Comments Allen Forkum:

In a June 27 Dept. of Defense press service article, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was questioned about a "guerrilla war" in Iraq and answered by saying, "I don't know that I would use the word." We're not sure why there is a reluctance use the "guerrilla" label on the remnants of Saddam sympathizers (or "dead-enders" as Rumsfeld aptly dubbed them), but it was the most accurate label we could fit on a scorpion. Also in the article, Rumsfeld referred to efforts to recruit a "de-Baathicized" Iraqi army, which was good to hear; Iraq should be de-Baathicized the way Germany was de-Nazified.

In refusing to rule on the Nike case last week, the Supreme Court struck a heavy blow against freedom of speech.

The case involved Nike's attempts, in letters to editors and to university administrators, to counter charges that their overseas workers are abused. A critic, claiming that Nike's claims were false advertising, filed suit.

But Nike's letters deserve first-amendment protection. They were *not* advertisements--they addressed only the question of working conditions in its factories, saying nothing about its products. If such letters can be ruled a form of advertising, then anything said by any corporation about any aspect of its operations may expose it to crippling false-advertising lawsuits. Meanwhile the critics of corporations, whose speech is protected, can invent outright lies with no penalty.

By refusing to rule on this blatant violation of free speech, the Court officially declared open season on business.

Contrary to Justices Thomas and Scalia--and to your editorial ["Sex and the Scotus," 6/27/2003]--the Constitution does require the Supreme Court to strike down Texas' antisodomy law. The Ninth Amendment clearly states that the mere fact that a right is not enumerated in the Constitution shall not be construed to deny or disparage it. {In other words, the Constitution envisions that the Federal Government shall have no powers but those granted in that document--everything not specifically authorized to the government is forbidden.} The "privileges and immunities" that citizens thereby enjoy are equally protected from infringement by state governments according to the Fourteenth Amendment, as envisioned by those who framed and ratified it.  The Constitution was enacted, not to permit democratic majorities to enact their whims, but to restrict the power of government regardless of anyone's will. Justice{Stanley}Matthews put this well:

"{Arbitrary power, enforcing its edicts to the injury of the persons and property of its subjects, is not law, whether manifested as the decree of a personal monarch or of an impersonal multitude. And}the limitations imposed by our constitutional law {upon the action of the governments, both state and national,} are essential to the preservation of public and private rights, notwithstanding the representative character of our political institutions. The enforcement of these limitations by judicial process is the device of self-governing communities to protect the rights of individuals and minorities, as well against the power of numbers, as against the violence of public agents transcending the limits of lawful authority, even when acting in the name and wielding the force of the government."

Martina Navratilova, the tennis star who made millions in the U.S. after she left Czechoslovakia, has denounced the values of her adopted country. In an article in a German magazine reported by Reuters and picked up Wednesday night by FNC's Brit Hume, she complained: "Decisions in America are based solely on the question of 'how much money will come out of it' and not on the questions of how much health, morals or the environment suffer as a result." She also equated the U.S. under President Bush with Czechoslovakia under Soviet domination: "The most absurd part of my escape from the unjust system is that I have exchanged one system that suppresses free opinion for another." The unbylined Reuters dispatch from Berlin noted that she "singled out President Bush's Republican party for unusually harsh criticism. 'The Republicans in the United States manipulate public opinion and sweep any controversial issues under the table,' said Navratilova."

I take it Martina expects Bush to jailed her for her comments? Or perhaps torture her like Saddam tortured thousands in Iraq? How she forgets that it was the Left that supported that Soviet domination by "supressing the free opinion" of anti-communists by with smears of "McCarthyism." Fact is Martina is free to express her opinions; and we are free to express our opinion that to equate the Bush presidency with that of the former Communist Czechoslovakia is dishonest. If that is "suppression" in her dictionary than so be it. Stick to tennis Martina.

If you want to know whether conservatives deserve to be considered defenders of liberty, consider Justice Scalia's opinion dissenting from the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Texas's ridiculous and unconstitutional anti-sodomy law.

Justice Scalia warned that "this [decision] effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation": including laws against adultery, "fornication," and masturbation. So it would, and good riddance. Conduct that violates no one's rights is a matter for each individual's choice, not for the state's coercive power. What else can the individual's rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" mean?

The same Justice Scalia, with other conservatives, earlier this week assailed the affirmative-action decision as condoning illegitimate social engineering. Their view was correct, but their motives were hypocritical. Once a man has attempted to seize the power of the state to impose his view of the good life, he can expect nothing except for others to return the favor.

From Cox and Forkum: