Securing the Canadian Border

America’s recent obsession with border security provides politicians with plenty of opportunity to engage in populist rhubarb. Most often, Republican lawmakers clamor for robust policing of the US-Mexico demarcation, as they have done throughout the current immigration debate in Congress.

Sometimes, however, a legislator opts to be contrarian, for political or pecuniary reasons. Such a one is Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who recently enthused to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation about the prospect of deploying “low-level radar” and in-ground security defenses to secure America’s northern border.

Alas, the proposition that America’s borders with Canada and Mexico are equally problematic is dunderheaded political correctness, often deployed by the willfully benighted. We were inured to this sort of thing by the outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security, the breathtakingly ignorant Janet Napolitano, who entered that disgraceful office claiming the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada.

This is how the Left gets tough – rather than confront actual problems or genuine malefactors, they hyperventilate about invented ones, at the expense of innocent people.

As to Tester, he presents an object lesson for red state voters: When you elect a down-home, g-droppin’, deer-skinnin’, ramblin’ man like Jon Tester, you’re still getting a Democrat. That means, for example, when it’s time to cast the deciding vote in favor of Obamacare, Tester will be there. His Grizzly Adams façade is just that; silly-bears leftism is his guiding principle.

Perhaps, in this case, the goal is simply to bring federal dollars to Montana. This is equally disquieting.

The more one scrutinizes Congress, the more dispiritingly clear it becomes that decisions are almost never made for the good of the American people. Instead, it is usually nonsense like this, pertinent to local favors or fundraising, with little defensible value to the country. This is a bipartisan condition, often noted, and overdue for correction. To wit, it’s almost never about you, it’s about them.

To those of us from the northern side of the border, this talk of beefing up security seems a tad ungracious. Canada and the United States enjoy the largest bilateral trading relationship in the history of the planet and, notwithstanding some unpleasantness about 200 years ago, the dynamic has been largely cordial. We gave you the telephone, Velcro and Bryan Adams (you’re welcome).

Entering the United States from Canada by land, sea or air is already one of the most miserable border crossings in the civilized world.

One need not plumb the documented horror stories of US Customs officers’ rough treatment of foreigners, including journalists, or their institutional obsession with confiscating Kinder Eggs, to outline this point. Even Americans returning home are struck, with rare exceptions, by the imperious and dyspeptic default of their own border agents. It bears questioning where such people come from, and if they are aware that other First World nations do not treat travelers in this way.

Someone told these Eugene Tackleberrys at their sleep-away camp training weekend that they are the last line of defense, or the first, or some nonsense that makes them behave as though they’re guarding the Gates of Vienna against Ottoman hordes.

We Canadians are not a violent race. Our civil war took place in a Tim Horton’s and was over in about 20 minutes. No one was injured, and afterward we all went curling.

Absent any physical danger from septuagenarian snowbirds or day-shopping hosers, how to explain the excesses of America’s over-caffeinated sentries? Do they suppose they’re halting illegal immigration?

What Canadian would be sneaking into the US today? And for what, exactly? Higher unemployment? Steeper taxes? Violent crime? Obamacare?

Having gone through every stage of the US immigration system, from visitor to citizen, I contend that America needs to get over itself. The presumption that everyone, from anywhere, would crawl over broken glass to partake of the American Dream is decades out of date.

This anachronistic stance is reminiscent of leftists and academics who used to insist the Berlin Wall was erected to keep those in the West from breaking into the East and availing themselves of the many free services in the socialist paradise.

Sometimes it takes someone from overseas – or at least, from across Lake Ontario – to provide perspective. And this comes not a moment too soon, before some Northeastern member of Congress gets it in his head to appropriate DHS funds for sharks with laser-beams attached to their heads to secure the Great Lakes.

For a self-styled Land of the Free, America seems awfully intent on erecting barricades. Tester says enhanced Canadian border security, “could prevent drug smuggling and terrorism.” Ah, of course: The nebulous “War on Terror” and “War on Drugs” are used to justify most every tin-pot crackdown on daily life.

Even on the southern border, the proposed fence is unbecoming a nominally free nation. It would be a hideous scar across the landscape; a grotesque contradiction, visible from space.

America has problems, but a lack of security is not among them. As some free advice from an immigrant: The last thing the US needs is more walls.

