I love Orson Scott Card as a writer. His political views where not commonly something he spent much time openly discusing, and so while I knew him for a Democrat, that never effected my ability to enjoy his fiction.

It was with great interest that I read a recent article he wrote in The Ornery American. I though I would share a bit of it here.

H/T to Wizbang for pointing me to the article.

There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that’s the War on Terror.
And the success of the War on Terror now teeters on the fulcrum of this election.

If control of the House passes into Democratic hands, there are enough withdraw-on-a-timetable Democrats in positions of prominence that it will not only seem to be a victory for our enemies, it will be one.

Unfortunately, the opposite is not the case — if the Republican Party remains in control of both houses of Congress there is no guarantee that the outcome of the present war will be favorable for us or anyone else.

But at least there will be a chance.

I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America’s role as a light among nations.

But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. And since the Democratic Party seems hellbent on losing it — and in the most damaging possible way — I have no choice but to advocate that my party be kept from getting its hands on the reins of national power, until it proves itself once again to be capable of recognizing our core national interests instead of its own temporary partisan advantages.

To all intents and purposes, when the Democratic Party jettisoned Joseph Lieberman over the issue of his support of this war, they kicked me out as well. The party of Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan — the party I joined back in the 1970s — is dead. Of suicide.

[…]

I hope somebody emerges in one of the parties, at least, who commits himself or herself to continuing Bush’s careful, wise, moderate, and so-far-successful policies in the War on Terror.

Meanwhile, we have this election. You have your vote. For the sake of our children’s future — and for the sake of all good people in the world who don’t get to vote in the only election that matters to their future, too — vote for no Congressional candidate who even hints at withdrawing from Iraq or opposing Bush’s leadership in the war. And vote for no candidate who will hand control of the House of Representatives to those who are sworn to undo Bush’s restrained but steadfast foreign policy in this time of war.

You can find Car’s complete article here, and I recommend a read. It is not short, as anyone who reads Card knows he is rarely at a loss for words, but well worth the investment in time.

A poignant cartoon from Cox and Forkum:

Pro-lifers, like myself, have often suggested that the next natural step in the logic which support Abortion is Infanticide – the killing of the newly born. Most people dismiss the notion out of hand, as the thought is naturally reprehensible. But perhaps we are not as far off as we thing. The very issue of legalizing Infanticide is being considered in the UK.

From the BBC:

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists wants a discussion over whether “deliberate intervention” to cause death should be legalized.

Withdrawing treatment is already permitted in some cases.

The college said it was not necessarily in favour of the move, but felt it should be debated. However, some are angry it has even been suggested.

The concept is chilling, but with a core of logic and even humanity to it. It is a sirens song, and places us further and further down an ethical slippery slope where life has less and less value. Taken together with the movements towards human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, and Euthanasia it paints a chilling picture of what our future may be like.

Something to think about.

Cross Posted from Revealing the ACLU: This week we witnessed a move by the ACLU which should rightly enrage any American regardless of stance on specific issues. The move I am referring was that made by the American Civil Liberties Union to take a domestic US battle, over Illegal Immigration, to an international stage.

From the NY Times:

On behalf of six illegal immigrant workers, including the widow of a Mexican killed on a Brooklyn demolition site, the American Civil Liberties Union and other law and labor groups charged yesterday that the United States has failed to protect basic workplace rights guaranteed under international law.

The charges came in a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an arm of the Organization of American States, which includes all the 35 nations of the Western Hemisphere.

The petition, filed by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the other groups, is an unusual appeal to an international body to push American courts and lawmakers away from a 2002 Supreme Court ruling known as Hoffman v. National Labor Relations Board. The petitioners say the ruling has had a snowball effect, limiting or denying the basic protection of labor laws to millions of illegal immigrant workers in violation of principles like equal protection before the law and freedom of association under the nation’s international treaty obligations.

The above move can only be defined as an attempt to undercut the sovereignty of the United States and put us under the rule of an international body. That should be enough to raise the blood-pressure of any true blooded American.

I can hear some already sighting the push by the US for UN sanctions and International action against countries like Iran and N. Korea. However, let us be clear that the Illegal Immigration issue is one that stops, by definition, at the US boarder. Weapons of Mass Destruction logically, do not – and effect the international community in a very real sense. There is a wold of difference between the right of the US to sets its own immigration policy, including the treatment of those who enter our country illegally, and the right of a country like N. Korea to engage in the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

As angry as the move by the ACLU and the AFL-CIO makes me, I am more concerned about the trend towards Internationalization I am seeing. The question, paramount in any discussion of Internationalization of US Law, is simply “Do we, as American Citizens, have right to an avenue of justice that is beyond our own boarders?” That is to say, if the Constitution is found to not support our view, whatever that view may be, and we are unsuccessful at changing the law through democratic or legislative action – what then? As Americans, we have the democratic right and ability to change laws we do not agree with, though popular action. Should we fail to change those laws, can it be that our view is not supported by the weight of the people, nor by the Constitution itself? Most certainly.

