Sen. Lindsay Graham: Fool, liar, or historically ignorant?

During a recent appearance on Face the Nation, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) addressed free speech in relation to the current war effort. Apparently, words and activities that could incite or motivate an enemy are beyond the First Amendment's protection. Government can then silence such speech. Frankly, that is a foolish and utterly un-American idea. But it isn't as foolish as Graham's use of World War II to justify his position. "During World War II," Graham explained, "you had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy."

Such a claim would be news to the World War II generation, who weren't the least bit concerned with whether or not their attitudes inspired their enemies. In fact, they went out of their way to denigrate the Nazis and the Japanese at every opportunity.

Has Sen. Graham never seen a poster from the WW II era? Those posters appeared throughout the United States and they were anything but complimentary toward the Germans and the Japanese.

One WW II poster depicts the Axis powers firing on Jesus Christ as he hangs on the cross. On another poster a Nazi is thrusting his bayonet through the Holy Bible. An anti-Japanese poster displayed the "Tokio Kid" (Misspelled intentionally?) with slanted eyes, big teeth, round eyeglasses, and devilishly pointed ears. A war bonds promotion poster shows an aggressive Japanese soldier holding an all-American girl at knifepoint. The caption reads, "Keep this horror from your home."

Inciting? I think so. Obviously, Sen. Graham hasn't paid much attention to WW II posters. He must not have watched cartoons, either. A wide array of animated characters, from Popeye to Donald Duck, took turns poking the Axis in the eye.

In Daffy the Commando, Daffy Duck took on a ranting Nazi officer and his bumbling subordinate, Shultz. In one scene the German commander springs to attention and shouts "Heil Hitler" when a skunk crosses his path. After making a total mockery of the Nazi army Daffy drops in on a Hitler speech and conks der Fuehrer on the head with a mallet.

Popeye the Sailor deployed to the Pacific Theatre in You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap. He tangles with two stereotypical Japanese sailors, each with a penchant for treachery. The Japanese promise peace, but attack Popeye when he turns his back. A not-so-subtle reference to Pearl Harbor, perhaps? Popeye eventually eats his spinach and gives an entire Japanese battlewagon a thorough whipping. You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap poked fun at everything Japanese from their manufacturing quality to their doctrine of honorable suicide. It ended with the Rising Sun being "flushed" in the ocean.

In Her Honor the Mare, Popeye's nephews disguise a horse as a house painter to sneak the nag into the house. The "painter" looks like Hitler -- an obvious insult to Adolf's artistic aspirations -- with the face drawn on the horse's backside. Sen. Graham can draw his own conclusions about inspiring the enemy. But to me, the animators were calling Hitler a horse's ass.

Walt Disney joined the anti-Axis animation parade with Der Fuehrer's Face, in which Donald Duck dreams about living in the Third Reich. The cartoon begins with an unflattering Nazi marching band and a song that resembles someone breaking wind "right in der Fuehrer's Face." Everything in Donald’s home is a tribute to the Nazi police state and he’s forced, at bayonet point, to read Mein Kampf. Then it's off to work for Donald, where he'll "Heil Hitler" in forced servitude at a Nazi munitions factory. The cartoon ends with Hitler being hit in the face with a tomato.

None of these print and animated insults could’ve provoked the enemy? Senator Graham is either ignorant of this nation's attitude toward our enemies during the Second World War, a complete fool, or a dastardly liar. Choose the lesser of the evils, if there is a lesser between ignorance, foolishness and dishonesty. Whichever you choose, there is one certainty; free speech wasn't limited so as to avoid inspiring the Germans and the Japanese. In fact, the Greatest Generation reveled in insulting their enemies at every opportunity and their war ended just fine.

The good guys won World War II, in case Senator Graham needs reminding. There were no focus group plans for appeasing our adversaries. Victory didn’t come from seeking common ground with Hirohito or proving to the Nazis how we meant no harm to their Fuehrer and his concentration camps. We won because we put victory above the nonsensical notion that offending our enemy was off-limits.

