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The Public Policy
Unsettling Claims
On suing the federal government over the anthrax attacks.
Pythagoras was a little before my time but I count myself a devotee of his theorem: “A square who will be square will see square.” I try my utmost to live that way. Give the other guy a square deal and hope to get the same consideration In return.
This basis for human transaction is eroded when one side is deemed less than human in its deliberative and executive processes. Such bloodless qualities are often attributed to corporations by Wall Street occupiers and sundry non-profit intellectuals. In reality the worst offender is government, where decisions are made by people who don’t care concerning the disposition of money they don’t own.
The idea that people can sue the Federal government to be compensated for its inadequacies is absurd enough; more absurd yet is the right of government lawyers to compromise and settle the case. The announcement was made early this week that the Feds have reached an undisclosed settlement with a widow in Palm Beach to close what Perry Mason might call “The Case of the Tabloid Tablets.”
This dates back to the mysterious anthrax letters which were sent to an odd assortment of Senators, reporters and television networks. The first recipients were employees of the National Enquirer, based in a South Florida office complex. They practice a colorful brand of journalism there, breaking away from the traditional all-yellow hue favored by the New York Times.
One of the people who died there from touching the lethal powder was a photo editor named Stevens, whose wife brought suit against the Federal government for failing to exercise adequate supervision over the Army laboratory supply of this toxin. This of course presumes that the anthrax was pilfered from government stock, a contention unproven in its own right.
The case comes replete with absurd twists to match its insane circumstances. The Federal Bureau of Investigation shares the conclusion that the stuff came from those labs and has decided that a guy named Ivins took the powder and sent it — or sent it and took a powder, as the case may be. They hounded Ivins until he committed suicide and they consider the matter to be… er, settled.
The lawsuit does not want Ivins to be guilty, because he was a legitimate researcher whose access cannot be termed supervisory irresponsibility. So they deposed two of his superiors who claim that he did not know enough nor have enough time to have formulate the powder from materials in the lab.
So if the government is in the wrong, it has a) been negligent in storing dangerous biological weapons, b) had this material stolen by an unidentified thief who may still have more of it available, and c) made an innocent man so miserable by their scrutiny that he ended his life.
Readers of this column will recall that we mocked the FBI handling of the case and we scorned their heavy-handed treatment of Ivins, but it seems unlikely that he was actually innocent. For one thing, since the FBI had already been humiliated for wrongly accusing an earlier suspect, Steven Hatfill, who loudly denounced them and was publicly vindicated, the escape route for a person of clear conscience was already well-marked. This is one case where suicide should equal guilt.
Thus, building a case for government guilt based on an Ivins frame is weak. The fact that his superiors still do not know how he short-circuited the safeguards and found the time merely highlights their own cluelessness. At the end of the day, the question of whether the government was negligent in not guarding the coop or in not watching the fox should be moot.
It is simply silly for you and me and the Chinese government (i.e., the fillers of the Treasury) to be held accountable for the standard of inventory control in the anthrax dispensary. We are the victims in the saga, not the perpetrators. We had neither knowledge nor control and we would certainly have preferred to have competent security in place, as indeed — perhaps naively — we thought we had.
Crazier still for some bureaucrat to decide that the government will concede partially by offering a settlement without a court adjudicating the matter. Who are they to forfeit on our behalf?
This all comes back to our initial point. Instead of you and me playing fair with each other, we have a huge conglomerate serving as a soulless proxy for a faceless citizenry. No one feels fettered by civility, so the government tries to grab money from the people and the people try to grab money from the government, and it all devolves into chaos.
Pythagoras is out, replaced by Archimedes. His theorem wins the day: “If there are too many people yelling ‘Eureka’ in the bathtub, a lot of water is sure to be displaced.”
About the Author
Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events. Here he speaks at the Rally for Religious Freedom in Miami on June 8, 2012.
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POST American| 11.2.11 @ 8:12AM
---FORGET ANTHRAX.
How about a little sustained, unflinching
quality action on the POLIO 'vaccine' created
by arch Rockefeller EUGENIST, Dr Jonas Salk?
