Stephanie Coontz, a professor of history at Evergreen State College, asks why anyone needs the state’s permission to marry. It’s not an unreasonable question.

For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.

For 16 centuries, Christianity also defined the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s wishes. If two people claimed they had exchanged marital vows — even out alone by the haystack — the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married.

She recounts how the marriage license became intertwined with monetary benefits of survivorship in the middle of the last century, and why “the marriage license no longer draws reasonable dividing lines regarding which adult obligations and rights merit state protection.”

In 2004, I argued sort of conversely that it is the church that should get out of the wedding business - let the state worry about validating weddings and let the church worry about nurturing marriages. I still think it’s a good idea, and if you read Prof. Coontz’s essay and mine, you’ll see that they are actually congruent.

Last July Tennessee raised the state tax on cigarettes to 62 cents per pack - a 42-cent per pack raise. That made Tennessee’s cigarette tax higher than any of the eight states it borders, in some cases, much higher.

And Tennessee’s ruling class seems surprised - but shouldn’t be - that smokers living within an hour’s drive of the border, which is almost all Tennesseans, are cruising to another state the buy their smokes. Maybe smokers (I am not one) drive more than an hour, I dunno. But drive they do, even though their purchase savings are greatly offset, if not eliminated, by the cost of the fuel they use and the wear and tear on their autos.

Unles,, of course, they buy a lot of cigarettes. And therein lies the problem. It is also against the law in Tennessee to bring more than two cartons per person (I think, but it could be per vehicle) of cigarettes into Tennessee.

Under state law, bringing more than two cartons of cigarettes into the state without paying Tennessee taxes is a “Class B” misdemeanor, carrying punishment of up to six months in jail and/or a $500 fine. Bringing 25 or more cartons is a “Class E” felony, with minimum penalty of one year in prison and a maximum of six years plus a fine of up to $3,000. In addition, the specific state statute dealing with untaxed cigarettes provides that vehicles used to transport more than two cartons “are considered contraband and are subject to seizure,” says a Department of Revenue statement.

Farr said that agents have been instructed to seize any vehicle carrying more than 25 cartons of cigarettes without Tennessee tax stamps. In cases where three to 24 cartons are involved, he said vehicle seizure is “at the officer’s discretion.”

As one wag remarked somewhere on the Internet, Tennessee’s increased revenue from the rise in taxes will be used to pay for stopping freelance bootleggers. James Joyner (whence the cite) asks, reasonably enough,

How this can possibly be constitutional is beyond me. First, what gives Tennessee police officers the authority to operate across state lines? Second, surely seizing a vehicle potentially worth upwards of $40,000 for the “crime” of possessing more than two cartons of cigarettes amounts to excessive punishment under the 8th and 14th Amendments?

First, Tennessee revenooers can’t make arrests outside their legal jurisdiction, but they may cross state lines in the otherwise performance of their duties. But the Constitutional questions are compelling, I think. I’d argue against what Tennessee is doing because of the Commerce Clause of the main body of the Contitution:

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, known as the Commerce Clause, reads as follows:”The Congress shall have Power …To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

I think it’s simply beyond arguing that Tennessee is attempting to regulate commerce across state borders, authority for which is reserved by the Constitution to the US Congress, and is thereby usurping a federal power.

Where does personal use end and bootlegging begin? Bootlegging meaning reselling the smokes in Tennessee for profit, not buying a dozen cartons for Aunt Esmerelda, who is too weak to drive because of her emphysema, and who pays back the exact amount of the purchase.

Tennessee does have a legitimate interest in prohibiting bootlegging of cigarettes, and for that the 25-carton limit seems reasonable to me. But conviction for actual bootlegging would require more than possession of some arbitrary number of cartons, would it not? If a legger bought other-state cigs, saving $4.50 per carton (45 cents per pack), then he’d have to charge his illicit customers at least half that to recoup costs and make a profit. So, 25 cartons bought at $4.50 discount = $112.50, call half of it profit at resale, or $66. Do that six days per week and the legger nets almost $400 per week.

