Red China is Undermining the U.S. Dollar with Counterfeit Money

Red China is having Alibaba sell counterfeit U.S. $20 and $100 Federal Reserve Notes that are sufficient copies that many casual users and perhaps many foreigners would not notice that they were counterfeit.  This is a way to undermine our economy.  See this page.  This sort of nefarious activity directed at the USA is coupled with extensive espionage, the theft of proprietary information, violations of patent law, supplying Mexican drug gangs with fentanyl chemicals, biowarfare (Covid 19), the counterfeiting of many US products, mining monopolies, the planting of harmful misinformation and propaganda on the Internet, and attacks on websites and infrastructure software programs.  Red China is building its military rapidly with a desire to dominate the Earth with its totalitarian control.  It is already impeding the use of international trade routes.

Americans need to take the Red China threat much more seriously than they do, despite the fact that Chinese goods may sometimes be less expensive than American goods.  Red China is one country upon whose goods we should impose significant tariffs, though I am not a general fan of high tariffs.

Trump has been widely criticized by libertarians and many economists because he has advocated high tariffs.  He tends to use them as a negotiating tactic to improve our international trading prospects.  Reducing the $3 trillion per year cost of US regulations imposed on American businesses would help us compete in international markets greatly.  Trump will work on reducing regulations, which Harris will not.  Trump will also not allow the Trump tax cut for small businesses to expire, as Harris and the Democrats will.  This tax cut has made American businesses more competitive in world markets.  Labor unions, backed by Democrats, have also made US businesses less competitive.  Trump will make the US economy more efficient with higher reliable energy use and production, with the building of more pipelines, with the building of more nuclear power plants, and by allowing the export of natural gas.  He will oppose such deadly mandates as those directed at the internal combustion engine in our transportation system and requirements that all carbon dioxide emissions be captured at huge expense.  Over the last year, job creation under Biden/Harris administration has been totally dominated by the hiring of government workers and healthcare workers.  The private sector scale has been reduced and shackled, making it much harder for the USA to compete in world markets.  Trump will improve this debilitating effect of big government growing ever more gigantic and controlling.  

We also have made ourselves less competitive by shouldering so much of the defense of the free world.  It is our military that has made the world safe enough that international trade has grown mightily.  It is perfectly reasonable that a low tariff on the goods of other countries should help pay for this protective service we provide the world.  Our military will otherwise suffer because the excessive spending of the Democrats on their Green New Deal and many other irrational programs such as college student loan forgiveness, caused out-of-control inflation.  This raised interest rates tremendously and has caused the servicing of our national debt to devour more tax money than does our military.  Tariff revenue to cover a portion of our military spending is needed and justified.

We Hear So Much Less About Casulties in Afghanistan Under Obama's Command

I was reading a book review of  Betrayed, The Shocking True Story of Extortion 17 as told by a Navy SEAL’s Father by Mark Baisley and found this interesting bit of data:

During the seven years of war in the Bush Administration, 630 Americans died in Afghanistan and 2,638 were wounded in action. During the first four years of the Obama Administration, 1,544 Americans have died in Afghanistan and 15,036 have been wounded in action.

Perhaps there are some manpower issues involved in the different numbers and there are surely some differences in the Rules of Engagement, but remember how often and dramatically the count of dead Americans was played up in the media when Bush was the Commander-in-Chief?  Do we hear this drum beat so often and as loudly now?

Senator Feinstein's Abuse of the Public Trust

Senator Diane Feinstein of California recently gave up her chairmanship of the Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee after many years of steering contracts for military construction, advanced weapons procurement, environmental clean-up projects, facility leasing, and quality of life issues for veterans to companies owned by her husband.

Richard C. Blum, her husband, owned majority shares of Perini Corporation and URS Corporation until late 2005.  Senator Feinstein had been voting approval of contracts to these corporations and to CB Richard Ellis, a commercial property leasing and building purchasing firm in which her husband had a major interest, since becoming the Chair of the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee in 2001.  That year, URS Corp. military construction income grew from $24 million to $185 million.  Its architectural and engineering military construction income rose from $108,000 in 200 to $142 million in 2001.  She had also voted money for Boston Scientific Corp. and Kinetic Concepts, Inc. for medical supplies when these companies stocks were heavily owned by her husband's financial companies.