Sen. Graham isn’t ignorant of America’s attitudes toward the Axis powers. But he’ll promote a historically false perspective and believe Americans are foolish enough to accept his dishonesty.

Texting ban is unauthorized, unnecessary and misguided

Driving is dangerous. That’s easy to forget because we do it daily. It’s common and completely comfortable. But comfort breeds distraction, even under ideal conditions. Insert text messaging and distracted driving increases exponentially.

To lessen that distraction Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) introduced the Avoiding Life-Endangering and Reckless Texting by Drivers Act (ALERT). The proposal will coerce states to adopt laws banning drivers from texting while behind the wheel.

It’s hard to argue that texting doesn’t distract drivers from more pressing matters. Most of us have seen it happen. On the surface, ALERT sounds like a fine idea. However, to determine if Sen. Schumer’s proposal is legitimate we must dig below the surface.

Do we need the central government enacting anti-texting laws? Does Congress even have that authority? The answer is no to both questions.

Twenty-five states already have some form of ban on texting while driving. Those laws passed without federal prodding. Additionally, Schumer cites the regulation of interstate commerce as authority for his bill. He reasons that texting devices are produced, conveyed and used in interstate commerce; therefore Congress can take action under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. However, Article 1, Section 8 allows Congress to regulate commerce only, not personal acts or the private use of products.

Under Schumer’s reasoning Congress could ban anything. Ready for a federal ban on applying make-up while driving? How about federal bans on tuning radios or changing CDs? Should Congress prohibit conversation with passengers, or traveling with children? All can be distracting and all can be considered interstate commerce under Schumer’s misapplication of Article 1, Section 8. In fact, Congress can claim authority over anything with such an interpretation.

Let’s also consider Washington’s bully tactics. If Congress has constitutional authority to enact ALERT it should do so outright. But no! Congress prefers to force state compliance by withholding highway funds, which is how ALERT accomplishes the texting ban. It is an authoritarian act and the antithesis of Congress’ enumerated powers.

Frankly, it’s inconceivable that free people need Sen. Schumer to pass a law to prevent them from doing what they can quit on their own. Anyone who knows they shouldn’t be texting is smart enough to stop without Schumer’s assistance. Additionally, legislating to prevent drivers from texting ignores the basic function of law.

Laws don’t stop bad behavior, they identify it. There are laws against theft, rape and murder. Yet theft, rape and murder occur daily. The existence of laws does not prevent lawlessness, nor does law prevent people not inclined toward lawlessness from committing crime. Honorable people won’t steal, rape, or murder even if those acts aren’t criminalized.

Punishment after the fact, not prevention, is all we can reasonably expect from the law. Sen. Schumer isn’t so stupid as to believe his bill will prevent texting while driving, but he thinks we are that stupid.

Laws simply determine acceptable social behavior. To legislate for the punishment of texting while driving is one thing. To pretend laws will prevent acts that are easily self-regulated is slavish and immature.

A ban on texting while driving is sensible. Leave it to Charles Schumer to expand, corrupt and spin the idea until it makes no sense at all.

This column originally appeared at American Thinker.

Freedom on the auction block

Prior to the mid-19th Century, town squares often included an auction block. On those auction blocks human liberty was bought and sold like livestock, cotton, tobacco, or any other commodity. It’s not a prideful part of our nation’s history.

However, such transactions aren’t a scar upon the United States alone. Nor was slavery invented here, contrary to politically correct notions. Nearly every nation, culture and race has engaged in selling human liberty. In some parts of the world it is still openly practiced and culturally acceptable.

Advanced societies have long since abandoned auction blocks. What’s unique about the United States is that we ended legal slavery at an earlier age--less than 100 years--than other nations in which it’s been practiced. Yet there remains one place in America where selling human liberty is routine and celebrated: the U.S. Senate.

Look at how the Senate healthcare bill unfolded. Lacking needed votes, Sen. Harry Reid and his minions opened our wallets and went shopping. When the spree was complete the votes were there and the bill moved forward.

