A Legal Bow to the Terrorists

When President Obama stood at the UN and proclaimed that "the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam," it turns out that's one campaign promise he kept. A judge has ordered the detention of the maker of the video publicized so assiduously by the President and Secretary of State when they maintained it was the reason behind the terrorist attacks of 9/11/12.

Don't get me wrong. Violating the conditions of one's parole is wrong. But really? Taking the guy into detention and making sure the news gets out? As image-makers are wont to say, the "optics" of all this stink to high heaven.

Does anyone wonder how this will be reported in the Mideast? Along with the single snippet from the President's speech quoted above, it will then be announced that the offending filmmaker has been taken into custody. (And if I'm aware of this, obviously the President is.)

Perhaps President Obama and Secretary Clinton think this will assauge the wrath of the protestors enough to get through Election Day. Maybe it will.

But this sort of stuff is sending a dangerous message to our radical adversaries: That they are the "strong horse," and that their violence will result in our changing out way of life, just as Morsi insists.

Whoever the next President is, he will reap the whirlwind from this. And so will we.

An American President, speaking before world leaders and an international audience, should be upholding the virtues of his nation's laws and decrying tyranny in all its forms. In 1776 and 1787, American colonists believed themselves "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," and the form of self--government they structured by their written Constitution limited government and freed "the People"--to exercise their rights to freedom of conscience, of religious belief and expression, of the press and speech, and all other rights not specifically granted to elected government representatives.

Contrast disclaimers made before the UN and international audiences in the past few days with the following expression of firm understanding of the meaning of America's Bill of Rights and the protections it affords for people of all faiths or none, as reflected in the words of the Author of our Declaration of Independence and Third President, Thomas Jefferson:

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." - Thomas Jefferson

What an opportunity an American President is afforded when he can declare to the world that, under his nation's Constitution, "the People" are free to think and say anything they wish, as long as they do not act to infringe upon or injure their neighbor in his equal rights to life, liberty, and property.

The expressed reaction of both Hillary Clinton and the President to the acts of radicals which harmed American life and property in other countries was weak, ineffective, and failed to uphold the virtues of America's form of self-government and liberty.

Where is the outrage from "the People" of America that their leaders first and immediate reaction to an attack on American facilities and American citizens is to disparage and deny responsibility for an individual's exercise of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, no matter how repugnant or reprehensible that speech might be?

Something is not right here, and if America is to remain free, then America must have leadership who understand and are willing to defend freedom--not totalitarian mind control.

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