Also, you can keep Jim Carrey, no charge.


Theo Caldwell, host of TV’s Global Command Centre, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at at theo@theocaldwell.com

The Non-Compliance Revolution

“This is America – everything’s illegal.” – New York City attorney

With Independence Day come and gone, and in light of populist uprisings elsewhere in the world, some have asked if America might undergo its own revolutionary upheaval. Specifically, with the exponential growth of government, including the regulating or outlawing of ever-more areas of daily life, liberty-minded Americans wonder when and if their countrymen will say, “enough is enough.”

But armed insurrection is so 18th Century. It went out of style with muskets and pantaloons. It is possible, however, that America’s rebirth of freedom could take a more benign form – that of citizens simply refusing to obey the encroaching demands of their government. There is a surprising amount of power to be found in two little letters: “no.”

Alas, “no” is hard to come by. When security check-points appear at subway stations during morning rush hour, or federal workers indecently paw at passengers boarding a plane, or natural resources officers demand licenses before you can drop a line in your favorite fishing spot, almost no one resists.

When free-born citizens capitulate in this way, one expects they do so out of surprise at the officious overkill, or they make the quick calculation that compliance will minimize immediate hassle and allow them to go about their day.

But ever-expanding government makes it more and more difficult to comply, even if citizens want to. This applies to all manner of bureaucracy, seen and unseen. For just one example: You, gentle reader, cannot know if you filed your federal taxes correctly.

You cannot know this because the tax code is simply too complex and arbitrary. Within such a system, there can be no objective verification. Therefore, if it comes up for review, the accuracy of your return will be determined on a subjective basis by a bureaucrat who will not deign to divulge their first name.

When compliance becomes impossible, well-meaning citizens may just stop trying. Precedent can be found in the government’s own behavior. When IRS agents refuse to answer questions about their conduct, even as they spend taxpayer money on “business expenses” that would not survive one of their own audits, citizens rightly wonder why they should bother keeping their own books in order.

Or when the Obama administration decides to suspend problematic portions of its own health care law – as though legislation were a buffet, from which the Executive can take or leave what it likes – citizens may decide it’s too onerous to fill out that 20-page form, or apply for that required license, and they would have a valid point.

At times, non-compliance can carry a heavy price, exacted by authorities whose dearest hope is that you will not comply: namely, over-eager officers of the law.

As a law-abiding citizen, and a law-and order conservative, I have a hard time trusting the police. This applies particularly to today’s ubiquitous, militarized variety, outfitted in “the full Robocop,” as Mark Steyn puts it.

My mistrust has been a long time coming. Bit by bit, seeing abuses of petty authority and the relentless transformation of police departments into paramilitary units, I have ceased to see them as keepers of the peace. Instead of disrupting crime, it seems they prioritize controlling and harassing innocent people.

Specifically, as noted in Radley Balko’s new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, militarized police increasingly see civilians as the enemy, rather than the employers they are paid to protect. SWAT teams are dispatched to serve warrants on non-violent suspects, or to perform routine safety inspections.

My jaundiced eye is also directed at the quasi-constabulary brigades assembled by every federal, state and local agency, patrolling all aspects of American life from the airport to the fishing pond.

These are government apparatchiks who, by their wardrobe and mien, falsely claim the authority of law enforcement. Perhaps the most obvious example are the blue-shirted Paul Blarts of the TSA, who prowl America’s airports dressed as though they’re about to invade Poland, complete with tin badges blaring “Officer,” strongly implying they are police when, in fact, they are nothing of the kind. And always, always, we are told their excesses are about keeping us “safe.”

As a handy reminder, be suspicious whenever someone says they’re doing something “for your safety.” Doubtless, there are situations in which the statement is sincere. But in today’s nanny-cop America, “safety” is the elastic subterfuge employed to confiscate freedom.

More directly, whenever someone claiming to be a policeman, or some other kind of enforcement “officer” comes hulking up to you in the full get-up – knee-pads, Kevlar, Velcro and so on – you, as a free citizen and inheritor of God-given, enumerated liberties dating back at least to the English Bill of Rights of 1689, if not the Magna Carta of 1215, have an obligation to laugh in that person’s face. If the best you can do is laugh into their Bane-mask, so be it.

