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Guns - The Constitution Is Not Incidental

 
The Constitution Is Not Incidental
President Obama and the elite modern left think freedoms in our Constitution which are essential to the American experience are just incidental.


By Ben Domenech
December 7, 2015

When we discussed it yesterday morning on Face the Nation, the exact content of President Obama’s speech last night was not clear. It was still possible it could represent a marked change in strategy on the part of the White House, given that a steady drumbeat of criticism from fellow Democrats had put their approach to dealing with ISIS in its weakest political positioning yet. The intelligence community has been increasingly clear that, contra the evidence in prior fudged reports, ISIS is not contained.

The opportunity was there for President Obama to announce that he has reevaluated his approach in light of new information, and that the commitment necessary to crush ISIS would require a much more unified coalition and additional forces on the air and ground. It would have represented in a small way an act of unity with George W. Bush, who reevaluated his approach to Iraq in the wake of the 2006 elections, and risked significant political capital to fight for the surge policy to achieve a semblance of stability in the region.
Instead, the speech turned out to be exactly what we have come to expect from this president: a stubborn insistence that his strategy is working.

Instead, the speech turned out to be exactly what we have come to expect from this president: a stubborn insistence that his strategy is working, despite the haters, and a glorious flame-throwing eradication of the amassed men of straw. As Rob Tracinski writes this morning, the speech was a lame attempt at a new framing for the conflict with ISIS, blameshifting to Congress for failing to enact a new AUMF or gun control measures. It will do nothing to achieve anything of the sort, in part because, as with most Obama speeches in his second term, it is more about divisiveness than unity.

Consider Obama’s dismissive line about his political opponents regarding guns. “What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semiautomatic weapon?” Well, let us focus on one: that the denial of rights without due process of law is unconstitutional. Eugene Volokh:

“[C]an a person be denied constitutional rights, not based on a past criminal conviction or even a restraining order issued in court under a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, but based just on the government’s suspicion? The Feinstein proposal would have provided that the government could bar gun sales to a person if two conditions were met: “the Attorney General” “determines that the [buyer] is known (or appropriately suspected)” to have been involved in terrorism-related conduct “or providing material support support or resources for terrorism,” and if the Attorney General “has a reasonable belief that the [buyer] may use a firearm in connection with terrorism.”

“That’s a very low bar — denial of a constitutional right based on suspicion (albeit “appropriate[]”) about a person’s connections, and belief (albeit “reasonable” belief) about a person’s possible future actions … I can’t see how that’s constitutional. And though the bill would have let the buyer go to court to challenge the attorney general’s decision, the attorney general would simply have had to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the two elements were satisfied — that the attorney general appropriately suspected the buyer and that she had a reasonable belief about what the buyer may do.”

If you believe in civil liberties at all, the idea that the Attorney General of the United States could deny an explicitly guaranteed individual right in the Constitution based solely on suspicion, without having to show cause to the courts, should absolutely give you pause. As a matter of politics, it is the sort of grandstanding position and assertion of righteousness we have seen time and again from this administration, operating as it does without any humility or any respect for Constitutional norms. But if the White House thinks this message, combined with the New York Times front page editorial, is going to move the needle on guns at all they are deluding themselves almost as much as they are about ISIS.
The problem is that the elite modern left thinks all these things which are essential to the American experience are just incidental.

(As an aside, this stance also is going to cause more difficulties for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Expect that Republicans in Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania will be using the gun issue to great effect. But that comes later.)

The problem is that the elite modern left thinks all these things which are essential to the American experience are just incidental. They see no connection between Constitutional freedoms and the character of the people; between religious liberty and church attendance and family breakdown; between gun ownership and self-reliance and respect for property; between crushing free speech and destroying our capacity for free thought and creativity; between the loss of American stoicism and the all-encompassing welfare state. They see these originating factors as irritants or unimportant, and think they can all be gotten rid of without fundamentally altering the nature of who we are as a nation.

