The Ground Game

Thursday, January 14, 2010

James Madison on AID to HAITIAN REFUGEES (1794)

No one can deny the overwhelming need of the Haitian refugees who have been affected by the devastating earthquake. May our hearts, prayers and money speedily aid of them.

With that said, it was interesting to note that in 1794, the US Congress was faced with this very same dilemma, as to what exactly the role of the federal government was in instances such as these--specifically with regards to HAITI. The following is from the 1st session of the 3rd Congress when Madison led votes against granting assistance to French refugees from the Haitian revolution in 1794.

Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 3rd Congress, 1st Session, page 170 (1794-01-10) [3]. The Annals summarize speeches in the third person, with the actual text of Madison's quote as follows:"Mr. Madison wished to relieve the sufferers, but was afraid of establishing a dangerous precedent, which might hereafter be perverted to the countenance of purposes very different from those of charity. He acknowledged, for his own part, that he could not undertake to lay his finger on that article in the Federal Constitution which granted a right of Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
The expense in question was for French refugees from the Haitian Revolution.

This is the instance which gave rise to Madison's famous quote:

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." --James Madison

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Hazlitt Speaks to our Time...

Over fifty years ago (1946), economist Henry Hazlitt commented on the panic bailouts of 2008:

"The lobbies of Congress are crowded with representatives of the X industry. The X industry is sick. The X industry is dying. It must be saved. It can be saved only by a tariff, by higher prices, or by a subsidy. If it is allowed to die, workers will be thrown on the streets. Their landlords, grocers, butchers, clothing stores and local motion pictures will lose business, and depression will spread in ever-widening circles. But if industry X, by prompt action of Congress, is saved--ah then! It will buy equipment from other industries; more men will be employed; they will hive more business to the butchers, bakers and neon-light makers, and then it is prosperity that will spread in ever-widening circles."

In his own time, it was the silver and coal subsidy. The Treasury was forced to "acquire, at ridiculous prices far above the market level, hoards of unnecessary silver, and store it in vaults." Similarly, the fixing of the price of coal, below which it could not fall, accelerated the movement of consumers from coal to oil and natural gas.

What is the end result of a bailout? In Hazlitt's words, any attempt to save the X industry by a direct subsidy out of the public till would:

"...be nothing more than a transfer of wealth or income to the X industry. The taxpayers would lose precisely as much of the people in the X industry gained...And consumers, because they are taxed to support the X industry, will have that much less income with which to buy other things. The result must be that other industries on the average must be smaller than otherwise in order that the X industry may be larger. But the result of this subsidy is not merely that there has been a transfer of wealth or income, or that other industries have shrunk in aggregate as much as X industry has expanded. The net result is also...that the capital and labor are driven out of industries in which they are more efficiently employed to be diverted to an industry in which they are less efficiently employed. Less wealth is created."

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Working with the Boss's Son

I've been brooding over this topic for some time now, but I've got to make a comment. First let me emphasize how great and generous my employers are. These guys would give the shirt off of their backs to help one of their employees who is down on their luck (with construction workers, that seems more often than not). More than a few employees have left the company heavily in debt to my bosses, so they hardly fit the left's mold of greedy, hard-hearted capitalists titans. In that light, I begin.

I was walking down the hallway today after completing some work on a legal motion. In what has become a common occurrence, I looked into the office of the Boss' Son. I guess my shoes weren't striking the travertine tiles hard enough, because he didn't bother to stir from his slumber. In fact it took some tenacious throat clearing on my part to even get a bob of the guy's head. I could understand dozing off after pulling a late night in order to meet a work deadline, but when filing, even one document per day, becomes too great a burden, his paycheck, no matter how large, mocks the efforts of everyone else in the office.

