Some are More Equal than Others

Some are More Equal than Others

As a retired FBI Agent, I can state unequivocally that in the many cases I investigated and presented to the United States Attorney for prosecution, I never once told the USA what to do with the case. Several of my retired friends have assured me they had similar experiences. Somewhere, there probably is an ex-Agent who will tell you he made such a decision himself on behalf of the USA; stranger things have happened. But the decision as to whether to prosecute a case lies entirely within the purview of the USA or an Assistant USA—or the Attorney General of the United States--NOT the FBI.

Some Agents have tried to persuade the USA to prosecute a case that they felt strongly about, mostly with limited success. However, if the Agent is unable to prove any of the elements of the crime as set out in the United States Code of Criminal Justice, then the matter is dropped—period.

It is difficult to imagine a bona fide Agent setting out in a report for the prosecution all the elements of the crime, stating affirmatively that the subject had violated each and every element of that crime—and then averring that it does not rise to the level of a prosecutable case. He has just assured his listeners of the obverse, and now he says he does not recommend prosecution. That is insane.  

I have heard that COMEY might have chosen this route so that the people could be apprised of the facts, because a lengthy Grand Jury might prolong indictment until after the election. Fine. That is one way of doing it. But why not do the right thing and present the evidence to Attorney General LORETTA LYNCH? If she refused to prosecute or to immediately put the evidence before a Grand Jury, COMEY should have tendered his resignation, with an even fuller explanation that he is compelled to resign because of inaction on the part of the Attorney General in prosecuting a very viable case. By his failure to pursue this prosecution vigorously, COMEY soiled the reputation of the FBI and American justice in general.

The Director tried to assure anyone who would listen that the decision rendered in this matter was not to be construed as favorable to the rich and powerful—that there is not another system of justice that applies to the poor and unimportant. Were you reassured by that statement? Neither was I.

Confidence in our system of jurisprudence has been steadily eroding since the administration of President Bill Clinton. The Director of the FBI made this decision in the matter of Hillary Clinton’s misuse of her email while serving as Secretary of State so that the Attorney General would not have to. That she would have made the same decision is little doubted. Taking it out of her hands saved Ms. LYNCH and the President from embarrassment and criticism. I believe the result will be a further hastening of the loss of confidence that the American people feel they can place in the very system that is ostensibly there to protect them.

Reaching the Point of No Return

Reaching the Point of No Return

We are rapidly approaching a point of no return in American politics. Never have there been such radical differences in the direction that the separate parties are attempting to lead us.       

The secular humanists—you may prefer ‘progressives’, ‘liberals’ or ‘Democrats’, but henceforth I intend to call them just what they are; Secular Humanists—desire to lead our country away from the foundation laid by our forefathers. That foundation had a basis in English common law, bolstered by the Judeo-Christian ethos. It distinctly delineated right from wrong and suggested that its citizenry be gently taught to freely and voluntarily go beyond simple obedience of those laws so as to not infringe upon the rights of others.

Read this next part slowly, because I believe it is one of the fundamentals of our Constitution: Freedoms never experienced by any civilization from the beginning of time were deliberately provided in our founding document. Why? Was it because the founders believed that man is inherently good and continuing day by day to get better? No, I don’t think the founding fathers were of that opinion. Those freedoms were set in place with the firm belief that the people of America would never purposely choose to separate themselves from the beneficence of a loving God nor reject His easily understood rules for the conduct of a civilized society. They rightly believed to do so would be the epitome of folly.

For close to two hundred years, that prophecy held mostly true. However, something happened in the sixties that started first a slow, almost indiscernible erosion of God’s authority and the rule of law. That erosion was slowed temporarily in the eighties, but then rapidly picked up speed again in the nineties and continues until it threatens to sweep away everything good, honest and worthwhile in its path.

The enemy of our society, the republican form of governance and of capitalism itself is—Secular Humanism.

