The Ignorance of Newt versus the Inalienable Rights of All

by Scott Lazarowitz

Recently by Scott Lazarowitz: Obama’s Latest Scheme and Our Choice Between Freedom and Tyranny

During a recent Republican Presidential debate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich implied that he strongly disagrees with very important assertions of the Declaration of Independence: "That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Additionally, like many people now, Gingrich seems to believe that there should be a different set of laws for society when there is a "war" underway. But the truth is, war is an artificial concept used by collectivists and statists to rationalize the commission of criminal acts of aggression against others and get away with it.

The truth is, there are really two kinds of behaviors in general:

• Peaceful, non-aggressive behaviors, in which the people of a society act voluntarily amongst themselves, and under the rule of law that forbids physical aggression (except in a case of actual self-defense), theft, fraud and trespass; or
• Non-peaceful, aggressive behavior that consists of the violation of others’ persons or property. These are the crimes of society, which include theft and the initiation of aggression against others, terrorist acts, and the use of the State’s armed apparatus to initiate violence against foreign peoples.

By "all men," the Declaration refers to all of humankind created equal, and endowed with unalienable rights to life and liberty that are inherent in all of us as human beings. The Declaration does not state that such rights apply only to Americans. And "unalienable" (or inalienable) means that such rights are not given to anyone by government because they are inherent rights. If these basic, inherent rights are not given to us by the State and its agents, then the State may not take such rights away. And the Founders were very clear on the idea of due process, which are very strict rules placed on the government to prove its case against a suspect.

Gingrich disagrees with these basic points. He opposes the idea of presumption of innocence. If Gingrich believes that the President, a CIA officer, a soldier or general may have the power to be judge, jury and executioner against someone, then he certainly couldn’t believe in the idea of inalienable rights.

Here is just one example of Gingrich’s ignorance, joined by most of the other Republican candidates for president, in reference to President Obama’s order to assassinate American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki without due process, without trial or any evidence brought forward:

When asked by CBS News anchor Scott Pelley if, as President, Gingrich would "sign that death warrant for an American citizen overseas," Gingrich’s response was a correction for Pelley. Gingrich declared that al-Awlaki was found guilty, by "a panel that looked at it and reported to the president."

But such a panel and its findings have been kept secret, away from the scrutiny of al-Awlaki’s counsel, a jury, Congress or the American people. Gingrich believes that, if the government has told us that someone is guilty of terrorism, without trial or even evidence brought forth, then we must have a blind faith in these government officials that they are telling the truth.

This is despite the fact that Obama never presented actual evidence against al-Awlaki, just as George W. Bush never presented evidence of Osama bin Laden’s guilt. We should just believe them. Even the so-called killing of bin Laden by the Navy SEALS might not have been true, and bin Laden may actually already have died as early as 2001.

So, are the war supporters and government expansionists really sure they want such un-American, banana republic governmental powers to be in place? At the recent debate, Gingrich declared that, "If you engage in war against the United States, you are an enemy combatant.  You have none of the civil liberties of the United States…You cannot go to court."

Now, Gingrich is called, "Mr. Speaker" because he is fairly good at speaking. But they do not call him "Mr. Thinker," that’s for sure. You see, like many others nowadays, he is assuming that, based on someone’s determining that one is an "enemy combatant," therefore one has no civil liberties. But it is those civil liberties, those inalienable rights to life and liberty that includes presumption of innocence and due process, which protect the individual from being falsely imprisoned or executed.

When you know that the Bush Administration knowingly apprehended hundreds of innocent people, including children and senile old men, at the beginning of their war against Afghanistan, and detained them indefinitely without trial, evidence or even suspicion, and with more innocents victimized by the Obama Administration as well – some of whom languished at Guantanamo prison for years – you have to admit that these have been crimes committed by the agents of the U.S. government against innocents.

And contrary to what the propagandists have been stating, the real purpose of torturing presumably innocent people has been to extract false confessions and to falsely implicate other innocents. (See here, here and here.). Stating, "but we’re at war," as do Newt Gingrich and other statist proponents of this kind of banana republic society, is a simply juvenile attempt at rationalizing the government’s crimes.

Now, are you really sure you want to trust the President, military officers and soldiers, and CIA officers – or local police, for that matter – to decide that someone is a "terrorist," and then be his judge, jury and incarcerator, and executioner? Do you trust these people under orders of the likes of Obama, Janet Napolitano or Eric Holder to be the ones to conclude that someone is a "terrorist," and then to be his judge, jury and executioner? Already, some of these public officials have referred to Tea Partiers as "terrorists."