Maybe I wouldn't mind if he no longer lived in his parents' basement, commonly bathed, shaved, brushed his teeth, or looked in the mirror before arriving at work. Maybe I wouldn't take notice if he didn't singlehandedly clear out the company's soft drink supply room by devouring twelve Coke's per day (not an exaggeration). Maybe I wouldn't be so embarrassed when investors and clients came to the office if he actually tucked in his shirt, rotated his jeans at least quarterly, and tied the shoelaces on his white Reebok high tops.

I ask you...am I expecting too much? After all, none of those things are required in the 'virtual world' in which he lives.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Windmills for Suckers: Pickens' Genocidal Plan

Ouch!!!! This article appears in the Science & Technology section of the August 22, 2008 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

"Unless you want to kill people by energy starvation, wind is useless for an industrial society. It is intermittent, unreliable, subsidy dependent, with high costs and low energy density, and, for these reasons, wind requires a full-time back-up power source."

"Obstructing Official Business"

Despite all of the China's "progress," their people are still slaves. Read the following excerpt and I will explain below. For over a decade, Ni Yulan, 47, has been a prominent rights activist and lawyer fighting against Kelo (Chinese style) government land grabs in Beijing.

"They stuck the demolition notice on our front door," Dong said, (Ni's Husband)
"Nobody came to talk with us, there were no negotiations for compensation, no public hearings."
As all land belongs to the state in China, local officials enjoy immense powers to determine land-use rights, and critics say residents and farmers are often forcefully evicted in shady deals between the government and developers.
Ni was charged with "obstructing official business", and she has been in custody ever since although she has not appeared in court.

Sound familiar to the creeping property law changes in our own country? First, the Public Use Clause was "reinterpreted." Since that bulwark has been breached, look forward to the time when the Just Compensation Clause will be eviscerated.

It's only a matter of time till we witness American versions of Ni Yulan playing out all across the fruited plain. Why might you ask? Because both the federal government, and the states alike, have moved away from their ultimate and primary purpose--that of preserving private property and personal safety--to seizing the property of one class of citizen for the service of the rest.

One cannot be free when the fruits of their labor can be arbitrarily stripped from him by force. Property rights are inextricably intertwined with human rights. They cannot be separated. Former United States Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland stated it this way:

It is not the right of property which is protected, but the right to property. Property, per se, has no rights; but the individual--the man--has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference; the RIGHT TO HIS LIFE, the RIGHT TO HIS LIBERTY, and the RIGHT TO HS PROPERTY. These three rights are so bound together as to be essentially ONE right. To give a man his life, but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes his life worth living. To give him liberty but to take from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to still leave him a slave." (From speech to the NY Bar Assn.)

Monday, November 17, 2008

Obama's BC$ Intervention

Having graduated from a "Mid-Major" college, President Elect Obama's threat on 60 Minutes "throw his weight around" (which, even while wearing his empty suit drenched in water, probably doesn't amount to much more than 175 lbs) in order to get the BC$ replaced by an eight team national playoff system, was music to my ears. The problem is that, if the "Wall Street Bailout" is any indicator, Occidental, Columbia and Harvard (Obama's alma mater), despite their lack of merit, will all soon be receiving an "automatic bid" to the playoff. Those greedy politicians just can't seem to resist funneling prizes to their friends.

While I wholeheartedly agree that no sport should ever be decided by a computer, or bunch of balding news desk-bound sports reporters, the idea of seeing the federal government intervene in college football is a little absurd, don't ya think? This is almost as grand as McCain proposing to propose a steroid czar to fix a problem that has already been rectified.

Here's the Quote:

The interview ended on a question about creating a college football playoff system for the national championship, with Obama calling for three rounds and potentially three more weeks to the season.

"I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this," he said. "I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do."

Friday, November 14, 2008

Just in Time for Christmas

In the past two days (and just in time for Christmas), two of the nation's most influential editorial pages have

weighed in on "public square" controversy brewing in Pleasant Grove, Utah--hardly a hotbed of social activism. All I can say is get ready for the day when your Christian Creche will be "balanced" by the atheists' singing Kansas' All we are is Dust in the Wind right next door.