At least $1.6 billion of income was steered to her husband's companies while Senator Feinstein served on the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee.  This makes all other Senatorial conflict of interest and theft of public monies cases small potatoes in comparison!  How abuse of U.S. citizens can go on for many years at this scale without the media raising a huge ruckus about it, is a very clear statement that the media, as well as the Senate, has no regard for the General Welfare of the People.

You can read more about this here: http://www.wnd.com/2007/03/40845/

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Enforce

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips, who earlier decided that the military's policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell with respect to people in the military having or being inclined to same-sex sex was unconstitutional, earlier this week ordered the military to stop enforcing that policy.  I discussed her decision on its constitutionality here and expressed my agreement with her decision.  She had given the government time to respond to her decision with a plan to end the policy, which it failed to do.   The Democrats did try to pass legislation in Congress to strike the policy, but despite their overwhelming majority, they could not pass the legislation.  The Republicans, to their shame, largely opposed the legislation, as did numerous Democrats.  So, Judge Phillips has acted to halt enforcement of the policy that Obama and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have said they wanted ended.  Nonetheless, the Justice Department has decided to appeal the decision.

This is one of those Go Figure moments.  The Democrats have long claimed they were the champions of homosexuals, but have not ended this policy in the last nearly two years despite having the Congress and the presidency locked up.  Laws discriminating against same-sex relationships and sexual acts are mostly popular with the People yet, though the discriminatory attitude is very much tied to the older generations.  Mostly religious conservatives favor discrimination.  Because of that, the Republican Party is mostly on-board for such discriminatory acts.  This is one of its grievous faults.  Faced with a disastrous election in a few weeks, many Democrats did not have the nerve to defend the equal rights of homosexuals and bisexuals to their lives, liberty, and pursuit of their happiness.  Judge Phillips gave the Democrats an out, which they should have taken.

It is claimed that when a U.S. District Judge rules a law unconstitutional, the Justice Department must appeal the case, which is what it is doing.  This is nonsense.  The President is sworn to preserve, defend, and protect the Constitution of the United States, which of course the members of Congress are also.  The Justice Department reports to the President and he should have ordered them not to appeal the ruling of Judge Phillips because he is suppose to recognize the excellent argument she made as a correct interpretation of the constitutionality of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  Perhaps, in the now well-established tradition of the Democrat Party, he has not bothered to read her decision.  If he did, he is failing us with his judgment of her argument.  If he did not, he is failing us with his turpitude.  He should be taking his duty to the Constitution more seriously.  Of course, from many things he has said and done, we know that he does not care to actually follow the Constitution since he sees it as being in opposition to many of his socialist policies.  For instance, he faults it for being a roadblock to redistributive policies.

Each of the three branches of the federal government has the obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.  This is not a task given only to one branch.  When any of the three branches fails to exercise its independent judgment, the exercise of our individual rights is harmed.  When Congress considers legislation, it is obliged to consider whether it is constitutional.  If any Congressman thinks it is not, he is obligated to vote against it.  In fact, if he is not sure that it is constitutional, he is obliged to vote against it.  If the President is presented with a proposed law passed by Congress, he is obliged to decide whether it is constitutional or not.  If it is not, he is obliged to veto it.  Because it is the nature of government to try to expand its powers, it should be the practice to recognize that if any of the three branches of government believe a law is unconstitutional, we should be disposed to refusing to allow the force of government to be used to enforce that law.  The bias of the People should be toward limited government and a maximization of the rights of the individual.  If the federal courts rule a law limiting individual freedom of choice unconstitutional, then we have recognized in recent times that the law cannot be enforced.  Unfortunately, we seem to have lost the idea that the Congress and the President are also supposed to be bulwarks against the encroachment of government against our equal, sovereign individual rights as well.  A three-legged foundation is much more stable than a one-legged foundation.

On a related issue, the Justice Department is also wrongheadedly appealing two decisions of a federal judge in Massachusetts that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act federal law is unconstitutional.  The judge ruled that the states, not the federal government, have the power to define marriage.  He also ruled the federal law violated citizens due process rights.  I have never seen any power given to Congress by the Constitution which would allow it to decide who has a valid marriage contract and who does not. 

