Original America

Fetuses are people?

2012-01-24T10:11:00.000-08:00

This absurd pic has been circulated around the internet of late. Under the guise of being ironic there some ridiculous assertions made here.

First, are there any laws in the United States preventing gay people from voting or from paying taxes? Of course not. Are there any laws in this country preventing gay people from having a ceremony or from associating with each other, or from living together? None that I know of.

I'm not quite sure when the United States government ever prevented anyone from paying taxes but the comment about voting is obviously meant to make us think gays are being treated as blacks were treated for quite some time in America's past (ironically, by Democrats, not by Republicans). And that is the absurdity here: that gays are trying to force everyone to accept the idea that marriage has always meant anyone can marry anyone. The fact is there has never been a time in American history where this was true, and I'd like to see an example of any time any where in which it was.

Every civilized society has rules about what marriage means and what it doesn't mean. In some societies a man can marry more than one woman; this is not the case in America - if you are married you do not have a right to marry another. There are some societies where a 50-something year old man can marry (and consummate the marriage with) a 9 year old girl; but that is not American society. There are some societies where one person can be legally forced to marry another, against their will; but not here. The concept of marriage is one of the fundamentals of civilization, and there are limits on it. These limits are necessary to help sustain a peaceable society. Another very common limitation is that marriage can occur only between a man and a woman.

Gay activists do not like this latter limitation. But to better promote their agenda we are told gays are "born that way" just as people of dark skin color are "born that way." Numerous studies have been conducted to prove this assertion about gays, and failed. But we are not supposed to mention this - we are supposed to "know" each premise of the gay agenda is perfectly reliable when in fact no one knows anything of the kind. We are not supposed to question anything the gay agenda says or fails to say. We are not supposed to think for ourselves about the alleged connections between gay activism and the civil rights movement. The proper thing for us to do is turn of our minds in the name of open mindedness. To avoid being called ignorant we are to avoid thinking through the argument at all. In our modern progressive culture tolerance no longer means tolerance; it means acceptance. We are to allow convictions to substitute for facts.

There are others who ignorantly suggest hypocrisy on the part of those who challenge the idea of "gay marriage." It seems fairly clear that short lived celebrity marriages, adultery, rampant divorce, and other things are in fact significantly contributing to ever increasing strife in our society. Most people who oppose changing the currently accepted definition of marriage typically also acknowledge the harm these other foolish and/or selfish acts inflict upon civilization.

But, just like marriage, there are limits on tolerance and open mindedness (and honesty). Anyone who understands the necessity of limitations on marriage are not to be tolerated. Hate speech against those who recognize those limitations is regarded as compassion. The situation is not to be acknowledged as an attempt to change marriage, only as a denial of rights. The tragic situation of dysfunctional personal relationships and broken families (which is evidence that dishonoring marriage actually does inflict harm on society) are perversely used as further justification of the gay agenda. Another irony is that gay activists are entitled to see the situation as they wish, but no one who may disagree in the slightest degree is entitled to an opinion the matter.

Another absurd suggestion from the above photo is that gay people are denied their very humanity, just as it was for a time denied that blacks were people at all. There is actually another group of people who currently are legally denied their very humanity. The law of the land denies this group are people at all, so that they have no rights. If any contemporary group can legitimately be compared to slavery or to the civil rights movement it is not gays, but a different group entirely.

If our society really valued justice and despised hate and discrimination it would be infinitely more indignant about the abuse of children in the womb. If discrimination really harms society (which in many cases it does) so too does abortion. If you agree, please feel free to share this photo.

Do we want to get rid of racism?

2012-01-15T06:04:00.000-08:00

It is a most curious thing to see conservatism so often associated with bigotry, of various forms. I mean "associated" only rhetorically, as it is discussed in political and cultural circles. In my experience it is not conservatives who actually practice such bigotry, but they usually get the blame for it.

Given the history of the political left it is quite absurd to blame Republicans and conservatives for the racial sins of America's past. Let me bring a few facts to light:

who, by and large, supported and defended slavery while it was still legal in the U.S.?
who created the KKK?
who made, supported, and enforced Jim Crow laws?

In case you haven't guessed yet, and it seems many Americans would guess incorrectly, it was not Republicans who did these things - it was Democrats. This is why Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King, Jr. were both Repulbicans. And yet American culture seems to unquestioningly accept the idea that Republicans are responsible for these despicable episodes of America's past.

Ironically, for any on the political or social right to mention or do anything even closely related to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. they can be criticized for it. After all, it is not Republicans who have a reprehensible history with racial issues to make up for.

But there is a popular, though once again largely unchallenged, assertion that the Democrat party was controlled by "conservatives" back then, and today they are not. It is the Republican party who is dominated by conservatives today, so the racial sins of America should therefore belong not to Democrats, but to conservatives - who constitute the political right. Instead of blindly accepting this idea, as we are so encouraged, let us actually look at it.

The notion that "conservatives" wanted to keep slavery legal is a non-sequitur. That absurdity is what leftists tell themselves and the rest of society. But that is not what conservatism is about. At its core, conservatism holds that those with power over others aught to be reluctant to use it, because power corrupts and easily devolves into oppression. For this reason the political right prefers small government. It is also the reason the conservatives of the early Republican party opposed slavery, which showed their concerns to be valid. After all, if the government has the power to decide who is a person and who is not, shouldn't we expect there to be a people group who are denied their humanity (and by extension everything that goes with it)? It is also the reason conservatives are often reluctant to embrace change. Despite the fact that the political right was the main force for change when slavery was legal (they fought to change the law of the land so as to ban slavery) today the force for change by and large promotes more power concentrated into the hands of an ever increasing government. So while a people group are oppressed and legally robbed of their humanity (the American slaves were denied personhood itself) conservatives fight for change. But when the force for change seeks to increase government control over the people's daily decisions (such as forcing us to purchase a product or service) they oppose it. Conservatives seek to avoid oppression, not to preserve the status quo.

But acknowledging this fact casts suspicion back to Democrats. Was the Democrat party dominated by conservatives when slavery was legal in America? Does that mean there were conservatives on the right battling against slavery, and conservatives on the left fighting to defend it? Of course not. Because the Democrats on the left were fighting to maintain the status quo, in order to maintain power over others - the antithesis of what conservatives do. Conservatives resist power over others; they favor an individual's power over him/herself.

This is one reason conservatives oppose both abortion and attempts to redefine marriage. According to the primary tenet of conservatism, denying a group of people their very personhood so as to deprive them all rights (including the right to live) is oppression. Likewise, redefining marriage so as to force us all to accept an idea that alters one of the fundamentals of civilization has profound and unknown implications - change that may be good or bad. While there are many people who oppose changing the definition of marriage, I see no one supporting any law that would prevent a gay man from marrying a woman who would consent. Those on the political right who would support alternatives (such as the civil union concept) are given little recognition for it, if any. No one is preventing anyone from holding a ceremony or from associating with whom ever they wish. Yet, the dominant narrative on both of these issues is the Democrat narrative. Gays are denied the right to force the rest of us to believe something, but we are not to look at denying children in the womb all rights in the same terms. No, for abortion, we are only supposed to look this issue in terms of the rights of women. Once again, the basic human rights of one group (children in the womb) are denied in the name of the constitutional rights of another group (women). If the civil rights movement can legitimately be compared to one of these two contemporary groups, it is children in the womb - who are denied their very humanity, just as were the slaves. A woman should have control over her own body we are told, and we should pretend we know for a fact the child in her womb is not a person at all, therefore has no rights society is bound to respect.

Oppressors of all political stripes desire to maintain their power. This desire is "preservative" not "conservative". To conserve, by definition, is to minimize the use of something. In an environmental context conservationists are "conservative" are they not? They desire to conserve on energy and resources. Being "conservative" in a political context means to minimize the use of power over the people - to minimize the oppression of forcing people to do or believe something. But if we are to accept the idea that a desire to maintain power is conservative, then by this reasoning we are all conservatives. The Soviets certainly wished to maintain their power; shall we call them conservative? The Democrat Party wishes to maintain its influence in American politics; shall we call them conservative? Planned Parenthood wants to maintain its influence in American society; shall we call them conservative? What ever definition is used to label the pro-slavery Democrats of the past as conservative is so broad as to include everyone.

In the same light that the Republican party opposed slavery and opposed Jim Crow, it also opposes racial laws today. It is conservatives who seek a racially color blind society. It is conservatives who, just like the Rev. King, seek a world where the color of one's skin is entirely ignored, where race is treated as irrelevant.

It makes sense that Democrats so strongly support affirmative action: favorable special treatment for minorities, rather than the negative special treatment they would suffer by discrimination. And, as mentioned before, Democrats have much to make up for. But special treatment is not equal treatment. And affirmative action does not move us toward a racially color blind mentality. Neither does contemporary political discourse.

If one listens to the self-proclaimed defenders of civil rights today what do we see? We see incitement of racial animosity. We don't see the political left promoting an attitude of brotherhood among all races. We see them fomenting racial strife. After all, when one gets paid to find racism it becomes very easy to see it, even when it isn't there. The same can be said of other politicians, political pundits, commentators, activists, et al. Those insinuating the Republican Party is the party of racism are themselves not trying to eliminate racism. It is only conservatives who are trying to rid society of this evil; it is conservatives who promote the only method by which this endeavor can succeed - ignoring race, and treating individuals as individuals, not as members of a meaningless factional division. In an enlightened society skin color should have no meaning.It is not conservatives who treat skin color as though it matters, it is merely conservatives who get accused of such.So the question remains, do we really want to end racism? I can see that conservatives do. What about you?

Is it a war on children?

2011-10-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

Imagine, if you will, a war is going on. It's happening in some other country, so you don't have to see it for yourself. But you do hear news stories about it, describing the horrors of the fighting and the tragedies suffered by those involved. Now imagine there is a law in place requiring you to join the military, so you can be shipped off to that war and take your place in it.

What do you do? For those educated in public schools, let me tell you this is not a hypothetical scenario. A situation like this actually happened as recently as the 1960s. Let's take a look at it.

During the Vietnam war there were many who dodged the draft under the auspices of "conscientious objection". As the idea goes, some felt the war was unjust and therefore a violation of their conscience to be required to participate. Others thought it unjust to force a free people to engage in a government action, as the draft forced young men to join the military. Others simply didn't want to go to war regardless of other considerations, because killing violated their individual commitment to peace. Do you notice a pattern here?

Apparently the freedom of conscience was a big deal to many in the 60s and 70s. We even hear talk about this today, with Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) calling for a new military draft and the controversy still generated by the idea.

What exactly is this freedom of conscience? To put it simply, it is the freedom to abstain from something (even something required by law) because participating or contributing to it would violate one's conscience. But there are evidently some limits on this freedom.

In contemporary political discourse there is another issue in which freedom of conscience plays a role. It plays the same role as it did with anti-war protesters of the past when the draft was still in place. But now the issue is of a more domestic nature.

In October of 2011 MSNBC's Martin Bashir displayed a perfect example of oppression and the violation of the freedom of conscience. NewsBuster's Matthew Balan covered the incident in his Oct. 13 articled titled MSNBC's Bashir: 'Misogynist' GOP Wants to 'Let Women Die'.

On the issue of what is ironically called "abortion rights" Bashir takes an openly partisan stance on what remains a very controversial cultural divide. With the quoted material he presents and the guest speaker invited to join the discussion there is no question remaining as to Bashir's position on the issue. Having an opinion is one thing, and promoting it is another.

Throughout the segment on the October 13 show Bashir and his guest promoted the idea that women's rights were placed in danger by the newly proposed Protect Life Act, legislation offered by congressional Republicans. Advocates of the bill are portrayed by Bashir and his comrades as being uncompassionate while the issue is portrayed has having only one legitimate viewpoint: the right of women to choose. One might notice the conspicuous absence of any meaning for the "right to choose" when this phrase is used. "The right to choose what?" one might ask.

But in this unabashedly biased display we do not see Bashir ignoring the freedom of conscience as he does the meaning of a right to choose. Quite the opposite, in fact. Bashir attacks the freedom of conscience directly:

The bill would go as far as to protect the right of a hospital to deny a woman a termination under any circumstances (sic), even in life-threatening situations. Hardly surprising, then, that the provision has earned the moniker the 'let women die act' from its opponents.

Imagine the freedom of conscience (the idea of individual freedom) being portrayed as anti-American during the Vietnam war. But here the very same freedom is portrayed as a great social evil, even an anti-American violation of women's constitutional rights (don't bother asking if men have reproductive rights). And Bashir demonstrates only one example that the freedom of conscience has only selective value to the political left, the supposed champions of individual liberty. Now the endeavor to protect the right to an opinion (in this case one differing from a progressive paradigm) is portrayed as a "war on women".

In regard to war, primarily U.S. involvement in war, conscientious objection is still touted as sacrosanct. If that is the cultural standard now in place in our society, so too should it be in the abortion controversy. What is anti-American here is the bullying of those who do not subscribe to a progressive point of view. This could easily be viewed as a war on children - as if Bashir were suggesting we ignore the constitution for some rights, and that the right to kill unborn children must be protected at all costs.

If you find Martin Bashir's treatment of this issue troublesome (or worse) I urge you to contribute to your local prolife/right to life organization. In my area, a group called Sav-A-Life is hosting its first annual banquet, on November 7 at 6:30pm. This will be held at Circlewood Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, AL. This event functions as a fund raiser and as an effort to spread the message that there are good alternatives to abortion. This first banquet will feature Kirk Walden, who often speaks to pregnancy care centers and helps them raise funds for their admirable and vital work. You can find out more about Sav-A-Life at their website.

The Right to Life deserves protection and support as much as any other right of human kind. For Americans, this right is even explicitly mentioned in our founding documents (unlike the right to kill babies). Local right to life groups need your support. You can volunteer your time, donate funds to their cause, or contribute other material aid to your local groups.

If you can attend sporting events or concerts you can also spare just a fraction of that time or cost in support of the right to live. Please donate today.

What happened to separation between church and state?

2011-09-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

If the United States of America is supposed to be a secular democracy why do we keep promoting Jesus' command of helping the needy and giving to the poor to justify talk about raising taxes and redistributing wealth but ridicule religion and warn against theocracy when anyone recommends voting for someone who actually believes Jesus is the Son of God? Jesus did not say we should let the government take care of people so we don't have to do it ourselves. Why do we so often pontificate about compassion but work so hard to abdicate our own personal responsibility? Could it be because we don't like religion when we might have to change our own lives but we like it a lot when we can force someone to do what we think is best?

Ace of Diamonds

2011-07-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

George Washington
Farewell Address
September 19, 1796

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness – these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.

Find more in the new card game Quint: Early America Edition. Quint is a 5-suit deck of playing cards. The "Early America Edition" features numerous quotations, with original source references, from America's founders and more.

Reading American history is one thing. Being able to recall facts and events in the middle of a discussion is quite another. This "Early America Edition" Quint game is designed to strengthen memory while also proving a fun reminder of America's invaluable patriotic history. For others, it's an education.

King of Diamonds

2011-06-03T06:15:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Rush
from his essay "On Patriotism"
October 20, 1773

Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families. The Amor Patriæ is both a moral and a religious duty. It comprehends not only the love of our neighbors but of millions of our fellow creatures, not only of the present but of future generations.

Queen of Diamonds

2011-06-02T06:08:00.000-07:00

James Madison's proposed wording of the First Amendment
The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States
June 8, 1789

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established.

Madison's version of a "wall of separation".

Find more in the new card game Quint: Early America Edition. Quint is a 5-suit deck of playing cards. The "Early America Edition" features numerous quotations, with original source references, from America's founders and more.

Reading American history is one thing. Being able to recall facts and events in the middle of a discussion is quite another. This "Early America Edition" Quint game is designed to strengthen memory while also proving a fun reminder of America's invaluable patriotic history. For others, it's an education.

Jack of Diamonds

2011-06-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

Daniel Webster,
The Works of Daniel Webster
October 5, 1840

Impress upon children the truth that the exercise of the elective franchise is a social duty of as solemn a nature as man can be called to perform; that a man may not innocently trifle with his vote; that every elector is a trustee as well for others as himself and that every measure he supports has an important bearing on the interests of others as well as on his own.

Ten of Diamonds

2011-05-25T06:21:00.000-07:00

Noah Webster,
Reply to a Letter of David McClure on the Subject of the Proper Course of Study in the Girard College, Philadelphia
October 25, 1836

[T]he Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children under a free government ought to be instructed. No truth is more evident than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.

Nine of Diamonds

2011-05-24T06:23:00.000-07:00

General George Washington,
Circular Letter Addressed to the Governors of all the States on the Disbanding of the Army
June 14, 1783

I now make it my earnest prayer that God would… most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of the mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion.

Eight of Diamonds

2011-05-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

John Quincy Adams,
An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport, at Their Request
July 4, 1837

Why is it that, next to the birth day of the Saviour of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? ... Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the corner stone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?

Seven of Diamonds

2011-05-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
in a letter to Thomas Pinckney, from rev. Ethan Allen's Washington Parish, Washington City, found in james Hutson's Religion and the Founding of the American Republic
May 29, 1797

No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.

Six of Diamonds

2011-05-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Franklin,
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, from James Madison
June 28, 1787

I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

Five of Diamonds

2011-05-06T14:24:00.000-07:00

Final Statement, American Declaration of Independence
1776

and for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

It is often suggested, and sometimes blatantly claimed, that the American revolution was not the true intention of the founders. Instead, we are told the purpose of what became the American revolution was merely a political ploy by rich white men who didn't wish to pay taxes.

Signing the declaration was an act of treason for the founding fathers, an act punishable by death.

Find more in the new card game Quint: Early America Edition. Quint is a 5-suit deck of playing cards. The "Early America Edition" features numerous quotations, with original source references, from America's founders and more.

Reading American history is one thing. Being able to recall facts and events in the middle of a discussion is quite another. This "Early America Edition" Quint game is designed to strengthen memory while also proving a fun reminder of America's invaluable patriotic history. For others, it's an education.

Four of Diamonds

2011-05-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

American Declaration of Independence
1776

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

27 grievances are listed as reasons for separating the american colonies from the British crown.

Among those 27 reasons:

He (King George) has made judges dependent on his will alone, for ...their offices, and ...their salaries

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

Three of Diamonds

2011-05-03T14:31:00.000-07:00

George Washington,
Farewell Address
September 19, 1796

Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles.

Two of Diamonds

2011-04-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Franklin,
Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania
1749

History will also afford frequent, opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion, from its usefulness to the public; the advantage of a religious character among private persons; the mischiefs of superstition, and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern.

Ace of Clubs

2011-04-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

James Madison,
Federalist Number 62
1788

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood: if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes, that no man who knows what the law is to-day.

