The Conservatarian

It was with quite a bit of alarm that I read this article at inforwars.net today. I was not alarmed because of what was being done in the name of security, I was alarmed by the deafening silence of it. The government is now legally able, within six months, to get a DNA sample from every child born in the United States. Be it from a cheek swab or heel-stick blood sample, the parents will have no right or say whatsoever in the matter of submitting their children’s genetic samples to the government (at least that is how I am reading this).

Let us step back and look at the implications of this genetic data collection:

1. Unconstitutional collection of your or my child’s DNA 
2. Unwilling experimentation on my child’s DNA 
3. Insurance companies datamining to see who is or is not “insurable” based on the genetic predisposition toward certain diseases (cancer, sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sach’s, diabetes)
4. The outright lack of neccessity of such a program as this

And America is uttering not a word- no, not even a peep.

It is too late to block it by calling your senator, congressman, or the Oval Office. This act was created right under the noses of the American public. I consider myself pretty well plugged into the media, but I have not heard of the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007. Two thousand SEVEN. Last year! And it was signed on May 2nd. We have two options in my opinion: the individual states will refuse to participate (which is unlikely) or we the people can take it to court. Thus far I have read the act, and I can find of no religious or conscientious objection clause in it (if someone knows of one, please point it out to me). This is indeed a frightening thing that has come upon us. I believe Big Brother is trying to become a little god.

Entire aticle at: http://infowars.net/articles/may2008/020507DNA.htm and excerpted below:

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Bush Signs Bill To Take All Newborns’ DNA
Health Council, Congressman Ron Paul warn new law could pave the way for a national DNA database
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, May 2, 2008

President Bush last week signed into law a bill which will see the federal government begin to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the U.S. within six months, a move critics have described as the first step towards the establishment of a national DNA database.
Described as a “national contingency plan” the justification for the new law S. 1858, known as The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007, is that it represents preparation for any sort of “public health emergency.”

The bill states that the federal government should “continue to carry out, coordinate, and expand research in newborn screening” and “maintain a central clearinghouse of current information on newborn screening… ensuring that the clearinghouse is available on the Internet and is updated at least quarterly”.

Sections of the bill also make it clear that DNA may be used in genetic experiments and tests.

Read the full bill here (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-1858).

One health care expert and prominent critic of DNA screening is Twila Brase, president of the Citizens’ Council on Health Care who has written a detailed analysis (PDF; http://www.cchconline.org/pdf/S_1858_NBS-DNAWarehouseFINAL.pdf) of the new law in which she warns that it represents the first program of populationwide genetic testing.

Brase states that S.1858 and H.R. 3825, the House version of the bill, will:

Establish a national list of genetic conditions for which newborns and children are to be tested.
Establish protocols for the linking and sharing of genetic test results nationwide.
Build surveillance systems for tracking the health status and health outcomes of individuals diagnosed at birth with a genetic defect or trait.
Use the newborn screening program as an opportunity for government agencies to identify, list, and study “secondary conditions” of individuals and their families.
Subject citizens to genetic research without their knowledge or consent.

“Soon, under this bill, the DNA of all citizens will be housed in government genomic biobanks and considered governmental property for government research,” Brase writes. “The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research.”

“The public is clueless. S. 1858 imposes a federal agenda of DNA databanking and population-wide genetic research. It does not require consent and there are no requirements to fully inform parents about the warehousing of their child’s DNA for the purpose of genetic research.”

A bill called “The Restroom Access Act” may soon bring some relief to 30,000 Tennesseans who suffer from inflammatory bowel diseases. I am opposed to this for quite a few reasons:

1) I’m sorry, but it is not the government’s problem to provide facilities for the bowel afflicted.

2) This adds to the slippery slope of government instrusion into private areas.

3) If government can force these businesses to provide this sort of service to people with bowel problems, when will the far stretch to providing quarter to soldiers be forced upon us?