But the state has brought all this on itself because it raised the tax and thereby generated the incentive for the majority of Tennessee smokers to buy across state lines. That’s the trouble with vice taxes, they require inordinate resources to enforce and often criminalize what would otherwise be seen as quite reasonable behavior. Tennessee’s standard sales tax is already one of the highest in the nation, why not just tax cigarettes at that rate (9.25 percent where I live) and be done with it?

Oh, I know, I know, don’t bother to try to enlighten me.

Captain’s Quarters provides a snippet of a debate between Sen. Dick Durbin and Sen. Norm Coleman on the so-called “fairness doctrine,” which was once law and empowered the federal government to regulate media broadcasts regarding political coverage to ensure (it was claimed) “dalance” and “fairness.” There are member os the Congress of both parties who want the “fairness doctrine” reestablished in law. So over to Dick Durbin:

Since the people who are seeking the licenses are using America’s airwaves, does the government, speaking for the people of this country, have any interest at that point to step in and make sure there is a despair balanced approach to the -a fair and balanced approach to the information given to the American people?

Get that? “… does the government, speaking for the people of this country… .”

Senator, here’s a clue. You do not speak for the people of this country. Nor do your 99 colleagues, nor do the 435 members of the House.

The people of America speak for themselves. That’s why the states required the guarantees that the government would stay away from speech regulation to be amended to the Constitution before they would ratify it. Hence the First Amendment.

Why does Durbin think he speaks for the people? Because of Den Beste’s Law: “The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left themselves they will regulate everything they can.” But not everyone is infected with regulatory disease. Sen. Coleman responded,

We’re at a time where we’ve got 20,000, you know, opportunities for stations and satellite, where you have cable, you have blogs, you have a whole range of information. I think it would be — I — I can’t even conceive — I can’t even conceive that the market could not provide opportunities for differing positions because it does. And in the end — in the end, consumers also have a right based on the market to make choices.

Now, Norm’s close but still doesn’t the cigar. The “market” has nothing to do with this. Consumers making choices, right or wrong, have nothing to do with this. This is not a mercantile issue. This is about a fundamental human right that strikes to very heart of democracy: the unhindered right of the people to speak, publish, post or broadcast without government constraint about matters relating to their government. If the First Amendment is intended to protect anything, it’s intended to protect political speech. But as Radley Balko wrote, “This is all thinly-disguised posturing for what’s really bothering the senators: They don’t like that people are allowed to criticize them on public airwaves.” Yep.

So Durbin and allies want to regulate the people’s speech because they incredibly believe that they speak for us and therefore must protect us from our own speech.

(Linked at OTB’s Traffic Jam.)

An online op-ed by Rita Etter in today’s Tennessean is entitled, “Americans had more guns in past eras without mayhem.” She makes this observation:

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, millions of Americans owned guns. And in 1933, the murder rate was around 9 people per 100,000. But why no mass murder like today?

It struck me a counter-intuitive that the murder rate 70-plus years ago was 9 per 100,000. After all, everyone knows we have become a more violent nation over the last several decades. So I looked it up. And found Rita is correct. The homicide rate in 1933 was 9.7 per 100K.

According to FBI figures, the rate of “murder and non-negligent manslaughter” in 2003 was 5.7/100K, a decrease of 4. And to avoid cherry picking favorable data, let’s take a look at the years leading up to both 1933 and 2003.

1920 - 6.8
1921 - 8.1
1922 - 8.0
1923 - 7.8
1924 - 8.1
1925 - 8.3
1926 - 8.4
1927 - 8.4
1928 - 8.6
1929 - 8.4
1930 - 8.8
1931 - 9.2
1932 - 9.0
1933 - 9.7

It was not until 1943 that the rate fell below 2003’s rate. The FBI says in 1991 the rate was 9.8, a tenth above 1933’s rate. But beginning the next year the rate started trending strongly downward so that the 2003 rate was -36.7 percent from 1994’s rate, 5.7 v. 9.0.

