Fire At Will: Reader Feedback -- QUICK UPDATE, 4/19

I'm going to be on "The Jaime Johnson Show" on KFFF AM 1260 (99.3 FM) out of Boone, Iowa today from 2:00-3:00 PM Central Time. We'll be discussing the renewed campaign for civilian disarmament in the aftermath of the government-facilitated mass murder at Virginia Tech.






Resistance is futile: A Taser warning posted in an Idaho courtroom (courtesy of Pro Libertate reader SW).


Prompted by the essay "Highway Robbery" -- which described, among other things, a federally funded program deploying State Troopers on semi-trucks to prey on motorists -- reader D.S. passes along this troubling piece of intelligence:

"I recently obtained my CDL license in my home state (Georgia.) Before I could obtain [it], I had to participate in the "Highway Watch" program, which basically meant watching a video and answering three questions at the end. The program basically instructs drivers to spy on their fellow citizens and report any "suspicious activity" to, you guessed it, the government (via 911 or the local police.) Alas, the police state mentality might very well infect a profession known for its individualist, no-nonsense nature."

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Pagans pay their respects: Pagan OMC members who knew Derek Hale (below) at the March 23 press conference in Wilmington, Delaware announcing the lawsuit on behalf of Derek's widow and family.

A pseudonymous reader offered the following critique of a brief anti-war commentary embedded in the essay "Death Squad in Delaware: The Case of the Murdered Marine":

"I would ask you to look at this line in your article: `In addition to his honorable military service (albeit in a consummately dishonorable war)'.... Now you are supposed to be a professional writer. The above sentence makes no sense at all. How can you say this brave young man was honorable, and then claim he participated in something dishonorable? I know you left wing nut jobs can’t just come out and say what you really mean. But when you write about a man you can’t hold a candle too how bout attempting to control your contempt for our Country. And spare us all with any answer that you support the troops but not the war. That’s another contradictory sentence that only makes sense to left wing kooks."

This gentleman's first mistake, of course, is to assume that I'm a left-wing nut job, when my nutjobbery is actually a proprietary blend of libertarianism and paleo-conservatism, and the chief Source of my opposition to war is the anti-war Radical whose teachings are presented in some detail in the New Testament.

One of the symptoms of Hannitization (an auto-lobotomy that results from prolonged exposure to White House-aligned media whores) is the inability to recognize that there are many critics of Bush's war who aren't liberals or leftists of any sort. (Another is the tendency to keep reciting White House-disseminated talking points long after they've been worn down to blunt stubs.) This isn't the most subtle of distinctions, but it is lost on talk radio bulimics like my kind and most learned correspondent.

Likewise, the moral distinction between the soldier and the cause he's ordered to serve isn't difficult for functioning adults to grasp; it may even be intelligible to Hannitoids. History is tragically replete with decent, honorable men whose sacrifices have been wasted by craven, immoral rulers. Winston Churchill (albeit for self-serving reasons) paid tribute to Erwin Rommel, whom the British leader considered to be an honorable soldier, despite the fact that he fought on behalf of a despicable cause.

Like most of those who serve in our military, Derek Hale didn't enlist in the United States Marine Corps because he was eager to take part in a war that is an armed robbery writ large.

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Writing from Iraq, a good friend and PL reader whose name and initials I won't disclose describes how the war is being used to field-test police state techniques that will be deployed in the USSA ere long:

"`Someone' wants us to look at putting drop down gates in every Iraqi market in Baghdad, then add to that walk-through body scanners. Did I mention the push to seal off the Muhallas (neigborhoods) and have people enter by entering their biometric data? I'm talking fingerprinting and possible iris scans. The Good Idea Fairy needs a 3" 12 gauge load shot at it." These are just some of the "crazy security projects that would make the DHS pee in its pants with glee."

My friend is also disgusted by the profligacy and corrupt careerism that characterize the occupation:

"Man, it's simply amazing the money being spent. Don't get me wrong, I've spoken with several Majors and even some senior NCOs and loper ranking officers and most of us agree what we're doing is going in the wrong direction." He and some friends are going to try "to reduce the number of projects and decrease the waste," but he's not optimistic. "Over here, there is like this contest no one dares speak of (but we lower folks see it) where commanders try to outspend each other," he comments. "It's as if spending money on projects is a sign of good civil military operations. I mean, $225,000 to pick up the trash in a neighborhood? i know the trash is bad, as well as the security situation, but man!"

He's also worried about the possibility that the strategic savants in the executive branch are going to wind up losing an entire army in Iraq.

"If we go into Iran, it may happen," he writes. "It would not take much to starve us out. Whenever the crap hits a fan, people will always choose the side that will save their neck. In this case, it will not be to side with the U.S. forces. We will be prevent[ed] from using nukes due to the proximity to our own troops. And having to take care of contractors and service members? Ouch..... Shoot, we wouldn't be able to feed or fuel ourselves since it's contracted out. Heck, in Kuwait and here in Baghdad, [Halliburton spin-off] KBRschedules flights. Man, what have we become?"

"Maybe i need to start making some Christian contacts or here in case we get cut off and overrun?" he concludes. "I call it: `the purge' (aka plan B). :-) Now I learn I'm here for 15 months. I think it will be longer...maybe 18. The truth is always the first victim of war."

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Don, a dear friend for several years, sent me a kind note containing troubling confirmation of the fact that police departments in even the tiniest towns are being transformed into armies of occupation:

"We moved from Florida back to Oklahoma last July and are very happy to be home where we belong. Our new 1978 ranch style is on an acre-and-a-half and we are remodeling it to our taste. The little town of Harrah, OK, is like the TV `Mayberry' in a lot of ways. There is one way, however, that is definitely not like Mayberry. Harrah has about a 4500 population and a small police force, the Harrah Police Department (HPD), that transfers phone calls after 1800hrs to the county sheriff's station. Would you believe that they (HPD) have recently purchased fifteen sniper rifles with a $10,000 grant through the fed's program?! They cannot justify in my mind a need for one, let alone fifteen. The ammo they are burning up having `fun' is coming out of our tax dollars for the `boys' to play`"SWAT.' The fire station also enjoys federal `assistance' from similar sources. Knowing what I know, it's a very scary prospect...."

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Playing off the line in my Resurrection Sunday essay referring to the ancient Tower of Babel and its modern analogue (UN Headquarters), reader Robert Corzine sent along this very revealing graphic:

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And for those of you who are interested, I'm presenting a photograph taken a few days ago by my son, William Wallace, of our German Shepherd, Chief -- who may prove to be my undoing if he doesn't fatten up to the satisfaction of the local branch of Leviathan.


Poor, abused little thing: Chief, our 6-month-old German Shepherd pup, an alleged victim of felonious animal mistreatment.










News and notes --

This Saturday (April 21) I will be speaking at the Spring National Committee Meeting of the Constitution Party in Boise. My topic will be "Paying the Price of Principle."

Next Thursday (April 26) at 3:00 PM EST I will be a guest on Jerri Lynn Ward's Right Talk Radio program "I Object! Justice Examined." We will discuss the government-aided mass murder at Virginia Tech.

For those who have expressed concern about my wife Korrin (scroll down to the end) and offered prayers on her behalf: She is doing better, and -- thank God -- hasn't had to be hospitalized again, at least not yet.

It was one year ago this week that her health took a dramatic and life-altering turn for the worse, and she's been in the hospital four times during that period; on one occasion she was very close to death. Thank you so much for thinking of, and praying for, her and the rest of us, and for your other acts of kindness and generosity.

This week, Kevin Shannon's "The Right Source" radio program has been interviewing Second Amendment activists in anticipation of a renewed push for civilian disarmament. Make sure to stop by The Right Source!

From "Surge" to Slavery

If you want a good measure of how little the Regime cares for its subjects, consider this fact:

Members of local draft boards, who would be given the power to make life and death decisions regarding deferments or exemptions in the likely event that Congress decides to create a slave army, are required to receive only four hours of training each year.

Our nation is afflicted with 2,000 of the five-member draft boards – I prefer to call them Selective Slavery Soviets (SSS). Their members are appointed by the president, and the selection criteria aren't particularly demanding. And to judge from comments made by members of various boards to the press, the most important qualification is an eagerness to serve the interests of the State, rather than its victims.

“If there is a draft,” comments Steve Zurawski, who belongs to a draft board in Chicago, “we go into action. It's a necessary evil.”

That description is exactly half right. To fight a defensive war, a draft is never necessary. Conscription only becomes “necessary” when policy-makers are pursuing evil objectives.

Another draft board member, Jack McInerey Jr., insists that it's wise to keep the SSS network up and running, because otherwise “it would take a minimum of six weeks to organize a draft.”

