According to an article from The Associated Press, “Guantanamo [is] a political win GOP needed.” The story is referencing the vote in the Senate that occurred earlier today. In a vote of 90 to 6, the Senate overwhelmingly opposed President Obama’s effort to close the prison that harbors accused terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Every Republican member of the Senate passed on the opportunity to recognize that terrorist combatants do have Constitutional rights and that protections of the Bill of Rights apply to all persons under the jurisdiction of the U.S. regardless of where in the world that jurisdiction prevails.

As you know, one of Barack Obama’s first acts as president was to order the closing of the controversial prison for terrorist suspects within a year. Obama had campaigned on the issue, but Republicans pounced on what they correctly asserted to be a critical flaw: the lack of detailed plans for where the roughly 240 detainees would go if the Cuban prison were shut down.

On that point, the town of Hardin, Montana (pop. 3,400) has volunteered to house 40% of the detainees (about 100 of them) in a state prison facility that is vacant.

Greg Smith, Economic Development Director in Hardin, says that there are 464 beds in the facility and over 120 jobs could be created by moving those prisoners to Hardin.  With flat land, a state-of-the-art corrections facility, and a Mayor (and City Council) willing to house the suspects, all it would have taken was a simple Senate vote in favor of closing Gitmo.

That vote, however, would require Senators to have a backbone and LEAD the country — something foreign to them.  Only six Senators, all from the far left wing of the Democrat Party, had the courage to vote in favor of the funding to move the captives to U.S. soil.

Why should we house these accused terrorists in the U.S.? The fact is that housing them in Gitmo has denied the terrorist suspects their constitutional rights and there is simply no possibility that piecemeal changes in law could create a legal system at Guantanamo equal to the U.S. criminal justice or courts martial systems.

Additionally, the detentions of the terrorist suspects are only temporary expedients that apply only in the field of combat according to U.S. law. Since we’re not at war with Cuba, the legitimate idea of temporarily detaining combatants in a war zone does not apply.

According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, the abuses at Guantanamo Bay carried out at the beckon call of high-level government officials include widespread abuse:

• solitary confinement of detainees for periods exceeding a year;
• sleep deprivation of detainees for days, weeks, or months;
• exposure of detainees to prolonged temperature extremes;
• beatings of detainees;
• threats of transfer to a foreign country for torture;
• torture in foreign countries or at U.S. military bases abroad before transfer to Guantánamo;
• sexual harassment and rape or threat of rape against detainees;
• deprivation of medical treatment for serious conditions, or treatment granted only for “cooperating”; and
• “short-shackling,” where wrists and ankles are bound together and to the floor for hours or day.

I realize these suspects are accused of being terrorists and several of them were involved in the 911 attacks. I have tremendous sympathy for victims (and their families) of these accused terrorists and am quite convinced that the detainees at Gitmo are quite literally the scum of the earth.

That said, those accused of crimes in a nation governed by the rule of law are entitled to equal treatment under the law and due process rights under the Fifth Amendment as well as protection from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that the Guantanamo captives are entitled to the protection of the United States Constitution.

The Fifth Amendment includes “… nor shall [any person] be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …”.  Further, the Eighth Amendment guarantees freedom from “cruel and unusual punishment” by government.

In Furman v. Georgia (1972), Justice Brennan wrote that “[t]here are … four principles by which we may determine whether a particular punishment is ‘cruel and unusual’.” They include:

- The “essential predicate” is “that a punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity,” especially torture.
- “A severe punishment that is obviously inflicted in wholly arbitrary fashion.”
- “A severe punishment that is clearly and totally rejected throughout society.”
- “A severe punishment that is patently unnecessary.”

The torture procedures that the Bush Administration, the Republicans in Congress, and the spineless Democrats who purport to be civil libertarians have gone along with violate constitutional protections and are clearly ‘cruel and unusual’ tactics under the definition of the U.S. Supreme Court.  The types of torture that have been used against suspected terrorists also violate the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture (both signed by the U.S.).

Moreover, the techniques are not effective. According to the U.S. Army Interrogation Field Manuel 34-52 (1992), “Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.”

And according to the Center for Constitutional Rights,

“If someone has information, they are just as likely, if not more so, to disclose the information after non-abusive interrogation tactics. Second, many who are interrogated do not have information to give. Third, whether or not a person has information, he or she will likely confess to anything to stop torture; thus the information obtained is never reliable.”

Quoth the AP article: “Republicans have searched mightily for a good political issue this year as their traditional three Gs — gays, guns and God — have lost some steam. Now a fourth G — Guantanamo Bay — is handing them big boost.”