In actual fact, I believe it very unwise to allow any government to define marriage.  Marriage is a spiritual union of people and there is no way to preserve fundamental freedoms of conscience and the right to pursue happiness if governments are allowed the power to define what constitutes such a spiritual bond.  What they do have within their purview is the job of enforcing domestic partnership contracts, which is done at the state and local government levels, not the federal level.  My views on this are given here, here, here, and here.  Domestic partnerships should no more define and limit the number and sex of partners than does a small business contract.  A single heterosexual couple, gay men, lesbians, bisexual people, multiple heterosexual couples, and polyamorous people should all be allowed the protections and benefits of domestic partnerships suitable to their needs and as agreed upon as free adults.

Federal Circuit Judge Overturns Don't Ask, Don't Tell Act

Virginia A. Phillips, United States District Judge of the 9th Circuit, overturned the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) Act in a 9 September 2010 order.  The plaintiff is the Log Cabin Republicans.  I have read her memorandum opinion and it is sound and well-written.  It makes very interesting reading in fact, at least that part that follows the issues of the standing of the plaintiff and the members it represents.  One can readily understand why Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on 2 February 2010 that he would like to see this DADT policy changed.

The court decision should have been much simpler than it was because of the very convoluted reasoning that precedent and excessive governmental power has created over the last hundred years of U.S. court decisions.  This is also a result of the poor understanding that Americans have of their equal, sovereign individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  That broad statement of our individual rights covers many more specific rights, many of which are not recognized explicitly in our Bill of Rights.  Our courts sometimes recognize these non-explicit rights, but they have to work very hard to do so.  There are also some special deferences given to the military which needed to be addressed in this ruling.

The DADT Act of 1993 requires the discharge of military personnel if any of the following applies:

1. They have engaged in, or attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts.
2. They have stated they are a homosexual or bisexual, or words to that effect.
3. They have married or attempted to marry a person of "the same biological sex."

 The Log Cabin Republicans challenged the constitutionality of this law on two grounds:

1. It violates its members' substantive due process rights, which under the Supreme Court decision on Lawrence v. Texas includes rights associated with "autonomy of self, that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate contact."
2. It violates the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government with grievances.

Considering the plaintiff's first claim of a violation of due process rights, the judge noted that Witt v. Dept. of Air Force, a Ninth Circuit decision in 2008, ruled that DADT constitutes an intrusion "upon the personal and private lives of homosexuals, in a manner that implicates the rights identified in Lawrence [v. Texas], and is subject to heightened scrutiny."  Therefore, it must

1. Advance an important governmental interest.
2. The intrusion must significantly further that interest.
3. The intrusion must be necessary to further that interest.

Witt v. Dept. of Air Force decided the DADT act did advance an important governmental interest.  This left it to Judge Phillips to decide if the intrusion significantly furthered that interest and if it was necessary.

One of the more interesting points the Log Cabin Republicans made was that the military "routinely delayed the discharge of servicemembers suspected of violating the Act's provisions until after they had completed their overseas deployments."  This even occurred when orders for deployment were received while an investigation was being considered.  This evidence "directly undermines any contention that the Act furthers the Government's purpose of military readiness."  "If the warrior's suspected violation of the Act created a threat to military readiness, to unit cohesion, or to any of the other important Government objectives, it follows that Defendants would not deploy him or her to combat before resolving the investigation."

The Judge noted that the Act:

• Impeded efforts to recruit an all-volunteer force.
• Caused the discharge of otherwise qualified servicemembers with critical skills.
• Made it necessary to lower moral, educational, and fitness standards.
• It hurt unit cohesion and morale by discharging well-trained and highly respected servicemembers.
• Military housing provides sufficient privacy protection of servicemembers.

Consequently, Judge Phillips ruled that DADT did not significantly further the important government interest and that if was not necessary.  Thus, it did violate the due process rights of servicemembers.

