Teddy Roosevelt impressed the nation with his focus on conservation and while he was president was responsible for pushing to conserve our nation’s wilderness in the form of sundry national parks, mostly in the western U.S. This was a worthy enterprise, few can deny. But what is the true purpose of these conservatories but to set aside tracts of land away from developers so that nature can prevail? Is it not a given that these lands should be governed by nature and but set aside by government?

So, we all agree that government may take the unspoiled wilderness and save aside a portion of it to be left to the machinations of Mother Nature so that future generations might see what our landscape looked like untouched by man’s industry. Well and good.

But, what if Mother Nature isn’t so kind as Uncle Sam? We have here a perfect example of what happens when government gets involved in anything and it’s what the military calls mission creep.

The AP reported this week that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is issuing warnings that the nation’s second oldest wildlife refuge is deteriorating and “needs” restoration. This alarming rhetoric should get the most concerned conservationist’s attention. “Deteriorating” is quite a frightening term after all.

But, why is it “deteriorating”? Is it industrial encroachment? Is it human neglect or pollution?

Not really.

The Chandeleur and Breton islands have been battered by hurricanes in the past four years and they took a pounding from Hurricane Katrina, which “reduced the islands by one-half of their pre-storm size,” the agency said in a new report.

So, Mother Nature is responsible? Yet, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are claiming that “the nation should pour money into restoring the refuge” as if the U.S. government and we the people — who pay its bills — should take responsibility for what Mother Nature hath wrought?

The logic simply does not stand to reason.

We made these wildlife refuges to allow Mother Nature to reign supreme. Yet, when Mother Nature makes her decision to destroy these same places, we feel somehow responsible to step in and… what… “fix” Mother Nature’s “mistake”?

This is the arrogance of government writ large. What we have here are some government drudges who are justifying their jobs by raising false alarms about what we the people should be forced to waste our money upon. We have some government men who are tasked with safeguarding a couple of islands so that Mother Nature can operate unhindered suddenly deciding that they are smarter and more responsible than Mother Nature herself to govern those pristine garden spots.

What arrogance these men exhibit.

And, at what cost do we “fix” Mother Nature’s obvious neglect, government man?

Because the islands are so far from shore, restoration would be expensive and would cost tens of millions of dollars, Bohannan said. Scientists are studying what sections could feasibly be restored, he said.

Mark Schexnayder, a coastal adviser for Louisiana State University’s Sea Grant Extension, said the nation and state need to find the money to save the islands regardless of the cost.

But why, why should we be more caring than Mother Nature, Mr. government man?

“It’s got historical significance and it’s the largest rookery for our state bird, the brown pelican,” Schexnayder said. “I’m not willing to fold the tent and go home.”

See, here is your logical error, Mr. government man. Birdies have these things called wings. When they find their natural home destroyed naturally, they naturally fly away with them wingie thingies and find a new home. They won’t just stand on the islands and drown as the ocean overtakes the land. All life will not end if nature decides in its infinite wisdom that these little islands are to be no more.

Certainly I am not for wanton destruction by men of our natural habitats. Absolutely I think we can be sensible enough to put aside some bits of our natural resources and lands to maintain those habitats. But when nature itself steps in to say otherwise, who are we mere humans to nay say that eventuality?

It is wrong headed and illogical to pour tens of millions of dollars to protect nature when nature itself is saying no to such protection.

But, then this is what we mean by “mission creep.” These government drudges have a charge and that is to save these islands for nature and they aren’t going to let nature get in the way of that cushy government job. They have gone from assuming they are helping nature to assuming they are ruling it.

Mission creep at its most extreme example. And its most obscene.

by Jim Kouri, CPP

While most of the focus of federal law enforcement today is on counterterrorism, federal police agencies must still contend with more traditional anti-crime operations including emerging organized crime gangs.

Criminal enterprises represent a near and long-term threat to our nation. The criminal activities of these enterprises are increasing in scope and magnitude as they network with each other to expand operations worldwide. The geopolitical and technological changes of the last decade have allowed these enterprises to flourish globally, and their impact on the United States is expected to increase over the next five years.

Organized crime groups from Russia and other former members of the Soviet Union are engaged in racketeering activity, and are deeply involved in large scale white collar crime. They are skilled in the use of monetary systems to funnel and conceal the proceeds of their criminal activity, employing state-of-the-art encryption to safeguard their communication networks against traditional forms of detection.

Asian criminal enterprises are composed of U.S.-born citizens and immigrants. They are multi-crime organizations that, like other ethnically-based criminal enterprises, often victimize their own ethnic immigrant communities.

These communities are typically hesitant to report victimization to authorities. As the immigration of Russian, former Soviet Union, and Asian populations into the United States increases in the next five years, so too will related ethnic organized crime. 

La Cosa Nostra and Italian organized crime enterprises still pose a significant threat and will continue to influence the political and economic structure of the United States through engagement in racketeering-related activity. Alien smuggling and human trafficking will also continue to pose significant threats to the national security, as transnational criminal enterprises expand their activities in this area for economic profit.

