Category Archives: liberty

The Poles are no Longer a Joke

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The Polish Government announced today that, in response to yesterday’s horrific bombings in Brussels, it would not resettle 7,000 Muslim immigrants. The action rescinded the agreement by the previous government of Poland to help resettle them.

Lest we forget or are too young to remember, it was the Poles, led by Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II, who courageously and resolutely led to the dissolution of the Soviet empire. And now the Poles are manning the Gates of Vienna against the Muslim hordes, in sharp contrast to their sniveling, politically correct European brethren.

The dead, bloodied, and mangled in Brussels, Paris, and elsewhere to come are victims of the moral relativism and nihilistic worldview to which the governing elites of Europe blindly pay homage.

Surely, but tragically, the Poles are no longer a joke.

The Only Choice: Judge Janice Rogers Brown

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There is only one person Barack Obama could nominate to honor the memory and continue the legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia, and that would be Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Coumbia, Janice Rogers Brown.

Born in Greenville, Alabama, Judge Brown is the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper who, as a child, attended majority African-American schools.  Her family refused to enter places of business that segregated blacks.  She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Sacrmento, in 1974, and her Juris Doctor (J.D.)from the UCLA School of Law in 1977.  She also earned an LL.M degree from the University of Virginia Law School in 2004.

For most of the first two decades of her career, Brown worked for government agencies. She was Deputy Legislative Counsel for the California Legislative Counsel from 1977 to 1979. She then spent eight years as Deputy Attorney General for the Criminal and Civil Divisions of the California Attorney General’s Office. She was Deputy Secretary and General Counsel for the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency from 1987 to 1989 (and a University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law Adjunct Professor from 1988 to 1989).

She briefly entered private practice as an Associate of Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor from 1990 to January 1991, when she returned to government as Legal Affairs Secretary for Governor Pete Wilson from January 1991 to November 1994.  The job included diverse duties, ranging from analysis of administration policy, court decisions, and pending legislation to advice on clemency and extradition questions. The Legal Affairs Office monitored all significant state litigation and had general responsibility for supervising departmental counsel and acting as legal liaison between the Governor’s office and executive departments. In November 1994, Wilson appointed Brown to the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District.

In May 1996, Governor Pete Wilson appointed Brown as Associate Justice to the California Supreme Court. Before the appointment, she had been rated “not qualified” by the State Bar of California’s Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, which evaluates nominees to the California courts. She was the first person with that rating to be appointed. The basis of that negative rating, according to the Commission, was her lack of judicial experience. Brown had then been sitting as a Justice on the Third District Court of Appeal of California (an intermediate appellate court below the California Supreme Court) for less than two years. Brown was praised in the JNE Commission evaluation for her intelligence and accomplishments, however.

While on the California Supreme Court, in Hi-Voltage Wire-Works, Inc. v. City of San Jose, Brown wrote the majority opinion overturning a program of racial set-asides adopted by the city of San Jose, California. The opinion upheld an amendment to the California Constitution which banned “discriminat[ing] against or grant[ing] preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” In another case, Brown dissented from an opinion striking down a parental consent law for abortions. Brown also wrote the majority opinion in Varian v. Delfino, an important First Amendment case involving the interpretation of California’s SLAPP statute.

She was the lone justice to contend that a provision in the California Constitution requires drug offenders be given treatment instead of jail time. In 2000, she authored the opinion in Kasler v. Lockyer, upholding the right of the State of California to ban semi-automatic firearms, and of the Attorney General of California to add to the list of prohibited weapons. Her opinion in that case clearly explained that the decision was not an endorsement of the policy, but rather recognition of the power of the state.

Brown was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on July 25, 2003, to fill a seat vacated when Stephen F. Williams assumed senior status. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on her nomination on October 22 of that same year. After her name had passed out of committee and had been sent to the full Senate, there was a failed cloture vote on her nomination on November 14, 2003. Brown’s nomination was returned to the President under the standing rules of the Senate when the 108th United States Congress adjourned.

Bush renominated Brown on February 14, 2005, early in the first session of the 109th United States Congress. On April 21, 2005, the Senate Judiciary Committee again endorsed Brown and referred her name to the full Senate once more. On May 23, Senator John McCain announced an agreement between seven Republican and seven Democratic U.S. Senators, the Gang of 14, to ensure an up-or-down vote on Brown and several other stalled Bush nominees, including Priscilla Owen and William H. Pryor, Jr..

On June 8, Brown was confirmed as a judge on the D.C. Circuit by a vote of 56–43.  She received her commission on June 10.  Brown was the second judge nominated to the D.C. Circuit by Bush and confirmed by the Senate. She began hearing federal cases on September 8, 2005.

