over.

Now arrives the hour of action.

Do not allow anyone tell you it cannot be done. No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America.

We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again.

We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space, to free the Earth from the miseries of disease, and to harness the energies, industries, and technologies of tomorrow.

A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal our divisions.

It's time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.

And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.

So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words:

You will never be ignored again.

Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.

Together, We Will Make America Strong Again.

We Will Make America Wealthy Again.

We Will Make America Proud Again.

We Will Make America Safe Again.

And, Yes, Together, We Will Make America Great Again. Thank you, God Bless You, And God Bless America.

Thiel on Voting for President

Catch this quote from billionaire Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, addressing the National Press Club last week (on Hallowe'en):

But I don't think the voters pull the lever in order to endorse a candidate's flaws. It's not a lack of judgment that leads Americans to vote for Trump. We're voting for Trump because we judge the leadership of our country to have failed.

Now I have no intention of casting my presidential vote tomorrow for either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton, so don't read this as a 21st Century Whig election endorsement. But Thiel's speech (which begins at 2:45 after an introduction) succinctly describes the "crazy" electoral situation in which we Americans find ourselves in 2016.

You can certainly watch the entire program, but Thiel's speech comes in at less than 13 minutes, with the Q&A that follows beginning at about 15:50.

Hat tip to The View from Chaos Manor.

Wasted Vote?

Slightly edited from the ALPB Forum Online, November 6, 2012:

I have in the past voted for Libertarians not because they have a chance of winning, and not simply to "send a message."

My votes for independent or 3rd party candidates increases the chance that their party will be able to appear on the next state-wide ballot without have to meet the onorous and steep cost Democrats and Republican avoid by writing ballot "access" laws to benefit themselves.

It also increases the chance, however slightly, that an out-of-step-with-the-mainstream idea might get some discussion during an election, which will influence the future of the existing maor parties. Without the votes in earlier elections for Populists and Socialists, the Democratic Party of today would be very, very different and Republicans would legislate and govern quite differently than they do. The votes for the various incarnations of the Progressive Party have permanently altered both parties. Republicans (across the board) and Democrats (particularly in local offices) freely borrow ideas that Libertarians champion.

Regularly in many local elections, both partisan and "non-partisan," only one of the major parties actually fields a candidate, while a Libertarian, Green, or other party may appear on the ballot. Once in California I proudly voted (for a non-partisan office) for the Peace and Freedom Party candidate (whom, given her stance on issues, I usually describe as "a Communist") rather than the completely looney left-wing, but famously-named (so of course she would win), Democratic Party candidate. And I didn't have to hold my nose at all on that one.

So I disagree with those who declare such votes "wasted."

For the Republic, Steven

Election 2016: Senator Sasse Gets It

First term U. S. Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, was before his election the President of Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska, a school related to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the alma mater of the pastor who sent me to seminary. Late yesterday via his Facebook page, Sen. Sasse used the controversy over Donald Trump's initial success in the polls and the earliest Republican caucuses and primaries to remind us of some important principles about our nation to show how Mr. Trump is unfit to be either the Republican nominee for President of the United States or the President.

It's worth reading, especially if you intend to vote in a Republican primary this election.

AN OPEN LETTER TO TRUMP SUPPORTERS

To my friends supporting Donald Trump:

The Trump coalition is broad and complicated, but I believe many Trump fans are well-meaning. I have spoken at length with many of you, both inside and outside Nebraska. You are rightly worried about our national direction. You ache about a crony-capitalist leadership class that is not urgent about tackling our crises. You are right to be angry.

I’m as frustrated and saddened as you are about what’s happening to our country. But I cannot support Donald Trump.

Please understand: I’m not an establishment Republican, and I will never support Hillary Clinton. I’m a movement conservative who was elected over the objections of the GOP establishment. My current answer for who I would support in a hypothetical matchup between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton is: Neither of them. I sincerely hope we select one of the other GOP candidates, but if Donald Trump ends up as the GOP nominee, conservatives will need to find a third option.

Mr. Trump’s relentless focus is on dividing Americans, and on tearing down rather than building back up this glorious nation. Much like President Obama, he displays essentially no understanding of the fact that, in the American system, we have a constitutional system of checks and balances, with three separate but co-equal branches of government. And the task of public officials is to be public “servants.” The law is king, and the people are boss. But have you noticed how Mr. Trump uses the word “Reign” – like he thinks he’s running for King? It’s creepy, actually. Nebraskans are not looking for a king. We yearn instead for the recovery of a Constitutional Republic.