The liberal elites do this in part because such things are incidental to their own daily lives. Casting aside the Bill of Rights won’t fundamentally change who they are, at least not in any near term. So because you do not use guns, you don’t care about people who do, and you cannot understand why they would ever need or want such things. Same with church. Same with awful public schools, in neighborhoods you would never live. Your tribe of social justice warriors who left the campus will be just fine, so long as the government isn’t threatening gourmet coffee shops or wifi access or prestige cable dramas.
The first priority of the United States government and the president is to secure our liberties – it always has been, and always ought to be.

There is one other point President Obama made – that as commander in chief, he has no greater responsibility than the security of the American people. It is the sort of thing lots of presidents have said. It also happens to be false. If the safety and security of Americans took precedence over all else, then The New York Times’s argument that every AR-15 in the country should be purchased at the cost of billions and melted down into slag would be more palatable – still wrong, but a matter for debate. This is not the case. The first priority of the United States government and the president is to secure our liberties – it always has been, and always ought to be.

Elite liberals like Obama and the New York Times editorialists do not understand that when they argue the American citizenry no longer has the capacity to bear arms, they are arguing that we have lost the capacity for self-government. They are not just saying you only have the right to self-defense as the Attorney General deems you fit; they are saying the inalienable rights of American individuals are subordinate to the will of high-minded politicians. Their interest is in keeping you safe and secure. Whether you are free is, in the grand scheme of things, incidental.

Women in Combat

Don’t Believe The Hype About Women In Combat
December 7, 2015 By Amber Smith

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter made a historic announcement on Thursday stating the Pentagon will open all combat jobs to women with zero restrictions.

“This means that as long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before. They’ll be able to drive tanks, give orders, lead infantry soldiers into combat,” Carter said. This included special operation jobs like the Navy SEALS, Rangers, and Special Forces.

There are a few things to consider about integrating women into all aspects of combat military operations when the end state is maintaining the most elite and lethal fighting force in the world.

First of all, there has to be a mission standard, not a gender standard. That means all physical and mental requirements are set to a standard that is necessary to accomplish whatever mission each particular unit is tasked with. No quotas, no double standards, no “separate but equal” physical standards. An individual, man or woman, either qualifies or they don’t. No exceptions. This means only a few women will likely be able to qualify for these special operations and infantry units, and that’s okay. It’s about quality, not quantity. We want the best for the job.

Second, there’s a considerable amount of controversy surrounding unit cohesion and morale, and whether men will be willing to accept women in their ranks and whether it will detract from the mission. In my experience as a Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot in a male-dominated unit, if women who are accepted to the same unit successfully accomplished the exact same tests, physical requirements, and had no special treatment, there won’t be an issue. Resentment will occur if female quotas are applied to each unit to satisfy political agendas.
An individual, man or woman, either qualifies or they don’t. No exceptions.

That is why it is that much more critical to maintain the mission standard. There are always exceptions to the rules, but that’s called life. If people, regardless of their gender, can’t handle someone disliking them for no reason at all, they probably shouldn’t be trying out for the infantry or a special operations job.

Third, Secretary Carter’s decision to allow women to serve in all combat jobs now means that the Selective Service law is out of date and discriminatory towards men. In 1981, the Supreme Court ruled that a male-only military draft was constitutional because women were banned from combat jobs and the draft’s intent is to fill combat replacements during a time of war. Female exemption from combat jobs meant there was no requirement to register with the Selective Service. With Carter’s historic decision, American women could likely be signing up for the Selective Service within 30 days of their eighteenth birthday in the very near future.

Bottom line: qualified women should be given the opportunity to try out, the same way qualified men can. If we’re enforcing equality, there are no exceptions. Women should neither be given special treatment nor be used by politicians or appointees who want to fill quotas who think their presence in these new units will benefit optics.

Once the dust settles and the media buzz is over, the mission still has to be accomplished. National security must always remain the military’s top priority by ensuring that we have the best soldiers accomplishing their very daunting missions, regardless of their gender.
Amber Smith is national security writer and commentator. She is a former U.S. Army Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot-in-command and Air Mission Commander. She is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. For more information visit OfficialAmberSmith.com

'Climate Change' and True Hypocrisy

 
Climate Talks Show Us Progressivism’s True Hypocrisy
It’s estimated that around 50,000 hypocrites will be participating in the Paris climate conference this week.