Don’t get angry, or go for one of their many guns. That could get ugly and, in many cases, they hope it does (as Leonardo DiCaprio cynically exclaimed of cops in The Departed, “They signed UP to use their guns!”). Someone who feels the need to weaponize themselves in order to interact with the general public may be monumentally insecure, but they can also cause tremendous damage. Think of Barney Fife in an Iron Man suit. Or, for younger television viewers, imagine Dwight Schrute’s later iterations of Recyclops, only with live ammunition.

Compliance is demanded daily of Americans, accompanied by the implicit or overt threat of force. One should neither expect nor desire violent insurrection in response. But, as a people to whom freedom was bequeathed by generations who pledged their lives to win it, today’s citizens need only learn to say no.

Does the spirit of 1776 abide within modern Americans? Or will they continue to cede their liberties, preferring simply to get through their days – that is, until they awake to find their days are no longer their own?


Theo Caldwell, host of TV’s Global Command Centre, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at at theo@theocaldwell.com

The Rubio Disappointment

As a matter of political philosophy, conservatives avoid granting messianic status to politicians – notwithstanding Republicans’ recent penchant for re-naming every rest stop, park bench and sinkhole after Ronald Reagan.

Ideology that embraces citizen government should eschew the deification of political leaders. Human beings are fallible, politicians perhaps most of all, and Republicans ought to know this.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was, for a time, an exception to the rule. From his shocking upset of then-Gov. Charlie Crist in the 2010 senate primary, to his election that November, to the fluid way he served up Tea Party tenets, he caused conservatives to swoon. Throw in the fact that he speaks Spanish and still has most of his hair, and that was it. Rubio was the Next One, the Republican Obama.

For conservatives, this was intellectually inconsistent. Lately, it seems they know it.

Disenchantment began gradually. There were picayune rumblings over whether Rubio had embellished his parents’ history as Cuban exiles, he was passed over for the vice presidential spot on the 2012 Republican ticket, and he mangled a key passage in his address to the GOP Convention, calling for more “government over more freedom.”

Serious image trouble started with his response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address in February of 2013. He looked awful – not Bobby Jindal-awful, but awful nonetheless.

For a GOP presidential aspirant, this simply isn’t good enough. Democrats have the luxury of being able to look bad, get things wrong, and still win elections with the help of a cordial press. Republican candidates, meanwhile, as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell was once advised, “need to be doing it better and cleaner than the other guy.”

These are largely optics, which are important in politics. But the real Rubio letdown has come from his befuddled and baffling support of the 1,200-page immigration bill working its way through Congress. To his erstwhile supporters, the fact that Rubio would champion this legislation shows how quickly he has become a creature of Washington, DC.

Politicians and journalists care deeply about “immigration reform.” Regular Americans, by and large, do not. Polls consistently show Americans are more concerned about the economy, deficits, health care, the growth of the federal government, and a host of other issues than they are about immigration.

Rubio’s disaffected fans sent him to the Senate to champion their beliefs, not to focus on what the New York Times thinks is important. And if he were to stray, they wish he would be right, or effective. This effort seems like amnesty, decorated with promises of “border enforcement” that will go unfulfilled.

History does not support the oft-repeated nostrum that Republicans must embrace this sort of thing to woo Hispanic voters. Hispanics account for about 8.4% of the electorate. Had the GOP captured 70% of their votes in the 2012 presidential race, Obama would still have won. Further, the last time outright amnesty was enacted, in 1986, Republicans’ share of the Hispanic vote declined in the next federal election.

If Rubio ever did aspire to win the White House, these leftward moves have been unwise, no matter what Lindsey Graham might be cooing in his ear. There is an appetite in the land for what Rubio was meant to embody – a rebirth of individual liberty.

Democrats overjoyed at their ascendancy may cluck that America has rejected conservative politics. The reality is that, on the national level, true conservatism has not been offered for some time.

The last two cycles at least, Republicans have had to settle for presidential candidates that provoked something less than unbridled enthusiasm. Indeed, in 2008 and 2012, Republican enthusiasm was very, very bridled. This was a function of a weak field in 2012, and a misbegotten nomination process in 2008.

Mitt Romney might have been a competent manager, but nothing in his record or rhetoric suggested he would undertake real reform, such as many Republicans crave.

