Torturing the truth more than our enemies

On September 11, 2001, a date which certainly ought to "live in infamy," 19 violent enemies of the United States carried out vicious airliner attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., killing nearly 3,000 persons. This is known to all, of course. Yet the ruling party today is determined to deprive us of the necessary means to prevent more attacks by abandoning the policies which protected us for the last eight years. President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress profess to be horrified at the specific tactics which the Central Intelligence Agency used to elicit information from three"high-value" targets. These men were seized in our successful campaign against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that harbored the Al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the 9/11 and other acts of mayhem, such as the previous bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

I say "profess" because the "torture" to which these mass murderers were subjected did not elicit any outrage from Democrats when they were briefed on the techniques back in 2001. There appeared to be general agreement that no stone should be left unturned in the effort to gain whatever information that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri could provide.

Although Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi denies it now, others present with her at the briefings the Bush Administration gave to congressional leaders have said that she not only knew of the enhanced interrogation techniques but approved of them, even urging that the CIA go beyond them if necessary. She was responding then as virtually every other American would have in her circumstances, given the enormity of the evil inflicted upon us and the undeniable evidence that these three men were either directly responsible for or fully informed about the 9/11 outrage.

The most useful information obtained was that an airliner attack was planned for Los Angeles. Was thwarting that attack not worth the CIA’s best efforts?

Webster’s Dictionary defines torture as "the infliction of severe pain, as to force information or confession." While any definition is only as accurate as its correspondence to reality, and that depends upon the judgment of those who understand what it is, a dictionary provides an impartial reference point.

However, the Wikipedia definition of waterboarding, which is based upon the contributions of "editors" who may or may not be impartial, describes waterboarding as "a form of torture" which "consists of immobilizing the victim on his or her back with the head inclined downwards, and then pouring water over the face and into the breathing passage." It adds: "In contrast to submerging the head face-forward in water [the technique used in the Spanish Inquisition], waterboarding precipitates a gag reflex almost immediately. The technique does not inevitably cause lasting physical damage."

This is torture?

The rest of this story is that waterboarding has been used on American servicemen for years to prepare them for the abuse they will be subjected to should they be captured by enemy forces. There is no evidence that they have ever been subjected to the unspeakable methods favored by despotisms.

Few of us do not know that mutilation and decapitation have been resorted to by Islamist terrorists. It beggars belief that men who are that brutal will be inspired to change their ways by our refusal to use a harsh method that actually falls short of real torture.

Meanwhile, two Bush Administration legal advisors who thought through the constitutional and legal implications of enhanced interrogation techniques and wrote extensive memos about them, have been treated as evil men who provided cover for the government’s allegedly brutal policies. This is second-guessing at best and witch hunting at worst.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers, "A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people."

The first duty of the government is public safety which, if it is to be adequately provided for, cannot be restricted as to means unless those means are immoral. It is not clear that subjecting a highly select group of known terrorists to maximum discomfort amounts to torture. If our government actually shrinks from its duties, the torture for millions of people will be far worse than that on three al-Qaeda operatives.

America is better than Utopia, Mr. President

Utopian visions have stirred men’s souls at least since the time of the ancient Greeks. The philosopher Plato unmasked the folly and the evil of all such schemes in his famous "Republic." He did not merely criticize a current tendency but a perennial human temptation. President Barack Obama is a utopian who believes that there are no limits to what can be done with political power. In contrast to the United States Constitution, the powers of which James Madison described as "few and defined," the ideological goal of the current administration is "transforming" the human condition.

Not content with equality in political rights and economic opportunities, Obama seeks to redistribute the wealth. To this end, he means to increase the income tax on the most productive and eliminate it for the least productive. By simultaneously commandeering votes with groups like ACORN, he will ensure that those who pay no taxes will access the money of those who do.

Obama has shown no respect for the law of nature that persons of the opposite sex alone should be married, that marriage should be upheld as a vital institution, or that unborn children should not be wantonly slaughtered. That is why he equivocates on same-sex marriage, ended restrictions on federal money for abortions overseas and for embryonic stem cell research, and supports legislation to end all restrictions on abortion whatsoever.

In perhaps the biggest conceit of all, our President actually says that he can negotiate with the world’s most aggressive dictatorships and make them see the wisdom of restraining their military ambitions. Iran and North Korea somehow will stop producing nuclear bombs and missiles, the Taliban and Hamas will see the error of their ways, and Hugo Chavez, Danny Ortega and even the Castros will change their opinion of us.