“Do you want to give your enemy a month and a half to attack your nation?” asks McInerey. “I don't think so.”

Notes the Chicago Sun-Times: “The idea of mandatory military service in the United States can be traced back as far as the Revolutionary War, but the concept of panels of community members to help with the process did not appear until World War I.”

Note how subtly the author of that sentence misleads the reader by tracing the “idea” -- but not the practice – of conscription back to the founding era. The idea of a military draft was considered and rejected by those who drafted the U.S. Constitution.

On May 29, 1787 -- the first working session of the Philadelphia Convention -- Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph presented a detailed dissection of the Articles of Confederation and its deficiencies. The very first liability listed by Randolph, as recorded in James Madison’s Notes, was the fact that the Articles “produced no security against foreign invasion; congress not being permitted to prevent a war nor to support it by their own authority….”

With respect to matters of national defense, the chief weakness of Congress under the Articles of Confederation was its inability to raise money to pay recruits, by Randolph's reckoning.

Where it was necessary to muster troops to defend the Confederation, Randolph continued, with “neither militia nor draughts [drafts] being fit for defense on such occasions, enlistments only could be successful and these could not be executed without money."

Note this well: Randolph, a figure of no small consequence at the Convention, acknowledged that drafts are not “fit for defense” in the event of a sudden attack on our nation.

While Randolph and other Federalists at the Convention insisted that a stronger central government was necessary in order to defend the infant American republic from foreign aggression, their proposed remedy was to provide Congress with the means to raise money to pay a small professional army. Not once during the debates at the Convention was it suggested that the central government should have the authority to conduct a draft of the general population. Agreement was reached that the federal government – through Congress – could call state militia to the active defense of the union, but that the states would not completely surrender control over the militia.

The session of August 18 dealt with that question in some detail. A compromise was proposed by George Mason empowering the central government to create a “select militia,” which he considered “as much as the General Government could advantageously be charged with.” This suggestion failed to find favor with many of the delegates, as was referred to a select committee for further study.

When the issue was taken up again on August 23, the discussion focused on the power of Congress to regulate and discipline militia called to defend the union.

From those discussions emerged the congressional power to “raise armies” (with a two-year limitation on appropriations for the army) and to call the militia into the service of the United States when necessary for the common defense. Once again, none of the delegates suggested that Congress, or any other branch of the federal government, would be permitted to conscript citizens into a national army.

“After circumscribing the central government’s power to draw the militia into federal service with such careful restrictions, the delegates could not possibly have allowed the federal government to exercise direct control over the citizens by permitting a draft into the regular army,” observed legal scholar Leon Friedman in a 1969 Michigan Law Review article. “The matter was so impossible to imagine, given the circumstances and ideological climate of the times, that no voice was raised against it…. All that was given by the grant [to Congress of limited power to raise armies, and call out the state militia], was the power to organize and enlist a federal, professional army which – the delegates thought – would consist of a limited number of garrison troops. That power was given grudgingly, only in the light of the severe hardship Congress had experienced through the Revolution in depending solely on the states for manpower and military supplies.”

The idea that citizens could be compelled “to bear arms for a national authority, and work against their most profound interests, never occurred to the framers,” continues Friedman. To endorse that concept “would have been a contradiction to their entire political heritage, manifestly inconsistent with their sense of the delicate balance between liberty and power, between the appetite for oppression and the instinct for resistance. If the citizen had any military obligation, it was to his local militia.

Many of the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence were inspired by abuses of military power by the British Government at expense of the rights of the colonists. Similarly, many of the provisions inscribed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights (such as the limitation of appropriations for the Army to two years, and the Third Amendment’s prohibition of the quartering of troops in private homes) were inspired by well-entrenched, and amply validated, American concerns about the potential danger of military establishments being employed against the people as occupation forces.

Given the care with which the Framers of the Constitution hedged and qualified congressional power to create military establishments, it is untenable to believe that they granted Congress the power of conscription.

It is true that several of the states had mechanisms to conscript citizens into militias. The chief purpose of those bodies, however, was not to fight on behalf of the union, but rather to defend each state in the event of internal insurrection or other crises (such as conflicts with Indians). While Congress had the power to call militias into service of the union, it was clearly understood that the militias could also be called into service to defend individual states from a rogue central government – a form of interposition explicitly endorsed by Madison in Federalist essay 46.