Deliberately crammed, as it was, with
LIVE simian 40 cancer viruses that 'sleep'
in one's DNA ---UNTIL hormones change,
round about late middle-age. In other words,
around retirement age.
NOTE, Salk made his name originally
by penning a whole series of studies voicing
distress that, POST WWII, people were
having children. Needless to say, the usual
calls for extermination --uh--- we meant
'easing'.
AS all across the western world we
are forced to bear witness to this
man's horrendous legacy, I think even the boys
at ROT-child/ Rock--F--L--O/ Ford and
Carn--egg--hee would agree ----Yehzov,
Beria and Himmler ---were rank amateurs.
AS we bury yet another probable victim
thereof, a clean living family woman with NO
family history of cancer ----AGAIN----
--------------HUAC meets NUREMBERG-------------
---------------------------2012-----------------------------
Occam's Tool| 11.2.11 @ 5:00PM
What the F? Jonas Salk was a genius who relieved human suffering. Please.
Moving along: yes, one should be able to sue the Feds for real problems---example, the Tuskeegee experiments.
David W| 11.2.11 @ 9:31AM
I wonder what will happen when the dust of the gun running scandal settles. Will there be lawsuits against the US for the actions of Obama's administration? Or can we just take those responsible, and I include the ones at the top (Eric, Barack) and dump them on the Mexican side of the border? I'm sure the Mexican Feds would love to talk with them about letting those weapons walk to Mexico.
buckeyeman| 11.2.11 @ 11:29AM
Doesn't the federal government have immunity which permits such a lawsuit only if the government chooses to permit the suit?
TrueBlue| 11.2.11 @ 11:48AM
Congress has a limited immunity during the times they are in session to include transport to and from. Nothing that I saw lists the same for the President or anyone else in government, especially after they are no longer in office.
"They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place." Article I, Section 6
"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Article 2, Section 4 ... That could be taken to mean the same as the one referring to Congress, but neither says anything about AFTER they leave office. Also, given how specific the Constitution is, it could be taken to mean that the President could be charged and found guilty in a state/federal court, and then would have a separate Impeachment trial to remove him from the office.
albert constantine jr.| 11.2.11 @ 10:53PM
There is a doctrine of sovereign immunity that does limit many of he suits that can be filed, though his limit has many limits. The federal government and its many agencies are sued successfully (with permission) quite frequently. Probably even more frequently filed are 1983 suits, which are filed against individuals in the government acting under the color of law who deprive individuals of their civil rights (which include. presumably, the civil right not to be infected with government supplied anthrax (allegedly). I've heard it said that the legislation that created S. 1983 suits is referred to as "The Lawyers Full Employment Act".
POST American| 11.2.11 @ 11:08PM
--We understand that, now, thanks
to lobbying and UN 'iniatives' it's more
or less impossible to sue a vaccine
manufacturer anywhere.
The most one might get is a standard
payoff---and a confidentiality agreement.
NOTE, our shots are now, almost entirely,
manufactured in RED China.
Putting aside the FACT that they're
mercury filled, and play in to the Globalist
'dumb down' social engineering agendas
----we also learn that, not only are they
packed with LIVE viruses, but are often
cultured in the tissue of the aborted unborn.
The'sleeper' factor is just the ticket
for mass scale, incremental genocide.
----The 'gotcha'! cannibalism issue also
works brilliantly to 'neutralize' any
moral qualms about such things as we
move into the CFR-RIIA/UN orchestrated
----'SSS--US---stain--Abel--IT---he'.
It's really known as
CAIN--ABEL--ism afterall.
POST American| 11.2.11 @ 11:55PM
--------------------FINAL WORD------------------------
Dr Jonas Salk was a Rockefeller EUGENIST
who made his name, got his attention, originally
by being a 'fierce advocate' of rapid and massive
depop (ie GENOCIDE).
All of this just years after the Kaiser Wilhelm
-Cold Springs Lab, EUGENICS 'inspired'
NAZI Halocaust.
------------DO BUY YOURSELF A CLUE-------------
--------------WHILE YOU STILL CAN----------------