The Shadow of FISA

I know I’m a tad bit late with this article on the FISA bill, but later is better than never…I hope.

You know, I was under the impression that the Democrats were elected to Congress to keep Bush in check. Of course, you can’t count on Democrats to do anything right. Before you all call me a conservative pig, I believe the same about the Republicans. I keep saying that both parties have a lot more in common than they’re willing to admit. What has the Democratic majority done to stop all this non-sense going on at the Capitol? Nothing at all.

It doesn’t matter if you vote for Barrack Obama or John McCain, nothing is going to change. They too are more alike than they’re willing to admit. Barrack had one thing going for him from my point of view; he was against the FISA Bill. Yet, when the day came for him to filibuster the bill or vote against it like he said he would, what did he do? He voted in favor of it. McCain has been for the bill all along, so of course he supported it, though he didn’t attend the session to cast his vote. Am I the only one that’s noticing how Obama seems to changing opinions a lot lately, aligning them more with the opinions of McCain?

So here we are, living in what could possibly be one of the darkest days in American history. They passed the FISA Bill. The government is free to spy on who ever they choose, not just internationally, but DOMESTICALLY. They’re free to not only check on people who they think are a threat to national security, but they can spy on you. They might use the power to find out of you’re downloading songs illegally. Better think twice next time you open Kazaa or click on that torrent file. A joint FBI, CIA, NSA, and ATF taskforce might be waiting around the corner to bust your door down. That may be an exaggeration now, but they way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens in the near future.

Warrants don’t have to be issued, there is no government oversight, and no one can be held liable. The bill is also retroactive, so all those cases that in the system right now against phone companies and the government are going to be dismissed. What good can possibly come out of this bill?

The unconstitutionality of the laws being passed on the Hill amazes me. I don’t feel any safer than I did before 9/11. Everyone knows that we knew something was going to happen, but the lack of inter-agency collaboration as well as other factors prevented us from preventing the attacks. We don’t have to spying on our citizens to be safe.

What amazes me even more is the lack of concern by the people. There’s a quote that I throw around a lot and it’s become quite popular recently:

“Those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -- Benjamin Franklin

Americans gave up their lives in 1776 to re-gain freedoms that the English were infringing upon. The Forefathers would balk at the idea of giving up privacy or any other right for safety. Yet, here we stand…I should say sit, allowing the government to strip away our liberties, and they’re doing so in the name safety. Look back through history and you’ll find that dictatorships are created when leaders take advantage of the fears of the people.

The constitution was created to prevent bills like FISA from being passed. It was created to protect the people and restrict government. Yet, government is growing faster than it ever has, and the rights of the people are slowly being chiseled away. We should be up in arms over what’s going on in Washington. It may not seem like that big of deal, but it is, and it will only get worse unless we do something to stop it. My only hope is that the law will overturned by the Supreme Court. If that does happen…the light at the end of tunnel may not be coming for a long time.

SCOTUS Upholds 2nd Amendment Rights

Today, the Supreme Court struck down the 37 year old D.C. ban on handguns. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion of the court and said that the Constitution does not provide for the absolute ban of hand guns. The case was brought forward when Dick Heller, who is an armed security officer, filed suit after his application to keep a handgun in his home and was rejected. That's right, he wanted to keep the gun in his home for personal protection, but the city wouldn't allow it.

The 2nd amendment reads: A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It is debated whether this amendment is in affect today because we have no need for militia since we have an army. However, the first part of the amendment gives a reason, but, as Justice Scalia points out in the courts opinion, does not limit the 2nd part or in law terms, the operative clause. Until a new amendment is passed to change the 2nd Amendment, the right of the citizens to bear arms cannot be infringed upon.

If you were to look through history, the first thing a government does before it become a dictatorship or oppresses its people is to take away the right to own a weapon and right to defend one’s self. This is why the forefathers wrote this into the Bill of Rights. It was a matter of great importance to them, evidenced by the fact that it’s the 2nd amendment, not the 10th, 11th, or 12th. It’s hard to comprehend tyranny in the United States; and it’s admittedly not likely happen anytime soon. However, it is not beyond the realm of possibility.

