In looking at the Foley sex scandal, there is a clear common theme between Dennis Hastert and the rest of the GOP leadership's exploitation of minors, the Bush administration's preying on Iraqi civilians by bombing their homes and killing their civilians, and the Bush administration's preying on our environment along with the Corporate Welfare Queens. All of these acts involve the destruction of innocent life either mentally of physically. Remember the bully who hurts people in high school just because he can? The Bush administration is the same way - they prey on lives just because they can.
The physical act of rape is not merely a matter of boys being boys or sexual arousal getting out of control. It is a clear attempt by the rapist to exercise absolute power over the individual by invading the victim's most sacred space - their own body. While Foley's actions do not rise to that level (yet), it involves the same thing - the invasion by a powerful congressman of a young man's most sacred space - his private thoughts and hopes. Hastert and the rest of the House leadership looked the other way because his behavior was not different enough - they are exploiters themselves and in their twisted view, they could not see what was wrong with a little bit of harmless flirtation.
The analogy to Iraq is simple - like a person's personal space, a country' boundaries are their own personal space. In the same way, Bush violated Iraq's personal space. Why did he conspire with Tony Blair to fix facts around the case for war? Just because he could. Why did he engage in conspiracy theories about Niger? Just because he could. Why did he proclaim Mission Accomplished? Just because he could. Why did he routinely bomb civilian targets and kill over 150,000 civilians? Just because he could.
It is not difficult, then, to see why Hastert and the rest of the House leadership would look the other way - they saw that Foley was soliciting teens just because he could. From Hastert's standpoint, having done that himself so many times by enabling George Bush's occupation of Iraq, he could see nothing wrong with that sort of thing - after all, Foley was preying on defenseless minors just because he could.
And now, we come to the defenseless - animals, plants, and the earth itself. Animals can't write a letter to the editor. Plants can't call their congressman or take to the streets. The earth can't write a diary on Daily Kos. So, given that God's creatures and his/her earth is inherently defenseless, it is easy to conclude that the Bush administration and his Corporate Welfare Queens with their twisted sense of entitlement would exploit the defenseless just because they can - after all, how many divisions does The Earth have?
One must honestly wonder if there is some cosmic connection between judges and the creation, because they have a lot in common. A judge can only be effective so long as people respect him or her as a person. The earth can only give us life as long as show her respect and care for her. In the same way the Bush administration is exploiting the environment, they are exploiting judges with their twisted view that might makes right - after all (to paraphrase John Conryn), how many divisions do judges have? Both are exploited by the Bush administration.
We ask this question, because recently, there has been a rash of court rulings stopping the Bush administration from preying on the environment in the same way that Mark Foley was preying on young teens:
The Courts have reinstated the Roadless Rule.
The court found that in repealing the roadless rule, the Bush administration failed to comply with basic legal requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act: "this court concludes that the Forest Service failed adequately to consider the environmental and species impacts when it [repealed the Roadless Rule] in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act."
The court continued: "to conclude that a regulation that effects a major change in the way roadless areas in national forests are regulated nationwide from the prior regulation that it replaces does not constitute a repeal with potentially significant environmental effects would ignore reality."
An Alaskan court, of all courts, barred the Interior Department from opening up some wetlands for drilling:
In the decision released today, US District Judge James Singleton, Jr. stated that the Department of Interior failed to consider the cumulative environmental impacts of widespread oil and gas drilling in the NPRA, a key point in conservation groups' arguments against the plan to lease the area around Teshekpuk Lake, and signaled that he intends to overrule the Department's plans for leasing the area.
"Having failed to fully consider the cumulative effects of the proposed development in NE [Northeast planning area of the] NPRA and the previously proposed action in the NWPA [Northwest NPRA planning area], Defendants have violated NEPA and abused their discretion," writes Judge Singleton in the preliminary decision, which was made public today.
The Bush administration illegally ignored laws by selectively getting comments from agencies that opposed declaring an endangered trout endangered as required by law:
In overturning the administration's decision, the court determined that FWS had illegally and selectively sought information from state agencies that generally oppose protection, while giving the public no chance to comment.
"The court found the Bush administration solicited information about the trout's status only from people who oppose protecting this rare native fish," stated Neil Levine, an attorney with Earthjustice, who represented the groups on the suit. "The Colorado River cutthroat trout deserves fair consideration for protection as a threatened or endangered species.
The Bush administration's denial of protection for the trout is typical of an administration that has only listed 56 species to date (always under court order) compared to 512 listed under the Clinton administration and 234 under Bush senior's administration.
"The decision to not list the Colorado River cutthroat trout following more than four years of delay is typical of the administration's antipathy towards environmental protections in general and protection for the nation's wildlife in particular," stated Greenwald. "Today's decision is a victory for the Colorado River cutthroat trout and the Rocky Mountain streams on which it depends.
