Progressives Would Evolve Constitution to Nothing

George Will writes a great op-ed contrasting Madisonian and Wilsonian view of the Constitution. In a nutshell, Madisonian view is that of limited government, Wilsonian aka Progressive view is of limitless government.

The danger of a government with unlimited power

By George F. Will
Thursday, June 3, 2010; A17

Today, as it has been for a century, American politics is an argument between two Princetonians -- James Madison, Class of 1771, and Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879. Madison was the most profound thinker among the Founders. Wilson, avatar of "progressivism," was the first president critical of the nation's founding. Barack Obama's Wilsonian agenda reflects its namesake's rejection of limited government.

Lack of "a limiting principle" is the essence of progressivism, according to William Voegeli, contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books, in his new book "Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State." The Founders, he writes, believed that free government's purpose, and the threats to it, are found in nature. The threats are desires for untrammeled power, desires which, Madison said, are "sown in the nature of man." Government's limited purpose is to protect the exercise of natural rights that pre-exist government, rights that human reason can ascertain in unchanging principles of conduct and that are essential to the pursuit of happiness.

Wilsonian progressives believe that History is a proper noun, an autonomous thing. It, rather than nature, defines government's ever-evolving and unlimited purposes. Government exists to dispense an ever-expanding menu of rights -- entitlements that serve an open-ended understanding of material and even spiritual well-being.

The name "progressivism" implies criticism of the Founding, which we leave behind as we make progress. And the name is tautological: History is progressive because progress is defined as whatever History produces. History guarantees what the Supreme Court has called "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."

The cheerful assumption is that "evolving" must mean "improving." Progressivism's promise is a program for every problem, and progressivism's premise is that every unfulfilled desire is a problem.

Franklin Roosevelt, an alumnus of Wilson's administration, resolved to "resume" Wilson's "march along the path of real progress" by giving government "the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity." He repudiated the Founders' idea that government is instituted to protect pre-existing and timeless natural rights, promising "the re-definition of these rights in terms of a changing and growing social order."

He promised "a right to make a comfortable living." Presumably, the judiciary would define and enforce the delivery of comfort. Specifically, there could be no right to "do anything which deprives others" of whatever "elemental rights" the government decides to dispense.

Today, government finds the limitless power of dispensing not in Madison's Constitution of limited government but in Wilson's theory that the Constitution actually frees government from limitations. The liberating -- for government -- idea is that the Constitution is a "living," evolving document. Wilson's Constitution is an emancipation proclamation for government, empowering it to regulate all human activities in order to treat all human desires as needs and hence as rights. Unlimited power is entailed by what Voegeli calls government's "right to discover new rights."

"Liberalism's protean understanding of rights," he says, "complicates and ultimately dooms the idea of a principled refusal to elevate any benefit that we would like people to enjoy to the status of an inviolable right." Needs breed rights to have the needs addressed, to the point that Lyndon Johnson, an FDR protege, promised that government would provide Americans with "purpose" and "meaning."

Although progressivism's ever-lengthening list of rights is as limitless as human needs/desires, one right that never makes the list is the right to keep some inviolable portion of one's private wealth or income, "regardless," Voegeli says, "of the lofty purposes social reformers wish to make of it."

Lacking a limiting principle, progressivism cannot say how big the welfare state should be but must always say that it should be bigger than it currently is. Furthermore, by making a welfare state a fountain of rights requisite for democracy, progressives in effect declare that democratic deliberation about the legitimacy of the welfare state is illegitimate.

"By blackening the skies with crisscrossing dollars," Voegeli says, the welfare state encourages people "to believe an impossibility: that every household can be a net importer of the wealth redistributed by the government." But the welfare state's problem, today becoming vivid, is socialism's problem, as Margaret Thatcher defined it: Socialist governments "always run out of other people's money."

Wilsonian government, meaning (in Wilson's words) government with "unstinted power," is hostile to Madison's Constitution, which, Madison said, obliges government "to control itself." Thus our choice is between government restraint rooted in respect for nature, or government free to follow History wherever government says History marches.

Krauthammer on Gaza Blockade

One of the few good pundits left, Krauthammer nails the truth surrounding Gaza:
The Obama Administration will allow (either through planning or ignorance) the destruction of Israel.

Summary quote: "Israel refuses repeated invitations to national suicide."
We should adopt the same strategy.