Looking at other decades of comparison shows that the homicide rates have gone up and down over the years. In fact, from 1870-1910 the murder rate hovered around 1/100K! The overall rate declined by about 50 percent between 1933-1958, when it reached approximately 2003’s figure. By 1990, the rate was back to to 1933’s level. Since then it has plummeted again back to the level of the mid-1950’s. Interestingly, the climb took more than twice as long as the decline. By 2005, the rate had climbed to 5.9, where it remained for 2006.

A graph of murder rates is on this site, be advised that the site has a definite agenda but its raw data seem accurate, based on my readings.

Comments on.

Update: related article here.

Well, it was inevitable and it didn’t take but 24 hours. Yesterday the United Methodist News Service released a piece entitled, “Virginia Tech tragedy reflects gun violence epidemic.” Unsurprisingly, the article is bereft of actual analysis or familiarity with pertinent facts in its call for draconian gun-control laws. For that matter, there’s precious little theology there, too.

The principal quotee is Jim Winkler, head of the UMC’s General Board of Church and Society, based very near the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Mr. Winkler (he is not ordained) is hard Left; he said in May of last year that “Congress should impeach President Bush ‘to advance the kingdom of God.’” Says the UMNS’s article,

The social action agency of The United Methodist Church also renewed the church’s call for governments around the world to ban ownership by the general public of handguns, assault weapons, automatic weapon conversion kits and weapons that cannot be detected by traditional metal-detection devices.

“…Had this ban been in place, this shooting might have been prevented since one of the guns used by the assailant was a 9-mm handgun,” said Jim Winkler, chief executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society.

“We once again call on the Congress to ban all handguns and assault weapons so that our communities will be safer and so that this endless cycle of violence can be ended,” Winkler said in an April 17 statement, one day after the shootings in Blacksburg, Va., left 33 people dead.

Well, not even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called for more gun legislation, but there’s nothing like getting in front of the curve, eh, Jim? The Washington Post reports:

“I think we ought to be thinking about the families and the victims and not speculate about future legislative battles that might lie ahead,” said Reid, a view expressed by other Democratic leaders the day after the shootings that left 33 dead on the campus of Virginia Tech. . . .

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was one of very few lawmakers to defer pushing for gun control in the early hours after the shootings. “There will be time to debate the steps needed to avert such tragedies,” he said on Monday, “but today, our thoughts and prayers go to their families.” . . .

I call upon Mr. Winkler to apologize for politicizing the horrors of the Virginia Tech tragedy even before all the families of the murdered have been officially notified.

Be that as it may, the entire tenor of the platform recalls the Aesop’s fable of the mice who wanted to bell the cat.

LONG ago, the mice had a general council to consider what measures they could take to outwit their common enemy, the Cat. Some said this, and some said that; but at last a young mouse got up and said he had a proposal to make, which he thought would meet the case. “You will all agree,” said he, “that our chief danger consists in the sly and treacherous manner in which the enemy approaches us. Now, if we could receive some signal of her approach, we could easily escape from her. I venture, therefore, to propose that a small bell be procured, and attached by a ribbon round the neck of the Cat. By this means we should always know when she was about, and could easily retire while she was in the neighbourhood.”

This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got up and said: “That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?” The mice looked at one another and nobody spoke. Then the old mouse said: “IT IS EASY TO PROPOSE IMPOSSIBLE REMEDIES.”

The possibility that Congress will “ban all handguns and assault weapons” (a meaningless term, that) is exactly zero. In fact, the arm’s length that even Senators Reid and Kennedy put gun control, at least this week, almost certainly speaks not only to a basic decency that Mr. Winkler evidently lacks, but a tacit acknowledgement that stringent gun-control measures such as Mr. Winkler urges is a losing issue.