As for Sen. John McCain, from authoring legislation that contravenes the First Amendment, to obsessing over fashionable silly-bears like “climate change,” he represents Washington Republicanism at its worst. Even if he had somehow been elected, one suspects his act would have worn thin after one term. (Question: If McCain had won in 2008, would Hillary Clinton be president today? Discuss.)

Rubio emulates McCain, if not in cantankerousness, in senatorial detachment from the actual concerns of Americans. Witness the appalling contrast between Rubio’s 2010 self and the more recent, Schumer-snuggling version, flailing to defend what he himself calls a “laundry list” of immigration expenditures.

As syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer says of the proposed legislation, “it’s all inputs.” Rubio trumpets the 20,000 new border patrol agents, the 700-mile wall, the drones, and, most of all, the money being spent. After barely three years in the Senate, he imagines this is a strong argument.

In this way, Rubio demonstrates why America has only elected three of its presidents directly from the self-described “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.”

Marco Rubio was never the answer to America’s problems, and conservatives should not expect any politician to be.


Theo Caldwell, host of TV’s Global Command Centre, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at at theo@theocaldwell.com

Canada: Land of the Free

“It’s so clean and bland – I’m home!” –Marge Simpson, on arriving in Canada

With its mild manners and measured expectations, Canada has long served as North America’s straight man. From Michael Moore’s Canadian Bacon to The Simpsons to South Park, American comedy has tapped this area like the oil sands.

On one of their several sojourns to the Great White North, the Simpson clan pass by the set of a film called Canadian Graffiti, in which a street punk spray-paints three words on a wall: “Obey the rules.”

And this is largely the rap on Canadians: Even when they try to be edgy, their deference and decency win out, such that their rebellious affectations have all the authenticity of a hard-core Christian rock band.

But Canada is far from American stereotypes of socialism, centralization and obeisance, at least in relative terms. By almost any measure, Canada is a freer country than the USA.

Economically, the contrast is stark, for those who care to see. While folks reflexively state that Canadian taxes are higher than those of the United States, corporate and personal rates are lower up north, as is effective treatment of investment income. Moreover, Canadians and their families who reside abroad are not subject to the worldwide taxation and reporting requirements imposed on Americans by the IRS.

When Canada was spared the worst of the 2008 economic collapse, American liberals spoke wistfully of comprehensive Canadian financial regulations, as though this were what preserved Canucks’ multi-colored money. In reality, Canada’s good luck was a function of culture, not laws. Canadian banks had limited their exposure to misguided mortgage-backed securities, consistent with the country’s generally cautious investment philosophy.

Meanwhile, America responded to the crash by providing its oppressive Sarbanes-Oxley financial legislation with an equally Byzantine follow-up, Dodd-Frank.

For decades, Americans have debated the merits of Canada’s “socialized” health care, yet much of what Americans think they know about the Canadian system is wrong. Yes, Canada nominally maintains a single-payer plan, with taxpayers footing the tab for universal coverage, and there are prohibitions against the private purchase of services. In reality, about one-third of medical procedures are purchased privately and Canadians with the means often go to the United States for treatment (which has lately begged the question, if Obamacare is implemented, where will Canadians go for their health care?).

Ironically, in this era of mass communication, freedom of speech is hard to come by, and Canada is no exception. Even so, with the abolition of the Canadian Criminal Code’s Section 13, which punished so-called “hate speech,” Canada leads the Western world in reclaiming the right of individual free expression from the ravenous maw of political correctness.

Such legislation was nowhere near unique to Canada, as charges of “hate speech” are a ubiquitous tool of the worldwide Left, intended to silence opposition while elevating their approved opinions to the level of law. But the fact that Canada has abolished this shameful codification of censorship reveals a tendency toward renewal of liberty that the United States, and other nations, would do well to emulate.

As to day-to-day freedoms, and the likelihood of encounters with armed agents of the government, Canada is not immune to excesses by its authorities. Two quick examples: In 2010, during the G20 conference in Toronto, police brutalized civilians and conducted mass incarcerations of innocent bystanders; and, subsequent to the recent floods in Calgary, police were observed entering private homes and confiscating legally owned firearms.

But these are, thankfully, notable exceptions. Canada lacks the institutional and cultural predilection for ubiquitous policing and routine incarceration, such as exists in the United States.