By David Harsanyi
December 1, 2015

What do you call it when elites fly their private jets to an international climate change conference to forge a deal with despots that caps American prosperity without our consent? You call it progressivism.

It’s estimated that around 50,000 carbon-spewing humans will be participating in the Paris climate conference this week. But while President Obama was taking his working dinner at the three-Michelin-star L’Ambroisie, public protests were banned in the aftermath of the Islamic terror attacks. Liberté, not so much. No one inside the confab seemed too disturbed.

It took a handful of gunmen only one night to impede free expression in Paris. Yet, according to the president, a massive and expensive effort to curb the 0.1 to 0.2 C of warming we might see over the next decade — the worst case scenario predicted by alarmists — is the most critical project facing mankind.

It took a handful of gunmen only one night to impede free expression in Paris.

That doesn’t mean Obama won’t use the issue of terrorism to refocus our attention where it belongs. Millions of people might live in fear and suffer under the genuine, deadly threat of radical Islam, but the president contends the Paris conference itself is “a powerful rebuke to the terrorists” and an “act of defiance” in the face of extremism.

Why not? True believers are rarely dissuaded by reality. Socialist Francois Hollande, president of a country that was not only recently a target of Islamic terror, but also one that witnessed the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century, claims that “never have the stakes been so high because this is about the future of the planet, the future of life.” Never?

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a man whose divided nation still suffers unconscionable destitution and tyranny, told leaders that humankind has “never faced such a test” as climate change. Never?

These are preposterous exaggerations that have as much to do with history and science as the Book of Revelation. But that’s nothing new, is it? Obama alleged yesterday that without a climate change agreement there could be “submerged countries, abandoned cities, fields that no longer grow” — assertions that are no more than fearmongering, ratcheted up over the decades by frustrated environmentalists and now confidently thrown around by presidents. These prophecies are tethered to reality in the same way Donald Trump’s whoppers are, although the media treats the former with undeserving respect.

Transforming ideology into a ‘science’ is not a new development on the Left.

Transforming ideology into a “science” is not a new development on the Left. But the most useful indicators tell us that humanity’s prospects are on the upswing: poverty is declining, crops are producing higher yields, and humans are living longer and healthier lives despite the mild warming we’ve experienced. And in spite of these advancements (or maybe because of them) Western leaders are prepared, conveniently enough, to cap growth, spread wealth, and centralize power in the way progressives have always wanted to cap growth, spread wealth, and centralize power.

Ripe For The Taking

The world looks ready for a deal. Developing nations will receive reparations for the capitalist sins of advanced nations — around $100 billion each year. Corporations will be subsidized so they can create more unproductive industries to meet arbitrary caps. And the worst carbon offenders in the world will have to do nothing. What’s not to like?

If a deal can be reached, Obama will have to trust that communist China — the world’s most prodigious carbon emitter — will voluntarily implement economic restraints around 30 years from now, by which time the U.S. will have to reach a 26 to 28 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Obama will implement them unilaterally. So China will have more of a say in what happens to our environmental policy than Congress. But Obama will also negotiate with a number of other unsavory despots, like the homicidal Robert Mugabe, who represents the African position at COP-21 negotiations. He will not, however, bring the deal to Congress, which represents the majority of the American people.

China will have a more say in what happens to our environmental policy than Congress.

The Paris agreement might be the biggest, most crucial international deal the world has ever known, but it is not important enough to be subjected to the traditional checks and balance of American governance. Global warming “does not pause for partisan gridlock,” the president explained this summer. Or, in other words, the president does not have to “pause” for Congress if he feels like using the regulatory state to implement his preferred partisan policy.

This kind of circumvention will be cheered by those who once feigned indignation when prior presidents abused executive power. This is really important, as you know. Obama hopes “to make climate change policy the signature environmental achievement of his, and perhaps any, presidency,” says an approving New York Times editor. Progressives are perfectly content to surrender freedoms to fight global warming. Perfectly content to give the executive unprecedented power to “act.” And when the private jets come back, and the pretend offsets are cashed in, and the moralizing begins, you will know they did it for your own good.