The issue of Guantanamo may be giving Republicans a boost in popular support, but it is at the sacrifice of the U.S. Constitution and a respect for the rule of law.

Over the last eight years, the Bush Administration has systematically dismantled some of the most important rights and protections of the United States Constitution.

The time to stand up for the Constitution is NOW.  Americans oppose the Bush-Cheney torture policies and a free nation based on the rule of law requires more of its government and its elected officials.

As President Obama’s kids are settling in at Sidwell Friends, one of the best private schools in the nation, their father has signed a budget that takes away the opportunity for poor kids in Washington DC to attend schools like Sidwell Friends with the help of the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which makes it possible for 1,700 kids a year — mostly African-Americans — to escape from the worst public school system in the country and attend a charter school or a private school which will give them a chance at a better future.

The Opportunity Scholarship Program is only four years old and has barely had a chance to prove itself, but it stands little chance of continuing when the federal funds backing it are eliminated from the budget by Democrat legislators eager to keep campaign contributions from the teachers unions flowing.

Teachers unions don’t like any kind of program which gives kids a chance to escape from government-run schools, and even this relatively modest voucher program is too much of a threat to be allowed to survive now that they have some clout. The funding was in the budget coming out of the last session, but has now been removed and is unlikely to be added back in with Democrats in control.

The program provides $7,500 vouchers to about 1,700 DC public school students chosen by lottery which they can then use to change schools, attend a charter school or attend an area private school. Every student who uses a voucher releases more money for other students who stay behind in public school because their voucher is underwritten by the federal government and is considerably less than the $14,400 per student spent by the DC public school system, which has the sad distinction of being the one of the most expensive and lowest performing school systems in the nation. DC ranks last in the nation in math and reading, 4th lowest in SAT scores and 6th worst in graduation rate,

Perhaps most important and almost always overlooked by those doing studies on voucher programs is how many graduates go to college and the quality of the colleges they end up attending. In the DC public school system only 59% of high school students even graduate. Of those only 36% have completed the coursework necessary to qualify them to go to a 4-year college degree program. Only 52.8% of those who take the SAT in DC go to college. Of those 86.2% attend in-state colleges which in the overwhelming majority of cases means that they attend the University of the District of Columbia which offers 4-year degrees but is basically comparable to a decent community college. That means that of entering freshmen only about a fifth will end up going to college and most of those will go to a second-rate institution.

In comparison, at the top private schools in DC like St. Albans, National Cathedral and Sidwell Friends virtually all of the students graduate and about 99% of those graduates go on to college and more than 25% of those graduates go to one of the top 10 colleges in the country — like Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Princeton and Stanford. So that means they send more graduates to the very best colleges in the world than even manage to get to college at all after graduating a public high-school in DC.

Now admittedly, the $7,500 which this program provides to students isn’t enough by itself to pay for a private school which costs $15,000 to $30,000 a year. But all of these private schools also have endowments for scholarships, some of them quite substantial and targeting kids from the poorer parts of DC. On average for every 3 students who come with a $7,500 voucher that’s another student who can attend one of these schools for free, so between vouchers and private endowments a lot more poor students can attend some of the best private schools in the nation than could have otherwise.

In addition, these vouchers can also be used at charter schools in DC, which have performance much closer to private schools than public schools. DC charter schools graduate 91% of their students, almost double the rate at DC public schools. 83% of those students attend college, close to three times the number of DC public school students going to college. As a group in 2007 DC charter school graduates received $11 million in college scholarship awards, a vital advantage when so many of them come from an underprivileged background.

High school graduation and the chance to go to college can make all the difference in the world for a poor kid from the inner city. It massively reduces the chance that they will be involved in crime, reduces their chance of using drugs, more than doubles their long-term earning potential and even raises up others in the community around them. It even substantially reduces their chance of a violent death. DC has a rate of violent crime which is three times the national average and its poor neighborhoods are among the poorest in the nation. Unemployment is high, drug use is widespread in the poor communities and for many there is no way out. Kids born into this environment are born doomed.

Access to better educational opportunities is the key to saving children from poverty and social disadvantage. A public school system which sends only a small fraction of its graduates to college and is rated third worst in the nation is not providing that opportunity, but for almost 2,000 students a year the Opportunity Scholarship Program did offer hope of a much better education and a very good chance at a degree from a good four-year college.

By taking this program away, Democrats in Congress are reminding us that they don’t really care about helping the most needy in our society. They just want to keep getting their votes, while pandering to the special interests for whom keeping the people poor and undereducated is politically advantageous.