As the greatest columnist in the world, Mark Steyn (also a Canadian, not coincidentally), has repeatedly observed of the US, “every tinpot makework paper-shuffling bureaucracy now runs around pretending to be Seal Team Six.”

The Department of Education dispatches SWAT police to enforce student-loan compliance, the IRS sends militarized thugs to make collections, and that’s before even contemplating the enormity of the Department of Homeland Security, the NSA, and so on.

While representing five percent of global population, the United States holds twenty-five percent of all the prisoners in the world, and incarcerates people at a rate 13 times greater than the nation’s population growth. Canada, meanwhile, reserves harsh criminal penalties for crimes like murder and holding up the Tim Horton’s drive-thru lane.

The relationship between Canada and the United States, while imperfect, represents one of the great successes of international affairs. Even so, relatively speaking, the true Land of the Free is the Great White North.


Theo Caldwell, host of TV’s Global Command Centre, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at at theo@theocaldwell.com

Don't Politicize the IRS, End It

According to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel, the agency’s internal investigation of recent scandals has, “not found evidence of intentional wrongdoing by IRS personnel, or involvement in these matters by anyone outside of the IRS.”

This is meant to allay concerns that the IRS subjected conservatives and Tea Party groups to audits and inappropriate questioning out of political motivation, or under orders from the White House.

As part of Werfel’s 30-day progress report on the IRS’ scrutiny of itself, much of which is hidden from taxpayers, he suggests it was not only limited-government and right-of-center outfits that received zealous inquiry when applying for tax-exempt status. Presumably, this is submitted as exonerating evidence: The IRS may be officious, but it is unimpeachably even-handed.

One is reminded of America’s second-most detestable federal outfit: the Transportation Security Administration.

In the autumn of 2010, when the TSA ramped up its now-ubiquitous and grotesque security protocols at US airports, including “enhanced pat-downs,” some Americans reacted with justifiable fury. And, for a while, the media and the agency itself responded to citizens’ objections.

Every time a shaky video would emerge of some crying toddler being forced to allow a blue-fingered government stooge to prod the disconsolate tot as a condition of boarding a plane to Disney World, the TSA would conduct an internal investigation. Invariably, they would find that proper policy had been followed.

And that’s the problem: the policy.

If your policy is to violate the rights and dignity of innocent people in the name of protecting their freedom, then saying you followed that policy correctly is no vindication.

The same is true of the IRS. Perhaps it targeted conservatives on orders from the White House and perhaps it did not. The point is, the IRS should not be overseeing political speech in the first place. The policy, not the politics, is the problem.

Freedom of speech is meant to be a protection against government. To have government regulate it, particularly through its power of taxation, contravenes that purpose.

And a long-term solution to the harassment of citizens seeking to exercise their God-given rights is not to be found through internal investigations, or congressional inquiries, or even a special prosecutor. It matters little if Lois Lerner goes to jail and, even if every accusation of IRS meddling in the 2012 election is true, there will be no do-over and Mitt Romney will not be installed as president.

Your political beliefs, the causes you support, and your prayers at church ought not to be subject to government oversight. Whether you are a conservative Christian, or a liberal humanist who advocates separation of church and state, you should find this proposition agreeable.

The remedy, therefore, is to remove that government influence which, by its nature and code, insinuates itself into these aspects of your life. That is, put an end to the IRS.

In the immediate aftermath of the IRS scandals, there seemed a moment when Left and Right might agree to do away with this over-reaching agency. Unfortunately, that comity did not last, and reform seems less likely as politicians have broken into their usual camps.

Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings has proclaimed the IRS case “closed” and accused Republicans of conducting a “witch hunt” by pursuing the matter further. This is a trap, and Republicans would do well to avoid it. Specifically, while Rep. Darrell Issa and other Republican leaders should continue to press the IRS, they should avoid making the issue partisan, or personal.

Indeed, Democrats wish to protect President Obama in particular, and preserve expansive government in general. And politicians of both parties stand to benefit by maintaining America’s Byzantine tax code, whereby they can parcel out favors to supporters, obscured by impenetrable bureaucratese.

But none of this serves the American people. The tax code’s pervasiveness and the power it grants members of Congress and the entrenched clerisy of the civil service skew incentives for reform.

