American Liberty
I haven’t weighed-in on the “ground zero mosque” controversy before, although some of my colleagues at the Cato Institute have done so on both sides of the issue. However, the tone of the opposition to the building of the mosque (actually a multi-functional Islamic cultural center) makes me increasingly uneasy.
First of all, while most opponents of the Cordoba House project acknowledge that there is a legal right to buid the center, and insist that their objection to it is based solely on the lack of “decency” of erecting a symbol of Islam on that site, their actions often belie such assurances. After all, the initial action that opponents took was to try to get the New York City government to deny a building permit. That didn’t exactly show respect for the freedom of religion clause in the First Amendment.
Second, opponents almost always stress the “hallowed ground” aspect of the proposed site for the center–some 2 1/2 blocks from ground zero. But there are several problems with that argument. Most notably, there are already two other (smaller) mosques and several other religious buildings in the immediate area–not to mention shops, restaurants, and porno outlets. Do opponents of the new Cordoba House want those structures to be bulldozed? They don’t appear to advocate that step. So why the outrage over this project?
Third, while some of the opposition to the building of Cordoba House reflects genuine anguish on the part of people who lost friends or relatives on 9-11, and for whom the sight of a major Islamic center so close to ground zero would be a cause of further pain, there is something much broader–and uglier–at work. The “proximity to ground zero” argument does not explain why there have been equally virulent campaigns against proposed mosques and other Islamic structures in such places as Tennessee, Wisconsin, Florida, and Virginia. What’s the justification in those cases? Proximity to the Grand Old Opry, Lambeau Field, the Manassas battlefield, and Disney World? No, those campaigns reveal an underlying religious bigotry. Muslims may be the latest targets of that intolerance, but they’re hardly the only ones. In earlier periods, Jews, Mormons, and other religious minorities experienced similar discrimination.
Finally, those who spew vitriol in response to the Cordoba House project need to understand that they are playing with social and foreign policy dynamite. Contrary to some hawks who would like nothing better than a holy war against Islam, the United States is not at war with all Muslims. We are at war with a small faction of radical Muslims. But moderate Muslims in the United States and around the world are watching the Cordoba House controversy. And some moderate Muslims are already being radicalized because of their anger at the opposition to that project.
Critics need to understand that an ill-advised position on this issue could help lead to a disastrous self-fulfilling prophecy in which most Muslims, both here and abroad, do end up hating the United States and becoming mortal enemies of this country. The consequences of that kind of religious war are too horrible to contemplate. Even those Americans who do not like many of the values put forth by Islam, and I count myself among them, need to stand up for the principle of religious tolerance embodied in the First Amendment. That is both the prudent thing to do and the morally right thing to do.
Just when you think that the guardians of airport security, the TSA (Terminally Stupid Agency), can’t get any more obnoxious in the way that it treats hapless airline passengers, along comes this little gem. The arrogant TSA bureaucrats have now moved beyond frisking grandmothers and small children as possible terrorists and are now humiliating amputees as part of the airport screening process. Ah, our tax dollars at work. Our civil liberties RIP.
Vice President Dick Cheney always impressed me as the most dangerous and vicious member of the Bush administration. He seemed to regard war as the answer to every foreign policy problem, and his contempt for the Constitution and civil liberties was legendary.
But his daughter, Liz Cheney, seems determined to outdo her father with respect to both of those repulsive attitudes. She is fast becoming my least favorite Cheney.
Her organization, which has become a prominent lobbyist for war with Iran, has now taken dead aim at supposed terrorist sympathizers in the Obama administration. Television ads are now running attacking the president for appointing officials to the Justice Department who had previously served as defense counsels–or even just peripheral members of defense teams–for accused terrorist suspects. Smearing those attorneys as the “Al Qaeda Seven,” the ad implies that such legal work should disqualify them from appointments to office.
That is a “guilt by association” attack that would have made Senator Joseph McCarthy (who was notorious for such tactics) blush. And it is an especially ugly tactic in this case. Lawyers are expected to be willing to defend even odious individuals, and they routinely do so. That is part of the code of their profession. It is appallingly unfair to hold that duty against them, much less to imply that they endorse the values of those individuals. Moreover, just because someone is accused of being a terrorist does not necessarily mean that the person is one. That’s why our justice system requires fair trials–and defense attorneys.
If the logic of Liz Cheney and her cohorts was correct, John Adams, America’s second president, should have been disqualified from ever holding any office of trust. After all, he was the defense lawyer for the British Redcoats involved in the Boston Massacre. Got an acquittal, too. Wonder what Liz and her smear artists have to say about that episode?
The good news is that decent conservatives have rebuked Cheney for her odious tactics. People should not have their patriotism or integrity impugned because they uphold the core principles of our legal system. That she would do so says all we need to know about Liz Cheney and her neoconservative associates.
The good people of New York City have been saved from a pint-size criminal. It seems that Patrick Timoney, a fourth grade student at PS 52, dared to bring a weapon to school. That weapon was a 2-inch plastic gun from his Lego set. The PS 52 principal lectured young Patrick about the evil nature of his offense and threatened him with suspension.
Now, one might simply write-off this incident as the over-reaction of one school bureaucrat, except that a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Education subsequently defended the action. She stressed that the district had a “zero tolerance” policy for weapons, real or toy, brought on school grounds. Apparently the district also has a zero common sense policy. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature should be able to tell that a two-inch Lego is not a weapon.
And these people are paid to educate our children?
An update to last month’s decision by a school board in Mesquite, Texas to impose an in-school suspension on a four-year-old boy for the heinous crime of having long hair. You can always count on bureaucrats, especially public school bureaucrats, to stick to a dumb policy no matter how much the evidence mounts that it’s a dumb policy. True to form, the educational bureaucrats in Texas have offered a “compromise” to the parents of young Taylor Pugh, the miscreant who insists on maintaining a long hair style. They can braid his hair–as long as the braids don’t come past his ears.
