1. “To the Tea Party: War and Liberty Aren’t Fellow Travelers
In an astute op-ed piece in the Christian Science Monitor, James Bovard points out that the love of liberty by the Tea Party crowd usually takes a backseat to a hatred of President Obama and the Left. After attending a tax day Tea Party event in Rockville, Md., a suburb of the nation’s capital, Bovard reported that the Tea Partiers oppose big government from the Left but not from the Right. Big government from the Right usually involves warfare and its accompanying enhanced police powers at home, which usually severely erode the liberty Tea Partiers claim to stand for. For example, the tea sippers extended their pinkies in a salute to torture, harsh policies toward Iran, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They didn’t seem to mind the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping and vacuuming up of ordinary Americans’ phone calls either, according to Bovard.
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As Bovard notes, Tea Partiers are right-wing Obama-haters rather than liberty-lovers. And like their icon Sarah Palin, they seem proudly ignorant of history. Even the Boston Tea Party, from which the supposedly anti-tax Tea Party movement gets its name, hardly promoted liberty. The original Tea Party was caused by the British reducing taxes, not increasing them. The British had reduced the tariff on tea, thereby ruining the smuggling business in which many of the Bostonian vandals were engaged. After the violent and unnecessary destruction of private property by a mob – which other American cities had avoided and no true proponent of liberty should celebrate – the British cracked down on Boston. This crackdown thus eventually triggered the American Revolution, which likely decreased liberty in America. Wars almost always do. “
http://original.antiwar.com/eland/2010/04/27/to-the-tea-party/
2. “A Middle East Peace That Could Happen (But Won’t)
The fact that the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on without resolution might appear to be rather strange. For many of the world’s conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement. In this case, it is not only possible, but there is near universal agreement on its basic contours: a two-state settlement along the internationally recognized (pre-June 1967) borders – with “minor and mutual modifications,” to adopt official U.S. terminology before Washington departed from the international community in the mid-1970s.
The basic principles have been accepted by virtually the entire world, including the Arab states (who go on to call for full normalization of relations), the Organization of Islamic States (including Iran), and relevant non-state actors (including Hamas). A settlement along these lines was first proposed at the UN Security Council in January 1976 by the major Arab states. Israel refused to attend the session. The U.S. vetoed the resolution, and did so again in 1980. The record at the General Assembly since is similar.”
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2010/04/27/a-middle-east-peace-that-could-happen-but-wont/
3. “Derogation of Fundamental Civil Rights: Arizona Legalizes Racial Profiling
Arizona’s new immigration legislation – requiring law enforcement officers to stop everyone whom they have “reasonable suspicion” to believe is an undocumented immigrant and arrest them if they fail to produce their papers – demeans us all by effectively legalizing racial profiling…
The conservative “states’ rights” mantra sweeping our country has led to one of the most egregious wrongs in recent U.S. history. New legislation in Arizona requires law enforcement officers to stop everyone whom they have “reasonable suspicion” to believe is an undocumented immigrant and arrest them if they fail to produce their papers. What constitutes “reasonable suspicion”? When asked what an undocumented person looks like, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who signed SB 1070 into law last week, said, “I don’t know what an undocumented person looks like.” The bill does not prohibit police from relying on race or ethnicity in deciding who to stop. It is unlikely that officers will detain Irish or German immigrants to check their documents. This law unconstitutionally criminalizes “walking while brown” in Arizona.
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By establishing a separate state crime for anyone who violates federal immigration law, the new Arizona law contravenes the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which grants the federal government exclusive power to regulate U.S. borders.
SB 1070 creates a cause of action for any person to sue a city, town or county if he or she feels the police are not stopping enough undocumented immigrants. Even if a municipality is innocent, it will still be forced to rack up exorbitant legal fees to defend itself against frivolous lawsuits.
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Instead of expressing gratitude for the back-breaking work migrant laborers contribute to our society, there is an increasingly virulent strain of racism that targets non-citizens. Republican lawmakers are joining together to oppose federal immigration reform, opting instead for a “states rights” approach where each state is free to enact its own racist law.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18893
4. “Larry Lessig’s “case for Kagan” is the opposite
Anyone who observes American politics even casually knows that if Barack Obama deems Elena Kagan to be a good replacement for Justice Stevens, then there will be numerous progressives who will immediately agree, get behind her and cheer for her confirmation. But they’ll be doing so without having the slightest idea what she thinks, what she believes, and what she’ll do on the Court. They’ll be doing that knowing (and not caring) that there’s a substantial risk that she will move the Court to the Right. They’ll be doing that in the face of this hiring record while at Harvard. And they’ll be doing that based on their willingness to place blind faith in the assurances of her Decorated Friends and their President that they know deep in their hearts that she’s the Right Person and no further evidence should be needed.”
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/27/lessig/index.html