And reform will remain elusive until Americans make it clear to their leaders that it is in their political interests.

The IRS has been around for a century and no one has ever been happy about it. For most of America’s history, its government was funded by other means. Even today, stronger alternatives beckon, such as a Fair Tax, levied on the purchase of new goods and administered by an office proscribed from taking on any other mandate.

But, despite its relative youth, the IRS looms as immovable in many Americans’ minds (likewise, the TSA is not even a dozen years old, yet calls for its abolition seem stunning to many who cannot imagine America without it).

America does not need the IRS. Five years ago, America voted for Change. In 2012, the country ratified that decision and, one way or another, change is coming. The moment has not yet passed for vision, courage, and determination to ensure we change for the better.

Theo Caldwell, host of TV’s Global Command Centre, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at at theo@theocaldwell.com

Pardon Edward Snowden

I do not come to praise Edward Snowden, but to pardon him – or at least, to suggest that President Barack Obama do so, if and when he is charged. Even if Snowden has committed crimes, he has done his country, and free people everywhere, a service.

There is heated debate as to whether Snowden is a hero or a villain. Having leaked particulars of the National Security Agency’s information-gathering program, the former CIA employee has given those who would condemn or canonize him much to consider.

He has a hero’s bravery, inasmuch as he opted to follow his conscience and forgo a normal life, honking off the most powerful government on Earth in the process. Conversely, there is some measure of villainy in being given the confidence of an intelligence outfit, only to reveal its methods to the world.

But doing the right thing on a large stage is no proof of heroism. Most heroes don’t get to be famous.

One wishes there were more circumspection from political leaders about the charges Snowden has put forward – that the NSA collects and retains all emails, along with phone records, of US citizens, and has constructed an apparatus for “turnkey tyranny,” in the name of fighting terror.

Instead, we’ve got Sen. Lindsey Graham storming around like Nathan Jessup, insisting these excesses save lives. Sen. Dianne Feinstein accused Snowden of treason. Indeed, politicians of both parties are burnishing their terrorist-warrior credentials by finding new and exciting ways to call this guy a traitor.

Even the most admirable man in American public discourse, Charles Krauthammer, is wrong on this one. He likens the government hoarding private information to police having guns, suggesting neither empowerment is proof of abuse. But besides that the National Safety Council concludes you are eight times more likely to be killed by a cop than a terrorist, the larger question is what befits a free society.

A common tack of both liberals and conservatives defending government surveillance is to state that it is “legal” and “Constitutional,” as though that were the end of it.

In the first place, “legal” has never been a synonym for “moral,” or for “wise.” As to “Constitutional,” we have become inured to the notion that just about anything can be judged so, if you read deeply enough into those squiggly letters on parchment.

Lest we forget, slavery was once legal and, by some notorious interpretations, Constitutional, too.

But let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that if you stand on one leg, tilt your head, and squint just right, you can somehow read this egregiousness as “Constitutional.”

You know what else is “Constitutional”? The Fourth Amendment. It reads:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Both cannot be true. Either the warrantless collection of emails and phone data from supposedly free citizens is unconstitutional, or the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment does not mean what it says.

Snowden’s claims that emails are collected by the NSA and can be accessed with ease are disputed by officials, who insist these methods are not used on American citizens or people within the United States. Even so, politicians and intelligence folks remain mad as wet hens that Snowden has revealed their systems.

But again, both propositions can’t be true. Either Snowden is lying, in which case the authorities’ spitting fury seems oddly disproportionate; or he is telling the truth, in which case the revelation of these abuses is a lesser evil than the abuses themselves.

As to phone records, the program’s defenders are eager to explain that it is not voice content but “data points” and “metadata” – phone numbers, durations, locations, etc. – that the NSA collects. Even if that’s true, as other NSA whistleblowers have pointed out, investigators can learn as much or more from whom you called, when and from where, than from the content of your conversation.

All that said, I am more inclined to believe Snowden’s version.
Having watched both of them respond to questions, I find Edward Snowden more trustworthy than James Clapper. As Director of National Intelligence, Clapper has repeatedly shocked the nation with his incompetence – from referring to the Muslim Brotherhood as “largely secular” to being unaware of a terror plot in London that was headline news around the world – but his demeanor is more disquieting.