In addition, the ability to facilitate the entry of illegal aliens into the United States could potentially be used to increase the membership of some of these criminal enterprises such as La Mala Salvatrucha or MS-13.

An emerging crime problem is Balkan criminal enterprises, specifically Albanian transnational organizations or clans. They are rapidly expanding their criminal activities to include loan sharking, weapons trafficking, alien smuggling, stock market manipulation, human trafficking, and drug trafficking. Additionally, these clans are forming partnerships with La Cosa Nostra, or LCN, crime families, as well as challenging traditional organized crime enterprises for territory.

Major theft rings account for billions of dollars in losses suffered by our nation’s businesses, with corresponding price increases passed on to the US consumer. Loss prevention and asset protection are top priorities for corporate America as increasingly sophisticated and highly organized criminal enterprises engage in cargo theft, high tech theft, vehicle theft, jewelry and gem theft, organized retail theft, art and cultural antiquity theft, and other major theft activity.

Drug trafficking remains a significant problem. The impact of illegal drug abuse is estimated to be over $160 billion in U.S. economic losses each year, including costs associated with health care, violent crime, and lost productivity. Colombian criminal enterprises are the largest source of cocaine in the world, and are also major heroin suppliers to the U.S. market.

Mexican criminal enterprises manufacture and supply much of the methamphetamine available in the United States, and transport the majority of cocaine and heroin into our nation. The ability of Mexican enterprises to corrupt public officials in Mexico and the United States has enhanced their capability to transport and distribute these illicit drugs.

Caribbean-based criminal enterprises specialize in the transportation and smuggling of drugs into Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland. Over the next five years, South American and Mexican drug trafficking organizations will continue to maintain their dominance, and Caribbean-based groups will provide alternate importation routes.

A rise in homicides from 1999 through 2006, and continued incidence of other violent crimes have been attributed to the resurgence of violent gangs in major metropolitan areas, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, which average approximately 600 homicides per year. Within hours after celebrating the New Year, the city of Newark, NJ, experienced six homicides, all deemed gang-related.

Over the next five years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation must continue to focus the resources of Safe Streets Task Forces to combat those violent street gangs having major impact in our communities. This will necessitate use of RICO (Racketeering Influence and Criminal Organization Act).

Sources: National Association of Chiefs of Police, US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations.  He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.   Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com and PHXnews.com.  He’s also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com.   He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc.  His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at http://jimkouri.us
   

If Senator Obama’s magic change-wand truly works, the change we need is eradication from our society of the degraded and debauched ethos of liberal-progressive-socialism that led us to inflation and near collapse of financial markets.

It is currently fashionable for liberal commentators to denounce capitalist free markets as the culprit in the housing bubble collapse. That amounts to blaming the existence of law and a judicial system for causing crime.

When massive government intervention wildly distorts the signals and incentives in commercial, industrial, and financial markets, blame lies with the government. In the present crisis, blame attaches principally to nearly unbroken deficit spending since 1929, financed by the Federal Reserve’s expansion of the money supply faster than increases in real production.

Add to this government incentives for citizens to consume goods and services faster than they produce them.

The beginning of this ethos was in the 1930s New Deal, but it really took hold after the 1960s and 70s student activism and the riots and burnings of our major cities.

Federal deficit spending and deliberate, massive inflation (i.e., devaluing the dollar) were the New Deal’s methods of choice in its destructive and completely unsuccessful effort to end the Depression.The secular religion of liberal-progressive-socialism, imposed upon us in the 1930s New Deal, holds forth the utopian promise of heaven on earth, in a political society characterized by plenty for all, peace, and social harmony. To attain this secular paradise, we had only to abandon Judeo-Christian morality and to place our fate in the hands of the academic theorists who peopled the 1930s Roosevelt administration, his socialist Brain Trust.

The generation who survived the Depression and World War II were slow to abandon the Judeo-Christian ethos that had been the unwritten constitution of the United States for its entire past history. After the 1960s and 70s, however, when more people attended college than ever before, socialist secularity became the nation’s dominant belief, inculcated by liberal-progressive educators.

Increasingly the public came to believe that it should be possible to get immediately whatever was desired, without the need first to work and save for it. That is the essence of President Franklin Roosevelt’s socialistic program he called our “Second Bill of Rights.”

By 1944, when he began his fourth term (he was the only President unconstrained by the traditional limit of two terms), President Roosevelt candidly acknowledged in his State of the Union message that the New Deal welfare state was not part of the original Constitutional government of the United States and that the Constitution had never been amended, in accordance with the express provision of Article V, to legitimize the welfare state:

We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all – regardless of station, race, or creed. Among these are: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries, or shops or farms or mines of the Nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; The right to a good education. All these rights spell security.

It is this “Second Bill of Rights” aspect of the liberal paradigm that leads today’s public, ignorant of history, to believe that healthcare and other welfare benefits are literally “constitutional rights.”

For a discussion of the mischief emanating from that distorted understanding of the Constitution, read Nicole Gelinas’s article on the City Journal website, : America, Too Big to Fail . . . Probably
The feds can bail out Fannie and Freddie, but who will bail out the feds? Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.