On the issue of the First Amendment rights violation claim by the Log Cabin Republicans, the judge noted again that Lawrence v. Texas recognized the right of expression was violated by the Texas law on sodomy.  After allowing that the military does not have to meet the same level of concern for freedom of speech as has to be met for civilians, the judge concluded that the second reason for discharge, a statement that implies a servicemember is homosexual or bisexual or something similar, is an unnecessary violation of their freedom of expression and of the First Amendment rights as claimed by the Plaintiff.

It is about time a court has made a ruling to eliminate the egregiously wrong Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.  One would have thought that it would long have been obvious to everyone that this policy was a terrible and unnecessary violation of our equal, sovereign individual rights. Judge Virginia Phillips has performed her country a valuable service.

Partisan Immigration Law Enforcement and the Dream Act

As we know, the Obama administration has attacked the people of Arizona and of various communities for attempting to get federal authorities to identify illegal aliens and to turn those so identified over to federal authorities for possible deportation.  We know also that some such identified illegal aliens are being released back onto American streets rather than being deported by federal authorities.  The Obama gang in control of our federal government has been highly motivated to make claims that state and local government efforts to enlist federal authorities in doing what federal law requires is an usurpation of federal powers.

Compare the issues with the Arizona law to the issue of ten states clearly violating federal law by providing tuition preferences to illegal aliens in state colleges and universities.  This is happening in California, Texas, Oklahoma, New York, Kansas, Illinois, Nebraska, Utah, Washington, and New Mexico.  This is a clear violation of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA).  That act states:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amout, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.

One of the chief ways in which these 10 states defy this federal law is by offering illegal aliens in-state tuition, while demanding that out-of-state citizens and nationals pay the much higher out-of-state tuition.  Where does the Obama gang of hoodlums stand on enforcing this immigration law violation by these ten states?  They are very silent, except that the Democrats have made repeated failed attempts to overturn this provision of federal immigration law.  The most recent attempt is the so-called DREAM Act.

Now, Senator Harry Reid has introduced the DREAM Act earlier this week as an attachment to the defense authorization bill.  It will:

• Provide an estimated 2 million college age illegal aliens citizenship upon completing two years of college studies in the U.S.
• Provide citizenship to illegal aliens who have served in the U.S. military.

Now, I am in favor of such provisions providing alien applicants a fast and assured legal path to residence as a national in the United States, provided they are not illegally in the U.S.  This application would be made from outside the U.S. or could be made by someone on a legal visa to visit or work in the U.S.  The applicant would need to show acceptance at a U.S. college and he would be given a legal student visa, which would be converted into a green card upon his graduation, combined with evidence of employment or an employment contract conditional upon the newly graduated student being given his green card.  Similarly, an alien might be given a one-year or two-year working permit as a visiting worker in the U.S. and if he applies for and is accepted by one of the armed services, he would be supplied a green card upon serving two years in the military.  Alternatively, the one-year or two-year working permit holder might enter college and obtain a green card upon graduation.  The one- and/or two-year working permit visas could be renewed as well, provided the applicant showed gainful employment and was not found guilty of any felonies.  But, all of these paths ought to be for those who are not illegal aliens.  The path to a green card should be a legal path.  Acceptance on a legal path to a green card should be quite generous.

The following Republican Senators are in favor of the easy paths to a green card for illegal aliens under the Democrat DREAM Act:

John McCain, Arizona
Richard Lugar, Indiana
Bob Bennett, Utah, an IIRIRA violating state
Sam Brownback, Kansas, an IIRIRA violating state

Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas, an IIRIRA violating state

Susan Collins, Maine
Olympia Snowe, Maine

General McChrystal and the War in Afghanistan

I have just finished reading the Rolling Stone article by Michael Hastings called The Runaway General on Gen. Stanley McChrystal, prior to yesterday, the commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan.  My sense is that Gen. McChrystal was the right man for his previous job as head of U.S. special forces operations, but was not diplomatic enough for the Afghanistan command role.  He is bright, but he too much likes kicking butt and proving he is top dog to manage the necessary cooperation of actors in Afghanistan, NATO, the Pentagon, the State Dept., the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.  The number of interests he had to address was something like the number that Eisenhower had to address as Supreme Commander in Europe, except that Eisenhower had Gen. George Marshall to provide the interface with the Pentagon, the State Dept., the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.  Sure, Eisenhower did have more troops to manage, but a top general should be good at that. The political management of the war in Afghanistan is a very confused and ill-manged mess.

