Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

Dear Mr. President:

I am pleased to read of the resignation of Christie Todd Whitman from her post at the Environmental Protection Agency. The country needs an EPA chief who stands fully, not mildly like Ms. Whitman, against the statism and the crackpot junk environmentalist science that plague national policy. Looking to the Cato Institute for a candidate, or at least as a template of the sort of policy positions an EPA chief should hold, would not be a bad move.


Sincerely,

Alan K. Henderson

Regardless of its moral status, it is also an unwise transfer of funds. As Peter Bauer once said, foreign aid is the process by which money is taken from poor people in rich countries and given to rich people in poor countries. Very little of the aid ever reaches the advertised recipients. At best, most of it is stolen by those in charge of distributing it. At worst, it becomes a cushion for corrupt and oppressive ruling classes. They can insulate themselves from the effects of their policies. Directly or indirectly, they can get the money to pay the security services on which their power rests.

An international investigation conducted by ABCNEWS found widespread corruption in the U.N. program, which helped Saddam build his fortune in U.S. currency.

"Everybody knew it, and those who were in a position to do something about it, were not doing anything," said Benon Sevan, the executive director of the Office of Iraq Program. When asked if that included him, he told ABCNEWS, "I have no power."

The program was originally designed to provide food and medication to the Iraqi people, after the U.N.-imposed sanctions prevented Saddam from selling Iraqi oil as a result of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Under the program, all money from the sale of oil was supposed to go into U.N. bank accounts in New York to buy food and humanitarian supplies.

But that's not what British businessman Swara Khadir found when his company sought contracts to sell Iraqi oil. "We discovered that we had to bribe a lot of people," said Khadir. "And because it was Iraqi oil we were talking about, it was bribing top Saddam officials."

Khadir refused to go along [with the bribes], but still has the Iraqi documents instructing him in which Swiss and Jordanian bank accounts the bribe money should be deposited.

"They made no show of concealing it," he said, "because the U.N. was just turning a blind eye to it."

One Russian oil dealer actually complained to the United Nations that Saddam's son Odai took a $60,000 bribe, but never came through with the oil contracts.

The money was deposited in a bank in Amman, Jordan, in a private account for Odai, according to documents submitted to the United Nations last year but never acted on by the Security Council.

"Of course it troubled me," said Sevan. "What do you think, I'm what you call a 'dodo,' sitting here what do you call, cold-blooded? Of course it bothers me."

Romeo Dallaire who, as the former head of the U.N. Peacekeeping Force witnessed unspeakable horrors in Rwanda, as extremist Hutus massacred over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus in the space of a few days in 1994. General Romeo Dallaire did everything he could, pleading for 2000 more peacekeepers to be added to his insufficiently equipped 3000 man force. If they had answered Gen. Dallaire's pleas, the U.N. could have stopped the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Rwandans. Instead, following the deaths of 10 Belgian Peacekeepers assigned to protect the President, his forces were cut down from 3000 to a mere 500 men, who had to watch as one of the most horrible genocides in human history took place before their very eyes. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, frustrated, and disheartened by the U.N.'s passive attitude, nonetheless stood for his beliefs, repeatedly confronting his superiors who did nothing to prevent the horrific events from unfolding.

"As security conditions permit"? Why not send in a force large enough to provide security?

Each candidate was asked the following question: "Does the President express confidence in the new Palestinian leadership?" The candidates gave the following responses:

Candidate 1: Heh.

Candidate 2: Quoi?

Candidate 3: Not as long as the Palestinians and Nazimedia are singing the same tune.

Candidate 4: Confidence in the Paleswinian leadership? Maybe when the suicide bombings come to an unconditional screeching halt. Maybe when their TV shows stop preaching hatred against the "evil J-E-W-S." Maybe when they stop teaching their kiddos songs about the "virtues" of martyring themselves for Allah. Maybe when they tell the CIA and Mossad everything they know about every terrorist they've ever rubbed shoulders with. Maybe when they start handing over terrorists. Maybe when they DECLARE WAR on terrorists. Until then, you can kiss that friggin' roadmap goodbye!

Check out yesterday's latest Gallup poll on attitudes toward homosexuality. To the question: "Do you think homosexual couples should or should not have the same legal rights as married heterosexual couples regarding healthcare benefits and Social Security survivor benefits?" 62 percent answered yes.

There have been times when the Senate Judiciary Committee itself - when either Republicans or Democrats are in the majority - has refused to even hold hearings, or to send nominees to the floor, for votes by the entire Senate. Article II, Section II of the Constitution says clearly that the president nominates "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate." Not the advice and consent of the Senate Judiciary Committee alone.