At this point in Nebraska discussions, many of you have immediately gotten practical: “Okay, fine, you think there are better choices than Trump. But you would certainly still vote for Trump over Clinton in a general election, right?” Before I explain why my answer is “Neither of them,” let me correct some nonsense you might have heard on the internet of late.

WHY I RAN FOR SENATE

***No, I’m not a career politician. (I had never run for anything until being elected to the U.S. Senate fifteen months ago, and I ran precisely because I actually want to make America great again.)
***No, I’m not a lawyer who has never created a job. (I was a business guy before becoming a college president in my hometown.)
***No, I’m not part of the Establishment. (Sheesh, I had attack ads by the lobbyist class run against me while I was on a bus tour doing 16 months of townhalls across Nebraska. Why? Precisely because I was not the preferred candidate of Washington.)
***No, I’m not concerned about political job security. (The very first thing I did upon being sworn in in January 2015 was to introduce a constitutional amendment for term limits – this didn’t exactly endear me to my new colleagues.)
***No, I’m not for open borders. (The very first official trip I took in the Senate was to observe and condemn how laughably porous the Texas/Mexican border is. See 70 tweets from @bensasse in February 2015.)
***No, I’m not a “squishy,” feel-good, grow-government moderate. (I have the 4th most-conservative voting record in the Senate: https://www.conservativereview.com/members/benjamin-sasse/ http://www.heritageactionscorecard.com/members/member/S001197)

In my very first speech to the Senate, I told my colleagues that “The people despise us all.” This institution needs to get to work, not on the lobbyists’ priorities, but on the people’s: https://youtu.be/zQMoB4aUn04?t=3m8s

Now, to the question at hand: Will I pledge to vote for just any “Republican” nominee over Hillary Clinton?

Let’s begin by rejecting naïve purists: Politics has no angels. Politics is not about creating heaven on earth. Politics is simply about preserving a framework for ordered liberty – so that free people can find meaning and happiness not in politics but in their families, their neighborhoods, their work.

POLITICAL PARTIES

Now, let’s talk about political parties: parties are just tools to enact the things that we believe. Political parties are not families; they are not religions; they are not nations – they are often not even on the level of sports loyalties. They are just tools. I was not born Republican. I chose this party, for as long as it is useful.

If our Party is no longer working for the things we believe in – like defending the sanctity of life, stopping ObamaCare, protecting the Second Amendment, etc. – then people of good conscience should stop supporting that party until it is reformed.

VOTING

Now, let’s talk about voting: Voting is usually just about choosing the lesser evil of the most viable candidates.

“Usually...” But not always. Certain moments are larger. They cause us to explicitly ask: Who are we as a people? What does the way we vote here say about our shared identity? What is actually the president’s job?

THE PRESIDENT’S CORE CALLING

The president’s job is not about just mindlessly shouting the word “strong” – as if Vladimir Putin, who has been strongly bombing civilian populations in Syria the last month, is somehow a model for the American presidency. No, the president’s core calling is to “Preserve, Protect, and Defend the Constitution.”

Before we ever get into any technical policy fights – about pipelines, or marginal tax rates, or term limits, or Medicare reimbursement codes – America is first and fundamentally about a shared Constitutional creed. America is exceptional, because she is at her heart a big, bold truth claim about human dignity, natural rights, and self-control – and therefore necessarily about limited rather than limitless government.

THE MEANING OF AMERICA

America is the most exceptional nation in the history of the world because our Constitution is the best political document that’s ever been written. It said something different than almost any other government had said before: Most governments before said that might makes right, that government decides what our rights are and that the people are just dependent subjects. Our Founders said that God gives us rights by nature, and that government is not the author or source of our rights. Government is just our shared project to secure those rights.

Government exists only because the world is fallen, and some people want to take your property, your liberty, and your life. Government is tasked with securing a framework for ordered liberty where “we the people” can in our communities voluntarily build something great together for our kids and grandkids. That’s America. Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of speech – the First Amendment is the heartbeat of the American Constitution, of the American idea itself.

WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO MR. TRUMP?

So let me ask you: Do you believe the beating heart of Mr. Trump’s candidacy has been a defense of the Constitution? Do you believe it’s been an impassioned defense of the First Amendment – or an attack on it?

Which of the following quotes give you great comfort that he’s in love with the First Amendment, that he is committed to defending the Constitution, that he believes in executive restraint, that he understands servant leadership?

