Category Archives: Natural Law

Jihad’s Homegrown Enablers

Homeland Security, Islam, Jihad, Natural Law, Terrorism, The State

“Jihad’s Homegrown Enablers” in the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“Is this treason?” asked Megyn Kelly. The Fox News anchor was referring to American citizens who had joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and expected to return to the U.S. upon completing their tours of duty abroad.

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey believes that “unless [his] passport is revoked,” an American citizen who holds an American passport and who has fought for ISIS—maybe even decapitated a dhimmi or two—“is entitled to come back” to the U.S.

Comey was discussing these American exported fighters for ISIS on “60 Minutes.” He promised to “track them very carefully.” At least, as carefully as the intelligence community tracked the brothers Tsarnaev. Also known as the Boston bombers, the Tsarnaevs’ fealty to their American friends and neighbors drove them to murder three and maim many more.

Judge Andrew Napolitano’s retort, on “The Kelly File,” was (oddly) first to praise this FBI director’s mettle as a man and a lawyer, while disputing the legal grounds for Comey’s odd position:

“Comey forgot there’s a statute called providing material assistance to a terrorist organization,” explained Napolitano. “So if he knows that Americans have been fighting with ISIS and he also knows that the secretary of state has declared ISIS a terrorist organization—that is more than enough evidence for him to arrest them upon their re-entry to the U.S. It is crazy to let them back in and wait and see what they do.”

Judging from the tenor of her popular show, Kelly believes that American citizens owe allegiance to the U.S. government. I’d counter that it is to his countrymen—neighbors, coworkers; community—that an American owes his loyalties, as expressed in the practice of civility and non-aggression. The chances are good that a veteran of jihad à la ISIS will reoffend: resort to the intimidation, terrorization, even decapitation of innocents stateside. Thus, based on his criminal history and religious proclivities, the homegrown jihadi ought to be kept OUT of the U.S. The right to venture wherever, whenever is no more than a positive, manufactured right, forfeited on the violation of authentic negative rights.

As to Kelly’s initial question regarding treason: Indeed, the case of FBI Director Comey is clear-cut. He betrays the people who pay for his keep.

Still on the topic of the home-grown jihadi, conservatives are losing their heads over the classification of a Muslim butcher from Moore, Oklahoma. …

… Read the rest. “Jihad’s Homegrown Enablers” is now on WND.

UPDATED: FBI: The Face of Treason

Government, Justice, Law, libertarianism, Natural Law, Political Correctness, Terrorism, The State

FBI Director James Comey believes that “unless [his] passport is revoked,” an American citizen who holds an American passport and who has fought for ISIS—maybe even decapitated a dhimmi or two—“is entitled to come back” to the US.

Comey was discussing American exported fighters for ISIS on “60 Minutes.” This traitor to the people who pay for his keep promised to “track them very carefully.”

That makes me feel much better. How about you?

Judge Andrew Napolitano’s retort, on “The Kelly File,” was to praise this FBI director’s mettle, in general, while disputing the legal grounds for Comey’s odd position:

“He forgot there’s a statute called providing material assistance to a terrorist organization,” Napolitano said of Comey. “So if he knows that Americans have been fighting with ISIS and he also knows that the secretary of state has declared ISIS a terrorist organization, that is more than enough evidence for him to arrest them upon their re-entry to the U.S. It is crazy to let them back in and wait and see what they do.”

“Is this treason,” Kelly wanted to know. She was referring, of course, to the returning ISIS terrorists, and their position vis-a-vis the US.

What about the clear-cut case of Comey?

UPDATE: “Lite libertarians” or “thin libertarians” live in la-la land and don’t much care about the rights to property and life of innocent friends, family and neighbors. Let me make this simple: Individuals who want to behead Americans: yes, the nightwatchman state has a case of limiting their access to heads. To limit their access to American heads is not aggression. To say, “No, you creep, you can’t come in,” is not aggression. OK, leave “creep” off if it offends left-libertarians.

NSA: ‘Collect IT All, Sniff It All; Know It All, Exploit It All’

Government, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Military, Natural Law, Terrorism, The State

“Collect it all, sniff it all; know it all, exploit it all.” That’s the motto of the National Security Agency, as quoted by the genius Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald doesn’t resort to legalism, as does Prof Alan Dershowitz, who advocates that the NSA strike a balance between freedom and its violation. The charismatic, brilliant Greenwald, speaking without notes, defines exactly what it is that The Surveillance State consists of, and how terrorism has served as a pretext for the violation of rights stateside and abroad. In comparison, Dershowitz and NSA chief Michael Hayden sound like petty bureaucrats.

The real debate over the NSA starts, for some reason, 42 minutes in. “Live from Toronto, Canada, watch The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald team up with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian to debate state surveillance with former NSA and CIA chief Michael Hayden and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. Greenwald and Ohanian will argue against the motion ‘be it resolved state surveillance is a legitimate defense of our freedoms.'”

Why The Land Belongs To Bundy

Justice, libertarianism, Natural Law, Private Property, States' Rights, Taxation, The State

The current column, now on WND, applies the doctrine of natural law and Lockean homesteading to explain “Why The Land Belongs To Bundy.” (Cliven Bundy is the farmer from Nevada who is “in mutiny against the federal government”) The essay exposes “both political factions” for “siding with the state and against natural law,” and explains why, ethically and logically, there is no such things as “government grass.”

Here’s a short excerpt from the (middle of) the essay:

NO SUCH THING AS ‘GOVERNMENT GRASS’

Unlike the positive law, which is state-created; natural law in not enacted. Rather, it is a higher law—a system of ethics—knowable through reason, revelation and experience. “By natural law,” propounded McClellan in “Liberty, Order, And Justice,” “we mean those principles which are inherent in man’s nature as a rational, moral, and social being, and which cannot be casually ignored.”

Tamara Holder, another Democrat, grasps the natural law not at all. “Can I go into your house and steal stuff; can I trespass onto your land?” she hollered at Sean Hannity. Holder, of course, was implying that the disputed land belonged to the state and was as good as the government’s house.

In siding with the heroic homesteader against the BLM, Mr. Hannity’s heart is in the right place. He and Fox News colleague Greta Van Susteren probably staved off a Waco-style massacre, in Bunkerville. When the militarized BLM, SAWT teams and all, trained sights on the Bundy family and their supporters; the two turned the cameras on the aggressors, who then retreated.

In the course of butting against buttheads like Holder, however, Mr. Hannity has refused to engage his head. (The anchor, moreover, is performing no public service when he gives this and other prototypical TV tarts a platform from which to spread ignorance.) Ms. Holder: the government doesn’t have a house. There is no such thing as “government grass”! Not in natural law. Government cannot morally claim to own “public property,” explain Linda and Morris Tannehill, in “The Market For Liberty.” “Government doesn’t produce anything. Whatever it has, it has as a result of expropriation. It is no more correct to call the expropriated wealth in government’s possession property than it is to say that a thief rightfully owns the loot he has stolen.”

Then there is the matter of logic. “The public” is an abstraction. In logic, an abstraction cannot possess property. To borrow from libertarian political philosopher Murray Rothbard, “There is no existing entity called ‘society’—there are only interacting individuals.” To say that “society” should own property in common is essentially to say that “government bureaucrats” should own property, in our case, at the expense of the dispossessed homesteader. …

… Read the complete essay. “Why The Land Belongs To Bundy” is now on WND.