For libertarians, it’s a basic law that group labels simply don’t do justice to the group the purport to brand. However, political profiling appears to be a growing trend among government bureaucrats since Mr. Obama took office.

The first recent example of profiling came in Missouri, when libertarians and constitutionalists were labeled in a government report as potentially violent militia members. As I reported last month, “the MIAC report highlights a growing and oft-overlooked phenomenon: government tracking and profiling of non-violent American citizens.”

A new report has been released, this time at the federal level. The Department of Homeland Security (which, in my estimation, never should have been created — the Department of Defense should take on the role of protecting Americans against attack) released a report indicating that there is a “fueling resurgence” of right-wing extremist groups that are seeking new recruits.

As an indicator of how silly the report is, DHS “has no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence,” DHS spokeswoman Sara Kuban told Fox News.

This is just the latest example of why group labels fail. These two reports are attempting to label potential security threats, and in doing so have enraged an entire group of grassroots activists, talk-radio fans, and already-disenfranchised taxpayers.

Why is our government responsible for profiling American citizens, especially using a “group-based” model that fails to cite a single current example of what it is “reporting”?

If there was ever solid evidence that the Department of Homeland Security — a large bureaucracy that did not exist prior to 2003 — needs to be eliminated, this is it. Their report is a waste of paper.

According to Politico, Congressman Ron Paul calls on Congress to consider using letters of marque and reprisal to fend off the growing piracy movement that has captivated national attention over the last weeks. Letters of marque and reprisal, a power written into the Constitution that allows the United States to hire private citizens to keep international waters safe, serve as official warrants from the government to allow privateers to seize or destroy enemies in exchange for bounty money.

Days after September 11, 2009, Dr. Paul introduced legislation allowing President Bush to permit private citizens to go after Osama bin Laden and other identified terrorists and put a bounty price on the heads of targets responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Contractors would also be required to post a play-by-the-rules bond and turn over any terrorists — and their seized property —to U.S. authorities.

According to Paul, “The Constitution gives Congress the power to issue letters of marque and reprisal when a precise declaration of war is impossible due to the vagueness of the enemy … [and] once letters of marque and reprisal are issued, every terrorist is essentially a marked man.”

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…”

The Who’s line is as true now as it was in 1971 and as true as the similar old French saying, “the more things change the more they stay the same.” The same idea is repeated again and again in folk wisdom from every culture, which suggests that it’s based on a shared element of human experience. Change is inevitable, but too often its results are only superficial.

In this case, the deja vu we’d rather not be experiencing all over again comes from the Obama Administration’s diligent efforts to out-do his much-reviled predecessor when it comes to shredding our constitutional rights in the interest of national security. Like President Bush, President Obama seems intent on focusing his efforts on rendering the Fourth Amendment utterly meaningless. You know that amendment. It reads:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

It’s the Amendment that reminds government and other entities that we have an absolute right to privacy which they can’t just violate at a whim. It’s been under assault for years and eroded away more and more with each new governmental initiative to protect us from the latest bogeyman or from ourselves. The War on Drugs with its asset seizures and warrantless searches has been wearing away at our rights for more than 30 years, but nothing has done more harm than the War on Terror which took the cold-war era Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and expanded it into a blanket authorization to execute thousands of warrantless wiretaps against US citizens, often with very little justification and virtually no accountability.

FISA was already blatantly in violation of the Fourth Amendment before the Bush administration got hold of it. They took the blanket authorization for unlimited wiretapping which was implied in the legislation and ran with it, making it the justification for data mining and automated content scanning of telecommunications completely outside the scope of the technology available when FISA was written, but arguably authorized under the overly broad language of the law.

When challenged, they went to the compliant congress and got amendments to the FISA Act in 2008 which protected many of their practices and reduced the level of accountability in the act still further. The ACLU has launched a lawsuit over the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, but to date it remains in force, giving unprecedented power to the federal government to basically scan and listen to any telecommunications with no prior approval.

Although you might think that President Obama, riding in on his white horse last November, might be here to save us from the Bush administration’s assault on our rights, it turns out that when it comes to warrantless surveillance, they’re enthusiastic supporters of the program and are even willing to take the idea of complete lack of accountability for violating our privacy to a higher level. In a motion to dismiss the case Jewel v. NSA, the Obama Justice Department they reiterated the Bush-era argument that cases against FISA cannot even be brought because they “would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security.”

Going even further than did Bush, they also argue that the idea of ‘sovereign immunity’ makes the Department of Justice completely immune from any prosecution for violating the rights of citizens. Not only do we not have the protection of due process under the Fourth Amendment, but now we have no standing to sue and even if we do get a case in court the government is immune from any prosecution. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation interprets it, “Essentially, the Obama Administration has claimed that the government cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes.” So we might as well lie back and take whatever they want to do to us, because those Fourth Amendment rights are just gone forever.

