Bill's Comments

I just read this little article and don't know whether to look for a politician to yell at or just be sick to my stomach at the giving away of the country. Here's the worst parts:

Many of the millions of illegal Hispanic immigrants fear that filling in the 10-question census forms could increase their risk of deportation. Others are frustrated with President Barack Obama's slow start on immigration reforms.
...
There are an estimated 50 million Hispanics in the United States. Under-representation in the census could hurt access to federal funding for their communities. An updated snapshot of the population, the census is designed in part to help the government allocate $400 billion of federal funding.

An accurate count should in theory translate into more teachers, heath facilities and infrastructure in heavily Latino neighborhoods. It should also boost Hispanics' political clout by giving largely Latino districts more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives after redistricting.
...
Some groups are calling for a boycott of the census unless the Obama administration stops the deportations.

"We have no other choice left than taking such radical actions as this one. We are obliged by moral responsibility," said Rev. Miguel Rivera, head of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders.

Rivera said 38 percent of his congregation is made up of undocumented immigrants and they are afraid the Census Bureau will pass information on to other federal agencies, despite reassurances that the information is confidential.
...
Some groups are calling for a boycott of the census unless the Obama administration stops the deportations.

"We have no other choice left than taking such radical actions as this one. We are obliged by moral responsibility," said Rev. Miguel Rivera, head of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders.

Rivera said 38 percent of his congregation is made up of undocumented immigrants and they are afraid the Census Bureau will pass information on to other federal agencies, despite reassurances that the information is confidential.

....When do illegal aliens count in a census anyway?

Answer: When the census is used for non-Constitutional purposes. It's sole Constitutional purpose is to enumerate all citizens of the US. Not look at their race, their gender, their anything other than their existence and their citizenship.

The supercollider in Geneva, Switzerland, has finally achieved its goal--collisions between particles that involve huge amounts of energy. The headlines and subheadings read:

Mini-Big Bangs created in cosmos origins project

* Scientists collide particles at highest energy ever

* Success hailed as huge step in understanding universe

* Mysterious dark matter, new dimensions may be found

In terms of engineering, this is a tremendous feat. The supercollider is miles in size yet requires focus control in the millions of an inch. I want to take nothing away from that.

However, I have great reservations that this will actually lead to a better understanding of the universe. The problem is the fundamental assumptions that underlay such an interpretation--that what occurs at the atomic level is simply a smaller scale version of what occurred at the universal level. Particle science has created this wonderful, highly self-consistent world of observation and interpretation. In the sense of predicting what might occur at the next higher levels of energy interaction the theories are very successful. But I have doubts that scaling up the conclusions from the interior of an atomic collision will correctly apply to the Universe at the time of the Big Bang.

In rather prosaic terms, what the experiments do is take two large nuclei, speed them up to very close to the speed of light, then do a head-on collision with them. The spray of particles (debris) from the collision is then analysed to try to figure out what went on inside the collision. If you imagine a nucleus as a collection of varying size gravels held together with mud, it would not be far off. In effect they are trying to figure out what the gravel and mud are made of by analysing the pieces from the collision. The theory is that only certain kinds of debris can be created, and it will have a distinct appearance in the instrumentation.

The technology and the espistomologic aspects of this are extremely sophisticated and to be admired. Like most of modern science, I have a lot of trouble with its metaphysics. The Universe is hundreds of powers of ten greater in size than the interior of the collision. One of the problems with the Big Bang theory is that the Big Bang comes from what is called a singularity--the math and physics used to describe the normal world do not work there. All that is accepted about it is, that it is the black hole to end all black holes, and that at some point as it expanded the behavior became like what we can describe, or at least theorize about. This new collision process supposedly is closer in energy to the beginnings of the expansion, so therefore will provide clues to an earlier fraction of a second after the start of the Big Bang. The comparison is being made on the basis of comparable energy levels. The problem is that the scope of the universe is all of matter at that energy, and the collider is only a relatively few particles at that energy and they are in an environment that constrains them. I think it is a false analogy.

