The Conservative Reader

Art Smith June 29th, 2008

Wow!  I totally missed the Lieberman confrontation with YouTube (owned by Google) until it was mentioned in an email exchange I had today.

From CNN:

In a Monday [May 19, 2008] letter to Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, Lieberman asked that YouTube “implement its own policy against this offensive material,” by removing the videos. Lieberman, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, also wants YouTube staffers to have a system that will prevent the video from reappearing.

I am a bit amazed, as I did not think he would advocate this kind of censorship.  If I understand his position, I think he’s wrong.  I like Lieberman mostly because of his willingness to stand up to his party and be his own man.  I suspect he is trying to get on conservatives’ good side with this approach, but I think he will find he’s barking up the wrong tree.  I’m glad that YouTube reacted the way they did.

Again from CNN:

YouTube said Monday on its blog that it had removed a “number of videos” from its site after examining several videos that Lieberman’s staff said “violated YouTube’s Community Guidelines.”

The videos that were removed “depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used hate speech,” YouTube said.

However, “Most of the videos, which did not contain violent or hate speech content, were not removed because they do not violate our Community Guidelines.”

It deeply saddens me to see such horrific violence or gratuitous sexual content so readily available to children and adults in our world.  I do believe that the easy availability of this kind of content will have a deteriorating impact on our society.  However, I don’t think the answer is to use the government to control it.  As a society, we can choose to manage it in ways that are not destructive, convince adults of the undesirable personal and societal impacts of the content,  and train our children to be discerning about what they consume.

This is not the government’s responsibility.  Quite the opposite.  The minute we allow the government to decide what is appropriate content to view, we slide down the path of political censorship and government media management.

Probably the one distinct exception is Child Pornography.  Only because in order to produce it, you need to be exposing a child to abuse.

That said, we at The Conservative Reader reserve the right (as others do as well) to censor our web site to ensure it is suitable for visitors of all ages.  That means we watch for the use of offensive words, we don’t intentionally link to a site with pornography or gratuitous violence or the kind of language we restrict on our site.   This is not censorship… it is our own right under the First Amendment to exert this type of control over the content we provide here.

And YouTube has the same right.  Take that away and you might as well chuck the whole Bill of Rights.

My thanks to Richard Perlman for pointing this story out to me.

Tags: Bill of Rights, Censorship, First Amendment, Google, Government, Gratuitous, Joe Lieberman, Pornography, Terrorism, Violence, Youtube

• Bill of Rights , Child Pornography , First Amendment , Joe Lieberman , Liberty , Terrorism , US Congress
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Art Smith June 12th, 2008

In other news, the Supreme Court has now gone too far. Sister Toldjah:

Quote of the day: “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.”

That was Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in his dissent on the USSC ruling today that Gitmo detainees have habeas corpus rights.

Lyle Denniston analyzes the ruling here.

Captain Ed sums up USSC’s decision:

This will probably derail the hearings that had just begun at Gitmo for six members of the 9/11 conspiracy. By granting the unlawful combatants habeas corpus, the court has now eliminated the main reason for the military tribunal system - and for that matter, Gitmo itself. If the detainees can access American courts, they may as well be held on American soil.

The previous two rulings that struck down the tribunals forced the government to quickly pass laws that allowed for them. The Supreme Court has basically ruled that the Constitution applies worldwide rather than just to the US and its residents, which makes it pretty difficult to go back to the well a third time. Also, with very little time remaining in the Bush administration, they will not have enough time to push through a third attempt to address the Court’s concerns - and this ruling appears to be much broader than the two that preceded this one.

It seems absurd to apply criminal law to unlawful combatants captured during hostilities abroad. Will they require a Miranda reading, too? Do we have to bring the soldiers and Marines who captured them to the trial? In our 232-year history, when have we ever allowed that kind of access to enemy combatants not captured inside the US itself?

It’s mind-boggling.

The NYT excitedly reports on the news here.

This day will go down as the day we opened the slide and pushed ourselves into abandoning all sense of reason and national sovereignty. Now, anyone can attack us, and I wonder if we have the legal right to oppose them… SCOTUS has potential created a legal precedent to outlaw war and military infrastructure. This is scary.

More discussion at: Bitsblog, Townhall, JohnMcCain.com, RedState, Outside The Beltway, Michelle Malkin, and SCOTUS Blog.

Tags: SCOTUS, Sister Toldjah, Supreme Court

• Rights , SCOTUS , Terrorism , WAR
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Art Smith May 27th, 2008

It’s interesting that Obama would pick a Nazi death camp upon which to error in either the retelling or fabricating of a story to try to make a point that is oddly detached from the actual story line. And then unleashes a bad case of irony as well.

What Obama said:

I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps and the story in our family is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn’t leave the house for six months, right. Now obviously something had really affected him deeply but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain.