That being said, I don’t believe in unrestricted gun rights. There is no such thing as a limitless right. You have the right to free speech, but you cannot yell fire in a crowded theatre. You have the right to practice religion freely, but if your religion involves polygamy or sacrifice, you cannot lawfully practice those elements of that religion. The same stands here, I don’t believe the felons or the mentally incapacitated should be allowed to own a firearm because that would be an endangerment to the public. However, I am a law abiding citizen and a gun owner. If someone were to break into my house, I would hope that I would be able to defend my self, my family, and my property from harm.

A blanket law like the D.C. handgun ban in unconstitutional in that it stops everyone, including the law abiding, from owning a handgun. Unlike Kennedy v. Louisiana, which was decided yesterday, I fully agree with court and its opinion in this case. It seems that the federal government has been on a streak of trying to strengthen its power. It has been taking power away from the states, thereby the people, as it did yesterday by banning executions of child rapists even when the people of Louisiana supported the law. This landmark judgment is undoubtedly a win for the people.

Supreme Court's Ruling On Child Rape Law is Flawed

by Andrew Ramdeholl

Today, the US Supreme court overturned the Louisiana law permitting the execution of child rapists. (Video Here) The opinion of court, delivered by Justice Kennedy, states that the ruling was made on the basis of the Eighth Amendment. Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer joined the majority opinion while Justices Robert, Scalia, Souter, and Alito, who are conservative Justices, dissented.

It may be argued as to whether or not the death penalty it self is moral. However, the job of the Supreme Court is to interpret the constitution, not to decide upon what is moral and what is not. That decision belongs to the people through a democratic process. This is a case where the court is substituting its own morals for the morals of the people. The decision of the Supreme Court is unconstitutional. Since the death penalty has been ruled as constitutional, then it should be left up to the states to decide what crimes justify the death penalty.

The court arrived at this decision through deciding that a “national consensus” exists, which was derived through the fact that only 6 states allow the death penalty for child rape cases. However, as Justice Alito points out, state legislatures have had to live under the Coker decision for years. The Coker decision said that it was unconstitutional to use the death penalty in cases that involved the raping of an adult woman. They were afraid that any law allowing the death penalty for child rape would be struck down, like it has here. In this case, the fact most of the nation doesn’t allow the death penalty doesn’t show evidence of a national consensus because the states refuse to face the issue. Besides that fact, in the opinion for Coker decision, the word “adult” was used numerous times to describe the rape victim. This was intentional so that the same decision would not be applied to a case involving child rape.

Let’s change our frame of thought for a moment and face this from a moral stand point. In accordance with this decision, Justice Alito writes that a the criminal cannot be sentenced to death “no matter how young the child, no matter how, many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator’s prior criminal record may be.” What of that? What if the criminal raped multiple children? Still, the court says that it isn’t enough to justify the death penalty.

If were to read the full description of rape and the serious injuries inflicted upon this girl, I guarantee you would be sick to your stomach. There aren’t a lot of things that disturb me. When I read the description of L.H.’s injuries though, I felt as thought someone has torn out my innards. Were I not at work, there probably would have been tears. The court says that in accordance with the 8th amendment, the punishment must be proportional to the crime. What crime, besides murder, is worse than the rape of a child? In fact, it could be argued the raping is child is just as heinous as murder. Who wouldn’t agree that a child rapist lacks just as much of a moral compass as a murderer? I could say that a murder can have a greater morals than any child rapist.

This decision is one that is flawed. This is a decision where the court is using its own morals as a stand-in for the morals of the national consensus. It erodes the power of the states and more importantly, the power of the people. This decision is unquestionably unconstitutional.

Torture: Another Crimson Spot on the Quilt of American History

Torture: Another Crimson Spot on the Quilt of American History

By: Andrew G. Ramdeholl

The recent exposure of the human abuses carried out in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo detention facilities has thrown the debate on torture into the international spotlight. Fueling the fire is the admittance by President Bush that he had knowledge of such dealings. (Crawford) Some say that its ok to torture suspected terrorists if it yields information saving innocent lies. The fact, however, is that that argument is riddled with holes in the sense of logic and humanitarian concerns.