King of Clubs

2011-04-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Franklin,
On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor
November 29, 1766

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it... I observed ... that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

Queen of Clubs

2011-04-26T14:28:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Albert Gallatin
June 16, 1817

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but is restrained to those specifically enumerated, and . . . it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers.

Jack of Clubs

2011-04-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
letter to William Johnson
June 12, 1823

Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding, and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties, which may make anything mean everything or nothing, at pleasure.

... The States supposed that by their tenth amendment, they had secured themselves against constructive powers.

* Jefferson warns against allowing the general government to invent new powers for itself beyond the letter of the constitution, using purposeful confusion to do so.

Find more in the new card game Quint: Early America Edition. Quint is a 5-suit deck of playing cards. The "Early America Edition" features numerous quotations, with original source references, from America's founders and more.

Reading American history is one thing. Being able to recall facts and events in the middle of a discussion is quite another. This "Early America Edition" Quint game is designed to strengthen memory while also proving a fun reminder of America's invaluable patriotic history. For others, it's an education.

Ten of Clubs

2011-04-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
Kentucky Resolutions excerpt of proposed wording of section 8
1798

It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism — free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power: that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go...

* Jefferson warns of the price of our rulers taking care of the people - that price being our very freedom

* Jefferson warns of undue confidence placed in any government or in our elected politicians, particularly when those politicians promise to protect us if we would only surrender more power time and time again

Find more in the new card game Quint: Early America Edition. Quint is a 5-suit deck of playing cards. The "Early America Edition" features numerous quotations, with original source references, from America's founders and more.

Reading American history is one thing. Being able to recall facts and events in the middle of a discussion is quite another. This "Early America Edition" Quint game is designed to strengthen memory while also proving a fun reminder of America's invaluable patriotic history. For others, it's an education.

Nine of Clubs

2011-04-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Doctor Joseph Priestley
June 19, 1802

I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned, & established, & never saw it until after it was established. On receiving it I wrote strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of provision for the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, habeas corpus, the substitution of militia for a standing army, and an express reservation to the States of all rights not specifically granted to the Union.

observations:

* Jefferson favored a freedom of religion, not a freedom from religion

* Jefferson was a strong advocate of states' rights, favoring a limited central government restricted to a few specified powers

Find more in the new card game Quint: Early America Edition. Quint is a 5-suit deck of playing cards. The "Early America Edition" features numerous quotations, with original source references, from America's founders and more.

Reading American history is one thing. Being able to recall facts and events in the middle of a discussion is quite another. This "Early America Edition" Quint game is designed to strengthen memory while also proving a fun reminder of America's invaluable patriotic history. For others, it's an education.

Eight of Clubs

2011-04-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
Kentucky Resolutions: exerpt of proposed wording of section 1
1798

That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force...

Seven of Clubs

2011-04-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
Kentucky Resolutions: exerpt of proposed wording of section 7
1798

The construction applied by the General Government (as is evidenced by sundry of their proceedings) to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate to Congress a power 'to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,' and 'to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution, the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof,' goes to the destruction of all limits prescribed to their powers by the Constitution: that words meant by the instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of limited powers, ought not to be so construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument...

Six of Clubs

2011-04-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Albert Gallatin
June 16, 1817

Our tenet ever was... that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money.

There is nothing in the United States constitution granting the federal government the power to involve itself in the following aspects of American society:

* education
* retirement
* health care
* benevolence

Find more in the new card game Quint: Early America Edition. Quint is a 5-suit deck of playing cards. The "Early America Edition" features numerous quotations, with original source references, from America's founders and more.

Reading American history is one thing. Being able to recall facts and events in the middle of a discussion is quite another. This "Early America Edition" Quint game is designed to strengthen memory while also proving a fun reminder of America's invaluable patriotic history. For others, it's an education.

Five of Clubs

2011-04-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
opinion on the constitutionality of a National Bank
February 15, 1791

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.' [xii* amendment.] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution."

*(Twelve articles were originally submitted for a Bill of Rights, but only the last ten were finally ratified, and came into effect as constitutional amendements on December 15, 1791)

Find more in the new card game Quint: Early America Edition. Quint is a 5-suit deck of playing cards. The "Early America Edition" features numerous quotations, with original source references, from America's founders and more.

Reading American history is one thing. Being able to recall facts and events in the middle of a discussion is quite another. This "Early America Edition" Quint game is designed to strengthen memory while also proving a fun reminder of America's invaluable patriotic history. For others, it's an education.

Four of Clubs

2011-04-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
Letter to Gideon Granger
August 13, 1800

The true theory of our constitution is surely the wisest & best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, & united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple organization, & a very unexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.

Three of Clubs

2011-04-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
Letter to Gideon Granger
August 13, 1800

You have seen the practises by which the public servants have been able to cover their conduct, or, where that could not be done, delusions by which they have varnished it for the eye of their constituents. What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building & office hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government.

Two of Clubs

2011-04-14T16:02:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson,
Letter to Gideon Granger
August 13, 1800

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, & from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer & overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens, and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder & waste. And I do verily believe, that if the principle were to prevail, of a common law being in force in the U S, (which principle possesses the general government at once of all the powers of the state governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government,) it would become the most corrupt government on the earth.

Why Pay for the Care of the Careless?

2010-02-17T08:16:00.000-08:00

Why Pay for the Care of the Careless?
August 23, 2009 by Dr. Roger Starner Jones

During my last shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tatoos and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ring tone.

Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid.

She smokes a costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer.

And our president expects me to pay for this woman's health care?

Our nation's health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture — a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.

Life is really not that hard. Most of us reap what we sow.

Starner Jones, MD

Doctor Jones was right, and should be commended for publishing his comments. We were told to be outraged that banks, insurance companies, auto-manufacturers and other businesses got a government bailout. The issue was that bad decisions have negative consequences, and that to protect these mega-corporations from the consequences of their own actions was not only unwise (encouraging them to continue making bad decisions) but that it would unjustly shift the burden of responsibility from those who made the mistakes to all the rest of us who were the victims of those decisions.

This problem is precisely what occurs when individuals are bailed out as well. I don't know anyone who objects to helping those who cannot help themselves, even with expensive health care. But I know many people, myself included, who do have a problem with forcing the rest of us to help those who simply won't help themselves, such as the woman in Dr. Jones' example (and let us not pretend this was only an isolated case). If it is outrageous to spend hundreds of billions of tax dollars to bailout irresponsible businesses for making bad decisions, it should also be outrageous to spend hundreds of billions more in tax dollars to bailout millions of irresponsible individuals for making bad decisions.

And that is the underlying problem: government is rightly expected to be responsible with the people's money. This oversight (although selectively applied) requires endless strings, bureaucracy and red tape. And that is why America's founders set up the Constitution so the federal government had no place in any of the myriad social programs we pay into today. Retirement, education, health care, etc., is supposed to be the realm of the states and the people, not of the federal government. If you want your state government to handle your health care, public education, Social Security and other aspects of your life, fine; but get the federal government out.

The World is Selectively Complex

2009-11-16T08:40:00.000-08:00

A favorite quip of ultra-liberals is the reminder that the world is complex. Of course, this fact is acknowledged only selectively, when it can support the left wing narrative.

The Fort Hood massacre is said to be a complex situation. Major Nidal Malik Hasan may be Muslim, but we should not jump to conclusions, as President Obama cautioned us. But the George Tiller murder was a rather simple affair. Do you recall any efforts from politicians or from the news media to understand Scott Roeder, the man who killed abortionist George Tiller? On the contrary, where we have been urged to avoid treating this terrorist attack by a radical Muslim in our homeland as a typical Islamic trait, the Tiller murder was widely criticized as a typical anti-abortion, right wing act.

collection of Fort Hood stories
collection of George Tiller stories

Have you noticed the seldom distinction between legal and illegal immigration? There are xenophobes and racists who oppose all immigration, but there are many LEGAL immigrants who oppose illegal immigration, and insist that our government should acknowledge the difference. The media's selective use of the distinction should be concerning to those of us who operate by common sense, which apparently isn't so common among journalists.

collection of stories on immigration

Climate change "deniers" are not deniers of any legitimate facts. Junk science deniers reject the blind assumption normal human activity is destroying the planet. Yet the global warming alarmists are denying that this current ebb of climate change could be natural. You may not have heard the founder of the Weather Channel is suing Al Gore, or that 30,000 scientists disagree that human activity has any significant impact on earth's climate. Suddenly we're supposed to accept an over simplified conclusion from fraudulent science as proof that Al Gore finally found something he knows something about (even if he turns out to be wrong)? What happened to not jumping to conclusions? What happened to a nuanced look at a complex situation?

collection of stories on global warming

We can't drill our way out of an energy crisis but we can spend our way out of a recession.

collection of stories on the recession

No attempt to understand the situation when America's military is accused of a crime.

Navy SEALS Criminally Charged for roughing up a terrorist

We're supposed to believe our elected officials always have our best interests at heart. No need to question their motives or the news media who obviously support their efforts to take care of us. For 8 years we were told not to trust the president; now we are told precisely the opposite.

collection of stories on the health care

There are no liberal extremists, only right wing extremists. When you are an ultra-liberal, even moderate leftists like David Brooks seem "conservative" to you. Ever wonder why you rarely if ever see a news story condemning left wing extremism but frequently hear terms like ultra-conservative, religious right (used as synonymous with extremism), right wing extremists, etc.?

The State is the new Church

2009-10-26T08:06:00.000-07:00

Government is taking over the role of the Church. I use "Church" here in the traditional sense of Christianity. Where religion once taught morality (what is right and wrong), responsibility (honor, integrity, reliability) and compassion, the State now largely does these things in American society. How's that going so far?

For generations the Christian Church has neglected its role and failed to teach people how to live well (how to make good and wise decisions). In the last 100 years there has been a serious shift in cultural attitudes about who should guide civilization. It seems there are now more people looking to government rather than religion to deal with life's problems. Subsequently, the role of religion has diminished significantly, while it is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Unfortunately, this is not entirely a surprise.

My experience is with Christianity and so I limit my comments to that faith. To put it simply, the Church has failed in its job. Let me begin with the obligatory plug on the issue of poverty. Many religious people have devoted their lives to helping others. The Catholic Church as well as many protestants have given us numerous examples of this. And despite the immeasurable effort and resources expended in religious and secular endeavors, in general there is still a great deal of poverty in the world, and it appears no progress has been made to eliminate it. One observation here is that poverty in the world seems to garner far more attention from the Church than many other ailments of civilization. Abortion, for example, does not appear to generate as much organized Christian effort as does poverty. I do not mean to slight the great efforts some particular congregations and innumerable groups and individuals invest into fighting for an unborn child's right to live. I merely point out the fact that secular moral outrage at poverty vastly overshadows that for abortion, and this same attitude seems reflected, in general, in the Church. I'm very glad to note there are many, many exceptions but the rule none-the-less seems to hold that poverty is more important to our culture than is the legal killing of unborn children.

I do not believe poverty will ever be eliminated. In John 12:8 Christ says we will always have the poor with us. Jesus was not granting a license to ignore the poor, as that would be utterly inconsistent with the rest of his ministry as well as the Hebrew and Christian testaments. However, in this passage of John chapter 12, it was Judas, the disciple who would later betray Jesus, who expressed frustration at the supposed waste of money in pouring expensive perfume on Christ, rather than selling it and giving the proceeds to the poor. Mary's example should remind us that giving to the poor should not trump all other aspects of the Lord's work. I mention this only because so much injustice is being perpetrated on the world in the name of fighting social and economic injustice.

I believe it unfair to condemn the Church for the fact that poverty and misery still exist in this world. A more pragmatic issue, I think, is that the Church has also largely failed in another of its very important missions: to provide hope to the world. Let me repeat some words from a very famous person:

It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.

If you haven't guessed it, these statements are common quotations of Mother Teresa, and are easily found on the internet. If you feel tempted to disagree with her on any of these points I caution you to remember she saw a great deal of pain and suffering in the world, chances are more than you ever will. She knew what she was talking about. That's not to say Mother Teresa is unquestionable, there is plenty of misery to go around in this world. But let's be realistic with which one of you has a deeper perspective on suffering. Mother Teresa also said she saw more poverty in the United States than anywhere else in the world; she was referring to spiritual poverty.

Is it not one of the callings of the Church to bring hope and love to the world? Church membership is often used as a metric for determining the effectiveness of ministry, yet this measurement has been declining for generations. The general western Church offers hope to everyone, but seems successful with so few. The problem with the Church's past neglect of aiding the needy is not the issue here; that is a topic for another discussion. Christendom seems to be emerging from a desert period where true life was seldom found in its religiosity. Thankfully there is tremendous effort in the modern American Church to make up for this neglect, though there is still much ground to be covered. But in the vacuum created by the Church are other attempts to fill it with a secular remedy. The government has taken upon itself a major role of the Church.

Safety Net

For decades Americans have been taught to put our faith in the social safety net. In efforts to deal with "social injustice" and "economic injustice" there is often an ostensible effort to ignore religion and even to discard healthy American traditions which made the United States the greatest economic power in human history.

When I hear critics of capitalism present their argument it is typically by suggesting capitalists put blind faith in greed, as if the world were really that simple. There is often the implication that merely trying to keep up with or stay ahead of inflation is greed, even when it is a middle class or poor house hold simply trying to survive. When these critics are religious people their argument often includes the implication that trying to make ends meet by trying to increase one's income is relying on one's wealth or 401(k) or savings account rather than relying on God. If this is true, is it not also a conflict for Christians to put so much faith in the government social safety net?

I suggest a support of the social safety net is blind faith because it seems the most accurate term for it. With substantial evidence government is slow to act, negligent and even incompetent and corrupt (and that these problems are the rule rather than the exception) there are still many in politics, journalism, academia and ordinary citizens who strongly support an ever increasing role of government in social affairs. Underlying this secular agenda seems to be an unquestioning faith in the ability of the state to fix society's problems. Even among many religious people (and in my experience among some Christians) there is tremendous faith in the power of government with an unwavering assumption that government is benevolent.

The rhetoric of good intentions has indeed programmed many of us that government's compassionate attempt to help people can have only good results, despite the increasing hostility toward religion and the increasing harm public social policy perpetrates on those same people. If efforts to bring oneself out of poverty are "greed" and misplacing faith in one's wealth, why shouldn't the same be said of putting such faith in the social safety net provided by government?

In order to provide social programs, or more accurately to ration services to the people, the government must raise taxes. That is the only way government can pay for its ever increasing promises. And we the people are supposed to believe raising our taxes helps us. All the while, accompanying this propaganda is the false suggestion that confiscation of wealth under threat of imprisonment and redistribution is the same thing as "sharing." But let us not call this greed.

Once Considered Unthinkable, U.S. Sales Tax Gets Fresh Look
Levy Viewed as Way to Reduce Deficits, Fund Health Reform

House eyes new taxes as senators pare health bill
House Democrats say they won't reveal how they intend to pay for their plan until later. Higher taxes on upper-income households appear likely, but broad levies — even a federal sales tax — are also under discussion.

Obama pivots on taxing health benefits
President Obama, in a pivot from a campaign promise, told Democratic senators Tuesday that he is willing to consider taxing employer-sponsored health benefits to help pay for a broad expansion of coverage.

For the Better Good... Dems Consider Soda Fat Tax to Pay For Healthcare Monstrosity

ABC's Diane Sawyer Pleads for European-style Gas Tax

And what happens to those who question these well intended policies that end up taxing the people back into poverty? Typically there is the knee-jerk accusation of being uncaring or greedy. In contemporary politics, with Barack Obama as our president, it seems any disagreement or disapproval of the left wing agenda is branded as racist. This blind faith in liberalism and in Barack Obama has led leftists to actually believe their own propaganda. Recently there was a news story on Politico.com revealing an astonishing discovery: Study: Obama foes aren't race-driven. Please note: leftists had to conduct a study to discover they've been deluding themselves about criticism of President Obama.

Think for a moment about the last time the federal government promised a social service and actually did a good job. How about the last time it stayed within budget? How quickly do you expect to get your benefit from a government program (the DMV, immigration services)? Remember the recent Cash for Clunkers program?
Some Surprised By 'Clunker' Tax
NY dealers pull out of clunkers program
Cash for Clunkers success limited by program flaws

And at this time we face the possibility of a bunch of people who can't manage our national budget, our retirement or our education who want to take over our health care and run numerous other industries. To think the people can't be trusted to make their own decisions for their own lives and must have some other supposedly qualified persons make such decisions for them is the ultimate in elitism. It would make Lenin and Mao proud.

Christ tells his followers to help those in need. But how have we interpreted his command? Compulsory "benevolence" robs people of the opportunity to give and to practice charity. Being charitable and selfless comes from the heart, or it should. Raising our taxes (compelling us to contribute to supposedly help others) robs us of the ability to practice grace on our own. Not only does it reduce the wealth that people could use to help others it also tends to reduce the impetus to do so; after all, paying taxes supposedly is helping people. (Note to the reader: you are not supposed to be aware of wide spread fraud, incompetence, waste and corruption with the spending of your tax dollars. And when politicians claim they will solve such problems you are supposed to trust them.)

And what are the justifications for raising our taxes? Usually we are manipulated by class envy and jealousy, pitting rich against poor, white against everyone else, etc. Merely using a government service more than someone else (i.e., money or the interstate) is typically portrayed as an injustice. How does brotherhood and peace exist in a culture where our leaders constantly try to divide us particularly on racial or economic lines? Suggesting that being Caucasian or Republican automatically makes one a bigot is somehow suppose to unite the people. Merely being conservative must make one homophobic, racist, sexist, you name it and this is supposed to build community. How does claiming the rich need to be taxed more and that they can afford it build brotherhood among a nation's population? This sort of rhetoric is class warfare; inciting envy destroys community. To promote an ever increasing intrusion of government (called "social programs") we are bombarded with propaganda designed to destroy national unity. And those of us who object to this are called greedy, and worse.

There is a time to give, but we too often neglect the teaching of how to survive. Most objections to higher taxes are not a matter of greed or even fairness. If it is greedy for one already struggling to make ends meet to oppose paying higher taxes, is it not also greedy for the government to raise those taxes in the first place? Aside from the concerns of helping and giving there are practical concerns entirely neglected by proponents of higher taxes. For example, the idea that raising our taxes helps us often leads one to forget that relying on government aid tends to atrophy people's ability to take care of themselves. The law of unintended consequences strikes a painful blow almost every time we presume a well intended public policy can do no harm. Medical practitioners try to help people too, but even they have a policy of "do no harm" (or at least they used to). This should be the first test of any public policy.