Much has been written about the failure of capitalism with regard to the chicanery practiced by the executive officers of companies like Enron, Worldcom and Tyco. But it is not the capitalists who were guilty of misdeeds in any of these situations – for in a free market system, it is not the executives who are the capitalists, it is the shareholders.

Management is not ownership. While there is occasionally some overlap between the two, the average CEO holds only a very small percentage of a company's total shares and those only because they have been given to him by the ownership. But America's capitalists have been imprudent to place their trust in a group of mercenaries with no more loyalty to their shareholding employers than had Francesco Sforza to the Visconti of Milan.

One more example from California. Because of the large Mexican population, just like Russians in Latvia, in schools you can study in Spanish. There are separate schools for Spanish-speaking people. The Mexicans had as valid arguments as Russians in Latvia. But it turned out that children from those schools were left behind, didn't learn any English and thus, couldn't compete on the labor market. Little by little those school were liquidated.

Alan, you wrote:

The Ninth Amendment states: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage other [rights] retained by the people." The word "enumerate" comes from the Latin for "[to] count". The 9th is simply an acknowledgment of the limits of time and space. The Founders knew they could not think up and write down all the rights, prerogatives, and privileges that they intend to grant to the citizens… so instead they wrote in a blank check, they are allowing EVERYTHING.

This sounds like a misunderstanding of "due process". Neither the 5th Amendment, nor its rather redundant cousin, the 14th, should be read as ALOWING the violation of the rights of a citizen if the State merely "jumps enough hoops". Rather we must go back to the 18th century rulings of the Court that the State may only restrict the Liberty of a citizen to protect the Rights of others. So it is not just that the State jumped enough hoops in following a local statute, but that the statute had a compelling reason for being passed. Keeping a sidewalk clean is not enough, and enforcing local bigotry is not enough either, it must be an issue of pressing public safety.

Please read again the first 10 Amendments. You are given the right to EVERYTHING that you can think up to do even sex, any kind of sex. This is the Webster's definition of Liberty, "the power to do as one pleases." If one is still confused they added "the pursuit of happiness". If one were still not sure, they added the Ninth Amendment saying: "if we left out a right, you still have it." The fundamental Radicalism of the Founders was that they gave UNLIMITED power to the people in the 9th and then wrote the 10th Amendment limiting THE GOVERNMENT! This is key to why our nation is said to have a "Liberal Democracy", that word Liberal is important, it is from the Latin word "libertas," it means freedom.

Yes, hence amendments 9 and 10. Are you with me yet?

It is not "over-dependence" it is simply "checks and balances," it was intentional. You are correct to state that a duty of the Court is to hold back Congress from taking new on powers.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper number 78 in 1788: ''The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between two, the constitution ought to be preferred to the statute….''

The only reason that the government may pass laws limiting your actions is when these actions would jeopardize the rights of your fellow citizens. Even then, the SC holds that the States must PROVE the need for the restriction and prove that the law, as written, doesn't otherwise violate the Con.

This might seem unworkable at first, but actually, think about it this way… your Liberty extends to shooting a gun on your property, if you live on 80 acres in the woods… but if you live in the city, and shooting your gun could reasonably be determined to cause a risk to the "life, liberty, and happiness" of your neighbors, then the city may restrict that action.

1 : a course of formal proceedings (as legal proceedings) carried out regularly and in accordance with established rules and principles -- called also procedural due process
2 : a judicial requirement that enacted laws may not contain provisions that result in the unfair, arbitrary, or unreasonable treatment of an individual -- called also substantive due process

There was one big problem with the due-process analysis, however. Recall that the term "due process of law" stretched all the way back to Magna Charta. Historically, the term had connoted procedural protections, such as notice, hearing, and trial. For example, in civil actions due process requires that before the state takes a person's property from him, it must accord him notice, a judicial hearing, and a trial at which he can dispute the state's evidence and put on his own evidence in defense. Or in a criminal proceeding, due process requires that before a state could incarcerate a person, it had to formally charge him (i.e., indict him), grant him a jury trial, and permit him to confront and cross-examine witnesses.

But what did these procedural protections have to do with the plaintiffs in the Slaughterhouse Cases? The monopoly law had been duly enacted by the Louisiana legislature. The plaintiffs had been duly notified that the law had been enacted. So how could they argue that they had been deprived of due process of law?

The answer is that "due process of law" developed into two separate but related concepts - "procedural due proccess" and "substantive due process." Procedural due process pertained to the traditional concerns involving procedural protections.

But substantive due process was something completely different. It held that there are certain inherent and fundamental rights of man that could never be legitimately taken away by government, even if all the traditional legal procedures were followed. Because they were "substantive" in nature, any law that infringed upon them automatically deprived a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

While there are more than 19 million people working in households with incomes in the top 20 percent, there are fewer than 8 million people working in households in the bottom 20 percent. How much of an injustice is it that people who work get more money than people who don't work?

