THE MOUNTAIN OBSERVER

Vol. 1                                       Issue 10                                             11/25//01

             A FREEWHEELING CONSERVATIVE COMMENTARY DEDICATED

            TO THE DEFENSE OF FREEDOM AND THE NEXT GENERATION.

                                        READER DIALOG ENCOURAGED.

Produced occasionally when I'm good and ready, but probably at least 10 times a year.

J.E. Sohmer P O Box 129, Jefferson, CO 80456

Fly over country, where the air is thin and the hunting and fishing are good

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SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES:  "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."                 (It's not about hunting ducks)

Blowing off steam:

Recent comments by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson make it necessary for me to comment on an area of discussion that I have made a point to restrict in these letters. There is an enormously important issue, in western culture generally, and the American experiment specifically, with regard to the nature of the relationship between a Higher Authority and mankind.

The fact of such a relationship is critical to an understanding of the American Republic and when the nexus is pertinent I will continue to refer to it.  However, for the purpose of these letters it is neither necessary nor proper for me to engage in detailed theological discussion.   (I am working those issues elsewhere.) However, in response to the Falwell /Robertson imbroglio I would suggest three things to those of you who consider yourselves to be spokesmen for God:

A)     You need to more clearly identify and articulate the basic premises from which you speak.

B)    You need to exercise much greater care in defining your terms.

C) Your seemingly automatic assumption that the intended audience understands and accepts your premises, spoken and unspoken, and your definition of           terms, is most likely wrong and counterproductive.

Failure to consider these points begs a question as to your objective and agenda.  It has been my experience that theologians have been frequently very sloppy and self-assuming in this regard, and looking in from the outside you can appear very silly.  Before you jump off the dock make sure there is water in the lake.  I, myself, am working these issues in great detail elsewhere, but that is a private matter.

Speaking of definitions, in the course of defending the American Republic and the Constitution I would suggest that we need to be really careful with the words terrorist and terrorism.  The case could be made that the Internal Revenue Service is our foremost domestic terrorist organization, its creation by Congress notwithstanding.  Following closely behind is the phalanx of left-wing Liberal Statist sexual and racial "victim" groups and their pleaders in the press, media and the academy speaking through the code of political correctness.   All of these institutions are subversive to freedom and the founding concepts of the American Republic.

If there were any constructive consequence to the events of September it would have to be the new national examination of immigration issues.   Any serious attempt to save and restore the Republic will require some major surgery to our laws, policies and procedures.  The nation has been running out of control for some time now on the immigration issue.

The laws currently on the books are not enforced; Congress has never provided the resources to do so.  Furthermore, Democrats have a stake in a process that tends to create left-wing votes and Republicans flee in fear of being called "racist" (You may have noticed that I don't give a damn).  There needs to be a national database tracking the background and whereabouts of every single person within our borders who is not a full citizen.  Every non-citizen needs an ID card that can be "swiped" by authorities to gain instant access to the central database, and regular surveillance and review is essential.   We need to set-aside the idiot notion that non-citizens have any rights whatsoever under the Constitution and if the courts have created a problem then we need to go fix it.  Floating in on a log should not be an automatic qualifier by and of itself.  We need to take a hard look at our immigration quotas and rules of admission and we need to round up all the illegals and send them packing.  We need to restore a respect for our borders, the laws of the land and, incidentally, the significance of the Statue of Liberty.  Arab terrorists don't qualify, Elian Gonzalas did.

Bush Score Card:

            "My fellow American's, let's roll!"

            Good Job:

Prosecution of the war in Afghanistan, even heroic if one understands the logistics nightmare set up by nearly a decade of procurement and maintenance neglect.  By the time this is distributed we will be in the mop-up phase, which will be the toughest and perhaps the longest effort.  Iraq is next, or better be.   Otherwise it has all been a waste of time, money and lives.

Your talk to the country on November 8 was good.  The national hunger for a leader has been palpable and you are accomplishing a satisfaction of that need.  Yes, the country has a real President.  "My fellow American's, let's roll!" 

Your address to the UN General Assembly on November 10 was even better.  Basically you told them to fish or cut bait. My prediction is that eventually they will have to be told what to do and not do.  Frankly, we ought to get out of the organization and ship them off shore.  Bureaucrats focused on consensus do not provide leadership or any action for that matter that threatens to upset their cozy little scam, which is mainly to meddle in our affairs and separate us from our money.

You also very neatly set up Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and other fellow fakers.  Some of us, however, hope you mean it.  Your illusion to a Palestinian state is premature and comes across as a weak-kneed concession.  That is how the thugs will read it and that's a national security issue. I trust you have serious plans for Iraq and Yasser Arafat.

Pushing to keep airport security out of the hands of bureaucrat's and public service unions and in a position where failure to follow strict Federal guidelines results in immediate dismissal, however in the end the Statists won.  I understand your need to sign the bill, but every conservative I know understands the fiasco that is about to be created.  The betting is on how long it will take the public to figure this out and demand a reversal.