I can easily let any American off on not knowing Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets. And regardless of whether Obama’s uncle showed up at any death camp, or even existed, is not terribly important to me today because ultimately Obama’s point would be that anyone who has had to experience PNDCD (Post Nazi Death Camp Disorder) should be given some consideration for relief and assistance.

Oh, wait. Are there more Nazi’s out there running death camps?

No, but evidently Obama is tying this into a current discussion around improving support for detecting and treating PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), which has more to do with the stresses of combat and the lingering effects that can have on some soldiers.

But that’s a different concern than soldiers (or anyone else for that matter) who are affected by the inhumanity of someone like Adolf Hitler. Anyone, even today, who sees what was done is going to be affected, in different ways, by the overwhelming pain of these atrocities. They’re both bad, and both can have a profound impact on people, but they’re not the same thing. It’s like telling a story about a family member who died when not using a seatbelt use to explain why we need helmet laws. Not quite the same thing.

Obama was incredibly clumsy on this one. Gets the facts wrong, then ties together the need to better address combat-related psych disorders with the pain of seeing the results of mass murders. I sympathize with where he’s going with this, but he’s bungling this.

Which leads me to an interesting piece of irony. To me.

The good senator has been battered a bit about comments related to entering into diplomatic talks with leaders of states that support terrorism, such as Iran, “without conditions”. It sounds like he would have nice conversations with people like Ahmadinejad in hopes they might back down from clearly aggressive activities intended to provoke, test, or simply proceed unabashedly on an agenda of violence and conquest. The argument that Obama represents a policy of appeasement is not only apt, it is generally consistent with the liberal mind-set of avoiding military confrontation at all costs. Unbelievable as it may seem, this is a bit of history that may well repeat itself some day. I pray it does not.

Here’s the irony: that so closely on the heals of vocal concerns about the potential of a faulty diplomatic policy toward terrorists(appeasement) , Obama invokes the name of a place that, more than any, rings the memory and demonstrates the length and depth of the pit of human depravity that can be unleashed as a result of such a careless, no, such a lazy and useless policy.

Auschwitz was the site of the murder of at least 1,500,000 people from all over Europe, mostly Jews. Millions more were murdered at other sites, but Auschwitz was the largest and was a key destination for prisoners from points throughout Europe.

I visited there a few years ago. I have not been the same since.

I didn’t spend six months in the attic. But the sight of thousands of children’s toys, people’s luggage, clothing, shoes and pots and pans, haunts me to this day. Mostly the toys. Confiscated from new arrivals and often sent to German families, these that remained were on display in the museum, along with thousands of other artifacts, including documents recording orders, lists, etc., retained as evidence of the horrific crimes committed during that awful time.

Instead of casually calling down the name of that place in Poland for political reasons, Obama should do what I think most people with means ought to do. Go there. Spend a day there. Read the evidence. See the artifacts. Listen to the voices of the past. Not to blame people like Arthur Neville Chamberlain, but to warn any that think they can negotiate with one like Hitler… to warn all of us for generations to come… that we would never forget what humans are capable of.

Auschwitz is actually 3 facilities, and Birkenau (aka Auschwitz II) was the largest and was the site where the large group exterminations were performed. At the back of the Birkenau camp, by the rubble of the crematoriums and gas chambers destroyed by the Germans as the Soviets marched on the camp, is an oddly shaped statue (picture below) and memorial plate and, as I recall, 17 other plates translated in the languages of all the people who were prisoners there. Innocent voices silenced shout loudly the message we must hear over and over again:

For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe.

Auschwitz - Birkenau

1940 - 1945

Never again.

Iraqi Kurds.

Never again.

Darfur.

Never again.

Rwanda.

Never again.

Srebrenica (Bosnia).

Never again.

Where next?

Never again.

Tags: Appeasement, Arthur Neville Chamberlain, Auschwitz, Barack Obama, Birkenau, Bosnia, Darfur, Iraqi Kurds, Nazi Death Camp, Never again, Poland, PTSD, Rwanda, Srebrenica, WWII

• 2008 Presidential Election , Appeasement , Barack Obama , Humanity , Terrorism
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Art Smith March 11th, 2008

House Republicans made the right choice today when they helped hold the line on Bush’s veto of the bill intended to ban waterboarding.

Democrats are resting on the wrong principle here in trying to protect the rights of terrorists. They are convinced they are on the side of protecting everyone in an effort to do the right thing.

Or, they are simply trying to use this issue as a means to gain public sympathy in hopes of seating a Democrat in the Oval Office again. And to keep their own seats in Congress.

At the same time, we have a very real issue to continue to monitor when it comes to the rights of innocent Americans. And it’s not just an issue of whether we are torturing anyone, although I still contend waterboarding is not torture any more than any other psychological technique to gain vital tactical information from real terrorists.