Gen. McChrystal is more an analog to Gen. George Patton than to Gen. Eisenhower.  Gen. Patton was a great general and played a critical role in Europe in WWII, but he would have been the wrong man for Eisenhower's job.  Eisenhower had to find ways to get the most he could from Patton and from many another prickly general, many of whom were British or French.  The Rolling Stone article suggests that McChrystal simply could not get the most out of the many actors in Afghanistan, such as the U.S. Embassador Carl Eikenberry, the Special Representative to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, National Security Advisor Gen. Jim Jones, and VP Joe Biden.  Apparently, he did enjoy the support of Sec. of State Hilary Clinton.  Now, I have no doubt that he was bombarded with many a mickey mouse request, which must have been irksome for a fighting general.

This Obama administration is particularly ill-managed.  Pie-in-the-sky socialists simply wish things to be as they want them.  They wish that everyone had health insurance, so it must be made to be so, somehow, they do not care or know how.  They wish the poor had more money and better homes, so it must be made so, somehow, they do not know how or care how.  Socialism is divorced from reality.

Socialists pass two thousand page bills that legislators have not read and do not understand.  The bulk of the bill is a paper weight which is a pretense at addressing an issue the socialists want to change.  The bulk is to hide the basic fact that they have no clue on how to actually bring about any given stated desire to improve conditions for some broad interest group or other, except if the interest group is a narrow one.  The socialists disdain for management is also evident in the generally poor management of the many executive branch departments under Democratic administrations.  The terrible management under FDR and Truman, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and now Obama are symptoms of a lack of socialist concern for good management.

One indicator of this has been the reports I have from old friends I worked with in the 1980s in the Navy Department over the years.  The downward drift of the Navy Dept. management has generally been steady, but it accelerates under the more socialist administrations.  Under Obama, the mickey mouse regulations and requirements, that keep people who want to do their jobs well from doing so, has skyrocketed.  The choices for management positions are particularly poor.  The computer systems and the incredible cost of the contracts paid for the outside management of these inadequate and inefficient systems that government employees must use boggle the mind.  Showing his unsuitableness for the position he held in Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal told the Rolling Stone reporter he had voted for Obama.  That was a sure indicator of a lack of judgment!  How he voted was also something he should not have talked about.

Such an otherworldly mentality as that of the socialists is not well-understood by most military men.  They must have some contact with reality and have a real ability to manage men and warfare, or the results are soon apparent in American deaths and a bogged down war.  Many of America's military men come from the same stock of Americans that Tea Party Americans come from.  They commonly do believe that the U.S. is exceptional and they believe that they are fighting to preserve our freedoms and our Constitution.  Military officers may, in most cases, not have a very sophisticated viewpoint on American history and of political theory, but their knowledge of both is usually greater than that of most Americans.  At least they have studied something about America's wars in many cases.  They are also people who have lived in several different states and have often been abroad and learned that most of the world suffers without the kinds of freedom we have in America.  As mentioned above, they are forced more than politicians and bureaucrats generally are to deal honestly and rationally with reality.

A theater commander for a major war effort is a man who must have very special insight and wisdom, as well as intelligence.  Apparently, Gen. McChrystal has the intelligence, but he was lacking in wisdom at the level required for the job he had.

Afghanistan is a country primitive beyond the comprehension of most Americans.  The social organization of Afghanistan is essentially pre-Medieval.  It is of the Dark Ages.  It is a land of clans, tribes, and warlords.  It is saddled with a primitive religion and particularly primitive versions of that primitive religion.  It would take decades to transform the country to anything resembling a modern country, and that supposes that the people there were interested in such a transformation.  They generally are not.  They are simply suspicious of anyone who is not of their own clan, even within their own tribe.  Then each tribe is very suspicious of every other tribe.  Force and treachery has always ruled their lives.  They have no concept of free market cooperation.  They have no concept of the rights of the individual.  These are Enlightenment ideas which it took Europe at least 800 years to develop from the time when Europe was something like Afghanistan.  Of course, with more readily available technology, communications, and travel, Afghans could make that transformation much more quickly, but it still must take a couple of generations or more.

