Today's Nuze: December 19, 2003

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2003

A VICTORY FOR OUR CONSTITUTION

Here is the lead paragraph in an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal:

Yesterday's big legal news--no, not the charges against Michael Jackson--is that two federal appeals courts issued decisions ignoring the fact that the U.S. homeland was attacked on September 11.

I believe that the Journal has one of the best opinion pages of any newspaper in America, but this time they have it at least partially wrong.

The two rulings yesterday were:

1. Jose Padilla, a/k/a Osama bin Lopez, an American citizen, must be released from military custody and afforded the Constitutional due process rights to which any American citizen is entitled.

2. Those detainees in Guantanamo must be given access to attorneys and the federal courts.

That second ruling came from the notorious 9th Circuit out there in California. I don't agree with it. Foreign combatants engaged in hostile activity against American forces aren't entitled to Constitutional due process protections. I suspect the Supreme Court will have a different view of this one.

Jose Padilla is another matter. Was he being trained in an Al Qaeda training camp? Probably so. Did he come back to this country to work on detonating a "dirty" nuclear device? Maybe he did. None of these facts erase the fact that Padilla is a U.S. citizen and he was taken into custody on American soil. Capture him while he's actually overseas carrying out an action against American interests and you may have a different situation. Our laws are capable of handling the situation. You arrest Padilla, then arraign him, try him, convict him ... and then execute him if the obsessive compulsive compassion crowd doesn't get in your way.

The very foundation of our country is the rule of law. If this foundation crumbles then the very structure of our nation is at risk. I know I've made this point before, but this is as good a time as any to repeat it. In our society there is only one entity that can use force to accomplish its goals, and that entity is government. If you want something you have to either talk someone into giving that thing to you, or you have to go out there and work to earn the funds necessary to purchase that item. If the government wants something it will use force to take it, or use force to acquire the funds necessary to buy it. The government's power to take extends to your life and your liberty. Your protection lies in the rule of law. Before the government can exercise its monopoly on the use of force it must follow explicit rules established in accordance with specific constitutional principles. These rules are there to protect the life, liberty and property of American citizens, not to protect government.

In the case of Jose Padilla these basic rules were being ignored. Padilla was not being afforded his constitutional right to an attorney, the right to face his accuser and his right to access to our courts. If the United States cannot make its case against Padilla without casting aside our basic constitutional protections than Padilla should go free.

To put it more bluntly ... a country that can seize an American citizen from the streets and lock him away without charges, without access to lawyers, and without access to our courts and basic due process is not a country that is worth defending.

THIS ELECTION IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN

Please, please ... make Howard Dean the nominee of the Democratic Party. A Dean vs. Bush presidential election will be delicious feed for talk show hosts like me. Hopefully the Democrats are stupid enough to allow this clown to get the nomination. Please ... .oh please.

Here are two of the gems Dean presented to the American people yesterday:

1. Howard Dean thinks that America is no safer today than it was before 9/11
2. And Dean wants the rich and corporations to pay "their fair share" of income taxes.

We ran a little poll on Nealz Nuze yesterday. Ninety percent of the people who responded said that they think America is safer after the terrorist attacks. That would mean that 10% of the people who responded to the polls are fools ... a word that applies to Howard Dean as well.

Prior to 9/11 Al Qaeda was operating openly and with the full protection of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Today most of the Al Qaeda leadership is either dead or in custody, the Taliban is out of business in Afghanistan and what's left of Osama and his crowd are on the run and spending more time on just avoiding capture than they are planning new attacks on America. And Dean doesn't think America is any safer?

Has Howard Dean flown on a commercial airline lately? Every single piece of luggage checked into the baggage hold of a commercial airliner is now screened for weapons, explosives and other dangerous materials. Passengers are subjected to an unparalleled level of scrutiny before they board an aircraft. And Howard Dean doesn't think America is any safer?

Howard Dean is going to save me so much time next year. If Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman or some other Democrat was the nominee I would have to spend much more time engaged in research. Not so with Dean. He parades his righteous, angry stupidity every day ... holding it out there to be plucked like a ripe fruit.

It's going to be a fun year.

AN ABSOLUTELY AMAZING EMAIL

Over the past few months I've been telling you about various cases of eminent domain abuse in this country. It used to be that local governments could not seize a private citizen's property unless that property was needed for some public use. From the time our country began, the term "public use" had been taken to mean schools, bridges, roads hospitals and other such government/public functions. That all changed when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "public use" could be pretty much anything the local government wanted it to be. Now we have situations across the country where local politicians are seizing property from one private owner and turning that property over to another private owner simply because the new owner will pay more property taxes. If this is the standard for the "public use" restrictions on the exercise of eminent domain then virtually no property is safe from government seizure.

So ... along comes an email message this morning from someone named Jon Silman. Either Silman is putting me on here, or he is spectacularly ignorant of the basics of property rights and economic liberty. Here's what Silman had to say:

Stop lying about eminent domain. Sometimes government just has to step in when someone refuses to give up needed properties. If a business needs someones land, then they should not be denied because a lot of people will benefit from it. Stop and think for a change before you go shooting your mouth off without researching.

Can you believe that? Here we have some "freedom loving American" out there who actually thinks that when a business wants a piece of property it should be allowed to use the police power of government to seize that property because, as Silman says, "a lot of people will benefit from it." This is typical liberalism. The rights of the individual don't matter when the common good is at stake. People like this make you worry about the future of America.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Uh oh. Looks like Saddam had a list of Iraqis who had been spying while working for the U.S. forces in Iraq. Sucks to be them right now.

Charles Krauthammer has his Oscar nomination for Best Documentary ... it's that video of someone poking a flashlight down Saddam's throat.

I've said before that Hillary Clinton is the single most dangerous political figure in this country today. Dangerous, that is, if you value such things as individualism, freedom and economic liberty. Evidently I'm not alone.

And just show show how fair I am, Click here for Bush Recall website. Don't forget to click on the "Lord of the Right Wing" link for a nifty little cartoon you bedwetters out there will just love.

Now that Saddam is in custody the New York Times is demanding that any trial of Saddam be conducted by the United Nations. The Times says that a trial conducted by the U.S. would "lack legitimacy." Now that's really standing up for America, isn't it?

All those Democrats that are wailing about the Bush Administration not awarding contracts for Iraq's reconstruction to countries like France, Germany and Russia? You do realize, don't you, that these Democrats are calling for American jobs to be sent overseas.

Did you realize that you can't become a florist in the state of Louisiana without passing an exam? The exam, by the way, is so difficult that less than 50% manage to get through. That would mean it's harder to become a florist in Louisiana than it is to become a lawyer. You have to read this folks ... read it and find out just how absurd government has become in this country.

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