I also titled this post “ringing in the eschaton” because church people are prone to a particular kind of dangerous delusion, namely that the peaceable kingdom can be achieved by fiat, that the perfection of human beings and society can be wished into existence. I have to wonder whether Mr. Winkler thinks everyone should sing “Kumbaya” also. For any observer of the national scene who is actually serious about his work can see that Mr. Winkler has proposed exactly nothing. He has said nothing more than, “let all guns disappear and let everyone live in peace. Selah!”

This is a decidedly unserious approach to the aftermath of the Virginia Tech murders. It has all the intellectual depth of a bumper sticker.

Mr. Winkler is also quoted thus:

… “In 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that there were 10,100 deaths by firearms in the United States. This represents an average of four deaths for every 100,000 people in the United States. By contrast, England, Wales, Scotland, and Canada averaged .54 deaths for every 100,000 people.

Well, I’ve long covered the rocketing gun-crime rate in the UK, most lately in February. Since the enactment in 1996 of some of the strictest gun laws in the world, gun crime has more than doubled. As long ago as 2003, the left-of-center Guardian reported, “Gun crime spreads ‘like a cancer’ across Britain.”

Few people paid much attention when, late last month, Shabir Hussain and his friend Mohammed Shabir were jailed for 11 years at Birmingham Crown Court. Working with rudimentary tools in the basements of their homes, the pair had set themselves up as armourers to the local underworld, converting blank firing pistols into lethal weapons.

They produced more than 170 guns and sold them to gangs from Bristol to Manchester. …

According to the Association of Chief Police Officers, gun crime is ‘growing like a cancer’ and spreading to smaller communities.

Police intelligence suggests Shabir and Hussain were the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of similar gun factories have been set up in homes across the country and detectives admit guns are being put on the streets more quickly than they can take them off. …

So much for banning the manufacture of handguns. Mr. Winkler continues,

“The presence of guns in U.S. society has not led to greater security but in fact has undermined the general sense of safety.”

Mr. Winkler, meet Mr. Bradford B. Wiles, a Virginia tech graduate student. Writing presciently last August, after two people were shot at the school, Mr. Wiles said,

I had entrusted my safety, and the safety of others to the police. In light of this, there are a few things I wish to point out.

First, I never want to have my safety fully in the hands of anyone else, including the police. …

Of all of the emotions and thoughts that were running through my head that morning, the most overwhelming one was of helplessness.

That feeling of helplessness has been difficult to reconcile because I knew I would have been safer with a proper means to defend myself.

I would also like to point out that when I mentioned to a professor that I would feel safer with my gun, this is what she said to me, “I would feel safer if you had your gun.”

What would Mr. Wiles say this week?

In my seminary, a professor officially listed as “distinguished” said that America’s “mainline denominations have a well-deserved reputation for having nothing to do with anything important.” Under Jim Winkler’s administration of a UMC general board, the accusation sticks like glue.

ABC News:

WASHINGTON Jan 19, 2007 (AP)— The House rolled back billions of dollars in oil industry subsidies Thursday in what supporters hailed as a new direction in energy policy toward more renewable fuels. Critics said the action would reduce domestic oil production and increase reliance on imports.

Yes, it will. One of the fundamentals of economics is, “That which is subsidized, increases.” Likewise, remove the subsidy and its beneficiary will fall. Without arguing here whether oil companies should even get industry-specific subsidies in the first place, if the whole Congress votes to remove them, and the president signs, the economic effect will be to reduce oil companies’ financial incentive to explore and pump domestic oil. The reason is that the House’s measure targets for deletion exactly the tax breaks that provide incentives for domoestic production.

The legislation would impose a “conservation fee” on oil and gas taken from deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico; scrap nearly $6 billion worth of oil industry tax breaks enacted by Congress in recent years; and seek to recoup royalties lost to the government because of an Interior Department error in leases issued in the late 1990s.

What the House, or at least the Members who voted aye, seem not to understand is that the price of petroleum is completely internationalized because the market is, too. If US oil companies can produce oil wholesale cheaper than its retail, or spot market, price on the international market, then they will sell the oil on the market and make a profit. At least the oil company will sell internationally the oil it produces that is excess to its domestic-retail capacity.