But rescuing people from poverty is not the goal of our social and political do-gooders. Helping to build people up so they no longer need assistance is the issue so often missed. The point, more often than not, seems to be to tear down the wealthy, the successful, the hard working and the independent. Economic justice is not about justice at all, it is about equality. By this reckoning, for one to have more wealth than someone else is an injustice. The solution is not to elevate the poor man but to take from the rich man with the blind promise that redistributing that wealth equally will eliminate misery (with the incredible assumption such wealth actually will be redistributed equally). But the fact is no amount of giving will ever eliminate poverty. Forced redistribution does not create wealth; it destroys wealth.

Prosperity is the only thing yet known which even has a chance of rescuing ordinary people from desperate poverty. Unfortunately, government has tremendous ability to squelch prosperity, but very little power to help it grow. Prosperity must grow to exist. We have witnessed the truth that the power to tax is the power to destroy, just as America's founders told us.

But these practical concerns are lost on so many who seem more concerned with equality than with the well being of people. Achieving this mythical and subjective idea of social justice requires the enactment of profound injustice in all other aspects of life. For some there is an almost religious devotion to the quest for equality. For others it is their religious faith that drives them to support the same endeavor, resulting in the attempt to force people to show love to humanity. In Christianity and in government forcing people to "give" is inimical to the professed goals of building unity, and typically becomes oppressive and abusive in the process. It is not our place to expect more from those who have more. Presuming we have a right to compel those wealthier that us to "give", as it is dishonestly called, is just as oppressive and destructive as is it for those with more wealth to greedily cling to it. And let us be careful not to naively assume simply being wealthy is greedy, as is often the suggestion.

Much effort is devoted to fighting the symptoms of social and economic problems rather than the real problems themselves. Using Christ's command to help the poor as justification for government interference and confiscation is a purposeful misrepresentation of this command. Christ never told us to use the government to force people to do what they really should be doing on their own. It is the Church's failing for not teaching people to be generous. What's worse, the Church has been quite successful at teaching the world religion is irrelevant at best, but most likely harmful. How does using the government to eliminate poverty actually solve any problem? What reason is there to believe the government is even capable of this? The American government can't handle public education and Social Security, let alone poverty or health care.

Illiteracy: An Incurable Disease or Education Malpractice?

According to the National Adult Literacy Survey, 42 million adult Americans can't read; 50 million can recognize so few printed words they are limited to a 4th or 5th grade reading level; one out of every four teenagers drops out of high school, and of those who graduate, one out of every four has the equivalent or less of an eighth grade education.

Annual report due for Social Security and Medicare

The financial health of the government's two biggest benefit programs may have slipped over the past year, reflecting the deep recession that has already bitten into other areas of the budget.

The trustees for Social Security and Medicare are scheduled to provide their annual report on the finances of both programs on Tuesday. In advance of the release, many private analysts said they expected both programs could run out of cash sooner than last predicted.

So many journalists, politicians and ordinary citizens have blind faith in the power of government to fix society's ails that is seems like a new religion has formed, fixating itself on the power of the state. Secular statism now has tremendous sway in the lives of the American public, and some would say more than does religion.

If Christianity is to regain its proper role in training and teaching and forming a peaceful society it needs to stop transferring its faith from God to government. Electing representatives who understand this fact is a vital step toward that end. The Church should be defining for society what it means to have hope, compassion and love but the government will not easily give up this role it has taken upon itself. For too long the state and secular society have defined these things for the Church. Is it any wonder so many people think of the Church as useless?

A Free Ride Era

2009-09-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

The 1980s is typically touted as the era of the "free ride". President Ronald Reagan's right wing economic and political policies were designed to reduce government power and to increase the freedom of the people to make their own decisions. Reagan was of the conservative school of thought which holds several fundamental premises based on the importance of individual liberty, one of which is that you can make decisions for your individual life better than the government can. You realize, of course, I have to mention this because there is a large segment of American culture that does not believe this.

There seems to be an increasing number of people who believe government can make specific decisions for you and your loved ones on an individual basis better than you can. Leftists often treat Ronald Reagan as an uncaring president, and they say his policies were uncompassionate. The economic boom of the 1980s, they will tell us, is evidence of an uncaring and greedy administration. The fact that so many people were able to make something of their lives and bring themselves out of poverty and away from living on government handouts is portrayed as a "free ride."

A free ride is when you get something and don't have to pay for it yourself. This is the defining aspect President Barack Obama's administration. President Obama based his campaign and is now basing his agenda on the notion of giving people something they do not have to pay for directly. Health care is the biggest example.

So how do we get this fantastic new health care system if we don't have to pay for it? Well, we actually do have to pay for it.

NYT Shocker: 'Obama’s Pledge to Tax Only the Rich Can’t Pay for Everything'

House Dems look at taxing the rich for health care

Obama pivots on taxing health benefits

Once Considered Unthinkable, U.S. Sales Tax Gets Fresh Look

Proposed tax on 'Cadillac' coverage questioned

House eyes new taxes as senators pare health bill

Only ABC Cites 'Devastating' CBO Judgment & 50%+ Tax Rates to Pay for Health Care

After Denying Obama Would Raise Taxes During Campaign, NYT Calls for Increases

To the modern liberal, success equals greed. If you can make a living without having to beg the government for a personal bailout you are getting a "free ride." But this label more aptly applies to the current era of American politics. You almost can't watch, listen to or read the news without seeing another example of the Obama administration discussing another need for the government to provide something to the people. And we are fast approaching the point of unsustainability, where the government simply cannot pay for all the promises it has made. The $1 trillion health care bill is totally borrowed money.

The wisdom of America's founders could help us understand why socialism should be avoided. The conservative principles written about and practiced by our founders paved the way for the world's strongest economy and greatest nation to build itself.

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”
– John Marshall

“With respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age…”
– Thomas Jefferson

“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”
– James Madison

“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”
– Thomas Jefferson

Too bad the left wing narrative is treated as the only reality we need today. Welcome to the free ride era.

Symbolism and the $1 Bill

2009-08-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

Published at Mentalfloss.com August 18, 2009 by

Crack open your wallet, pull out everyone’s favorite portrait of George Washington, and be prepared to learn about some odd symbolism that probably seemed perfectly normal in the 18th century. Here are the explanations behind some of the more baffling parts of our nation’s smallest bills.

What’s that weird pyramid drawing on the reverse of the bill?

The two circular drawings on the reverse of the bill are actually parts of the two-sided Great Seal of the United States. Although we don’t see the entire seal outside of our wallets too often, the notion of having a great seal is actually as old as the country itself. The Continental Congress passed a resolution on July 4, 1776, to create a committee to design a great seal for the fledgling nation, and heavy hitters John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson got the first crack at creating the seal.

Congress wasn’t so keen on the design these big names brought back, though, and it took nearly six years and several drafts to finally find a suitable seal. Congress finally approved of a design on June 20, 1782.

What’s the story behind the Great Seal of the United States?

According to the State Department, which has been the official trustee of the seal since 1789, both the obverse (front) and reverse (back) of the seal are rich with symbolism. The obverse picturing the eagle is a bit easier to explain. The bird holds 13 arrows to show the nation’s strength in war, but it also grasps an olive branch with 13 leaves and 13 olives that symbolize the importance of peace. (The recurring number 13, which also appears in the stripes on the eagle’s shield and the constellation of stars over its head, is a nod to the original 13 states.) The shield floats unsupported over the eagle as a reminder that Americans should rely on their own virtue and strength.

The symbolism of the pyramid on the seal’s reverse is trickier. The pyramid has 13 steps – the designers apparently never got tired of the 13 motif – and the Roman numeral for 1776 is emblazoned across the bottom. The all-seeing Eye of Providence at the top of the pyramid symbolizes the divine help the early Americans needed in establishing the new country. The pyramid itself symbolizes strength and durability.

The divine overtones don’t stop with the unblinking eye, though. The Latin motto Annuit Ceptis appears over the pyramid; it translates into “He [God] has favored our undertaking.” The scroll underneath the pyramid reads Novus Ordo Seclorum, or “A new order of the ages,” which was meant to signify the dawn of the new American era.

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Morning Bell: Is Obamacare Consistent With Our First Principles?

2009-08-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Published at the Heritage Foundation, August 14th, 2009 by Conn Carroll

During one of Sen. Arlen Specter’s (D-PA) early health care townhalls in Lebanon, Pennsylvania; mother of two Katy Abram told the audience: “I don’t believe this is just about health care. It’s not about TARP. It’s not about left and right. This is about the systematic dismantling of this country. I’m only 35 years-old. I’ve never been interested in politics. You have awakened the sleeping giant.” Abrams is dead on. Our federal government has, unfortunately, long been drifting away from the limited government principles first envisioned by our founders. But over the past eleven months, that drift has turned into an all out sprint towards an undemocratic, technocratic, leviathan state … a type of government that our Constitution was specifically designed to prevent.

As Abram points out, both political parties have been complicit in the rapid deterioration of our founding principles. It was after all President Bush who pushed for and signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 which created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). When the Bush administration submitted their legislation to Congress we warned: “From a constitutional standpoint, the current versions of the legislation are different in scope, and especially in kind, from almost any federal legislation that has come before.” Specifically we identified: (1) Congress’s enumerated power—or lack thereof—to intervene with private markets in the manner contemplated, (2) the lack of meaningful standards to guide the extremely broad grant of discretion to the Treasury secretary (the “legislative delegation” problem), (3) limitations on judicial review over the exercise of that almost limitless discretion, and (4) related separation of powers concerns.

The only thing that truly surprised us after the legislation’s passage was just how quickly our worst fears were realized. The TARP plan, as sold to Congress, was never even implemented and, instead, it quickly devolved into a political slush fund. Because of the broad delegations of authority in the bill, the American people were left with no real avenue to check the federal government’s unprecedented interference in the U.S. economy. When Members of Congress voted for the bill in October 2008, could any of them honestly say they thought they had just voted to bailout General Motors and Chrysler?

The proposed health care legislation is just as bad, if not worse, than TARP. Sec. 142 of H.R. 3200 grants the new Orwellian-titled “Health Choices Commissioner” broad lawmaking authority, including the power to: set standards for every Americans health insurance plan, determine which of your current insurance plans do or do not meet that standard, and then punish plans that do not meet that standard. Even worse is what is not yet in the bill, but is desperately wanted by the Obama administration. A super-empowered Medicare Payment Advisory Commission that is specifically designed to “save money in an apolitical, technocratic way.” The entire purpose of this part of Obamacare would be to take medical decisions away from patients and vest it in a panel of experts specifically designed to be completely unaccountable to the American people. Is this what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind?

When the Constitution was being ratified, James Madison, writing as Publius, sought to allay fears that the new national government would turn into a Leviathan. In the 45th Federalist Paper he emphasized that adoption of the Constitution would create a government of enumerated, and therefore strictly limited, powers. Madison said: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined… [and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce….” Federal tax collectors, Madison assured everyone, “will be principally on the seacoast, and not very numerous.” Exactly six months after publication of this essay, New York became the 11th state to ratify the Constitution. Is turning over one-sixth of our nation’s economy over to Obama’s super-MedPAC panel in any way consistent with this vision?

Quick Hits:

* The contentious health care debate is forcing many Democrats to rethink an August tradition: town-hall-style meetings.
* House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) compared townhall protesters to the “snarling dogs” used against the civil rights movement of the 1960s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called Obamacare protesters “evil mongers.”
* The American College of Surgeons released another statement condemning President Barack Obama “statements that are incorrect or not based in fact” adding: “We assume that the President made these mistakes unintentionally, but we would urge him to have his facts correct before making another inflammatory and incorrect statement about surgeons and surgical care.”
* With 3,300 lobbyists working on health care reform, there are six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate.
* According to a still mostly secret White House deal with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, PhRMA promised to promote healthcare reform in a multimillion-dollar ad campaign in return for a White House promise capping PhRMA’s costs under the overhaul legislation at $80 billion.

read original article

Proposal for the 28th Amendment

2009-08-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

Two stories worthy of note:

AIG Bonuses Renew Call for Congress to Read Bills

Rep. Conyers: Why Bother to Read the Health Care Bill? (Video)

Many Americans are aptly frustrated with their representative government, and for many reasons. The largest spending bill in United States history was passed in early 2009 with few members of Congress reading it. Presently we have massive health care legislation before Congress, and it appears this will be no different. It seems fairly non-partisan to ask: how can Congress do its job responsibly if its members won't read the bills?

If one knew only what was reported in main stream news stories one is likely to think anyone who opposes the health care bill is extremist and racist. But in reading for oneself the bills before Congress a different opinion may arise. Aside from the legislation itself, the game of politics is known around the world to be one of deception and corruption. While Republicans and critics of all political stripes are accused of lying and exaggerating elements of the health care legislation, it appears there is legitimate concern over the unwritten results of a government takeover of American health care:

Barney Frank: Yes, a public plan will lead to a government takeover of health care

The status quo of the day in Washington is to write massive legislation, rush it through Congress, and with selective attention to detail by Congress and journalists alike. The politics of personal destruction is used to attack those who disapprove of the government health care initiative coupled with lying and misrepresentations of the legislation, which is exactly what the critics of that legislation are accused of doing. And it turns out those critics actually do have good reason to oppose the legislation.

It's Not An Option by Investors Business Daily

5 freedoms you'd lose in health care reform by Shawn Tully

Shock: Inside the Healthcare Bill by Robert Wenzel

Undue Influence by Charles Lane

Dirty Secret No. 1 in Obamacare by Chuck Norris

The Health Care Bill: What HR 3200, ‘‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” Says by John David Lewis

Returning to the issue of Congress' unwillingness to read its own legislation, we the people have seen too many examples of Congress willing to spend other people's money with little regard for accountability while selectively using the argument of accountability to attack their political opponents when expedient. We heard many complaints about deficit spending during George W. Bush's presidency and now a bill encompassing $1 trillion in borrowed money meets with little resistance from those same critics. Unruly and manufactured protests were common and lauded during the Bush years (with much insistence such protests were genuine) and yet today any dissent from the Obama administration is treated with contempt and accusations of being politically manufactured, not merely by leftist journalists but also by members our government. Serious problems are found in the health care legislation currently before the Congress and have been exposed, yet are largely ignored by its supporters. And now we hear dissent from the government is un-American.

In light of these grievances we the people of the United States therefore propose this amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. If Congress is going to act like spoiled children they should be treated as such.

Amendment XXVIII: amending Article 1, creating Section 11

1. All final legislation, before the final vote, shall be read aloud in its entirety in the main chamber to the House of Representatives on the same day of the vote; and likewise for the Senate. The reading shall be performed in person only by the Speaker of the House to the House of Representatives, and only by the Senate President Pro Tempore to the Senate.

2. The place, date and time of the legislation reading shall be publicly announced no earlier than 7 days before the day of the vote and shall not be changed once announced unless canceled, nor shall it commence before the appointed time. Any member of Congress not physically present in the appointed place during the entirety of the reading shall not vote on said legislation.

10th Amendment Battle Lines

2009-08-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

The battle lines over states' rights are beginning to form. Citing the 10th Amendment (yes, the actually-part-of-the-constitution kind of 10th Amendment) states' rights advocates, including not just governors and state legislators, assert the federal government has pushed too far beyond its constitutional limits. This argument asserts the continued federal overgrowth over decades past has led the United States government to boundlessly trump the rights of the states and the people. It is rather easy to reach this conclusion based on the actual text of the 10th Amendment, which states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

What is apparently a "right wing" interpretation of this amendment is that the federal government cannot act where it is not specifically given power to act, and that power is defined in the main body of the constitution; everything else is off limits. This is the fundamental tenet of Federalism.

On the other side of the battle is a massive effort to grow the federal government even further. Federalism was set up to protect the people against tyranny. The effort to grow federal control is therefore, wittingly or not, an effort to strengthen that tyranny. And it is bolstered by journalists not at all concerned about their own pretense of integrity and impartiality.

Evidently, we've forgotten what federalism is, and what it means to be a state. On July 31, 2009 CNN aired a report on this 10th Amendment movement. In this report, with anchors John Roberts and Carol Costello, we are given an excellent example as to the problems of the anti-states' rights argument.

Most of us like to think of ourselves as normal. This includes our beliefs. CNN's staff and crew are no different from the rest of us in this regard. And so when CNN asked for viewer response to a story it seems only natural that their predominantly left wing audience responds accordingly - and that CNN anchors would consider this response as "most people".

ROBERTS: Now, you would think- because states’ rights advocates are so strong in their opinions that the opinions- we’ve been asking for comments, right? Therefore, you would think that most people would be in favor of states’ rights, but it’s running, to a large degree, the opposite way.

COSTELLO: Oh, yeah. But my favorite comment so far- you know, ‘asking for states’ rights is asking, you know, the children to be the parents.’

ROBERTS: Right.

COSTELLO: It’s comparable to that.

ROBERTS: Somebody else wrote in and said, “We’re the United States, not the divided states.’

We have here selected statements from members of CNN's predominantly left wing audience affirming their ignorance of federalism and statehood. And, of course these journalists can claim "we didn't say it" as if that were relevant, particularly with Costello's own admission that she liked a particular sentiment.

So what's the problem here? Federalism, after all, is a system in which the power to govern is shared between national and central (state) governments, creating what is often called a federation. The European Union might be an example of this. Each member of the European Union is its own sovereign country, but it should be no surprise that even this national distinction is quickly eroding. I expect to see within my own lifetime the notion that France or Germany or the U.K. or any member nation in the EU should be allowed to make their own laws independent of the EU treated as an absurdity. That's the problem with Socialism, state and individual rights are usurped by a national government.

And that is precisely what has happened in the United States. Through decades of being taught too little about American history and civic duty American society has been cultivated to think the Federal government is supreme over the states in all matters, and that the states are merely provincial denominations of that national government. Now advocates of states' rights are largely portrayed as right wing kooks by both Congressional Democrats and by left wing journalists.

But what about the "Supremacy Clause" you say? It's clear that when a state law conflicts with a federal law, the latter is the "supreme law of the land" as stated in Article VI of the constitution. This is in the context of a federal law being legal in its own right. No where in the constitution do we see authority for the federal government to impose itself in areas not explicitly granted it (a limitation imposed by the 10th Amendment), such as acts of benevolence, education, retirement and certainly not health care. Today Congress acts as if there are no bounds to the areas which it can legislate. A limitless government is precisely what our founding fathers wanted to avoid.

At its inception the United States of America was a small federal government designed to handle several specific tasks, such as interstate commerce and treaties with foreign governments. The individual states were to be otherwise regarded as independent and sovereign countries, on the same level as England, Russia, or any other nation. New Yorkers would have thought of themselves as citizens of the nation of New York. Federalism, as written in the Constitution by America's founders, did not establish a parent/child relationship between the federal government and the state governments. It separated powers along distinct lines: the federal government could do some things and yet was explicitly denied authority to do other things. The federal government does not have authority to do anything or what ever it deems as the "general welfare".