The crux of the controversy in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum is that some ACLU lawyers, in order to make a name for themselves, dared a few members of some new-aged-Star-Trek-pseudo-religion to file a complaint against Pleasant Grove in order to have its teachings displayed on the grounds of Pioneer Park. Sounds funny, but let there be no doubt. Ultimately, this case is about one thing and one thing only--universal removal of religious monuments from the public square. It's not about "tolerance" or "inclusion." If it were, the attorneys would not have chosen so peculiar a plaintiff. After all, I highly doubt that there is a massive groundswell of support for this group's teachings to be placed in the park. The lawyers are simply trying to make a point. It was not long ago that the Supreme Court began its open hostility to religion (read Christianity) and it is being waged intensely under our noses.

It's interesting (but unsurprising) to note the divergent positions taken by these two papers. The NY Times frames the issue thusly:

The real problem is that Pleasant Grove City elevated one religion, traditional Christianity, over another, Summum...There is no shortage of churches, synagogues and private parcels of land where the Ten Commandments could be displayed without the need to include the credos of alternative faiths. Public property like Pioneer Park must be open to all religions on an equal basis — or open to none at all.

Aha! The last line reveals their true intentions. The WSJ, however, has a different view:

The common-sense argument against Summum's claim, which the U.S. Solicitor General made to the Supreme Court, was that it would cause a clutter of public monuments. If a city let private donors contribute a memorial to local boys who died in the Iraq war, would it have to accept another group's monument to pacifism? As Chief Justice Roberts asked yesterday, "Do we have to put any president who wants to be on Mt. Rushmore?"(As of now, perhaps.)...This is the sort of case that cries out for the judicial wisdom of Solomon, long dead in the U.S. Indeed it was the departure from common-sense wisdom that pitched the country into endless legal thickets

With the election of Barack Obama you can expect that the left wing radicals will be emboldened on every front. It's time to defend our traditions and our culture. It's time to push back the liberal hoards.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

California Cross Stomping

You know the times (and Culture) have changed when the desecration of the Christian cross hardly raises an eyebrow. They always say that what starts in California spreads to the rest of the country. Let's just hope that this trend travels really slow! (See minute 2:20)

Friday, September 26, 2008

Florida's New Bureaucratic Palace

As we note here, Governor Charlie Crist recently socialized Florida's property insurance by creating the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Today, from State Senator Don Gaetz we learn that Citizens Property Insurance is planning to either construct or lease back a new bureaucratic palace:

Citizens Property Insurance Corporation is currently planning to lease or have built-to-suit a new 100,000 square foot office facility in Tallahassee. The sheer size, scope and expense of such an undertaking is extraordinary, particularly given the economic conditions facing those who pay Citizens premiums and directly and indirectly support Citizens through surcharges on other policies.

I am further advised that the amenities under consideration for this vast facility include a fitness center, restaurant and concierge services. While I can understand the comfort and convenience which would be available to Citizens executives and employees, I question the wisdom of spending Floridians’ dollars for what would seem to be non-essential luxuries.

There was a time when Florida had a Governor who knew something about fiscal responsibility and whose goal it was to reduce the power and scope of the government. In his second inaugural address Jeb Bush emphasized his intent saying:

"we can make these buildings around us empty of workers; silent monuments to the time when government played a larger role than it deserved or could adequately fill."