Obama pledged during the campaign to cut back on nuclear weapons unilaterally and has repeated the pledge recently. He says that our moral leadership will show the rogue nations of the world that we mean them no harm and that we can develop common interests.

The only sensible response to socialism at home and ill-conceived peace missions abroad is to point out that "there is nothing new under the sun." There will always be persons--and nations--who envy the success of others, blaming others rather than themselves. What talents they do possess they turn to tearing down others’ achievements. Socialism, as Winston Churchill so sagely remarked, produces nothing and makes people equal in their misery.

Mankind is certainly capable of improvements, as our ancestors showed when they founded the freest nation in the history of the world. But the enemies of the American Constitution, foreign and domestic, stretch the limits of human nature and wind up making things infinitely worse with socialism, communism and fascism.

The task of each generation of Americans is to elect leaders who understand that we are better off buying and selling with each other, in our neighborhoods or across national boundaries, than trusting governments to determine who should benefit from its power to redistribute the wealth through taxing and spending.

Those same leaders need to follow the maxim of Alexander Hamilton that nations do not have permanent friends, only permanent interests. Although the most reliable friends are those with a common heritage of liberty, we should never imagine that American independence can coexist with the fiction of a "community of nations." Many nations are as envious of our freedom, wealth and power as the least successful among us are of the most successful.

It is not in the character of the United States to be belligerent toward the world, but neither should it procrastinate while threats build up to such a degree that we lack the will and the means to counteract them and we are forced to wage defensive war, as we did in 1917 and 1941.

And certainly no America President should ever apologize abroad for policy differences with his predecessors, not to mention frivolously gloss over the great divide that separates the majority of Americans who embrace the Judaeo-Christian tradition and those who adhere to Islamic doctrines. For whatever Christians may have done in the Arab world a thousand years ago, there are no modern-day Christian equivalents of the violent Muslim minority that has declared war on the "Infidel."

Obama cannot legislate inequalities away or make the lion lay down with the lamb. Indeed, it is better for us to trade, as civilized nations do, than to seize wealth by force, as barbarians do. Meanwhile, we must always keep our guard up.

Justices blow off vote on taxes

Colorado's constitution plainly says that state and local governments can't raise taxes without voters' permission. If only the Colorado Supreme Court could read plain language. Instead, the court's liberal majority ignores terms that should obviously protect taxpayers and instead emphasizes extraneous arguments that accommodate government.

This latest legal chicanery comes from the same playbook that turned the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom into a tool to suppress religious speech.

Now voters who allowed their local school to keep, rather than refund, excess property tax collections are being hit with a backdoor property tax increase imposed by Gov. Bill Ritter and Democrat legislators.

Three factors determine property taxes: property value, the assessment rate, and mill levy.

If your home is worth $200,000, the assessment rate is 8%, and the mill levy is set at 50, the tax calculation looks like this: $200,000 x .08 (assessment rate) = $16,000 taxable value x .050 (mill levy) = $800 property tax.

When Colorado voters added the Taxpayers Bill or Rights (TABOR) to the state constitution, they prohibited state and local governments from enacting "a tax policy change directly causing a net tax revenue gain" without voter permission.

TABOR also limited total tax revenue increases to the combined rates of inflation plus population growth. If population plus inflation increase by 5% but total property valuation increases by 10%, the excess must be refunded to taxpayers and future mill levies reduced to avoid collecting the excess again.

Lawmakers from both parties have understood that neither the mill levy nor the assessment rate can be increased without a public vote. (The last attempted vote failed by a 3-to-1 margin.)

In 174 of Colorado's 178 school districts, voters have authorized their schools to keep the excess with the understanding - based on explicit promises from school and state officials - that taxes would remain subject to the population-plus-inflation limit.

Enter Colorado's newly empowered Democrats, who pay lip service to taxpayers but pledge allegiance to government. Ritter and his minions decided - without voter approval - that reducing mill levies was no longer necessary if voters had given their local school permission to keep excess revenues.

As a result, taxpayers coughed up an extra $117 million in the first year - an amount estimated to double every three years. This obvious "tax policy change" resulted in a "net revenue increase" which, to anyone without a law degree, clearly means voter permission is required.

But not according to Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey who ruled that Ritter and his fellow tax-hikers were merely implementing the wishes of the voters in those 174 districts - albeit years later.

Assurances to voters by school officials that taxes would remain capped don't matter, the court said, because those voters approved ballot questions that permitted schools to retain "all revenues" - even revenues that didn't exist at the time of the vote.

Worse, those tax dollars won't increase funds for local schools. As local taxpayers dig deeper, the state will reduce its contribution - instead paying more for welfare entitlement programs or to colleges and universities.