Here is the whole story:

Restroom act would bring Tennesseans relief

http://www.wkrn.com/Global/story.asp?S=8205205

A bill called “The Restroom Access Act” may soon bring some relief to 30,000 Tennesseans who suffer from inflammatory bowel diseases. Those who suffer from inflammatory bowel diseases often need to instantly find a bathroom, or face an embarrassing consequence. Finding a restroom can be an issue for people like local bank executive Vickie Storm. “My daughter had been diagnosed three years earlier and for me to be diagnosed two years later, I was in denial,” the senior vice-president at Avenue Bank told News 2. Their condition was diagnosed as Crohn’s disease. Both control it through medication, but Storm said so many others out there need help. That is one of the reasons for “The Restroom Access Act.” The measure would provide entry to private restrooms, like those in small businesses without public facilities, for sufferers of inflammatory bowel disease. “We are a society and we all have to live together and sometimes we have to reach out and do things for citizens that have special needs and that is what we have done here,” said Sen. Doug Jackson, a sponsor of the bill. Storm thinks eventually it might mean that she would carry a card informing the business of facility of her disease. “Without having to go into an uncomfortable or embarrassing explanation, just the fact you have this card would allow you to present it so that you would have access to the restroom facility you so desperately need,” she said. The need appears to be heard on Capitol Hill. “The Restroom Access Act” is expected to pass both Houses and signed by Governor Phil Bredesen. 

Well, it appears the infamous Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled “that a roommate-finding site (Roommates.com)cannot require users to disclose their sexual orientation, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday, in the latest skirmish over whether anti-discrimination rules apply to the Web.” (quote from Reuters article, link below)

Now I don’t know about you, but if I am looking for a roommate, I’d be looking for someone with similar tastes as mine. If I am a straight male, I want to board with another straight male. I’d want to know what kind of roommate I was getting. Heck, moral or not, if I was a straight male and wanted a gorgeous, straight, female to bunk with, I’d ask what her gender was and what her, um, proclivities for adventurousness was (that is the libertarian bent in me, I guess, because it is no one’s business what I ask someone else. However, being a Christian, I myself would not do that). However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has specified that asking such questions is now a no-no. Never mind that this is not Equal Housing Opportunity, nor is it discrimination of an UNPROTECTED class (gays), this court has went over and above it’s lawful jurisdiction and said “No, you can not ask that question.”

 So I have a question: does the person looking for a roomate have recourse because he/she suddenly finds out the new roommate is gay? What are other ramifications here? This ruling is a prime example of judicial activism of judges running amok.

For the full article, go to http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0347688720080403?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Now how many of us knew this was ever on the docket at the US Supreme Court?  Or perhaps knew that the justices were giving their ruling this week? I certainly didn’t. Don’t know what I am talking about? Read this excerpt:

States win over President on criminal law issue 

The Supreme Court, in a sweeping rejection of claims of power in the presidency, ruled 6-3 on Tuesday that the President does not have the authority to order states to relax their criminal procedures to obey a ruling of the World Court.  The decision came in the case of Medellin v. Texas (06-984).  Neither a World Court decision requiring U.S. states to provide new review of criminal cases involving foreign nationals, nor a memo by President Bush seeking to enforce the World Court ruling, preempts state law restrictions on challenges to convictions, the Court said in a ruling written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.

The Court explicitly, and with emphasis, rejected a presidential argument that the nation’s Chief Executive has power, on his own, to make an international treaty into binding law inside the U.S.  That can only be done by Congress, it stressed.

The decision, aside from its rebuff of presidential power, also treats the World Court ruling itself as not binding on U.S. states, when it contradicts those states’ criminal procedure rules.   The international treaty at issue in this dispute — the Vienna Convention that gives foreign nationals accused of crime a right to meet with diplomats from their home country — is not enforceable as a matter of U.S. law, the Roberts opinion said.  And the World Court ruling seeking to implement that treaty inside the U.S. is also not binding, and does not gain added legal effect merely because the President sought to tell the states to abide by the decision, the Court added. (For the full article, go to http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/states-win-over-president-on-criminal-law-issue/). Posted Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 10:10 am UPDATED 1:49 p.m. 

I have a great feeling about this Supreme Court. I believe they are going to be making rules according to the wording of the Constitution, and not make rulings based on the changing whims of societal mores. I especially liked this part:

The Court explicitly, and with emphasis, rejected a presidential argument that the nation’s Chief Executive has power, on his own, to make an international treaty into binding law inside the U.S.  That can only be done by Congress, it stressed.

Finally, checks and balances are being recognized by one branch of our government, at least! I just can’t help but wonder why there was so much in the press last week about the Heller gun case than there ever was over this HUGE case regarding states rights and national sovereignty. Makes you wonder about the agenda of the fourth estate, doesn’t it?