Thanks be to Don Gaetz for continuing in Jeb's foot steps.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Beware: McCain Proposes Regulation for Wall Street

If history is any guide, the nation will rue the day that it allows McCain to get his hands on its financial and securities institutions. Speaking in Jacksonville, Florida recently McCain proposed a new set of regulations to replace "the outdated and ineffective patchwork quilt of regulatory oversight in Washington." McCain's 'regulations' are all too often knee-jerk reactions which, because of his reliance upon an unhealthy mix of liberal and populist ideology, only serve to make matters worse. Here are a few examples:

McCain-Feingold (Evisceration of the First Amendment/Incumbent Protection Act)
Cap and Trade legislation (Government takeover of economy)
Comprehensive Immigration Reform (Amnesty)
Sarbanes-Oxley (Onerous business reporting rules now making London the financial capital of the world and preventing IPOs)

Other aspects of McCain's legacy:

Opposition to Bush's Tax Cuts
Gang of Fourteen
Drilling in ANWR
Crusade against tobacco
National compulsory service

Blindly bumbling from one bad idea to another, McCain has blamed the current financial crisis on his fall back populist rhetoric--"Wall Street greed." Next, McCain proposed a slow moving indecisive "bipartisan commission," and demanded the firing of SEC Chairman and Bush appointee Christopher Cox (reminiscent of McCain's demand for Rumsfeld's head). Unfortunately, the latter remark served only to remind McCain's recently energized base of his penchant for throwing Republicans under the bus (with almost as much skill as Obama).

Mr. McCain--shouldn't the managers of these failing companies (ie. Franklin Raines or Dan Mudd), or those who blocked their reformation (Barney Frank D-Mass.) at least receive some of the blame? For some odd reason I fear that your inconsistent and confused ideology would, at best, give us four years watered down liberal policies.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Thoughts on McCain at ServiceNation

Eventually it hit me. I kept asking myself, "what's with the government centric assumption to service that pervades all of these questions posed by both Stengel and Woodruff?" The answer--these moderators are liberals! Most normal people find higher purpose in religion and perform their acts of service through their churches. To these liberals, government (or environmentalism) has become their religion and their higher purpose. They have never been to church!

It's stunning that the fundamental assumption of ServiceNation is that "volunteerism" has to be lead by the federal government. Incredibly, McCain was asked whether working class people have the necessary means and time off work to volunteer as compared to the wealthy (the assumption being that the government ought to mandate time off or supplement the incomes of those who "serve"). For some reason, McCain agreed to triple the size of Americorps, but the assumption continued when McCain was jokingly asked if he would establish a cabinet level of "Service!?!" If I were answering that question I would have said, h$*@% no, we need to be dissolving at least half of those departments! McCain finally got on track saying that the Cabinet is already too large as it is.

True service consists of simple acts like walking across the street and cutting down a tree limb for a neighbor or helping a widow in need. One of the greatest things about real volunteerism is the fact that there is almost no overhead--100% of the revenues going to those in need. That certainly would never happen with a new layer of bureaucracy. Service does not consist of getting paid to attend a government sponsored left wing training camp and do calisthenics in center city Philadelphia for a year (I've seen it first hand). It makes me wonder why McCain would agree to triple the size of Americorps.

Thoughts on Obama at ServiceNation

Obama wants to train and deploy America's youth as "agricultural specialists" to Afghanistan. Does anyone besides me see a problem here? In my opinion, America's national parks have enough "agricultural specialist" running around. Our native cash crop could be devastated if Obama were to teach poppy cultivation to the unbathed and directionless protester class. On second thought, we would certainly have a huge pool of willing applicants.

Roundup of Biden's VP Gaffes...Stay Tuned

Being a City Councilman Harder than being a Senator

Paying Taxes is Patriotic!

"Barack America!":

"Stand up for Chuck!"

Lt. Governor of Alaska:

Hillary would have been a better choice than Me:

Battalions or Brigades?

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Seven Years Later, Still little Progress at Ground Zero

Seven years after terrorist destroyed the World Trade Center,

construction efforts at Ground Zero still show little evidence of progress. The 26 projects planned for Ground Zero (totaling over $15 billion) are "over budget and behind schedule," said the Port Authority' executive director Christopher Ward. According to Architectural Record:

"Originally scheduled to be to be finished this year, construction of the 1,776-foot-tall (1 World Trade Center) skyscraper has inched along since foundation work began in 2006. Today, steel columns rise a mere 20 feet above street level."