Those that are in favor of terror usually bring up several main points. One argument is that terrorists would not take pause to harm or torture us, so we should treat them as they would treat us. Another point commonly made is that they're the monsters that have done barbaric things; so they don't deserve to be treated as humans. Then you have the "ticking time-bomb" scenario, certainly as constrained of a condition as can be. Do these arguments really justify using torture to extract information?

Its true that terrorist have done a lot to harm not only Americans, but many innocent people around the world. After all, they've tortured hostages and beheaded innocent civilians. So why should we not treat them the same? The answer to that question is simple. The answer is that because we aren't them. Every human being, we as Americans believe, should be treated fairly and with respect. What separate us from the terrorists are the principles, as Americans, that we live by. By torturing a human being, any human being, we bring ourselves down to their level.

Even George Washington himself shunned torture in any form. David Hackett Fisher wrote in his book, "Washington's Crossing," that some American soldiers wanted to do to the British what the British did to POW's. Fisher writes that Washington "often reminded his men that they were an army of liberty and freedom, and the rights of humanity for which they were fighting extended even to their enemies." If we embrace torture, physical or psychological, we give up what it is to be American.

Furthermore, justifying torture by saying that these people are monsters or animals who have done evil things is flawed. The problem with that is to be evil, someone must be human, because being evil is a purely human trait. When an animal kills another animal, we don't think of that animal as being evil. In the same way, saying that a terrorist isn't human or that they're animals is absolving them of wrongdoing. Since these people are still human beings, no matter what they've done, they should be treated by us as such.

This all comes back to the principles of America. As Andrew Sullivan pointed out in his article, "the Declaration of Independence did not restrict its endorsement of freedom to merely those lucky enough to find themselves on US soil, but to all human beings, wherever they are in the world, simply because they are human." It doesn't have any restrictions on whom or what kind of person has rights, it says all people have inalienable rights.

Nevertheless, if we catch a terrorist who has just planted and armed a nuclear bomb in a Manhattan, surely we should use every measure to extract information from that person to save millions of lives. Well, the fact is, first of all, this is extremely unlikely to ever happen, because catching someone and realizing what he's a part of is hard enough. However, if this were to happen, who says that information that we get would be useful? As Sullivan makes a point of, a prisoner is going to tell you whatever he can, whether its true or not, in order for the pain to stop. Intelligence obtained this way will likely lead to valuable resources and man-power being used up. In the end, the method of torture is likely to not provide anything useful, and in this case, we've betrayed American values for nothing.

Even when we do capture suspected terrorists, we aren't completely sure if they have plans to hurt the innocent. In fact, the commander at Abu Ghraib, Janis Karpinski, said that up to 90% of the detainees, many of whom where tortured, we innocent and had done nothing wrong. The torture and abuse of these prisoners exemplifies how once you allow torture in one constrained circumstance, it spreads, and it starts to be used without constraint and takes its own form. The methods use to obtain information at Guantanamo Bay spread to Abu Ghraib. General Geoffrey Miller was sent to Abu Ghraib to replicate methods used at Guantanamo, but instead of being used rarely, it became used very frequently, without contraints, and took its own form.

Using torture can also backfire on us. Take for instance the case of Nick Berg. Nick Berg was a civilian businessman from the US working for in Iraq. He was kidnapped and beheaded by terrorists seeking revenge after news of widespread abuses broke. This isn't the only way it can backfire on us though. Our belief in freedom and democracy is what separates us from extremists in the minds of Arabs who are sympathetic to our cause. If they see that we torture people just as terrorists do and furthermore torture people who we aren't even sure are terrorists, it removes the margin that separates us. Then, in their minds, they would have just as much to fear from us as they would from fundamentalists.