Full article follows:
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, June 4, 2010; A19

The world is outraged at Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey denounces its illegality, inhumanity, barbarity, etc. The usual U.N. suspects, Third World and European, join in. The Obama administration dithers.

But as Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel -- a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets.

In World War II, with full international legality, the United States blockaded Germany and Japan. And during the October 1962 missile crisis, we blockaded ("quarantined") Cuba. Arms-bearing Russian ships headed to Cuba turned back because the Soviets knew that the U.S. Navy would either board them or sink them. Yet Israel is accused of international criminality for doing precisely what John Kennedy did: impose a naval blockade to prevent a hostile state from acquiring lethal weaponry.

Oh, but weren't the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel's offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza -- as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.

Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade, i.e., ending Israel's inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas.

Israel has already twice intercepted ships laden with Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow that?

But even more important, why did Israel even have to resort to blockade? Because, blockade is Israel's fallback as the world systematically de-legitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself -- forward and active defense.

(1) Forward defense: As a small, densely populated country surrounded by hostile states, Israel had, for its first half-century, adopted forward defense -- fighting wars on enemy territory (such as the Sinai and Golan Heights) rather than its own.

Where possible (Sinai, for example) Israel has traded territory for peace. But where peace offers were refused, Israel retained the territory as a protective buffer zone. Thus Israel retained a small strip of southern Lebanon to protect the villages of northern Israel. And it took many losses in Gaza, rather than expose Israeli border towns to Palestinian terror attacks. It is for the same reason America wages a grinding war in Afghanistan: You fight them there, so you don't have to fight them here.

But under overwhelming outside pressure, Israel gave it up. The Israelis were told the occupations were not just illegal but at the root of the anti-Israel insurgencies -- and therefore withdrawal, by removing the cause, would bring peace.

Land for peace. Remember? Well, during the past decade, Israel gave the land -- evacuating South Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. What did it get? An intensification of belligerency, heavy militarization of the enemy side, multiple kidnappings, cross-border attacks and, from Gaza, years of unrelenting rocket attack.

(2) Active defense: Israel then had to switch to active defense -- military action to disrupt, dismantle and defeat (to borrow President Obama's description of our campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda) the newly armed terrorist mini-states established in southern Lebanon and Gaza after Israel withdrew.

The result? The Lebanon war of 2006 and Gaza operation of 2008-09. They were met with yet another avalanche of opprobrium and calumny by the same international community that had demanded the land-for-peace Israeli withdrawals in the first place. Worse, the U.N. Goldstone report, which essentially criminalized Israel's defensive operation in Gaza while whitewashing the casus belli -- the preceding and unprovoked Hamas rocket war -- effectively de-legitimized any active Israeli defense against its self-declared terror enemies.

(3) Passive defense: Without forward or active defense, Israel is left with but the most passive and benign of all defenses -- a blockade to simply prevent enemy rearmament. Yet, as we speak, this too is headed for international de-legitimation. Even the United States is now moving toward having it abolished.

But, if none of these is permissible, what's left?

Ah, but that's the point. It's the point understood by the blockade-busting flotilla of useful idiots and terror sympathizers, by the Turkish front organization that funded it, by the automatic anti-Israel Third World chorus at the United Nations, and by the supine Europeans who've had quite enough of the Jewish problem.

What's left? Nothing. The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense. Why, just last week, the Obama administration joined the jackals, and reversed four decades of U.S. practice, by signing onto a consensus document that singles out Israel's possession of nuclear weapons -- thus de-legitimizing Israel's very last line of defense: deterrence.

The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million -- that number again -- hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists -- Iranian in particular -- openly prepare a more final solution.

Jihad Counselor Wanted

Wanted: Instructors for the way of Jihad
Islamic Saudi Academy has numerous openings for fine educational professionals who can continue to produce fine ISA graduates like:
Raed Abdul-Rahman Alsaif (arrested for attempting to board a plane with a concealed weapon)
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali (convicted and in prison for life, for attempting assassinate George W. Bush)

The ISA wishes to continue its harmony with the local community dhimmis, infidels, apostates, those filthy jews, and all form of kaffir that is our religious duty to kill. The instructors must follow this example as demonstrated by our Sharia compliant and Saudi approved textbooks and impeccable past leadership such as Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan who demonstrated the proper way to disregard all laws except Sharia ones when he failed to report child abuse.