I guess it's not necessarily the triumphant rising of the phoenix that we had hoped for.

The Coming Civil War in America

Phyllis Chesler's points out some stylistic differences between the Republican and Democrat National Conventions which portend and even larger cultural divide to come in America. Can the same thing be said about the "conservative" and "liberal" churches as well? Is it me, or is it strange to walk into a church and see a long-haired reformed hippie jamming on his guitar or banging on a snare drum just prior to taking communion?

The Democratic National Convention had music by the great Stevie Wonder; Jennifer Hudson, like Senator Obama, a sudden and recent star who won an Academy award for her supporting role in Dreamgirls; Melissa Etheridge; Sheryl Crow; the very popular soul singer, John Legend who performed twice, once alone and once with Will.i.am, a member of the funk/hip-hop group, The Black Eyed Peas. Robert Moore, a Rosebud Sioux tribal Council member, sang a traditionally non-traditional version of the national anthem.

The entire convention, especially the last night when Obama spoke, was the equivalent of a rock concert. To many people, especially younger people, this is what moves them, what is real. Only celebrity, “spectacle,” performance, and popular music have authority, are familiar, and command their respect.

The Republican National Convention had very little music. I myself saw and heard only one young Christian rock singer. Maybe there was more music and I missed it. Perhaps the Republicans decided to focus on the speakers and not on the entertainment. The RNC website lists no musical entertainers, probably courtesy of Hurricane Gustav.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Digging for Dirt But Finding Only a Hole

From the moment that Sarah Palin was introduced to America as John McCain's pick to be his Vice Presidential Running mate, Obama dispatched his minions to Alaska to dig up any amount of dirt that could possibly be uncovered about the relatively unknown political newcomer (at least unknown on the national stage). As John Fund from the Wall Street Journal reported just yesterday, the Obama camp has dispatched over 30 lawyers and "opposition researchers" (a euphemism for political hacks or thugs) to try and find something -- ANYTHING -- to knock Sarah Palin off course. They know that she, more than McCain himself, stands as the single biggest barrier to the community organizer's dreams of becoming the most powerful man on earth.

Well, one thing that the radical America-hating hard left (with their help at the National Enquirer) came up with was a phony story about an alleged affair that Palin had with one of her husband's former business partners. The left-wing blogosphere was all in an uproar when an associate of the Palins, Scott Richter, filed a request with an Alaskan court to seal (or treat as confidential) his divorce papers. To the non-thinking, knee-jerk left wingers, that request alone was enough to prove that Sarah Palin must have had an affair and that affair MUST have been with Mr. Richter .... why else would he be trying to hide his divorce papers? A hoped-for home run in the game of gotcha politics. Or so they thought.

As the Smoking Gun now proves, the hype (or was it 'hope') by the Obamamaniacs was all for not. As it turns out, Mr. Richter was trying to seal his records only because the 30+ researchers and their allies in the national media were using the court records to obtain his name, address and phone number in order to hound him with questions about the Palins.

In his petition to the court, Mr. Richter plead for assistance because the media and others are using his name, number and address to obtain unwanted daily contact. Plus, he says, "[m]y cabin life and private life is extremely important to me and my young son who find ourselves and our lives disrupted by such contact."

So, the media and the Obama thugs dig up Mr. Richter's name and number, they pepper him with questions, they harass his 11-year old son and when he files a request with the court for some relief, they use that as proof that Mrs. Palin had an affair with Mr. Richter. Amazing. They cause the problem and when an innocent bystander tries to fix it, he (and Mrs. Palin) becomes guilty as charged.