Once again, this fact is impossible to reconcile with the idea that the central government had the power under the Constitution to conscript the very militiamen upon whom the states would rely as an ultimate check against that same central government.

The War of 1812 came about, in large measure, because of the British government’s practice of “impressing” American citizens – that is, abducting American sailors on the high seas, accusing them of being deserters from the British Navy, and forcing them to serve aboard British ships. Thus it’s reasonable to say that the war was, to some extent, based on a profound opposition to conscription, albeit in this case conducted by a foreign regime.

In our nation’s republican infancy, the citizens of most states looked on the federal government in Washington as something akin to a potentially hostile foreign power (an attitude desperately in need of revival, in my view). Despite misgivings about the necessity and ultimate purposes of the war, Americans – even those in restive New England -- were willing to enlist in both militia units and the regular Army in order to defend the union from Great Britain.

However, widespread disaffection and mutiny spread through both the militia and the Army after it became clear that the “War Hawks” in the Madison administration sought to expand the war into Canada. Governors of New England states refused to act on requisitions of militia for a march on Montreal, and “guardhouse lawyers” descended on militia camps to inform soldiers that the federal government had no constitutional authority to deploy them in foreign wars.

“Rigid Republican doctrine, apart from party loyalty, also harmed the war effort,” records historian Robert Allen Rutland. “Republican views concerning the use of the state militia proved to be a genuine albatross [to President Madison and his administration]. In 1798 Republicans had argued that the Constitution limited the use of the militia (today’s National Guard) to executing federal laws within its borders, suppressing insurrections, and repelling invasions. Could the president call on the militia to invade Canada or the Floridas [at the time not part of the United States]? No, said doctrinaire Republicans and Federalists alike….”

This consensus against using the militia as a foreign expeditionary force was complemented with an equally widespread rejection of conscription – even after the land war against Great Britain took a disastrous turn.

By June 1814, the U.S. Treasury was depleted, the federal government’s credit lines were stretched tauter than a Hollywood face-lift, Napoleon had been neutralized by a British-led coalition (meaning that London would soon be able to turn its attentions toward the U.S.), and peace negotiations were stalling. Madison instructed his negotiators at the peace table to drop the U.S. demand that British end the practice of impressment .

Ironically, the U.S. peace negotiators who had previously demanded an end to impressment operated under the authority of Secretary of State James Monroe – who, as Secretary of War, would later submit the proposal for a U.S. military draft.

Within weeks, this diplomatic retreat was matched by a literal retreat after Washington, D.C. came under British naval bombardment. On August 24, President Madison fled into the woods as British troops burned the White House. First Lady Dolley Madison, seeking to protect official papers, household china, and a portrait of George Washington, left the presidential residence literally minutes ahead of advancing British troops. (A freak – or perhaps providential – tornado, coupled with the explosion of a nearby powder magazine, deterred British troops from actually sacking the White House.)

Losing ground in a desperate war with the world’s most powerful empire, suffering the indignity of an attack on our Capitol City and its most visible symbol, the United States faced a crisis unlike any it has experienced either before or since.

Indeed, the situation in which our nation found itself in late 1814-early 1815 provides an ideal test case for one of the arguments favored by some reluctant proponents of the draft: The claim that in the event of a foreign attack that literally threatens our national survival, conscription may be necessary as an ultimate means of national self-defense.

Compelling as that argument may seem to those who consider it hypothetically, the remarkable fact is that it was rejected by Congress when our nation actually confronted the possibility of losing the war to Great Britain.

The Monroe conscription proposal was placed before Congress in December 1814. The immediate congressional reaction – primarily from Republicans, but also from some Federalists – was one of astonished outrage.

“The power claimed is, doubtless, vastly greater and more dangerous than any other possessed by the Government,” protested Senator Jeremiah Mason of New Hampshire. “It subjects the personal freedom of every citizen, in comparison with which the rights of property are insignificant, to the arbitrary discretion [of government]. Had there been the intention of granting such power, would there not have been some attempt to guard against the unjust and oppressive exercise of it, as was done in the granting of power less important?”

Mason scored a telling point by recalling that the Madison administration had described impressment – which he described as a form of naval conscription -- as “utterly repugnant to our constitution and laws.” “The honorable Secretary [James Monroe] when he drafted those instructions, knew not how soon he should be directed to contend for the contrary doctrine.”