This is a strange and ironic change from candidate Obama who said he wanted more transparency in government, but perhaps even more ominous is the latest move from the administration to take complete control of the internet under the newly proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2009 which follows an earlier act which would establish a “Cybersecurity Czar” to oversee internet security. This bill will give the president the ability to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” and shut down or limit internet traffic at any time “in the interest of national security,” a situation whose parameters are left undefined. What’s worse, it gives the Secretary of Commerce “access to all relevant data concerning (critical) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.” This is another attack on the Fourth Amendment, giving completely unaccountable federal officials total access to internet communications without any safeguards of the rights and privacy of citizens. There’s no requirement for a warrant, no need for probable cause, no liability for any harm done and not even any requirement for reporting or limitations on how these powers can be exercises.

This proposed act runs directly counter to the protections provided in the Fourth Amendment and also the Electronic Communications Privacy Act which was passed in the 1980s to reaffirm that privacy rights applied to internet communications. The act is supported by powerful congressional Democrats and by the Obama administration, so it stands a reasonably good chance of passing, and it’s just the first step in a comprehensive strategy to expand government control over the internet and what goes on there. The good news is that unlike FISA and its recent amendments, this bill has not yet passed into law and it’s possible that with enough public opposition it might be altered to include safeguards for the privacy rights of citizens while still addressing legitimate national security needs.

With FISA and the expansion of FISA under the Bush administration we saw too much of our liberty legislated away in the name of national security. It is now clear that the Obama administration wants to continue and expand on that trend. It has never seemed more believable that the future of universal surveillance and the elimination of personal privacy envisioned in George Orwell’s 1984 might become a reality. The Fourth Amendment was a powerful and definitive statement on privacy rights, but as things stand today it is almost as if it never existed. It is not being observed or enforced and seems to mean nothing to the bureaucrats of the security establishment or the current administration.

We may very well need protection from terrorists and malicious hackers and cyberwarfare, but safety from those threats has much less value if we lose our basic freedoms in the process.

It is fundamentally wrong to treat all citizens as criminals to catch the real criminals or to take away everyone’s privacy to expose hidden enemies. The emergence of new technology and new mediums of communication does not make our old-fashioned rights obsolete. We just have to find new ways to preserve and protect those rights within the new worlds which technology has opened up for us.

As we go forward, the preservation of our rights and protection of citizens from government as well as external threats, must be our highest priority.

All across the country on Tax Day, Republican Liberty Caucus members will be attending Tea Party Rallies to express dissent to Members of Congress and local officials and encourage sensible economic reforms that will enhance America’s struggling economy.

To see a listing of the Tea Parties in your state, click here. On February 27th, an estimated 30,000 Americans took to the street in 40+ cities across the country in the first nationwide “Tea Party” protest.

So why rally? What is the point? Several reasons: 1) There has not been ENOUGH dissent in this country and the “go along, get along” attitude has plagued us for many years; 2) folks are FINALLY starting to wake up, and public rallies engage average citizens in issues; 3) public officials pay attention to large groups of taxpayers; 4) it provides a coalition-building opportunity with like-minded groups; and 5) it allows the RLC to gain visibility.

The Tea Party movement has been organized to protest the Bailouts approved by Congress, the massive federal debt that continues to grow daily, and the increasing burden on average taxpayers. There is no better day to express your distrust of government than April 15 — Tax Day.

In conjunction with the Spirit of the Founders, RLC members are organizing and speaking at Taxpayer Tea Parties throughout the country. For example, in Melbourne, Florida, RLC East Central Florida Coordinator Matthew D. Nye has organized the Brevard Tea Party.

At its website, Nye features a video from a savvy young lady who discusses the relevance of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged to the current state of the economy. She says:

“The similarities [in Atlas Shrugged compared to] today are striking. In Atlas, we see a world crumbling under the weight of government interventions and regulations. The economy is ground to a halt. Each day, more and more businesses are shutting their doors. The government blames greed and the free market and frantically imposes more government control, but the crisis only deepens. Sound familiar?”

Atlas is currently the Amazon.com “Best Seller” in the fiction category, but it’s RLC member Nye who is educating taxpayers in Brevard County, Florida.

According to the newly chartered Republican Liberty Caucus of Alabama, “Quite a few RLC members are active in the planning of Tea Party rallies to be held across Alabama (and the nation) on April 15th.”  Similarly, RLC Tennessee Officers Gregg Juster, Bryan Haddock, and Joe Dumas are assisting with the Tea Party organizing in Chattanooga.