We have the right to continue to work though the structure of government we have in place, but no right to appeal beyond our borders on issues which are purely domestic. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again – or accept defeat. An appeal to a body outside of the US in an attempt to impact US internal (not international) policy is slap in the face to the process and constitution we hold dear.

The ACLU has been a consistent advocate of the use of International Law in US Courts (Lawrence vs. Texas, Atkins vs Virginia, Goodridge vs. Department of Health). How can we view such advocacy other than an attempt to bypass or undermine the US Constitution?

I have already mentioned that I am a fan of Justice Scalia, and he has also commented a couple of times on the Internationalization of foreign legal views in the US Court systems:

“We have no authority to look around and say, ‘Wow, things have changed’. It is my view that modern foreign legal material can never be relevant to any interpretation of, that is to say, to the meaning of the U.S. Constitution.”and “The views of other nations, however enlightened the justices of this court may think them to be, cannot be imposed upon Americans through the Constitution.”

Lets remember we are at heart a Democracy. The citizens of the US have never authorized through our duly elected representatives in congress, nor though direct constitutional amendment, the application of any foreign laws or legal precedence in the US. This is not a liberal and conservative issue, as we are all Americans who live under the banner of Democracy.

The ACLUs appeal to a foreign body to rule in their favor where the US people, Legislature, and Courts would not is nothing but a slap in the face of US Citizens. At its core is an elitist mentality that is willing to set aside public sentiment, rule of US law, and the very constitution which has severed this country well for the last 230 years.

Once we allow the rule of international law to invade the US court systems, where can we draw the line? You can’t put that genie back in the bottle and we could well find a legal system which stands on conflicting precedents, or laws counter to our own constitution with the predictable result of judicial and legal chaos with the inevitable mitigation of our constitution to a meaningless document.

A little humor for your Monday morning…

H/T to Cox and Forkum

The democrats are very good at finding the few dissenters in any group and passing them off to the people as representative of the group. We have seen that especially in the coverage on Iraq where the liberal media seems willing to grand airtime to anyone with remote connection to the military who wishes to speak out against the war in Iraq.

The following Washington Post article paints quite a different picture, and comes from the troops themselves:

For the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, the war is alternately violent and hopeful, sometimes very hot and sometimes very cold. It is dusty and muddy, calm and chaotic, deafeningly loud and eerily quiet.

The one thing the war is not, however, is finished, dozens of soldiers across the country said in interviews. And leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences, they said.

With a potentially historic U.S. midterm election on Tuesday and the war in Iraq a major issue at the polls, many soldiers said the United States should not abandon its effort here. Such a move, enlisted soldiers and officers said, would set Iraq on a path to civil war, give new life to the insurgency and create the possibility of a failed state after nearly four years of fighting to implant democracy.

“Take us out of that vacuum — and it’s on the edge now — and boom, it would become a free-for-all,” said Lt. Col. Mark Suich, who commands the 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment just south of Baghdad. “It would be a raw contention for power. That would be the bloodiest piece of this war.”

The soldiers declined to discuss the political jousting back home, but they expressed support for the Bush administration’s approach to the war, which they described as sticking with a tumultuous situation to give Iraq a chance to stand on its own.

[…]

Capt. Jim Modlin, 26, of Oceanport, N.J., said he thought the situation in Iraq had improved between his deployment in 2003 and his return this year as a liaison officer to Iraqi security forces with the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, based here on FOB Sykes outside Tall Afar. Modlin described himself as more liberal than conservative and said he had already cast his absentee ballot in Texas. He said he believed that U.S. elected officials would lead the military in the right direction, regardless of what happens Tuesday.
“Pulling out now would be as bad or worse than going forward with no changes,” Modlin said. “Sectarian violence would be rampant, democracy would cease to exist, and the rule of law would be decimated. It’s not ’stay the course,’ and it’s not ‘cut and run’ or other political catchphrases. There are people’s lives here. There are so many different dynamics that go on here that a simple solution just isn’t possible.”
[…]

“This is a worthwhile endeavor,” said Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of Multinational Division North and the 25th Infantry Division. “Nothing that is worthwhile is usually easy, and we need to give this more time for it to all come together. We all want to come home, but we have a significant investment here, and we need to give the Iraqi army and the Iraqi people a chance to succeed.”

These are pointed and specific statements, from active duty soldiers who see it and live it every day; not the feedback of some retired general who has never set foot in Iraq. Sadly this will never touch the mainstream media, as positive messages rarely do.

Also Reporting:
Captains Quarters
The Anchoress
Wizbang
Church and State