The Bush Administration was harshly criticized by the left for broadly expanding the powers of federal government to protect the American people from the immediate threat of global terrorism.

Now, the Obama administration is seeking a broad expansion of federal powers to seize non-bank financial firms to protect the American people from the immediate threat of grave danger to our personal fortunes.

What’s the difference? The former was intended to ensure foreigners who had ill intentions towards our nation were restricted in their freedom to continue their mission. The latter is one more step towards government control of our lives.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032400847.html?hpid=topnews

According to the Washington Post (link below), the Global War on Terror is over. In just over two months into the current administration, the focus of our troops deployed to the Middle East is no longer on destroying the evil of terrorism.   Apparently, terror no longer exists as a threat to the national security of the US. Our troops are no longer engaged in a war on terror; they are merely involved in an innocuous “Overseas Contingency Operation.”

What a great idea! Why didn’t we think of this before? Rather than face the reality of the situation at hand, we can simply change the reality by calling it by a far less distasteful name. We don’t want to offend any of our “allies” throughout the world, so we simply rename the mission for which our troops have been sacrificing for the past six years.

It will make it far easier to justify bringing home our military units when they are merely involved in a contingency rather than a war. Unfortunately, the “contingency” will continue for the people of Iraq, finally freed from a brutal regime and finding their own way with a newfound taste of freedom. Once the US moves out, the serpents will move back in to squeeze the life from this new freedom.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/23/the_end_of_the_global_war_on_t.html?hpid=news-col-blog

Yesterday brought us yet another story about a person who kills several people at random, flees from police and then ends the drama by killing himself. This time the episode unfolded in rural Alabama. Unsurprisingly, the Reuters release (see link below) included the following perspective:

“Mass shootings have become more frequent in recent years in the United States, where guns are widely available for purchase and the right to own weapons for self defense and hunting is defended by many.”

Of course, this only fuels the motivation of many to severely limit or even ban the private ownership of firearms. To the uninformed, this might even seem to be a logical solution to the problem of firearm violence. However, is it really the availability of guns that is causing the problem?

I hardly think so. As much as we want an easy solution to this senseless violence, banning private ownership of firearms is not it, and unfortunately, I don’t believe the solution will be easy to implement. The real problem is our self-centered culture where people see the entire world as revolving around them. When they feel they have been wronged by society, they lash out by inflicting harm, often deadly and randomly, on that same society. They act out against that nameless, faceless society they feel wronged them. And at the end of their rampage, these people engage in the ultimate act of cowardice; rather than face the consequences of their actions, they commit suicide.

To implement a solution to this problem would be to radically change our values as a culture. To do that, however, we need to understand the root cause of the problem. That root cause can be blamed on many things, but what it ultimately comes down to is a lack of consistent moral values. Over the past forty years, values which were deeply ingrained in American culture since its founding began to get watered down.

Moral values are seen by many today not as absolute, but as relative to the situation at hand for each person. People focus not on what is right, but what is perceived by them to be fair or unfair.  They need to learn that life isn’t fair, but rather that truth is consistent and unwavering. 

One last thought: Joshua Myers, an Alabama deputy sheriff who was involved in the effort to stop the shooting spree lost his wife and 18-month old daughter in that same shooting spree. Unbeknownst to him as he was performing his duty, his wife and daughter had just been killed by the same coward he was pursuing. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your other children, Joshua; thanks for your service to your community.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52A01D20090312

The issue of the relevancy of the second amendment always leads to interesting discussions. There are many logical ways of viewing this subject which could lead to very different conclusions. However, I believe that once we come to agreement on two basic assumptions, we will always come to the same conclusion: gun ownership is an individual right which is still applicable to responsible citizens of today, regardless of the lawful purpose for which their firearms are used.

The first assumption we must consider is whether the second amendment is an individual right or a collective right. To arrive at a logical conclusion, we must try to understand the historical context of the second amendment. 

The founding fathers were strongly influenced by English distrust of standing armies. They believed a standing army was a key threat to individual liberty. When the founding fathers were crafting the Constitution, the British Army’s actions to seize the firearms of the people were fresh in their minds. 

Tench Coxe, in his “Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution,” (Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789) wrote:

As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.

While this is a very brief description of the historical context of the second amendment, I believe it clearly does not in any manner indicate a collective or state right, but an individual right of an armed citizenry to defend itself from potential tyranny imposed by a standing army. This individual right viewpoint was recently validated by the Supreme Court in its ‘DC v. Heller’ decision.

The second assumption we must agree upon is whether or not individual rights “expire” or can be taken away. It must first be stated that the constitution is not a book of laws and regulations, but a framework upon which our laws and regulations are based (the only exception to this is the eighteenth amendment which attempted to establish law and limit our rights – fortunately the twenty-first amendment corrected that aberration). While laws can change based on the needs of the state, the framework upon which they are based cannot without amending that framework. Should the constitution be amended to remove the “expired” right to keep and bear arms?