In Arizona, RLC member Tom Jenney will be a featured speaker, along with RLC State Representative Frank Antenori, at the Tucson Tea Party. Members of the RLC of Pima County, including organize Ken Rineer, are active participants in the Tucson Tea Party.

In northern Virginia, RLC Secretary Aaron Biterman will be addressing the crowd at the Tea Party in Reston, an outer-Beltway suburb of the nation’s capital. Biterman will be speaking about continuing the “Spirit of the Revolution” in 2009 and the importance of eliminating the federal income tax.

These are just some of the RLC members and activists who have taken an active role in the Tea Party Movement.  Look for a full report post-April 15.

In addition to attending your local Tea Party, the RLC is encouraging its members to take the following five steps to promote local Tea Parties:

• Make signs with legible slogans that send a clear message to the public and the media;
• Call local talk radio hosts to ask them to announce the location, date, and time of your local Tea Party on the air for a few days leading up to the protest;
• Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper announcing the rally;
• Write a press release and e-mail, mail and fax copies to the local TV stations, radio stations and newspapers; and
• Call the reporters that cover local events or politics and leave messages on their voice mail.

We all remember the scene in the movie version of Frank Baum’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls the curtain aside and the Wizard turns out to be none other than the snake oil salesman from Kansas.  In William Leach’s wonderful history of consumerism, Land of Desire*, Leach points out that Baum was one of the earliest store window designers for Wannamaker’s Department Store in Philadelphia and that Baum’s American fairy tale was an allegory for the concept of consumerism.  The snake oil salesman was the Wizard of consumerism who could grant everyone their dreams.

Within a few decades of Baum’s publication of Wonderful Wizard of Oz American politics took a particular turn.  A snake oil of illusory democracy and equality were sold to the American public by a series of Wizards who managed to transfer increasing quantities of wealth to Wall Street and the banking industry while, at the same time, convincing Americans that they were doing so in the interest of the poor and middle class.

Americans have traveled the Yellow Brick Road for more than seventy years while the snake oil has done its work.  During that time, both conservatives and “liberals” have played their part.  The conservatives, keying off the social Darwinism of the late 19th century, have claimed that “liberals” are soft on the poor and do not recognize the importance of incentives. They pretend to libertarian views on government, but when push comes to shove conservatives advocate a key role for big government in the form of Soviet-style central planning by the barbaric relic known as the Federal Reserve Bank.  The “liberals” say that the conservatives are greedy and indifferent to income inequality.  Both sides agree that big government is needed and neither questions the Federal Reserve Bank’s existence.

The faux debate has left open an opportunity for the RLC: a benign libertarianism where freedom works in favor of the poor; government serves to oppress them; and freedom (as opposed to border fences or wealth transfers) provides the opportunity for achievement.  This is the authentic American dream that both conservatives like Sean Hannity and “liberals” like Paul Krugman have deserted.

The use of illusion is fundamental to Keynesian economics and its argument for Soviet-style planning by Fed economists.  On page 8 of his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money Keynes writes:

“Although a reduction in the existing money-wage would lead to a withdrawal of labour, it does not follow that a fall in the value of the existing money-wage in terms of wage-goods would do so, if it were due to a rise in the price of the latter. In other words, it may be the case that within a certain range the demand for labour is for a minimum money-wage and not for a minimum real wage.”

In other words, policy makers can trick workers into working for lower wages through inflation. Keynesian macro-economics is rooted in the use of deception: tricking workers into working for lower wages by increasing both prices and wages.  And who is in charge of increasing prices and wages?  Commercial banks and their Wall Street colleagues who are, of course, dependent on the Federal Reserve Bank for the Wicked Witch’s broomstick of an ever-expanding monetary base.

For seven decades the faux debate between conservatives and “liberals” has proceeded apace. The conservatives say that property is important but we need a central bank to stimulate the economy–ignoring that inflation is the surest way to transfer property from the general public to those receiving fresh reserves.  The liberals say that income equality is important and as a result need a central bank to stimulate the economy–ignoring that inflation is the surest way to transfer wealth from poor to rich.  Both sides claim faux expertise–junk economics, quack sociology and crackpot psychology, to bamboozle the public.

But this year something odd happened. The Wizard became over-confident. Paulson, Geithner, Bush and Obama left the curtain open. They stopped claiming that they are transferring from rich to poor. Instead, they claimed that they are transferring from the public to the rich.

The Republican Liberty Caucus now has a golden opportunity to undo the harm that more than seven decades of snake oil has done to American political debate.