The consequences for voters and for schools are unfortunate. Voters can no longer take the word of school officials that "no one wants to raise your taxes." Even if local officials don't; state officials might and, thanks to Mullarkey, they can do so without the consent of voters or local schools.

Colorado Association of School Boards also backed the tax hike, leaving many local officials with egg on their faces. School leaders who conscientiously recognize the potential backlash from voters who feel betrayed should present taxpayers with the opportunity to re-instate the TABOR limit on property tax revenue and ask voters if their school can keep the change under that limit.

For voters and taxpayers, the recurring lesson is that constitutional limits on government are worthless if lawmakers won't abide by them and judges won't enforce them.

Mark Hillman served as Colorado senate majority leader and state treasurer. To read more or comment, go to www.MarkHillman.com

Brady & Sharf: More electoral mischief

Editor: Thwarted repeatedly in the past, progressive zealots in Colorado continue their push for a plebiscitary presidency in defiance of the Founders' wisdom. Here's part of the case for honoring the Constitution with continuing reliance on the Electoral College, from contributors Peg Brady and Joshua Sharf. Why even have elections? By Peg Brady gpbrady2@earthlink.net

House Bill 1299’s massive illogic dumbfounds me. As described in the 10 March 2009 Post (Bill “popular” enough to get first panel’s OK), this proposal would require Colorado’s Electoral representatives to ignore Colorado voters’ presidential choice.

Currently, our Electors cast Colorado’s votes for the presidential candidate chosen by the majority of Colorado voters. Thus, in 2012, if most Colorado voters chose candidate A, our state’s Electoral votes would be cast for candidate A. That makes sense.

However, if HB 1299 becomes law, our Electoral votes would be cast for the candidate preferred by voters in other states. Large-population states would control future presidential elections. That may be desirable for them, but it would be disastrous for us.

Reading the arguments debated as the Founding Fathers crafted our superb Constitution reveals their wisdom in establishing the Electoral College. They wanted to ensure that the voters in small-population states would be respected. Because of uneven population distribution, a few states could dominate presidential elections if the Constitution had not protected small-state voters.

To propose throwing away our Electoral safeguard undermines our Constitutional protection.

State Representative Claire Levy supports this dangerous proposal, stating illogically that “…everyone in the state who votes for the candidate who loses Colorado essentially has their vote wiped out.” Conversely, were HB 1299 passed, all Colorado voters would have their votes discarded.

If our Electors were required to ignore our choice and cast our Electoral votes with the national majority, we wouldn’t need to vote at all. The president would be chosen by the large-population East Coast and West Coast states. All the rest of us could just stay home.

I suppose that Colorado could save money by not bothering to hold elections. What would be the point? But I, for one, want my vote counted.

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Amendment by minority, compact by whim By Joshua Sharf jsharf@jsharf.com

Ross Kaminsky, Amy Oliver, and others have blogged locally about about the end-run around the Constitution that is HB1299. I won't bother to repeat their efforts to defend the Electoral College.

What strikes me is the irony of using the Electoral College and the Constitution to undermine them. HB1299 provides that the bill won't take effect until states with a combined Electoral College vote of 270 - enough to elect a President - approve it. The eleven largest states could decide that they want to change how a President is elected, without input from the other states. (In practice, Georgia and Texas, are unlikely to go along with this scheme, so the number of states needed would rise to 14 under current electoral count. Upcoming reapportionment might change it down to 13.) This reverses the Constitutional formula for amending the Constitution, with barely 1/4 of the states able to change things on their own.

When I pointed this out to the last political hack to try this stunt, Ken Gordon, on the air a couple of years ago, he retorted that this was only true because of the Electoral College itself, as those same states could elect a President. Of course, electing a President, who serves for four years, is a far less critical task than changing the Constitution, which changes will likely be with us forever.

The whole maneuver may not even be Constitutional. Article I, Section 10 reads, in part:

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, ... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

There are numerous interstate compacts, dealing with law enforcement, sexual predators, water rights, and other topics. The Supreme Court has ruled that the State needn't get Congressional approval unless the compact would impinge on Federal jurisdiction, which is why it's located in Article I, legislative powers.

However, the Court also ruled that term limits were an additional requirement for office, and that since Congressmen were Federal officers, the states had no power to impose those eligibility requirements. I wonder if one could make a similar argument about electors. I also wonder if a state has the right to apportion its own electors as it chooses, but cannot sign away that right of selection to other states.

All the arguments about this being an urban power grab are true. What's also true is that it's an unholy mess, which because its effects take place catastrophically, rather than as the states adopt it, is likely to sneak up on us and be settled in court, where so many of our issues are decided, rather than in the legislatures, where they ought to be.