But if the cost of producing domestic oil is greater than its price on the international market, then companies shut down domestic production (never entirely, of course, because the restart costs would be prohibitive when/if the world price rose again and companies need a retained production capacity to surge production in that case). Since federal taxes are a major part of overall production costs for the US oil industry, increasing those taxes by removing subsidies simply raises the costs of domestic production. That makes it more likely that the oil companies will simply cut domestic production and make up the difference in imports.

But let gets real, folks. This whole thing isn’t about the money anyway, not really. It’s about eeevvviiiillll oooiiilll. They are simply making too much money, many people think, and therefore must be punished. Well, any product that is consumed by 100 percent of the population is certainly going to return huge revenues to its producer. Just wait until agri-fuels become Big Agrifuel or hydrogen becomes Big Hydrogen and see what their revenues are. (Yes, every person in the country, without exception, uses petroleum products, including persons who don’t own a car or use air conditioning and heat their homes only with wood.)

But wait, one may object, it’s not the gross revenue that is the point about hitting Big Oil, it’s the fact that their profits are so high.

Really? In October 2005 the Washington Post put oil company profits into context:

[I]n 2004 Exxon Mobil earned more money — $25.33 billion — than any other company on the Fortune 500 list of largest corporations. But by another measure of profitability, gross profit margin, it ranked No. 127. …

A $9.9 billion quarterly profit is mostly a function of Exxon Mobil’s size. It had sales of $100 billion this quarter, more than any other U.S. company. … Even so, many companies smaller than Exxon Mobil “earn” more, depending on what measure is used.

Most financial institutions, such as commercial banks, are routinely more profitable than Exxon Mobil was in its third quarter. For example, Exxon Mobil’s gross margin of 9.8 cents of profit for every dollar of revenue pales in comparison to Citigroup Inc.’s 15.7 cents in 2004. By percentage of total revenue, banking is consistently the most profitable industry in America, followed closely by the drug industry.

Altria Group, the maker of Marlboro and other cigarettes, made 22 cents for every dollar of revenue in 2004, and pharmaceutical company Merck made 25.3 cents for every dollar of revenue in 2004.

By other measures, such as profit per employee, return on invested capital and free cash flow, Exxon Mobil is nowhere near a standout.

Let’s compare oil to iPods:

Apple, Inc. on Wednesday reported record revenue of $7.1 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.0 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share, for the quarter that ended Dec. 30 2006, the company’s first fiscal quarter of 2007.

That’s a profit of more than 14.3 percent, five points higher than Exxon Mobil’s. Yet there’s no bill in Congress to impose windfall-profit taxes on Big Computer - or Big Banking, either. Congress may also need to consider that it might be about to bite that hand that feeds it. Business & Media Institute:

The Tax Foundation’s Scott Hodge and Jonathan Williams noted in an October 26 report that “in recent decades governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest U.S. oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits.” In fact, “since 1977, there have been only three years (1980, 1981, and 1982) in which domestic oil industry profits exceeded government gas tax collections.”

When pump prices rose to record levels in the months after Hurricane Katrina, some states cut gas taxes to give consumers relief. Will imposing higher production costs through higher federal taxes put that pressure on state governments again?

Back to the ABC News story:

Democrats said the legislation could produce as much as $15 billion in revenue. Most of that money would pay to promote renewable fuels such as solar and wind power, alternative fuels including ethanol and biodiesel and incentives for conservation.

Just where do the think that $15 billion will come from? Reduced oil company profits? Not a chance: company managers are ethically bound to maximize profits for their shareholders. CEOs who deliberately decline to do so get fired, and should be. No CEO of any kind of company would fail to pass on to the consumer the cost of increased corporate taxes as much as possible. This supposed $15 billion windfall (why is it okay for the feds to get a windfall but not private businesses?) will come from the only place all taxes can possibly come from in a free-market economy: the pockets of consumers, you and me. “Corporate taxes” is a myth, a piece of bookkeeping legerdemain . All taxes in America, of whatever nature or name, all always really paid by consumers. Why? Because that’s where the money is.