But it should not be assumed historical and civic ignorance are the real problem here, though they contribute a great deal to it. As seen in the comments given to us in the CNN news story mentioned above, and in the brief commentary offered by the anchors, those opposed to states' rights often just don't care about the reality of the situation. They want a centralized national government to be in control. Federalism no longer means powers separated between the states and the national government, now it means a parent/child relationship between the two, with the national level government treated as the parent.

Indeed, The 10th Amendment was great idea, but there is An Impending Showdown between the federal government and the states.

Let us not presume our individual liberty is uninvolved in this conflict. After all, individual liberty was the whole point of the constitution. Does our freedom have a place in a Socialist society?

An Impending Showdown

2009-07-30T06:08:00.000-07:00

A battle is brewing. A majority of the states have passed symbolic resolutions reclaiming their sovereignty from the federal government. The reason they have done this is because many Americans, including many state legislators, feel the federal government has overstepped its proper, limited role.

The health care initiative currently in Congress is merely the latest example. With the debate on health care reform we see an obvious Socialist agenda at work, accompanied by numerous and incredible denials that it is Socialism. And so, with a federal agenda at work to nationalize many aspects of American life (health care on the way, but we already have nationalized banks, an automaker, education and retirement) on the one hand, and states beginning to fight for their constitutional rights to run their own affairs as they see fit (as is stated in the 10th Amendment) on the other hand, we the have makings of a fight.

Though I support the states in this battle, I fear I have chosen the losing side. You see, at issue here is the fact that the federal government is going beyond its constitutional authority. This very fact is what caused this new revolution in the first place, and yet there is a popular assumption that by simply asserting their constitutional right to govern themselves the states can take back the authority usurped by the federal government. But with the Fed already ignoring the 10th Amendment, thereby establishing a long tradition of ignoring states rights, I have to wonder why would the federal government start recognizing its constitutional boundaries now?

Even now, with the growing movement to reclaim state sovereignty, the U.S. Congress and President Obama are still pushing hard to nationalize America's health care as if there were no reason to reconsider or even to slow down what they are doing. So far, the constitutionally sound new revolution is proving ineffective. The Fed is still ignoring the fact it is ignoring the 10th Amendment.

A showdown is imminent. States are increasingly insistent the 10th Amendment should be respected. The Socialist movement dominating our federal government leads it to interpret the "general welfare" clause in as broad a way as possible; this time, rather than ignoring constitutional language, it is a phrase of the constitution taken literally, ignoring the numerous clarifications written by our founders.

* James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson:
With respect to the two words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words obtained so readily a place in the "Articles of Confederation," and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted.

* In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
-- James Madison, 4 Annals of congress 179 (1794)

* "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817

What we have here is a modern tradition in the federal government of ignoring original understandings of and original language in the constitution. This is done not by accident, but for the purpose of achieving particular agendas. In this climate, with blatant disregard for the constitution, why would the federal government allow the states to reclaim their sovereignty?

The tools of semantic acrobatics and historical ignorance have played a major role in creating the current attitude among so many politicians elected to federal office. This government-dependent mindset permeates our culture as well, and so Socialist sentiments from the people fuel Socialist agendas in Washington. The fact this federal takeover has lasted and grown more bold over several generations speaks to the high degree of damage already done to our republic and to the American appreciation of federalism.

Even now we have evidence indicating what the federal reaction will be to the new revolution: branding anyone who disagrees with the Socialist agenda as extremist.

At Politico.com, in Town halls gone wild Alex Isenstadt evidently takes sides in the growing controversy. In this article, Isenstadt is sure to let us know protesters to this Socialist agenda are angry. He even interviews several Democrats to let us know how afraid they are for their safety.

Screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops, congressmen fearful for their safety — welcome to the new town-hall-style meeting, the once-staid forum that is rapidly turning into a house of horrors for members of Congress.

On the eve of the August recess, members are reporting meetings that have gone terribly awry, marked by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior. In at least one case, a congressman has stopped holding town hall events because the situation has spiraled so far out of control.

You see, letting the government go wild is perfectly okay, because it's largely done with civility (for now). But the protesters are showing their anger and appear rude, and that's just not acceptable to the elitist. The fact that federal politicians are acting unconstitutionally and depriving the states and the people of their constitutional freedoms by taking over aspects of American life it should never be involved with are immaterial. Showing anger is interpreted as being extremist, and therefore dangerous. And what is the career politician to do with this?

“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to suspend the events in his Long Island district. “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”

And Rep. Bishop isn't the only one who feels this way:

Bishop isn’t the only one confronted by boiling anger and rising incivility. At a health care town hall event in Syracuse, N.Y., earlier this month, police were called in to restore order, and at least one heckler was taken away by local police. Close to 100 sign-carrying protesters greeted Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) at a late June community college small-business development forum in Panama City, Fla. Last week, Danville, Va., anti-tax tea party activists claimed they were “refused an opportunity” to ask Rep. Thomas Perriello (D-Va.) a question at a town hall event and instructed by a plainclothes police officer to leave the property after they attempted to hold up protest signs.

The elitist reaction to this genuine and sincere dissent is to ignore it, because they deem it "unruly". It apparently doesn't occur to these Democrats that they are doing something inappropriate in supporting federal overgrowth.

Democrats, acknowledging the increasing unruliness of the town-hall-style events, say the hot-button issues they are taking on have a lot to do with it.

Ah yes, it's the "hot-button issues" that cause this outrage, not the fact that government has grown beyond it's constitutional limits. At least these politicians acknowledge the problem is not that people disagree, it's that people are angry, but they have to change their attitude about it before discourse can continue.

Bishop continues in his self delusion that growing government and diminishing individual freedom are not the cause of the protests:

“I think in general what is going on is we are tackling issues that have been ignored for a long time, and I think that is disruptive to a lot of people,” said Bishop, a four-term congressman. “We are trying, one by one, to deal with a set of issues that can’t be ignored, and I think that’s unsettling to a lot of people.”

Thankfully there are some reasonable reactions in Washington to these protests. I don't know if they are any less self delusional, but at least these Democrats are willing to listen to their upset constituents. Isenstadt continues:

“Town halls are a favorite part of my job,” said Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.), a third-term congressman from St. Louis who noted that a “handful” of disruptions had taken place at his meetings. “It’s what I do. It’s what I will continue to do.”

“People have gotten fired up and all that, but I think that’s what makes town halls fun,” said Perriello, a freshman who is among the most vulnerable Democrats in 2010. “I think that most of the time when we get out there, it’s a good chance for people to vent and offer their thoughts. It’s been good.”

“I enjoy it, and people have a chance to speak their mind,” he said.

I'm glad to see there is no monolithic government reaction in this case. There is more than a simple party-line divide, even on the Democrat side there are reasonable politicians and elitists. But which group rules in Congress?

I think many people believe the reasonable politicians outnumber the elitists. If they are right, most politicians will acknowledge the fact their jobs depend on the approval of their constituents. But the elites have figured out they can bribe many of their constituents with promises of government hand outs, which makes it easier for them to bully the dissenters into silence (such as by treating dissent, angry or not, as extremist).

Political precedent shows us the louder voice tends to win. In the recent past the Socialist agenda has won a great deal of political ground and still has tremendous momentum. With the political game played as it is I fear the American people will suffer much more damage and lose far more freedom before any real progress is made to push back against federal overgrowth. By then will it be too late?

I think the political game will continue to drag this country to the left as long as the political rules remain unchanged. No amount of symbolic gestures and resolutions will accomplish any real goal. And the further left we go, the fewer rights the people and the states will retain. It's time to fight for real change, something that proved its immeasurable value for more than a century: allowing the states to have representation in Congress. If you want to restore the 10th Amendment, repeal the 17th Amendment.

The 10th Amendment was great idea

2009-07-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

Should a people blindly trust their government? I worry that as long as Democrats control the Congress and the Presidency the answer is yes. Apparently even disagreeing with Democrats is considered unpatriotic:

Waxman: GOP ‘rooting against’ USA

CNN’s Begala: Tea Party Goers ‘Wimpy, Whiny, Weasels Who Don’t Love Their Country’

Obnoxious CNN Reporter Susan Roesgen: Bush Fascist-- OK... Obama Fascist-- "Offensive!" (Video)

Despite all logic, the many calls and efforts for the federal government to take over as much of the private sector as possible seem to be met with little resistance. Thankfully there is growing conservative resistance to federal takeover, a takeover which many Americans would call a Marxist or Socialist movement. This resistance includes grassroots Republicans, Democrats and others alike, all in the name of the Tenth Amendment. This "second revolution" as some call it has spread even to state legislatures and governors, evidenced by their publicly reclaiming the constitutionally recognized sovereignty of their states, also citing the 10th Amendment to the constitution.

But one problem with this common sense revolution is that all the calls for change and returning the government to its people are largely symbolic. Even the fairly recent sovereignty resolutions of 36 states had no legal power. The rules of the political game are unchanged. The Tenth Amendment is actually part of our constitution, yet has been ignored for decades. And why shouldn't it be ignored, what incentive have our elected representatives to honor it? If an entire amendment to that venerable document can be utterly disregarded and done so with the blessing of tens of millions of voters who want the government to take care of them, how are we to trust any future claims by those representatives that they will turn away from an obviously politically lucrative status quo?

In the modern American tradition we should expect calls for new legislation to compel the Congress to recognize and honor the 10th Amendment for each new law they make. That is, after all, the result of this leftist training we have endured for so long: let the government regulate the problem away - though rarely does such a thing ever actually happen. But a problem arises here - why should a law be required to force Congress to do what the constitution already says? They have ignored it for so long, and we the people (and the states) have allowed Congress to ignore that amendment for so long what possible reason is there to believe anything will change with a wave of public pressure, which is no doubt sincere but likely temporary?

Let me propose an alternate approach. Rather than find new laws to accomplish the desired goal, why not repeal some? Or better yet, start with only one.

The men who invented the United States were well aware of the slow, creeping tyranny of government. They knew that without a balance between the people, their representatives, and federal power capable of doing what ever the representatives wanted, despite any input from the people, federal power would usurp anything it could.

James Madison, widely considered the author of Federalist No. 63, describes exactly why the Senate was necessary. In this paper the writer does not discuss only the importance of a bicameral Congress, with the powers of making law divided into two separate houses. Here, Madison also describes the vital importance of tempering the passions of the people, who can be lied to and tricked into supporting legislation they themselves would later regret. Madison says:

Thus far I have considered the circumstances which point out the necessity of a well-constructed Senate only as they relate to the representatives of the people. To a people as little blinded by prejudice or corrupted by flattery as those whom I address, I shall not scruple to add, that such an institution may be sometimes necessary as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions. As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?

I am not unaware of the circumstances which distinguish the American from other popular governments, as well ancient as modern; and which render extreme circumspection necessary, in reasoning from the one case to the other. But after allowing due weight to this consideration, it may still be maintained, that there are many points of similitude which render these examples not unworthy of our attention. Many of the defects, as we have seen, which can only be supplied by a senatorial institution, are common to a numerous assembly frequently elected by the people, and to the people themselves. There are others peculiar to the former, which require the control of such an institution. The people can never wilfully betray their own interests; but they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act.

And here, after indicating ancient governments knew well the importance of representative government rather than direct democracy, Madison warns that the failures of the ancient representative governments were linked to the fact that the very officers elected to represent the people in government transcended their representing roles, and essentially cut off connections with the people in order to form an aristocracy for themselves.

From these facts, to which many others might be added, it is clear that the principle of representation was neither unknown to the ancients nor wholly overlooked in their political constitutions. The true distinction between these and the American governments, lies IN THE TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE PEOPLE, IN THEIR COLLECTIVE CAPACITY, from any share in the LATTER, and not in the TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE from the administration of the FORMER.

How true: that the governed "may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people" and that allowing a governing body comprising elected representatives could easily devolve into "the total exclusion of the people". Madison was warning Americans about the dangers of career politicians. What Madison is talking about here is the necessity of having a Senate comprising two members of each state, chosen by the legislatures there of. Originally, in the American Constitution, the Senate was accountable to the states, not to the people, as was the House of Representatives. And being accountable to the states made the Senate less susceptible to the whims of fickle and flamboyant popular movements, because the Senate's constituents were their states' legislators. But with the ratification of the 17th Amendment this changed: now the Senate would be just as dependent on placating and pandering to the people as was the House, until they could assume so much authority they could pretend any disagreement between Senators and a citizen automatically meant the citizen "didn't understand" the situation.

The benefits of having a cool headed Senate ready to slow down the heat of public sentiment and allow reason to dominate any given situation has long been lost. With the 1913 amendment in place the states lost their representation in the federal government. Now any special interest, any lobbyist or popular and temporary wave of fury could influence both houses of Congress equally. And when so many people want the government to take control of an issue there is now no one left to protect the states' rights against federal usurpation. Today we are seeing the results of this tragedy. A federal government which took control of public education and forced us into Social Security has now taken over banking and largely the automotive industry. And taking over our health care is just around the corner.

As big a deal as it is to ignore the 10th Amendment, sadly this is a symptom of a much larger problem. Until the balance of power is restored by repealing the 17th Amendment I fear there will be no stopping the effort to turn the United States into a socialist nation in which we all have so many rights and entitlements that we the people can no longer do anything. In the American government, the ratification of the 17th Amendment spelled the death of the 10th Amendment. Before 1913 Senators responsible to their respective states respected and protected the 10th Amendment, and all the implications that go with it. Without this dynamic of the balance of power federalism is doomed, as is the freedom of the people.

U.S. Constitution Key Concepts

2009-07-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

Four short videos on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Thanks to Craig Seibert for these videos.

A Party We Can Trust

2009-07-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, presently there is no effective difference between the Republican and Democrat parties. The end results of their agendas are essentially the same: moving the United States toward Marxism. The pace at which this tragedy occurs is of little relevance.

Since the 2006 elections, when Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress, it has been widely said the conservative movement is dead. This concept was bolstered with the 2008 elections, with Democrats again picking up more seats in the House and Senate, not to mention the Presidency. For a matter of months after that there were many suggestions the losses suffered by the Republican Party proved it should abandon its conservative base. There were also statements such as "The Reagan era is over." Thankfully, the left wing narrative does not establish the reality of the situation.

Conservatives have been analyzing and investigating the past two elections as well. Right wing understanding of Republican losses is strikingly different from the left wing calls for Republicans to essentially remake themselves in the image of Democrats. Conservative think tanks, pundits, commentators and the like seem to have reached a consensus on the fact that the nature of the Republican Party is in flux, but there are many theories as to what this actually means.

Other than calls to liberalize the Party there is also a movement urging conservatives to abandon the Republican Party for something more true to conservative values. In IS 2008 THE YEAR CONSERVATIVES ABANDON THE GOP? Pastor Chuck Baldwin encourages conservatives to vote for a third political party during major elections, such as the Constitution Party. I personally know people who decided to abstain from voting in the 2008 elections altogether. The fear of the ultra left Barack Obama (often touted as a "moderate" and even "conservative" by left wing pundits so far in left field they can no longer find any extremists to the left of themselves) helped push some of those conservatives to reluctantly vote for Senator John McCain.

Despite the many calls to move left or to abandon the party there is another option. A very popular assumption is that the Republican Party has reached the point of no return: either it must move left to survive, or it will never return to its conservative roots and therefore must be allowed to die. But I believe a third option is more likely to provide the competition needed to defeat Democrats at the polls in future elections.

I do not (yet) accept the presumption the Republican Party cannot be rescued. Another well received theory (mainly by grassroots conservatives) is that the 2006 and 2008 elections did not signal the end of conservatism. In fact, the vast majority of Republicans who lost those elections were not conservative, but "moderate" or "progressive" Republicans. To some of us this phenomenon suggests the Republican losses were a signal that grassroots conservatives desired true conservative candidates, and given the choice between a liberal Democrat and a left leaning Republican, liberals and moderates chose the genuine liberal. Grassroots conservatives had few inspiring candidates, so the Republican base was out performed at the polls.

That's why John McCain actually had a fighting chance during the 2008 presidential race. Not because he inspired the American people, but because Sarah Palin did. Never have I seen such vitriol and hate speech spewed from the left and even the main stream news media as I have seen dumped on Palin. Sara Palin's inspiring life story, of a middle America woman moving up through the political ranks and achieving the governorship of Alaska, was relentlessly ridiculed and mocked. Even today, before and after her announcement to resign as governor, Palin is still viciously attacked as if she were still running for a national level political office.

And what merited this widespread hate speech directed at Palin? She spoke of family values, defending our country and returning the role of the federal government to a more limited capacity as was intended by the men who invented the United States. This is the "extremist" philosophy the self proclaimed sophisticates found so repugnant. Even months after the election, before her announcement to resign from office, in her largely invisible political state of governing Alaska left wing commentators and journalists still attacked Sarah Palin as if she were an enemy of the state.

In a way, she was and is. Palin opposes a statist mentality, where all problems are deemed the responsibility of government to fix. The notion that the government's responsibility is to take care of the people is largely the vehicle by which government has robbed the people of so many freedoms enjoyed by previous generations of Americans. Palin respects the 10th Amendment to our constitution, which declares the federal government can do only what is explicitly spelled out for it to do, which does not include retirement, education and certainly not health care.

I don't like the way our government has handled Social Security or public eduction, and I certainly don't want to let that government take control of health care. I would be very excited to see a Republican candidate in the 2010 and 2012 elections espousing these beliefs. Please notice I have only mentioned a few big picture concerns. I'm not demanding specific, small issues be addressed. I believe a government adequately restricted in its power will cause fewer problems for its people and allow the rest of us greater opportunity to help ourselves and our neighbors.

Many Americans agree with me that a properly limited government is vital to the survival of individual liberty, and that the current state of affairs in America suffers an oppressive and heavy hand of a federal government that has stepped far beyond its proper limited role.

Another major, big picture, issue which needs mentioning is the right to life. A friend of mine told me he would have easily voted for John McCain in the 2008 election, despite other objections, if McCain had a less ambiguous pro-life record. This is a friend who had decided to abstain from voting that year, but was inspired to vote in the presidential race simply by listening to the promises of Barack Obama. My friend had no candidate he wanted to vote for, but the Marxian ideas promoted by then Senator Obama motivated him to vote against the Democrat agenda, something which could have been accomplished much quicker had McCain's pro-life record been better (unfortunately, he voted for a third party candidate). Constitutional protection is afforded to terrorists captured on the battle field, but not to unborn children. I would like to see the 14th Amendment expanded (particularly the phrase "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws") to also apply to children in the womb.

