Soldiers For The Truth, with more evidence that "Support the Troops" is an empty slogan:

Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the US Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.

The soldiers asked for anonymity because they are concerned they will face retaliation for going public with the Army's apparently new directive. At the sources' requests DefenseWatch has also agreed not to reveal the unit at which the incident occurred for operational security reasons.

On Saturday morning a soldier affected by the order reported to DefenseWatch that the directive specified that "all" commercially available body armor was prohibited. The soldier said the order came down Friday morning from Headquarters, United States Special Operations Command (HQ, USSOCOM), located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. It arrived unexpectedly while his unit was preparing to deploy on combat operations. The soldier said the order was deeply disturbing to many of the men who had used their own money to purchase Dragon Skin because it will affect both their mobility and ballistic protection.

Of course, by bringing this up, Nathaniel Helms is obviously working for Al Qaeda. At least that will be the neo-conservative and neo-libertarian chickenhawk angle.

You know I'm right. These Big Government Warfare bastards have no honor.

FYI, from the Liberty Coalition (of which my publication, and the Free Congress Foundation, ACLU, American Conservative Union, Republican Liberty Congress and others are partners).

Dear LC Partners,

Today was a very exciting day for Liberty Coalition. Appearing at Constitution Hall in Washington for an event cosponsored by Liberty Coalition and the American Constitution Society, Al Gore, the former Vice-President, upbraided the Bush Administration for its unprecedented expansion of executive powers. And, following Liberty Coalition's transpartisan lead, Gore said both Democrats and Republicans in the Congress who signed off on the Bush program of warrantless domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency should explain themselves. Gore also echoed LC's call for a special counsel and Congressional hearings on NSA domestic spying.

To emphasize the transpartisan nature of the event, former Republican Congressman Bob Barr was set to introduce Gore. Since Barr was busy in New York trying to prevent the United Nations from banning personal ownership of small arms, the introduction was to be done remotely. However, when the video link went down, Liberty Coalition's National Director Michael Ostrolenk took the stage for a stellar impromptu introduction, touching on how the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness transcend party lines.

We have posted the full text of Mr. Gore's speech to our website. It was an interesting address that put current abuses in context with history, such has Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus and the Lyndon Johnson administration's lies about the Gulf of Tonkin. You can find the full text here: http://www.libertycoalition.net/gore-speech

If you have RealPlayer, you can paste this address in (Ctrl+O , Ctrl+V) to get C-SPAN's video archive of Gore's speech (sadly missing Ostrolenk's introduction): rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter011606_gore.rm

In Liberty,

--
James Plummer
Policy Director
Liberty Coalition

For years I had been a supporter of the death penalty. Later, a switch flicked in my head and my views did a 360 as more and more DNA evidence began to illuminate the high number of wrongly convicted individuals languishing in prisons and on death row. That reversal was further compounded by the grotesque display of prosecutors and courts denying or fighting DNA testing for many inmates. Something to hide, perhaps? That - and I began to wear a tinfoil hat full-time. I don’t really care if someone feels they’ve been rehabilitated or redeemed themselves, because that isn’t the point.

An essay I wrote last year spells it out better than I can say in a few words here:

http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/86/44/

In short, my view is that government is fallible and corrupt – up to its gills. Therefore, government cannot be trusted to only convict or execute the guilty. Languishing in prison as an innocent person is bad enough, but there is still hope for release – however feeble, improbable or non-comforting that may be to the individual enduring confinement. After an execution, however, an “oops, my bad” is about all that can be expected from the folks giving the orders to throw the switch or stick the needle.

As Chuck D once rapped, “can’t trust it.” And I don’t.

This entry also posted to Yahoo! Groups - SciFiNoir_Lit.

At Dr. Beaman's request, I'm publishing his final response on the subject (available here).

First off, let me apologize to all members of this group who have taken any offense to my postings as part of a ‘pissing match’, as one member of this group has put it, between myself and Mr. James Landrith. I have just followed the link that Mr. Landrith posted and found that I, indeed, did write that atheists etc. should leave, just as Mr. Landrith said I did. I did not follow it back to my very original posting, if there was one, but that is most assuredly NOT what I meant. I dashed that off in haste in August. I should have been more careful.

Let me state this and make it unequivocally clear. All manner of believers and non-believers are welcome in this country and to stay for as long as they wish. HOWEVER, if they find it so repugnant to encounter public acknowledgments of God that it is intolerable to them, then they should have the intellectual honesty to leave. I will not parse what the words deist, theist, etc. mean. The Founders believed in some kind of a God and The Declaration says just that plus that our rights are divinely endowed. As an exercise, I can come to no other conclusions and request that if anyone can come up with a logical counter argument I stand ready to change my views.

As far as my childish challenges, I rally did not expect Mr. Landrith to drive 700 miles to Jacksonville and if he did and ‘took the gloves off’, the most I would have done is block any assault by him and walked away. I was trying to show some logical conclusions to things that he has on the internet. I apologize to all but again, please note, any action would have been his to initiate. I made no direct threats. And, if you read both our statements you will see that neither of us actually threatens the other.

My reference to Mr. Landrith’s Marine background stems from simple observations over the years. At least when I was exposed to recruiting, the Marines always talked about how tough they were. “Are you tough enough to be a Marine? Only the toughest can be a Marine.” That was their boast for decades. That was not only my impression but the impression of a lot of other people. I knew a lot of guys who came out disgusted with the Marines but there were a lot of guys who came out with a ‘kill the world’ attitude. It may not be Mr. Landrith’s but I was using literary license. I failed in my goal of showing some absurdism on his part and for that I also apologize to every member of this group and I apologize to Mr. Landrith for imputing to him a characteristic of the organization to which he once belonged.

With regard to political candidates, I can’t think of a circumstance where I would vote for an atheist unless he were Max Eastman. It is my right to make that call.

I think this subject has been exhausted and I want to get on with other things.

I also consider this subject exhausted and grant Dr. Beaman the last word.