Statements from Trump:
***“We’re going to open up libel laws and we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.”
***“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak...”
***Putin, who has killed journalists and is pillaging Ukraine, is a great leader.
***The editor of National Review “should not be allowed on TV and the FCC should fine him.”
***On whether he will use executive orders to end-run Congress, as President Obama has illegally done: "I won't refuse it. I'm going to do a lot of things." “I mean, he’s led the way, to be honest with you.”
***“Sixty-eight percent would not leave under any circumstance. I think that means murder. It think it means anything.”
***On the internet: “I would certainly be open to closing areas” of it.
***His lawyers to people selling anti-Trump t-shirts: “Mr. Trump considers this to be a very serious matter and has authorized our legal team to take all necessary and appropriate actions to bring an immediate halt...”
***Similar threatening legal letters to competing campaigns running ads about his record.

And on it goes...

IF MR. TRUMP BECOMES THE NOMINEE...

Given what we know about him today, here’s where I’m at: If Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, my expectation is that I will look for some third candidate – a conservative option, a Constitutionalist.

I do not claim to speak for a movement, but I suspect I am far from alone. After listening to Nebraskans in recent weeks, and talking to a great many people who take oaths seriously, I think many are in the same place. I believe a sizable share of Christians – who regard threats against religious liberty as arguably the greatest crisis of our time – are unwilling to support any candidate who does not make a full-throated defense of the First Amendment a first commitment of their candidacy.

Conservatives understand that all men are created equal and made in the image of God, but also that government must be limited so that fallen men do not wield too much power. A presidential candidate who boasts about what he'll do during his "reign" and refuses to condemn the KKK cannot lead a conservative movement in America.

TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT

Thank you for listening. While I recognize that we disagree about how to make America great again, we agree that this should be our goal. We need more people engaged in the civic life of our country—not fewer. I genuinely appreciate how much many of you care about this country, and that you are demanding something different from Washington. I’m going to keep doing the same thing.

But I can’t support Donald Trump.

Humbly,

Ben Sasse
Nebraska

It's Election Season!

Illinois' Governor Quinn, who is seeking a third term, has a couple of different YouTube sites. This is not from them.

Sen. Rand Paul's Filibuster

It really is this simple:

Budget Battle Showdowns

From the Heritage Foundation and reason.tv:


Hat tip to the View from Chaos Manor.

November 11th

With the current President of the United States otherwise occupied this Veterans Day, we offer — in honor of my father, who served in Europe during World War Two — the remarks offered for this occasion 49 years ago at Arlington National Cemetery by another young President. Tip o' the hat to the Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon at TitusOneNine.

Remarks by President John F. Kennedy
Veterans Day National Ceremony
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington, Virginia
November 11, 1961

PRESIDENT KENNEDY: General Gavan, Mr. Gleason, members of the military forces, veterans, fellow Americans:

Today we are here to celebrate and to honor and to commemorate the dead and the living, the young men who in every war since this country began have given testimony to their loyalty to their country and their own great courage.

I do not believe that any nation in the history of the world has buried its soldiers farther from its native soil than we Americans -- or buried them closer to the towns in which they grew up.

We celebrate this Veterans Day for a very few minutes, a few seconds of silence and then this country's life goes on. But I think it most appropriate that we recall on this occasion, and on every other moment when we are faced with great responsibilities, the contribution and the sacrifice which so many men and their families have made in order to permit this country to now occupy its present position of responsibility and freedom, and in order to permit us to gather here together.

Bruce Catton, after totaling the casualties which took place in the battle of Antietam, not so very far from this cemetery, when he looked at statistics which showed that in the short space of a few minutes whole regiments lost 50 to 75 percent of their numbers, then wrote that life perhaps isn't the most precious gift of all, that men died for the possession of a few feet of a corn field or a rocky hill, or for almost nothing at all. But in a very larger sense, they died that this country might be permitted to go on, and that it might permit to be fulfilled the great hopes of its founders.

In a world tormented by tension and the possibilities of conflict, we meet in a quiet commemoration of an historic day of peace. In an age that threatens the survival of freedom, we join together to honor those who made our freedom possible. The resolution of the Congress which first proclaimed Armistice Day, described November 11, 1918, as the end of "the most destructive, sanguinary and far-reaching war in the history of human annals." That resolution expressed the hope that the First World War would be, in truth, the war to end all wars. It suggested that those men who had died had therefore not given their lives in vain.

It is a tragic fact that these hopes have not been fulfilled, that wars still more destructive and still more sanguinary followed, that man's capacity to devise new ways of killing his fellow men have far outstripped his capacity to live in peace with his fellow men.

