Date: Sun, 30 Jul 1995 06:52:49 -0600 From: "The Old Blue Howler" <[l--oa--l] at [ICSI.Net]> To: [r--c] at [xmission.com], [N--B--N] at [Mainstream.com] Subject: speech by Tanya ------ Forwarded Message RIGHTS, RISKS AND THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A FREE PEOPLE A Speech by Mrs. Tanya K. Metaksa, Executive Director National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action before the 17th Annual National Conservative Student Conference Young America's Foundation Friday, July 28, at 4:00 pm. As many of you know, my father was John Chamberlain, one of the founding fathers of America's conservative movement. This man, someone who William F. Buckley, Jr., and Whittaker Chambers called the dearest of friends, passed away this Spring ... but not without leaving all of us a legacy. It was in the 1940s when world events showed my father that individual rights were increasingly important -- all important -- in a world dominated by statism and "political" solutions. In a book review, he wrote an aside about this new conviction of his: "I have simply lived to see at least four major brands of statism tried out," he wrote. He mentioned Stalinism, of course, and Nazism. But he also wrote, "I have also been a witness (sometimes on the spot) to the destruction of vitality and initiative forced by socialist statism in Britain. And I have lived through eighteen years of New Deal and Fair Deal governments." He described his central values -- his politics -- as a movement, a constant struggle to, quote, rescue us from domination by the state-worshipping intellectuals and restore decentralized rule by the intelligent man. That was written decades ago -- I'm sure today that he'd include intelligent women! -- but that was his core sentiment -- his legacy to the American conservative movement -- his legacy to all of you. You young conservatives are all part of this never-ending movement, the constant swell of an ocean of people who want to protect freedom, limit government, safeguard rights and advance moral responsibility. That is what the 3.5 million members of the National Rifle Association of America are all about -- protecting freedom and safeguarding rights. But too many of your elders in the conservative movement are forgetting the simple arithmetic of our rights, so take out your mental pens to make an important mental note. This is the simple arithmetic of our rights: Rights plus responsibility always equal risks. Let me state the formula again: Rights, even when coupled with responsibility, always equal risks. NRA and gun owners nationwide exercised our rights last fall, and we took responsibility for our country's future by changing the face of our nation. NRA backed 276 U.S. Senate and House candidates. Of 276, 221 won. Of all candidates elected to the U.S. House, 224 were A-rated by the NRA. In over ten thousand races at the federal, state and local levels, 82 percent of NRA-backed candidates won. Does the name "Foley" ring a bell? Not anymore. Thanks in large measure to NRA, the first U.S. Speaker of the House to be unseated in 138 years lost. And today, a new man wields the gavel in the U.S. House of Representatives. On January 13th, one politician made it perfectly clear. He told the editorial board of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, and I quote, the NRA is the reason the Republicans control the House, unquote. That was probably the first and the last time I will ever agree with the man who uttered those words, President Bill Clinton. We exercised our rights. We did so responsibly. So, where's the risk? The risk is that you don't incur the admiration of your adversary, you incur his wrath. The risk is that our association -- and I hope that includes most of you -- have been under constant, sustained attack by Clinton, his agencies, his clones in Congress and his allies in the media elite. By exercising our rights with responsibility, we have incurred the wrath of what my father called "state-worshipping intellectuals." When you favor good government properly limited in power, you run the risk of being labeled anti-government. It happens to us, so it will happen to you. But the so-called anti-government charge is a dog that just won't hunt. And unlike Bill Clinton, I know, because I'm a real hunter. Consider: * NRA was involved in over ten thousand elections impacting every single level of government! That's not just pro- government. That is government! * Consider also that the majority of our members serve, have served or have a family member serving in the U.S. Armed Forces! That's a record I'll compare with the members of the Democratic Leadership Council any day. Anti-police? That's another non-sporting dog. It was NRA who invented police firearms training in 1916, and it's NRA whose ten thousand certified law enforcement instructors today work with over four hundred and fifty thousand law enforcement officers -- local, state and federal. NRA also buys a $25,000 life insurance policy free of charge for every law enforcement officer who joins. Since 1992, we have provided $450,000 in payments to the survivors of our law enforcement members who lost their lives in the