How a boy with braids is less of a “distraction” in the classroom (the official justification for the suspension) than a boy with long hair, I will leave it up to the Texas hair police to explain. If this is the best that so-called educators can do with their time, I know a way that the hard-pressed Texas state budget could save some money. Eliminate those positions and divert back to the state treasury whatever funds are used to pay for them.
Repeat after me: We are not the Taliban. We should not try to dictate hair styles.
If you saw this story, you might assume that you slipped back in time to 1959. The educational bureaucrats of Texas have suspended a boy–a preschooler, no less–for having excessively long hair. The tot actually looks quite dapper–at least in any civilized part of the country. Furthermore, he was growing his hair so that he could later have it cut and donated to a charity that provides wigs to cancer victims who have lost their hair from chemotherapy treatments. One would think that he would receive praise, not be bullied, for such a generous impulse.
Even if charity had not been his motive, such idiotic regimentation should have disappeared by the end of the 1960s. But apparently it hasn’t in certain authoritarian precincts in the South. I have a suggestions for the Texas hair police, who apparently believe that every young male ought to look like he’s planning to have a career in the Marines. You have enough of a challenge educating the next generation, and most of the public schools aren’t doing a very good job at that task. Stop trying to dictate such things as grooming preferences. This is supposed to be a free country, and you might at least try to maintain that illusion a little longer with respect to your students.
Just when you think law enforcement bureaucrats can’t get any more irrational, comes this story (hat tip to my Cato Institute colleague Dan Mitchell) from Indiana. A grandmother ran afoul of the drug war laws by making two purchases of cold medicine for her family.
When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs.
Now, Harpold is trying to clear her name of criminal charges, and she is speaking out in hopes that a law will change so others won’t endure the same embarrassment she still is facing.
…Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at a Clinton pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week’s time.
Those two purchases put her in violation of Indiana law 35-48-4-14.7, which restricts the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, or PSE, products to no more than 3.0 grams within any seven-day period.
When the police came knocking at the door of Harpold’s Parke County residence on July 30, she was arrested on a Vermillion County warrant for a class-C misdemeanor, which carries a sentence of up to 60 days in jail and up to a $500 fine.
The good citizens of Indiana can now rest easier knowing this nefarious drug lord has been apprehended. Whatever happened to the concept of discretion by police and prosecutors? Whatever happened to common sense?
And then there is this story about how a young couple lost custody of their young children for a month after a Wal-mart employee forwarded “bath-time” photos they had taken of the children to the authorities. How many parents over the decades would have run afoul of such absurd suspicions of child pornography, if that standard had been the norm?
I’m interested in suggestions about how Americans can rein-in this runaway zealotry before it turns our country into something resembling the fascist and communist systems we used to abhor.
Four experts (including, with all modesty, your’s truly) have been waging a vigorous debate in the latest issue of Cato Unbound (Cato Institute’s on-line monthly publication) regarding the war on drugs. The focus has been on the drug-related violence in Mexico, with former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda writing the lead essay, but the discussion has evolved into something much broader. Please take a look.
The Bush administration apparently considered sending in the army to invade Buffalo. Yes, the one in New York state. The supposed justification was the need to apprehend a handful of terrorist plotters. Never mind that federal law since the late 1870s explicitly prohibits using the military for domestic law enforcement. Never mind that the terrorists in question were both small in number and decidedly low in IQ. Never mind that we have the FBI as well as state and local law enforcement personnel to handle such matters, and that in this case they were clearly more than sufficient to deal with the alleged threat.
Several Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney (big surprise there!) wanted to send in the troops. That would have been the equivalent of using a sledgehammer to squash an ant. Had Cheney’s advice been followed, the main thing that would have been squashed was the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law.
I never thought I would say this, but thank the fates that George W. Bush was president. As bad as he was–and he was truly dreadful on numerous issues–he was better than many of the people around him. If someone like Cheney had been president, we would have had U.S. soldiers occupying American cities.
The Bill of Rights definitely dodged some bullets during the previous administration. Let’s hope the current one proves to be a lot better on that front.
The 4th of July should be a day to celebrate the values put in place by the founders of this country–the values epitomized by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (especially the Bill of Rights). Instead, once again this year, the holiday has become an occasion for expressing reverence for the U.S. military and the wars they have fought and are fighting–supposedly, but in reality, rarely, to defend American liberty. In other words, the 4th of July has become akin to a second Memorial Day or Veterans Day. And that perverted meaning of the 4th is not confined to the usual suspects, such as Fox News, the media whore of U.S. hawks. It is an attitude that has become all too pervasive, both in the news media and in the broader culture.
That development is both odd and troubling. Odd, because the founders were profoundly anti-militaristic–even anti-military. Almost all of them were uneasy about (if not strongly opposed to) even having a standing army. And that remained a strong strain in American public opinion until well into the 20th century. Boston University professor Andy Bacevich–a retired officer–does a very effective job of showing how and why that attitude has changed. He also shows how the transformation is very troubling, because as the founders understood all too well, militarism, war, and imperialism are lethal threats to the values of limited government, civil liberties, and property rights that they held so dear.
Throughout recent celebrations of the 4th, politicians and media pundits repeatedly bleat about defending American liberty, without showing the slightest sign that they understand the substance of that liberty–much less how the policies they advocate often constrain and threaten its health. Their attitude is similar to Barack Obama’s vacuous theme of “change,” which he touted at virtually every campaign stop, while rarely discussing what kind of change he had in mind.
By all means, celebrate the 4th. It’s an important holiday. But please keep in mind the values that the 4th was supposed to represent. That is true patriotism.