I received this article in an email the other day. Mr. DeMar lays down the law to a reader/critic who refuses to acknowledge the basic defining elements of his arguments: the “evidence” the reader presents (or not) to Mr. DeMar. This article is a great example of how to argue the JudeoChristian and moral foundations of our arguments of the Christian founding of our nation. Mr. deMar also refers to evidentiary arguments against Darwinism in his article. While this article is a bit long, it is very well written and I recommend that you read it.

By Gary DeMar  Have you ever been in a debate with someone who asks for evidence for this or that particular issue, and after giving the evidence it is dismissed as not being relevant? Facts do not speak for themselves. “Facts do not come with interpretation tags, telling us how to view them. . . . Both sides haggle over the facts. Both sides search for new facts to add to their arsenals. Both sides raise accusations, yet it’s a rare day indeed when both sides acknowledge that their differences stem from something much more basic than facts. Their differences are rooted in opposing worldviews, which in turn are permeated with philosophical assumptions and commitments.”1 Facts are always interpreted by an array of presuppositions. For example, when the NT is shown to offer eye-witness evidence of the death and subsequent resurrection of Jesus, the skeptic will claim that a resurrection of the dead is impossible, therefore, the evidence is suspect. Essentially, this comes to, “What my net doesn’t catch ain’t fish.”I’ve been answering some objections from a man who has rejected his Roman Catholic upbringing and is now questioning the existence of God. There is nothing new in his arguments, but I don’t want to dismiss him out of hand. I do, however, want to set the parameters of what constitutes a good debate. The proper use of evidence is important. When someone says, “There is no evidence for the existence of God,” my first response is, “What constitutes evidence, and who gets to decide?” After my initial answer to some of his historical comments relating to the founding of America, I wrote the following in response:Dear Dan,
Like you, I was raised Roman Catholic, and like you received no real theological or historical training other than, “the church says it, and you are to believe it.” So it’s not surprising to me that you are questioning the authority behind religious claims. In reality, you have rejected one faith and adopted another. You seem to be repeating the arguments of others: Robert Ingersoll, Karen Armstrong, and Bart Ehrman. (American Vision and Alpha and Omega Ministries will be conducting a debate between James White and Ehrman on January 21, 2009 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I’ve dealt with a few of Bart Ehrman’s arguments. For a NT scholar, he is not very well informed.) Your approach to this subject is not much different from the way you followed Roman Catholicism. Ingersoll, Armstrong, and Ehrman have become your new religious authorities. So why are they any better informed on issues of ultimate importance than Roman Catholic priests, bishops, and Popes? Why do you trust their evolved brains and the electrical impulses they displace that makes their lips move to say things? I sent you my brief evaluation of some of your arguments in an earlier article to see how you would respond. You answered just the way I thought you would. I needed to know how you would deal with evidence. I gave you evidence contrary to Ingersoll, and you dismissed it wanting to move on to the Bible. Until you respond to the evidence I supplied to you contrary to Ingersoll’s historical assertions, there is no sense in me attempting to answer your biblical objections. So let me repeat them for you with some additions:

This is shocking and unexpected, and it is critical for all of America to become aware and get involved in this California state court ruling. 

As a home schooling parent, I have witnessed first hand the difference between public, private and homeschool methods, and my son is better off in a homeschool environment. I have heard so much made over socialization, the capability of parents to educate their children, and how laws should be passed for this or that issue as it pertains to not only homeschooling, but to every facet of life in these United States.

Socialization? People constantly comment on how well spoken, friendly, and gregarious my son is. My daughter is the same way (we begin her home schooling next fall). Who would I rather be the biggest influence on my children, me and my wife, who can determine what they are exposed to on a daily basis, or a classroom and schoolyard full of jocks, bullies, extroverts, and introverts, all with their own value systems? For the most part, my son’s peers in school have very different morals than we do, and furthermore, they have no idea what they even base their value system on. My wife and I not only educate my son, we also enforce and re-enforce our value system to our children, and we explain to them why we have the values we do; in other words, we explain the principles behind our moral philosophy, which are grounded in the words of Holy Scripture, our Bible. I do not want my son tainted by the values of ignorant children. I am fully persudaded that all children are ignorant, by the way, including mine, which why they need us, not their peers, to provide their social and moral framework for their lives-not the school/government indoctrination center. I also do not want the values of a morally relativistic, pluralistic, and hedonistic government placed upon my children either.
On a side note, I live in Tennessee, and only three legislators are keeping a bill alive here that will force us to teach our kids according to the curriculum used by state schools. What makes it so insidious is the fact that it is being done under the guise of forcing private and home schooled students to take the same tests in Tennessee as public school students. This in effect forces parents and private schools to go by the same curriculum in order to pass, although the state curriculum is inferior to what we give our children. Hence, parental rights to teach our choice of curriculum is effectively removed, and the dual crux of home school liberty and parental rights is broken.