Several organizations opposed to individual rights including the NAACP, the Feminist Majority Foundation, People For the American Way, the National Council of Jewish Women,  and the National Organization for Women called her views “extreme right-wing,” reflecting their usual rigid statist ideology.

Her dissenting opinion in Omar v. Harvey is notable as it pertains to her judicial outlook on the constitutional balance of powers. The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld an injunction that forbade the U.S. military to transfer Omar, a suspected insurgent, out of U.S. custody while his habeas corpus suit was pending. Brown’s dissent took the view that the majority was trespassing on the Executive Branch’s authority:

Summarizing its position, the majority declares: “The United States may certainly share information with other sovereigns … , but it may not do so in a way that converts Omar’s ‘release’ into a transfer that violates a court order.” This is a striking conclusion. The majority in effect holds that, in the proper circumstance, a single unelected district court judge can enjoin the United States military from sharing information with an allied foreign sovereign in a war zone and may do so with the deliberate purpose of foiling the efforts of the foreign sovereign to make an arrest on its own soil, in effect secreting a fugitive to prevent his capture. The trespass on Executive authority could hardly be clearer.

In 2012, she wrote a concurring opinion for the case Hettinga v. United States in which she severely criticized the dominant approach in the U.S. judiciary, that laws involving economic policy deserve “a strong presumption of validity.”

During the summer of 2005, she was considered a candidate to replace Sandra Day O’Connor as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, but Samuel Alito was chosen instead.

Judge Brown’s libertarian political beliefs have been expressed in her speeches, most notably one she delivered to the Federalist Society at the University of Chicago Law School in 2000.  Brown’s speech mentioned Ayn Rand and lamented the triumph of “the collectivist impulse”, in which capitalism receives “contemptuous tolerance but only for its capacity to feed the insatiable maw of socialism.” She argued that “where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies,” and suggests that the ultimate result for the United States has been a “debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible”.

Her remarks gained particular attention, however, for her thesis that the 1937 court decisions upholding minimum-wage laws and New Deal programs marked “the triumph of our own socialist revolution”, the culmination of “a particularly skewed view of human nature” that could be “traced from the Enlightenment, through the Terror, to Marx and Engels, to the Revolutions of 1917 and 1937.” She called instead for a return to the pre-1937 view that the Constitution severely limits federal and state power to enact economic regulations. In an exegesis of Brown’s speech that was largely responsible for bringing it to public attention during her confirmation process in 2005, legal-affairs analyst Stuart Taylor Jr. noted, “Almost all modern constitutional scholars have rejected this view as ‘the quintessence of judicial usurpation of power'”, citing in particular “leading conservatives — including Justice Antonin Scalia, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and former Attorney General Edwin Meese, as well as [Robert] Bork”.

In a speech to the Federalist Society, Brown called the group a “rare bastion (nay beacon) of conservative and libertarian thought” and that the “latter notion made your invitation well-nigh irresistible.”

In the same speech, she gave hints of her philosophical foundations. She described private property as “the guardian of every other right”. (This might have been a reference to a book published late 2007 titled “The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights”.) Later in her speech she described collectivism as “slavery to the tribe” and that government was a “leviathan [that] will continue to lumber along, picking up ballast and momentum, crushing everything in its path”.

Judge Brown gives voice to all of us who yearn for a return to Founding Principles.  As a Supreme Court Justice, Judge would stake out and strongly support bold positions in restoring the Jeffersonian vision.  She is a strong advocate of private property rights, the primacy of the individual vs. the state, and one of few remaining jurists who honor the constitutional limits on the federal government enshrined in Article 1, Section 8, and the Tenth Amendment.

If Barack Obama really  believes the words of tribute he paid Justice Scalia, he must nominate Judge Janice Rogers Brown to fill his shoes on the High Court.

Bernie Madoff and America’s Selective Outrage

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Like seven million other Americans last week, I watched Madoff,  the ABC miniseries chronicling the life and financial crimes of the infamous Bernie Madoff.  Madoff, chairman of Madoff Investment Securities from its start-up in 1960 until his arrest on December 11, 2008, operated the largest corporate Ponzi scheme and financial fraud in U.S. history.  The film, which starred Richard Dreyfuss and Blythe Danner as Madoff and his wife Ruth, aired for four hours over two evenings.  The film had the highest viewership of its time-slot, but earned only modest reviews.  After the film, ABC aired Madoff: After the Fall, a one-hour documentary hosted by ABC’s chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross.  I gave the whole production two-and-a-half stars; it pretty much held my interest for the duration, the acting was solid, and compared to the usual drivel on prime-time television, it was informative and engaging.