 

AMERICA'S QUEST FOR THE PRUDENT PRESIDENT

The multiplicity of challenges that confront an American President animate Murphy’s Law, to wit, "anything that can go wrong will go wrong". This adage should be indelibly ingrained in the Oval office ceiling a la Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel fresco. In fact I suggest an amendment to Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution to state, “Any attempt to remove this warning from the Oval office ceiling is an impeachable offense”. This eccentric effort to caution America’s chief executives of the perils of the job may seem a smidgen over zealous, but it’s energy emanates from the seeming lack of prudentiality exhibited by the current occupant of America’s highest office.

If there is one quality that is essential for American Presidents to inhabit it is the virtue of prudence. Prudence is one of Christianity’s four cardinal virtues along with justice, fortitude and temperance. Prudence is known as the “mother” of all the virtues since it is both a moral and intellectual virtue and is considered the measure of the three other cardinal virtues. A prudent person recognizes their moral duty and the good means to accomplish it. They know the good and they do the good. St. Thomas Aquinas succinctly defined prudence to be “right reason in action".

Prudence is elevated as the supreme virtue endemic to the true statesman and for maintaining good government. To quote Russell Kirk from his book “The Politics of Prudence”,

“To be “prudent” means to be judicious, cautious, sagacious. Plato, and later Burke, instruct us that in the statesman, prudence is the first of the virtues. A prudent statesman is one who looks before he leaps; who takes long views; who knows that politics is the art of the possible.”

Prudence was distinguished by our founding fathers as the beacon for maintaining a stable government and ordered society. They memorialized this belief in the preamble to Declaration of Independence wherein it states, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes”.

If the prudent person is one with the acuity to govern and lead through responsible deliberation and ethical and moral action, then the American presidency, due to its supremacy over economic, military and global affairs and it’s influence in societal mores, is the public office most demanding of this virtue. But prudence is surely not a ubiquitous characteristic that is readily representative in every sitting President or any given crop of presidential candidates. It is a virtue acquired and perfected by experience, and it is woefully absent in the character of America’s current chief executive.

President Obama’s apologists will deem his policy failures as a result of his inexperience or perhaps the misfortunes of an inherited economic calamity. Nevertheless his record as chief executive is an example of manifest imprudence rife with carelessness and partisanship bordering on the corrupt and the criminal. President Obama’s policy failures have taken America on the road to Avernus with his two-pronged strategy of (1) economic bankruptcy and (2) undermining America’s First Principles and the Constitution.

The litany of President Obama’s offenses is extensive, but among the nefarious accounts are his efforts to rectify a damaged American economy through a taxpayer-funded trillion dollar stimulus package rife with political cronyism; circumventing constitutional authority and congressional oversight by appointing a plethora of presidential czars; appropriating a sixth of the American economy through constitutionally-challenged health care reform; pitting state against nation on health care reform and immigration enforcement and citizen against citizen with his class warfare rhetoric. He ordered the Justice department to not defend federal statutes (DOMA) and abandoned America’s allies in Eastern Europe (Poland and Czechoslovakia) and the Middle East (Israel). While the world awaits a cogent foreign policy doctrine amidst global Arab uprisings and terrorist-state nuclear development President Obama tramples on the sacrosanct First Amendment rights of the Roman Catholic Church.

It is not simply President Obama's wrongheaded public policy that is troubling, but his honest disdain for those who venerate a divinity. He was recorded for posterity when he sarcastically described a faction of the electorate that “…cling to guns or religion”, attacking not only their belief systems but also their constitutional rights under the First and Second Amendments.

This is hardly the stuff of the prudent leader. No, these are not the missteps of inexperience or the product of a legacy presidency. These are the results of the careful planning of a foolish, close-minded and stubbornly selfish collectivist ideologue unwilling to recognize his mistakes and their lasting effects on the society he has sworn to defend and protect.

Of all the necessary leadership traits for an American President prudence is paramount since it fuses wisdom with good governance, and if not Mr. Obama to inhabit this virtue then who? As America faces the 2012 presidential election it approaches a crossroad of choices for the country’s direction and prudence is the virtue of choice for presidential consideration.

The GOP candidates vying for their party’s nomination certainly trump Mr. Obama in terms of experience in governance. The question remains as to whether they possess the prudence to govern in a wise and good fashion. The sheer magnitude of this question should cause the electorate to look within themselves and introspectively search their very souls for prudence when selecting America’s next President.