CITI Training and the Common Rule

I just sent the following e-mail concerning the CITI training program concerning Institutional Review Boards also known as IRBs and human subjects committees. These committees are required for colleges that seek funding from the Department of Health and Human Services. They are supposed to check for abuses of research subjects under a regulation called the "common rule". The common rule stretches the definition of threat to human subjects beyond recognition. If an economist does a survey of consumption habits, the common rule subjects the survey to review by an Institutional Review Board or human subjects committee. The committee can say, for any reason, that the research cannot be done. The grounds for abuse are obvious, especially in America's politicized universities. However, the CITI training, which is run by the University of Miami, Donna Shalala, Queen of Political Correctness, president, took upon itself to say that research findings that are offensive or harmful to the interests of a group constitute a violation of the human subjects rules. That is a lie. My e-mail to a Brooklyn College committee that is aiming to find resources to support faculty research follows:

Dear K---: I just filled out the survey but I wanted to add something. The human subjects committee has had a research document that I provided them on March 1 and has not responded. If the college wishes to support research in the social sciences area, it should consider limiting the scope of IRB review to human subjects issues that go beyond mere surveys of adults. There is no need for such review.

Moreover, I would add that the CITI training module provided by CUNY is deceptive. In particular, it suggests that it is based on the common rule and that research that could potentially find something that is not advantageous to a particular group is subject to restrictions by the common rule. In fact, such a restriction would be a violation of the First Amendment. To question this claim, I went in person to the DHHS in Maryland two years ago and interviewed the people responsible for overseeing regulation of the common rule. They indicated that the claim in the CITI training is untrue. In other words, the CITI training engages in the sort of deception and manipulation that advocates of IRBs claim needs to be stopped in generalizable research. There is no reason for CUNY to tell researchers that if some activist or other finds a research finding objectionable, the researcher violated the common rule and the IRB needs to squelch it. That is a lie in which CUNY currently engages by utilizing the CITI training program.

I would urge CUNY to discontinue the CITI training, which is unethical and deceptive in claiming that research findings can constitute a human subjects issue, and replace it with a training that is honest and truly reflects the regulatory requirements of the DHHS. Not that I agree with that either, but lying, deception and the use of the DHHS regulation to potentially suppress speech and research is inconsistent with a valid research program.

Gold Investors in Tutus: Chuck, Crum Confront Gay Fascism at Kitco

I am a Chicago fan, not of the Cubs or White Sox but of the city. I was last there in '05 and enjoyed it tremendously. Now, two sons of Chicago, Chuck and Jim Crum, have stood up in favor of freedom and against Kitco's, Daniela Cambone's and Bart Kitner's support for gay fascism and suppression of heterosexuals and freedom.

Chuck's and then Jim's e-mails follow:

"Subject: Re: Gold Investors in Tutus--Howard S. Katz versus Carrie Prejean

Chuck writes:

I called her, but she kept saying "no comment." I asked her if she was aware that most gold investors are morally conservative and oppose gay marriage, but she would not answer that either.

FYI: The CEO of KITCO is:

Mr. Bart D. Kitner
Kitco Inc
620 Cathcart Suite 900
Montreal, Quebec H3B 1M1
Canada
Website: www.kitco.com
Phone: (514) 875-4820
Fax: (514) 875-6484

Jim Crum writes:

From: jamesjcrum@aol.com
To: dcambone@kitco.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 11:45 PM
Subject: Re: Gold Investors in Tutus--Howard S. Katz versus Carrie Prejean

Ms. Cambone:

Just a point of clarification, and I will go.

You state: "Unfortunately, we cannot publish commentator’s who have points-of-views that are offensive to readers." Just exactly what is that to be taken as? Offensive to who? Offensive to homosexuals? Offensive to Jews? Christians? People under 18? Offensive to people who feel that Millard Fillmore was our best President?

I will not question your motivation, whatever it might be. You also do have the right to do this, I understand that quite well. But even if permissible, I can judge the behavior, and this does not look right. Frankly, it smells, and Mitchell Langbert has a point here.