Some might say, therefore, that this day has lost its meaning, that the shadow of the new and deadly weapons have robbed this day of its great value, that whatever name we now give this day, whatever flags we fly or prayers we utter, it is too late to honor those who died before, and too soon to promise the living an end to organized death.

But let us not forget that November 11, 1918, signified a beginning, as well as an end. "The purpose of all war," said Augustine, "is peace." The First World War produced man's first great effort in recent times to solve by international cooperation the problems of war. That experiment continues in our present day -- still imperfect, still short of its responsibilities, but it does offer a hope that some day nations can live in harmony.

For our part, we shall achieve that peace only with patience and perseverance and courage -- the patience and perseverance necessary to work with allies of diverse interests but common goals, the courage necessary over a long period of time to overcome an adversary skilled in the arts of harassment and obstruction.

There is no way to maintain the frontiers of freedom without cost and commitment and risk. There is no swift and easy path to peace in our generation. No man who witnessed the tragedies of the last war, no man who can imagine the unimaginable possibilities of the next war, can advocate war out of irritability or frustration or impatience.

But let no nation confuse our perseverance and patience with fear of war or unwillingness to meet our responsibilities. We cannot save ourselves by abandoning those who are associated with us, or rejecting our responsibilities.

In the end, the only way to maintain the peace is to be prepared in the final extreme to fight for our country -- and to mean it.

As a nation, we have little capacity for deception. We can convince friend and foe alike that we are in earnest about the defense of freedom only if we are in earnest -- and I can assure the world that we are.

This cemetery was first established 97 years ago. In this hill were first buried men who died in an earlier war, a savage war here in our own country. Ninety-seven years ago today, the men in Gray were retiring from Antietam, where thousands of their comrades had fallen between dawn and dusk in one terrible day. And the men in Blue were moving towards Fredericksburg, where thousands would soon lie by a stone wall in heroic and sometimes miserable death.

It was a crucial moment in our Nation's history, but these memories, sad and proud, these quiet grounds, this Cemetery and others like it all around the world, remind us with pride of our obligation and our opportunity.

On this Veterans Day of 1961, on this day of remembrance, let us pray in the name of those who have fought in this country's wars, and most especially who have fought in the First World War and in the Second World War, that there will be no veterans of any further war -- not because all shall have perished but because all shall have learned to live together in peace.

And to the dead here in this cemetery we say:

They are the race –
they are the race immortal,
Whose beams make broad
the common light of day!
Though Time may dim,
though Death has barred their portal,
These we salute,
which nameless passed away.

A Computer Game of Contemporary Politics

When I was a young teen, we would play games with dice and boards. War games by Avalon Hill like Stalingrad, Waterloo, or D-Day. Long before "fantasy leagues," I created a baseball season using baseball board game, with dice and drawing cards. Then came computers, and the boards started to disappear, especially as computer games began to get graphics.

The following returns us to a mid-point in such games -- no cards, no dice, no boards, no graphics. No, you typed in the parameters -- say of a war battle, or creating a city -- and then started making choices based on them. Let us hearken back to the days of CP/M or DOS and play...


BELTWAY ADVENTURE

WELCOME TO ADVENTURE! WOULD YOU LIKE INSTRUCTIONS?

>YES

YOU ARE SOMEWHERE IN BELTWAY FOREST, WHERE SOME HAVE FOUND TREASURES OF GOLD ALTHOUGH SOME HAVE ENTERED AND NEVER BEEN SEEN AGAIN. MAGIC IS SAID TO WORK IN THE FOREST. I WILL BE YOUR EYES AND HANDS. DIRECT ME WITH SIMPLE COMMANDS.

YOU ARE IN AN OVAL OFFICE. THERE IS SNOW OUTSIDE. YOU ARE BEHIND A DESK. ON DESK THERE IS A BUST OF CHURCHILL.

YOU HAVE A CONGRESS.

YOU HAVE A SENATE.

YOU HAVE A MEDIA.

YOU HAVE A TELEPROMPTER.

YOU HAVE A MILITARY.

YOU HAVE A BIG JET.

YOU HAVE $3 TRILLION OF GOLD.

YOU HAVE 82% APPROVAL HEALTH.

THERE IS 7.2% UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE FOREST.

YOU HAVE A RACE CARD.