Your authorization of special military tribunals for non-citizen terrorists is excellent, on the condition that a firing squad is stationed next door.  Where do I sign up?

Notice that your Liberal critics prefer some sort of international tribunal.  They always have this knee-jerk       instinct to undermine the American Republic with an internationalist "solution".   It was America that was attacked, and in the heartland Americans take care of their own affairs.

Not So Good:

Your economic stimulus package is the right idea but your own Treasury Secretary is getting in bed with all the demand siders and wrecking the idea.   You need to push the supply side imperatives of across-the-board cuts and elimination of capital gains.  The only way this economy is going to really get restarted is to re-invigorate capital investment.  Greenspan and Rueben have it all wrong.  For too long the Federal Reserve has been   pushing the notion that monetary policy manipulation can be substituted for bad fiscal policy with the result that the country does poorly at both.  Congress has had no sense of responsibility.  The Federal Reserve needs to focus on the steady value of the dollar. Congress needs to re-establish fiscal sanity (it won't), and you all need to re-link the dollar to gold (you won't do that either). While you're at it you ought to push for the repeal the 16th Amendment.  Rather, you are engaged in coalition building with Liberals.

Americans need to be released from the bondage of direct taxation.  Jobs are the result of private investment, not government social programs and handouts.  People have a right to the money they earn.  Government bureaucrats and private citizens and corporations with their hand in the till are using other people’s money, and that is immoral.  It ought to be a crime.

            Terrible:

Quit using Israel as a whipping boy. They have the right to defend themselves, as do we.  I'm getting sick and tired of this game of moral equivalence with the Palestinians and our continued funding of Yasser Arafat.  At the same time you are trying to re-cast China as a friend and partner.  All of this is utter nonsense and the reason so many are yet to be convinced that you have the will and the fortitude to follow through on your stated commitment to seek out and destroy terrorists, and those who harbor them, "everywhere".  What is also conveniently missing is a precise definition of "terrorism". While I understand the political utility of this imprecision under the immediate circumstances, I am deeply troubled by the long-range implications, both foreign and domestic.  Somehow this allows you to exclude the Chinese and, by implication, include the Israelis.  This is pitiful.  Yes, and then there are those rich Saudi princes who consider themselves equipped to lecture us on foreign policy as they fund Osama bin Laden. 

Perhaps you are getting too distracted with all this coalition business at the expense of American national interests.  Your father made the same mistake in 1991.  Remember that our Capital is in Washington, DC, not Turtle Bay.

American lefties are now running around trying to make the case that the events of 9/11 prove their case for big government.  No, it proves the need for the Federal level to focus its resources on the constitutionally prescribed function of national defense and foreign affairs.  Big Federal level unconstitutional meddling in state and local issues is only a distraction of time and resources away from true constitutional responsibilities.

It is also time for cybernerds to recognize the fact that cyberspace is, in fact, a public domain with corresponding implications for the Fourth Amendment.  Your system, in your house, is yours.  However, the moment you click on the net you've stepped out the front door and onto the street.

Wall Street & Main Street:

Continuing to cut interest rates alone will not cut the mustard.  The first mistake is the premise that the government or the Federal Reserve actually does control the rates.  The real rates are determined by the market and the Federal Reserve is forced to follow. Furthermore, all this hocus-pocus about interest rates presupposes a subscription to demand side (Keynesian) economics that has mis-identified underlying structural problems for years.  The sparkplug of economic growth and prosperity is marketplace freedom and investment friendly policy.  In an ideal world this would include           elimination of all income taxes.  In the current world this requires the scaling back of as much taxation as possible          for everyone, but with a heavy emphasis and priority on business taxes and capital gains.  In 1962 Jack Kennedy understood this, and was the first President to successfully demonstrate the wisdom of supply side     policies against the Keynesian conventional wisdom.

Ad Nausium:

On the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution OJ Billyboy lays bare his political orientation to the students of Georgetown University.  It wasn't necessary, we've understood him for years.   Fundamentally, he is a communist.

Nuclear weapons technical professionals have maintained for a long time that the failure to continue an underground weapons testing program would necessarily result in a continuing degradation of the safety and operational effectiveness of our inventory.  Perhaps there are certain caves and caverns in eastern Afghanistan that would afford us the opportunity to re-think our national amnesia on these matters and renew our test program.  Then we would be better prepared to engage the real threat, which percolates, in underground structures in Iraq.  This effort would also fit with our plans with the Russians to reduce the total inventory of warheads, but that is another discussion.

Rather than going in up front with large numbers of American ground forces, we are utilizing to the maxim extent possible the native Afghan forces. While some have criticized this approach to be cowardly I would       suggest that on an international level this might prove politically astute.   Encouraging a primary role for Afghan forces on the ground establishes their investment in the result.  The post-war political consequences in the region remain to be seen, but eventually they need to assume responsibility and we will need to get out.

It is time to again revisit hate crimes.  I find it interesting that those pushy Liberals who consider themselves to be the first in line to defend freedom of speech (ACLU types) are also among the first to promote the notion of "hate crimes".