It may be that good will eventually come from such efforts. I don't ascribe to the various doomsday theories about this work, as they come from a lack of understanding of the science and behavior of black holes. However, there are times when this kind of work seems to me to be more kids playing with bigger and bigger Lego sets rather than creating something substantial. My own view of particle science is that it is at the same analogous stage as astronomy before Copernican theory took off. It is getting more and more complex in its descriptions because it fails to see some underlying simplicity.

....for the technology of science.

A news item today,"Obama to allow oil drilling off Virginia coast," with its stopping of drilling leases in Alaska smacks of payback to me. After all, Alaska is Sarah Palin country. Nevermind the reserves there are far greater than anywhere else in the US.

In my mind everything the President does is like everything Russia does--it is all politics.

...I keep seeing everything the President does as Chicago Politics.

American politics appears extremely dysfuncional these days. Since it is a current meme to use mental health terms to describe events and people, I will join the fray. In their battle over healthcare, both sides became afflicted with OCD--Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. There was no reasoning anywhere by the time it was done, just a constant reiteration of the same arguments and opinions.

Now that the battle is over, will the public remain aware of the issues? On a large scale, with respect to anything other than making their living and attending to their own local world, the American public could be categorized as ADD. We do not concentrate on large issues for any length of time and are readily distracted. As a consequence, anybody that does act in an "OCD" manner takes control of events in our society. Hence, we now have Obamanation in healthcare, and, if the Social Democrats have their way, in environmental legislation and immigration.

[Side note: Many pundits are comparing us to Europe. For us it will be far worse than Europe. They have had centuries of creeping socialism. For us it will be a train wreck. We are being forced into it essentially overnight. Unless it is stopped it well be far faster than anyone anticipates.]

This ADD quality of the American public has come about only in the last half century or so. When the living is easy, there is no need to keep focused on long-term goals. Everything comes quickly. Will the public throw the rascals out in November? Maybe, and maybe not. It will depend on what occurs to catch their attention. Most employer plans are set every October. That could be a real eye-opener when co-pays and employee premiums go up..and up... and up. Let's hope people see them for what they are, response to Obamacare, not "greedy employers wanting to pay less."

Thank you Jack Kelly for giving me the answer so quickly:

Judas got 30 pieces of silver. All Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) got was a worthless piece of paper… and $726,409 in additional funding for three airports in his district.

So much for the lives of unborn babies to a Social Democrat.

Dennis Prager in this essay made two extremely useful recommendations among the six he made. (I consider the other four good but obvious).

make our motto: "The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen."

Start referring to the Social Democrat party. Actually that was the name of the party in Minnesota when Hubert Humphrey ran for President against Nixon. The name is much more accurate.

Four years ago, I wrote a piece on why every vote counted. It was to counter the argument or rationalization that why go to the polls in an overwhelmingly anything district. Since everyone “knew” who the winners would be ones vote was wasted. This election I think it is time to deal with the idea that only the informed should be allowed to vote.

There are several issues that come together here, 1) is voting a privilege or a right, 2) If a right, are any restrictions meaningful, and 3) if a privilege, what restrictions are legitimate. One can argue from theory that it is a right, and from history that it is a privilege. At the risk of sounding like an ad hominum argument, thinking that only the informed should vote is has a very elitist flavor to it. I will not use that as an argument. Elitists can be right or wrong as often as anyone else, despite their pretentions otherwise.

The greatest difficulty in a discussion like this is to avoid falling into pragmatic argument—the uninformed are more easily swayed and that can cause mass migration to one candidate or issue, possibly to the detriment of the country, state, city. Results are not a valid argument, since they can change in another direction the next time. For that matter one cannot argue that only the uninformed or only the informed voted for President Obama.

One can easily surmise that for an elistist to think the uninformed should not vote, they are thinking that if all were informed they would vote just like me. Anyone voting differently from me is uninformed. It is actually a way of attempting to skew the balloting in their favor. However, if they think the uninformed will vote as they do, one does not hear the argument brought up. It is only when the ordinary people have a different idea on who should be in government.