line of duty. If you work out the figures, that means -- some law enforcement agency loses an officer, an agent, a sheriff or deputy every other month -- and so does NRA. NRA is more than firearms safety training. NRA is more than the fight to safeguard our rights. NRA is also about putting criminals behind bars. NRA is perhaps the only citizen organization that has worked for tough criminal justice reform and victims' rights in fifteen states in the first six months of this year alone -- from "Three Strikes You're Out" in Vermont to "Hard Time for Armed Crime" in Washington state. But remember the arithmetic of our rights. Even with responsibility comes risk. And the risk we've been running in the last few months is the steady rush of ridicule, innuendo and hatred pouring out of the White House and from the lips of politicians who want our rights and want our power all to themselves. To the best of our ability, NRA will not let that happen, not this year, and certainly not on election day in 1996. Rights plus responsibility yields risk. Have your elders learned that simple arithmetic? I'm afraid the answer is not all of them -- not yet. We have seen the Republicans in the Government Oversight and the Crime and Criminal Justice Subcommittees examine the tragedy near Waco, Texas, in 1993 which claimed the lives of four federal agents and more than eighty civilians. There have been brilliant inquiries made by members of this body -- by Bob Barr of Georgia, John Shadegg of Arizona, Ed Bryant of Tennessee -- just to name a few. Legally and ethically, independent of this panel, NRA conducted its own fact-finding inquiry. We were perfectly within our rights to hire the nation's foremost engineering analysis firm to look into the Waco disaster objectively. That firm, Failure Analysis Associates, is the team of Ph.D.s who uncovered the O- ring problem in the Challenger spacecraft disaster -- and discovered the ignitors placed on GM pick-up truck by NBC Dateline. Legally and ethically, through counsel, NRA asked the Subcommittee that, if the opportunity presented itself, would a firm, even if retained by an advocacy group, be permitted to x- ray the fire-damaged guns retrieved from the ashes in Waco? The Subcommittee queried the House ethics panel, and that panel's leading democrat, Jim McDermott, co-signed a return letter saying there was no ethical or legal problem. Failure Analysis made the trip to Austin -- but was denied access to the guns by an on-scene personal assistant to Attorney General Janet Reno. Why? This firm would have provided its scientific data for any other expert to duplicate. They would have explained their findings, whether they found one illegal gun or one hundred illegal guns. X-rays employ photons. Unlike politicians, photons move in a straight line and never, ever lie. Why was access denied? When the credentials of the Failure Analysis team were explained to Reno's aide, the aide visibly trembled. Why? The Democrats got away with murder in this hearing, allowing a British expert to falsely claim that CS gas posed no problem. Not so. Much of his testimony was linked with a British report that responded to criticism of British use of CS gas in Northern Ireland, and many believe that report itself was a political whitewash intended to soft-peddle gas effects. The fact is, the Congress didn't call the nation's premier experts on failures of a scientific nature -- like the use of ghastly amounts of a gas at levels that threaten health and life itself. Let me give you just a glimpse of what they found ... >From the Model Five delivery systems on the tanks alone, the CS gas concentration in some rooms ranged from two to ninety times that required to deter trained soldiers on the first assault alone. Anyone hit directly by spray from the Model Five system would be affected immediately and potentially receive a dose resulting in systemic shock and conceivably death. In addition to tank delivery, a ferret round -- a gas grenade, if you will -- was fired into every window of the center. The methylene chloride used as a solvent in the gas reached 1.8 times the level immediately dangerous to life and health. The concentration level reached by firing just one ferret round was sixteen times the level required to deter trained troops. And all this was the scientifically calculated result of just the first of four gas assaults. And we taxpayers were attacking pregnant women and children, not trained troops. That gas led to incapacitation and death. Why didn't Congress hear those facts? Because Congress did not invite Failure Analysis to testify. The reason: fear of risks. These are our rights we're exercising; we're doing so responsibly, and we accept the risks -- because we know that America can keep score pretty darned well. Even if we only provided information, the way every other advocacy group provides information, we accepted the risk that we would be falsely accused of running the hearings. I'm here to tell you: If we really ran these hearings --if we really orchestrated these hearings as White House spokesman McCurry has accused, those hearings would be very, very different. What America had was an opportunity