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From The American Spectator:
The Second Amendment, Incorporated
By Ross Kaminsky on 6.29.10 @ 6:09AM
On Monday morning, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of McDonald v Chicago, a follow-on case to the Heller case in which the Court ruled that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual, not a collective, right. Following Heller, Chicago and a few other localities argued that since that case had been about the District of Columbia's ban, it was not clear that the Court's ruling applied to states and other non-federal territory.
With its 5-4 decision in McDonald, the Court says that the right applies everywhere in the U.S., that the right to keep and bear arms applies equally in cities and states as in D.C. The 5-4 decision comprised a plurality made up of Justices Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and Kennedy who were joined by Justice Thomas in a separate opinion upholding the outcome of the case but not the path the plurality took to get there. (More later on this important disagreement within the Court's "conservative" wing.) Although the Court's ruling is clearly the right one, two aspects of the decision are troubling.
First, while I might understand how the Court's liberals opposed the original Heller decision, which found that individuals have rights under the Second Amendment, the fact that those same liberals would then argue that a settled right somehow does not apply to the states is remarkable, particularly given how almost every constitutional right we have based on the original Bill of Rights has been interpreted by the Court to be "incorporated" via the 14th Amendment's "Due Process" clause.
In their controlling opinion, the plurality point out that "Municipal respondents' remaining arguments are rejected because they are at war with Heller's central holding. In effect, they ask the Court to hold the right to keep and bear arms as subject to a different body of rules for incorporation than the other Bill of Rights guarantees."
In his dissent from this decision, Justice Breyer made several complaints about it, each of which the plurality thoroughly disassembles. Two of those complaints are particularly interesting: First, "'there is no popular consensus' that the right is fundamental." Beyond the fact that Breyer's statement is wrong, the Court makes the key point that "we have never held that a provision of the Bill of Rights applies to the States only if there is a 'popular consensus' that the right is fundamental, and we see no basis for such a rule." Breyer's argument is disturbingly similar to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's statement that "Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs." Kagan's argument is, as Chief Justice John Roberts accurately described, "startling and dangerous." Breyer's argument isn't much different: essentially that a fundamental American right should be upheld or not upheld based on whether that right is "popular," essentially just another version of subjecting a right to a verdict by "society."
Breyer (along with Justice Stevens in a separate dissent) also suggested that the Court should not interfere in this particular area of state versus federal government relationship. This from people who can't even spell "federalism " except when they can use it to limit freedom. The Court's plurality in McDonald offered this retort:
…incorporation of the Second Amendment right will to some extent limit the legislative freedom of the States, but this is always true when a Bill of Rights provision is incorporated. Incorporation always restricts experimentation and local variations, but that has not stopped the Court from incorporating virtually every other provision of the Bill of Rights.
Additionally, in response to the similar point made by Justice Stevens, the majority notes that "The relationship between the Bill of Rights' guarantees and the States must be governed by a single, neutral principle." You don't say.
The sadly accurate implication of the majority's comment on the dissents is that the "liberal" dissenters simply do not believe in the rule of law. They believe in decisions based on a desired outcome at a given time based on no particular fundamental principle.
It is remarkable that all of the Court's liberals voted against applying our Second Amendment rights within the states even after the Court had ruled that the Second Amendment did guarantee a fundamental right. Just as they only consider federalism when it involves restricting constitutional rights, they also only respect even the most recent precedent when they're happy with the outcome. Indeed, Justice Scalia offers an extremely harsh and sarcastic view of Stevens' dissent, saying that Stevens somehow just "knows that the right to keep and bear arms is out (while)…only 'some fundamental aspects of personhood, dignity and the like' are protected." In other words, Stevens protects the rights he wants to protect, not protecting rights because they are rights.
There is another very important legal question involved in McDonald, which was seen in the most unusual spectacle of the plaintiff's attorneys arguing the case before the Court using two different theories of law. (That splitting of efforts and focus caused some to worry that the Court might somehow not come to the correct verdict in the case.)
These two theories involve whether to incorporate the Second Amendment into a broader (i.e. not just federal) right through the 14th Amendment's "Due Process" clause or through the "Privileges or Immunities" clause. Without getting into too much legal minutiae (although important minutiae), the Supreme Court could use either of these clauses to incorporate rights, but the Privileges or Immunities path offers, in the views of many libertarians and constitutional purists, the correct path and the best opportunity for broadening liberty, especially economic liberty, based on a precedent that would overturn the Slaughter House cases of the late 1800s when the Court gutted that part of the 14th Amendment. You can read more about the legal debate in this interesting Reason analysis positing the two different views as pitting conservatives versus libertarians. The libertarian Cato Institute and the Institute for Justice both wrote Amicus briefs urging the court "to correct a long-standing error by restoring the Privileges or Immunities Clause…to its proper role as a source of federally protected individual rights."