On March 12, 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies, including securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, making false statements, perjury, theft from an employee benefit plan, and making false filings with the SEC.  He was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

In November 2009, David G. Friehling, Madoff’s accounting front-man and auditor, pleaded guilty to securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, making false filings to the SEC, and obstructing the IRS.  Friehling fully cooperated with federal prosecutors and testified at the trials of five former Madoff employees, all of whom were convicted and sentenced to between 2½ and 10 years in prison. Friehling could have been sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.  Because of his cooperation, however, he was sentenced in May 2015 to one year of home detention and one year of supervised release.

Madoff’s right-hand man and financial chief, Frank DiPascali, pleaded guilty to 10 federal charges and, like Friehling, testified for the government at the trial of five former colleagues, all of whom were convicted. DiPascali faced a sentence of up to 125 years, but died of lung cancer before he could be sentenced.

Madoff and his associates defrauded their clients over an estimated twenty-year period.  Losses were initially estimated at $65 billion.  This amount was later significantly revised downward to a range of  $10-20 billion.  A court-appointed trustee estimated the losses at $18 billion.  $7.6 billion of the losses have been recovered, but pending lawsuits only $2.6 is actually available.  More recovery is expected.

The fallout was tragically not limited to financial losses.  On the second anniversary of Madoff’s arrest, his son Mark committed suicide by hanging himself in his Manhattan apartment.

Even if one accepts the highest estimate of investor losses at $65 billion, Madoff’s fraud pales in comparison to the $2.7 trillion embezzled from the Social Security Trust Fund by the United States Government.  Unlike the Madoff case, it has all but been ignored by the media and government watchdogs and lapdogs.  Even the AARP, who pretends to be the greatest friend and protector of our senior citizens, has been silent about the matter.

In 1983, anticipating the flood of “baby-boomers” approaching retirement, Congress passed and President Reagan signed into law major Social Security reform legislation.  The legislation included a payroll tax hike ostensibly earmarked for the millions of additional baby-boomer recipients.  The increased payroll taxes created a $2.7 trillion surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund.

Everything was looking rosy for the Social Security Trust Fund.  Before the ink was dry on the reform legislation, however, Congress began borrowing money from the Trust Fund to finance current programs and all our undeclared wars, preferring to borrow from the Trust Fund rather than the Chinese.  In return, Congress issued IOUs in the form of special Treasury bonds which are physically kept in a binder in a non-descript office building in Parkersburg, West Virginia–the Bureau of Public Debt.  (You just can’t make this stuff up.)  Unlike most T-bills and other debt instruments, however, the special Social Security bonds are non-negotiable, which means they’re worthless.  As one commentator noted, “The IOUs are the equivalent of a bank robber leaving a note in the vault of the amount stolen.  The note specifies the amount of money taken, but does nothing to help retrieve the funds.”  It’s just a random act of kindness on the part of the perpetrators.

By 2010, the surplus was completely looted, embezzled by Congress and the five presidents in office during this time.  Beginning in 2010, Congress had to borrow the money from foreign creditors to pay current Social Security benefits.  The money is gone and will never be repaid.  It’s called embezzlement.

Embezzlement is defined as a kind of property theft.  It occurs when a defendant, who was entrusted to manage or monitor someone else’s money or property, steals all or part of that money or property  for the defendant’s personal gain. The key is that the defendant had legal access to another’s money or property, but not legal ownership of it.  Taking the money or property for the defendant’s own gain is stealing; when combined with the fact that this stealing was also a violation of a special position of trust, you have the unique crime of embezzlement.

Depending on the amount stolen, embezzlement can be a felony or misdemeanor.  It’s safe to say that the embezzlement of $2.7 trillion would be a felony.

Unlike the crimes of Bernie Madoff, Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo, or the Enron Gang,  the looting of the Social Security Trust Fund has been met with a deafening chorus of silence.  I don’t recall hearing about it on the evening news, there wasn’t a primetime mini-series about it, and it didn’t even merit a segment on 60 Minutes.  There have been no interviews of the victims.  The media clearly employs a double standard when it come to white-collar crime versus public corruption, and they likewise selectively employ the Mafioso code of omerta.   Why?