Featured here at an ISA hearing is Nihad Awad who took a break from planning with convicted terrorists for some civic action or jihad by another name.

Fairfax Summer Reading List: Dawa and Global Fooling

Fairfax County Public Schools 6th grade reading list includes how to build a mosque and a biography of muslim-in-chief Obama.

Also of special note for grades 7&8, especially because the debate on global warming is over and anyone who objects to sloppy science should be burned at the stake as a witch:

Gore, Albert. AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH: THE CRISIS OF GLOBAL WARMING. Gore examines the climate crisis of the planet, describes what world governments are doing, and offers reasons for serious consideration of the problems. (NF) (Yes, that means non-fiction)

Fairfax County Muslim Arrested For Threatening Obama

FAIRFAX, Va. - A Fairfax County man is under arrest after being accused of threatening to "blow the brains out" of President Obama. Police are taking the email threat very seriously.

The Fairfax patent lawyer is charged with threatening to kill the president on, but neighbors suspect there were previous threats. His next door neighbor found a law enforcement agent hiding behind a tree in his front yard just after the February blizzard appearing to monitor the home of the alleged would be assassin.

As Laurel Ridge Elementary School was letting out Friday, parents were shocked to discover that the neighbor who lives in a house on Commonwealth Boulevard is now in prison and accused of threatening to kill President Obama. ABC 7 Talkback:

We asked neighbor Jennifer Baitinger if the news was trouble to her, given his house and proximity to the school. She replied, "Oh yes, definitely. It's a little disturbing."

Mary Walker sits on the board of the neighborhood association.

She said about the neighborhood, "Kings Park West is a great neighborhood. We've got families with young children. We've got singles. We've got lots of senior citizens who are like grandparents to everybody."

In court papers, the government charges Adam Albrett, also known as Muhannad Almahmoudi, sent an email May 14 threatening to "blow the brains out of President Obama unless he vacates the White House."

The arrest warrant accuses Albrett of "threats against the president and successors to the presidency," which would be White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Albrett also threatened to kill Emanuel.

Neighbors say 45-year-old Albrett is a patent attorney of Middle Eastern descent who grew up here. His sister, who is a dentist, and two brothers, an engineer and a doctor, attended Laurel Ridge Elementary School.

Neighbors say that Albrett and his family all have been friendly during their years on Commonwealth Boulevard. His mother often exchanged cookies and food at the holidays.

Albrett waits in prison for his next court appearance on June 1.

Obama Jedi Mind Tricks

This has been working well...



...though now that he's on vacation while the largest ever US oil spill is underway, even the fellow Sith seem to not be falling for it.

Pakistani national found guilty of conspiring to back Taliban

Say it isn't so. A Pakistani national backing the Taliban...never. The most important thing is that it has nothing to do with his religion and that Islam is a religion of peace, and these are not the droids you're looking for.



HOUSTON (AP) — A Pakistani college student living in Texas was convicted Thursday of conspiring to help the Taliban and fight U.S. troops.
A federal jury convicted Adnan Babar Mirza, 33, of two conspiracy counts and seven firearms violations after a three-day trial in Houston. He faces up to five years in prison on each conspiracy count and 10 years on the weapons counts when he is sentenced on Sept. 10.

Mirza, who remains in federal custody, was one of four men arrested in 2006 for alleged participation in paramilitary training exercises at campsites around the Houston area so they could engage in a holy war.

Mirza's attorney, David Adler, told jurors Mirza went on camping trips but denied they involved paramilitary training exercises.

Prosecutor Jim McAlister told jurors that the activities of Mirza and the other three men came to authorities' attention after another of their friends, James Coates, decided "things were getting out of hand" and became an FBI informant.

Mirza claimed Coates was the one who was militant and promoted violence.

An undercover officer taped conversations with Mirza and the other men in which they allegedly talked about ambushing U.S. soldiers and triggering a bomb with a cell phone, according to court documents.

FBI Special Agent John McKinley, the prosecution's first witness, told jurors Mirza can be heard on the taped conversations talking about sending money to support Taliban families. Prosecutors have said Mirza collected about $900 for Taliban fighters and their families.

But Adler said it's not against the law to send money to the families of Taliban fighters and Mirza collected money for hospitals and other groups but not specifically for the Taliban.

He also said Mirza can be heard in these taped conversations expressing anger about injustices Muslims around the world have experienced, but his client was just expressing emotion and didn't intend to act on it.