I will mention only a third big picture issue here. The last is the fact that government's proper role of protecting its people is being severely neglected. Instead of taking the war against terrorists seriously, and instead of adequately guarding our borders, our government is playing politically correct games with domestic terrorism, treating right wing groups as dangerous. This is how propaganda and political pandering become public policy. One group turns their political opponents into public enemies. And this occurs under the auspices of protecting the people from threats to their safety. Currently many Americans worry the real terrorist threat is being neglected with this left wing politrick at play.

As long as the federal government offers a social safety net the issue of illegal immigrants benefiting from that safety net will be concerning to many Americans. What's worse, our borders are so under guarded and immigration laws so pitifully enforced that many of us wonder what is there, if anything, to stop Islamo-facist terrorists from continually infiltrating our country.

To summarize, my basics list for an adequate political candidate are:
* support limited government
* be anti-abortion
* be serious about protecting us from foreign invasion and/or attack

With these three requirements met I've no doubt a political candidate would steer the country back in the direction of respecting and protecting the freedom of the people. But why would a politician of this political flavor have any significant influence? Because “Conservatives” Are Single-Largest Ideological Group, according to a June 15 Gallup poll. So how do we turn the reality of this poll into reality in government? One theory has already been achieved, which occurred at the polls in the most recent two elections: getting rid of lukewarm Republicans. This frees up room for genuinely conservative candidates.

I have another idea that I think will help. The stated goal of this idea is not itself the mission. The process of accomplishing the goal is the mission. Who but genuinely conservative politicians would commit to my three requirements? With the details of many issues come varying opinions and disagreement. I'm confident my short list of general qualifications will meet little objection from main stream conservatives. If I'm right, political candidates proudly professing these sentiments will have a much better chance of winning elections than their opponents. And if my idea is actually accomplished we will restore a vital element of what was so brilliant in the founding of our nation.

But one lesson politicians seem incapable of learning is that rhetoric doesn't win hearts or minds for the long term. It may sway people for a short while, but eventually empty promises turn people off entirely. That friend I mention earlier also holds this opinion:

It would take quite a bit for the GOP to win my trust again. Much more than campaign promises or verbally taking a certain position on certain issues. Talk is cheap in politics. It will take political action, not words, for me to support a GOP candidate again.

My idea is for exactly such action. Click the link below to read about it. All the political promises in the world are worthless if you can't stop the nation's foundation from being eroded.

The 17th Amendment and the Balance of Federal Power

The 17th Amendment and the Balance of Federal Power

2009-07-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

From my grassroots perspective I see a great deal of frustration among conservative voters. Some have given up on the political process by ignoring current events, and some outright refuse to vote any more. In trying to figure out what has exasperated so many grassroots conservatives I believe I have found a common theme. The greatest frustration seems to be so many Republicans appear to be no different from Democrats. True or not, this seems to be the perception.

For many conservatives the idea that Republicans elected to office (federal or state levels) tout their ability to slow the progress of a left wing agenda seems like a shallow victory, at best. Then there are calls for the Republican Party to abandon its conservative origins and embrace a more moderate attitude, which is precisely the approach Senator John McCain employed to lose the 2008 presidential election.

And now with the sprint toward Marxism that has caught the nation there are concerns over where federal power will end, if ever. One question I have is, if federal power continues to usurp individual and states rights, does it matter anymore if Republicans win governorships or seats in Congress?

In any case, the battle to take back our country is, of course, multi-faceted. I have a proposal on the matter.

If the goal is to stop and even reverse the left leaning trend in our nation there should be certain mile markers to that endeavor. One such marker is explained below in an idea I've been considering for some time. While most of the ideas I've heard of late for a conservative agenda have been designed for more immediate and specific issues, this proposal is of a broader and more general nature. If this idea would ever become a reality I'm sure it would help a great deal in reclaiming America from the Marxian push and restore constitutional limitations that protect individual liberty.

But first, a political party must be devoted to this endeavor. And to form (or retake) that party, it must have the trust of the voters. My idea for regaining that trust is as follows.

-------------------------------------------------------

The 17th Amendment and the Balance of Federal Power

One of the many brilliant aspects of the American experiment is the fact that our founding fathers had the foresight to provide for the balance of powers. I believe the men who invented the United States of America set up this vital element of successful federalism into three dimensions, one of which is entirely neglected in our contemporary American society.

The first dimension of this separation of powers was the fact that individual liberty stems from God, not from government. The understanding that government does not create individual rights, but is instead to secure them, was the first line of defense against encroaching government power - an innate human respect for the nature of liberty.

A second dimension of balancing government power was settled in a triune system, dividing government power into three separate branches: executive, legislative and judicial. However, this mechanism applies only to the employment of federal power. The states indeed were left to construct their own separate governments and these were typically modeled on the federal example, but a major concern of our founders was that the power of the states could eventually be absorbed into a monolithic federal bureaucracy.

The third dimension of separating the power of government, which I believe is entirely neglected today, is of a more elemental nature. With the ultimate recognition of God’s sovereignty on the one hand, and the practical concerns of implementing government power on the other we have essentially abandoned the element of government which compliments these two concerns: an intermediary dimension.

What I call the intermediary dimension is simply the fact that federal power is not merely balanced against itself, but also against the other two primary aspects of a federal construct – namely, the people and the states. The people have representation in the government via the Congress, particularly in the House of Representatives. Originally the states also had representation at the federal level of government in the Senate, helping to balance the tension between the popular sentiment of the people and the long reach of federal power. Unfortunately because of the 17th Amendment to our Constitution, the Senate is now elected much like the House of Representatives, being another venue for the people’s passions. What this effectively has done is eliminate states’ representation in our federal government.

The balance between the people, the states, and the federal government was possibly the most subtle aspect of the delicate separation of powers set up by our founders. But because this dynamic was eliminated with the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913 a vital counter weight was lost in the balance of government power, the counter weight between the passions of the people and the heavy hand of the national government. Since 1913 the power of the federal government has grown steadily, while the power of the states to govern their own affairs has dwindled, not to mention the right of the people to live their own lives free of federal meddling. And all this was done largely with the approval of the people.

I believe the repeal of the 17th Amendment is necessary for states to take back the authority usurped by the federal government. Also, without this essential dynamic of balance I fear encroachment on personal liberty by federal bureaucracy will continue unless balance is restored in the Congress of the United States by giving back the right of federal representation to the states.

It would greatly please conservatives to see a major political party undertake this effort. Seeing elected officials fight to stave off the encroachment of their rights would inspire many of us and spark a sense of optimism for the many who have given up on their civic duty. Personally, without restoring adequate balance in Congress by reinstating states' representation, I fear most other efforts to stop the push toward Marxism will prove to be fruitless. As long as the passions of leftists and those obsessed with fairness rule our legislative process I don't see much point in fighting the other battles. Only with the states able to protect their own sovereignty (limited though it may be) can the Marxist push be balanced.

I do not mean to suggest common sense would rule, though that would be a pleasant surprise. I only expect the powerful interests of the states to balance the trend of a left leaning populace sacrificing their own rights for the empty promises of a federal hand out.

America the Christian Nation

2009-07-08T09:46:00.001-07:00

David Barton gives a fabulous talk on the Christian origins of the United States. This is a fourth of July message all Americans need to see. This playlist includes 5 videos totaling approximately 1 hour of viewing.

Thanks to OmniChristianVids2 for posting this video.

Abortion Semantics

2009-06-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

Since the recent murder of abortionist George Tiller there has been a lot of buzz on the internet about supposed inconsistency among the "pro-life" movement. I put "pro-life" in quotes since most of this buzz is centered on the term Pro-Life.

I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt to the rabid abortion advocates but I'm at a sort of impasse. Do I presume they do not know how language works, especially in the context of a politically charged issue? Or do I presume they are willfully ignorant, and possibly just not intellectually honest?

The contention seems to be over the fact that "pro-life" is not an entirely accurate term. But there is almost no criticism of the term "pro-choice" which is equally inaccurate. Neither of these terms are absolute, and they're not meant to be. They are monikers, political labels.

Abortion supporters tend to argue that to be truly "pro-life" one should be anti-war and anti-capital punishment. If the term were meant to be absolute this assessment would be legitimate. However, it is equally legitimate to argue that to be truly "pro-choice" one must support school vouchers and be an anarchist.

What is the meaning of "pro-choice"? If the term is absolute it should mean favoring one's right to make one's own decisions, in ANY AND ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. That is the standard to which pro-abortion radicals are holding the term "pro-life". Laws and regulations, by their very nature, limit people's freedom to make their own choices. So if it is hypocritical for a pro-lifer to acknowledge war is sometimes necessary then it is equally hypocritical of a pro-choicer to support the existence government. If it is inconsistent for a pro-lifer to support capital punishment it is equally inconsistent of a pro-choicer to oppose school choice. After all, it is strange to support a woman's right to choose to kill her unborn child, but to oppose letting that same woman choose which school to send that child should she choose to let it live.

Instead of acknowledging both of these political terms are labels, intended to be used only on the context of the abortion issue, so many extremist abortion supporters take offense at only the term "pro-life". Their selective hostile attention to that label and the refusal to recognize the reality of how both terms are used is intellectually dishonest, at best.

Claiming to be "pro-abortion" doesn't sound as good as claiming to be "pro-choice". This is a marketing tactic, which is manipulative, but apparently has been ingrained in the abortion lexicon. The anti-abortion reaction to this marketing ploy was to use the same trick, hence the term "pro-life" was coined. But the pro-abortion horde won't allow their opponents to employ their same tricks. That's why we frequently see the term "anti-choice" used by the pro-abortion mob. Can you imagine if the pro-life movement started using the term "baby killers" as synonymous with "pro-choice"? That semantics trick would generate phenomenal outrage among abortion supporters. And so the term "anti-choice" should do the same for abortion opponents.

If the baby killer movement can use semantic games with no scrutiny of its own rhetoric it should allow everyone else the same courtesy.

The book Notice A Pattern? explains the problem of abortion without using cheap rhetoric, as is ostensibly one of the favorite tools of the pro-abortion movement. This book is an essay addressing the reality of the situation, in historical context and with recommendations as to what can be done about it. No where in the pro-life movement do we find advocates of violence or murder. There are isolated cases, such as with Dr. Tiller's murder, that we find someone outside the mainstream of the pro-life movement who acts alone in committing crimes. But then, we don't see much effort among abortion supports to distinguish between these isolated cases and the pro-life movement. It's not as if we were trying to distinguish between Islam and a bunch of radicals who hijacked that religion.

The Political Pendulum

2009-05-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

— John Adams, October 11, 1798

There is a popular myth that extremism is the opposite of moderation. Moderation is not that simplistic, and neither is extremism. In reality, the opposite of extremism is the polar opposite extremist position. A moderate view is often an amalgam of parts of other views and is often just as fixed and uncompromising. Also, in many other instances a moderate view is something quite different, a pliable position, being swayed by any change in the wind. But that is only one reason moderation is not as simplistic as "the opposite of extremism."

Let us briefly review the brilliance that makes the American government what it is.

(thanks to notdemocracy for posting the video online)

Positions on moral, religious, political, economic, philosophical and any other type of issue can vary so widely it becomes necessary to use grand labels. Labels such as "conservative" and "liberal" and "extremist" help us fit a differing view into our lineup, often separating people along ideological lines in our minds. The fact that we often misguide ourselves and make unreasonable assumptions using such labels is inconvenient enough to ignore. We put such emotional investment into strongly held beliefs it becomes almost an autonomic response to pigeon-hole people who disagree with us. Even inventing alternate monikers (such as "progressive" or "centrist") smells of propaganda rather than an attempt to honestly distinguish between certain patterns of thinking so we can pretend to be more open minded than we really are.

Despite the enormous diversity and complexity of thought on such issues there do, in fact, appear to be some patterns. It is not intellectually honest to reflexively use the term "extremist" (or "fundamentalist") just because someone may be "conservative" but it could be perfectly fair to use the label "conservative". After all, there are certain ideals which most, if not all, conservatives share. These ideals typically begin with broad concepts such as individual liberty, which requires minimal government. These general ideas necessarily produce logical implications, such as a desire for low taxation, minimal government regulation, self-sufficiency rather than government reliance, private aid rather than public assistance, etc.

One result of the conservative precept of individual liberty is a powerful insistence on observing consequences. The conservative mindset is fixated with freedom to make one's own decisions, and this attitude requires any attempt to help people must pass the test of end results. If ideas or intentions do not achieve the purported results the conservative is very likely to discard the methods used to implement those ideas or intentions. Public assistance is one example: welfare programs do not encourage self-sufficiency or individual freedom, but instead typically result in trapping people in poverty. This result leads the conservative to conclude welfare is a bad idea despite its compassionate intentions. Trapping people in poverty is not the kind of help they need. This result doesn't help the people it is supposed to, but it robs them of the freedom to live their own lives.

The general reaction to this right-wing position on welfare is remarkably one sided. Regardless of the moniker one chooses (liberal, progressive, centrist, etc.) the criticisms of the conservative objection to welfare are almost a monolithic accusation of greed and selfishness, a lack of compassion. This odd phenomenon is not an isolated case. In fact, this near uniform reaction to conservative ideas occurs on almost every controversial issue. When one steps back from the details for a moment to observe the larger picture even larger patterns emerge. Despite the immense diversity of thought and agenda and effort there seem to be, astonishingly, only two main spheres of influence in American public life.

These two forces each pull in their own direction, which seem to be diametrically opposed to each other. One force, the conservative or the right wing, pulls toward individual liberty, the freedom to makes one's own decisions. The other, the left wing, pulls toward government control - which invariably diminishes individual liberty. America's founders understood this phenomenon.

The concept of a Social Contract is fundamental to the success of the American experiment. The men who invented the United States knew civilization could not survive by anarchy, neither by an all powerful government. They understood government to be a necessary evil to check human nature. The challenge was to find an appropriate balance between the two extremes. This challenge is probably best described by James Madison in The Federalist No. 51:

[T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defence must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

America's founders knew that to give control to government was to take freedom from the people, and vice versa. In modern conservatism, as defined by President Ronald Reagan, the ideal balance is with minimal government protecting the natural rights of the individual. These rights center on the freedom to make one's own decisions. In Reagan's view the ideal balance between freedom and the state was where this pendulum swings in favor of individual liberty, while still maintaining minimal government involvement in the lives of its citizens.

This conservative understanding of the Social Contract, as shared by our founding fathers, was that to give government more power was to increase government oppression of the people. Rush Limbaugh correctly describes this political pendulum as (paraphrasing) anything that is not conservative is, by default, liberal. Political momentum is in perpetual motion, with both major forces constantly striving for dominance. Hence, the political pendulum is always swinging one way or the other.

There are many signs available today indicating this political pendulum is swinging quickly to the left. These signs are not limited to the political arena; they affect all aspects of citizen life. And that should be expected when the most fundamental requirement for the success of the American Constitution is eroding: the moral and religious constraints of the people. Ironically, when morality is customizable and based on the fickle whims of individuals moral anarchy results. This does not mean an oppressive application of religion or law is the solution. But it should be acknowledged that the abandonment of religion and morality leads civilization ever closer to self destruction. Unfortunately an oppressive nanny-state application of law is exactly what our nation is embracing now. This may be the inevitable result of abandoning traditional western moral values.

Walter E. Williams has a good column on the cultural impact of such political battles titled Law vs. Moral Values. It's short but poignant. Have a read.

Intentions vs. reality

2009-04-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

The belief in an ideal has motivated countless people to do extraordinary things. The belief in liberty motivated the American founders to risk everything in the attempt (they had nothing even close to any guarantee) to break away from English rule. But our founding fathers did not do this blindly. The "American experiment" was still based on historical precedent. The ancient Greeks, Romans, and English history, as well as other examples of the human struggle throughout the world, inspired the first generation of Americans to take their freedom from an oppressive government and forge a new nation.

The foundations for other, similar revolutions began in England, with two German philosophers in the mid nineteenth century. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, too, saw the human struggle from a particular perspective, and based their revolution on the desire to live free from oppression. But the communist idea of oppression was very different from that of America's founders. Their desire to be "free from oppression" was not based on a fundamental assumption of liberty as it was in the United States, but one of fairness. My blog post on Mindless Compassion briefly explores the disconnect between good intentions and a wise plan to make those desires a reality, and the likelihood that manufacturing fairness does not result in fairness. Marx and Engels never saw the most famous examples of their ideas put into practice, though they were still alive to witness what may have been the first such experiment: the French reign of terror just after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, relating to the Paris Commune. For Marx and Engels, their high minded ideals of fairness and equality never really progressed beyond theory. For them communism was a utopia protected from any test of real life.

However, the fruits of this new philosophy were variations on this community-based, fairness oriented thinking, such as Socialism and Communism and others. If you have a couple hours on your hands you might appreciate the documentary The bloody history of Communism.

The modern liberal has taken the Marxian desire for fairness to a new level, with the human struggle still as justification for any number of violations of human rights. The many examples of dire poverty and misery throughout the world are a primary excuse to rob the people of their right to make their own decisions free from the control of an oppressive government. Political correctness is only one example, infringing upon other people's freedom of speech for the sake of achieving some "greater good" as defined only by those who decide what is politically correct. This social movement has infiltrated every level of government, and in many cases become law - such as hate speech or hate crimes legislation.

But is the intent of such social engineering to oppress the people? Certainly not, but this does not change the fact that oppression is the result. Then what blinds so many, who we might call "modern liberals," to the harm caused by public policies based on their good intentions?

The video below, a speech by Evan Sayet, answers that very question. It is less than 1 hour long, and WELL worth the time.

The bloody history of Communism

2009-04-01T12:06:00.001-07:00

Below is a YouTube play list featuring a television documentary on the history of communism. The series was originally done by Muslim sociologist Fatih Kocaman. It is based on the works of Harun Yahya. Regardless of your religious beliefs, this series provides a very useful historical perspective on the origins and development of communism. It is posted on YouTube in the form of 14 different videos, all presented in this play list. Total viewing time for all 14 videos is approximately 2 hours.

You can view the entire playlist in one sitting by clicking here or you may view each video individually below.

Communism was the bloodiest ideology that caused more than 120 million innocent deaths in the 20th century. It was a nightmare which promised equality and justice, but which brought only bloodshed, death, torture and fear. This three-volume documentary displays the terrible savagery of communism and its underlying philosophy. From Marx to Lenin, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot, discover how the materialist philosophy transforms humans into theorists of violence and masters of cruelty.

video 2 of 14
video 3 of 14
video 4 of 14
video 5 of 14
video 6 of 14
video 7 of 14
video 8 of 14
video 9 of 14
video 10 of 14
video 11 of 14
video 12 of 14
video 13 of 14
video 14 of 14

Thanks to Seahorse1776 for posting this documentary online.

Mandatory Volunteerism National Service Bill

2009-03-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

On March 24, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1388: Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act
Next, the bill is headed to the U.S. Senate for debate.