YOU HAVE INAUGURAL PARTY LEFTOVERS.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

>EAT LEFTOVERS

>RETURN BUST

YOU ARE IN AN OVAL OFFICE. YOU ARE BEHIND A DESK. ON DESK THERE IS NO BUST OF CHURCHILL. THERE ARE NO MORE LEFTOVERS. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

>GIVE SPEECH

YOU ARE IN AN OVAL OFFICE. YOUR APPROVAL HEALTH IS 81%. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

>NAME TEAM

ENTER TEAM NAMES. GIVE THEM WEAPONS AND SPECIAL POWERS SEPARATED BY COMMA. WHEN YOU ARE DONE PRESS CTL-T

>BIDEN, BRAIN
>HILLARY, RESET BUTTON
>HOLDER, LAW
>GEITHNER, GOLD
>RAHM, CURSES
>JARRETT, FASHION
>AXELROD, MUSTACHE
>SEBELIUS, HEALTH
>LAHOOD, LIGHT RAIL
>CULVER, FOOD
>CHU, AIR
>GOOLSBY, BLACK MAGICK
>GIBBS, MOUTH
>DUNN, FEMALE MOUTH
^T

DO YOU WANT CZARS?

>Y

ENTER CZAR NAMES SEPARATED BY COMMA. WHEN YOU ARE DONE PRESS CTL-T

>JONES, JENNINGS, HOLBROOK, CROWLEY, RATTNER, MONTGOMERY, BERSIN, HAYES, ROSS, STERN, ROSENTHAL, VOLKER, BROWNER, DUBOIS, DAVIS, FRIED, DEPARLE, KUNDRA, BLAIR, MITCHELL, FEINBERG, SUNSTEIN, HOLDREN, DEVANEY, GRATION, ALLISON, CHOPRA, BRENNAN, CARRION, CARTER, SAMORE

I'M SORRY. THAT IS AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

>IGNORE CONSTITUTION

YOU ARE IN AN OVAL OFFICE. YOU ARE BEHIND A DESK. YOU ARE BORED. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

>|



Read it all here at iowahawk's blog. You won't know whether to laugh or cry. Hat tip to Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manor Mail.

Our Founders Are Weeping

Representative Tom Price (R-Georgia), as quoted from the floor of the House of Representatives on the PBS Newshour today, describes best the meaning of the passage of "health care reform" last night:

Madam Speaker, it's raining here in Washington today. It's raining because our founders are weeping. Our founders are weeping over the incredible vote taken yesterday that was an affront to federalism, an affront to individual liberty, and an affront to freedom.

The genuine republican principle

Jerry Pournelle puts forth the best possible 2010 Republican slogan:

Limited Government and This Time We Really Mean It.

Read more here at today's Chaos Manor.

Hitler Finds Out Scott Brown Won Massachusetts Senate Seat

Hat tip to Chaos Manor Mail.

Who Can You Trust?

Last autumn I posted a commentary by the Governor of South Carolina that began,

I am worried for our country...

A bit further on, he writes,

For 200 years, the "business model" in our country has rested on a simple fact: that while one may reap rewards from taking risks, one should also be prepared to face the consequences of those risks.

This week Gov. Mark Sanford is facing the consequences of taking risks of a more personal nature, having returned to his post after disappearing for the greater part of a week for an affair with an Argentine woman.

Granted, this sort of unfaithfulness is beginning to seem endemic to politicians in both major parties. But given the weakened state of the national Republican Party due largely to the orgy of public spending under President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress -- an utter abandonment of the party's principles -- it can only get worse as more and more prominent, thoughtful leaders (a rare commodity among Republican leaders) considered possible Presidential timber (think Gov. Sanford or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose comments I've also posted here) seem unable to remember their marriage vows in the presence of another pretty woman.

Professor Gregory K. Laughlin, Director of the Law Library at Cumberland School of Law at Samford University writes in Touchstone magazine's Mere Comments of one side of the dilemma conservative Americans are facing in:

Mark Sanford: Forgive, But Trust?

Okay, I formally withdraw all the good things I said about Mark Sanford when I was favoring him as McCain's VP nominee. At least this should reduce the field for the 2012 GOP primary contest.

I'm more than ready to forgive Governor Sanford -- as if he needs my forgiveness -- I'm just no longer willing to trust him with the powers of the Chief Executive of the United States. As Truman observed when he refused, upon the request of others, to appoint a known adulterer to a high government post: if a man's wife cannot trust him, why should I? Further, his sudden disappearance demonstrates a lack of judgment which should disqualify him for the presidency or any other high office. I leave it to the good folks of the great state of South Carolina to decide whether they want him to remain their chief executive.

All men are sinners, but the sins of some men bring to light their lack of judgment and/or character which disqualifies them for high office. Bill Clinton's lying under oath disqualified him and Mark Sanford's sudden disappearance for a few days of frolicking in Argentina disqualifies him.