Thanks, House - just at a time when pump prices are finally falling, you couldn’t resist meddling. Way to look out for the little guy, the painters and plumbers and pizza drivers and salespersons who have to buy gas to make a living. Thank you also for smacking the aviation industry with higher fuel prices when they have just begun to return to profitablity.

What you have done, House, is effectually impose a highly regressive sales tax. And like all sales taxes, its marginal costs will be highest for the poor and low-income people of the country. Oh, how you cried that the minimum wage wasn’t enough to support a family of four, but oh, how eager you are to gobsmack those min-wage workers with higher heating and transportation and food prices by raising the price of oil production! Well done, well done! You have, as usual, lived down to our ever-decreasing low expectations.

Pessimism abounds these days and if you are one who understands the gravity of the threat of our enemies in the War on Terror you have reason to be pessimistic Too many don’t even believe we are really in a war. Our leaders who know we are at war are taking a minimalist approach to the war. No one with access to a bully pulpit is effectively articulating what is at stake in the war. God bless President George W. Bush but even as he has had the courage to take the punches of the opposition he still has failed to communicate effectively with the nation and to commit fully to victory.

I am reminded of the 1970s - a time when not only many in America were rooting for communism but when many actually believed we had lost the moral high ground and that it would be democratic capitalism eventually left on the ash heap of history. Fortunately we found a leader who effectively reminded us of the goodness of our system and values and who had the courage to commit to victory. We are fortunate that he was able to lead us to victory by committing the necessary resources - and thereby prevented us from ever having to commit the ultimate resources of total war against communism.

We are there again. We are really nowhere new. Today many of our own doubt our nation’s moral standing, many are rooting against our victory, and many believe we have already lost. Once again we need a leader who reminds us of who we really are as a nation, who can communicate articulately what is at stake, who like Bush is willing to take the punches, and who is willing to commit the resources necessary to achieve victory before we find ourselves in the corner with only the resource of total war left to use. I am waiting for that leader to emerge to inspire us to believe what is good about us and to inspire us to victory.

So with all of that in mind, with our minimalist approach to terrorism (Islamic militancy, jihadism, your term of choice…) and the lack of national unity we are seeing in our government today, the following is the speech I’d like to hear and the plan I’d like to see:

There is great fear that exists in the world today.

Here at home in these United States many fear we are revisiting the unpleasant times of Vietnam - that we are being dragged into a quagmire in which we cannot win. But in fact we have more in common with the unpleasant times of the late 1930s that led to the abandonment of free nations - Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and others to Nazi tyranny and millions of people abandoned to die horrifically in the Holocaust. Out of our fear of a despotic dictator not even 100 years ago we abandoned others, thinking we could buy our own national security. But in the process of that fearful appeasement and isolationism we were abandoning our own security, that is, until a man who had the courage to tell us that we had nothing to fear but fear itself led us out of fear. That man led us from the fear of economic collapse when he first came to office with those words and his words were every bit as applicable a few years later when he led us out of our fear of Nazism. Then a nation that was divided at that time - with 82% of Americans opposing potential war with the Nazis and thus unwilling to face the truth of the threat - finally united in a common cause for the survival of our freedom. Roosevelt refused to be led by that fear and instead led us out of fear as the institutions of America united behind him seeing the security of Americans at stake. Roosevelt saw the moral imperative of the victory of freedom over the evil of tyranny.

Today there is also fear abroad. But it is not us our enemies fear. What they do fear is what we stand for. Today medieval powerbrokers fear granting women rights. Today medieval powerbrokers fear educating their people. Today medieval powerbrokers fear the economic independence of their people. Today medieval powerbrokers fear liberty for their people. Today medieval powerbrokers fear allowing people to worship in different ways. It is not that these medieval powerbrokers do not understand our ways and the ways of freedom. They fully understand and they fully reject it because it threatens their medieval position of domination.