The stated purpose of the GIVE Act, as found in Section 1101, is basically to encourage volunteerism in American communities. The language in the bill is filled with terms like "volunteer", "opportunities" and "communities" which all sound good. I'm not sure I know anyone who has a problem with encouraging people to become more involved within their local communities. What does present a problem to many is another apparently un-repealable law: the law of unintended consequences.

We all know which road is paved with good intentions. This long-standing saying still proves itself today. That is why certain portions of the GIVE Act have generated controversy. Some selections of this bill are reproduced below:

SEC. 1203. INNOVATIVE PROGRAMS AND RESEARCH
amending the following:

SEC. 120. INNOVATIVE DEMONSTRATION SERVICE-LEARNING PROGRAMS AND RESEARCH

‘(3) YOUTH ENGAGEMENT ZONE PROGRAM- The term ‘youth engagement zone program’ means a service learning program in which members of an eligible partnership described in paragraph (4) collaborate to provide coordinated school-based or community-based service learning opportunities, to address a specific community challenge, for an increasing percentage of out-of-school youth and secondary school students served by local educational agencies where--

‘(A) not less than 90 percent of the students participate in service-learning activities as part of the program; or

‘(B) service-learning is a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.

SEC. 1304. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.
amending the following:

SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.

‘(6) Participating in, or endorsing, events or activities that are likely to include advocacy for or against political parties, political platforms, political candidates, proposed legislation, or elected officials.

‘(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.

‘(8) Providing a direct benefit to--

‘(A) a business organized for profit;

...

‘(E) an organization engaged in the religious activities described in paragraph (7), unless Corporation assistance is not used to support those religious activities.

With this language, the GIVE Act could be interpreted to mean middle school and high school student participation in these national service programs is mandatory. Also, students in these government programs are forbidden from practicing religion, getting involved with other private non-profit groups, or perhaps even getting a job with a normal business, nor can they voice objection to anything the government is doing. An alternative interpretation is that students who practice religion may be ineligible for programs in the GIVE Act or any number of other government benefits, but this could amount to religious discrimination.

I can't say what the likelihood is of these interpretations becoming reality. I can say I would feel better about it if such language were edited to alleviate my concerns. As it is presently written, I cannot support this bill, and would encourage anyone reading this blog to contact your Senators to voice objection to the selected portions of it. It is very likely some changes in the bill will be made in the Senate version, but that is no guarantee the sections printed above will be altered.

The question of whether the federal government should be involved at all at this level in our lives is a different matter altogether. I would encourage you to read the bill, though it is dry and quite long for what I would consider normal reading. That fact alone is also a problem for many Americans: that legislation is written in such a way as to discourage ordinary citizens from being well informed. That is one reason why this post provides information that is new for some of you.

In the United States, mandatory military service was stopped because of objections voiced by the public. Such objections typically suggested compulsory service conflicted with the founding premises of a free society. Regardless of one's opinion on the matter, our federal government accepted this argument, and so required enlistment ended. Ending mandatory military service established the precedent that our government cannot force us into government service. I must conclude that, likewise, compulsory service in the government programs pertaining to the GIVE Act, even for the noble goal of building community, should also be opposed. If you agree, please voice your objections publicly beginning with your Senators, and pass this message along to others.

H.R. 1388: Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act

Mindless Compassion

2009-03-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

feelgoodism - n - an act motivated by compassion without regard to the help or harm to others that results; an act designed to make one feel good about oneself.

The dominant view in our western culture seems to be that fairness and compassion are among the ultimate virtues, and that freedom to make one's own decisions is not. In this view, any act allegedly intended to help people is given instant credibility while the results of such acts are marginalized or simply ignored. What matters is not results, but only the goal. When the goal is an egalitarian society, anything that brings our culture closer to that end can be justified. Any damage done to society by efforts to increase equality and fairness must be disregarded, or blamed on something else. The results of such mindless compassion are sometimes acknowledged but deliberately misrepresented. Poverty in Africa is a good example.

Myth: more money always solves problems

Spiegel Online Internation published the interivew "For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!" with James Shikwati in July 2005. The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

Through out the article the Der Spiegel interviewer just can't seem to accept the notion that good intentions could ever cause harm. The interviewer reflects a common sentiment among those in power today: the desire to do good outweighs the reality of the situation. Feelgoodism trumps the reality that great harm is being caused by aid policies. Another piece by James Shikwati explains in clear, logical, common sense terms how to fix the problem of grinding poverty in Africa. But feelgoodism trumps common sense, blinds the do-gooder, and often hurts more than it helps.

In what other areas do we see "more money" proposed as the solution to society's problems? Education, social welfare, government interference in the financial sector (including the bailout bill), and more. And do the results of this influx of funding match what we were told by the do-gooders to expect? Of course not!

In the 1970s the brilliant economist Milton Friedman narrated a TV miniseries titled The Power of the Market. Below is a ten minute segment on the results of welfare:

The war on poverty ironically is a war on prosperity. Ending poverty is not the goal of this war. It is about redistribution of wealth. Socialism is about the equal distribution of misery, not the elimination of it. No capitalist is pretending life can be made fair or that misery can be eradicated, but such things can be diminished. Political, religious, economic liberty and good laws are the main ingredients of this endeavor. Prosperity is the essential element of a successful economy. But prosperity must grow to exist. How does prosperity grow when those who earn or generate wealth discover they do not get to keep what they earn? How does making it impossible for a people (Africans) to become self-sufficient bring them out of poverty?

In our own nation we might ask if helping the poor is truly the goal of social aid why not exempt the poor from paying income taxes? Then again, one might ask, how does taxing income promote prosperity?

But feelgoodism isn't about common sense. It isn't about results. It isn't about asking questions or finding solutions. Feelgoodism works on the naive presumption that no harm can result from good intentions. It is about intentions. It is about getting credit for being compassionate. What "works" is defined by the degree of economic equality, not by the number of people rescued from poverty. If people are actually helped by these intentions, well that's good.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

-- William J. H. Boetcker

The meaning of what "works"

2009-02-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

-- The late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 to 2005
from the message "Financial Freedom" - #1054
Love Worth Finding Ministries

"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."

-- William J. H. Boetcker

Class envy is possibly the greatest weapon in politics, because "divide and conquer" has proven to be a profoundly effective tactic. The two quotations above address the failed essence of Marxian ideology - that it is unsustainable and that manufacturing fairness is not fair. But this wisdom does not carry much weight among those who believe fairness is more important than freedom. Those who gladly sacrifice other people's liberty do so because they believe it brings us all closer to a more enlightened goal. Mr. Boetcker and Mr. Rogers were showing that artificially created fairness results in tyranny. Unfortunately the truth of their statements will only penetrate a mind that is willing to hear it.

These two men were addressing the Marxist push in western culture, ushering in greater economic equality at the expense of political and personal freedom. What they were suggesting, and what conservatism itself teaches, is the essence of the search for a political system that "works". But what "works" can mean very different things to different people.

In the Marxian/left wing world view, fairness is one of the ultimate virtues, along with compassion. In this mindset, the freedom of others can justifiably be sacrificed in order to achieve greater fairness, even if it means doing so by force (i.e., greater taxes, speech control, imprisonment, etc.). Coercion and oppression are legitimate tools to achieve these virtues as long as they are motivated by good intentions. Platitudes about fairness and equality are used to deny these oppressive measures are actually oppressive. Fighting for people's right to make their own decisions is problematic, and labeled as uncompassionate. All social problems are to be solved on some government level. When greater equality results with greater diversity of influence the attempts to improve fairness are deemed successful. In the liberal mind, what "works" is what ever makes society more egalitarian, and government must be used to that end.

In the conservative/right wing world view, freedom is one of the ultimate virtues, along with individual responsibility. This responsibility is to be taught on the local level, preferably within the family. Actions that harm others are subject to the law, but intentions by themselves are not (i.e., hate crime legislation is viewed as pandering more than useful). Social problems would ideally be solved on the local level, with local government only if necessary. A system organized to sustain society as long as possible with peace and prosperity is considered successful. This ideal would include a balance between maximum individual liberty and minimal government participation, balanced by respect for others taught at home. In the conservative mind, what "works" is what makes life the most stable for the most people, and no one is better qualified to determine that than individuals themselves.

These philosophies are mutually opposed to one another. But both can be said to be unrealistic or over simplistic. The success of either approach to governing is entirely subjective. To the conservative, confiscating one person's wealth under threat of imprisonment and redistributing it to others (particularly with the government keeping a portion for itself) is considered an injustice. To the leftist, allowing people to keep the fruits of their own labor is considered an injustice if this results in unequal wealth among the population - unequal effort spent is irrelevant. To the right, "earning" something is a major factor - to the left, this, too, is irrelevant.

The attempt to achieve the ideal setting is moot without the means to protect that ideal. To the conservative, preventing oppression is a virtue because this protects freedom. To the leftist, oppression is a necessary tool to achieve equality. Where the leftist would support laws that oppress the people in order to improve economic order or maintain economic standards, they would also typically oppose laws designed to maintain moral order, almost as if moral anarchy were the goal. The conservative sees moral anarchy as ultimately destructive to society, and so moral standards are promoted. At the same time conservatives would prefer less regulation in industry, but greater personal responsibility. Conservatives also prefer laws already written to be enforced so that new laws are not constantly needed. Liberals seem to prefer new legislation and new regulation at the slightest provocation, even to the point of regulating personal opinions (i.e., the precept of the hate crime).

Protecting Family

The traditional family is a prime example of the battle over morality. The conservative sees the traditional family as the primary means of building and sustaining civilization, with marriage being the essential public recognition of that building block. Threats to the traditional family have shifted over the last century from promiscuity and infidelity and divorce to redefining marriage, abandonment of marriage and abortion. The killing of children in the womb is considered a heinous thing in the conservative mindset, but a civil right to the leftist. In the right wing view divorce and abandonment of marriage are considered harmful to the primary building block of society, but a matter of freedom to the leftist, with no regard to the damage they may cause to society as a whole. A collective change in social attitude toward marriage leads to active changes, such as redefining marriage to apply to any two adults rather than one man and one woman. Such a foundational change in the institution of marriage opens the door to any other legal change. Once the fundamental understanding of marriage is altered this naturally leads to eliminating all other safeguards, resulting in the destruction of the primary building block of civilization. Who are we to say 5 people can't all be married to each other? Who are we to say a 52 year old man can't marry a 9 year old child? Or an animal? The requirement that those being married do so volitionally can also be challenged. There is already wide historical precedent for forced marriage, which our society currently frowns upon.

We've seen the damage to society that results from the abandonment of traditional marriage, and this damage has been decades in the making. Problems at home breed problems elsewhere, from school murders to over crowded prisons. Poverty is often blamed (typically by leftists) for society's ills, with almost total disregard for the roll played by degrading morality. When morality degrades criminal activity becomes more frequent and more severe. The elimination of moral safeguards naturally leads to the self-destruction of society, with or without poverty.

In a conservative world view, the stability of the family, where mutual love and respect are the norm, must be protected (with as little government interference as possible) as this is the best means of sustaining a peaceful society. Modern technology creates new possibilities and new situations, which make the traditional biological principles less clear, and again more susceptible to breakdown. Without safeguards for the family American culture is deteriorating at an accelerating rate. Where the right wing philosophy promotes legal moral restrictions (such as indecency laws) but promotes freedom in all other means of personal interaction, it seems the left wing mindset prefers the opposite - promoting freedom regarding sexuality, but regulating all other means of personal interaction.

Protecting Government

The leftist sees the government as the primary means of building civilization, with little to no thought as to the sustainability of society. Since the ultimate virtues of fairness and compassion and diversity can be achieved only by the work of government (in the leftist world view), it is government that must be protected, rather than the family. Government involvement must be encouraged and enforced where ever possible. What "works" is determined by the degree first of economic and then political equality (with some exceptions, since the unborn do not have constitutional rights, neither the right to live). Problems caused by government can be ignored or covered up because of the blinding effect of a desire to be thought of as caring. The recession of 2008/2009 is a conspicuous example of this observation.

In 2008 a recession hit the United States, and eventually spread to become a global problem. An already hurting American economy, slowed by high fuel prices, noticed some relief when it was suddenly struck by the disintegration of the sub-prime mortgage bubble. It turns out lenders were required by federal law to offer bad home loans to people who could not afford to repay them. But that fact was obscured by protectionist reactions from liberals, both in politics and news media. Orson Scott Card, the well known author, had the courage and intellectual integrity to address this egregious propaganda campaign designed to protect Democrats. As Card mentions, it was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that pulled the U.S. economy into a recession, not a failure of the private sector. Left wing journalists and Washington liberals circled the wagons to shelter their Marxian philosophy from any blame, and their accusations against the free market are now a pervasive lie bought by many Americans who either value their leftist paradigm more than the truth or who simply don't know what's going on.

A video of various elected politicians was circulated on the internet which shows numerous statements made about an impending danger posed by problems found in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In case you haven't see it, in the video below you'll notice it is Democrats denying there were problems with these government institutions, and that Republican attempts to warn us all about the situation were treated as some sort of right wing political ploy.

These statements and other actions made by liberal Democrats have been utterly ignored by politicians and by the majority of the main stream media. Disregarding this inconvenient history makes it much easier to misconstrue and blame conservative philosophy and policies for the crisis in which we now find ourselves. Subsequently it is also easier to revise history to perpetuate this lie. Even now the official narrative of Democrats is that capitalism caused this recession.

And what is the result of this propaganda campaign blaming the free market for this recession? Marxians now have a crisis in which to demand immediate action, using only their proposals (sometimes with no public review), and they accuse anyone recommending oversight on this federal money of needlessly stalling a solution to the problem. Let me say that again, debating legislation in public view as it is supposed to be and addressing problems and waste amounts to, as President Obama recently said, an "inexcusable and irresponsible" delay of the economic bailout bill Congress passed in February 2009. The president also reiterated the common left wing Misattribution of Blame in rebuking the Bush tax cuts for causing the current recession, which is of course absurd. In the leftist mindset, any government action (meaning spending) in a crisis is the solution, even if harmful, wasteful, and doesn't really do what we the people were promised it would do. There is no need to look closer at leftist claims, either their claims to help or their accusations against right wing philosophy. Any criticism of the those who disagreed with the Bush administration was condemned as anti-American, but apparently it is now perfectly acceptable to question the patriotism of those who disagree with President Obama. You see, patriotism now means blindly believing what ever the government says, because Democrats are in charge, and they care. Apparently, there was no need for members of Congress to even read the bill before voting on it.

The greatest problem with the economic crisis is that the majority party (Democrats) are simply not interested in repairing the economy. Achieving their social policies and returning political favors is what interests them.

What Is Congress Stimulating?
What's most striking is how much "stimulus" money will be spent on the government itself.
A 40-Year Wish List
You won't believe what's in that stimulus bill.
Dems Blew $500,000 of Taxpayer Money At Lush Resorts
Deal Or No Deal? New Big Box Jobs For Chicago - Chicago again rejects Wal-Mart's offer to build 5 new stores within the city, which would have created thousands of new jobs.
Economists question budget's economic assumptions by MARTIN CRUTSINGER

Some wise history and common sense solutions Democrats flatly rejected:

Stimulus will take a while to work Amid all the anticipation of Obama's stimulus package, Americans should realize that its effects aren't likely to be felt until the economy is already rebounding on its own. by Anthony Karydakis

CBO: Obama stimulus harmful over long haul by Stephen Dinan

The Common Sense Fix, promoted by Dave Ramsey. This solution would have given incentives to people with money to invest it into the market - immediately infusing huge sums of money into the economy without having to go $700 billion in tax money (and more) into debt. But it would also have been advantageous for rich people, which automatically means it's dead on arrival with Congressional Democrats, because to them increasing wealth does not increase equality. As shown by their own actions, government influence and redistributing wealth was more important to Democrats than actually fixing a problem.

UCLA Economists: Government Intervention Prolonged Great Depression, by Paul Detrick.

Economic Recovery Act is wiser alternative to massive spending, by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.)

"Congressional Democrats have engaged in a full offensive to convince the American people that another massive dose of borrowing and spending is the solution to our economic tribulations. They talk of an economic near-Armageddon without as much as a trillion dollars in new spending. The rhetoric, in point of fact, sounds remarkably similar to the appeals for their last economic solution, the disastrous Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The truth is, proven by history, that massive government spending is not a solution. And the American people know there is another way — a real economic solution that empowers our people without mortgaging our future. After a year of bailouts, rebates and taxpayer-funded backstops, we can move toward renewed prosperity by unleashing the potential of and providing economic relief for our real economic growth engines — hard-working Americans and businesses."

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate, by Meg Sullivan

Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth, by Brian M. Riedl

"In a throwback to the 1930s and 1970s, Democratic lawmakers are betting that America's economic ills can be cured by an extraordinary expansion of government. This tired approach has already failed repeatedly in the past year...."

Dr. Faber (predicted '87 crash) Says Obama Plan Doomed, Marc Faber:

"I can tell you that the current crisis, the economic crisis and the financial crisis is a direct consequence of continuous U.S. government intervention into the economy, through fiscal and monetary policies that have been designed to never have a recession and to combat recession. And what has happened is if you never have a recession it's like someone who never sleeps. You need some sleep, a resting period, and then you recover.

It is not a failure of the free market that brought about the crisis, it is continuous intervention by the government, with fiscal and especially monetary measures that have brought the crisis about. And now the same people that brought the crisis about want to solve it with more intervention."

Even in the first quarter of 2009 we are already getting reports of scandal and fraud regarding the bailout money. TARP Bailout Scandal: Taxpayers Shortchanged $78 Billion on Asset Purchases

So what does all this mean? Clearly, the mindset of more government intervention does not solve problems, but that evidently isn't the point. It seems to me Democrats in Congress care more about fairness than they care about people, even to the point of shoving bad legislation down our throats while insisting it is the best solution to this crisis, ignoring ample evidence to the contrary. What "works" in this situation depends entirely on one's paradigm: greater equality or fixing the problem. Both sides of the debate publicly argue fixing the problem is the thing we should do. Yet, the bailout bill of 2009 was rushed through Congress so as to hide the tremendous pork which was never intended to rescue the economy. Any proposals from Republicans were disregarded as simply a matter of foolishness or greed. For some reason we were supposed to believe Democrats had good intentions and that their good intentions and pork spending on bloating government would actually fix the problem. Unfortunately, the real impact of the pork-laden bailout bill Congress approved will have very different results.