However, we have to ensure that we are really dealing with terrorists and not just taking anyone that looks like they’re from the Middle East and assume they know something or hate Americans and lock them up indefintely.

Here’s what I think the real problem is. I think deep down inside, Democrats (or more accurately, Liberals) believe that if you don’t abridge the freedoms of anybody, you won’t accidentally abridge the freedoms of innocent citizens. This is the same logic used by the left to oppose the death penalty and punishments for other major felonies: you never know for sure if you really got the right perpetrator.

Indeed, this is not a concern to scoff at, but the problem with the left is that, frankly, they have that old bill-pay mentality. That’s when someone wants the same level of ease, efficiency, and reliability with minimal effort that is achieved with bill pay. I love bill pay. I hardly have to think about my bills at all anymore. I used to have to work hard to make sure I got bills paid timely. Now, the bank just handles it all with little or no effort on my part.

We can’t have this kind of approach to life when it comes to critical things like making sure we get the right bad guys and aren’t stuffing innocents in jail forever. The answer is not to just give up on doing what needs to be done to get necessary information out of terrorists, or provide appropriate punishment to those that commit serious crimes. We have already given up too much at home with our children or in the schools… nobody punishes or criticizes anymore for fear of offending, and besides, it’s too much work. An undisciplined society, and unprotected society will eventually either collapse from the sheer weight of the criminal and terrorist element, or will crumble from lack of maintaining collective discipline and order. Everyone will eventually really do whatever they want to, and nobody will bother stopping them.  That is anarchy and chaos.

Running a society, government, family, etc. is hard, hard, work. We have to learn to live with the fact that we’ll never be able to just kick back and let everything run itself, like bill pay. Ensuring the rights of our citizens will take passing the right laws to ensure those rights (which for the most part, we already have) and vigilance. I am substantially more concerned about the realities of situations like that depicted in the movie 12 Angry Men (where members of a jury were ready to convict just to avoid a protracted effort to reach the truth) than I am with waterboarding a known terrorist in order to get critical intel. Congress cannot fix that. Only you and I and the rest of the People can ensure we all do what’s right together.  Let’s watch each other’s back, shall we?

Tags: 12 Angry Men, Americans, bill pay, Congress, death penalty, Family, freedom, Government, hard work, Middle East, President Bush, protecting our rights, society, Torture, US House, Waterboarding

• George W. Bush , Terrorism , Torture , US Congress
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Art Smith March 6th, 2008

From Bluto:

Thanks to all the the readers who responded to this call to arms, the Lee Media jihadi recruitment site (using American servers) has been pwned.

And thank you, too!

Tags: Swamp Stompers, Terrorism, The Dread Pundit Bluto

• Swamp Stompers , Terrorism
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Bluto March 4th, 2008

The Jawa Report and The Dread Pundit Bluto declare war on the jihad forum that recently brought you “Does this bomb vest make me look fat?” and “Beheading Suspected Supporters of the Afghan Government is fun“. The forum is run by Taliban supporters in Pakistan, but its membership is a mixed group of Salafi e-jihadis and infidel fellow travelers who support anyone willing to kill an American.

We call upon all able bodied patriots to complain to the American service providers that allow this forum to operate. Service providers should be e-mailed, called, or faxed until they agree to stop facilitating the enemies of the United States of America.

The forum features at least two videos which clearly violate the webhost’s Terms of Service (TOS) and arguably U.S. and International Law. A gruesome “exclusive” Lee-Media Taliban beheading video, images from which are too graphic to post here but which can be referenced at: Lee-Media: Taliban Behead Three “Spies”. A second graphic video which begins with a Taliban terrorist being outfitted with a suicide vest; not shown on the short clip posted is the Taliban homicide bomber blowing up a vehicle.

In addition, the site routinely encourages the murder of civilians and the killing of U.S., NATO, Coalition, & Russian troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, & Chechnya. It also distributes al Qaeda propaganda.

The full details of the forum are at Internet Haganah. Highlights:

Description: Dedicated to the distribution or re-distribution of high-quality jihadi recruiting videos, with a particular focus on subtitling videos to make them accessible to audiences of expatriate Muslims living in Western countries (for example from Urdu to English, or Arabic to Turkish). This network is notable for the considerable effort they have made from the very beginning to hide their existence. They obviously have not succeeded, but we give them an “A” for effort….

Membership: By invitation only, so there are no “innocent” members and no deniability for the administrators. Core members are known to scour other, better known sites for talent which they then recruit to the LEE Network.

More details here.

Another specialty of the group is uploading Taliban murder videos which are sold in Pakistan’s tribal areas but not officially released on the internet. They have become the de facto distribution network for Taliban propaganda not officially produced by the group’s central Shura Council.