So lets start looking at whether voting is a right or privilege. The Declaration of Independence states: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed,” The Constitution does not use the phrase “consent of the governed” but is clearly a document that was created by common consent. From the preamble: “We the People of the United States….do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

“The governed” are very obviously the total population of the United States and its dependencies, e.g. Guam and Puerto Rico. But just because someone is governed does that mean they also have the right to vote? This is where the concept of citizenship immediately comes into play. It is considered intuitively obvious that only citizens should be allowed to vote. The total population includes children, foreign visitors, people in the US illegally, people in prisons and mental institutions. Not all of them are considered citizens. Citizenship is automatically conferred by being born in the US, or becoming a naturalized citizen by demonstrating sufficient knowledge of the US and how it works, sufficient knowledge of the English language, and taking an oath of loyalty renouncing all former citizenship. I have seen the test for citizenship. Most high school and many college graduates who are born citizens could not pass it.

Constitutionally we have expanded the definition of being qualified to vote from being a male citizen, 21 years old or older, and non-slave, to all men and women of age 21 years or older, born in the United States, or naturalized as US citizens. Underlying this is the implicit understanding that until one reaches the age of 21, one does not have the judgment to consider who should be the people representing and governing us. (This is not the place to argue the age limits on voting, or any other activity for that matter, but it is an interesting question in and of itself.) We do not allow felons to vote, nor people in mental institutions, even though they fulfill the age and birth requirements, the former as having demonstrated a disregard for society and therefore forfeiting the rights and privileges of membership in society, and the latter for insufficient judgment.

Historically there have always been attempts to restrict voting on one hand or to extend it unreasonably on the other to allow fraud. Attempts to restrict who can vote included in the very early years a requirement that only land owners could vote. Later of course it was restricted to free men only, then after the Civil War there were the various poll taxes, literacy tests, and such, including outright physical intimidation, to prevent the newly freed and later not-so-newly freed slaves and their descendants from voting. Even most recently there was intimidation in Philadelphia in the last election, though it was the reverse, intimidation of whites by blacks.

At the other extreme we have efforts to prevent reliable voter identification, under the guise of not restricting minorities, but with the purpose of opening the vote to fraudulent votes. This has been a standard political ploy for probably most of the history of the US. Its toleration and encouragement comes from the desire of many people to win at any cost. Currently it would appear that Democrats are the main proponents because they see it as favoring them to open the polls to any and all. This is not to say that Republicans and their forerunners did not or do not engage in the same thing.

Today, I have heard two versions of voting should be a privilege, 1) only informed voters should be allowed to vote, and 2) only tax-payers should be allowed to vote. There are two different motivations at work here, and each approach can be debated with some effect.

When I was in school, we were constantly given the image of the good citizen that read newspapers from both sides of the issues, and made judgments based on what he/she knew and read. It was considered that a person that did that would reach a good decision. This is a wonderful ideal, but in today’s world, it is extremely difficult to find the kind of reporting that such an ideal is based on. Actually, I suspect that the kind of reporting it was based on never existed. If we look under the surface of the argument, it is really saying that one should read the opinions of both sides of the issues. Facts are neutral, it is the opinions based on those facts and the background and beliefs of the writer that create sides or issues.

Even if one makes a large effort to be “informed” whatever it means, how does one test for it? Does one take a current events test prior to voting? The mind boggles at the openness to abuse that represents. For that matter what constitutes being informed, and about what is it important to be informed? Every person understands the same facts and opinions in different ways, and every person has their own ways of being informed. Every person has their own set of things about which they stay informed. The fact is that one cannot define informed other than what oneself is. Despite the arrogance some would have to believe they can state what is important to be informed about, it is their own perspective that creates the list of important issues.