It began with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), once a critic of the Senate plan. But when Reid sent $300 million to the bayou Landrieu had a change of heart. One Washington Post writer concluded that her payoff could look like a bargain before the wheeling and dealing was finished. That writer might be a prophet.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) sought $100 million from a series of amendments that will spread money around the country faster than Sooners can cross an Oklahoma prairie. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, grabbed $10 billion for his state. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) won concessions that will exempt 800,000 elder Floridians from the bill’s proposed Medicare cuts. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) garnered up to $100 million to offset Medicare costs in his state.

The American Medical Association got a piece of the action, too.
Medicare fees for physicians disappeared, as did subsidy cuts to selected physicians. Taxes on cosmetic surgery were dropped in favor of a 10-percent tax on tanning salons. In return the AMA, which apparently has more pull than the tanning salon lobby, endorsed Reid’s bill. The entire process is enough to make your head spin, or your stomach turn.

To be bought and sold in such manner is an affront to all a person is or ever will be. But, strange as it sounds, it isn’t the ultimate insult. To see our liberty sold by our representatives and bought with our money takes pain and abuse to a new level. It’s like opening a wound, filling it with salt, then bandaging it with concertina wire.

Yet supporters defend the treachery as standard Senate fare. Sen. Charles Schumer said it’s why we have a Senate. And Harry Reid called the vote-buying and pork-barreling “compromise”. Both are as far from legitimate Senate action as the East is from the West.

The Senate’s job is to enact laws within constitutional limits that protect life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and state’s rights, not circumvent them all. And compromise isn’t paying Senators to sacrifice their principles to Harry Reid’s perverted image of the public good. Deeds that Senators defend as compromise would get the rest of us jailed for bribery.

Liberty can’t forever suffer the selfish maneuverings of a recalcitrant government. Congress has become the chains of our subjugation. Maybe we can stop this assault on liberty. Maybe we can’t. But if we stand idly Congress will continue to sell us and our freedom without a second thought.

Our constitutional, legislative and human liberties are on the auction block whenever Congress is in session. Each time a vote is sold or bought the auctioneer’s gavel falls and what remains of our liberty is presented to the highest bidder. Isn’t it time to bury this custom once and for all?

Doing “nothing” can be the best medicine

Question the wisdom or motives behind congressional legislation and you’ll get the predictable response: read the bill. Alright, let’s try to read Sen. Harry Reid’s healthcare bill, beginning with its 14-page Table of Contents.

There are nine separate Titles containing another 51 Subtitles and 23 additional Parts and Subparts. Underneath those various Parts, Subparts and Subtitles are 365 Sections and Subsections, one for each day in a year. The bill itself is 2074-pages long with each page containing 24 or 25 lines each, a total of nearly 51,000 lines. I won’t even guess at a word count.

Each line, Subtitle, Part, Subpart, Section and Subsection refers to others ad nauseam. In some instances, they reference separate articles of federal law, which must be just as confusing and unreadable as Reid’s healthcare “reform” proposal. Now, in order for us to believe we’re being properly represented we must accept that our Senators have read and understand this bill in its entirety. Sure, and you can see the Pacific Ocean from Lawrence, Kansas.

I’ll make no pretense about understanding this monstrosity. Furthermore, I don’t believe the four Senators whose names appear on the legislation understand it either. Further still, I think it was written that way on purpose.

First, Senators and Representatives need not understand their legislation; they will exempt themselves from it. Second, a bill understandable to them might also be understandable to us. And that isn’t how Washington operates. They prefer ambiguity and legalese that no one short of a Philadelphia lawyer can follow.

Even so, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) explained her vote to begin debate on this behemoth thusly, “It is clear to me that doing nothing is not an option.”

In fairness to Ms. Landrieu her procedural vote doesn’t mean she will support the legislation, and at least I can comprehend what she means. But I have to call her on the “doing nothing” part. Doing nothing can be the better alternative in a host of situations. Let’s examine a couple.

Let’s suppose you awaken in the middle of the night and notice an odd glow outside your window. Your neighbor’s garage is on fire. You call the fire department and, being a conscientious neighbor, out the door you go. The neighbor’s garden hose is close by, but the water isn’t working. Then you notice a gasoline container beside the shed in your neighbor’s back yard. Is it better for you to do nothing? Or, is it better for you to toss the gasoline on the fire?

