civil rights

Although I have opposed the use to which the facilities at Guantanamo are being put for years, the plans which the Obama administration is developing to deal with the remaining terrorists held there present problems which they seem not to have considered and which may be unresolvable.

The Bush administration already released about two thirds of those being held at GITMO. They released all the easy prisoners. They sent home the ones whose countries would welcome them and they tried the ones where the evidence was easy to argue in court. Even so, a significant number of those they freed immediately returned to fighting for al Qaeda or the Taliban or resumed engaging in acts of terrorism. What they've left for Obama to deal with are prisoners who are confirmed to be serious terrorist threats, but against whom the evidence is weak or hard to present, even in a military tribunal, and whose home countries will not take them back because they know what diehard bastards they are, and they have absolute confidence that they will be involved in future violence if given an opportunity.

If we take them out of GITMO either permanently or to face trial, we have to put them somewhere. Evidence suggests that our prisons are already a breeding ground for potential terrorists. The recent terror plots in Miami and New York both originated with Muslim converts who had been radicalized in prison. Allowing these terrorists from GITMO who really are "the worst of the worst" into the prison system where they will be treated by some as celebrities and role models could prove to be disastrous. Even in the relative isolation of a supermax facility their influence would be felt; passed on through the several hundred other terrorists already in the federal and state prison system and the underground communications networks of the prison gangs.

The only alternative would be to put them in a completely separate maximum security facility, either built or adapted to house them, inside the US. Although many governors are trying to keep GITMO prisoners out of their states, governors in states with the most severe economic problems might be persuaded to offer facilities in their states in exchange for federal dollars. Michigan's Governor John Engler has already offered one of the two small maximum security prisons in Michigan's upper peninsula for the purpose. Others are also interested, like the town of Hardin, Montana whose city council voted unanimously to welcome GITMO prisoners to their brand new maximum security prison which remains unoccupied after three years of disputes with state authorities.

So despite the "not in my back yard" attitude which prevails in most states when they envision terrorists as guests in their prisons, there are places which are desperate enough for federal dollars and jobs to take the terrorists, so housing them in the US is certainly feasible. However, aside from the technical difference of being on American soil, a supermax prison devoted solely to GITMO prisoners would not be much different from housing them where they are now. They would still be isolated from other prisoners, likely in a very remote part of the country, and held under uniquely high levels of security. No one has ever escaped from a supermax prison in the US, but keeping the prisoners secure is really the least of the problems.

But even if we put them in prison somewhere else, respect for the rule of law and the Constitution demands that we give them fair trials. Yet there's a reason why the Bush administration was only able to try a handful of them. The evidence against the rest is strong enough to convince most people that they really are dangerous terrorists but it is not sufficient to form an effective case good enough to stand up in US courts which have already rejected the kind of evidence the government is trying to use in many of these cases. There's enough evidence to know they are the "worst of the worst" but it's often not the kind of evidence which is up to the standards of a normal American court. Twenty reliable sources may have told us someone is a terrorist and we may absolutely believe them, but without witnesses to acts of terrorism or physical evidence, a trial may well end in an acquittal which should result in the release of the prisoner. Then what do we do? We can't keep him in the US because he's not a citizen and he really is a dangerous terrorist even if not convicted, so he's not about to get a visa. We can't send him home or to another country because they know who and what he is and won't take him. We can't just release him in the wilds of Waziristan when no one is looking, because he'll just start killing civilians and US soldiers as a recent Pentagon report demonstrates. What do we do that honors our legal system and our Constitution and also protects our people and the world?

President Obama admits he doesn't have a solution, saying "there are no neat and easy answers here." He has a plan but it is expected to be unable to provide a real solution for as many as 100 of the GITMO prisoners who cannot be repatriated or freed in the US. The president seems to be leaning towards holding them indefinitely in the US without trial instead of at Guantanamo, and that's really no solution at all. It's still a violation of their right to a trial and some sort of justice. And if they are going to continue to be held without trial, the prisoners might actually prefer the balmy climate of Cuba to a concrete cell in the frozen wastelands of Montana or northern Michigan.

There aren't a lot of other options. We can't set them free in the US, we can't send them home and we can't legally hold them forever without trial. What does that leave?

It's tempting to apologize to the acquitted terrorist, drop him near the fighting in Waziristan or Somalia with an unloaded AK-47 and then turn a blind eye as a soldier -- perhaps a Pakistani soldier for propriety's sake -- with more common sense than our government, shoots him as an enemy combatant. That wouldn't be nice, and the backlash would be horrendous if it leaked, and it's guaranteed to leak.