Frames from the video can be found here and might be sent to webhosts as evidence of what happens behind Lee-Media’s closed forum doors. This suicide vest video can also be used. Service providers can also be directed to the Internet Haganah’s detailed analysis of Lee-Media here.

Please, we need your help on this one. Spread the word and encourage every one you know to complain to the service providers listed below. In any letter or conversation you have with these service providers please let them know that Lee-Media violates the TOS (terms of service), encourages acts of violence against U.S. troops, and encourages terrorism.

Several service providers for Lee Media, many of which are in Burlington, MA, and seem to be companies owned or operated by Endurance International Group.

leemedia.net = 65.254.250.106

Host/Registrar: Endurance International Group (Shared webhosting)
Burlington, MA
Contact: domains@yourhostingaccount.com
(866) 642-4678

Domain Admin: Powweb.com
Burlington, MA
Contact: support@powweb.com; domreg@powweb.com
(877) 476-9932

DNS/Registrar: Tucows, Inc.
Ontario, CA
Contact: domains@accountsupport.com
dnsadmin@tucows.com
Form contact.

• Swamp Stompers , Terrorism
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Art Smith March 1st, 2008

Eager to put appropriate cover on their actions so that they don’t jeopardize their reelections, House Democrats are proposing breaking up the Wire-tapping Bill into two pieces: one to provide the authorization to execute the program, and the other to provide protections for communications companies against lawsuits.

From what I’m hearing, it sounds like both bills would pass, but some legislators want the option to vote against one or the other.  From the LA Times story:

“The objective would be to pass something that is less controversial,” yet still allow Democrats to register their objections to the immunity provision, said one senior Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and other party leaders have yet to reach a decision on the matter.

The proposal emerged Friday as a possible endgame in the drawn-out congressional debate over how to overhaul laws that govern when and how American spy agencies can intercept international e-mails and phone calls coming into the United States.

Republican officials said they likely would back the proposal to divide the bill into two pieces, as long as there was no delay in taking up the immunity provision. “We would be OK with that as long as the immunity provision [can] become law,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

Officials from both sides acknowledged that there are probably enough votes in the House to pass the measure protecting telephone companies. But splitting the bill would give Democrats who oppose the immunity provision political cover for voting in favor of the broader legislation.

This is a bunch of stupid, wasteful posturing.  I can’t believe we pay these people to just argue day by day because they want to look good to their district  instead of just getting the work done, and done right, and done quickly.  As the character of John Adams said in the musical 1776: “I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress!”

Hat tip to Memeorandum.

Tags: FISA, House of Representatives, John A. Boehner, John Adams, Nancy Pelosi, Politics, The Conservative Reader, US Congress, Wire-tapping

• Terrorism , US Congress , US Politics , Wire-tapping
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Art Smith February 29th, 2008

 In response to Hillary’s ridiculous ad asking “Who do you want answering the Red Phone at 3:00 AM”,  Obama provides this beauty:

I will never see the threat of terrorism as a way to scare up votes, because it’s a threat that should rally the country around our common enemies. That is the judgment we need at 3:00 a.m., and that’s the judgment that I am running for as president of the United States of America.

Um, is it just me, or did that first sentence make no proper sense? If I read it right, he’s saying he doesn’t want to use terrorism to “scare” people into doing what he wants… and that’s sort of noble (but unrealistic), and in the next breath says that the threat of terrorism should cause us to rally around our enemies?  Doesn’t that term mean “support our enemies”?  Okay, I can accept that he meant “rally the country against our common enemies”, but how is that different than using the threat to “scare” the country to rally against our enemies?  I think he’s trying to say he’s not going to try to manipulate, but that just won’t wash, and in saying it, he can’t even really prove it to be true.

The fact is, I don’t want someone as commander-in-chief who doesn’t have the nerve to use the tools we’ve provided him as a country to protect us and our national interest.  You can argue all you want about whether Iraq was right or wrong, the fact is I don’t think Obama or Clinton have what it takes to do what needs to be done even if it’s abundantly clear what should be done.  I think that’s a big reason why Kennedy and Johnson failed so miserably with Cuba and Vietnam.

Obama scares me.  As does Clinton.

McCain makes me nervous, but I think he’d do the right thing when it comes to military action and foreign policy.  I don’t really care that he leans left on domestic policy since that’s the job of Congress.  If we can get control back in Congress that will make the difference.

Hat Tip to Memeorandum.

Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, memeorandum, Presidential Election, The Conservative Reader, US Congress

• 2008 Congressional Election , 2008 Presidential Election , Barack Obama , Hillary Clinton , Iraq , John McCain , Military , Terrorism , US Congress , US Politics , WAR
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