I will leave you with a highlight you might wish to well remember:

"The left has whined about McCarthyism for more than fifty years, yet it does not hesitate to apply McCarthyite tactics, ruining careers with ideological litmus tests, when an individual's views do not conform to left wing or homosexual dogma."
& nbsp; - Mitchell Langbert

Have a good evening.

JJC.

The Second Amendment and the Doctrine of Probable Use

There are frequent discussions of whether to limit the ownership of various kinds of weapons such as assault rifles, machine guns and the like. The discussion on this topic has been historically illiterate and has failed to contemplate the fundamental reason for the ownership of guns. Guns are necessary for the public militia to protect the people from state tyranny. Hamilton noted this in the Federalist 29 and the Second Amendment makes this clear when it says that a well regulated militia is necessary for the defense of a free state.

Since the purpose of the right to bear arms is largely to protect the public from state tyranny, the public ought to have the right to own weapons that are at least equal to weapons that the state would probably use in an assault on the public to re-enforce tyranny. Thus, if tanks are likely to be used against the public in a rural area, the public militia ought to have the right to own tanks.

Rifles used against tanks would hardly be effective for the defense of a free state. All legal discussion that fails to balance the weapons that the government might use against the people with the threat that private ownership poses to the public is illegitimate and does violence to the Second Amendment. The government's probable use of a given class of weapons against the public ought to be the basis for the legality of gun ownership.

Every American Is Morally Obliged to Own a Gun

I have previously blogged about the Federalist 29 in which Alexander Hamilton discusses the militia. The militia, the body of citizens which could muster to protect the state and to protect the people, was necessary in Hamilton's view not only to protect the nation from external threat but also to protect the people from tyranny. It is evident that he saw widespread ownership of guns as a fundamental safeguard against governmental tyranny. The Second Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, was adopted to placate not Federalists but anti-Federalists. There was no serious questioning of this view by any American, Federalist or anti-Federalist, during the time of the adoption of the Constitution. The Founders viewed the widespread ownership of guns as an important safeguard against tyranny then. The Second Amendment says that each American is responsible to own a gun. And the protection of freedom from the US government remains as fundamental today as it was in the time of Jefferson, Hamilton and Brutus.

The basis of American society is not the US government nor the Constitution, but freedom. Freedom adheres in the people. The United States can happily exist without the current form of federal government. But it cannot exist without freedom.

The Civil War fulfilled the American belief in freedom by freeing the slaves, but the war was fought not over freedom but over union. Slavery was not the main point for Lincoln and the North, and the freeing of the slaves a military tactic, not a moral statement. While the post-bellum period was unsuccessful in dealing with race, and the problems that resulted from the North's indifference and the South's resistance to equality reverberate today, the North's insistence on union changed the emphasis of American belief from freedom to union. The Republicans did not intend to dismiss laissez-faire, but by insisting on union they opened the door to enhancement of federal power. The federal government would remain limited in their view, but union, hence government, was to take precedence over individual and local choice. This was not new, as Andrew Jackson, the most laissez faire and localist of all presidents, had refused to permit nullification of tariffs by the states. Yet, the Civil War's magnitude and scope asserted centralization and federal power in a way that the founders had not intended. This change in psychology resulted from practical events, but it had philosophical ramifications that few at the time could have anticipated.

The Civil War's thrust toward centralization was re-enforced by the Progressives. This was a philosophical shift that elites advocated. The public was never entirely convinced by Progressivism, but has accepted the transformation of American government that Progressivism initiated. Nevertheless, the fundamental foundation of freedom as the cornerstone of American life and the fundamental principles on which the Constitution was based were never rescinded. The changes that Progressivism and the New Deal wrought were applied piecemeal, and never fully understood. As a result, the question of the state's threat to freedom looms larger now than it has ever before. The central government's arrogation of power appears increasingly inconsistent with the principles on which a legitimate American government based on freedom can be based.

In order to be moral Americans must live up to their responsibilities. Americans have a moral responsibility to protect the public from tyranny. The federal government threatens tyranny. Ownership of a gun, then, is fundamental to each American's responsibility. The Second Amendment says that it is the moral responsibility of Americans to own guns. It is in this light that the Second Amendment needs to be understood:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

A free state is secure only if it is protected from tyranny and external threat. The public must own guns to protect itself from the tyrannical state as vested today in the federal government.