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Day: February 16, 2009

A friend of mine has recently nominated me in the America’s Most Wanted All Star contest.  It’s basically where people nominate police officers, firefighters, and EMT’s.  The voting continues for about 8 weeks and the winner gets to receive an award from John Walsh in Charlotte, NC at a NASCAR race.  The winner also gets a check for $10,000.00 which is nice! 

For me, it brought to mind the feeling that washed over me all over again this past weekend – after watching a PBS special on Abe Lincoln’s Civil War legacy – about the left’s complete lack of perspective as it relates to what wartime presidents in the past have done in the name of protecting this nation.  True students of history understand that what Bush did during his administration (Patriot Act, Gitmo, the authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques, FISA, etc) in an effort to protect us from Islamofascism was mere child’s play when compared to the likes of Lincoln and FDR, two presidents who are viewed today as among the “greatest of all time.”  How many times did we read over the course of the last 8 years from the left about how observing the Constitution had worked “just fine” over the course of our nation’s history until the Bush administration came along to “strip away all our rights,” completely ignoring history in their quest to paint Bush as the American version of Adolf Hitler? 

On this President’s Day, let’s review some of the measures Lincoln took in order to preserve our union:

In the 80 days that elapsed between Abraham Lincoln’s April 1861 call for troops–the beginning of the Civil War–and the official convening of Congress in special session on July 4, 1861, Lincoln performed a whole series of important acts by sheer assumption of presidential power.  Lincoln, without congressional approval, called forth the militia to “suppress said combinations,” which he ordered “to disperse and retire peacefully” to their homes.  He increased the size of the Army and Navy, expended funds for the purchase of weapons, instituted a blockade–an act of war–and suspended the precious writ of habeas corpus, all without congressional approval. 

And let’s not forget the Emancipation Proclamation:

Nothing in the Constitution authorized the Congress or the President to confiscate property without compensation.  The Emancipation Proclamation declared slaves in the states still in rebellion to be free.  By the time of the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Lincoln had concluded his act to be a war measure taken by the Commander in Chief to weaken the enemy:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do…Order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be free. 

The Proclamation may have had all “the moral grandeur of a bill of lading,” as historian Richard Hofstader later charged, but everyone could understand the basic legal argument for the validity of Lincoln’s action.  To a critic, James Conkling, the President wrote:

You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it retracted.  You say it is unconstitutional.  I think differently.  I think the Constitution invests its Commander-in-Chief with the law of war.  The most that can be said–if so much–is that slaves are property.  Is there–has there ever been–any question that by the law of war, property, both of friends and enemies, may be taken when needed?  And is it not needed whenever taking it helps us, or hurts the enemy? 

Isn’t it mildly ironic that the president Obama admires the most is the one that made Bush’s wartime conduct look like Mary Poppins out on a picnic on a warm spring day?  The same Bush that Obama and his supporters decried as straying “decidedly away” from the rule of law that made us different from everyone else?  It’d be a major miracle if the MSM picked up on this little inconsistency and ran with it. 

Japanese American internment refers to the forcible relocation and internment of approximately 110,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans to housing facilities called “War Relocation Camps”, in the wake of Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.[1][2] The internment of Japanese Americans was applied unequally throughout the United States.  Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast of the United States were all interned, whereas in Hawaii, where over 150,000 Japanese Americans composed nearly a third of that territory’s population, an additional 1,200[3] to 1,800 Japanese Americans were interned.[4] Of those interned, 62 percent were United States citizens.[5][6]

President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066, which allowed local military commanders to designate “military areas” as “exclusion zones”, from which “any or all persons may be excluded.”  This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and most of Oregon and Washington, except for those in internment camps.[7] In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion orders,[8] while noting that the provisions that singled out people of Japanese ancestry were a separate issue outside the scope of the proceedings.[9]

[…]