Someone needs to ask Congressional Democrats and President Obama when the economic stimulus bill is supposed to have its magical effect on our economy. If our economy's negative momentum doesn't turn around by that time we will surely be told to be patient, as though the government intervention simply needs a little more time to do its work. But if natural market forces cause the recession to fade away it will be the failed government policies that get the credit. And conservatism will still get the blame. No matter what happens, the free market will not be acknowledged by the left as having contributed to any economic recovery. In the leftist mindset only the government can fix economic troubles, and so government must get the credit for our recovery, when ever it actually happens. And the free market must always get blamed for the problems. Liberals don't trust you to make good decisions.

Liberals, Marxists and other leftists don't care that capitalism is the only way yet discovered that can rescue the masses from grinding poverty. But they care a great deal about the fact that wealth is unequally concentrated in a capitalistic society. How should we interpret that opinion? I interpret it like this: leftists care more about equality than they care about people. Results of Marxian failures are ignored, while "failure" of capitalism is construed as a matter of inequality, disregarding the high standard of living ordinary people enjoy in such societies. Fairness, as promoted by modern liberals, does not mean elevating those at the bottom, it means punishing those at the top. Fixing problems is not even a factor for modern liberals, and their platitudes about helping people are nothing more than propaganda.

Tell the government to keep its efforts limited only to what the constitution says (as is required by the 10th Amendment) and let the market do its frelling job. Government interference caused our economic crisis. You have a better idea of what is best for yourself and your loved ones than the government does.

"It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people..."

-- Adam Smith

Fairness is not fair

2009-01-03T20:01:00.001-08:00

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need

- Karl Marx

The great significance of Marx's explanation is, that here too, he consistently applies materialist dialectics, the theory of development, and regards communism as something which develops out of capitalism. Instead of scholastically invented, 'concocted' definitions and fruitless disputes over words (What is socialism? What is communism?), Marx gives analysis of what might be called the stages of the economic maturity of communism.

- Vladimir Lenin

Why this obsession with fairness? Have we deluded ourselves into believing life can be made fair? Is this delusion the result of modern education and enlightenment? Who defines this agenda for equality? As much as people would like to believe otherwise, public policy does affect the home. There seem to be two main factions in American politics: one pushing toward fairness and one pulling toward freedom.

These are admittedly loaded terms, each carrying a great deal of baggage and political energy. A brief look at these two sides of American politics can also provide a glimpse into the effectiveness of political propaganda. If we unpack these loaded political terms what do we find?

Fairness: compassion, sharing, open mindedness, tolerance, equality, community, giving, progressive, liberating, peace loving, helpful, trustworthy, unity, Democrats

Freedom: greed, selfishness, closed mindedness, intolerance, hatred, inequality, bigotry, discrimination, individualism, taking, backward, oppressive, war mongering, harmful, untrustworthy, divisiveness, Republicans

I did not see this list anywhere; it was simply compiled as a summary of the suggestions and implications and direct statements made living life in the hyper-productive, news and marketing-saturated, politically charged American culture. I have gathered this list from the pool of common knowledge by reading or watching news stories, movies, television programs, listening to politicians or people in my everyday life. What I've noticed is Americans advocating fairness are often associated (implicitly or explicitly) with the terms listed above. Likewise, those advocating individual freedom are typically associated with the terms listed above with that label. The biggest irony about this list, in my opinion, is that it is backwards.

We live in a culture that loves to find a scapegoat for anything bad. We are all victims of something, aren't we? You may have observed that of all the bad things happening in our nation, it is Republicans who get most of the blame, even for bad weather. If there is any reason to think racism or sexism is a factor in any situation garnering public attention, there is typically an implication, if not outright accusation, that Republicans are the problem. Any disapproval of homosexuality is branded as hate speech, and of course it's only those right wing extremists who disapprove of it; therefore it is not worth listening to and no explanation of their objection is permitted. This is the power of propaganda: when one group is criticized often enough and loud enough, implicit and explicit propaganda takes root in a society, while hatred and distrust of the victimized group eventually overpowers logic and common sense. As one example, this happened to the Jews over decades, beginning in the 19th century, and culminated in the mid twentieth century. You can probably think of other examples where the self-proclaimed tolerant and open-minded hypocritically attack those with different opinions.

The same trend has been happening in Western politics for about a generation, this time against conservatives. This time the propaganda is not based on race, but on something more benign: helping people. With just a brief overview of the current political climate one should notice many items on the public agenda for American public policy is motivated (at least publicly) by compassion and the desire to help. From the impetus to redistribute wealth to the insistence that a national health care system is vital to the well being of Americans to the minimum wage to Social Security to publicly funded abortions, American politics is inundated with public programs designed to "help people." But this movement to offer government aid for any and everything has a price, and I'm not just talking about our tax dollars.

When a movement builds sufficient momentum to take hold of the underlying ideology it takes on a life of its own. When the government raises taxes it affects us even if it is not our own taxes that are directly raised. When unpopular opinions become hate crimes it impacts many people who are shocked to find themselves accused of criminality. When home schooling becomes illegal millions of people will be affected, as will millions more when a left-leaning sex education agenda is required learning in public schools, even more so than it is now. These are just a few examples of how a political agenda in Washington D.C. ends up impacting you and me at home.

The minimum wage is another good example. Federal politicians decide to help those earning low income by forcing employers to pay higher compensation. We are told this mandate is designed to help poor families, while ignoring the fact that it is mostly students and ENTRY level workers who earn the minimum wage and that raising the minimum wage also tends to drive up prices, which we call inflation. This inflation drastically reduces the intended effectiveness of artificially raising wages, which leads to the need to raise the minimum wage again. What happens during inflation is that businesses raise their prices for you and me; many businesses would go out of business if they didn't do this, which would increase unemployment. You and I end up paying for wage increases, whether or not we get a pay raise, increasing our burden and making it more difficult to make ends meet. We should not forget that this mandatory wage increase also encourages businesses to migrate jobs over seas. But let us not forget to give politicians credit for caring as they debate increasing the minimum wage yet again.

Whether inflation, higher taxes or a loss of individual strength and resolve, or something else, social policies forced upon us by our legislators eventually encounter the law of unintended consequences, which dictates an unforeseen situation will result from government interference in our lives, and this result is typically unpleasant, causing more harm to society. What is most frustrating to me is that the negative results of this government aid are often entirely ignored by the very people who imposed it upon us. Their good intentions seem to trump any painful results which make life more difficult for everyone else. And what is so good about raising the minimum wage if it doesn't really end up making life easier for the high school and college students who earn it? Well, it's an attempt to make things more fair, of course, and that is worth it.

I think I've noticed a pattern at work here. In the minds of those for whom fairness is an obsession, what determines when government intervention is necessary is when an injustice is observed. But here is how injustice seems to be defined:

inequality = unfairness = injustice

In our minimum wage example, there was economic inequality. Those who learned skills or who employed workers had more wealth than those who had not yet developed employable skills. Thus, in the leftist mindset, an injustice was found justifying the involvement of government elites. If an inequality can be found, no matter how significantly numbers have to be manipulated and no matter how many other factors must be ignored, that inequality is unfair, and therefore unjust. This mentality saturates the political left in western civilization. It is a tragedy that this leftist mindset is becoming common place in the general population as well. However, we should not discount the political element of the situation. Politicians want to get re-elected.

How do politicians keep their jobs? They have to win re-election. How do they accomplish this? They have to win more votes than any of their opponents (assuming the election system actually works properly). How do politicians win votes? By saying things we want to hear. If enough people like what a politician says (or doesn't say, as the case may be) more than another candidate the most popular candidate wins the popularity contest. Keep in mind, this does not qualify politicians to make laws, it merely authorizes them to do so. Winning the job does not automatically mean politicians know what they are doing. The constant cry for government reform (often from politicians themselves) should be evidence enough of that.

It is no coincidence that compulsory government programs (i.e., the seriously problematic Social Security program and the alarming national health care program looming on our political horizon) are discussed as "aid." It is much easier to put shackles on people if they think they need them. This should raise the question as to why journalists so seldom challenge this rhetoric. If one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter (as journalists trying to be "fair" tell us) is it not also legitimate to remind us that one man's government aid is another man's government shackles? Try telling the government you don't need their help with retirement, and refuse to pay FICA taxes any longer and let me know how that goes for you.

Politics is not the only realm in western culture where this Marxian obsession with fairness thrives. Academia is renowned for its left wing politics. From classical Marxists, to Socialists, even some admitted communists, my experience and the testimonies of others who survived the college experience tell me higher education is saturated with a left wing mentality (I mention this only because those who subscribe to that leftist tilt do not recognize it as leftist bias. They, of course, think of themselves as "normal" and anyone who disagrees with them are the extremists).

Some friends of mine and I were discussing the 2008 presidential election about a week before election day. The discussion centered on then Senator Barack Obama's redistribution of wealth agenda. One guy revealed he has been successfully taken in by this Marxian Populism. His argument ostensibly was motivated by a sense of community building, unity and fairness. In discussing "who benefits most from what government has to offer" he mentioned three things in particular, one of which will suffice for my long-winded pontificating: interstates.

My friend, whom I will refer to as F, suggested that people who benefit more from government programs should be taxed at a higher rate. Let me unpack the interstate example. The suggestion was that it is unfair that someone use the interstate more than someone else, with the implication that it is most likely rich people who have this greater benefit (they would use it more). Personally, I would think rich people (not being one myself) would be more likely to travel in the air than on the interstate, but my rebuttal was based more on the example of a mutual friend of mine and F's who is an artist. This artist person travels throughout the region from gallery to gallery. From what I can tell he is no more wealthy than F (though I suspect both are more wealthy than I). By F's example, our artist friend should be taxed at a higher rate some how to "compensate" for his "unfair" usage of the interstate. My response concluded it doesn't matter how much someone uses the interstate, it is there for all of us, to what ever degree we may use it.

The problem with F's example is that the worldview behind it filters life through a lens of class envy. If we were all assigned a certain allotment of miles to use on the interstate, and the artist friend of ours used more than his ration, one could make the case that something "unfair" had occurred, and proceed from there to argue this would also be an injustice, requiring some sort of punitive action by the government (such as raising the artist's taxes). However, there is no such rationing of the interstate, or many other government programs, yet F still wanted to see the situation from the perspective of an inequality. I mentioned in the discussion that it does not matter if anyone uses the interstate more than I do, and this inequality is therefore not "unfair." It is irrelevant. I don't know if F would call it this, but I would say his argument stemmed from an attitude of class envy - Populism. This inequality in the use of a government service was a manufactured injustice. I think F genuinely understood this after it was explained. Whether or not he really did, it seemed clear to me he had no idea he was inciting class hatred, which effectively is an attack on unity, something F and I both value. I just don't know if F realized that while injustice can be manufactured, unity cannot, at least not for the long term.

In April of 2008, the American Thinker published an excellent article by Lee Cary titled Obama, CEO Pay, and the Politics of Class Envy. Class envy does not build unity, it is inherently divisive, pitting groups of people against each other. Cary eloquently explains this simple truth using contemporary examples. For instance, Cary writes about Barack Obama's many statements condemning high CEO salaries:

"When a politician bemoans the salary-disparity on the Jay Leno or David Letterman Shows the crowds applaud. Never mind that Jay makes $123,000 and Dave $154,000 for each show - considerably more than the average U.S. worker makes in a year. Entertainers, including sports figures, are exempt from salary comparisons. They have talent. And never mind that Obama has leveraged his support from Oprah Winfrey to gain votes. At an annual income of $260,000,000, The Oprah makes a million dollars per weekday."

One should never assume a news story provides all information necessary to fully understand a situation. In news coverage about CEO compensation, as Cary points out, the outrage is highly selective. Senator Obama is apparently upset about supposedly excessive CEO pay, but has no complaints about the pay of politicians, Oprah, actors, athletes, etc. To promote a more "fair" economic situation, the propaganda line of the day is designed to sow hatred of CEOs, while ignoring the many other aforementioned rich people. That, quite simply, is not fair.

Since so many national level journalists also subscribe to the leftist obsession with fairness the hypocrisy of Senator Obama's argument is not brought to light. How many stories have you heard about CEO pay, versus the number of similar stories criticizing Oprah, or actors, or athletes for their obscene wealth?

As listed in the definition of fairness above, compassion is a major factor. Good intentions can be used to justify almost anything. Emotional impressions last, and that is why emotional appeals are so often used in politics today. For example, there is still a persistent myth that the Bush Administration should be blamed for hurricane Katrina. On September 6 of 2005, George Lakoff wrote an excoriating piece tying the failures of that tragedy to public policy and ideology. Mr. Lakoff relied heavily on emotional pandering in exploiting an opportunity to yet again accuse Republicans, and conservative ideals, of being uncaring. This emotional rhetoric has been so successful that many people even today blame President Bush for the disastrous aftermath of the hurricane. Global warming hysteria has been infused into the situation so often that Bush has even been blamed for the storm itself. Below is an excerpt from Mr. Lakoff's piece on the aftermath of Katrina, showing emotional exploitation, manipulation of "fairness" and distortion of the views he disagrees with:

"The cause was political through and through -- a matter of values and principles. The progressive-liberal values are America's values, and we need to go back to them. The heart of progressive-liberal values is simple: empathy (caring about and for people) and responsibility (acting responsibly on that empathy). These values translate into a simple principle: Use the common wealth for the common good to better all our lives. In short, promoting the common good is the central role of government."

"The right-wing conservatives now in power have the opposite values and principles. Their main value is Rely on individual discipline and initiative. The central principle: Government has no useful role. The only common good is the sum of individual goods. It's the difference between We're all in this together and You're on your own, buddy. It's the difference between Every citizen is entitled to protection and You're only entitled to what you can afford. It's the difference between connection and separation. It is this difference in moral and political philosophy that lies behind the tragedy of Katrina."

Do you notice Lakoff's mixture of "unity" and divisiveness? Not only is there a plea for greater fairness, but insinuations of greed, a lack of compassion and just plain evilness by those he criticizes. He suggests conservatives never support a helping hand and ignores a common concern: if you rely on the government to take care of you don't be surprised when it does a bad job. While suggesting conservatives rely only on individual discipline and initiative he is also revealing that liberals don't believe you or I have discipline or initiative. That is the result of government's helping hand: the attitude that you and I are incompetent and cannot survive without Democrats taking care of us. Big government is cumbersome by its very nature, so relying on it for social aid is not necessarily a good idea.

To this day Republicans are still accused of racism regarding hurricane Katrina. Such accusations of hatred and intolerance are often made with a hate-filled and intolerant attitude. The hypocrisy of the left can be ignored because of the underlying assumption they care about people, while those they criticize supposedly don't. This labeling of conservatives as uncaring, racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted in any way is common place, but to suggest a "moderate" or "progressive" or leftist of any stripe as any of these things is considered an outrage. The fact that leftist policies tend to also cause harm is disregarded, and to publicly mention failed leftist ideas is considered a mean spirited attack.

What matters is not the results of leftist policies, but only their intentions. This is very dangerous. Because all leftist ideas are believed to be motivated by compassion any number of things can be attempted which would never be allowed to meet the light of a committee chamber if a conservative were to suggest them. Ideas like Social Security (a compulsory ponzi scheme decades old), the McCain-Feingold law on campaign finance reform (infringing on our right to free speech), and a compulsory national health care system destined to lower medical standards and limit medical care as much as Canada's or (insert European nation name here)'s health care system are all allegedly designed to make life better for ordinary people, yet we have no choice in whether to participate. In my mind, this raises the question of what do our politicians really care about?

I'm sure there are many in Washington to truly care about other people. I'm just not ready to accept the notion that compassion-inspired public policies are genuinely intended to help us the way we have been promised. One thing I have never understood with regard to legislation is the blind acceptance of the intent to help. Yet there seems to be another motive carefully avoided in debate: the idea that fairness is more important than actually helping people. It would not surprise me if it turned out our compassionate politicians would be satisfied if all Americans lived in poverty, as long as we were all on equal economic terms (except themselves, of course). This suggestion is no more extreme or mean spirited than the constant barrage of accusations that conservatives don't care about people.

America's founders wanted a limited government that respected the right of the people to make their own decisions (with enough government in place to help protect us from harming each other). When people make their own decisions (i.e., making good grades, working hard, making wise choices) inequality inevitably results, but this does not automatically mean injustice results. Efforts to make life more fair in our current political climate inevitably bring us closer to communism, exemplified by the brutal and oppressive regime of the former U.S.S.R. Lenin knew this. Our politicians know this, even if they deny that is what is happening.

My favorite example of why economic fairness is not fair is the comparison between a medical doctor and a garbage collector. A medical doctor who rises from the same poor neighborhood as the local garbage collector has not committed an injustice by earning more wealth. But this economic inequality is the only factor most leftists seem to care about. The inconvenient facts that the M.D. had to take on tremendous debt, put in many years of higher education, acquire a license to work, and works possibly twice as many hours in a week as the garbage collector simply have no place in the argument of economic fairness. The medical doctor is considered greedy by the standards of the leftist, and should be taxed at a higher percentage rate than the garbage collector because our government has the right to do anything it deems necessary.

Possibly the best example of fairness turning on itself and becoming utterly unfair was given to us during the 2008 election season by Congressman Jim Moran, (D - VA). The Weekly Standard has a video of his comments at a forum in Virginia, in which he challenged the Simplistic Notion That People With Wealth Are Entitled To Keep It. Congressman Moran's sense of fairness makes him believe government is entitled to take what ever it wants from whom ever it wants, and do what ever it wants. If government can take your wealth which you earned and you have no recourse for this action, how do we stop such a government from doing anything else? Congressman Moran's philosophy is the same mentality of the former Soviet Union. It is the opposite mentality of a nation of free people.

Populism is pitting groups of people against each other. But there should be a distinction between a people and their government. America's founders had an innate distrust of government, and we should maintain that attitude. The warning of our founders against factionism should also be heeded, though we obviously have ignored it for 200 years. It would do us well to trust people by default, but to distrust government. Ironically, leftists choose the opposite attitude, even when they claim to distrust government they prefer giving it more power while distrusting the people to make good decisions on their own.

America's founders warned posterity of this devolution into despotism.

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.” — John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results, and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished, asked him directly: "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic if you can keep it" responded Franklin. (from a speech by Ron Paul, in 2000.

To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it." If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra taxation violates it.

- Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Milligan

“The goal of socialism is communism.”

“It is true that liberty is precious - so precious that it must be rationed”

“We need the real, nation-wide terror which reinvigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory”

“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”

“Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism”

-- Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin confirmed these warnings by his own example in forming what became the USSR. Lenin's propaganda centered on erasing class distinctions, attempting to correct the supposed injustice of having "rich" and "poor." Is this not the same message we hear from our compassionate elitists today? The saddest aspect of all this is that we seem to have only one option at our disposal, to hope for change as our new president takes the big chair. At least, until the next election cycle.