A Southern Utah County tried to open a ton of trails to ATV and motorbiking illegally:
The August 24 ruling was a victory for The Wilderness Society and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, represented by Earthjustice attorneys as well as former Earthjustice attorney Robert Wiygul and attorneys at SUWA. The Wilderness Society and SUWA sued the county for violating the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause which says U.S laws take precedence over conflicting local ordinances on federal land. Kane County tried to get the case tossed out of court, in part, on the grounds that the county already owned rights-of-way to the routes under an arcane 1866 law known as R.S. 2477. But federal district court Judge Tena Campbell ruled that the county's mere claim of ownership of rights-of-way was meaningless unless backed up with proof that the routes meet the test set out in the 19th Century law, something Kane County has so far refused to offer.
Judge Campbell also upheld the right of The Wilderness Society and SUWA to bring suit against the county, concurring with their argument that their members' enjoyment of the monument's backcountry could potentially be harmed by OHV use that has been prohibited by federal land managers.
What Campbell's ruling means, Earthjustice attorney Angell said, is that Kane County will now have to provide documented evidence that it owns the roads in question when the case goes to trial, perhaps early in 2007.
"They claim they have lots of proof," he said. "Now we're going to have our day in court and they're going to have to show they are entitled to these roads. Until they prove it, they're not free to simply take control of these routes on some of America's most celebrated public lands."
The EPA refuses to enforce the Clean Water Amendment and makes excuses for doing so:
But that didn't happen. EPA stuck to its own agenda and continued to give the air toxics program a low priority. As the agency missed deadlines and began to slip behind the timeline set in the Act, Earthjustice went to court on behalf of environmental, public health and community groups. All told, the set of rules covered by the August court order, for example, was the subject of seven different Earthjustice complaints since 2001. Deadline by deadline, regulation by regulation, our legal efforts made progress. As Judge Paul Friedman observed in his order from August: "The history of regulation under Sections 112(c) and 183 of the Clean Air Act shows that EPA has fulfilled its statutory duties only when forced by litigation to do so." He called the agency's efforts to meet its obligations "grossly delinquent."
Those criticisms were corroborated by a Government Accountability Office report issued at the end of July. The GAO report was nowhere near as blunt as Judge Friedman, concluding simply that EPA has given the air toxics program a "relatively low priority," and that the agency lacks data backing up its claims that other programs are reducing hazardous air pollution and the accompanying risks to public health.
EPA's answer to its critics, including Judge Friedman, has been that Congress has failed to give the agency enough resources to control hazardous air pollution. The truth, however, is that EPA prefers to spend the public's money elsewhere. By using its staff instead on discretionary, industry-friendly initiatives such as relaxing the rules that require old power plants to install current-generation air pollution controls, removing coal- and oil-fired generating plants from the list of toxic sources subject to regulation under the toxic air pollutant program, and easing rules that require industry to report releases of toxic chemicals into the environment, EPA has manufactured the resource crunch it now seeks to use as a shield.
But all of the above is not merely a matter of Hastert being a crook. It is a matter of Conservatism, as an ideology, failing to give answers to our problems. The ideology of Conservatism is that government does not solve problems; government IS the problem. This is a form of doublethink - on the one hand, we hear that government is the problem. On the other, we see right-wingers screaming about how we need to lock people up and throw away the keys as well as bomb people back into the stone age. Doublethink paralyzes people into inaction because of the mixed messages that they internalize.
I would like to focus, not on Hastert at this point, but on the "Good Republicans" - the ones who never knew about Foley. What we see at work is Conservatism - the belief that the government that governs best governs least. So, the end results are not hard to see in this case - "Good Republicans" failed to ask questions because after all, Big government is bad government. "Good Republicans" failed to see inappropriate conduct because it was not their business - after all, the government that governs best governs least. This is a classic example of people believing their own propaganda - they have internalized the idea that they should do nothing. This proves the point that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it - often in ways totally unintended by the liar.
And we see how Conservatism fails as an ideology over Iraq - it blames the Iraqi people for being bombed. Let me explain - it assumes that it is one's own fault if one does not get rich enough in life. Therefore, if someone is poor, the automatic assumption is that it is one's own fault - even if they got bombed by one of Bush's planes. But since that is an absurdity, we see that Conservatism is a losing argument, incapable of solving the world's problems.
And now we see why Conservatism is a failed ideology when it comes to the environment - it assumes that the one who governs best is the one who governs least; therefore, government must stand out of the way when letting people pollute our lands, our streams, and our ecosystem. After all, everybody must sink or swim in the Brave New World constructed by the twisted mind of the Bush administration and the modern Conservative movement.
It is exactly rulings like the ones I presented above which are another reason Conservatism fails as an ideology - it fails to take into account the fact that judges are needed to enforce the law. This is directly contradictory to the Conservative notion of Trust Me - You don't have to do anything; just trust me; Big Brother is watching. Conservatism, as an ideology, requires people to place blind trust in people who have a vested interest to destroy our way of life by destroying the environment. After all, government is the problem. But since blind trust also leads to dictatorships, Conservatism can never be construed as an American philosophy because Conservatism requires one to do nothing. On the other hand, our American system requires checks and balances.
All of these examples prove that the system of checks and balances put in place by our Founding Fathers require an active government. On the other hand, Reaganism says government is the problem. An active government involves all three branches of government doing their job of exercising their authority of checks and balances. Conservatism, on the other hand, involves government refusing to exercise checks and balances because of its notion that government is the problem.