{"id":5930,"date":"2010-06-28T18:54:34","date_gmt":"2010-06-28T22:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=5930"},"modified":"2010-06-28T18:54:34","modified_gmt":"2010-06-28T22:54:34","slug":"war-on-many-fronts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/5930\/war-on-many-fronts\/","title":{"rendered":"War on Many Fronts"},"content":{"rendered":"

These days, it seems like war is only<\/em> the extension of politics by other means; except that even the means are political.<\/p>\n

Last week, President Barack Obama minimized conservative harrumphing after firing General Stanley McChrystal by appointing General David Petraeus as his replacement.\u00a0 Though politically savvy, CFIF Senior Fellow Troy Senik correctly notes<\/a> that reassigning Petraeus may be a pyrrhic victory since most of the conditions for successfully implementing his counterinsurgency strategy are missing.\u00a0 When he gets in country, Petraeus\u2019 biggest enemy won\u2019t be the Taliban or a corrupt Karzai government; it\u2019ll be trying to deliver a victory conservatives can stomach on a timetable and troop count demanded by liberals.<\/p>\n

Heading back to Washington the war on rationality gets even rougher.\u00a0 This morning four out of five Supreme Court right-of-center justices<\/a> voted to extend the Second Amendment\u2019s guarantee of an individual\u2019s right to own a gun to the several states.\u00a0 The result produces two effects.\u00a0 First, complete government bans on gun possession are unconstitutional.\u00a0 Second, eight of the current justices are now on record supporting a liberal theory of constitutional jurisprudence: Substantive Due Process<\/a>.\u00a0 Only Justice Clarence Thomas opted for a textually supported, historically rooted commonsense reading<\/a> of the Fourteenth Amendment.\u00a0 Since no one tried to dispute his reasoning, it can be assumed that everyone accepted his conclusion \u2013 they just didn\u2019t like his premises.<\/p>\n

The only element these storylines have in common is one man bearing quiet witness to the power of clear thinking.\u00a0 While the political class may be unable to sustain a coherent framework for addressing pressing issues, it is a comfort knowing that at least some of those they appoint are capable \u2013 and willing \u2013 to tackle important matters with precision and daring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These days, it seems like war is only the extension of politics by other means; except that even the means are political. Last week, President Barack Obama minimized conservative harrumphing after firing General Stanley McChrystal by appointing General David Petraeus as his replacement.\u00a0 Though politically savvy, CFIF Senior Fellow Troy Senik correctly notes that reassigning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[138,143,1494,1496,549,221,1495,92,257],"class_list":["post-5930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-afghanistan","tag-barack-obama","tag-clarence-thomas","tag-fourteenth-amendment","tag-gun-rights","tag-mcdonald-v-city-of-chicago","tag-substantive-due-process","tag-supreme-court","tag-taliban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5930"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5933,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930\/revisions\/5933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}