Corporate big business has been the proverbial whipping boy of the chattering and academic classes since the beginning of the Progressive Movement, near the end of the 19th century.  Actually, the merchant class has historically been civilization’s bogeyman; it has been held liable for mankind’s every affliction, from prickly heat to global warming.  The government’s good intentions trump every tangible life-improving contribution ever made by private inventors and entrepreneurs.  But since the intentions of such private innovators are considered self-serving, it matters not.   Embezzlement is a crime, be it in the private or public sector.  When a CEO of a large firm embezzles his clients, he is given the equivalent of a complete rectal exam by the media and respective government regulatory and law-enforcement agencies.  But when an agency or department or branch of the government is accused of similar offences, they are ignored or excused because, after all, the government is our friend and their intentions are ever noble.

The mainstream media operates as the de facto Ministry of Information and Propaganda for the U.S. government.  Sure, they take sides, in a well-choreographed, stage-managed sort of way.  Fox News supports the GOP and so-called conservatives, while the rest of them zealously support the Democrats and so-called liberals.  Fox supports the War on Terror and its attending wars and foreign adventures, while the other networks support the War on Poverty and all its failed programs.   But none of them ever questions the legitimacy of the State itself, or regularly calls the federal government on the carpet for having acted outside its constitutionally imposed limitations.

Taking on Bernie Madoff or Long-Term Capital poses little if any danger to the respective journalist or his employer.  Taking on Congress or the Administration is another matter.  You may find yourself in the unemployment lines or have your White House creds revoked.

The government’s emptying of the Social Security Trust Fund has been accurately called “the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American public.”  Every president and congressman who supported using the Social Security Trust Fund as a “slush fund” is culpable.  Yet, there have been no investigations, no indictments, no arrests.   And don’t hold your breath waiting for that 60 Minutes expose or calls for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate the looting of the Social Security Trust Fund.  It ain’t gonna happen and the money will never be paid back.

Sources:

“The Future of SSI: Biggest Government Fraud in History, Future Financial Status of Social Security Program,”  Josey Wales, correspondent, Before Its News.

ABCNews.com (for background on Madoff  miniseries)

Wikipedia  (for background on Madoff crimes and adjudication)

 

 

Political Participation and the Sanction of the Victim

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Source: Political Participation and the Sanction of the Victim

POLITICAL PARTICIPATION  AND THE “SANCTION OF THE VICTIM”

In her 1957 masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand introduced us to a powerful concept which she called “the sanction of the victim.”  This concept is defined as “the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the ‘sin‘ of creating values.”  As Rand explains through the character of her hero, John Galt, “Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us,” and, “I saw that evil was impotent…and the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it.”   In Rand’s view, morality requires that we do not sanction our own victimhood.  This concept may be original in the thinking of Ayn Rand and is foundational to her moral theory: she holds that evil is a parasite on the good and can only exist if the good tolerates it.

The sanction of the victim takes many forms, on the individual level in our personal relationships, and in the social or public realm in our relationship with the State.   In Rand’s Atlas Shrugged it primarily takes the form of unearned guilt and the need to acknowledge and show kindness towards our tormentors and those who would exploit us.  Ultimately, the sanction of the victim is used by our exploiters as the weapon of our own destruction.  The victim becomes an accessory to the crime.

On the personal level, among countless situations, the sanction of the victim would apply to the beaten wife, the verbally abused husband, and the parents of mooching offspring that refuse to grow up and leave home (excluding the handicapped and emotionally disabled).  An ever-growing percentage of our youth now choose to remain at home with their parents indefinitely.  The parent-victims have been played like a violin by their offspring, conditioned to believe they are financially and emotionally helpless, incapable of surviving independently.  The parents are terrified of the unbearable guilt they would carry if they were to send them packing.  The parents’ acceptance and acquiescence constitute the sanction of the victim.  Consequently, the parents become the victims of their own cowardice.

The sanction of the victim in the public or political realm expresses itself in two principal forms: participation in popular democratic processes, including elections, and acknowledging, approving, and extending respect and kindness toward our political exploiters (i.e. elected officials, their many toadies, and the supportive media).

Participating in the political process in all its forms constitutes the sanction of the victim. Again, you are an accessory to the crime, a victim of the crimes in which you are an active, but ignorant participant.  You are in effect abating the crimes of the political elite.  All of these things send the wrong message to the criminals and reprobates that comprise the political class.   Voting, attending political rallies, and perhaps worst of all, sending them money, constitute the sanction of the victim.  We are telling the political class, “We approve of your system.  Even though you’re robbing us blind and crushing our Constitutional liberties, we still like you.  Even though you’re corrupt beyond words, you are nevertheless lovable thugs, and we could not begin to fathom or contemplate life without you.

So how do we beat these people?  Democracy and every form of representative government based on popular consent with constitutional constraints is the god that failed.  We are told that political apathy and disengagement is to blame.  I disagree.  Disengagement is the solution, not the problem.  The sanction of the victim only reinforces the problem, whether it’s a bad marriage or a corrupt, tyrannical government.