There is also another fear abroad. A fear of the people dominated by these overlords. They fear that we will abandon them to these medieval powerbrokers as we abandoned over 65,000 free people to be executed by communists in South Vietnam after 1975; as we abandoned over 250,000 South Vietnamese to communist reeducation camps, as we abandoned over two million Vietnamese who said “you will not abandon us and we will not abandon freedom” as they became the boat people of the 1970s. They fear abandonment as we abandoned Beirut in the early 1980s after we were attacked there; as we abandoned Afghanistan once we saw their purpose as served in the late 1980s; as we abandoned Somalis in Mogadishu and Shiites in Iraq in early 1990s. They fear they too will be abandoned as we abandoned so many in the West when we were willing to abandon Eastern Europe to communism until a man said to tear down the wall that represented the enemy’s fear of liberty.

Our allies fear we will abandon them and our enemies are counting on that. Today - sad to say, but this is the ugly truth - our allies and enemies alike wonder if we are gutless. They believe we lack will and perseverance.

So today to answer that question we have to face the facts of our sad actions - and inactions of our past - that the fearful policies of appeasement, isolationism and abandonment have never worked when we’ve tried it and are in fact immoral. Those policies empowered our enemies and cost more lives in the long run. The policies of Churchill, Roosevelt and Reagan are our model if we want security at home and abroad. We have to face the mistakes of our past when we acted fearfully but we can also look to our past for hope when we finally acted with courage and confidence.

We are not gutless. We know - the American people know - that when we abandon our friends that we are then abandoning our own security. After the 1930s we realized we needed willpower and perseverance and we freed the world from the Nazi yoke. During the 1980s we realized we needed willpower and perseverance and we freed millions from the shackles of communism. And we maintained our peace and security. As in the 1930s and 1980s, we today have the ability to summon the superior industry, technology, military doctrine, and moral superiority of liberty that no other nation on earth can do. So the question today is will we once again have the will and perseverance.

Let me tell you something. Way down deep Americans always have and Americans always will. Americans know that ours is a unique place in history that respects life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We know we are the nation the world turns to when earthquakes and tsunamis occur. We know we are the nation even whose poor are the envy of third world nations. We know we are the nation who gives more in aid - both public and private - than any other nation on earth. We know we are the nation to whom the oppressed look for hope and help. We are the nation to whom the sick throughout the world look for cures. We are the nation where churches, synagogues, mosques, and secularists live side by side without constant fear of firebombings or death squads. Ours is a nation where a speech like this can be given without the fear of literally having ones tongue cut out. Americans know that is why today we simultaneously fight a battle with medieval powerbrokers who fear those principles while we also fight to control our borders as people from all over the world invade those borders not to suppress liberty but to find it. We know ours is a nation worth defending and of values worth promoting. We count on it and our friends and those who yearn for liberty count on us.

Americans deserve leaders who have as much guts as they have. Americans deserve leadership that is farsighted and not shortsighted, that can see past the next election, that can see the ramifications tomorrow of abandoning your friends today. Americans of tomorrow deserve leadership today that will not abandon them. My friends, if we do not have the will and perseverance demanded to protect and secure our liberty today then we had better hope our children have it because they will need every ounce of it. Roosevelt told us not to fear our own fear. Reagan told us we could have peace by standing strong and looking to the future with hope and confidence.

Today I present a five point plan that puts our fear behind us and that calls for national unity for the security of our values. We have been nickel-and-diming our security and future. In many cases we have refused to see the seriousness of our enemies. That is a policy of fear and the path to failure. Today we must:

One, keep our enemies out of America by defeating them abroad wherever they may be. This means in the Philippines, in Somalia, in Afghanistan, in the Horn of Africa, and yes in Iraq. We must strike at terrorist cells and confront the nations that support them. In Iraq we must seal her borders and crush the militias with whatever it takes including the broad use of US military might. Telling the Iraqis they must fend for themselves is like telling an alcoholic to remain sober in a bar. These long suffering people are addicted to survival and if we do not assist them they will survive in whatever way they can. The patrons in their neighborhood fear liberty as the drunks in a bar fear the wagon. Our allies will only fight with us if they believe we will stick by them. Our friends who desire liberty need our help and it is the only way we will maintain our own liberty.