It all comes back to American values and principles, the principles or freedom, liberty, and justice. These are the principles that our country was based upon; and though these are different times, those principles still apply now. As David Fischer wrote, "American leaders believed it was not enough to win the war. They also had to win in a way that was consistent with the values of their society and the principles of their cause. One of their greatest achievements…was to manage the war in a manner that was true to the expanding humanitarian ideals of the American Revolution." We must, in the same way, stick our values now in the War on Terror, as our forefathers did in the Revolutionary War 230 years ago. As Andrew Sullivan said, "If we legalize torture, even under the most constrained condition, we have given up a large part of the idea that is America."

I say to America now, should we tolerate the torture of any human being, we and our descendants will look back on this with deep regret. It will join slavery, as well as the Trail of Tears, as another crimson spot on the beautiful quilt that is American history.

References:

The Guardian UK. “American beheaded in revenge for torture”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/12/iraq.alqaida

Banbury, Jen. Salon.com. “Rummy’s Scapegoat”
http://dir.salon.com/story/books/int/2005/11/10/karpinski/index.html

The New Yorker. “Torture at Abu Ghraib”
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact

Fischer, David Hackett. “Washington’s Crossing”
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact

Sulivan, Andrew. “The Abolition of Torture” Taking Sides

CRAWFORD, JAN GREENBURG, HOWARD L. ROSENBERG and ARIANE de
VOGUE. ABC News. Bush Aware of Advisers' Interrogation Talks. http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=4635175&page=1

The African Tragedy

The African Tragedy

Every time I talk about Rwanda or Darfur, it angers me more than anything else can possibly anger me, except terrorism against America. I wrote a blog about Darfur a while back, you can find it HERE. Those events should have never happened. 800,000 people killed within weeks in cold blood, while the rest of the world sat and watched, not trying to help. People always ask my why I want to join the military or why I decided to change my major to political science. There are a few reasons, and one is that events like this are why I decided to take up International Relations, in the hopes I can gain some influence and to help prevent atrocities like this from occuring. And I can only hope that the effort I make isn't futile.

Its commonly the position of some critics to say that what happens between the African's does not concern the rest of the world because that's tribalism, and they've been like that for centuries. Yet, we ignore the major...TITANIC role the western superpowers play in the events that seem to constantly rock African states. In fact, no one is more at fault for the strife in Africa more than the Western nations.

First, it was the fault of the French, who intensified this sense of a cultural difference between the Hutu's and Tutsi's. Prior to French involvement, there was a wide mobility between if a Rwandan was considered a Hutu or Tutsi. The the French started to come in and classify them based on impertinent things like the diameter of their skulls, the size of their eyes, height, etc. Then they were issued ID cards with Hutu or Tutsi on them based on this. This eventually developed into two distinct races and a perceived cultural rift, even though they had a lot more in common than they were different. Not only that, but instead of condemning the Hutu's for their policy against Tutsi's, the French spoke to world on behalf of them.

Secondly, it was the fault of the Vatican for not saying anything. Catholicism was the widest and most popular religion in Rwanda. Most of the Hutu's and Tutsi's attended Catholic churches together. It would have taken a simple act by the Catholic Church to say that the genocide was an act against God, but they refused. The Catholic Church believes in representative equality. They believed that since most people in Rwanda were Hutu's, then the Hutu's should rule, so instead of condemning the Hutu's BEFORE and DURING the genocide, they did nothing, like the rest of the world. There are several cases where the Hutu rebel army went to these churches during Sunday service, separated the the Tutsi's from the Hutu's, put them back in the church, and slaughtered them. Still the Vatican did NOTHING. You can still go to some of these churches, walk in, and see the remains, skull and bones, of hundreds of people. Keep in mind that this isn't an attack on Catholicism, so please don't take it that way, but the fact stands that they could have helped to avert this simply by making a statement, a few words, a papal decree, but they chose not to, and it led to the death of 800,000 innocent people.