Easily the most eloquent and forceful opponent of the conscription proposal was Congressman Daniel Webster of Massachusetts.

“It was `usurpation’ pure and simple, cried Webster,” recalls biographer Robert Remini. “If such as bill is attempted, he warned, `it will cause a storm such as was never witnessed before.’ But the government was desperate. It had no money, and its army was slowly evaporating. In addition, many states had refused repeated requests for militia troops.

One version of Monroe’s plan did pass the Senate (remarkable, in light of the fact that the Senate as then constituted was intended to represent the interests of the state governments). Describing the plan as “wicked and violent,” Webster warned that it “will be a dead letter in New England.” Angered that proponents of the draft insisted that it was authorized by “implied powers,” rather than by any specific grant of power in the Constitution, Webster eviscerated the proposed draft in a lengthy speech on December 9:

“Is this, sir, consistent with the character of a free government? Is this civil liberty? Is this the real character of our Constitution? No sir, indeed it is not. The Constitution is libeled, foully libeled. The people of this country have not established for themselves such a fabric of despotism…. Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it?…. If the Secretary of War has proved the right of Congress to enact a law enforcing a draft of men out of the militia and into the regular army, he will at any time be able to prove, quite as clearly, that Congress has the power to create a Dictator.”(Spelling in the original.)

If Congress approved this patently unconstitutional and undeniably despotic measure, Webster continued, “It will be the solemn duty of the State Governments to protect their own authority over their own militia, and interpose between their citizens and arbitrary power. These are among the objects for which the State Governments exist; and their highest obligations bind them to the preservation of their own rights and the liberties of their people.”

The conscription proposal was conspicuous on the agenda of the Hartford Convention, which met shortly after Webster delivered his speech. Far from contributing to the defense of the Union, the proposed draft helped fuel a movement that very nearly tore it apart.


A little more than a week ago, Congressman Charles Rangel of New York introduced the "Universal National Service Act of 2007," which would not only re-instate the draft, it would extend it to all Americans of both sexes from ages 18 to 42. This measure is a transliteration of the eighth plank of the Communist Manifesto, which dictates a universal liability for all to serve as the state directs.


Rangel's bill would make all Americans from ages 18 to 42 the property of the President, to use as he sees fit in either military, homeland security, or other "national service" functions. The bill is written in such a fashion that it would provide a new pool of conscripts for immediate use in Iraq and Afghanistan if -- make that when -- the "surge" results in a larger and bloodier mess in the Middle East.


Who are the five people in your community who would have life-and-death power over the future of your children? Now is a good time to find out.

For news and views from a liberty-focused perspective, please be sure to visit The Right Source -- a news portal for information carnivores (but milk-drinkers are welcome, too).

Toward Global Energy Fascism

In 2041 ... Switzerland joined the United Nations*, now a military alliance. What had once been merely a debating society during the twentieth century had turned by the rapprochement of the super powers into ... an active military and economic alliance. An alliance whose purpose ... was to ensure that the less powerful nations of the Southern Hemisphere and Middle East continued to supply them with raw materials.

As their abundant resources propelled [them] to importance, old grudges against the “exploiting” powers radicalized the nations of the Southern Hemisphere. Controlling an ever greater part of the world's dwindling resources, the nations of South America, Africa, and Arabia used the massive wealth they were accumulating to modernize their countries, and their armies. Together they formed the Confederation of States, whose expressed purpose was little less than the domination of their former “oppressors.”

As these nations grew in both economic and military strength, they began looking for ways to flex their newfound muscles. The older countries, fading in both importance and economic strength, sought to reassure themselves by asserting their own power whenever the opportunity to do so safely arose. Soon minor skirmishes, mostly at sea, constantly threatened to erupt into a greater conflict.... By 2032 the world consisted of two mega-nations and a number of backward neutrals who were completely unable to affect the situation.

From the Prologue to The Jupiter War (1991)

Extrapolating from trends visible more than a decade and a half ago, renowned science fiction author Gregory Benford devised the foregoing premise and invited a group of his peers to describe a resource war between those two planet-spanning mega-states. Eager to control the globe without destroying it, the antagonists keep moving the battle lines away from the planet, eventually fighting a full-scale interplanetary war over the Solar System's resources.

In that long and increasingly pointless war of attrition -- “Neither side will surrender, neither will admit it might be wrong” -- the energy- and mineral-rich Jovian system was the grand prize.

