On National Security

When asked about national security:

Unquestionably, the most important key to domestic security is securing the flow of people and material into the United States. It's important to remember that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by people who entered the United States legally, and then allowed their visas to expire. Legal visitors must be tracked and, if their documentation expires, expelled. Such visitors should not be allowed to simply vanish within the United States. This is a fundamental function of the federal government, and one at which it should never fail.

There are three basic ways that people can enter the United States illegally: by sea, from Mexico, or from Canada. We should work closely with Canada to maintain a strong common naval defense perimeter, as a tightening of the Canadian border is neither practical nor optimal. The Mexican border, however, must be far more closely controlled. We must build fences, use cameras, guard the border with military forces, whatever is necessary to prevent undocumented individuals and material from crossing the Mexican border into the United States.

This is not simply a matter of radical Islamic terrorism, which is not the only threat facing the United States, and quite possibly not even the greatest one. The Mexican drug war is one of the deadliest armed conflicts in the world today, with well over a thousand deaths this year alone. Drugs are smuggled here, and guns and money are taken back across the border to support the violence between the cartels and their resistance to the Mexican government. If things continue on their present course, Mexico will eventually fall into a full-scale civil war, which would almost certainly spill over into American cities. Our best, and arguably our only, chance at preventing this is to stop the traffic in both directions. This is just one of the many reasons the Mexican border must be secured.

We must always bear in mind that in the pursuit of security we must not sacrifice those things that make us American. Habeas corpus must not be forgotten, for without it, all our other rights are meaningless. Warrantless wiretapping of American citizens must never be allowed, under any circumstances, nor must any other sorts of warrantless searches of private records. These things have become accepted practice over the last several years. They must cease immediately.

Abroad, there are two primary direct threats to American security: radical pseudo-Islam, and North Korea. These are fundamentally different threats, and must be handled in different ways.

The war against radical Islamism is, at heart, an information war. There are certain men who seek to control everything they can, and destroy everything they can not. These men warp Islam, lying about its teachings and using it as a tool to gather followers. It's perfectly possible to follow Islam without being violent. Hundreds of millions of people do it every day, here and around the world. Yet these men tell others that to follow God, they must harm others. It is these lies that must be countered if we expect to ultimately win this fight.

We must form alliances with and among peaceful Muslim clerics who are willing to denounce the use of violence. We should take their teachings, and spread them as best we can to the regions where violent pseudo-Islam tends to take root. These teachings could be broadcast via radio from land- or sea-based radio towers, with hand-crank radios air-dropped to locals on a regular basis. To win this war we must turn their potential recruits, and ultimately Islam itself, against the liars who claim to speak for God.

North Korea is a potential wild card. Their rockets and nuclear weapons are primitive, but they have the potential of eventually reaching Alaska or Hawai'i. A greater threat is that of strikes against US military targets and Japanese or Korean civilian targets in the region. For these reasons, development and deployment of theater missile and artillery defense systems must be a high priority in this area. Only once this threat is contained can North Korea be dealt with from a position of strength.

Finally, we must address indirect threats, economic pressure points that would in theory allow other countries to harm the US or our interests. The three greatest of these are the federal debt, trade deficits, and foreign oil dependence. Deficit spending must cease immediately. Such spending is presently supported in large part by foreign investors, who could pull the plug at any time. Tarrifs should be put in place on the import of some foreign goods, especially Chinese goods, to bring our trade balance with that country back to a sane level, and bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Finally, we must eliminate our dependence on OPEC. Restrictions should be lifted on off-shore drilling in order to reduce our dependence on foreign oil sources, but this is only a temporary measure. We must in short order develop the infrastructure necessary to transition away from an oil-based economy. A combination of electric vehicles, nuclear power plants, and biodiesel seems the most likely solution at this point.

In response to a further question regarding illegal immigrants, Islam, and Obama:

I certainly agree with your statement that politicians are trying to use illegal immigration to broaden their own support base. The fact that illegal immigrants have this much power is evidence in and of itself that illegal immigration must be stopped, immediately.

I can't really argue as to whether Islam is "fundamentally peaceful", not only because I don't know Islam well enough, but because I'm not sure it would even be a meaningful statement. I believe this is a subject where arguing theory gets nowhere. Islam is as Muslims do, so it's inarguable that Islam can be practiced peacefully. Convincing the entire Muslim world of that is the only way I see to end this war. We're at war with an ideology, and the only way of truly beating an ideology is to present a better one. Mind you, I feel a bit strange suggesting that the US government expend resources spreading any religion to another part of the world, especially one not my own. But if what we spread is a variant of what is already practiced, one which includes basic ideas like individual freedom, especially the right to freely and safely convert to other religions as individual conscience dictates, it's definitely a step in the right direction in all possible ways.

As for Obama supporting Islam, all I can say is that I stick only to confirmable facts from definite sources, and I don't think the facts support that statement. Like all people, Barack Obama is what he does, and what he does is consistent with a man who wants to do what's best for the United States, but believes differently than we do about what that is. Reasonable people can disagree about things like that. But honestly, since none of us are running against Obama, I don't see getting into that debate any further being beneficial to what we're trying to accomplish here.