Lincoln as exemplar for GOP today

If Republicans are serious about recovering constitutional government, it's hard to imagine how they would be successful without Lincoln. Editor: So writes Prof. Tom Krannawitter of Hillsdale College in an IBD opinion piece today. Amid a news cycle now measured in minutes, we need the perspective of the centuries to realize Lincoln's relevance for the momentous decisions of 2009. Here is the article in full:

Lincoln's Defense Of Constitution Is Moral For Today's Republicans By THOMAS KRANNAWITTER

This is the 200th birthday of the first Republican to win a national election, Abraham Lincoln. It is good for Republicans today to remember Lincoln, not to be antiquarians, but to learn from his principled defense of the Constitution.

By becoming students of Lincoln, Republicans can win elections and would deserve to win by helping America recover its constitutional source of strength and vitality.

The greatest political crisis America faces today is neither the recession nor Islamic terrorism; it's not health care, education, immigration or abortion. It is that the United States Constitution has become largely irrelevant to our politics and policies.

All three branches of government routinely ignore or twist the meaning of the Constitution, while many of our problems today are symptoms of policies that have no constitutional foundation.

If we are to recover the authority of the Constitution and the many ways it restrains and channels government power, someone or some party must offer a principled defense of the cause of constitutional government.

They must understand not only the Constitution, but also the principles that informed its original purposes and aspirations, principles found in the Declaration of Independence among other places.

No one understood that better than Lincoln.

Employing a biblical metaphor, Lincoln once described the leading principle of the Declaration of Independence — equal natural rights — as "the word fitly spoken which has proved an apple of gold to us," while the Constitution stands as "the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it.

"The picture," Lincoln argued, "was made not to conceal or destroy the apple, but to adorn and preserve it."

Lincoln's right. The declaration's assertion that legitimate governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed" because "all men are created equal" is precisely why "We the people" are authorized to "ordain and establish this Constitution."

Further, the Constitution limits the power of government because, as the declaration makes clear, the purpose of government is limited to securing the God-given, not government-granted, rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And a government of limited purpose should be one of limited power.

The Constitution, however, has suffered two nearly fatal criticisms: It's old and it's racist.

The former was launched by "progressive" thinkers more than a century ago and backed up by sophisticated theories of social and political evolution. Woodrow Wilson, for example, once compared the Constitution to "political witchcraft."

The charge of racism, mainly due to the Constitution's accommodations for slavery, found its loudest voice during the civil rights movement in the 1960s and following decades. Justice Thurgood Marshall voiced this critique in a 1987 Bicentennial essay when he refused to celebrate the original Constitution of 1787 because, he alleged, it was racist and therefore immoral.

The progressive and civil rights critiques have given us a century of New Freedom politics, New Deal politics, Great Society politics, Third Way politics, Compassionate Conservatism politics and now Responsible politics.

What we need, however, is a revival of constitutional politics. But the Constitution cannot be defended against these powerful criticisms unless someone can demonstrate that the Constitution incorporates principles that are both timeless and good.

And any such defense must confront two stubborn facts: The Constitution was indeed written long ago, and it did offer certain protections for slavery.

It was Lincoln's purpose to remind all Americans, white and black, that political freedom rests on an "abstract truth applicable to all men and all times."

That "abstract truth" is the principle of equal natural rights, a principle that cuts across time and space and is, contrary to progressive opinion, valid always and everywhere.

Regarding slavery, Lincoln explained that a constitutional regime dedicated to the declaration's principle of equality is a regime where slavery must be "placed in the course of ultimate extinction."

"If we do this," Lincoln said rightly, "we shall not only have saved the (constitutional) Union. . . . We shall have so saved it as to make and keep it forever worthy of the saving."

At Gettysburg's cemetery, as he struggled mightily to save the Constitution, Lincoln rededicated America to its original noble purpose in one of the most beautiful speeches of all time.

Lincoln understood that slavery did not make America unique. America's uniqueness is being the first constitutional government built on a foundation of equality and the terrible price America paid for ridding itself of slavery.

Lincoln's constitutionalism, I believe, is the only effective rebuttal to progressive and civil rights criticisms. Thus if Republicans are serious about recovering constitutional government, it's hard to imagine how they would be successful without Lincoln.

With Lincoln, it's hard to imagine how they would fail.

Krannawitter teaches political science at Hillsdale College in Michigan and is author of "Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of Our Greatest President." This article appeared in the Investor's Business Daily on 2/12/09.