If you are talking about working full-time, 50 or more weeks a year, then there are more people doing that in the top 5 percent of households than in the bottom 20 percent. As Casey Stengel used to say, you can look it up. These are Census data, available on-line from the Current Population Survey, Table HINC-06.

How do people live without working? Millions in the bottom 20 percent live on the money earned by other people who do work and whose income gets taxed to pay for the non-workers. In addition, more than 4 million families in the bottom fifth in income live on property income and nearly 6 million live on various forms of retirement income, including Social Security. (Table FINC-06, for those who demand proof only from those they disagree with.)

What about those "rich" people we hear so much about? Studies that follow the same individuals over time have found that those in the top 20 percent and those in the bottom 20 percent are mostly the same people at different stages of their lives. Not only does work pay, when you have worked a longer time, it usually pays more.

- Abbas is widely perceived by Palestinians as corrupt, illustrated by his construction of a lavish $1.5 million villa in a poverty-stricken area of Gaza.

- Finally, we recall that Abu Mazen was never elected to public office, but rather appointed directly by Arafat. This was clearly not what President Bush had in mind when declaring last June: "I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy."

Promising, perhaps, but not necessarily anti-terror. Note, for example:

- In the Arab press, Dahlan expressed personal regret for cracking down on Hamas leaders, stating: "We erred with our harsh and discriminatory attitude toward Hamas... the presence of Hamas in Palestinian territory is very important for the building of the Palestinian homeland."
Read the story

- Last June, Jerusalem ex-mayor Ehud Olmert censured Dahlan in The Wall Street Journal for personally sheltering Muhammad Dief, "a leading Hamas mastermind with the blood of scores of Israelis on his hands." Olmert noted further that Dahlan is a primary suspect in the terror attack on an Israeli school bus in Kfar Darom in November 2000.
Read the story

The international order has been violated as a consequence of the invasion against Iraq. A single power is inflicting grave damage to the norms of understanding, debate and mediation amongst countries. This power has invoked a series of unverified reasons in order to justify its invasion. Unilateral action has led to massive loss of civilian life an devastation of one of the cultural patrimonies of humanity.

We only possess our moral authority, with which we appeal to world conscience in order to avoid a new violation of the principles, which inform and guide the global community of nations. At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion. Therefore, we call upon citizens and policy makers to uphold the universal principles of national sovereignty, respect of territorial integrity and self-determination, essential to just and peaceful co-existence among nations.

Mexico, April 2003

Rigoberta Menchú - Nobel Peace Prize, 1992
Nadine Gordimer - Nobel Prize in Literature, 1987
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel - Nobel Peace Prize, 1980
Gabriel García Márquez - Nobel Prize in Literature, 1982
Harry Belafonte - American singer
Noam Chomsky - American university professor
Danny Glover - American actor

Alan, in your recent posts here and here, you discuss the Texas Sodomy law. I like many of your comments. I wonder if you would address my own post on the subject here and here.

You wrote: "Rehnquist and company: your highest concern is due process, not the wisdom of legislatures. You people have not been authorized to judge whether or not states can regulate sexual activity between consenting adults. If states pass such laws and they suck dirt, then jurisdiction belongs to state legislatures (or, in those states that have them, citizen referenda), not you. Your ruling should be that you can't do a thing about the Texas sodomy law. If its a bad law, then Texans should lobby for its change."

Your call for Texas to handle this themselves is echoed by Chief Justice Waite in Munn v. Illinois in 1876: "For protection against abuses by legislatures the people must resort to the polls, not to the courts." [Legislative abuses come in three forms - bad law, unconstitutional law, and violations of the criminal code; proper due process for each is elections, appeals to the courts, and criminal prosecution, respectively - AKH]

However, those people (the Supreme Court) HAVE been authorized to judge whether or not states can regulate sexual activity. This is granted explicitly by the several Amendments. The highest concern of the court is not just the "due process" clause of the 14th Amendment; rather it is upholding the entire Constitution.

Sure, Texans COULD "do something" about the law themselves, but what if they don't have the will; interest; money; or skill to do so? Our nation is not built on the principle that you can have all the Freedom you can get out of your neighbors by cleverness or litigation. We have some particular guarantees in our Constitution.

The essential rights that are in danger in this case, and many other local so-called "morality laws", are granted by the 4th and 5th Amendments which grant us the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and uphold the sanctity of private property. And the 9th mandates that they not allow States to whittle away at these provision.