to put all the crazy conspiracy theorists out of business with the results of this hearing, but I'm afraid the crazy cottage industry will still be in business. What America had was an opportunity to discover that Waco was never, repeat, never a problem with law enforcement officers, but a problem of leadership -- and those leaders are still on the job, still being paid with your tax dollars. What America had was an opportunity on the order of Watergate -- only to end up with a tall glass of water. America wanted sustained questioning by the committee, if not counsel. But the five-minute rule was the best the majority could do. Indeed, the words from these hearings that might be remembered the longest are: "I think my time has expired." America wanted the truth, cut boldly from fragments of reports, lies, and cover-ups, but while the Republicans were the majority, the Democrats ruled. If the Democrats had run the Iran-Contra hearings like the Republicans ran the Waco hearings, Ollie North would be president of the United States. The problem was that the Republicans didn't understand the arithmetic of our rights -- that rights plus responsibility always yield risks. Always. So, when the risks started to loom, too many buckled. They appeared to want to be regarded more as ladies and gentlemen than truth seekers. If they think the press is going to hand out "fairness awards," they better not be holding their breaths. According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, NBC Nightly News three nights ago gave the Waco hearings a whopping fourteen seconds of coverage. Fourteen seconds for the greatest loss of life in federal law enforcement history since Wounded Knee in the 19th century. The night before last was no better -- a few more seconds to cover the largest use of CS gas against a single target in the history of mankind. Let me close to talk about another father of Republicans, from whom we should all draw inspiration. Theodore Roosevelt was an NRA member and a great Republican, a man with an unshakable sense of ethics. The NRA and the Republicans are accused of somehow undermining law enforcement. In fact, we're just learning from Roosevelt's experience that the best law enforcement is always the best-led. Many of us think of Roosevelt as a great President, as a great soldier, and even as a great sportsman. But Roosevelt was also a law enforcement officer and leader. As a North Dakota rancher in 1886, Roosevelt served as a deputy sheriff and in arctic March weather, led a legendary boat chase for a group of fleeing horse thieves. And, in 1895, Roosevelt became president of New York City's Police Commission overseeing one of the most corrupt law enforcement agencies in the country -- so corrupt that criminals would return their booty to the Chief on request, because he covered up most of their crimes for them. So corrupt that a State Senate committee estimated the department raised twice as much money from graft as from tax dollars. So corrupt that, as Roosevelt said, "the New York police force was utterly demoralized by the gangrene ... the ward politician, the liquor seller, and the criminal alternately preyed on one another and helped one another to prey on the general public." Well, Roosevelt wouldn't take it. With reporters watching, he began an investigation. Three weeks later, the Chief decided to avoid the heat and light of Roosevelt's scrutiny. He resigned. Have we had any resignations since the Waco hearings got underway? Not a one, not yet. Roosevelt kept on going. He shut down even more graft by enforcing the city law that was supposed to keep the saloons closed on Sundays. The public outcry was intense. And with reporters in tow, he started prowling the streets at night, throwing policemen out of saloons and waking them up from naps. There were death threats, even letter bombs. Lots of risk, but this leader kept leading. He raised the department's physical fitness standards and marksmanship scores, built new police stations, even introduced a mobile "Bicycle Squad." In just two years, morale rose, and crime rates plummeted until New York had arguably the best police forces in the world. The best, because they were led by the best. Roosevelt was hated for what he started and loved for what he finished. Times change. Principles don't. Limited government is best. Freedom is worth protecting. Values are worth safeguarding. Laws are worth enforcing. And law enforcement deserves the best in leadership, so the boss's wrongdoing never endangers the rank-and-file officers and agents with a dangerous plan. Law enforcement deserves the best in leadership, so the boss's wrong-doing never tarnishes the badge of the rank-and-file officers and agents as committed to constitution as they are to the citizens they serve. Remember what my father grieved over -- the destruction of vitality and initiative by statism. Let's rescue vitality, and rescue initiative by exercising our rights and doing so responsibly. When we do, all of us -- here in this room and on Capitol Hill -- all of us will begin to relish the risk that always comes with the exercise our God-given rights. Thank you. ------ End of Forwarded Message