Watch Clapper’s March 12 responses to questioning from Sen. Ron Wyden about whether US intelligence agencies gather citizens’ private data and decide for yourself. Clapper mutters, runs his fingers across his skull and croaks out legalisms as he studies the table in front of him.

One needn’t be an expert in body language or behavioral science to surmise that when a person keeps scratching his forehead like a tamarin with a rash and comes up with nonsensical replies about “not wittingly” doing whatever he has been accused of, that person is probably lying.

Conversely, whether Snowden is Nathan Hale or Benedict Arnold, he clearly speaks from his heart.

Snowden must be made an example of, some say, because we must prevent more people from doing something similar. The US government hands out security clearances at a rate of 1,800 per day. If there is a problem with information being leaked, perhaps our crack intelligence folks could pull up their own socks before demanding we send every blabbermouth to Leavenworth. In the meantime, I want every punk kid who has access to Americans’ private records to come forward and say so.

Not only will this serve American ideals of personal liberty, as Snowden purported to do, but it will force the peeping Leviathan to reconsider its methods.

Even if other politicians are too incensed to offer Snowden their thanks, the Leader of the Free World should grant him a pardon.

Theo Caldwell, host of TV’s Global Command Centre, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at at theo@theocaldwell.com

Is America Free?

“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.” –Lee Greenwood

Notwithstanding the earnest patriotism of Lee Greenwood’s anthem, “God Bless the USA,” something about that particular lyric has always rankled. There’s a passive-aggressive prickliness to that “at least” in there, as though it were the final rejoinder of an American arguing in an airport bar, leaving a piece of his mind with some over-served Belgians before slapping down a wad of pink, local currency as a pourboire and hustling to his departure gate for Orlando International.

If he had stayed to chat a little longer, this notional American might have found that his Flemish interlocutors enjoy greater freedom than he, even in the shadow of the bureaucratic colossus based in Brussels, commanding their continent with unchecked power. Or he may simply have discovered, as we all must, that not all song lyrics are true.

Americans of every political stripe are forever banging on about how free they are, without any scale of comparison. It is a time-consuming précis of any such discussion to have to explain to them how their own system works.

This means you, Mr. Ugly American – yes, you with the giant foam cowboy hat and air horn, and you, Mr. Harvard Yard Fancypants with your pince-nez and Rousseauean predilections – your free country locks people up at a rate thirteen times faster than its population grows, and holds one quarter of all the prisoners in the world. Six million of your fellow citizens living abroad, plus millions more of their families, business associates, and people with US ties are required to file with the IRS and send taxes to America, even if they never set foot on your soil. The content of every email you send is intercepted and saved by your government. Not judging you for all this, but figured you should know.

At times, criticism of America is met with hostility and assorted “love it or leave it” nincompoopery from patriots who do not comprehend how the country operates. To wit, in the words of another famous song, America is much like the Hotel California: “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

With millions of illegal entrants, and a tax authority zealously guarding the exits, America seems less difficult to get into than to get out of. Recently, I asked an US Consular official about the record number of Americans attempting to renounce their citizenships in recent years. He stressed the complexity, expense and difficulty of the process, in which all financial information of the citizen, their family and associates must be collected and submitted, along with an “exit tax.” The bulging dossier is sent to overseers in Washington, DC, at which point the Land of the Free will, “decide whether to let you go.” The Soviet-style institutional assumption being, should you choose not to dwell in this demi-paradise, ipso facto, you must be some kind of criminal.

Asking if America is free becomes a relative exercise. Free compared to what? Compared to North Korea? Sure. How about, compared to other Western nations or, more importantly, to the ideals of its Founders, whose constructs intended America to be the world’s greatest experiment in human endeavor and liberty?

Among the questions prospective new Americans might be asked on their citizenship test is, "What is the supreme law of the land?" The correct answer, as specified in the official study guide, is: "The Constitution."

Few have been as brazen in pronouncing the Constitution an unwelcome anachronism as was President Woodrow Wilson, though the last century has seen a peculiar, penumbral crusade to twist the plain meaning of the document, while theoretically preserving its primacy. This is how you get to folks supposing James Madison would be A-OK with partial-birth abortion or banning Nativity scenes at Christmastime.