So does that mean that every illiterate, drunken bum should be allowed to vote? With respect to the question of being informed, yes. In practice it won’t matter. The people who will vote are those who care enough to register and prove their citizenship and identity. (To me it is totally self-evident that to have the right to vote, one must prove they meet the qualifications. Despite arguments to the contrary, the requirements of proof of citizenship are easily met.) People who vote are informed to the extent that it is important to them to be informed. Part of the strength of this country is that we have, to date, run under a collective judgment of all the electorate. It would appear that sometimes they make mistakes, but generally then those are corrected. The US is longest existing republic in the history of the world, and people have been more or less well-informed throughout its history.

So let us look at the other argument, only tax-payers should be allowed to vote. This concept comes from a totally different problem—disparate taxation and dispensing of government services. Equality of citizenship means that all citizens participate equally in government. [I cannot resist the point—it is government that equality relates to, NOT the activities of private citizens.] Until the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment creating the income tax, all citizens were taxed equally. This is not to say that the government always dispersed the funds equally, but for the most part they did. (There is an excellent story about Davy Crockett running for re-election after making a vote to provide special funds to a widow. He lost at least one vote over it, not because of the intent but because it destroyed the equality under the law.)

Having established a principle of unequal taxation in the Constitution, politicians then acquired the ability to buy votes. They became generous with other people’s money. They could be nice to the poor by not taxing them, and then by providing services for free. Since voting was a right, politians bought their vote. After all, one cannot blame them for wanting to keep a good thing going. The concept became applied to other special constituencies until we have the cluster…s that are the Federal and state governments to day. By allowing those receiving largesse from the government to vote, they become in principle, armed robbers. They vote for those who give them the goodies, and those who give them the goodies use the power of government (which ultimately is a gun) to steal the money of the productive for the purpose. Just because there are those who cannot read anything without engaging in ad hominum attacks, let me state very unequivocally—I BELIEVE IN CHARITY, BY CHOICE, not by coercion.

Given the current situation, it is very understandable that those paying taxes would want to have the vote restricted to those with skin in the game. However, one cannot abrogate a principle simply because of other effects. The issue is not one of who can vote, but what is being done with those put in power by the vote. The solution is not to restrict the vote but to fix the bigger problem.

Voting is like the free market. It is the collective wisdom of the people none of whom have all the answers, but together have most or all the answers. Like the free market, it has swings, as people make judgments first one way, then another. Those who would turn voting into a privilege are generally the same ones that would regulate or skew the market in some way. Voting is a right of all mature citizens of the United States and should be kept that way. However, a right has to be protected from fraudulent use, or it will no longer have meaning. My desire is that all eligible citizens register to vote and exercise that right at all opportunities. To that end I believe in voter registration and unambiguous identification. Over the years, I have learned that true diversity leads to better results than selected participation.

I have just finished Sarah Palin’s book, “Going Rogue.” The title comes from the campaign for VP with John McCain for President. Whenever she tried to do what she knew was right from past experience in campaigning in Alaska, and it disagreed with what “Headquarters” thought should be done, she was accused of going rogue.

Before I talk about the rest of the book and Sarah Palin, herself, let’s get rid of the politics. First of all, I don’t see Mrs. Palin as ever running for President. It is not that she is incapable; she would be better than any of the candidates we have had since Ronald Reagan. It is that her values start with God and her family, and somewhere her family would be sacrificed to the personal destruction cult of the left/liberal axis. She experienced this directly when campaigning for Governor of Alaska and especially when she was the VP nominee for the Republican party. Such destructive attempts would be intolerable to her. [Can you imagine what they would try to do with Trig if she ran for President, considering what they did for just the VP nomination?] Second, the Republicans deserved to lose the 2008 Election. This is NOT to say the Democrats deserved to win. They deserved to lose even more. But the Republicans tried to campaign by the same rules and methods of the Democrats, and that does not work for the people that want a conservative approach to government.