Just yesterday, one of my librarians came to me to report that he had just rejected a young lawyer's request to use our library. (Our library is not open to the public and those who are not employed by or are students at Samford must receive permission to use our services and collection.) Normally, we give a pass to all lawyers and law students, no matter where they went to or are going to law school. However, this young man told the librarian that he had graduated from our law school (which would result in his saving $15 on the cost of his pass). Upon his effort to verify this, the librarian discovered that this was not true. As it turned out, the young man had graduated from another law school. The librarian refused to give him a pass on the premise that a man who would lie to save $15 would not hesitate to steal books (an unfortunately common action of some lawyers). He came to me to ask if I agreed with his decision. I did. A lawyer who would lie to save $15 is a danger to our system and a shame on our profession, a shame we deserve for not more vigorously policing the ethics of our members. If he would lie for such a petty reason, what will he do when confronted with the many difficult ethical dilemmas which confront lawyers every day?

No, I can forgive Mark Sanford, but I won't give him my vote.

I, too, am worried for our country. For in addition to the financial bankruptcy, we're witnessing the moral bankruptcy of our most gifted (?) leaders -- in both politics and enterprise.

A republic cannot survive like that for long.

This Was Published WHERE???

Those of us raised during the Cold War will find the following, well as Jerry Pournelle says (hat tip), "it is astonishing." It's from Pravda. Yes, Pravda! spt+

---

American capitalism gone with a whimper

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

Stanislav Mishin

The article has been reprinted with the kind permission from the author and originally appears on his blog, Mat Rodina

Pravda.ru forum. The place where truth hurts

Oh, the Shame! But Do We Recognize It?

It's not that I've no Whiggish reflections since last November. If anything, there's simply too much to comment upon. The Panic of 2008 continues. Republicans rightly (but without much effect) oppose the Obama Administration's exponential expansion of the Bush Administration's foolish "solutions," but are unable to express anything positive -- largely because they can have no credibilty until they admit the national Republicans governed in contradiction of any Republican principles. Then there's Rod Blagojevich, our impeached governor. There are state Supreme Courts blithely redefining a core of Western Civilization and we could go on and on.

Russ Saltzman is a Lutheran Pastor and a friend of mine. He replaced Richard John Neuhaus as editor/writer of Forum Letter years ago and now he's become an associate editor at First Things since Father Neuhaus' death a few months ago. Here he reflects on what we are discovering about the torture of terrorists and, while he writes as a Christian pastor, he could easily have said much the same as a simple American. Once upon a time, you could count on the USA to try to do the right thing simply because that's what America does. In the wake of 9-11, so many of our "protections" of America have used means that have diminished the very idea of "American." Exhibit 1 of the abandonment of what it means to be American by President Bush and the neo-cons is the invasion of Iraq. Here's another exibit.

---

The Mental Murder of Torture

By Russell E. Saltzman
Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The story is increasingly shameful—how the United States conducted “enhanced interrogations” of terrorist suspects. Some of the story has been out a long time, if only in bits and pieces, appearing in various news outlets. But it really got hot and better documented after the November elections, and there is every indication of its getting hotter, especially following the Obama administration’s release of CIA papers. Yet one of the more devastating accounts is that of the International Committee of the Red Cross. By any standard, the treatment reported amounted to torture—strenuous enough, brutal enough, as to require medical personnel in attendance as the suspects were subjected to it.

Stop there. Medical personnel? Yes. The Red Cross report (awkwardly titled Report on the Treatment of Fourteen “High Value Detainees” in CIA Custody) details the role of—shall we call them health-care professionals—before, during, and after episodes of interrogation. The Red Cross never quite uses the word torture, but I am at a loss for another. The report never strays over the edge of calling the medical personnel doctors, but the implication is there.

Medical personnel monitored the prisoners’ vital signs and over-all stress as they were undergoing physical abuse. According to the Red Cross report, medical personnel would advise interrogators on the prisoner’s condition, whether to continue the abuse, moderate it, or suspend it for a time. Medical personnel aiding interrogators, as the report laconically puts it, violates standard medical ethics.

[A]ny interrogation process that requires a health professional to either pronounce on the subject’s fitness to withstand such a procedure, or which requires a health professional to monitor the actual procedure, must have inherent health risks. . . . As such, the interrogation process is contrary to international law and the participation of health personnel in such a process is contrary to international standards of medical ethics.

Most people should be able to figure it out: If a doctor is needed during questioning, the means used in the questioning are morally suspect. The use of medical personnel reminds us of how susceptible medicine is to the contortions of nationalism, ideology, national security, even popular demand, and how difficult it may be for people of ordinary moral impulse to resist pressure from superiors.