It is not in America's interest for us to maintain a counterinsurgency or any other operation in Afghanistan for two or more generations.  Our purpose in going there was to oust Al-Qaeda and their hosts, the Taliban.  A plausible response to that need may well have been the lower level effort in Afghanistan of the Bush administration.  Though I suspect that effort had too much nation-building in it.  Strangely, the Obama administration has adopted the policy advocated by Gen. McChrystal for an even greater effort in nation-building.  Afghanistan is so much more primitive than Iraq, that I do not believe this effort is in our national interest and I do not believe there will be any chance of getting out of it in reasonable time with positive results.  Most likely our policy should be little more than to go in locally and disrupt any Al-Qaeda or other terrorist bases of operation.  The McChrystal - Obama policy is not in our national interest and it will not work, so a change of commanders may facilitate a change of policy.

While I have read and thought about war and its history since I became fascinated with history in the fourth grade, I have not carefully studied the Afghan war.  My Dad was a career naval aviator and studied and taught at the Naval War College and I enjoyed many discussions with him when growing up.  I was drafted and served in the Army in Vietnam.  I have read about the wars of the Greeks, the Persians, the Hittites, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Franks and Visigoths, the Scythians, the Israelis, the Carthaginians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Bohemians, the Dutch wars, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Mongols, the Vikings, the Celts, the Angles and the Jutes, the Swedes, the Russ and the Russians, the wars of independence from Spain in Latin America, the Hundred Year's War, the Thirty Year's War, the Burgundian wars, the Polish wars, the Cossacks, the Napoleonic wars, the Prussian wars, native American wars, and all of the American wars.  I have plenty of context for war generally, but still I have not the detailed knowledge of present-day Afghanistan to be formulating the best strategy for the U.S. to follow there.  But, I am quite sure the McChrystal - Obama strategy is not in America's best interest and that we should be formulating a strategy with a much more modest goal.

End Government Discrimination in the Military Based on Sexuality

The federal government of the United States of America rests its legitimacy on its defense and preservation of the rights of the sovereign American individual to his life, his liberty, his property, and his pursuit of happiness.  Each such American individual has the right to the choice of his own values and the management and control of his own life and his own body.  The only restriction is that he not initiate the use of force against others in his pursuit of his values and as he acts to manage his own life.  Central to a man choosing his values, managing his own actions, and controlling his own body is his exploring and discovering, developing and understanding, and expressing his own individual sexuality.  With the sole limitation that he does this by himself or with other consenting adults, his sexual activities are not the business of government.  Other individuals are free to think what they will of his choices and actions, but they have no right to use force to interfere with him, provided he has not initiated the use of force or acted upon a child or a known mentally incompetent person.

When government uses its monopoly on the use of force to deny a citizen his exercise of control over his life by refusing to hire him on the basis of his sexuality, that government has acted to violate a fundamental right of every individual.  In doing so, it has undermined its very legitimacy.  When the federal government of the U.S. refused to allow black Americans to serve in the military or when it segregated black American units from other units, it severely undermined the legitimacy of the U.S.  It did this until Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower allowed black troops, who had been kept in a support role in WWII, to take up arms and reinforce white units then under severe strain in The Battle of the Bulge.  Gen. Eisenhower continued to press for integration of the military as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1945 - 1948 and in 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, ordering the integration of the armed forces of the United States.  The Army finally announced its plan to desegregate in July 1952.  President Eisenhower, using similar arguments, had the Justice Department file a brief favoring public school desegregation when Brown vs. Board of Education came up before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952.

After a great deal of fuss, the military also underwent desegregation with respect to women.  Despite all claims that desegregating our military with respect to black Americans and women would greatly harm its fighting capability, the U.S. military in recent years has proven to be the best it has ever been and as about as good as any military has ever been in human history.  The American military is at its best when it best represents American ideals of personal and individual liberty and the value of individuals acting upon their independent judgment and in their rational self-interest.  While there are times when our military men give up their lives for their beliefs, they generally are the best military forces in the world because they carry out their mission to protect our freedoms while living to fight another day.  We value life in America.  We value the lives of Americans of all races, both sexes, and of the many complex and individual sexualities of our people.

