Our financial system isn't based just on technology; it is also based on trust.  It has long been my personal feeling that a successful attack on our nation by "terrorists" would be made, not on its technological "infrastructure" but, rather, on the system of trust that is the foundation of the whole system.  

Years ago, when the idea of Internet commerce was first floated, it was believed that no one would be willing to "trust" the Internet for sizeable transactions until there was some way to absolutely identify (authenticate) both the customer/client and vendor/financial institution, each to the other.  That means of absolute identification has never been widely put into place.  The technology of "client certification" exists, but in most cases, financial transactions are still authenticated largely with simple passwords.

Why?  Because, instead of building complex, expensive, robust, technological solutions to guarantee the security of the transaction systems, it was decided, instead, to rely on public trust to uphold a system that is, in reality, not that secure.  The recently publicized incidences of "ID Theft" are not something new ... they are just larger in scope than the crimes that occur daily but are small enough that they can be written off as "the cost of doing business on the Internet."  Most of us don't lose a lot of sleep worrying about misuse of our credit card, for example, because we are "insured" against fraudulent misuse of the card by someone other than ourselves.

Yesterday, Natan Sharansky resigned as a cabinet minister in Ariel Sharon's government in protest of plans for unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories.  

        http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/571302.html

If you've know anything at all about Sharansky, you probably know he's a hero of the right wing, and you can find him praised as such in publications like the National Review:

        http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/rosenberg200411190851.asp

The gulf between Sharansky's lofty rhetoric (about promoting "democracy" around the globe) and his own lack of respect for human rights in his adopted country (Israel) was the subject of a cover article in a recent issue of The American Conservative.  That article concluded that "This divergence--between Sharansky's rhetoric and real-world political behavior--suggests that he is not the reliable beacon for American foreign policy that the Bush administration so desperately seeks."

        http://www.amconmag.com/2005_03_28/cover.html

President Bush himself once said this: "If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy read Natan Sharansky's book, `The Case for Democracy.' It's a great book''

In other words, Sharansky has enjoyed a great deal of influence over our own government, which has chosen to use violence and brute force to accomplish things without even a decent pretence of using diplomacy to find peaceful solutions.  

That choice is proving to be a failure.

It's an easy read in this translation.  Note that the nation of Israel was led at the time by God's prophet, Samuel, but they desired, instead, to be led by an earthly king.  Samuel called on God to guide him in answering the demand for a king brought to him by the elders of the tribe.  And God told Samuel that the people weren't rejecting Samuel's leadership; they were rejecting their God.  He told Samuel to describe to the people the nature of the king they had chosen, and then, if they still desired to live under that warlike ruler, to hearken to their demand, and give them what they wanted.

Most importantly, note that Samuel warned the people (verse 18), that if they suffered "buyer's remorse" later on, the Lord would not listen to their voices because they had ignored His warning.

This is good stuff, even if you're not a christian.

1 Samuel, chapter 8 (Revised Standard Edition):

1. When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel.
   
2. The name of his first-born son was Jo'el, and the name of his second, Abi'jah; they were judges in Beer-sheba.
   
3. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after gain; they took bribes and perverted justice.
   
4. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah,
   
5. and said to him, "Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint for us a king to govern us like all the nations."
   
6. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to govern us." And Samuel prayed to the LORD.
   
7. And the LORD said to Samuel, "Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
   
8. According to all the deeds which they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.
   
9. Now then, hearken to their voice; only, you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them."
   
10. So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking a king from him.
    
11. He said, "These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots;
    
12. and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
    
13. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
    
14. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.
    
15. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.
    
16. He will take your menservants and maidservants, and the best of your cattle and your asses, and put them to his work.
    
17. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.
    
18. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the LORD will not answer you in that day."
    
19. But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No! but we will have a king over us,
    
20. that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles."

You know, most "conspiracy theories" aren't kind to the government, so it's a real irony that the one which has garnered the most believers in the past few years completely supports the myth of our government as benign and paternal ... those characteristics completely embodied in its figurehead, "Bush the Messiah (the Saviour)."

In this wildly-far-fetched fantasy, Bush rallied the people behind him after the WTC attacks to combat the evil forces of the Al Qaeda Terrorist Super Army which was in league with the mythical "Axis of Evil" which included North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, The ruling Mullahs of Iran and the Butcher of Iran, Saddam Hussein.  Our invasion of Afghanistan prevented the formation of an invincible terrorist force that would have attacked, conquered, and occupied the United States and forced us all to live in slavery and never eat bacon again!

According to this theory, we owe our freedom and our security (as well as our unquestioning loyalty) to one Godly man alone, George W. Bush.

What a load of crap ... but a lot of people still believe it.

What does that say about our nation?