*William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power and the Rise of a New American Culture. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.

Mitchell Langbert is associate professor at Brooklyn College. He can be visited at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com.

According to WorldNetDaily, the U.S. House of Representatives last week approved H.R. 1388, a House Resolution to set up a new “volunteer corps” and consider whether “a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people” should be developed.

Good luck finding a FAIR plan that mandates service. It is my opinion that any “fair” plan that requires service (and is therefore based on coercion) could never exist.

Says WorldNetDaily:

“The legislation also refers to ‘uniforms’ that would be worn by the ‘volunteers’ and the ‘need’ for a ‘public service academy, a 4-year institution’ to ‘focus on training future public sector leaders’. The training, apparently, would occur at campuses.”

“The vote came on H.R. 1388, which reauthorizes through 2014 the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973, acts that originally, among other programs, funded the AmeriCorps and the National Senior Service Corps.”

“Many, however, are raising concerns that the program, which is intended to include 250,000 ‘volunteers,’ is the beginning of what President Obama called his ‘National Civilian Security Force’ in a a speech last year in which he urged creating an organization as big and well-funded as the U.S. military. He has declined since then to elaborate. The new bill specifically references the possibilities ‘if all individuals in the United States were expected to perform national service or were required to perform a certain amount of national service’.”

According to a report by Canada Free Press, the “volunteerism that kept America running since the days of its founding” would be “wiped out with the stroke of a pen.”

The bill was sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and was approved in the House by a vote of 321 to 105. As I reported in December, PoliticalLore.com has documented that the original wording of President Obama’s website Change.gov says: “Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.”

Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person’s will to benefit another, under some form of coercion. The Thirteenth Amendment makes it illegal, except as punishment for a crime.

Will Obama get away with his plan to draft Americans into the ranks of community service?

The “Republicans” who supported this resolution included:

Yea AL-6 Bachus, Spencer [R]
Yea AK-0 Young, Donald [R]
Yea CA-24 Gallegly, Elton [R]
Yea CA-25 McKeon, Howard [R]
Yea CA-41 Lewis, Jerry [R]
Yea CA-44 Calvert, Ken [R]
Yea CA-45 Bono Mack, Mary [R]
Yea CA-50 Bilbray, Brian [R]
Yea DE-0 Castle, Michael [R]
Yea FL-4 Crenshaw, Ander [R]
Yea FL-5 Brown-Waite, Virginia [R]
Yea FL-9 Bilirakis, Gus [R]
Yea FL-10 Young, C. W. [R]
Yea FL-12 Putnam, Adam [R]
Yea FL-13 Buchanan, Vern [R]
Yea FL-16 Rooney, Thomas [R]
Yea FL-18 Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana [R]
Yea FL-21 Diaz-Balart, Lincoln [R]
Yea FL-25 Diaz-Balart, Mario [R]
Yea ID-2 Simpson, Michael [R]
Yea IL-10 Kirk, Mark [R]
Yea IL-13 Biggert, Judy [R]
Yea IL-18 Schock, Aaron [R]
Yea IL-19 Shimkus, John [R]
Yea IN-3 Souder, Mark [R]
Yea IA-4 Latham, Thomas [R]
Yea KY-2 Guthrie, Brett [R]
Yea KY-5 Rogers, Harold [R]
Yea LA-2 Cao, Anh [R]
Yea LA-6 Cassidy, Bill [R]
Yea MI-3 Ehlers, Vernon [R]
Yea MI-4 Camp, David [R]
Yea MI-6 Upton, Frederick [R]
Yea MI-8 Rogers, Michael [R]
Yea MI-10 Miller, Candice [R]
Yea MI-11 McCotter, Thaddeus [R]
Yea MN-3 Paulsen, Erik [R]
Yea MO-8 Emerson, Jo Ann [R]
Yea MT-0 Rehberg, Dennis [R]
Yea NE-1 Fortenberry, Jeffrey [R]
Yea NE-2 Terry, Lee [R]
Yea NV-2 Heller, Dean [R]
Yea NJ-2 LoBiondo, Frank [R]
Yea NJ-4 Smith, Christopher [R]
Yea NJ-7 Lance, Leonard [R]
Yea NJ-11 Frelinghuysen, Rodney [R]
Yea NY-3 King, Peter [R]
Yea NY-23 McHugh, John [R]
Yea NY-26 Lee, Christopher [R]
Yea OH-3 Turner, Michael [R]
Yea OH-7 Austria, Steve [R]
Yea OH-12 Tiberi, Patrick [R]
Yea OH-14 LaTourette, Steven [R]
Yea OK-1 Sullivan, John [R]
Yea OK-3 Lucas, Frank [R]
Yea OK-4 Cole, Tom [R]
Yea OR-2 Walden, Greg [R]
Yea PA-5 Thompson, Glenn [R]
Yea PA-6 Gerlach, Jim [R]
Yea PA-15 Dent, Charles [R]
Yea PA-18 Murphy, Tim [R]
Yea PA-19 Platts, Todd [R]
Yea TN-1 Roe, David [R]
Yea VA-1 Wittman, Rob [R]
Yea VA-10 Wolf, Frank [R]
Yea WA-5 McMorris Rodgers, Cathy [R]
Yea WA-8 Reichert, Dave [R]
Yea WI-6 Petri, Thomas [R]