Professor Michael T. Klare of Hampshire College avoids sci-fi extravagances in presenting a vision of the coming global resource wars. Klare, author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum, writes that we confront an era of perpetual war, economic regimentation, and garrison state oppression – a system he calls “Energo-fascism.”

“The rise of Energo-fascism can be traced to two overarching phenomena: an imminent collision between energy demand and energy supplies, and the historic migration of the center of gravity of planetary energy output from the global north to the global south,” writes Klare.

As this trend accelerates, Klare foresees the following developments, some of which are already visible in a limited sense:

• “The transformation of the U.S. Military into a global oil protection service”;

• “The transformation of Russia into an energy superpower with control over Eurasia's largest supplies of oil and natural gas”;
  

• “A ruthless scramble among the great powers for the remaining oil, natural gas, and uranium reserves of Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia,” with the accompanying wars, proxy wars, client regimes, corruption, and repression;

• “Increased state intrusion into, and surveillance of, public and private life as reliance on nuclear power grows, bringing with it an increased threat of sabotage, accident, and diversion of fissionable materials into the hands of illicit nuclear proliferators.”

“Disparate as [these developments] seem, they all share a common feature: increasing state involvement in the procurement, transportation, and allocation of energy supplies, accompanied by a greater inclination to employ force against those who resist the state's priorities in these areas,” Klare points out.

(Although Klare seems to appreciate the deadly consequences of giving the state a monopoly on the use of force, he unfortunately has yet to re-think the merits of disarming the civilian population through UN-centered efforts to outlaw non-state possession of "small arms.")

Klare's analysis tacitly acknowledges a largely ignored fact that was highlighted by The Economist (subscription required) last August: Most of the world's energy resources are already either state-owned or state-controlled. The world's thirteen largest oil and gas firms, for example, are either partially or wholly nationalized through “state-owned firms through which governments retain profits from oil production.” Exxon, the world's largest private oil company, comes in at number 14 on that list.

All told, 16 of the top 20 oil and gas firms are State-owned and control roughly 90% of the world's oil. These national oil companies (NOCs) are riddled with the corruption and inefficiency that are inescapable symptoms of state ownership or control. As the Economist points out: “Few of the princes, politicians and strongmen who wield ultimate authority over these firms can resist the urge to meddle. At best, that leads to the sort of inefficiencies found at most state-owned firms.... At worst, the business of pumping and selling oil [and natural gas] is entirely subsumed by politics,” as when the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin choked off the flow of natural gas to Ukraine a year ago, in the middle of winter – the time of peak demand.

Klare considers Putin's Russia – which has been using undisguised state violence to consolidate control over the immense energy wealth of Russia and the “near abroad” -- as the paradigmatic “Energo-fascist” regime. Putin himself, in his Ph.D. Dissertation, set forth what could be considered the founding premise of that system: “The state has the right to regulate the process of the acquisition and the use of natural resources, and particularly mineral resources, independent of on whose property they are located. In this regard, the state acts in the interests of society as a whole.”

“No better justification for Energo-fascism can be imagined,” comments Klare. Indeed, Putin is to be commended for his candor; his counterparts in Washington are acting on the same premise while trying to conceal their intentions.

For example, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 contains a provision usurping state and local control over decisions related to energy infrastructure: Specifically, the Act deprived them of the authority to approve placement of natural gas “regasification” facilities.

Some communities had resisted construction of the huge facilities in local ports for various reasons – such as concerns over safety or possible terrorist attacks. This is a splendid example of how federalism should work, since other communities would be eager to exploit the resulting economic opportunities. But the Bush regime now has the power to veto those decisions in the name of acting in “the interests of society as a whole” (as Putin would put it).

Klare makes a plausible case that this could prefigure the wholesale federalization of all decisions having to do with energy resource development and allocation.

It's not unreasonable to see the theft of Iraq's energy resources by Washington (with a limited buy-in from a handful of cohorts) as an application of the same conceit on the international stage, as well as the first of many resource wars.

“By militarizing the energy policies of the consuming nations and enhancing the repressive capacities of client regimes, the foundations are being laid for an Energo-fascist world,” Klare predicts.

If he is right – and I fear he may be – we'll never have to worry about wars erupting in the Asteroid Belt or on the moons of Jupiter. Caught between apocalyptic violence and dystopian tyranny, humanity would never escape earth's gravity well.

*Actually, Switzerland became the 190th member of the United Nations in 2002, alas.