From “Going Rogue” it is painfully obvious that the people running the Republican Presidential campaign were all about image, not substance, IMAGE. They obtained a multi-six figure wardrobe for Mrs. Palin and her family to wear, and were dictatorial about what she said, where she said it, and when she said it. John McCain asked her to be his running mate for her distinct character, and the campaign staff refused to let it out. It was OUR elites vs. THEIR elites, not our policies vs. their policies, or our candidates vs. their candidates. When it comes to image, no one will ever out-do the Democrats. They routinely make virtual silk purses out of sow’s ears, mainly because they have no scruples about stretching the truth or in some cases outright lying. Their political ends justify any means. Republicans that play that game deserve to lose. Unfortunately, the real losers are the people of this country, who have no real choices from which to select, or at least have no comprehension of the differences.

Sarah Palin, as a political power, is the greatest to come to this nation since Ronald Reagan. But the real reason for her greatness is the same as Ronald Reagan’s—genuineness. In an age of form over substance, she not only has form, she has substance. She scares both left and right, who want the forms but not the substance. She scares the left because she is capable of presenting a common-sense approach to government that ordinary people understand, like, and support. She scares the right, because underneath that excellent exterior, she has principles that are not subject to the current political wind of the day, and as such make a mockery of Republican [lack of] principles.

To anyone, like myself, who has had to earn their living at hard labor for an hourly wage, Sarah Palin is the real deal. We know it from the minute we set our eyes on her, and when she opens her mouth we are confirmed in our judgments. This is a person who doesn’t take herself so seriously that she can’t appreciate a joke at her expense. This is a politician who genuinely understands my situation and cares about it, not about her next step on the political ladder. To an intellectual elite with an Ivy League degree, who has never worked a hard day in their life or been behind on a bill, she is incomprehensible. The categories they think in do not include adherence to religious values, adherence to the sanctity of life, true compassion for people, the ability to see the good in even the worst, a refusal to demonize opposition, the triumph of hard work over adversity, and most of all, personal integrity. To hold absolute vs. relative moral standards and to succeed by them, is a huge slap in the face to all the elitist and intellectual pundits and the politicians they support.

How dare she carry a Down’s syndrome baby to term, give birth, and keep it to raise and cherish! Not only that, she does it while fulfilling completely the office of Governor of Alaska and then going on the campaign trail as the Republican VP nominee. Feminists of the country unite! She is making us look like whiners. Watch out Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker! She writes as well as you do, speaks better, looks better, and actually has experienced what she represents. When you dismissed her, she was busy pulling in crowds as big as any politician has in ages. The Obamacons revealed their true colors—it is not about principles, but about being the chosen intellectual elite, and Obama was one of theirs [and just as fakey and insincere. An empty suit.]. If the Republicans had run her for President and let her handle the campaign like she did in Alaska, none of our current misery would have happened. Ordinary people would have seen her for what she is and Obama for what he is.

I am a great fan of Sarah Palin. Her choice to support any candidate that reflects her values, regardless of party, gives her a great credibility with people like me. If we see the rise of a new center-conservative party that blows away the Republicans and leaves the Democrats as the ineffectual splinter group they deserve to be, it will be because of this one woman’s efforts to create a better life for all of us.

…..don’t have a clue

My first response to this article in the WSJ online today is a certain sickness of the stomach. It makes the worst of the jokes about lawyers seem insignificant. Under the guise of client-attorney privilege, hundreds of lawyers have committed what amounts to treason in defense of Gitmo detainees.

To quote Pogo, "We have met the enemy and they are us."

Larry Elder deftly exposes the real problem with Washington--the Republicans aren't really any different from the Democrats--and he shows why.

....politics is Tweedledum vs. Tweedledummer

Go watch this video . The best five minutes you will spend all day.

Thanks to American Digest for the link.

Pundita has a commentary blog that generally deals with issues most others ignore, and when she does, deals with them in depth. This particular essay, Three Little Words, is outstanding in its concise description of the American business situation today. But she goes much further than just description, she points out the fundamental weakness and contradiction in every politician's words on business. Go read the whole thing. It is worth it.

The greatest inanity of the day was printed in this Washington Times article. The essence was that the "scientists" that promoted the global warming myth are going to fight back at their critics. Here are some quotes from the article.