But the reason the Framers did not attach a Rosetta Stone or decoder ring to the Constitution is because the language is plain enough. They understood that less is more, and it is often observed that the Bill of Rights is a list of negative liberties – things the government cannot do – and not one of those ten Amendments is rendered in words that are indecipherable or too numerous to read.

Take, for example, the very first one: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

That means we can speak our minds in America. No legislator, no matter how adamant or esteemed, may write a law that prevents us from doing this, even at election time (Sen. John McCain, please call your office).

Yet here we are, with almost every aspect of that straightforward proscription demonstrably violated by America’s own government – and the rest of the Bill of Rights in not much better shape.

Recent scandals at the IRS, the National Security Agency and the Department of Justice have renewed Americans’ interest in reclaiming their freedoms. This is encouraging. What is discouraging, however, is the extent to which the debate has become reflexively politicized.

Left and right fight so predictably, even a casual observer of politics could recite both sides now (with apologies to Joni Mitchell). The ideological arguments practically write themselves. Let’s not do that, this time. There is ample blame due both Republicans and Democrats for America’s oppressive and corrupt condition.

A handy example: George W. Bush should not have created the Department of Homeland Security. Barack Obama should not have preserved and expanded it. The next president should abolish it.

Law professor Jonathan Turley writes in the Washington Post of the administrative state, which he calls “the fourth branch of government.” He notes that, “in 2007, Congress enacted 138 public laws, while federal agencies finalized 2,926 rules, including 61 major regulations.” In this context, it is irrelevant who resides in the White House or holds the Speaker’s gavel. America is not a nation of laws, but of rules. Only a renewed cultural will to true reform, coupled with political leadership, can correct that.

Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are among the very few major politicians speaking out in favor of undiluted Constitutional freedom. If and when they run for president, one hopes their advocacy will find a larger audience, regardless of their prospects for victory. And this need not be only a Republican tack. If there is a Democrat who truly believes in scaling back the power and scope of the federal government, we should support that person, too (and one assumes such a Democrat would be easy to spot, as he or she will be riding a unicorn while collaborating with a leprechaun to perfect cold fusion).

Left or right, if people mean what they say about the sanctity of personal freedom and human dignity, now is the time to bring those convictions to bear.

We have learned of the IRS harassing citizens and the DOJ investigating journalists for exercising their First Amendment rights, and the NSA collecting Americans’ phone records and emails. Meanwhile, DHS retains the right to copy the content of phones and computers at border crossings, erects checkpoints along the country’s roads and railways, and the Supreme Court has given its imprimatur to police extracting DNA samples from people who have been convicted of no crime.

Those who cried loudest that water-boarding or "torture" should not be used on hostile foreigners should be equally adamant that citizens not become government property (sorry, Sen. McCain, could you call back, just for a sec?). Similarly, abortion advocates who for decades have told government to keep its hands off their bodies could apply that slogan to the TSA's abuse of travelers at America's airports.

Many of these excesses are undertaken in the name of America’s infinitely elastic “War on Terror.”

Which means what, exactly? Stipulating that this vast and obscene apparatus could not detect Islamist terrorists like the Boston Marathon bombers and the Fort Hood shooter (the latter of whom should have been easy to spot at half the price, since he was a US Army Major who had conducted official seminars on the gruesome things that should befall infidels), let us also assume there are many other plots we never hear of, prevented by these very methods.

But if so, so what? Does this actually save lives? Perhaps. But the Constitution was intended to codify freedom, to lay out God-given liberty such that while they live, future generations could surpass mere survival to enjoy unfettered humanity.

At some point, the suggestion that liberties must be curtailed in order to be preserved becomes very difficult to defend.

The elemental question of whether America is free, therefore, begets myriad other questions, including:

Why does America hold more prisoners than any other country in the world?

Why does America demand taxes from people who don't live in America?

Why does America's tax authority oversee political speech, religious worship and health care?

Why do government drones conduct surveillance of private property from America's skies?

Why does America's government collect the phone records and emails of its people?

And why does America seek to force such practices upon other countries?

Some may respond with a legal or military rationale for this policy or that. But we cannot reply with the simple answer we would most like to give:

"Because America is free."

Theo Caldwell, host of TV’s Global Command Centre, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at at theo@theocaldwell.com