Conservative and Libertarian Support Moving Gitmo Detainees To Illinois

There is an interesting article posted on the Huffington Post featuring a joint statement from David Keene, founder of American Conservative Union, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and former representative and Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr, who head a new initiative called the Constitution Project, who advocate closing down the prison at Guantanamo Bay Cube and to moving the facility to Illinois. It is very interesting perspective in light of President Obama’s similar call.

Here is the entire statement from Norquist, Keene and Barr:

As it moves to close Guantanamo and develop policies for handling terrorism suspects going forward, the government should rely upon our established, traditional system of justice. This includes our system of federal prisons, which have repeatedly proven they can safely hold persons convicted of terrorism offenses.

We are confident that the government can preserve national security without resorting to sweeping and radical departures from an American constitutional tradition that has served us effectively for over two centuries.

Civilian federal courts are the proper forum for terrorism cases. Civilian prisons are the safe, cost effective and appropriate venue to hold persons convicted in federal courts. Over the last two decades, federal courts constituted under Article III of the U.S. Constitution have proven capable of trying a wide array of terrorism cases, without sacrificing either national security or fair trial standards.

Likewise the federal prison system has proven itself fully capable of safely holding literally hundreds of convicted terrorists with no threat or danger to the surrounding community.

The scaremongering about these issues should stop.

Using a state of the art but little used prison facility like the one at Thomson, Illinois – with any appropriate security upgrades our law enforcement professionals deem necessary – makes good sense for the tax payers who invested $145 million in the facility and who are seeing millions wasted every month at the costly, inefficient Guantanamo facility. It makes sense for the community which will benefit from the related employment and has absolutely no reason to fear that prisoners will escape or be released into their communities.

But most of all it makes sense for America because it is a critical link in the process of closing Guantanamo and getting this country back to using its tried and true, constitutionally sound institutions.

SIGNATORIES:

Bob Barr, Member of U.S. Congress (R-GA), 1995-2003; CEO, Liberty Strategies, LLC; the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy, the American Conservative Union, 2003- 2008; Chairman, Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances; Practicing Attorney

David Keene, Chairman, American Conservative Union; Member, Board of Directors, National Rifle Association

Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform

*Affiliations are listed for identification purposes and do not imply the endorsement of the organizations with which the signatories are affiliated.

The dollar, trade deficit, jobs, CNBC

The GOP Should Dump the Neocons

Edward Crane, founder and president of the Cato Institute has a commentary assaulting the GOP by highlighting the duplicitous nature of the neo-cons, but the essence of his comments should be applied here to Ohio light of Ohio Republican Party’s leadership that plunged Ohio into an unmitigated depression.

It is important to realize that neocons are not just nation-building, America-first advocates. They like big government across the board. No Child Left Behind, the thinly disguised effort to nationalize education in America, was principally a neocon initiative. Consider this comment from the late Irving Kristol, self-described “godfather” of the neoconservative movement: “Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable.” Indeed.

There is an insidious philosophy underlying this acceptance of the “natural” growth of statism. Neoconservative columnist David Brooks wrote in the late 1990s that we need “a vigorous One Nation Conservatism that will connect a revived sense of citizenship with the long-standing national greatness Americans hold dear.” In another essay, he wrote: “Ultimately, American purpose can find its voice only in Washington. … Individual ambition and willpower are channeled into the cause of national greatness. And by making the nation great, individuals are able to join their narrow concerns to a larger national project.” A frightening worldview.

Which brings us to the war in Afghanistan. The neocons are predictably enthused about the prospect of a prolonged U.S. occupation there. A dozen or so of them recently sent a letter to President Obama urging him to up the ante. Astonishingly, the president who was elected as the antiwar left’s protest candidate appears poised to take the neocons’ advice and commit tens of thousands more troops to a conflict in which immediate U.S. interests are unclear at best.

Meanwhile, Obama’s domestic agenda is in shambles. Americans are outraged at the prospect of trillion-dollar deficits, auto bailouts and the subsidies to irresponsible bankers. And they don’t want socialized medicine.

The “tea parties” and town hall meetings are essentially libertarian. There is no conservative policy agenda — only a demand that the government stop trying to run our lives.

Republicans should take this opportunity to return to their traditional noninterventionist roots and throw their neoconservative wing under the bus. The Republicans have a chance at this moment to reclaim the mantle of the party of nonintervention — in your healthcare, in your wallet and in the affairs of other nations.

I disagree with him on one point, the tea party is rooted in the desire to return to localism, which essentially has it’s roots in traditional-conservative if one wants to apply a label. All in all I think the tide this country is decidedly against big government of any kind, and in that Conservatives (real Conservatives) and Libertarians can agree.

Stealth Agencies for Gun Control

Karen DeCoster wrote a worrisome article detailing heath studies conducted by various US government heath organizations who focused on solely gun “safety,” which are meant to provide a justification for abolishing our right to have firearms. While these studies continue to fall flat, and have actually proved guns save lives and protect property, Congress continues fund these organizations and spending millions of dollars time and time again all to abolish our right.

Still, the CDC has not been able to make its research work in favor of its agenda. Its own studies have not been able to link gun control laws to the reduction of crime. Nevertheless, any time the government studies “gun safety,” you know that in spite of the fact that all the research in the world will not support its end goal of affirming the necessity of disarmament, the aim is to produce enough information and “expert” opinions to influence the public against gun ownership and persuade them to internalize the emotional aspect of the issue, thereby leading people to despise guns, distrust gun owners, and desire more government intervention to make gun ownership more difficult. The anti-gun movement is built on pure emotion — hating guns and being afraid of guns — so crafting a false perception among the masses through fear mongering and emotional coercion is much more crucial, and uncomplicated, than presenting a clear-cut, scientific case through the use of bona fide research studies.

For the most part, the establishment of gun safety as a public health issue is a very purposeful strategy aimed at avoiding the political reality of individual liberty and the right to defend oneself. Thus gun ownership can be viewed as a “problem” that is looked at in a collective sense, by determining the costs and benefits to the public at large, as if these considerations can possibly trump an individual’s natural right to bear arms and defend his own life.

Understand, the left will not stop until the entire country is brought under total government control, and for that matter the world, and the greatest measure in achieving this goal is to take away our right to defend ourselves, the 2nd Amendment.

On another point, Karen DeCoster has become one of my favorite writers. She provides a great commonsensical libertarian perspective that’s clear and concise, and easy to understand.

Obama Efforts to Control the Internet

The New York Post has an article you’ll want to take a look at about Obama’s plan to control the Internet.

I would caution you not to get too partisan either way concerning this article, which I subscribe to, because whether it is Bush or another main stream republican, or Obama or another main stream democrat, they are all in bed together to control your life and increase the power of the central government.

Make no mistake about it, the fight today is not between democrat and republican, it is between the statist and the (small L) libertarian; between liberty and tyranny.

Freedom Watch 10 June

Is This a Good Time to be a Libertarian?

Libertarian writer Christine Smith offers her opinion concerning directing one’s efforts toward the individual actions rather than a political parties during a recent radio interview on a local Tampa Florida (WTAN) radio station.

Her comments really resonated with me because they weren’t the standard rah-rah cheerleader type one hears from party activists.  Rather it was the ideal of individuals taking charge of their life and the moving away from party politics that Washington and Adams never believed our country should have adopted.

It’s about 17 minutes in length.

End the War on Drugs

Ron Paul couldn’t be more correct, End the War on Drugs.

ABC 20/20: Bailouts and Bull with John Stossel

Speaking of Liberty – Tucker Carlson