Or we could take that idea to a higher and even more draconian level that will appeal to fans of the New World Order. Tag them with the dreaded GPS locator chips which are now being put in dogs by the humane society and which some people are suggesting we put in our kids. Then release them in a terrorist controlled area and track them until they meet up with some terrorists and call in an airstrike or a drone with a Hellfire Missile and take them and their friends out. Even less nice, but we might have plausible deniability if we claimed we targeted the other terrorists, not the recently released guy with the chip.

I can think of only one other slightly less sleazy and considerably more humane solution, which will certainly appeal to the administration's legion of lawyers. Let them go through trial, and as soon as they are set free immediately arrest them on a trumped up charge -- illegal immigration comes to mind -- and imprison them again. Conveniently, our immigration laws are so screwed up we could probably hold them just about forever if we can't find a country to deport them to. This really isn't any different than just leaving them in jail, but they do get a trial and we get a legal fiction to hide behind.

After thinking long and hard and not being able to come up with better solutions than these, I do know one thing for sure. I'm glad I'm not President Obama, because even if he has the wisdom of Solomon, I don't think he can find a solution any better than the ones I outlined. He's in a no-win situation and will pay a high price for whatever inevitably unsatisfactory resolution he finally selects.

I'm not so concerned about whether or not the Right or the Left win on their issues; I'm concerned about proper Constitutional interpretation, judicial activism and the "presumption of liberty" vs. the "presumption of Constitutionality" when it comes to judicial review. So, from a liberty-minded perspective, here are some serious questions that should be asked of the SCOTUS nominee that replaces David Souter. (Thanks to my co-worker, Joe Henchman, for help on these.)

ONE: Currently, the Supreme Court takes less than 100 cases per year, leaving many important legal questions undecided. Would you be in favor of increasing your caseload so that many Constitutional disputes can be resolved?

TWO: In the University of Michigan affirmative action cases, Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, it was ruled that while racial quotas could not be set, race could still be used as a factor in admissions. Then-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said that affirmative action may not be needed in the near future. Do you think it is appropriate for the Court to determine when a policy is no longer necessary?

THREE: The issues of property rights and eminent domain have been somewhat resolved in recent times. Do you believe that Kelo v. New London was decided correctly?

FOUR: The Second Amendment has also been a topic that the Court has recently taken up. Do you believe that District of Columbia v. Heller was decided correctly?

FIVE: There is always debate over the balance between government power and individual rights. When it comes to state laws that allegedly violate individual rights, to what extent should the Court give deference to that state law?

SIX: Since the 1938 decision in United States v. Caroline Products Co., the Court has only enforced equal protection in three specific categories: enumerated rights, protection for minorities and protections in the political process. Is it proper for equal protection to be limited to these categories, and if so, are these categories permanent?

SEVEN: When it comes to Constitutional interpretation, the Court has seemed to adopt “tiers of scrutiny” in various First Amendment, equal protection and other contexts: strict scrutiny, rational scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, etc. Is it proper for the Court to have different levels of scrutiny for different cases? If so, why?

EIGHT: The federal government influences state policy in many ways by attaching conditions to federal funding. Is there a point at which a condition would be unconstitutional, even though acceptance of funding is at the state's discretion?

The below is bumped from an earlier discussion thread.  Many conservatives have trouble understanding the depth of the majority of the African American community's alienation from conservatism as a political movement.  Conservatives wonder how some African American voters can have many opinions on the right but vote for candidates on the left when they are faced with a conservative Republican vs. a liberal Democrat.  The answer has much to do with history and how that history is remembered.  The public coming out party for modern conservatism that was the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign and how the Goldwater campaign appeared  to the African American community might be a good place to begin

The conservative case that Goldwaterites opposed the great civil rights acts for benign reasons butts up against two big obstacles in convincing the African American community.

1. Why should African Americans care about the professed principles of people who would have preserved a system that made a mockery of every maxim that was spoken of in Fourth of July celebrations ("no taxation without representation", "one man one vote", "give me liberty or give me death") as it applied to southern blacks?

2. Many people who voted for southern white segragationists for the worst reasons suddenly started voting Republican in presidential reasons around the time the GOP nominated a Senator who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You can argue that it was because the Jim Crow system was no loger tenable and that the interparty competition for southern whites switched to issues like national defense, crime, taxes, abortion, whatever. There is a lot of truth to that argument, but African Americans can clearly see white southerners moving from the Democratic party to the faction of the Republican Party that was most opposed to the key civil rights law.

So if it seems like many black people assume that conservative Republicans are their natural enemies, they have their reasons.

That is not the whole story of course since one can hardly explain the conservative side's unpopularity with African Americans based totally on an almost fifty year old campaign.  The Goldwater campaign and related events did much damage to political conservatism's name among African Americans, but much has also happened to keep the antipathy alive these many years later. 