The below special column is authored by RLC endorsed candidate for Congress, Steve Beren of Seattle. Steve has run twice for Congress against Jim McDermott, one of the most liberal members of Congress. He has given us permission to reprint his article below.

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“Stimulus” – Wasteful, harmful, job-killing, and a threat to liberty
by Steve Beren

Eric Earling of SoundPolitics.com, under the heading “Hope-n-Change,” cites a Washington Post report that “[s]ome Democratic leaders … said … they will seek to cut provisions that would not provide an immediate boost to the economy.”

If we take this phrase literally and examine it carefully, the “stimulus” bill is composed of provisions that WOULD provide an immediate boost to the economy, and that WOULD NOT provide an IMMEDIATE boost to the economy (implying that those provisions would provide a boost to the economy a little later on).

Like last fall’s $700 billion “bailout,” this $900 billion “stimulus” is wasteful spending, counter-productive, harmful to the economy, restrictive of liberty, and a job-killer.

Whether it goes by the name of “stimulus,” or “bailout,” or “rescue,” or “recovery,” the recent and proposed measures are dangerous to our prosperity and to our liberty.

The sheer size of these wasteful measures attempt to soften up the American people to accept further expenditures of billions and trillions.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) is proposing a $25 billion INCREASE in the “stimulus,” while just one year ago that amount — $25 billion — would have been considered outrageous as a stand-alone proposal. Now, it is just a small fraction of a much bigger, much more wasteful, much more harmful package.

The increased deficit and increased taxes that will result are bad enough, but the threat to liberty is the worst danger of all.

The government does not just expand in its spending — it also expands in its scope of control, regulation, and authority over our lives.

Increasingly, the Obama administration will seek to tie “bailout money” and “stimulus money” to rules and regulations about how businesses should be run – salaries, office renovation, travel, expansion, etc.

Don’t bet on government control over a company’s spending to be limited just to the top executives. The (socialist) principle is the same — what’s to stop Obama from asking for controls not just on pay to executives, but also to secretaries, receptionists, bookkeepers, and other staff?

Also, don’t bet on government interference and dictates to companies to be limited to companies that receive so-called “bailout” money. The (socialist) principle is the same – such government control and mandates could also be applied to companies that receive so-called “stimulus” money and/or receive tax cuts as part of the “stimulus” package.

Considering the vast reach of the “stimulus” proposal, and considering how many types of industries it purports to “help,” this is a dangerous threat to liberty indeed.

This understanding is the substantive basis and rationale for Senators to oppose the stimulus bill.

Also, before we get too carried away in thinking this bill consists of “provisions” that will benefit the economy “immediately” versus “provisions” that will benefit the economy “later” …

Kirby Wilbur on KVI this morning cited a Wall Street Journal article by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), in which Coburn evidently states that at least 90% of the bill is not a stimulus at all. Not beneficial at all. Not immediately, not later.

If Coburn is right, than something less than 10% of the bill could potentially (theoretically) help the economy. That, of course, is if we just assume the Obama-Pelosi-Reid promises and projections are definitely true and trustworthy.

Steve Redlich just set up my account, and I will be blogging on this site.  I am an associate professor of business at Brooklyn College, which is a campus of the City University of New York. I live in upstate, New York, in the Woodstock, New York area.

I joined the Libertarian Party in 1977 and was active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Thereafter, I waffled between the Democratic and Republican parties for about 10 years. In 1991 I briefly worked as a senior budget analyst in the New York State Assembly for the Democrats, before I became an associate professor. (In the 1970s and early 1980s I worked for Johnson and Johnson and other large corporations and went to UCLA Business School).