Many people argue the second amendment is no longer relevant, that we are not threatened by our standing military forces and have no real need to defend against tyranny. While it is likely true that we don’t need to keep and bear arms to defend against tyranny, does it mean we no longer have the right? Do rights expire upon attaining some set standard or because they are no longer popular? If so, will the right to free speech expire? What about the right to the free exercise of religion?  Or the right to be secure in our homes against unreasonable searches and seizures?  If we do allow rights to expire, who will decide what the standard is for expiry? 

I believe once we agree with the assumptions that the right to keep and bear arms is, in fact, an individual right and that none of us really want our rights to “expire,” we can only logically agree that the second amendment is relevant today and will continue to be. But what of the hunters and other sportsmen? Does the second amendment apply to them? I believe the answer is clearly yes. Not because they hunt or shoot, but because they are Americans living under the US Constitution.

The Chicago Tribune ran an article on Friday titled “Obama administration may rescind conscience rule.” The ‘conscience rule’ was implemented by the Bush administration. It allows health care workers to refuse to perform an abortion or provide other family planning counseling because those procedures are in opposition to the personal beliefs of the provider.

Now, it seems the "right" to abortion will trump the right of an individual to act in accordance with their personal beliefs. The danger we run into with this situation is it allows the “rights” of those in a popular position to supersede the rights of those whose position is less popular. Once this precedent is set, where do we go next?

This past December, a Montana court ruled assisted suicide to be legal. Will the precedent set by rescinding the ‘conscience rule’ apply to assisted suicide? Will doctors and other medical personnel be forced to ‘terminate’ patients, despite their personal beliefs?

When we start subjugating the rights of those in the minority or less popular positions to the will of those who have the popular support, we begin to lose the very principles this great nation was founded upon.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-conscience-rulefeb27,0,1515759.story

Our new Attorney General, Eric Holder, made a public announcement this past week concerning the Obama administration’s intentions in regard to changes to firearm laws in the US.  Holder seems to indicate that we need to implement changes or new laws because there’s a shooting war going on in Mexico between federal troops and drug gangs and the gangs are acquiring some of their guns illegally in the US.

Let me get this straight: we’re going to implement new laws which further restrict the rights of law-abiding Americans because of the “positive” effect it will have on the violence currently occurring in Mexico? Is this guy serious?

One positive note from the NRA article below is (and I never thought I’d say this) Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid sound like they’re on the side of gun owners. Did I read that correctly?

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=4509

On Friday, there was an article in the Washington Post which, by the weekend, was featured in many local newspapers around the country. The article was about the George Mason Homecoming Queen who was crowned during halftime of the basketball game Saturday evening. The “queen” is actually a 22-year old gay man who performs as a drag queen. This is being touted by many as a victory for inclusiveness. 

Was inclusiveness really the reason the student body at George Mason voted Ryan Allen (a.k.a. Reann Ballslee) as their “queen?” With their votes, were these young adults really trying to break another societal shackle restricting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for their fellow students who choose to live life a little differently than the rest of us?

I may be wrong, but I honestly believe these students’ motives were a little less principled. I believe most of the students probably thought it would be funny to elect a drag queen as their homecoming queen; it was a joke. Unfortunately, the joke isn’t really funny. 

While some may claim victory, there are no winners in this situation. The university has become a joke and Ryan has become the punch line. I’m not sure what kind of personal darkness leads a man to dress like a woman and perform in seedy nightclubs, but we can only hope that Ryan finds his way out of that darkness before it consumes him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/19/AR2009021901780.html?hpid=sec-education

This article caught my attention, not necessarily because of the “shock factor” of the incident, but because this occurred near the PA town where I grew up. As I read the Associated Press article, I immediately noticed a commonality this incident shares with many other “shocking” acts throughout our nation. This commonality becomes apparent after reading just a few words of the opening line: “his father’s pregnant girlfriend.”

I rarely read articles that announce the arrest of a young boy from a loving family with a responsible mother and father present in the home. I’m not saying it doesn’t occur, but far more frequently, these incidents occur in the “non-traditional” living arrangements which are becoming far more common. I regularly see articles where babies and young children are abused, injured and killed by the mother’s boyfriend, the meth-addicted parents, or the mother who was despondent after the suicide of the children’s father (just to name a few recent incidents here in Colorado Springs).

Although it is becoming far less popular to do so and much more subject to abusive responses from our fellow citizens, we must continue to advocate public policies which discourage non-traditional “families.” We must continue to set the example and be role models for our children. They must learn the importance of traditional family arrangements in a loving, caring environment without which our culture will continue its downward spiral.