I undertand the media's need to research Sarah Palin. I don't fault them for that. That's their job. And if they find something credible on an issue that matters, by all means bring that to light. But, if they are going to expend that much time, effort and treasure to researching all of Sarah Palin's dirty laundry, out of fairness and journalistic integrity (can I use those two words in a row or is that a ________?), then they need to fly their researchers to Chicago to study Obama's connections with Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, and William Ayers as well as his involvement in unethical land sale deals and $1 billion in pork earmarks (to name just a few issues that the media has given blind eye to related to Lord Messiah Obama). What's fair is fair. But that concept isn't known to today's media. They carry the water for Obama and the liberal establishment, treat them with kid gloves, all while going after the GOP candidates like sharks.

So my only question is this: if the Democrats in Congress get their way and re-establish the "Fairness Doctrine", will the national media be required to comply or will it only apply to syndicated talk radio shows that have a top 5 nation-wide ranking? Just wondering.

Rice laments lack of black diplomats

When it comes to Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, Venezuela and the rest of the cast of

characters, I'm not sure what the color of one's skin has to do with their capabilities to promote your country's interest abroad. On the other hand, with the State Department actively undermining the President's agenda, maybe some new blood isn't such a bad idea after all:

"I want to see a Foreign Service that looks as if black Americans are part of this great country," Rice told a gathering of black colleges and universities in Washington. I have lamented that I can go into a meeting at the Department of State," said Rice, the second black person to become secretary of state after her predecessor Colin Powell. And, as a matter of fact, I can go into a whole day of meetings at the Department of State and actually rarely see somebody who looks like me, and that's just not acceptable," she added.

On the other hand, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says that the Constitution forbids racial preferences, so I don't know what to think.

BBC Poll: World wants Obama as president

Exactly the reason that the United States should vote for anyone other than Obama:

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be struggling to nudge ahead of his Republican rival in polls at home, but people across the world want him in the White House, a BBC poll said. All 22 countries covered in the poll would prefer to see Senator Obama elected US president ahead of Republican John McCain.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Alabama "Fat Tax"

Although I am hard wired chafe under "Big Brother's" hand, I surprisingly have no problem with this:

Alabama recently ranked as the No. 2 fattest state in a national study looking at obesity. About 30 percent of Alabama residents are considered obese. The Alabama state government has decided it has to do something about that rate. So, in in the way typical of governments everywhere, it came up with an idea to encourage weight loss - and make some dough in the process. A fat tax. If the obese members of the state's 37,527-employee work force don't lighten up in a year, they'll be charged $25 to help pay for their health insurance - unless they get a free health screening. According to Business Week, if the screenings turn up serious problems with blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose or obesity, employees will have a year to see a doctor at no cost, enroll in a wellness program or take steps on their own to improve their health. If they show progress in a follow-up screening, they won't be charged. But if they don't, they must pay starting in January 2011.

First of all, these employees are "at will" and if they don't want to lose weight in order to save their employers from an already crushing health care cost, then they can always work somewhere else. There is no inherent right to a cushy government job where you can (a) send every single one of your calls to voicemail, and (b) produce next to nothing all day. Having worked for several different branches of government during my time in college (both state and federal) I know this goes on from first hand experience.

Second, because this is a case of employer/employee, it is different than what we will inevitably experience under a future socialized medicine regime. Neither healthcare nor health insurance is a 'right' in the same sense that you have a right to a trial by jury. Where the employer chooses to offer healthcare to his employees, he does so, not out of charity, but to attract and retain more highly skilled employees. On the other hand, if the government were the sole provider of healthcare, your receipt of medical treatment would be dependent upon first, whether you have lived according to the government health mandates (ie. fat intake, smoking, alcohol consumption), and only then will the government proceed to examine the severity of your illness. Because socialized medicine requires rationing, healthcare will be rationed first to those submit to government prescribed way of life. People who are too fat, too old or too young are the first to be rationed. Incredibly as it may sound, prerequisites for government healthcare demand that you stop smoking, restrict your number of child births , or that all of your health information be available to the government, etc.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Supreme Court Ruling Put Marine JAG in Moral Quandary