Admiral Mike Mullen, our present Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated earlier this month that he believes it is important that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in effect in the military since 1993 with respect to same-sex relations and acts should be abandoned.  He believes the fighting capability of our military will not be harmed by doing so.  A past Secretary of Defense and Vice President, Dick Chaney, said last weekend that he believes that "When the chiefs [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] come forward and say 'We think we can do it,' then it strikes me that it's time to reconsider the policy."

For years now, it has been clear that attitudes on sex in general and on non-heterosexual sex in particular were changing, with the younger generation being much more open-minded about the differences in individual sexuality.  To a fair degree, this owes to a weakening of the explicit and dogmatic beliefs of many of the Judeo-Christian religions.  While most Americans still believe in God and hold to some Judeo-Christian beliefs, those beliefs have been becoming more and more vague on the one hand and more tolerant on the other.  With respect to human sexuality, this is more or less consistent with a greater realization that not everyone is the same and that sex is not only about procreation.  There is a greater willingness to see sex as being one of life's greatest pleasures and therefore worthy of one's efforts to personally explore and discover those joys and to develop one's own optimal and rich sexuality.  The American independence of mind is beginning to overcome the strictures of a peculiarly unfriendly religious dogma toward sex in general and non-heterosexuality in particular.

Many of man's other religions have been much more open-minded, tolerant, and interested in sex and non-heterosexuality.  Contrary to considerable Christian propaganda, many societies in which bisexuality and homosexuality was widespread achieved high levels of civilization in various times.  One can list China, Japan, Persia, Greece, Egypt, Phoenicia, and Rome.  This was also the case among the educated in the cities of Renaissance Italy and later France.  Then there was the phenomena of the British upper class in their public schools, which are actually private in the U.K.  Those who claim that homosexuality and bisexuality must undermine civilization, fail to take note of the fact that many of the great achievers around the world and throughout human history in the arts, sciences, and business have not been heterosexual.  Tying this back to ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the military, many a great general and many elite soldiers have also not been heterosexual.

If our government is to be fully legitimate, it must stop discrimination against Americans who are not fully heterosexual in its hiring in general and specifically in its armed forces.  On this one issue, Obama agrees with me.  Can you believe that?  There is at least one thing he is not wrongheaded about.

Muslims and Gays in the Military

It has been pointed out that the military has no problem with Muslims in the military.  Indeed, it works hard to encourage them to join and stay in the military.  It is very politically incorrect to point out that one is unstable or strongly opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  On the other hand, if there are any gay or bisexual people in the military, the military leadership does not want to know about it.  If they do come to know about it, they want them out quickly.

Interesting.  At least a couple of Muslims in the military have killed a number of other serving members of the military in the name of Allah in what can only be called terrorist rampages.  Have there been any gay or bisexual terrorist rampages?  Inquiring minds want to know.

American Individuality, American Arrogance

Obama dislikes American individuality and he also dislikes what he calls American arrogance. America is truly distinctive in that we are the only country whose principles of governance state explicitly that the purpose of government is to secure the right of the people to their own life, liberty, and the pursuit of their happiness. None of these are group concepts. Only the individual has a sovereign right to his life, to his liberty, and to his pursuit of happiness. Obama resents this individual concept of rights and wants to force every man, woman, and child to subsume their personal right to the service of some group of people. He is fascinated by groups and by service. He greatly distrusts the self-interest of the individual.

Yet, we each and every one of us have to do our thinking with our individual mind, though some, like Obama, try to somehow submerge their minds in group-think. Each of us has our own individual life experience, which is always unique and never the same as that of everyone else in any group, not even one as close as our own family. Each of us is bound to have our own unique values and there is simply no satisfactory way to sacrifice those values and adopt some group consensus values as a replacement. Yes, we all have reasons to work within groups for various purposes and we do make compromises as need be and where it is rational to do so, but when all is said and done, we need to maintain our individuality and our own chosen values. Obama frowns on this because he believes this is arrogant and it does not serve his purposes of converting America into a socialist, group-think, internally and internationally sacrificial nation.