And so we should believe that someone is a "terrorist" without any evidence, because Barack Obama said so? Now, there’s someone with credibility. A President who has worked feverishly to bomb and destroy Libya, only to have it come under al Qaeda rule. Or a President such as Bush who bombed and destroyed Iraq, only to bring Iraq under rule of repressive Islamic Sharia Law. We should trust these people to act as judge and jury and to imprison those that such officials determine to be a terrorist, despite the hundreds or thousands who had been swept up randomly in Afghanistan and Iraq, falsely implicated, detained, tortured and murdered?

And should we trust the young soldiers on the battlefield to make that judgment? Remember, the brilliant George W. Bush has said that the whole world is the battlefield now. And that includes the U.S., in which each individual is treated like a criminal now, thanks to the TSA, DHS and Patriot Act.

And should we trust soldiers, many of whom have been committing sexual assaults against female military personnel? Or those who have been committing sexual assaults against other male military personnel, and trust their superior officers who defend them? Should we trust people of that ilk to determine that someone somewhere is a "terrorist"? Or local police departments, many of which are corrupt or have been increasingly militarized?

Should we trust military personnel who have intentionally murdered innocent civilians for the "thrill of it" and other military or police who also have demonstrated a lack of understanding of basic ethics or who suffer from war-induced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or who have criminal backgrounds? (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Remember, "if you see something, say something" – the Stasi fusion centers are waiting for you, and, the detention centers are awaiting those who have been designated "enemy combatants" by the self-appointed judges and juries of the government and police.

And, in being the government’s own judge, jury and executioner of those they deem to be "terrorists," should we also trust U.S. officials in the Congress or Senate who also have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the ideas of inalienable rights and presumption of innocence, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman, or who have shown themselves to have warped views in life such as Rep. Allen West, or who have shown mental instability such as Rep. Michele Bachmann?

Should we trust the judgment of an attorney general who has (allegedly) been overseeing a gun-running op from the U.S. government to Mexican criminals and drug lords, with the guns then being used against Americans?

Or an FBI run amok, in which agents intentionally approach young Muslim males, manipulate their emotions and motivate them to act against America. FBI agents entering mosques to encourage young Muslim boys and men to be terrorists? You see, in the real world of common sense, you would go into a mosque to discourage, not encourage, young Muslims from wanting to commit acts of terrorism. But, alas, the central planners of national security do not have any common sense.

It is a shame that an innocent young guy like Bradley Manning, who allegedly exposed criminal wrongdoing amongst U.S. government forces overseas, has been locked up in solitary confinement, under torturous and inhumane conditions, without trial or charges. But that is just a typical example of Newt Gingrich’s idealized banana republic.

Very similar to communists and fascists, the main purpose of today’s neoconservatives – hardly conservative, by the way – has been to expand the size and power of the central government, in its domestic intrusiveness and its reach into foreign lands, while using fear-mongering campaigns and the bogeyman of "terrorists" as their excuse. All they have done especially since 1990 is deliberately provoke foreigners to act against us, as a means of justifying their ever-expanding, centralized Leviathan monstrosity.

Unfortunately for the rest of us who have to live in the same world with these Newt Gingrich statists and collectivists, many government policies (such as presidents starting wars against other countries who were of no threat to us, and un-American police-state domestic policies – not to mention the government’s false flag ops) have been based on the bureaucrats’ lies and propaganda, repeated by their lapdog media stenographers. Many amongst the population, over whom those unproductive agents of the State rule, come to conclusions and approval of these policies based solely on emotion and not reason. The Bush Administration exploited the fears that the 9/11/01 attacks provoked, and used its fear-mongering as the way for the general population to accept the rights-violating, government-expansionist domestic and foreign intrusions the federal government had been planning to put into place long before 9/11.

One particular kind of mentality wrought by the past century’s statism and growth of central planning has been short-term thinking. Like the moral relativism of Gingrich, Obama et al., such short-term thinking has been reinforced by America’s government-controlled education system, whose purpose has been the indoctrination of the young to be obedient to the State. The apparatus of central planning itself, promoted by democracy and the collectivizing of the entire territory, has thrived on the population’s self-destructive short-term thinking. (See Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s book, Democracy: The God That Failed for a thorough analysis of that, and see here as well.)

If Newt Gingrich, Romney and the others prefer living in a banana republic, and do not believe in the morals and ethics of the American Founders – that all humans are equal under the law and under God, that all humans have inherent, inalienable rights to life and liberty – then they ought to go live in Cuba, North Korea, or Venezuela. But please stop trying to turn America and the rest of the world into another Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. We can do without it.

November 21, 2011

Scott Lazarowitz [send him mail] is a commentator and cartoonist, visit his blog.

Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

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