Here is the Three-Step Program for defanging the snake.

DON’T VOTE.  As political satirist P.J. O’Rourke said, “Don’t vote, it only encourages them.” Elections change nothing systemically.  They only decide who gets to pick your pocket and hold the boot over your neck.  What difference would it have made if slaves had been allowed to elect their plantation overseers?  When you vote you’re doing the same thing.

When has there ever been an election that gives you the choice of A, B, or none of the above?  Hmmm?  Never.  Wouldn’t it be great to live in a voting district with no legislator, no congressman, no senator, no one to suck up to?  Yes, but you don’t have that option.  But you can refuse to part of the whole scam by not voting.  So don’t vote.  Look, you’re being used like a cheap condom.  Furthermore, the odds of you casting the deciding vote are far less than the odds of your winning the Big Lotto.  In fact, the odds of your being involved in a fatal car accident en route to the polling place are far greater than the odds of casting the deciding vote.  When you vote, you are sanctioning the system, its leaders and their crimes.

Voting is just a bad habit.  Like all bad habits, it is self-defeating.  Moreover, it serves to reinforce the bad habits of your tormentors.  I gave up voting and smoking over 30 years ago.  Both healthy choices, and among the most liberating and empowering I had ever made.

I remember a popular saying when I was young: Imagine if they held a war and nobody showed up.  Well, imagine if they held an election and nobody showed up.  Talking about sending the political class a message !

STOP TREATING POLITICIANS WITH KINDNESS.  What do politicians crave more than power?  Attention.  Attention is their drug of choice.  Indeed, politicians must seek the affirmation and approbation and applause of those whom they would never invite into their homes, have a beer with, or call their friends.  In other words people like you and me.  They have nothing but scorn and contempt for us.  And besides, they’re corrupt beyond words.  So what do we do?  We cram into public auditoriums to catch a glimpse of their faces and suck up their lies like a cat does a saucer of warm milk.  We reach out to grasp their hands as though they were the healing hands of a divine savior.  If you came home from work to find a burglar carrying your possessions out of your house, would you shake his hands and wish him well?  No, you’d call the cops, maybe even beat him up.  Why do we treat politicians any differently when they steal our money every day?  If we started denying politicians the attention and approval they so crave, maybe they’d consider getting an honest living.

A few years ago, on my way to work, our district congressman was shaking hands with us commoners at a Metro station in his district.  Half asleep, I shook his hand and actually wished him well.  Not five seconds later, I realized what a dumb-ass I was—shaking hands with a common criminal, a guttersnipe, a reprobate, a predator, a public parasite.  There I was, extending my best wishes to high-ranking political leader who bore direct responsibility for the mess we found ourselves in.  Would you shake hands with a cat-burglar, a serial rapist, a pedophile?  No, of course not, so why would you shake hands with a politician?

So, take the pledge.  When a politician reaches to shake your hand, act like the person has a communicable disease (what we used to call the “cooties”).  Take your hand back as quickly as possible, and say something pithy like, “No, thank you. When you sleep with dogs, you get fleas.  Don’t ever try to shake my hand again.”  If more of us started treating politicians with the disdain and contempt they deserve, they might begin to consider a more respectable line of work.

3-REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PROCESS AT ANY LEVEL.  A good friend of mine is constantly urging me and everyone else he knows to “get involved.  It’s the only way we can fix things.”

As Sherman Potter would say, “Horsehockey !”  What sort of track record does popular participation have compared to apathy and disengagement?  None.  Politicians have always used elections and every form of democratic process to sanction and justify the criminal enterprise we call government.  It just gives them cover.  Government is, and has always been, nothing more than an organized crime syndicate, a protection racket sanctioned by the many forms of popular approval—which Ayn Rand called the sanction of the victim.

So, stay home, focus on your beautiful family, your kids’ Little League and soccer games.  Spend quality time with your friends.  Work at your hobbies, do crossword puzzles, listen to a symphony, read a good book, take your spouse and kids to the movies.  Watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.  Return the ladder you borrowed from your neighbor seven years ago.  Clean out your fridge, there’s probably stuff in there since you were in grammar school.  Take your grandkids to the playground.  Have a glass of champagne with your breakfast cornflakes.  Tell your kid to rake the leaves while you nap in a hammock.  Go to church, bake brownies, take your dog for a walk; mow the lawn; clean out your gutters; weed the garden, shovel the snow in your driveway.  Be at peace with your Maker, whatever you imagine him to be.  But whatever you do, avoid politicians like stray dogs.