Prosecutors also said Mirza, who was attending Houston Community College, was in the country illegally because he violated his student visa by working.

Adler denied his client violated his student visa by working.

The three other men who were arrested have pleaded guilty or been convicted.

Kobie Diallo Williams, a U.S. citizen, was sentenced in August to 4½ years in prison for conspiring to join the Taliban and fight against U.S. forces.

Syed Maaz Shah, a former Pakistani engineering student at the University of Texas at Dallas, was sentenced in 2007 to 6½ years in prison on federal firearms charges. Shiraz Syed Qazi, also a Pakistani student and Mirza's cousin, received a 10-month prison sentence in 2007 on a firearms charge.

Big Khat Bust in Fairfax Wahhabi Corridor

Welcome to the Wahhabi Corridor, home to Dar al Hijrah and Build America and overflowing with Islamists. This is not what was meant by your tired, your hungry, your poor.

Police Seize Record Catch of Khat

Mason Police District – A police officer on patrol observed what appeared to be a drug transaction in a parking lot at 5981 Columbia Pike in the Falls Church area, around 6:10 p.m. on Saturday May 15. The officer stopped two men and conducted an investigation which revealed that one suspect was allegedly purchasing khat from the other. Both men were arrested and approximately 21 pounds of khat was seized. A subsequent search of one suspect’s house led to the seizure of an additional 111 pounds of khat.

This is believed to be the largest seizure of khat in Fairfax County history. Khat is an amphetamine and a Schedule I drug. It is a flowering evergreen shrub native to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Typically, it is chewed like tobacco, though it can be smoked and sprinkled on food.

Ahmed Omer Abdujelel, 45, of 2846 Annandale Road #121 was charged with distribution of a Schedule I drug and distribution near certain properties (recreation center).

Ali Abdi Hersi, 47, of 30 Channing Street, NW, in Washington DC was charged with possession of a Schedule I drug.

Happy Belated Draw Mohammed Day

Build me a church, a synagogue, a giant Buddha, and statue of Vishnu next door to Mecca, and then I'll think about taking this down in the name of interfaith dialogue. Until then, adherent Muslims can continue to declare that they will kill us until we like them.

Fairfax Muslim Threatened South Park

I would love, love to see, a discussion of jihad between John Brennan and Fairfax County's good jihadi son, Zachary Adam Chesser/Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee.

Al-Amrikee, a former George Mason Univeristy student, is the good muslim who threatened South Park over the Mohammad (may he burn in hell) episode, or as he claims, did not threaten but rather announce a universal truth that they should die:

“This stance [advocating death for those who insult Muhammad in keeping with several Islamic rulings throughout history] is virtually obligatory,” the statement says in part. “But it does not mean that our taking this stance is in some way an absolute call toward the requirement that the creators of South Park must be killed, nor a deliberate attempt at incitement; it is only to declare the truth regardless of consequence and to offer an awareness in the mind of Westerners when they consider doing the same thing.”

He did attend GMU, until he met another muslim student (presumably female), and dropped out to marry and successfully procreate. Mr. and Mrs. Jihadi and their baby jihadi have put down roots as the peaceful quite Jihadi nuclear family next door that is polite to their infidel neighbors they wouldn't hesitate to kill.
But fear not, his religon has nothing to do with his motives, and Islam is a religion of peace. Brennan, drink our cool-aid, not theirs.

But don't fear Dhimmi Fairfax, though he no longer lives at his mother's Centerville home, we've not lost him, he still lives in another Fairfax town. Look for him at an interfaith meeting near you.

Interesting, if not confusing, is the back and forth between overt Islamist and flaming Islamist. CAIR claimed the Revolution Muslim South Park threats were a set-up, to which Al-Amrikee had this to say:

In response to statements by the Council on American-Islamic Relations implying that Revolution Islam was too outrageous to be real and could be a setup to smear Islam, Al-Amrikee said, “CAIR is an organization which frequently abandons Islamic principles in favor of pleasing American politicians. This is how many if not most Muslims view them. We e-mailed them our press release so that they could respond, but they have yet to do this. They do not return to the religious proofs for what they say, but they issue statements from emotions.”

“CAIR should worry more about the millions of Muslims whose blood has been shed by America over the past 20 years than appeasing a society that only cares about its own citizens,” Al-Amrikee said.