LOSE LOTT/MITIGATE
HOMELAND SECURITY
Geoff Metcalf
November 10, 2002
NewsWithViews.com
For years I have had to remind
myself that politics is the “art of compromise” and that sometimes in
order to accomplish long-term objectives, it is necessary to take smaller
bites of the apple.
HOWEVER, my self-chastisement is
usually sparked by yet another of the myriad abrogation of
‘principles’ to accommodation. Way
too often, the GOP (and especially under the shaky hand of Trent Lott) has
folded like a house of cards at the least hint of harsh rhetoric.
Damn their eyes!
Sure, compromise is necessary to
avoid gridlock…but compromise should be a result of give and take on
‘details’ not on PRINCIPLES.
When I read Wes Vernon’s Daschle-Lott
Secret Deal Delays Bush's Agenda Until 2003 in Newsmax my immediate
reaction was, “this counterproductive complicity is sufficient to gag
maggots.”
Reportedly, “Senate Republican
leader Trent Lott and Senate Democrat leader Tom Daschle made a
pre-election agreement that, no matter how the election turned out, the
GOP would not seek to control the committees in the coming lame-duck
session. The newly elected Senate will not be sworn in until January.”
DOH!
Now before you rush to defend
the indefensible and suggest such an accommodation is the
“statesmanlike” thing to do, please remember that it has been Tom
Daschle and his obstructionist minions who killed Bush judicial nominees
for no other reason than they could.
No reorganizing means the
committee chairmanships remain in the petty, mean spirited, obstructionist
hands of the Democrats….and Lott is letting it happen.
Lott has been weak, complicit,
and arguably incompetent. Why
gift him with the Senate leadership for his bumbling malfeasance? His penchant for Marquis of Queensbury rules when the
Democrats are bludgeoning him with rebar and practicing proctology with
splintered bamboo is suicidal.
I’m not crazy about the
Homeland Security bill. There
are elements in it that frankly eviscerate essential elements of the
republic. The conventional
counter to complaints about neutering several elements of the Bill of
Rights has been and remains, “Hey, if you don’t have anything to hide,
what are you worried about?”
Well for starters (although I
don’t have anything illegal or even inappropriate to hide) it’s not
the government’s business to arbitrarily decide what freedoms and
liberties they choose to let us have.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights doesn’t GIVE us a bloody
thing. Those documents acknowledge
God given inalienable rights. The
government didn’t GIVE us those rights and the government cannot and
should not mitigate them.
In February of 1998 I wrote
that, despite very specific prohibitive language which states,
"Congress shall make no law...", Congress has, in fact, a
whole bunch of times, passed laws supposedly, allegedly, "in the
public interest" which do, in fact, restrict freedom of speech and
the press.
Who
would have thunk it…that it would a republican administration fitting us
for hobbles?
It has happened before, and we
could in store for another lesson in abuse of power.
Some of the more famous abuses
include:
·
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1790
·
The Smith Act of 1940
·
and The McCarran Act of 1950.
The Smith Act of 1940 was a
result of concerns over Germany's European aggression during WWII, and
more specifically over alleged Communist-sparked strikes intended to
cripple defense production. The Smith Act called for, and required, the
fingerprinting and registering of all aliens residing in the United Sates
and made it a crime to advocate or teach the violent overthrow of the U.S.
government or membership in a group advocating or teaching it.
Gee, does that sound kinda familiar?
The Supreme Court of 1951 in
Dennis vs. United States upheld the act's constitutionality (because it
could) and told dissenters to shut up and sit down. However, the Supremes
have increasingly been mercurial and subject to change. In 1957, the court
amended its position in Yates vs. United States and ruled that teaching
communism or other revolutionary theories did not in itself constitute
grounds for conviction -- only proof positive that direct action had been
urged to topple the government could yield a conviction.
The Red scare required certain
organizations to register with the U.S. attorney general. It
denied members employment within
the federal government or its defense industries and the right to use U.S.
passports. Other elements extended the statue of limitations for
espionage, arranged for emergency detention of those likely to commit
espionage or sabotage, and created (here we go folks) a Subversive
Activities Control Board for the purpose of determining whether
organizations and individuals were Red.
The way inertia is nudging this
administration, we may well expect a similar board to monitor and control
dissent.
President Bush has said,
"It is imperative that the Congress send me a bill (The Homeland
Security bill) that I can sign before 107th Congress ends.”
Even with Democrats holding
control of the committees it could still happen…maybe.
However there ARE problems.
The House version gave the president broad latitude on where
Homeland Security employees could be deployed. The Senate bill insists on
affording those employees union protections.
Other Bush initiatives remain
bottled up in Democrat controlled committees.
However with Lott having folded
(again) to Daschle conservatives are ticked off.
If the election showed that voters repudiated the liberal left
(everywhere except California) what the hell was Lott thinking?
Allowing a petty Patrick Leahy
to hold onto the Judiciary Committee and sandbag judicial nominees is
frankly a dog that just won’t hunt.
If the Lott/Daschle deal remains
the energy plan and tax cuts will be delayed.
The
107th Daschle-Stalled-Congress didn’t accomplish Jack-spit
other than fuel acrimony. For
Lott to act as “enabler” (compounded with his long litany of
malfeasance) should result in a GOP change of command.
© 2002 Geoff Metcalf - All Rights Reserved