Americans have always relied primarily upon their own minds and their own experiences to become among the best problem-solvers in the world. They take on a task and focus on it and they try out ideas to see if they will address the problem. If something does not work, they will study the problem anew and then try another possible solution. They tend to have great confidence that they can get the job done with enough thought, experimentation, observation, and effort.

I have worked with many scientists and engineers from outside of the United States. Very many of them have expressed amazement that Americans are so confident of their ability to address technical and business problems. Some of them say they wish they shared this attitude, some say they wish this attitude were as strong in their home countries, and some are self-selected in coming to the United States in good part because they share this attitude and feel a bit out-of-place in their home countries. Some equate this confidence in our American know-how with arrogance and actually resent it.

In international political and military spheres, this same American tendency to believe in an active and a let's try this and amend our methods as we go attitude is also considered arrogance. Sometimes the complainer is a petty tyrant or some socialist who simply resents everything about America and what it stands for. But, it is also sometimes the case that our activity and confidence that we can get the job done is just strange to other peoples. Most of the people of the rest of the world have long traditions in which slavery and serfdom applied to most of the people of their culture. Most of these cultures passed through long nation-building phases with kings, aristocracies, and priests as the authorities in whom all sovereignty rested. The people had only such standing as these groups gave them and could not stand up for their individual rights. No such concept existed. You did as you were told to do, or you kept your head down very low. If you asserted yourself as an individual, you were certain to be challenged that your position in society did not allow this. In the best of situations, you had better have done something very right which would meet with approval from the powered elite. One mistake and your head was in a noose or under the guillotine. This cultural tradition leads to a very different worldview and a very different idea toward individual initiative. It also puts very real shackles on a man's self-confidence.

Sure, modern Europe is not Medieval Europe. Nonetheless, it is more socialist and culture-bound. It is more inclined toward group-think than is America. The role of the individual is much more constrained than ours has been, though Obama is trying very hard to change us into Europeans. To modern Europeans, Americans individually look brash and over-confident. Yet, when something important needs to be accomplished in world trade, in research and development, or militarily, look to whom most of the world tends to turn, including the Europeans. They turn to the can-do nation of brash individualists.

Obama wants to change this. He wants the United States to be just one nation among the 20 nations in the G20. He wants the United States to submit itself to the United Nations and international law bodies, who will become supreme over our own Constitution and who will not recognize the right of the American individual to his life, his liberty, and his pursuit of happiness. He wants Americans to submit themselves to sacrifices to be demanded by other nations ruled by socialists and by petty dictators. Symbollically, he even bowed to a Suadi prince at the G20 meeting. This is the end to American arrogance which he pursues. He has many allies among the American elitists of our day and among the elite and powerful of many other countries.

We are in for a battle royale if we insist on asserting our right to our individual rights. I do so insist. I hope you will also stand beside me in this terrible conflict to preserve, protect, and defend our individual rights and our Constitution. Unfortunately, we will have to do so against Obama, the Democrat Congress, most of the university elitists, and many elitists abroad. Let us be proud to be rationally arrogant!

Russian Bombers Train in Venezuela

Hugo Chavez, the socialist leader of Venezuela, invited Russian Tu-160 bombers to train in Venezuela and over international waters. This is the first time since the cold war ended that Russian strategic bombers have landed in the Western Hemisphere. NATO fighters escorted the Russian bombers on their 13-hour flight over the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans to Venezuela. Russia also has plans to send a naval squadron with long-range patrol planes to Venezuela in November for joint military exercises in the Caribbean Sea.

Chavez has sided with Russia over the Russian invasion of Georgia. Chavez has spent large sums of oil money on Russian weapons such as Sukhoi jet fighters, helicopters, and Kalashnikov rifles. He hopes to add Russian submarines to his arsenal. He is having Russia set up an air-defense system with rockets and long-range radar as well. Chavez also claims that he will be buying 24 K-8 light attack aircraft from China.

He has been using a flight simulator in hopes of being allowed to fly one of the Russian bombers. He says he wants to fly low past his friend Fidel Castro.