How many people know that May 8 is VE Day? Did you know that August 15 is VJ Day? VE Day is the celebration of victory over Europe. VJ Day celebrates victory over Japan. For my generation and my parents’ generation these are very important dates. Lately I fear these dates have lost some of their import to the younger generations. Maybe it is because of the way history is being taught in schools today or maybe it could be because history is not being taught in schools today. Either way I bring this up because of our current war on terror.
Will there be a VT Day? Will we have a victory over terrorism? Let’s face it. We have been at war in the Middle East for ten years now and we seem no closer to a resolution today than when we began this war. By comparison, our involvement in WWII lasted a total of four years. How will we know when we have won this war and can rest on our laurels? Another question is can we in fact win this war? Can we defeat a worldwide network of rag tag religious zealots who are completely misled, suicidal, and have no allegiance to any particular country? They carry no flag and dress in no particular uniform. They hide behind women and children and kill indiscriminately. I suspect that most of them don’t even know why they are doing what they are doing. Since this all began for us ten years ago, our enemy has probably killed more of their own than we have. This is for sure a different kind of war, but it is a war nonetheless.
These are my thoughts. You cannot have a winner until you have a loser. Seems simple enough, right? We have, for these past several years, been spending millions of dollars and thousands of lives pursuing what appears to be an unobtainable goal. Now I believe we have two basic choices. Either win it all out, or just leave this mess to those Middle Eastern countries that have put up with the nonsense for eons. Of course, if we just leave and “pull out”, these radicals will continue in their attempt to return the world to the twelfth century. All of the free world will be under constant threat of their terrorism.
That leaves us with the only other choice. Win it. How, you ask? Here’s one way. We have the capacity to bring any country on earth to their knees in a matter of seconds. We could, in fact, turn the entire Middle East into a parking lot in seconds. But, I don’t think we have to go that far, thankfully. For our victory over Japan, we only had to use two bombs. Up to that point we had spent millions of dollars and thousands of lives, but when we decided to end it, it only took two bombs.
The enemy we are fighting today is being funded and sheltered by a very few small insignificant third world countries who could ill afford our all out retaliation. And we need to come to understand that war, by its only definition, is an all out, unlimited affair. I sincerely believe that one or at most two well placed nuclear devices would cause a rapid rethinking on the part of those countries that offer safe haven to terrorists. As was the case in Japan, the choice would be theirs whether to continue and risk total annihilation or try to live in peace with the rest of the world.
For war to end somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. Pulling out one’s forces doesn’t end anything. It only serves to extend it.
Personally, I don’t want to kill anybody. I suspect David didn’t want to kill Goliath, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. We have spent enough of our treasure. We have given enough of our best military. Now we just need to end it. I look forward to VT Day.
Ron Scarbro November 21, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
BECAUSE I SAID SO
When I was a child, I would often ask my parents for something or permission to do something and just as often they would answer no. When I would ask why, their answer was usually, “Because I said so”. That, without fail, ended the discussion. While that didn’t satisfy my curiosity, it was all I got.
Recent events have made the news concerning activist judges and their responses to various cases they have heard. The state of Oklahoma, in the last election, approved by a seventy percent majority a law which would disallow Sharia Law from being used in that state. A single Federal Judge, on hearing the case, stopped it in its tracks. Why? Because she said so.
Recently in Arizona, the people, by a huge margin, enacted a law which would go a long way in dealing with their illegal immigration problem. Another Federal Judge threw it out. Why? Because she said so.
All across the country judges are setting themselves up as supreme dictators usurping the will of the people and making law from the bench. Why? Because they said so. Somehow some have come to believe that these elected or appointed former lawyers are granted some divine right of intervention once they don the robe of judge.
In both of the cases cited above, appeals have been sought and in the final analysis will probably find their way to the Supreme Court where they will doubtlessly be overturned.