Thirdly, it was the fault of the rest of the world, including our beloved United States of America. We were to infatuated with the OJ Simpson case to care about Rwanda. Occasional blips of news stories would be shown, but then it was back to the Simpson trial. I still don't understand why we care about Britney, OJ Simpson, Michael Jackson, or anything that irrelevant, and why things like the story of Darfur are taking a back burner. I remember 1994 vividly because a lot of things happened that year. I clearly remember the OJ Simpson trial, I moved to Florida that year, I remember my first 4th of July, but I don't remember anything about Rwanda. You'd think that the deaths of 800,000 would be a big deal, it would be all over the news, yet it wasn't. Clinton was well aware of what was going on, but he chose to ignore it, so did the American population, and every country on the UN Security Council which refused to too send an adequate force to Rwanda.

The UN sent in a peace keeping task force, led by Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, of not even 500 soldiers to keep the peace, with extremely un-adequate supplies and no support. The mission was failed from the start because the bigger powers simply didn't care. It seemed that the only country that did care much was Belgium, they committed the most troops and held the task force together. The Hutu's knew this, and killed 10 of the Belgian soldiers. But the Belgians, instead of going in with more force, decided to pull their soldiers out. The UN Security Council then decided to reduce the task force to a little more than 200 men, no where near the number to be effective at all. Not only that, but several nations sent in various forces amounting to 2500 troops to extract and rescue their citizens from the country. Had these forces been used at the time, the Hutu rebels would have probably been defeated within days, and the Genocide probably wouldn't have happened at all. But the Hutu leaders that were spreading the propaganda knew that the west didn't care about their country, or the plight of the Tutsi's, and they knew that the UN would do virtually nothing to help, even if they directly attacked UN troops, so the went on with the killing and the slaughter.

Its unfortunate that throughout history, the African people have been subject to constant exploitation, whether it be intentionally or unintentionally. Every time I bring up African slavery in a debate, I get the counter argument that it was African people enslaving African people. But they only did this because they knew the Europeans would buy the slaves, they knew there was a huge market for them. So, what if a the few Africans that were catching their own kind decided to stop. Would that have stopped the Europeans from going in there and acquiring free labor? Not likely, they would go in themselves, for the sake of a buck.

And now move on to today. Surprisingly, or maybe not so much after you understand why, we exploit them by the way in which we try to help them, NOT BY TRYING to help then, but the way we go about it. Believe it or not things like Food Aid benefit us more than it does them. Reason being is that the government and various funds buy surplus crops like corn from US farmers. In fact, the farming industry has LOBBYISTS to lobby Congress to support these programs. Then you need something to pack these crops in, this goes into the packaging industry, and they too pay lobbyists to lobby for Food Aid support. Then you have shipping industry, because we need to get these foods over to Africa. There are towns along the eastern seaboard and the gulf coast who's entire economy depends on Food Aid.

So, it ends up benefiting the American economy a lot. But then we start to consider how it affects the African countries that are receiving the aid. It seems like a good thing, providing food for the Africans, but it hurts them more indirectly, than it helps them directly. By giving them free food, the end up not buying food from local farmers and putting money into their own economy. All economies start off as agrarian based or agriculturally based economies and if they aren't able to get past this stage, then their economy can't grow, or really exist. Not only that, but the industries that benefit from food aid that blow up starvation to be bigger problem than it is. Not that starvation isn't a reality in Africa, but it isn't as widespread as these lobbyists and industries make it seem like it is.

If we really want to help to African's, we would buy grains and products we give as aid from their country. We still supply them with food to help the starving and we boost their economy, so eventually, they'll be able to support themselves. The sad truth is that the people that benefit from this, the farmers, shippers, packagers, etc, don't want to African's to rise, because they'd be losing out on a lot of profit. They know that they're exploiting African's, but they also know that while the American public cares about the African's, they also know, as history shows, that only a very small percentage will try to address the problem, as for the vast majority of American's, they'll turn a blind eye to the situation and go about their lives. This is immoral, just like it was immoral to buy slaves, and just as it was immoral to ignore the problem of Rwanda.