Executive Order 9066, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, allowed authorized military commanders to designate “military areas” at their discretion, “from which any or all persons may be excluded.”  These “exclusion zones”, unlike the “alien enemy” roundups, were applicable to anyone that an authorized military commander might choose, whether citizen or non-citizen.  Eventually such zones would include parts of both the East and West Coasts totaling about 1/3 of the country by area.  Unlike the subsequent detainment and internment programs that would come to be applied to large numbers of Japanese Americans, detentions and restrictions directly under this Individual Exclusion Program were placed primarily on individuals of German or Italian ancestry, including American citizens.[20]

* March 2, 1942: General John L. DeWitt issued Public Proclamation No.  1, informing all those of Japanese ancestry that they would, at some later point, be subject to exclusion orders from “Military Area No.  1″ (essentially, the entire Pacific coast to about 100 miles (160.9 km) inland), and requiring anyone who had “enemy” ancestry to file a Change of Residence Notice if they planned to move.[7] A second exclusion zone was designated several months later, which included the areas chosen by most of the Japanese Americans who had managed to leave the first zone. 
* March 11, 1942: Executive Order 9095 created the Office of the Alien Property Custodian, and gave it discretionary, plenary authority over all alien property interests.  Many assets were frozen, creating immediate financial difficulty for the affected aliens, preventing most from moving out of the exclusion zones.[7]

* March 24, 1942: Public Proclamation No.  3 declares an 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew for “all enemy aliens and all persons of Japanese ancestry” within the military areas.[21]
* March 24, 1942: General DeWitt began to issue Civilian Exclusion Orders for specific areas within “Military Area No.  1.”[21]
* March 27, 1942: General DeWitt’s Proclamation No.  4 prohibited all those of Japanese ancestry from leaving “Military Area No.  1″ for “any purpose until and to the extent that a future proclamation or order of this headquarters shall so permit or direct. ”[7]
* May 3, 1942: General DeWitt issued Civilian Exclusion Order No.  346, ordering all people of Japanese ancestry, whether citizens or non-citizens, to report to assembly centers, where they would live until being moved to permanent “Relocation Centers. ”[7]

These edicts included persons of part-Japanese ancestry as well.  Chinese-Japanese Americans (i.e., those who had Chinese ancestry as well), Korean-Americans[citation needed] considered to have Japanese nationality (since Korea was occupied by Japan during WWII), Japanese-Hawaiians residing in the mainland, those with Japanese-Cherokee ancestry[22] and Japanese Latin Americans (or “Japanese Latinos”) from the West Coast of the United States during World War II were subject to restrictions under these programs.  Anyone who was at least one-eighth Japanese, even if they had mostly Caucasian ancestry, was eligible. 

The wartime actions both Lincoln and FDR took during their respective presidencies has been the subject of much debate ever since the actions were taken, but put into a historical perspective, Lincoln and FDR are viewed upon favorably in large measure in spite of those controversial wartime decisions.  Yet President Bush took the actions he did – which clearly didn’t even touch the boundaries of where Lincoln and FDR went, and we were all of a sudden supposed to believe that “all hope was/is lost” for our country in terms of the executive branch’s legal boundaries, were supposed to believe that Bush was “burning” the Constitution? 

I’ve never had a problem with discussions and debates about Bush war policy (both foreign and domestic) in the context of what it meant for future presidents in terms of how much power they have at their disposal to wage war against the enemy.  It was the treating of President Bush as though he wasn’t the guy who had to wake up every day after 9-11 knowing that 3K people were murdered in one morning on his watch, and instead viewing him as a snake who was just biding his time until he was elected president so he could deliberately “curtail” the rights of the average American while at the same time “expand” presidential rights once the opportunity presented itself. 

Our (relatively) young history has shown us that presidents will sometimes take extraordinary measures in order to protect this country from foreign enemies … or from dividing itself (as was the case with Lincoln) and, as it should, heated debates will always arise from those decisions.  But any time in the future that a controversial wartime action is taken by a president, whether it be Obama or another president in the future, an action that is designed to make Americans safer while making life tougher for her enemies, let’s debate the merits of the action, yes, but think twice before viewing it as nothing more than a blatant “power grab.”  No president – Democrat or Republican – wants the murders of Americans by her enemies to ever happen – especially on his watch.  That is something that the hawkish right understands implicitly.  It’s too bad the dovish left does not. 

Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps held meetings last week with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the “Fairness Doctrine” without actually calling it such. 

I can’t understand why anyone, especially a Democrat, would want to be deceptive on this issue, can you?  Continuing:

Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. “ It’s all about diversity in media,” says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings. “ Does one radio station or one station group control four of the five most powerful outlets in one community?  Do four stations in one region carry Rush Limbaugh, and nothing else during the same time slot?  Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views?  These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them.” 

Copps will remain acting chairman of the FCC until President Obama’s nominee, Julius Genachowski, is confirmed, and Copps has been told by the White House not create “problems” for the incoming chairman by committing to issues or policy development before the Obama pick arrives. 

But Copps has been a supporter of putting in place policies that would allow the federal government to have greater oversight over the content that TV and radio stations broadcast to the public, and both the FCC and Waxman are looking to licensing and renewal of licensing as a means of enforcing “Fairness Doctrine” type policies without actually using the hot-button term “Fairness Doctrine.” 

One idea Waxman’s committee staff is looking at is a congressionally mandated policy that would require all TV and radio stations to have in place “advisory boards” that would act as watchdogs to ensure “community needs and opinions” are given fair treatment.  Reports from those advisory boards would be used for license renewals and summaries would be reviewed at least annually by FCC staff. 

Strangely enough, PBS and NPR are nowhere mentioned.  I’m sure that that’s an oversight, as everyone’s aware that they embody the very definition of objectivity and non-partisanship that MoveOn.org finds congenial.  The problem with defining diversity of perspective is, of course, that someone must do the defining.  Fortunately for the Obama administration, it seems that there are a multiplicity of Soros-backed organizations that are more than happy to be co-opted for exactly such purposes. 

This is campus “hate-speech” prohibition applied to the nation as a whole.  Its sole purpose is to skew the playing field in the direction of whatever beliefs it supports, and to punish those who would take exception to them.  Soon enough, you may find yourself relegated to a little free speech zone ghetto, so enjoy your privilege (not right) to express yourself as you will while you’ve got it. 

And as noted this past weekend, the Obama administration is no longer saying that they are against bringing back the Fairness Doctrine – or whatever Waxman and Co. eventually decide to call it. 

You’d think that with their near super-majority in the House and Senate that they’d abandon the idea of wanting to bring so-called “fairness” to the airwaves, seeing as though they didn’t need it in order to take back the WH and Congress (who needs the FD when you’ve got the MSM on your side?).  But you do – and that’s because now they have the opportunity more than they ever have to try and make it so that TV, radio, and the Internet air and publish opinions that are primarily liberal in nature.  They know damn well that conservatives would shut down a radio station rather than have someone else (read: liberals in the FCC and in Congressional “oversight committees”) dictate what they get to broadcast on their airwaves and publish on their websites. 

Never, ever let a liberal get away with telling you they “support free speech” without questioning them about it (modern history’s against them).  Next time you’re in a discussion with one about free speech issues, ask them how they felt about free speech under the Bush administration (remember all the complaints we heard over the last 8 years about how the admin wanted to “stifle” free speech?).  And then ask them after that how they feel about bringing back the FD.  The two answers you get should tell you all you need to know about them in terms of whether they’d stand shoulder to shoulder with you in the fight to keep the airwaves and ‘net highway free of over-regulation, or whether they’re perfectly ok with the type of creeping socialism liberals in Congress are pushing, a type of socialism that will slowly but surely strip away our Constitutional rights in the interests of the “common good of the state.” 

Exit question: Do you think there are more of the former or the latter out there in lefty land? 

Flashback:

8/14/08 – Rasmussen: “Nearly half of Americans (47%) believe the government should require all radio and television stations to offer equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary, but they draw the line at imposing that same requirement on the Internet.”