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.
...
Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times. Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.
...
Last month, President Obama announced that he would create a U.S. agency to arbitrate research on climate change.

Note that nowhere in all of this is there any science. It is all politics and publicity. One doesn't rebut scientific criticism by either advertisements or arbitration. One rebuts it with new and better research. Advertisements are the standard liberal ad hominum method of dealing with disagreement, and arbitration assumes scientific facts are malleable and subject to compromise.

To a properly trained scientist this boggles the mind. One doesn't know whether to laugh hysterically or run screaming off into the sunset in terror.

....than a politicized scientist.

In this essay by Diana West the essential difference between Islam and Judeo-Christianity is stated clearly:

Last year, Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang party of Belgium led a winning campaign to ban the hijab - what he calls "the propaganda weapon of choice for the establishment of Islamic society in Europe" -- in the Flemish schools of his country, making the same vital judgment call that Wilders did. "(He) who defends the headscarf out of reasons of tolerance and pluralism has little or no understanding of Islam," Dewinter said. "The hidden agenda behind the veil leads to segregation," a veritable apartheid-regime, he explained, with which Islam seeks to control and dominate the West. Equating the Muslim head scarf with the Christian cross or the Jewish yamulke is "therefore incorrect," Dewinter continued, identifying the headscarf as "the flag of a political ideology" in which it is not the individual religious experience that is central, but rather "the realization of a theocratic society based on sharia, or Islamic law."

You would do well to read the whole thing and think about it.

Lately "Don't ask don't tell" and the issue of homosexuals in the military has come up again. I think I have a perspective that explains it on more fundamental terms than have been used to date.

First off, let me say that I have no problems with same-sex civil unions with all the legal permissions and authority of marriages between two people of the opposite sex. In fact I wrote a very long essay along those lines some years ago. I have no problem with homosexuals in any civilian capacity. However, there is a fundamental difference between civilian and military life that most people do not comprehend--the closeness and lack of privacy of the environment.

First of all known homosexuals of either gender are perceived by the same gender as being of the opposite sex on emotional terms. We are not talking logic here, we are talking the raw stuff humans actually operate on underneath all the fancy thinking.

So for a man to be in a military unit with a known homosexual male, would be like having to go to bed, take a shower, use the latrine, in the same room as a strange woman who is not at all attractive to him, and in fact is disgusting to him. And the converse would be true for women, having to do those things with a strange, unattractive, possibly disgusting male in the same room. For that matter, the attractiveness really has nothing to do with it, the same reticence and embarrassment would obtain. I put the unattractiveness into it to get the sexual fantasy stuff out of the way.

So the next time you argue for openly allowing homosexuals in the military, stop and think what would it be like for the government to put an unknown member of the opposite sex into your bedroom and bathroom with you. If you are OK with that, then go ahead and propose it, if not--shut up.

I'm not sure of the date on this. I just received it. It is well enough said to be read again, and again.

Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it?

Did you know his trial is over?
Did you know he was sentenced?
Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio?

Didn't think so. Very few people do know!!!

Everyone should hear what the judge had to say.

Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.

Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say. His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his 'allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah,' defiantly stating, 'I think I will not apologize for my actions,' and told the court 'I am at war with your country.'

Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below:

January 30, 2010, United States vs. Reid.

Judge Young: 'Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.

On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutively. (That's 80 years.)

On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years again, to be served consecutively to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you for each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 that's an aggregate fine of $2 million. The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.

The Court imposes upon you an $800 special assessment. The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.

Now, let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings, we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether the officers of government do it or your attorney does it, or if you think you are a soldier, you are not ----- you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I've known warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and the TV crews were, and he said: 'You're no big deal.'

You are no big deal.

What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?

I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing? And, I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom, so that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.

We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to Preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. The day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.

Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to
mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag Stands for freedom. And it always will.

Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down.

So, how much of this Judge's comments did we hear on our TV sets? We need more judges like Judge Young. Pass this around. Everyone should and needs to hear what this fine judge had to say. Powerful words that strike home.