The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Jay Lifton (1986) offers still instructive reading.

In the case of official corporal punishment (for instance, whipping), SS doctors were required both to sign forms attesting to the physical capacity of an inmate to absorb such punishment, as well as to be present while it was administered.

The Red Cross describes several of the “enhanced” techniques used on the suspects, including waterboarding, also called “suffocation by water.” Waterboarding is well known, being the subject of press conference questions and congressional hearings. Not so well known are the other techniques cataloged in the Red Cross report that were regularly employed by U.S. intelligence agents in the CIA detention program. The only two methods missing are thumbscrews and bamboo slivers under fingernails.

Among the procedures was prolonged stress-standing with arms chained above the head while the victim is made to stand naked for days, compelled to defecate and urinate in place. Add to that beating, kicking, slaps, and punches to the body and face. Sleep deprivation by exposure to loud, repetitive noises and music for protracted periods of time. Some of the prisoners underwent confinement in a box for extended periods of time, enduring cramped, restricted movement. Exposure to cold temperatures was another, keeping cells or interrogation rooms uncomfortably cool, sometimes made more acute with the addition of cold water poured over the body. Ill-treatment also involved continuous use of shackles and handcuffs, forced shaving, and denial of solid food—all carefully tended by U.S. medical professionals.

I’ve been trying, like many Americas, to think this thing through. There is the altogether practical question: Did torture help us? Did it make America safer? Was the information really good, helpful, in thwarting terrorists? Did it actually in fact spoil pending plots? Frankly, the evidence is mixed.

But I really don’t care. Whether torture “worked” or not as an interrogative tactic is far from the main question. I’m a pastor. I think as a pastor, which is to say as a parish theologian. I don’t care if these guys shrieked like little girls on the playground and blubbered out plots for everything from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre to knocking over Bagdad candy stores as juvenile delinquents. Torture is morally wrong. It is morally wrong, theologically speaking, because it is an attack upon the imago Dei, upon the image of God inherent to every human life.

Now, I’m not so dumb or so liberal that I can’t understand and remember and share the anger the September 11 attack produced in America, nor was I the least bit hesitant in supporting the studied determination of making sure that nothing like it ever happens again. But if there is anyone suggesting the American homeland is safer today for having abandoned the ordinary principles of humane treatment for prisoners in American custody, then he’s a moral midget. Torture is not what Americans do. Not if we still have some lingering respect for the rights with which God endows humanity.

Are there any exceptions?

Two exceptions are frequently put forward. The screws may be put to a suspected terrorist with intimate and detailed knowledge of a planned attack that almost certainly will claim hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives—the “ticking clock” scenario. The information is presumed “hard,” “actionable,” revealing something that will be operational momentarily, or become so within mere days or weeks. Torture in this imagined scenario is not only a permissible tactic, but also one that is morally imperative, aimed at the immediate protection of innocent lives.

The second exception is a milder version of the first, and uses the same reasoning as that applied in the cases of the fourteen detainees named by the Red Cross. The specific information held by suspects of this class, as well as any general information they might be made to disclose, is regarded as so potentially important as to justify rough, continuously torturous handling over lengthy periods of time. If not rising to the level of moral imperative, as in the first scenario, the application of torture nonetheless is justified within existing legal and constitutional parameters as a fair means of extracting vital information from uncooperative suspects. This scenario sees torture under these conditions as permissibly routine, an ordinary protocol in the treatment of terrorist suspects.

The trouble is both scenarios are inherently flawed. They are detached from necessity and morality, to say nothing of reality.

It is a questionable assumption, first, that intelligence agents will ever have advance knowledge of an event with thousands of lives at stake, where prevention settles down to the information that can come from one, and only one, single terrorist—singled out and known to have knowledge of the plan. This simply isn’t the way the work is done. The 2006 intelligence work in Britain that thwarted sixteen suspected terrorists from hijacking several aircraft and blowing them up over the Atlantic is a case in point. The arrests were made, said British police, as the plan was about to go operational. Multiple sources, including tips from or near the inside, stopped the plot in its tracks. Prevention of this kind depends upon many sources, frequently carefully cultivated sources. The single guy tortured into cooperation saving countless lives simply does not exist. The scenario dissolves under examination.

As for situations with high value prisoners, the second exception, what possible justification exists for waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times, as the CIA memos reveal? Khalid, the admitted planner of the September 11 attack, was captured in 2003. The others were captured prior to him or some while following. By this time a lot was already known about al Qaeda—its structure, intentions, and perhaps its contemplated operations were already exposed. It is difficult to understand how 183 trips to the waterboard provided anything new or useful.