It seems that throughout history, the African people always end up getting the short end of the stick. People say that its their fault for not moving up and for not trying to support themselves, that they've throughout history, brought this state they're in onto themselves. They choose to ignore that it is in fact not their fault these societies cannot move up in the world, but it is the fault of the more power countries that prevent them from doing so, to turn a profit, through constant exploitation. This is wrong, this is immoral...This is The African Tragedy.

~Andrew G. Ramdeholl, American Patriot, Libertarian, and World Human Rights Activist

Saving Sudan

After you read this, please repost it. The best way to help solve this problem is through awareness.

I don't think most of my friends know how strongly I feel about the poverty in Africa. Its something I care about very much. Its appalling watch what people go through in that country. All the pain and strife, thousands upon thousands dying every year PER COUNTRY, from disease, famine, and worst of all violence and genocide. I try to donate as often as I can to orginzations like UNICEF, but that alone isn't enough.

Anyway, I'm writing about specific event that's happening in Darfur, Sudan. Its something we all know as "genocide." For those who don't know what "genocide" is, its basically ethnic cleansing, killing as many people of a certain race or culture as possible, like the Holocaust.

A lot of people know about Rwanda and the genocide that happened there in 1994, 800,000 people were killed. But the US did nothing to stop it.

Something similar is going on Darfur. It started in 2003, a group of militia known as the "Janjaweed" started to slaughter non-arab citizens. The goverment of Sudan claims that they don't support the Janjaweed and they claim no genocide is happening, however, they do provide arms and funds to the militia. Colin Powell visited the camps in Darfur and named it to be genocide. After, President Bush as well as many other leaderes denounced what's happening in in Darfur to be genocide.

As many as 400,000 dead; as many as 500 die each day; 2 million displaced. The people who participates in these attacks are animals. They have no regard for women or children. In fact, many women have been raped, they sometimes use machetes to cut the inside of the womens thighs to disgrace them. I've even read reports of women being raped with machetes...

Here are images of some of the victims of the violence in Darfur:

A starving Child in Darfur

A child injured in a bombing run in Darfur

These pictures are a little grotesque

This is 85-year-old Abu Hamid Omar. Not only was he burned and branded in an attack by the Janjaweed and Sudanese Government forces, but his village was burned to the ground. Abu Hamid Omar was the ONLY villager to survive the persecutory assault. Photographed October 11, 2004, by Benjamin Lowy.

The Janjaweed killers

More Pictures from Darfur

In February 2006, the US began its monthlong leadership of the UN, and the Security Council agreed unanimously to begin the planning process to send the troops. It called for a 12,000 to 20,000 troop presence in Darfur with the 7,000 African Union troops already there being given new weapons and being incorporated into the UN mission. However, a lot of problems are going on becuase the leader of Sudan doesn't want the US peacekeepers to be there. Maybe cause he's supporting the genocide, and he's a dickhead who needs to be shot in the face.

Anyway, it might be a year before any troops can be sent over to Darfur, Sudan. This mean that thousand upon thousdans more will died before this is resolved. People swore to never let this happen again, but how many American's are aware that an event VERY SIMILAR to what happened in 1994 is happening now. And yet again, American's and the west are blind to these issues.

I hope that most people have acutally read through this whole thing, or atleast scrolled to the bottom. I urge all of you to do one of these things to help out the situation, not only in Darfur, Sudan, but in other parts of the world too... If you don't want to donate money, atleast fill out the electonic petition. It'll take only a minute of your time.

Electronic Petition to the President and Government

Donate to the Save Darfur Coalition

Donate to UNICEF: The United Nations Children's Fund

Write to your members of Congress
More Ways to Help

More On the History of the Confict and What's Happening in Darfur

Thanks to anyone who helps, ~Andrew Ramdeholl


P.S. If any of you haven't seen Hotel Rwanda yet, I strongly urge you to rent it...or even download it, hopefully I don't get sued for saying that. But it gives a great perspective on what's happening in other parts of the world.

P.P.S. Please repost this in another bulletin so it gets more exposure. Just click reply and copy whats in the box. Like I stated before, the best way to solve any problem is through awareness