From the Florida Bar News: The Supreme Court's grant of civil rights to unlawful enemy combatants has placed the U.S. Military and this Marine

JAG in a severe moral quandary. The issue--How can a prosecutor criminally try a defendant (a terrorist) with evidence obtained by duress or coercion (of even the slightest degree)? The "exclusionary rule," a penalty created by our courts, prevents the admission of evidence in a criminal prosecution which was collected in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights. If an unlawful enemy combatant is entitled to certain Constitutional rights (as the Supreme Court says they are), how can a prosecutor both uphold the Constitution on one hand, and attempt to admit battlefield evidence that has been obtained in violation of the Constitution? Lt. Colonel Stuart Couch tells of his experiences at GTMO:

In October 2003, Couch first visited Guantanamo to get the lay of the land, and soon learned business was being conducted in a bizarre way. Waiting to watch an interview with another detainee through a two-way mirror, Couch heard what he called “ear-splitting heavy-metal, razor-blade rock” coming from down the hall. Couch ran toward the music, and found a room lit only by a flashing strobe light. A detainee was shackled to the floor, rocking back and forth and praying.

“These two civilian dudes came out and backed me up and pulled the door behind them. I said, ‘What’s going on here?’ They really wouldn’t answer my questions. To the guy who was escorting me around, an Air Force JAG, I said, ‘What the heck is this about?’ And he goes, ‘That’s approved.’”

While watching the treatment of that detainee, Couch said he had a flashback to his stint in the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) School, where air crew and special operations people learn how to handle themselves if captured.

He explains that one defendant began "singing like a canary" after interrogators made him believe that his mother was going to be arrested and brought to GTMO as well:

Slahi (the defendant) believe[d] he was going to be taken out and executed and buried at Guantanamo. The detainee Slahi was shown a letter on State Department letterhead that indicated his mother and his brother had been picked up and his mother was going to be brought to Guantanamo. The letter was expressing out loud concerns about what they were going to do, because she was going to be the only female at Guantanamo and they were concerned about her safety. The implication being: ‘Hey, we’re going to bring your mom to Guantanamo, and she’s probably going to get raped,’” he said.

Focused solely on what he saw in government documents about Slahi’s treatment, Couch said, “Enough is enough. Torture of a human being is wrong. It’s a violation of our domestic law.

Whether playing "ear splitting" music or showing a terrorist a piece of paper qualifies as torture is a hard sell for many people, especially when you consider the evil and vindictive means of torture devised over the course of human history, but this is not the purpose of this post. The purpose of this post is to illustrate the moral quandary that the Supreme Court has placed upon our armed forces by attempting to force American rules of criminal procedure on what is, in fact, a legitimate war-time intelligence gathering operation. Criminal procedure and war-time intelligence gathering operations cannot occupy the same space simultaneously. You cannot apprehend someone on a battlefield who knows the enemies' battle plans, interrogate them for military purposes, and, at the same time, attempt to admit the information extracted as evidence in a criminal proceeding (that is if you are forced to use traditional rules of criminal procedure). The military has begun recruiting detectives and police for this purpose, but the whole notion of making a criminal arrest on a battlefield is ridiculous.

Is the U.S. military so mighty that we have no need to know of the enemy's plans? Are our tanks and airplanes so overwhelming that interrogation is now obsolete to our armed forces? By granting unlawful enemy combatants access to our criminal courts, the Supreme Court has implied precisely that. As a result, the military and Lt. Couch have been placed in an completely untenable position. Either the military must choose to interrogate detainees through some form of coercion and release them (for all evidence gained by coercion would be excluded in court), or they must begin building a criminal case against the detainee, thereby forgoing all intelligence that might contribute to the most important objective--VICTORY.

To fight and win wars, detainees must be interrogated. As battles rage back and forth and men spill their blood on one side or the other, intelligence on the enemy's location and strength has-more than once-meant the difference between victory and defeat.

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