Both scenarios used to justify torture are at best imaginary. As such, they can hardly be invoked, and when employed as justification they represent not much more than wishful thinking or a poor television script.

We’re back to the moral question, asking again: Why is torture wrong? These fourteen detainees are some of our worst enemies. The instinct to treat them as they have treated us is understandable, perhaps to a degree even irresistible, and rather terrible when unleashed.

Yet torture is wrong because it can never serve a moral purpose. It serves instead only an immoral purpose: the destruction of an individual’s personhood. It is violence against the imago Dei, the image of God carried by every person.

Crucial to the use of torture is the intentional, systematic, step-by-step reduction of identity and selfhood, the purposeful diminution of the person as person, as the image of God cheapened to something less, to something “unperson.” The “other” is depersonalized. It is this process of thinking which gives us license for abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and torture—everything that strips the person of personal humanity.

The enormity of the crime is of course granted. I don’t ever want to see Khalid or the others like him released. But I certainly regret that my government tortured him. His torture may have begun in a manner that was thought, even sworn, to be a measured and reasoned response for protecting a civil populace, part of a wider battle being waged to prevent actual and imminent dangers. But torture remains and will always be an abominable assault upon the imago Dei. At some fundamental level we declared that Khalid was not made in the image of God. From that, all else was inevitable.

However it was initiated—all the lawyerly vetting that went on, and all the jabber about military necessity and keeping America safe—Khalid’s torture ended up being nothing more than torture, and only that. Somewhere well before the one-hundred eighty-third trip to the waterboard, torture was no longer merely an unproductive means of coaxing information from a suspect. It became an impersonal bureaucratized process that swiped his individuality. It was a form of mental murder.

Along with an account of Khalid’s crimes also must come an account of his humanity. Personhood carries an elementary dignity, even when the person carrying it is one of our cruelest enemies.

Russell E. Saltzman is associate editor of First Things.

What Should the Republicans Do Now?

Congressman Paul Ryan from Wisconsin offers this advice in this Wall Street Journal commentary:

Take Some Political Risks

After two straight electoral defeats, it is time for a substantial party shake-up. We don't need a feather duster; we need a fire hose.

We need to be honest about the root causes of our current financial crisis: loose money, crony capitalism and a lack of market transparency and information. We need to adopt a policy of sound money by requiring the Federal Reserve to focus exclusively on keeping inflation in check, as I've proposed with my Price Stability Act. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose excesses helped lead to the current mess, must be taken off the backs of taxpayers. We need a complete overhaul of our outdated financial regulatory system to emphasize market transparency and accountability.

The greatest threat to our nation's future prosperity is the explosion of entitlement spending. Our entitlement programs are headed for a painful collapse that will bankrupt this nation and leave our children with an inferior standard of living. If we don't tackle these problems, they will tackle us.

We must also offer bold alternatives to the destructive tax policies that the Democratic majority will work to enact. We must go beyond simply calling for lower taxes. We need a complete overhaul of our tax code. At a time of fierce global competition, the individual and business tax reforms I put forth earlier this year would encourage companies to invest in America, promote jobs here at home, and strengthen the paychecks of American workers.

We must take control of the health-care debate, and champion patient-centered alternatives to the socialized health-care proposals advocated by the Democrats. Health-care decisions should be made by individuals and their providers, not government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats. We need to offer reforms that make health care more affordable, more portable and more transparent, while strengthening the social safety net.

We cannot simply put up roadblocks to the emboldened Democratic majority. We need to offer an alternative future. Absent reform, our federal government will double in size within a generation. We must change course from this path of stagnation, and we must have leaders willing to provide a path that keeps alive the American ideal and keeps our government limited.

Our party has become too fearful of our own ideas. Since 1997, congressional Republicans began a steady retreat from principled leadership to political expediency. A party built on spending discipline and government reform succumbed to the siren songs of government expansion and earmarked giveaways. Republicans squandered the opportunity to limit and reshape the relationship between the federal government and the individual.

I ran on these bold ideas and innovative solutions in a congressional district carried by Barack Obama -- yet I received 64% of the vote. I challenge my colleagues to rethink political risk taking. Taking on our most serious fiscal challenges will restore relevancy to the Republican Party and will keep alive America's commitment to freedom and prosperity.

In other words, Republicans in Washington DC (and elsewhere) ought to start acting like (gasp!!) Republicans!