A Victory for Freedom

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted 66-34 in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. Fortunately, that was one vote shy of the two-thirds required. The House surpassed that threshold last year, 286-130.

This amendment, which lawmakers have been trying to pass for nearly two decades, is a bad idea for many reasons, the least of which is that it is a nonproblem. After all, have you ever seen anyone burning the flag in this country? As a war veteran, I find the burning of the flag objectionable in many respects. Still, the ability of an American to burn the flag on American soil is a testament to the hard-earned freedom for which soldiers such as myself have fought for more than two centuries. That lawmakers want to curb the natural, God-given rights of humans to express themselves, is disgraceful in a free society. Additionally, if I purchase a flag, that is my property and I can do with it as I wish.

Lawmakers like Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, ("The American flag represents freedom not only in our country but around the world. These rights and freedoms have not been free. Many have fought to preserve and protect this country and have lost lives in selfless service to their fellow man. I have co-sponsored each amendment prohibiting the physical desecration of the American flag since I came to the Senate and I will continue to work hard to ensure the protection of the flag becomes law.") and Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., ("Countless men and women have died defending that flag. It is but a small humble act for us to defend it.") make me sick. They claim to speak for veterans and the sacrifices they made while at the same time trying to curb the very freedoms for which we have fought.

If lawmakers truly wish to honor the sacrifices made by this nation's sons and daughters, then they should protect the Constitution and not some symbol.

Population growth should be celebrated

The announcement that the population of the United States will hit the 300 million mark sometime in October naturally has liberals screaming about overpopulation and its effect on the environment.

However, like most things claimed by liberals, it is simply not true. The population of the Earth is nowhere near worrisome levels. Still, it does not stop liberals from chattering on like Chicken Little that we are headed toward a catastrophic future if we don't engage in dramatic population control such as sterilization programs and limits on the number of children a couple may have.

There is no reason to panic.

Food production continues to rise faster than population growth. That the government pays farmers not to grow food is clearly a sign that we have more food on this planet than we know what to do with.
Additionally, the phenomenal world population growth during the last two centuries appears to be leveling off after peaking around 1970 when the rate of growth was 2.09 percent. That number had dropped to 1.5 percent in 1995. Even in developing nations, the birthrate has been cut in half since 1950. And in some nations, like Japan, there is actually a negative population growth rate.

In fact, if the entire population of the world were put into the land area of Texas, each person would have an area equal to the floor space of a typical U.S. home and the population density of Texas would be about the same as Paris, France.



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I'm baaaack!

Sorry for the absence. I was away for the last several weeks participating in a military training exercise. I did not want to advertise before I left that I was leaving.

After 22 years in the military, I can certainly say it has changed a lot. However, that is probably true of all our endeavors. In fact, simply being away from life for nearly three weeks highlights for me how much happens to us on a daily basis. Life may seem static and boring, but when you return from an absence it is simply amazing how much happened while you were gone and how long it takes to catch back up: from e-mails, postal mail, current events. Heck, a tornado even ripped through my yard. Most of this (excluding the tornadoes) are things we take care of from day-to-day so we don't realize how much there is until it piles up.

Still, in a country at war (justified or not) there is a seriousness of purpose to what we in the military do and our training becomes all that more important for us to remain proficient for when the call comes to take up arms and execute the foreign policy of our nation. When I joined the military in 1984, we were training for an all-out struggle between East and West, a clash of the titans. And we trained for that war, which, thankfully, never came. Today, we train for peacekeeping missions, small-scale conflicts and for war against Islamic terrorists. Much different training, I assure you. In order to meet the challenges of today, the Army is going through a transformation from a Cold War relic to a modern fighting organization. The days of the heavy infantry divisions are over as are the days of the Reserve forces being a strategic reserve for the Army in a major conflict. The Reserve forces are called upon more heavily in the new world.

So remember that when your friends and family members are called away from their lives to train for the eventuality of war.

COLUMN: Death sentence for gambling

Looks like the government is giving another police officer a pass on murder. I guess it's good to wear a badge.

A police officer in Fairfax County, Va., killed a man earlier this year for gambling. Granted, the shooting, while obviously negligent, was most likely accidental. Still, Salvatore J. Culosi Jr., a 37-year-old optometrist, would still be alive today if it weren't for misguided government attempts to police our personal lives.

Culosi and his wealthy friends enjoyed the occasional bets on sporting events. By all accounts, these bets were relatively small, usually less than $100.

Of course, the government could not tolerate the idea of someone spending their own money gambling, unless, of course, the government was the one making all the profit. After all, Virginia spends more than $20 million each year promoting its state lottery.

So, Fairfax Police Department Detective David J. Baucom met Culosi in a bar in October, befriended him, and was soon making wagers himself. Baucom began upping the ante, convincing Culosi to make ever-larger wagers. Baucom, according to an affidavit, had bet some $28,000 in three months and lost about $5,500 in taxpayers' money.



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Police entrap another

Local police once again this weekend nabbed a guy who they said was coming to visit and have sex with a 14-year-old girl he met on the Internet. Only that 14-year-old girl was an undercover police officer.

