Mars Attacks!

After some heavy duty news about how corrupt many of our DC politicians have possibly become, let's take a step back and look at two extreme cases of national security. One instance is pretty funny (but still a waste of taxpayer money) but the second instance is much scarier.

In the December issue of Reason magazine (http://www.reason.com/), Jeff Winkler has written an article called "Miniature Monsters Attack America." Apparently there is a role playing game on the market called Monsterpocalypse where players of the game try to conquer the world using miniature, intergalatic collectible monsters. As this is an obvious threat to national security, the Department of Homeland Security seized the first shipment of the strategy guide for the game in July. According to a company spokesman, the company marketing the game was never notified of the reason for the seizure and the release of the game was delayed but not terminated. Whew, saved again! According to Mr. Winkler this is not the first type of game-related seizure. Secret Service agents seized copies of a guide to GURPS Cyperpunk in 1990 since it claimed the game's rules were a "handbook of computer crime."Besides wasting the taxpayer money on seizing game guides, the bigger question is whether the government and political class really know what they are doing in this area relative to "real" threats to our security.

On a more serious note, the article, "The Right To A Guilty Verdict" by Jacob Sullum in the October issue of Reason magazine discussed Obama's latest position on what to do with the accused terrorists in Guantanamo. According to Mr. Sullum, "In July, the Defense Department's top lawyer declared that the President has the authority to detain people accused of belonging to or assisting terrorist groups even after they're acquitted." In other words, even if there is no proof that someone was involved in terroristic activities, the government can still keep them in custody forever long as it pleases. The administration has already declared that almost hundred of the current detainees will not even be given a trial, never mind being given a trial and still held forever even if declared innocent.

There are three major problems with this position:

• Although Obama constantly criticized the previous administration about holding people indefinitely at Guantanamo, his policy basically reinforces the Bush position that the US government can hold people forever against their will. Hardly the type of freedom loving image that Obama claims he wants to project to the world. In fact, by trying hard to show how good the United States is, this position makes him look like a hypocrite. America should stand for the principle, "innocent until proven guilty", it always used to stand for. Now, under this Obama policy, guilt or innocent is immaterial.
• This policy will also make it difficult for Obama to criticize the detention policies of other nations such as North Korea, Iran, communist China and the like since we are doing the same thing they are doing.
• Finally, we all know that the political class never can contain themselves. While today the government says it can detain foreigners forever, it is only a short jump to where it will start holding Americans in detention forever, on either real or bogus charges of terrorism. At that point, America will no longer continue to exist as a free, democratic country.

Thus, while mistakenly seizing Mars Attacks! toy monster creatures guides for ridiculous reasons is funny, it will not be funny of those same government agents start seizing you with equally ridiculous accusations.

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Stpes To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.