Let’s try another one.

Black Friday just passed, so let’s assume you were out shopping. The aisles are packed with scrambling shoppers and howling kids. But one kid in particular gets your attention. This little boy just will not behave. He wants an X-box and will stop at nothing to get it.

His mother tries to assuage the situation with the typical “maybe Santa will bring it” line. But if that’s ever worked on a kid it’s news to me. His tantrum continues. Is it better for the mother to give the boy his way and instill in him the idea that his behavior is acceptable and profitable? Or, is it better for her to do nothing, thus letting the boy know that being a brat won’t serve his goal?

Am I exaggerating? Maybe a little. But both analogies illustrate that it can be far better to do nothing than to take actions that make bad situations worse, just for the sake of having “done something”.

Healthcare needs reform, just like the garage needs a fire department and the child needs a spanking. What healthcare doesn’t need is a “do something” fix that adds another layer of bureaucracy to an already bloated system. In regard to Reid’s bill, doing nothing is just what the doctor ordered.

Like any brothel, the Senate has its price

An old joke begins with a rich man in a limousine passing a pretty woman standing on the sidewalk. He tells the chauffeur to stop beside the woman and he lets his window down.

“As you can see,” he says to the woman, “I’m a wealthy man. Would you have sex with me for a million dollars?”

It’s a tempting offer. One million dollars; she’d be set for life. The woman considers the rich man’s proposal, smiles at him and agrees that she would indeed be willing to fulfill her end of the bargain. The man smiles back and asks if she would have sex with him for a hundred dollars. The woman’s smiling face transforms into an indignant frown.

“What kind of woman do you think I am?” she asks.

“We’ve established the kind of woman you are,” the rich man replies. “Now we’re haggling over the price.”

The rich man will have to come up with far more than a million dollars to buy Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA). I’m not saying that Sen. Landrieu would sell herself like the woman in the joke. But she will sell her vote, a vote for a bill with which she has issues, for a barrel of pork spending. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposed at least $100 million of your money to buy Landrieu, and she’s not the least bit ashamed.

“I’m not going to be defensive,” Landrieu crowed to the Washington Post. “And it’s not a $100 million fix. It’s a $300 million dollar fix.”

No matter the price, it’s obvious that the fix is in. Thus there is little difference between Landrieu and the woman on the sidewalk. The woman in the joke was willing to compromise her morality when the price was right. Landrieu has misgivings about allowing the federal government to commandeer healthcare. Yet she is willing to compromise those principles for money. She has sold herself just as surely as any streetwalker.

I’m not the first person to make this comparison. Therefore, I won’t be the first to be tarred and feathered for the analogy. However, no one has refuted the charge to a worthwhile degree. Let’s go to the dictionary.

The usual definition for prostitute involves granting sexual favors in return for money. But a prostitute can also be someone who misuses or compromises their talent, ability, or position for financial gain. Isn’t that what Sen. Landrieu has done? She offered her ability, in this case a vote to move forward on the Senate’s healthcare “reform” plan, in exchange for federal funds earmarked for her state.

At least if she were walking the streets Harry Reid would have to use his own money to acquire her services. But since she’s a senator whose vote Reid needs, he can use our money to have his way with her. Just as in the joke, we have established the type of woman Mary Landrieu is; we are simply haggling over her price. And she drives a much harder bargain than our sidewalk lady.

Landrieu defenders will argue that this is just business as usual. It’s how politics works, Washington in its purest form. I don’t doubt that’s true. More is the pity. The nation’s future is being shaped by people who willingly sell their principles and their constituents to the highest bidder. Such people have no place representing a free and thinking population.

However, can we truly blame Sen. Landrieu for selling her vote to Harry Reid? Not really. Which do you think will sell better to her constituents come reelection time? Will she win favor for having stood on principle and voted her conscience? Or, will Louisianans more readily reward her for bringing home $300 million in pork? Sadly, I think the later.