A). "Hate crimes" require an examination and prosecution of what someone is thinking. Where does that go and how does one get there?  (Getting kids to rat on their parents is one currently popular idea.)

B). "Hate crimes" pre-suppose that there are crimes without "hate", e.g. a murder without "hate" is therefore less serious and quite possibly excusable, a favorite Liberal pastime.

C). The targeted incidents are already covered by the conventional criminal code, or are they?  Perhaps the real purpose of the promoters of  "hate crime" laws is thought control, racial and class warfare.  It would seem so to me by definition. 

Those deemed politically incorrect are guilty of a "hate crime".   Those considered politically correct are considered "victims" and most likely abused by their parents or some homophobic white guy with a gun. The real agenda of Liberal Statists pushing politically correct speech and behavior is to promote top down control and destroy individual initiative, freedom and our individual sovereign relationship with God, which is the fundamental building block of the Republic. The concept of "hate crimes" is a powerful weapon in the Statist Liberal toolbox of social division and control.  Those you who casually buy into the poppycock of "hate crime" need to give this some serious thought.

Notice that that the Statist Liberal Democrat Politburo and their auxiliary forces in the mainstream press embrace this "hate crime" concept of politically correctness. I would suggest to you that this is a set-up for raw fascism.  Do the names Hitler, Stalin, Mao-tse Tung, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro or Osama bin Laden ring any bells?  This is the heritage of '60s flower power and '30s fellow traveling.

            And as usual country club Republicans prefer to turn their heads.

And what is this business about David Westin, President of ABC News, an obvious child of the 60's, somehow finding it difficult to conclude that terrorists flying a plane full of passengers into the Pentagon is a moral problem?   Tell me, sir, whether or not someone flying a planeload of people into your office is or is not a moral problem?  Notice that the World Trade Center is not part of the discussion.  One can only conclude that the real problem for this flower child is the American military, which is protecting his right to be an utter jerk.  And this is the same press that thinks it necessary to not only manufacture the news, but to also lecture the American people as to what it is supposed to mean.  Mr. David Westin, go back to J school and stay there.  You people make me puke.

It is plain to me why Liberals hate the idea of missile defense.  A successful American missile defense would pre-empt an opportunity for international manipulation of our affairs and national interests.  Liberals are fundamentally anti-American.  It is time to lay the cards on the table and say what thinking persons know to be true.  Their latest play on the matter is that the attacks on 09/11 somehow prove that missile defense would be a waste of time and money.  This is like saying we shouldn't give cops armored vests because they are more likely to be hit in the head.

Thank you Mr. Ashcroft for your constitutionally based effort recognizing a Federal interest with respect to the defense of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as applied to the issue of "assisted suicide".  This is the       flip side of the abortion issue.  Aside from properly convicted murderers and traitors, the government, state or federal, has no authority under God to referee the death of innocent people.  In the case of adults that is an individual matter between themselves and their Creator. Third parties are out of line.

Note: The proper role of medical doctors is to save lives, heal the sick and relieve pain and suffering, not kill or assist in the killing of people.  Only fascists think otherwise.

            Update on the California power situation:

Statist Governor Grayout Davis is now struggling with how to pay for excess power committed to with long term notes at high and accelerating rates of interest.  Such are the consequences of failure to comprehend free markets and the function of free market pricing. The banks have got the Governor by the yingyang and will not let him off the hook.  The dumb son-of-a-bitch, and the State of California, deserve the consequences. I have not got the slightest sympathy for this Statist train wreck.

Heartland rebellion update:

I find it interesting to observe the widespread appeals to God in the context of patriotic renewal, most especially in the schoolyard and the academy.  Do I dare allow myself a pinch of optimism that the American Republic, one Nation under God, might actually rekindle itself?  To rescue God it will be necessary to re-orient the ACLU, the education establishment and the Courts.  But it is the Republic that needs to be rescued, not God.  Kids, keep praying, and singing God Bless America. Even New York City has been infected.

CURRENT READING RECOMMENDATION:

            1.) EMPIRE: THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE AND ITS RIVALS

                        DOMINIC LIEVEN

                        YALE UNIV PRESS                               486 PGS                                   $35.00

2.) A FAMILIAR EXPOSITION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

                        JOSEPH STORY, ASSOC. JUSTICE 1811-1845

                        REGNERY GATEWAY    1986    

                        REGNERY PUBLISHING                        401 PGS                                   XXX

            3.)  AGAINST ALL HOPE: A MEMOIR OF LIFE IN CASTRO'S GULAG

                        ARMANDO VALLADARES,

                        TRANS BY ANDREW HURLEY

                        ENCOUNTER                                        428 PGS                                   $16.95

            I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one    Nation, under God, with Liberty and Justice for all.                                                                                                       

God Bless America

JIM

            JIM SOHMER

            AMERICAN NATIONALIST CONSERVATIVE

            JEFFERSON, CO 80456

                                                  IN GOD WE TRUST