I'll have some more ideas a little later.

Last month, I started The Next Right's 50 State Strategy Project, contacting all of the state party chairmen and chairwomen to get on-the-ground reports about what's going on in each state and what we should be paying attention to. Now that the convention is over, I resent my request to state party leadership, and I'm starting to get responses.

The first one is from Nebraska Republican Party Chairman Mark Quandahl. His responses are short, but I'll add some commentary to the answers:

Q: What are the most important races to watch from any level?

A: U.S. Senate (Mike Johanns) and 2nd District (Lee Terry)

The only numbers I could find on the Senate race was a late-July Rasmussen Reports poll that showed a 56% to 31% lead for Johanns over his Democratic opponent, Scott Kleeb. Terry leads Jim Esch 47% to 38%.

Q: Are there any ballot initiatives that are important to conservatives in your state?

A: Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative

I wrote on three civil rights initiatives earlier this summer, including the one in Nebraska. These initiatives are very important to the conservative movement: ending racial preferences, and emphasizing equal opportunity over equality of condition.

Q: Everyone knows that the issues of the day are energy, the economy, health care, Iraq, national security, etc. What are the issues that are unique to your state that John McCain should pay attention to and respond to?

A: Tax Burden

According to the Tax Foundation, Nebraska has the 17th highest state-local tax burden in the country. It also ranks 43rd when it comes to favorable business tax climate.

Q: The internet and new media have developed new features and facets within many parts of a campaign organization (GOTV, fundraising, communications, etc.) Which one part of a campaign or party organization would you like to see young, Web2.0 savvy Republican develop tools for?

A: Fundraising

Any ideas we can develop for Mark?

I emailed Mark back with an addition question: can Obama win Omaha's 1 electoral vote in their congressional distrcit electoral system? Apparently, McCain only leads by 4 points there, 46% to 42%.

If you can, encourage your state party chairs to reply back to me. The more info, the merrier.

Once again, Barack Obama is trying to defend himself against attacks that don't exist. Many, including myself, documented this back in late June. Yes, Barack, we know that you don't look "like all those other presidents on the dollar bills," but you're trying to play both sides of the race card. Chales Hurt of the New York Post put it best today:

This racial calumny is completely unfair, diminishes his own campaign, and certainly is the worst possible way to win over those blue-collar white Democrats in Ohio and Pennsylvania who picked Hillary Rodham Clinton over him in the primary. Barack Obama should ... quit this whining and fantasizing about Republicans making fun of him because he doesn't look like George Washington.

So it's no surprise that Barack Obama has publicly stated his opposition to Arizona Proposition 104, the Arizona Civil Rights Inititiave. (See my previous post on Ending Racial Preferences This November.) Ward Connerly of the American Civil Rights Institute has been sponsoring similar campaigns for initiatives in Colorado and Nebraska. They have been successful in California and Michigan, but came under fire in Missouri this year. Connerly responds to Obama's opposition in the National Review today:

What he fails to say is that it is not only “communities of color” that experience hardships and difficulties. Nor does he say how, as president, he can achieve his stated goal of uniting the American people while asking those not “of color” to look the other way when discriminated against. If Obama is truly concerned about divisiveness, why didn’t he speak out when his foot soldiers at ACORN were taking pride in blocking our petition circulators from gathering signatures in Missouri? Their despicable tactics of harassment give new meaning to the term “divisive.”

In a response to my previous post, Jeff Roberts wanted to see Obama take a position on this. Jon Sandor lamented that McCain probably woulnd't take a position. Not to fear! John McCain has come out in support of this initiative, and should go to Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri to support their causes.

When building a farm team, it's not only important to identify potential leaders; it's important to identify issues that can create sustainable majorites in critical states. This issue, along with bread-and-butter economic issues at the local and state level, have to be well-analyzed. And making the presidential candidates take positions on these issues that have a more direct impact with folks on Main Street, instead of focusing solely on national issues, is important to do.

Thoughts?

ARRA News Service - Mike LaRoche, South Texian shares some amazing history of the Republican Party. I have extracted a few points but to get the full gist of his article drop by and read the completed post:

To understand the long-standing Republican commitment to civil rights, it is best to begin with the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. In April 1866, Congressional Republicans (against the strong opposition of President Andrew Johnson, a Unionist Democrat), introduced the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This amendment entailed the following:

All native-born or naturalized persons in America were officially made American citizens, and states were prohibited from depriving citizens of their life, liberty, or property without the due process of law. States were compelled to extend voting rights to blacks, for the amendment stipulated that state representation in Congress could be reduced if some citizens were unjustly barred from voting.

Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment in June 1866, and it was forwarded to the states for ratification. Johnson fought hard against the ratification of this amendment throughout the summer and fall of 1866, but his efforts were futile as state after state outside the South approved it (all of the Southern states, except Tennessee, voted it down). In February 1869, the Republican Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was subsequently ratified by the requisite number of states. This Amendment guaranteed voting rights to all citizens regardless of their race, color, or former slave status. During Ulysses S. Grant's presidency, more measures were taken by Congress to protect blacks against harassment. One significant piece of legislation, the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, made it a felony to interfere with voting rights and authorized the use of the army for the law's enforcement. A similarly strong law passed was the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which broadly outlawed public racial discrimination. . . . It should also be remembered that the Republican Party's commitment to civil rights was alive and well during the twentieth century, for it was President Dwight D. Eisenhower who used federal troops to force the state of Arkansas to admit black students to Little Rock's Central High School. . . . Sen. Everett Dirksen (R-IL) was instrumental in pushing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress. Regarding women's rights, Republican support for female suffrage was evident as early as the 1860s, when the very Republican territory of Wyoming became the first to allow women to vote . . . The first woman elected to Congress was also a Republican: Rep. Jeanette Rankin (R-MT) of Missoula, . . . Also, it was a Republican Congress that in 1919 passed the 19th Amendment, granting women nationwide the right to vote. This was done over the loud objections of then-President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat. . . .

LaRoche completes his post with this insightful comment: "Although I titled this entry "The Secret History of the Republican Party," there really is nothing secret about what I have discussed. The facts are easily available but have been consistently ignored (if not distorted) for years by many so-called professional educators across the country – due to either ideological bias or just plain ignorance. Oftentimes in the pursuit of historical truth, the most critical step is to unlearn what you have previously learned." . . . [Read More]

Ballot Initiative Alert from AZ, CO, and NE:

Three states have certified inititiaves for the November 4th ballot that would ban racial preferences and ethnic discrimination. Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska have "Civil Rights Initiatives" on the ballot that would end preferential treatment based on race for public employment, public education, and public contracting. Predictably, lawsuits have been filed by affirmative action proponents to keep these measures off the ballot.

The American Civil Rights Institute, founded by Ward Connerly and Dusty Rhodes, have sponsored and helped set up these statewide campaigns in Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska. They have been similarly successful in California, where it passed with 54% of the vote in 1996, and Michigan, where it passed with 58% of the vote in 2006.

Visit this blog which promotes Super Tuesday for Civil Rights.

A Wall Street Journal op-ed from late April by Harry Stein makes an interesting point:

"Though the racial-preference ballot measures are officially nonpartisan, they stand to make a dramatic impact on the fall campaign. With the question of racial preferences effectively nationalized by its presence on multiple state ballots, neither party's presidential candidate will be able to evade the issue. While this might pose a dilemma for Mr. McCain -- who, like most Republicans, has long shied away from the topic and might worry about jeopardizing Hispanic support -- it could be catastrophic for Mr. Obama. As Mr. Connerly says, 'This is a guy who's tried awfully hard for a long time not to appear what he is -- just another left-winger who supports preferences.'"

I'm not sure that Stein's electoral analysis works. Did the marriage amendments and ballot initiatives create increased social-conservative turnout in certain states in the past to help presidential and statewide congressional candidates? Sure. I'm not so sure that the civil rights initiatives will do the same, because it will probably galvanize both sides of the affirmative action crowd equally. But if Stein's analysis is correct, helping to compete in a swing state like Colorado and securing a traditionally red state like Nebraska where Obama is playing small-ball for it's divided electoral votes.

In response to the multiple posts on racism and Jesse Helms: ending racial preferences is something that could be a galavinizing issue for right the next generation of both "Spring-Aheads" and "Fall-Backers", as described by John Zogby. I believe that the next generation of "super-voters" of all ethnicities, both over- and under-represented, will want to move beyond affirmative action.

Public institutions of higher education have been the focus, but the initiatives go in the right direction by targeting public employment and contracting. When it comes to education, socioeconomically-based preference programs might be the answer. Even some African-Americans are starting to support the end of racial preference programs, like Professor Stephen Carter of Yale, who said the following in a NTY op-ed on Sunday:

"University affirmative action programs, whatever their benefits, are no remedy for the problems of the black poor. Perhaps this is why Barack Obama has questioned publicly whether his children should benefit from them and also why leading voices on the black left — Cornel West comes to mind — have proposed that college admissions programs give preferential consideration based on economic class."

BOTTOM LINE: Support the Civil Rights Initiatives in AZ, CO, and NE. And start thinking about how the next conservative movement can create a broad coalition that moves beyond race.

- MM