I finally enrolled as a Republican in the early 1990s.  I was not active until post 2004, when George W. Bush announced his belief in big government. As well, the economy began to trouble me around then.  My published work has focused on regulation and human resource management (my Ph.D. from Columbia Business School focused on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, ERISA).  I have published on ERISA in various journals such as Journal of Economic Issues, Journal of Labor Research and Benefits Quarterly. I have also written on human resource and other issues in Human Resource Management Journal, Academy of Management Learning and Education Journal and Academic Questions, the journal of the National Association of Scholars. I also have written in the sadly-now-defunct New York Sun and FrontPage Magazine. As well, I blog at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com.

Last night, I re-read David Riesmann’s 1950 sociological classic,  The Lonely Crowd.  In many ways, the 2008 election reflected Riesmann’s ideas.   To refresh your memory, Riesmann argued that there are three personality types in the modern world: tradition-directed, inner-directed (who are driven by their inner values) and other-directed (whose values are driven by fashion, mass media, urban trends and higher education).  There is a bias in Riesmann’s typology in that he suggests that other-directedness bears a developmental relationship to inner-directedness that inner-directedness bears to tradition-directedness.  This is so historically but it is not dictated by production technology as Riesmann supposes.

The relationship between individualism and production technology changed around the same time that Riesmann was writing his book. In Japan, Toyota’s executive vice president of manufacturing, Taiichi Ohno, devised a process known as lean production and, as well, the Japanese invited Edward I. Deming to educate them as to quality processes. Lean production and total quality management require a degree of initiative and empower teams of line workers.  The powerlessness associated with American bureaucratic and factory systems has not yielded as much productivity and efficiency as has TQM. Yet, a degree of goal orientation, focus and lifetime employment are consistent with the new production methods, at least where they work best.  These can lead to a sense of self-reliance and focus.  As well, the professionalization of the workforce in America led to an enhanced degree of emphasis on goal setting and career focus.  The dynamic, flexible economy of the post World War II era made the opinion of others a flimsy reed on which to rely. Corporations like AT&T that had seemed invincible in 1950 fell in the 1980s.  The result was that Americans had to rely on their own resources.  This created a resurgence of inner-directedness.  The most important success books of the 1990s were The Millionaire Next Door and Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and both of these books emphasized traits most consistent with inner-directedness.  Not that other-directedness is totally rejected or minimized, they are not, but American workers have found that the assumption that good interpersonal skills and conforming to media and fashion are enough is wrong.

The public has therefore fragmented to an increasing degree.  The mass media remains rooted in the 1950s model, and the products of universities, MBA graduates and academics, are often imbued with an elitist, other-directed sense whereby they believe that those in the know are smart and those who do not fit aren’t.  Thus the reaction to Sarah Palin, who threatens the other-directed social structure on which the mass media feeds. The reaction to Palin is that she is not smart, unlike Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, the executives of Citigroup and Barack Obama.   On the other hand, rural Americans retain a strong degree of inner-directedness. More Americans from urban areas intuit the importance of self reliance and freedom, but have not tied this new orientation to a political ideology.

The election of Barack Obama is a triumph of other-direction over inner-direction. The reason for this triumph, though, was the stealth other-directedness of George W. Bush. He had packaged himself as a  conservative.  However, he was highly responsive to his advisers, ignoring logic and alternative views, both with respect to military strategy and the economy.  That is, his other-directedness was seen in  his easy money policy and lack of vision. Thus, Mr. Bush managed to alienate a segment of the inner-directed.

Riesmann noted that inner-directed Americans tend to have an inferiority complex. This is still the case. The inner-directed have not often been able to produce many good quality candidates. Part of the reason is that the mass media is the fountainhead of other-directedness, and the sport of politics relies heavily on the mass media.  This is beginning to change as the Internet fragments information. More Americans read blogs than watch TV news. This opens opportunities for the inner directed and for libertarians.

Libertarianism may be viewed as the ideology of inner-directedness. Its early evolution was part and parcel of the Whig and Protestant revolution in England, and its heyday was the period of greatest inner directedness, the period from 1820 to 1890.

What this theory points to is the need to package the Libertarian message to those inner-directeds who have been frustrated by the given offerings in politics but do not yet see individualist ideology as a practical alternative. Inner directeds can be altruistic and are often religious.  Libertarians need to do a better job of reaching out to these segments.  One of the tragedies of Bush Republicanism is that it identified “free markets” with opportunism. This has helped to alienate America to rational economics.  I suspect we are in for a tragic ride as a result.

I watched some video excerpts of the Obama inauguration on the Wall Street Journal‘s site. What struck me was not Obama’s words, but the three stock market tickers at the bottom of the video. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 189 points but gold was up several percent. As a gold investor, I was not unhappy, but cannot help but anticipate that the other-directed economics of George W. Bush and Barack Obama will open significant opportunities for the Republican Liberty Caucus if we have the imagination to seize them.