Our Founding Fathers on The Redistribution of Wealth

2009-01-03T18:29:00.000-08:00

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” — Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

“A wise and frugal government… shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.” — Thomas Jefferson

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.” — John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787

“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” — James Madison in a letter to James Robertson

In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object saying:

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” — James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179, 1794

“[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” — James Madison

Modern Moral Confusion

2008-12-02T18:02:00.001-08:00

On September 12, 2008, Senator John McCain, with his wife Cindy, appeared on ABC's "The View." In discussing McCain's position on abortion and judges he would appoint to the Supreme Court if he were to win the upcoming presidential election, Whoopi Goldberg asked "Should I be worried about being a slave or a return to slavery?"

She may have merely been attempting to be funny, or perhaps she was being flippant to make a point. What ever her reasons, Whoopi seemed to believe that "abortion rights," as it is commonly portrayed, is synonymous with women's rights. She is not alone. Many abortion advocates construe the issue so that any disapproval of the abortion movement is equivalent to attacking all women's rights, as if even questioning abortion were an attack on the Constitution itself.

Clearly, some people have no problem comparing abortion and slavery. I'm one of those people, though I take an entirely different position from Whoopi's. I've even written a short book about that very comparison, which you can find here.

One issue not addressed in my book is the question of supporting evil versus being evil. In our modern "enlightened" culture we are taught that slavery practiced by western culture, including the slave trade and the physical and legal treatment of those slaves, was unequivocally evil. And so it is with Nazism; if someone were to even suggest that a member of the Nazi Party was not an evil person, many would be outraged. What we must not forget is that there is a difference between being an evil person, and supporting others who advocate, promote, or do evil things. I say this in the contemporary context of voting for a supporter of abortion.

So I ask, should the legal murder of millions of people be secondary to another issue in which millions of people are not killed? Let us distinguish between a hypothetical tragedy (such as future predictions of massive death caused by global warming) and reality (i.e., millions of abortions occurring each year worldwide). I suppose any answer to this question could depend on the situation.

Some History

Let me pose a hypothetical scenario. An employee or even a family member of a slave owner may make an effort to improve the lives of the slaves around them, even to the point of helping some slaves escape captivity. Or German citizens in Nazi Germany may help Jews remain hidden or even to leave the country. In both of these situations, those helping the oppressed persons would likely need to maintain an appearance of loyalty to the status quo, while keeping their contrary actions secretive. This sort of activity is quite understandable to our modern enlightened culture, one which acknowledges such compassionate activity as good, and possibly heroic. But what of those who did nothing to oppose the evils of their day, and though they did not personally commit such acts they none-the-less supported those who did?

Imagine an election season in which one political candidate believes much the same as you. That candidate supports the same worthy causes and professes the same ideals as you, except one. That one exception is that this candidate also supports the institution of slavery, or perhaps the Nazi Party, and does so openly. Would you ignore this one issue, or would it give you reason to reconsider voting for the candidate? Now imagine the year is 1856 or 1860, and the Presidential candidate that agrees with you on so many issues also advocates slavery. Or imagine the year is 1933, and your fellow German citizens are considering giving a promising candidate astounding political power in the nation. His future genocidal plans are plainly laid out in his book, Mein Kampf, published years before. If there were merely the one "disagreement" between you and the candidate, would you vote for him? How significant would this issue be to you?

Is abortion the same type of heavy issue? Is there any problem with voting for an abortion supporter who may also espouse compassionate social policies? What about supporting a Nazi who espouses what he calls compassionate social policies, and vows to rescue the country from terrible economic troubles? And what of a slave holder who defends the institution of slavery, but also supports compassionate social policies and vows to protect the ordinary citizen from any threat to their way of life?

I ask these questions because I believe abortion today is just as much a holocaust as the one during the 1930s and 40s and the holocaust that was slavery. When the law of the land deprives a group of people their humanity, permitting them to be legally murdered by the millions, that issue should carry such weight as to be a primary consideration in who we choose to lead our nation. But living among the controversy makes it more difficult to see current events for what they really are. Having the benefit of hindsight, it is easy for us to see the evil of slavery and the Jewish Holocaust. It may be easy to also label as evil those who voted for a pro-slavery candidate or those who favored giving Adolph Hitler such wide powers over Germany.

I acknowledge there is a difference between committing evil acts and voting for those who do or merely support them, but I also suggest this distinction does not amount to much. I can understand that a citizen may be desperate enough to vote for Hitler in the tragic economic times the German people were suffering in the 1920s and 30s. There were many topics Hitler addressed, and many troubles on the minds of the German people, so much that the idea of murdering millions of people could be confidently disregarded as mere political propaganda from Hitler's detractors. And yet, giving him the power to fulfill his plans enabled one of the greatest evils in the history of human civilization. Would we today acknowledge the Nazi's evil for what it truly was if Hitler never decided to attempt conquering the rest of the world as well? How fiercely would Nazism be condemned if World War II never happened? Do we call Nazism evil only because the rest of the world was threatened too? We find ourselves today in a situation where millions of people are legally killed, but many voices express support for it, as if there were nothing to be concerned about.

Confusion

Rather than insist those who supported Hitler's rise to power were also evil I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But what does that mean? The most kind and yet honest assessment I can make is to consider them morally confused. The situation in Germany at the time was admittedly grim, and many of the concerns of the German people were legitimate. However, allowing Hitler to take control and implement his agenda (which was supposedly to help the German people) undoubtedly enabled and spread tremendous evil. Likewise, I acknowledge Americans today who vote for an adamantly pro-abortion candidate are not directly guilty of murdering unborn children. Yet enabling abortion proponents to continue strengthening the abortion movement does spread evil. In our modern holocaust we have witnessed the legal killing of more than 40 million unborn children since 1973.

What do abortion supporters say to this? They essentially claim the fetus is not a person, and so it has no rights, and abortion is not murder. I am left wondering why anyone would defend a position using the same argument the Nazis used to justify their attempted genocide of the Jews. It does not help the situation that there is so much confusion and misinformation thrust upon us:

So-Called Pro-Life Advocates Who Backed Obama Say Banning Abortion Failed
Christian website endorses Obama as pro-life
Do you remember Barack Obama's outrageous and dishonest mock "Pro-Life" websites paid for by George Soros? Yeah, they were all a lie.

Idiocy

We all act like idiots sometimes. None of us knows everything and we all are susceptible to confusion. But when the wizards of smart (thanks to Rush Limbaugh for coining that term) suggest the question of whether a child in its mother's womb is a person is up for debate, we should acknowledge this is the same line of thinking the Nazis used to promote their racist position on what they called the "Jewish question." The Nazis used rhetoric and debate and an already strong anti-semitic attitude to craft laws discriminating against Jews. This legal maneuvering made it easy for the afflicted group to be dehumanized. As a result, more than 6 million of them were exterminated. The reasons used to justify this genocide seem like overt idiocy to me, and that so many Germans embraced this rhetoric baffles me. Another tragedy of the situation is that many people today are suffering the same moral confusion in the context of abortion.

For example, Alan Colmes, formerly of the Fox News Channel's Hannity and Colmes. An admittedly smart and thoughtful guy, and no doubt someone who acknowledges Nazism as the evil that it truly is, he sounds like an idiot on the issue of abortion. In September 2008, abortion survivor Gianna Jessen appeared on Hannity and Colmes to discuss Senator Barack Obama's position on the issue of children born alive during a failed abortion. Jessen was born during an abortion procedure which failed, and clinic workers had her taken to a hospital to get proper medical care. Jessen, and millions of people around the world, would consider a child born even under these circumstances to be a person, a living infant. As you can see in the interview, Senator Obama voted four separate times against Illinois legislation designed to protect such a child's right to live. I see no legitimate reason to deny a child born like this is a person, entitled to all rights and privileges as you or I. Therefore, children born in this manner and left to die or even put to death is rightly called infanticide. If Senator Obama acknowledges this tragic thing occurs and yet opposes efforts to prevent it why shouldn't people say he supports infanticide? In this interview with Jessen, Alan Colmes can only offer shallow platitudes like "Obama doesn't want to kill babies" and "we disagree on the law." Being asked more than once in the brief interview, Colmes refused to answer Jessen's straight forward question "what would you call it?"

Former registered nurse Jill Stanek appeared on Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor in September of 2000, discussing her experience in learning her employer, Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, performed abortions much like that described by Gianna Jessen, where the child is born alive and left to die. This video shows a rare moment in which O'Reilly is speechless.

http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2007/09/stanek_on_the_o.html

It is a common tactic of abortion proponents to ignore the evidence of the atrocity Stanek describes, such as denying it really happens, and refusing to review the alleged evidence. While avoiding exposing themselves to the reality of what they support, those favoring legalized abortion often evade the issue by retorting with stories of how a woman's life can be ruined by having a child. If you take the time to view the video above, I only ask that you consider whether what is being described is better than allowing the child to live and to be adopted. No one is advocating a pregnant woman be forced into motherhood. If you are someone who would vote for a pro-abortion candidate (even someone who opposes protecting a child born alive during a failed abortion, i.e., Barack Obama) I ask that you watch the short interview and reconsider whether voting for a candidate who supports what is discussed here is something you wish to do in the future.

Many people object to the comparison of abortion and Nazism. If abortion rights supporters would stop using Nazi-like propaganda and reasoning this comparison would likely be made far less frequently. Here is a list of reasons the Nazis used to justify their attempt to annihilate the Jewish race. It is also a list of modern reasons used to justify abortion:

1. Allowing this to happen helps humanity
2. Those of the targeted group are not really people
3. The targeted group does not have the same rights as you or I
4. Killing members of the targeted group is legal, but let's not call it "killing"
5. Preventing this would harm society

Killing people who have committed no crime seems inherently unjust to millions around the world. Denying even that they are people to justify killing them by the millions was considered a crime against humanity when the Nazis did it. Why is our culture so resistant to acknowledging we are doing the same thing to the unborn?

Update

Here is a YouTube video from Planned Parenthood showing what they are thankful for:
A year in Review

Notice a Pattern?

2008-10-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

Historical parallels between slavery, the Holocaust and abortion

In October of 2004 Slate.com published an article by Timothy Noah titled Why Bush opposes Dred Scott It’s Code for Roe v. Wade. In a condescending tone Noah mocks President Bush and the Christian right, evidently thinking himself clever for exposing what he thinks a secret tool of propaganda conservatives try to keep hidden among themselves. What he may not realize is that the Pro-Life movement is not trying to hide the comparison between those two cases, but is trying to publicize it. In his research for the article, Noah discovers many references comparing the two Supreme Court cases, but rejects them. He seems to think such comparisons are merely a political ploy, at best. Noah also seems to think the comparison between Roe and Dred Scott (the case in which the Supreme Court denied American citizenship to people of African descent, effectively also denying them human rights) is illegitimate. He is not the only one who thinks this way. Through ignorance, bias and other ailments, “abortion rights” advocates in general seem uninterested in understanding the agenda of the Pro-Life movement or its arguments, and instead prefer to assign a more sinister motive. In lieu of trying to persuade abortion advocates otherwise, the American people in general could benefit from seeing more detailed historical patterns among the Dred Scott case, the Nuremburg Laws of Nazi Germany, and Roe v. Wade.

Most of the information referenced in this essay was gathered in passing over many years, whether in conversations with people or in general reading, such as news stories and the like, with no thought of organizing it until 2008. This lead me to think the similarities between the three Holocausts, as I am calling them, could be common knowledge, at least on an implicit level. I set out to find readily available sources supporting the historical instances mentioned in this writing, and in a very busy culture such as the United States this could be accomplished with the internet. Most of the references here are linked at the bottom of each page to a web-based source, though a few of these are books not currently readable online. Much of what you will read in this essay you likely already know, and yet seeing it all woven together in a broader context may prove surprising.

It is not the intent of this writing to convert those who choose to believe killing an unborn baby is a constitutional right. The purpose of this essay is to change complacent attitudes, to challenge the belief that public policy has no affect on the individual citizen, and for those who already agree an unborn child has a right to live, to remind us to not carelessly accept talking points, analyses, alleged trends and outright falsehoods about the constitutionality of denying a group of people their unalienable human rights. The American people have enough trouble as it is with a government that acts as if it knows best on all things without us enabling that belief by effectively ignoring those who make a living creating laws and spending other people's money.

read the book

excerpts below

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Having to explain why children in the womb are people is as
ridiculous as having to explain why black people are people; no
explanation should be necessary. Why should one have to spell out that
killing a baby is not what America's founders had in mind when they
shaped the language of our constitution?"

"Unless abortion rhetoric is challenged and made to defend itself, the
concept of compassion will continue to mean an act which results in
the death of a child."

"The phrases "a woman's right to choose" and "reproductive rights"
might be considered the modern equivalent of a slave owner defending
"property rights." In each case, an argument for the constitutional
rights of one group inherently denies the human rights of another."

"There are also efforts challenging the physician's right to abstain
from performing or participating in an abortion. The conservative
political action group Concerned Women for America is trying to bring
attention to the fact that abortion groups oppose a doctor's right to
choose not to do abortions."

read the book

Presumptions of Marxism

2008-10-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

updated 2011.02.11

One big problem with debating controversial issues is that people tend to misconstrue the positions of the opposition. This is easily and sometimes unwittingly done, by those on any side of an issue. But deliberate distortion seems to be standard procedure when criticizing capitalism. I've noticed 11 general points where Marxians (classical Marxists, Communists, Socialists, liberals, leftists in general) exploit common mental laziness and gloss over the issue to promote their agenda. I'm not suggesting conservatives don't do the same, but let's face it, even when conservatives do this it doesn't reach nearly as big an audience as does left wing propaganda. What should be outrageous to intelligent people or just those who value integrity, misrepresenting someone else's argument is the antithesis of intellectual honesty.

1. Karl Marx's ideas are readily accepted as self-evident, putting capitalism on defense, as if Marxian ideas need not be proved. Marxian theory is presumptuously made the standard by which capitalism should be measured.

2. Any explanation of Marxian theory is portrayed in an ideal setting, whereas capitalism is typically shown in a negative and over-simplified light, promoting the presumption that Marxism is morally superior to capitalism.

3. Marxian theory treats the subjective notion of fairness as a sort of natural law desired by all, but it is only the Marxian definition of fairness that is considered legitimate. Marxian theory presumes life can be made fair, and that unfairness is manufactured only by capitalist mindsets, meaning greed or selfishness. The historically proven fact that manufactured fairness inevitably results in tyranny and oppression must be whitewashed.

4. Capitalist criticism of Marxian societies (i.e., the former Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba, etc.) is dismissed as criticism of illegitimate examples of Marxian theory, because those states are not "pure" or ideal Marxian societies. But when the United States is described by Marxian followers as the preeminent example of a greedy and selfish society, the fact that the U.S. also is not a "pure" capitalist society (because it is heavily influenced by socialist/Marxian ideas) is conveniently neglected. In fact, the failed examples of Marxian nations usually follow the path of failure predicted by Capitalists (i.e., the Soviet Union being run by Stalin naturally devolves into a totalitarian society, because making life "fair" for everyone requires the sacrifice of most freedoms). Similarly, in ignoring the impure capitalism of the United States, Marxians may use a "dog eat dog" metaphor to describe a logical extension of capitalism, while avoiding the "equal misery" reality of Marxian ideals which contaminate American capitalism.

5. Capitalist attitudes are reflexively described as inherently greedy or selfish. The "capitalist mindset" (meaning selfishness) criticized by Marxians may not be a result of capitalism or so-called greed; such attitudes could be the natural state of individuals when allowed to make their own choices. Though a "selfish nature" is sometimes acknowledged, it is improperly attributed to "capitalist mindsets" by Marxians. This selfishness (which indeed exists and is common) may be inherent to humanity itself. Marxian theory prefers the dubious belief that humanity is not naturally selfish, but is made selfish by capitalism or by society in general.

6. Self-interest is unjustly equated with selfishness when criticized by Marxian followers. Marxian theory does not acknowledge the fact that greed can exist in any society, especially one where resources are scarce, which is very common among nations implementing Marxian ideas. For example, Cuba engages in trade with many nations, yet it is still a poverty-stricken nation. This sad fact is often blindly attributed to the trade embargo inflicted upon it by the United States. The possibility that Cuba's widespread poverty may be self inflicted is simply overlooked, because this would suggest Marxian ideals are fundamental flawed.

7. Capitalism is deliberately misunderstood by Marxians, as may be observed by their criticism of it (i.e., a lack of incentive for working one's best is often misconstrued as "a lack of incentive to work at all"). It is seldom (if ever) mentioned by Marxians that Capitalism survives only by serving the community, which is fickle, diverse, and too large and complex to be sufficiently understood by any theory or paradigm, socio-economic or otherwise, a fact Marxians often use to justify their rejection of Capitalism.

8. Marxians tend to discount individualism itself in favor of community. The desire, effort, skill and accomplishment of individuals are rejected to maintain a group mentality. For example, the concept of "earned wealth" is discarded so as to promote the Marxian pillar of class envy. In this manner wealth is not discussed as it actually works (via voluntary exchange), but rather in mythical terms of distribution - as if there were some high governing power deciding who will get an unequal share of available wealth. Likewise, individual charity is ignored to promote group charity (taxation and redistribution of wealth). With Marxian thinking, poverty is not itself a problem, as long as it is equal. It is unequal enjoyment of wealth that is the real injustice.

9. Marxians presume they know what is best for others, and the price required by Marxism (i.e., individualism, freedom, private property, religion and family) is justified for everyone, and should be enforced even by violent means, if necessary. In the Marxian mindset, fairness is valued above freedom, and those who value freedom above fairness are reflexively accused of being "greedy" or lacking compassion. Capitalist examples of compassion are ignored or explained away as something contrary to capitalist mindsets; and religion is certainly not given
credit for compassionate acts.

10. Marxian theory presumes a mythical endless supply of goods and services on one hand, yet a limited amount of collective wealth on the other hand. Capitalism recognizes goods and services must be produced in order to be consumed, but that they are produced only with sufficient incentive. The capitalist focus on liberty permits people to fulfill these needs as they see fit (requiring that individuals serve the community in some way). When people are rewarded with the fruits of their own labor the natural result is abundance (society's economic pie continually grows). The Marxian focus on fairness naturally hinders the incentive to put forth that extra effort, which reduces the total goods and services people are willing to provide, which reduces total available wealth. This results in the use of compulsion and oppression to meet society's needs. Where properly limited freedom tends to breed prosperity, manufactured fairness tends to breed poverty. Prosperity must grow to exist; it must be focused to grow, it does not grow by being arbitrarily redistributed.

11. Marxian theory oversimplifies human history by focusing on and defining it in the limited mindset of class struggle: the "oppressors and the oppressed". Though this perspective is not in itself inaccurate, the insistence that the study of society be approached almost exclusively from this point of view creates a biased and misguided understanding of human experience.