Two, we must unleash the free market which leads to freedom. We must do more in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere with a responsible and aggressive Marshall Plan. We must provide security so that these programs have the opportunity to take root. We must cut out bureaucracy and we must increase the presence of our civilian agencies in addition to our military in these regions.

Third, we must fight an aggressive economic and energy war against terrorist groups and the nations that support them - including especially Iran, North Korea and Venezuela. Our energy and economic polices must not enable our enemies. In some cases this will cause short term losses for some American interests and hardships for our people but is crucial to causing the collapse of our enemies and our long term viability. We must isolate our enemies economically and become more self-sufficient ourselves.

Four, we must rebuild our military in a robust way. Transformation does not mean tiny. What is does mean is more flexibility, greater mobility, and soldier skills that relate to effectiveness in different cultures. But we need boots on ground to build relationships and trust and mutual security. Today our nation spends less of its GDP on national defense than at any time since Pearl Harbor. That is unconscionable in a day when we are actively at war. In a world in which our enemies seek our total destruction we can only achieve peace through strength. Strength is what they respect. And they must fear us. Diplomacy is preferred but it only works when it has teeth.

Finally, we must use our bully pulpit. We need to call upon the leaders of the world religions for regular and public summits between the leaders of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The religious leaders of the world need to come out of their ivory towers while their people are suffering. We must support groups who seek liberty throughout the world with moral, economic, and every level of support necessary. We must announce hope to all those who seek liberty across the airways of a Radio Free Liberty that gives hope to the oppressed throughout the world. We must speak directly to the peoples of the Middle East and across the world that we stand by them even as their own governments oppress them and impoverish them for the sake of their own personal power. We must kindle their hopes for when the time comes that they too may be free.

Essentially, we must make our enemies afraid and must give the people of the world hope. There was a day when so many feared Hitler, when so many later feared Brezhnev, and then Saddam. Today many fear Bin Laden, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il and Chavez. But the day came when Hitler feared us, Andropov feared us and Saddam feared us while those they oppressed found their hope in us. If these tyrants of today are smart then Bin Laden, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il and Chavez will fear us too while we bring hope to others and security to ourselves.

Our best days are ahead. The best days of all humanity are ahead. Do we have the will and perseverance to make those days happen or will we abandon our challenge and leave our children to do tomorrow what we refuse to do today? Will we leave them to carry out the last resort because we failed to carry out lesser but no less necessary measures today?

You know the answer and so do I. Let’s do what we have to do. Americans - have no fear. Friends - have no fear. And to our enemies - you have once again awakened a sleeping giant. Freedom and security are on the march once again. History has brought us here. Today the wolves have entered the sheepgate and they must be engaged. We are morally compelled to do so. Jefferson said the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. McArthur said there is no substitute for victory. Make no mistake. We will conquer our fear. Liberty will triumph over oppression. We will be secure. Yes, we do have the willpower and we will persevere.”

That’s a presidential speech I’d like to hear, and soon. Today, from what I can see, John McCain and Joe Lieberman may be the only people at the levels of high political leadership who get this to a great degree. Bush understands the threat but it seems only McCain and Lieberman understand that we must go all out. One of the problems is that ours is largely a nation that goes about its business as if there were no threat looming over us - at the recommendation of the Bush administration by the way. A mistake, a big mistake in a day when people must understand what is at stake. Ours is the only nation that can morally stand up to tyranny. However it happened - and whether you like it or not - history has brought us here. Others depend on us and believe it or not we depend on others if we are to maintain security and a viable economy such as the one we are accustomed to. It is a moral imperative that stand for and commit to liberty.

Someone needs to make that clear and to commit us to preserving just that.