While we should be always vigilant in capturing adults who solicit sex from minors, I am concerned about the government's tactics in catching such individuals.

Under a five-year-old state law, adults who use the Internet or telephone to solicit sex from a minor can be charged with a felony. That seems appropriate.

What I have trouble with is charging an adult with a felony when no minor was ever involved. Police officers, posing as teenagers, are entering chat rooms in order to entrap people into committing a crime.

Prosecutors and police officials claim it is not entrapment because the officers are not the ones doing the planning for a meeting.

Still, no crime has been committed because no minor was ever solicited. There should be no law against soliciting sex from an adult pretending to be a minor. That is akin to charging someone for possession of marijuana when all they had was a bag of oregano.

Wanting to protect our children is a noble goal. But ultimately, as I have long maintained, parents are responsible for monitoring their children's Internet usage, not the government.

Crack down on predatory adults, certainly, but don't do so by expanding the powers of the police to entrap citizens.

Third parties get bum rap in U.S.

Steven Greenhut, an editorial writer at The Orange County (Calif.) Register, posted an item on that newspaper's blog about third-party candidates. While I agree with most of what he said, one point bears expanding.

The problem is not so much the nature of the third parties themselves, as Greenhut implies, it is the legal barriers placed by the ruling parties on any potential challengers. Even the fundamental requirement of ballot access is inequitable.

The problem lies in the fact that the Republican and Democratic parties have been in power for so long, that they have created campaign laws that make it nearly impossible for a third-party candidate to mount a serious challenge.

In essence, the two major parties are abusing their power in order to stay in power. Sounds like the antics of some third-world penny-ante dictator rather than politicians in a supposedly free nation.

All election laws that regulate ballot access should be equal to all candidates, regardless of party.


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666 Mark of the Beast? — NOT!

According to those who are taking liberty with numbers, today's date can be read as 6-6-6. Some say this only happens once a century. The Associate Press even reported this happens only once a millenium (not sure of their logic). In reality, if you are only taking the last number of the year, it happens every 10 years.

Regardless, the whole 666 thing is plain silliness. Some Christians believe that the passage in Revelation 13 indicates that the Mark of the Beast is 666 or that the number represents in some way the Antichrist.

First, the actual number was not even 666. The earliest known texts list the number as 616. Of course, the King James version of the Bible is so full of mistranslations (accident and intentional) as to make it worthless in gaining any meaning from the early writers.

Second, the Book of Revelation is not prophetic at all. It was written as political commentary against Emperor Nero and the Roman government. In an era when unwelcome speech was punished with death, the manuscript was written in a way to disguise the real meaning from the leaders. It was not an uncommon practice. In a 1999 Bible Review essay titled "Why 2K? The Biblical Roots of Millennialism," author James Tabor explains:


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No Smoking

It is about to get fun here in Ohio as two organizations are collecting signatures to place smoking-related issues on the ballot in November.

The first group is an organization called SmokeFreeOhio. It is collecting signatures to get on the ballot a proposed law — The Smoke Free Workplace Act — that would ban smoking inside all public places and private places of public accommodation, including restaurants, bars, bowling centers, etc. In fact, it would reduce the number of smoking rooms in hotels to no more than 20 percent of the number of rooms.

The second group is Smoke Less Ohio, which is pushing for a constitutional amendment that would regulate smoking in most businesses but permit smoking in bars, bowling alleys, private clubs, etc. Additionally, restaurants with sealed rooms could also permit smoking in those rooms. Essentially, it would allow smoking in adult-oriented businesses. The amendment would nullify a number of local smoking bans in Ohio, as well as SmokeFreeOhio's proposed law. Reportedly, members of Smoke Less Ohio include R.J., Reynolds Tobacco Co., the nation's second-largest cigarette maker. The group does not appear to have a Web site that I could find.

I am not a smoker. In fact, I prefer to be in places where there is no smoking. However, the idea that the government would tell private business owners, like those who own restaurants, taverns, bowling centers, etc., that they can't permit smoking on their own property is not only anti-American, it is a clear attack on freedom.




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COLUMN: Supreme Court ruling enables corruption

There is no greater freedom than that of freedom of speech.

In 1981, President Carter said, "Thoughtful criticism and close scrutiny of all government officials by the press and the public are an important part of our democratic society."

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court curtailed the rights of 21 million government employees to scrutinize officials by reporting corruption.

I'm disappointed that my two favorite jurists (yes, I have favorite jurists), Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, signed onto this ruling, which is a blatant attack on the First Amendment.

The court said in the 5-4 decision that while government employees have the same rights as others to speak out on issues of the day, they do not have the right to speak freely inside their offices on matters related to "their official duties."

In other words, if a government employee witnesses waste, fraud or abuse and reports it to supervisors, they can fire that employee if they do not like what he or she is reporting.




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Man Leaves $28,000 on Restaurant Toilet

Man Leaves $28,000 on Restaurant Toilet

A tax collector in Graz, Austria, left $28,000 on a restaurant toilet seat. Of course, by the time he realized his error, the money was gone.

This is yet another example of how careless government workers are with our tax dollars. A tax collector with $28,000 in tax money in an attache case should not be dining out at a restaurant.

Simply amazing.