I do not care for the nanny state, thank you very much. As I have heard quoted elsewhere, a government that is big enough to give you everything you need is also big enough to take everything away.

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Here are some links to keep you informed:

Petition regarding the appellate court ruling: https://www2.hslda.org/Registrations/DepublishingCaliforniaCourtDecision/

http://www.hslda.org/

http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/ca/200803060.asp

The actual court opinion: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B192878.PDF

Good article on Lew Rockwell: http://www.lewrockwell.com/greenhut/greenhut52.html

The article is submitted in its’ entirety, my piece about this is below the article. 

Law Enforcement Requests for Postal Info Granted
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY WASHINGTON (March 6)

 U.S. postal authorities have approved more than 10,000 law enforcement requests to record names, addresses and other information from the outside of letters and packages of suspected criminals every year since 1998, according to U.S. Postal Inspection Service data. In each of those years, officials approved more than 97% of requests to record the information during criminal inquiries. In 2004, 2005 and 2006, the most recent year provided, officials granted at least 99.5% of requests, according to partial responses to inquiries filed by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act. Postal officials have closely guarded the warrantless surveillance mail program, used for decades to track fugitives and to interrupt the delivery of illegal drugs or other controlled substances such as explosives. In other government surveillance, such as most wiretap programs, a judge approves requests. In this one, the USPIS’ chief inspector has authority to grant or deny a request. The Postal Service handles 214 billion pieces of mail each year. Correspondence and packages transported by private carriers, such as FedEx and UPS, are not subject to the surveillance. When the government’s warrantless surveillance of electronic communication has come under fire, civil liberties advocates say, the USPIS’ limited disclosure raises serious questions. “The idea of the government tracking that amount of mail is quite alarming,” says Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national security project. “When you realize that (the figure) does not include national security matters, the numbers are even more alarming.”Postal officials would not disclose the volume of mail monitored in national security investigations. Because those include terror-related inquiries, the figures do not show whether the Sept. 11 attacks influenced requests or approvals. In a Feb. 8 response to requests for information, inspection service counsel Anthony Alverno wrote that even revealing the frequency of the surveillance would undermine its effectiveness “to the detriment of the government’s national security interests.”Postal officials also would not discuss how much mail is being opened for content examinations, which do require a warrant authorized by a judge. USPIS spokesman Douglas Bem described the surveillance program as “one of many tools” available to investigators. “Regulations are in place that serve to protect the general population from illegal and unlawful intrusions,” Bem says. A 1978 federal appeals court decision upheld the use of such surveillance. Each request to monitor a sender’s mail can cover multiple letters and packages by the same suspects. Bem said the government does not track the total pieces of mail captured in the monitoring program.

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Now, I am not one to agree with everything the ACLU stands for, but this is one area where I think they are dead on. In this article, it is revealed that the USPS does not need a warrant to search through the mail and packages sent through the mail system. I can go along with a judge’s warrant to search, which is the only way a search can be made in the correct manner, but a warrantless search approved by their own chief inspector is nothing more than unreasonable search and seizure. Did you know there is a law against that, USPS? It is called the fourth amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So, it appears that according to this article, all the USPS needs is their own approval. Kind of sounds like the fox guarding the hen house, doesn’t it? And guess what, they are closely guarding this ability. See, until the article came to light, I did not know they had this authority. And honestly, I can see that due to sheer volume of mail and packages where it would be nearly impossible to get a warrant over each suspicious package.

So what to do? My suggestion is that the USPS return the package to the sender with a statement such as “Refused due to security reasons”. Plus, if they want to notify the local authorities or the local FBI office, and allow them to pursue a warrant, they can do that. Why not just send the package to the FBI, and let them take care of the warrants and sender notification? Regardless of what they do, a warrant should be required, because the right of protection against unreasonable search and seizure must be preserved.

While the origin of the following paraphrased quote is argued, the truth is the same: “Those who would sacrifice a little liberty for a little security deserve neither.”

Here is the link to the article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-05-mail_N.htm