It is NOT ok for one state, or some, or all to legislate human behavior and the personal liberties of citizens simply because a majority of the citizens of that state do not "like" the behavior, the people doing it, or both. The legislature may only prohibit actions of citizens if these actions infringe on the rights of other citizens - and the bar for this is set very high. Since the 18th century the high court HAS ALREADY ruled on this.

It will be damned hard to see Texas argue that gay blowjobs, or ANY blowjobs, given in the home and not effecting the neighbors one bit, is actually infringing on the constitutional rights of others such that the Supreme Court would be willing to allow legislatures to intervene. Hell, in Texas they don't even stop you from SHOOTING PEOPLE on your front lawn and I can make a MUCH better argument that THAT Texas pastime is MUCH more likely to cause my neighbors "harm" than a gay "hummer".

I find the 14th Amendment to be erroneous and unnecessary. Its primary purpose was to clarify the rights of blacks in America. But in this regard it is merely restating (literally, if you read it) the rights granted in 4 and 5. Thus, it wasn't really necessary. Worse, it was written in a confusing manner to make room for State and local policing powers, this is the reference to "due process". This has caused no end of confusion in the courts.

Justice Miller wrote in Davidson v. New Orleans: "There is here abundant evidence that there exists some strange misconception of the scope of this provision as found in the Fourteenth Amendment… If it were possible to define what it is for a State to deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, no more useful construction could be furnished by this or any other court to any part of the fundamental of law"

A review in Find Law, here, shows that the Justices appear to have come to a conclusion, one that upholds the 18th century view of State police powers: “The Justices noted that the due process clause could not be appraised solely in terms of the "sanction of settled usage." Justice Mathews, speaking for the Court in Hurtado v. California, declared that "arbitrary power, enforcing its edicts to the injury of the persons and property of its subjects, is not law, whether manifested as the decree of a personal monarch or of an impersonal multitude."

It is my opinion that many people, even some Supreme Court justices, are allowing the inflammatory nature of this issue get the better of their legal judgments. Our system of government verges very close on "Mob Rule". This was a fear of many of our most intellectual Founders. An important feature of their new government was therefore the Supreme Court, whose most important job is to toss bad laws, whether they are State or Federal, or even passed by Referendum. It doesn't matter if most people would ban the rights of any one-minority group; that does not afford them Constitutional permission to due so.

Make this issue a state law against clapping after a movie in one's own home… no such law would stand. Make the issue wearing black before Labor Day (or is that after?). [Since it's a holiday for union hacks invented by union hacks, perhaps we should wear black ON Labor Day - AKH] Now make the issue having sex with the lights on… forget about it. But make it a law about the personal behavior of a despised minority and this is ok? No way.

Most states removed their own "blue laws" before 1840. They only came back under the Victorian Era and the Progressive social movements made drinking, gambling, and most sex illegal. Reading the Law is a cut and dried affair. No room exists for prudishness or religious crusading in the courthouse. Santorum and Texas are on the wrong side of history.

Amendment IV
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.

Amendment V
No Person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment XIV
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

So, if we accept that the Supremes do have the right to review a State Statuete and overturn it if it contradicts the Constitution... and if we accept that a law forbiding gay sex that occurs in private cannot pass muster as being necessitated by public saftey... then it MUST be tossed out.

Does this make it impossible to police ANY actions that occur "in private", such as in the bedroom? No, don't get hysterical, reread the above info. If a person's private actions are in any way physically dangerous or threaten the civil rights of others then the government is fully authorized to intervene and the Supremes are bound to uphold such policing. So, if you engage in non-consensual sex; or if you kidnap, bind, or harm another person; if you murder them; then you are violating their civil rights. But a gay person being gay when I don't have to watch it, or even pay it any attention, is not a case for Legislative intervention. Now, sex in a public toiolet, by anyone, gay or not, there ought to be a law!

"All military action must be stopped, both in the occupied territories and within the 1948 [territories]; then [we must] say to the world that we want negotiations. In my opinion, under such circumstances we will be able to embarrass the Israeli government… But in military action, Israel is much stronger [than we are] and it will exploit [any military operations on our part] as a pretext not [to comply with its commitments]."

"Our position on Jerusalem remains simple and completely uncomplicated: Jerusalem is part of the lands occupied in 1967; thus Resolution 242 applies to it. [East] Jerusalem must return to our sovereignty, and we will establish our capital in it. We will not prevent Eastern and Western Jerusalem from being open to each other and cooperating in municipal affairs."

In the 1960s and the 1970s, Fatah offered training to a wide range of European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African terrorist and insurgent groups. Carried out numerous acts of international terrorism in western Europe and the Middle East in the early-twiddle 1970s. Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles (DOP) with Israel in 1993 and renounced terrorism and violence. There has been no authorized terrorist operation since that time.

May Day Violence Mars Celebrations in Europe