You know, if you want to know what constitutes the principles of traditional American conservatism, don't look to a political party for the answer.  Look to the institution that embodies those principles and codifies them as the only acceptable code of conduct for leaders ... our military.

Anyone who's ever been connected with the US military knows how much military tradition values the quality of leadership. It's institutionalized in the military and (unlike the private sector of our economy) in the military there is no distinction between "management" and "leadership."  if you are an officer in any of our military forces, you are considered a leader and you are expected to exhibit, consistently and constantly, the traits of leadership, in your private life as well as your professional. That's tradition, it's doctrine, and it's mandated by the regulations and guidelines set down as the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It isn't optional.

I spent the first 14 years of my professional life working (both as a civilian employee and contractor) for the US Army.  During that time, I was exposed to the military's ideas about leadership. We were taught that authority can be delegated, but never responsibility.  Personal responsibility is core to military leadership, and it's also one of the very most conservative principles.  Yet, our current leadership will do anything, its seems, to avoid accepting responsibility for its numerous mistakes.  

While admitting only that "mistakes were made," our leaders disavow any responsibility for that ... instead trying to attribute blame.  Finger-pointing and denial have replaced honesty and integrity in our government.

That isn't true leadership.  

The truth is, the argument about "who's at fault" can be waged for years and we may never know for sure who is "to blame."  But we all know, and there is no doubt, who is responsible.  We all know where the proverbial "buck stops."  We all know who holds the reigns of power.  And, if we have any integrity of our own, we won't tolerate attempts by those in positions of authority to shirk their responsibility.

And the Verdict on Justice Kennedy Is: Guilty
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post, Saturday, April 9, 2005

This entire article is well worth reading, but I'll confine my comments to statements made by Michael P. Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, an organization from which my family resigned its membership last year.

Quoting from the article:

    [...]

    ... Michael P. Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said [Supreme Court Justice Anthony M.] Kennedy "should be the poster boy for impeachment" for citing international norms in his opinions. "If our congressmen and senators do not have the courage to impeach and remove from office Justice Kennedy, they ought to be impeached as well."

    [...]

    Farris then told the crowd he is "sick and tired of having to lobby people I helped get elected." A better-educated citizenry, he said, would know that "Medicare is a bad idea" and that "Social Security is a horrible idea when run by the government." Farris said he would block judicial power by abolishing the concept of binding judicial precedents, by allowing Congress to vacate court decisions, and by impeaching judges such as Kennedy, who seems to have replaced Justice David H. Souter as the target of conservative ire. "If about 40 of them get impeached, suddenly a lot of these guys would be retiring," he said.

    [...]

From a thinly-veiled threat to the Congress of the United States, to a suggestion that a number of federal judges should be punished as examples to others who would dare put the Law above the will of the Christian right, Farris's intentions are clear. He wants greater control of the government by the religious right, removing the constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state, and to give Congress the ability to override federal court decisions, thereby removing the constitutionally- and carefully-constructed separation of powers between branches of our government.

And there ya go ... the reason I cancelled our home-schooling family's membership in the Home School Legal Defense Association ... they are associated with the radical right-wing (as I have long suspected) ... and it's all coming out, the hatred, the bigotry, the lies, hypocrisy, and lust for power and wealth. These people are pathological in their sick pursuit of a world in which they, and they alone, decide what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad, who shall live and who shall die.

What do these people want? For one thing, they would to punish a federal judge for upholding the long-standing revulsion in our society toward the execution of juveniles. They want more blood, always more blood.

They should all swing slowly in the wind. And they're digging their own graves, have you noticed?

In recent weeks, the saber-rattling rhetoric of the Bush administration has softened somewhat, but make no mistake; that's not because of resistance from members of the opposition (Democratic) party to the policies and plans (foreign policy) of the Administration.  The real impact is the result of resistance from members of Bush's own party who question, not the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, but the wisdom of another such invasion before the last one has been successfully concluded.

As our civilian leadership is preparing to go to war, possibly as early as this summer, against one of Iraq's neighboring states to the West (Syria) or the East (Iran), in light of what we've all learned from the invasion of Iraq exactly two years ago, we have to question "is it wise?"

Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, for example, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld ... "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?"

[...]

Rumsfeld replied that, "You go to war with the Army you have, not the one you might want ..."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6676765/

Rumsfeld's answer is interesting.  Just before I left work yesterday, I went into an office shared by two strong supporters of the President in this last election who were discussing Rumsfeld's remark.  I was surprised when one of the men (who, incidentally was a senior manager for Chesebrough-ponds for years) said, emphatically, "That's NOT the way you talk to troops going into battle ... Rumsfeld should have said, 'I am fighting for you ... I'm doing everything I can for you."