If the last election taught us nothing else, it should have alerted the powers that be that we the people are in charge. An example of this is the state of Iowa. There, three state Supreme Court Judges were fired by the voters for, among other reasons, finding Iowa’s law requiring legal marriage to be between one man and one woman, to be unconstitutional. Their ruling would have allowed so called “gay marriage”. The people said no. It has been reported that in the next election the remaining judges will also be eliminated by the voters.
Too often special interest groups go “judge shopping”. They research sitting judges to determine those who would be sympathetic to their cause and bring actions in their courts in an effort to stack the deck in their favor. Apparently, if you have enough money, it isn’t very difficult to do.
We the people need to face this fact. Just because a lawyer puts on a black robe and sits on a bench in a courthouse, doesn’t increase his or her intelligence or judgment. They don’t park their bias at the courthouse door. Judges are people and people are fallible. Judges, like all people, have their prejudices and their political opinions. Their job is not to write law however. That is the job of legislatures throughout the country and in Washington, DC. Judges, like all officials who govern and control our lives, must be accountable to the people. When they violate their oath and try to usurp the will of the people by writing law instead of interpreting law, they need to be fired.
Too often, I suspect, we become enamored with the pomp and circumstance of the courthouse. We have been led to believe that judges are somehow blessed with this unquestioned wisdom. One of my childhood friends is now a judge. He is a great friend and he definitely is smart, but judicial wisdom? I don’t even know what that means.
Because I said so is not a reason to usurp the will of the overwhelming majority of the people and I am pretty sure that this is not what our framers had in mind when they established the three branches of government. Laws are made by duly elected legislators and judges serve as referees, and not just because I said so.
Ron Scarbro November 15, 2010
Recent events have made the news concerning activist judges and their responses to various cases they have heard. The state of Oklahoma, in the last election, approved by a seventy percent majority a law which would disallow Sharia Law from being used in that state. A single Federal Judge, on hearing the case, stopped it in its tracks. Why? Because she said so.
Recently in Arizona, the people, by a huge margin, enacted a law which would go a long way in dealing with their illegal immigration problem. Another Federal Judge threw it out. Why? Because she said so.
All across the country judges are setting themselves up as supreme dictators usurping the will of the people and making law from the bench. Why? Because they said so. Somehow some have come to believe that these elected or appointed former lawyers are granted some divine right of intervention once they don the robe of judge.
In both of the cases cited above, appeals have been sought and in the final analysis will probably find their way to the Supreme Court where they will doubtlessly be overturned.
If the last election taught us nothing else, it should have alerted the powers that be that we the people are in charge. An example of this is the state of Iowa. There, three state Supreme Court Judges were fired by the voters for, among other reasons, finding Iowa’s law requiring legal marriage to be between one man and one woman, to be unconstitutional. Their ruling would have allowed so called “gay marriage”. The people said no. It has been reported that in the next election the remaining judges will also be eliminated by the voters.
Too often special interest groups go “judge shopping”. They research sitting judges to determine those who would be sympathetic to their cause and bring actions in their courts in an effort to stack the deck in their favor. Apparently, if you have enough money, it isn’t very difficult to do.
We the people need to face this fact. Just because a lawyer puts on a black robe and sits on a bench in a courthouse, doesn’t increase his or her intelligence or judgment. They don’t park their bias at the courthouse door. Judges are people and people are fallible. Judges, like all people, have their prejudices and their political opinions. Their job is not to write law however. That is the job of legislatures throughout the country and in Washington, DC. Judges, like all officials who govern and control our lives, must be accountable to the people. When they violate their oath and try to usurp the will of the people by writing law instead of interpreting law, they need to be fired.
Too often, I suspect, we become enamored with the pomp and circumstance of the courthouse. We have been led to believe that judges are somehow blessed with this unquestioned wisdom. One of my childhood friends is now a judge. He is a great friend and he definitely is smart, but judicial wisdom? I don’t even know what that means.
Because I said so is not a reason to usurp the will of the overwhelming majority of the people and I am pretty sure that this is not what our framers had in mind when they established the three branches of government. Laws are made by duly elected legislators and judges serve as referees, and not just because I said so.
Ron Scarbro November 15, 2010
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