In the end, only Justice Thomas took a forceful position in favor of this view, writing in his opinion that while our Second Amendment rights are "'fundamental' to the American 'scheme of ordered liberty,'" "I cannot agree that it is enforceable against the States through a clause that speaks only to 'process.' Instead, the right to keep and bear arms is a privilege of American citizenship that applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause."
Unfortunately, even though Justice Scalia also expressed sympathy with this legal route, the plurality ended up incorporating our right to keep and bear arms through the Due Process clause which, as its name suggests, is better suited for matters that relate to process rather than fundamental rights.
Thomas gets it right again: "The notion that a constitutional provision that guarantees only 'process' before a person is deprived of life, liberty, or property could define the substance of those rights strains credulity for even the most casual user of words. Moreover, this fiction is a particularly dangerous one. The one theme that links the Court's substantive due process precedents together is their lack of a guiding principle to distinguish 'fundamental' rights that warrant protection from nonfundamental rights that do not."
Justice Thomas further argued that "This Court's substantive due process framework fails to account for both the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the history that led to its adoption, filling that gap with a jurisprudence devoid of a guiding principle. I believe the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment offers a superior alternative, and that a return to that meaning would allow this Court to enforce the rights the Fourteenth Amendment is designed to protect with greater clarity and predictability than the substantive due process framework has so far managed." Thomas ended his opinion by stating that "the right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment as a privilege of American citizenship."
Almost without exception, each time he writes his own opinion we're reminded that Justice Thomas is our highest court's strongest champion for liberty and consistently truest defender of the Constitution.
In the meantime, Chicago and other localities will have to end their gun bans. It was the height of arrogance for them to maintain those bans after the Heller decision. But the fact that even after Heller the Court's four "liberals" could offer ways to say the Second Amendment only offers an individual right within the District of Columbia, as laughable as that is, shows that our nation's being under the "rule of law" is a tenuous situation at best. Should even one of this Court's "conservatives" be replaced by a "liberal" judge, America could become a vastly different place, a place of rule of men rather than of law, a place where rights are judged by their popularity, a place where the Constitution comes to mean even less than it means already.
Ross Kaminsky is a professional derivatives trader, a fellow at the Heartland Institute, and a frequent contributor to Human Events. He blogs at Rossputin.com.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Kagan Will Be The Obama Of The Supreme Court
From The American Thinker:
June 29, 2010
Kagan will be the Obama of the Supreme Court
Keith Riler
Now more of us understand that running a successful political campaign does not qualify one to be President. Real job qualifications matter when it comes to oil leaks, fiscal stimulus and unemployment, the deficit, Iranian nukes, relationships with our allies, infrastructure modernization and government transparency. If we have learned anything, it is to ask harder questions and not presume "it can't be any worse."
Our unqualified President has now nominated an unqualified judicial nominee. Given his recent very public shortfalls, that he still does not understand the value of experience is startling.
Barack Obama has proposed Elena Kagan, who has no judicial experience, as his Supreme Court nominee. As Paul Campos points out, even if we generously extend the question of qualifications to publishing (forget actually judging), very little is added to the nominee's resume:
In the nearly 20 years since Kagan became a law professor, she's published very little academic scholarship-three law review articles, along with a couple of shorter essays and two brief book reviews. Somehow, Kagan got tenure at Chicago in 1995 on the basis of a single article in The Supreme Court Review-a scholarly journal edited by Chicago's own faculty-and a short essay in the school's law review. She then worked in the Clinton administration for several years before joining Harvard as a visiting professor of law in 1999. While there she published two articles, but since receiving tenure from Harvard in 2001 (and becoming dean of the law school in 2003) she has published nothing.
Nominee Kagan hasn't even voted "present" in a judicial hearing. If confirmed, she will become the Barack Obama of the Supreme Court, winging the job as badly if not worse than the unqualified President wings his job.
However, if our Senators do their jobs this week, this will be a quick interview. The Senate should focus on the candidate's qualifications not ideological predispositions, which focus will produce fact questions that are not easily circumnavigated with non-responsive palaver.
Consider a plumbing company hire. The hiring company is mostly unconcerned about the applicant's view of installing plumbing in an abortion clinic. More relevant first questions include: How many installations have you done? Commercial or residential? As a master plumber or an apprentice?
Likewise, for an investment banker, the question is not whether the candidate has a problem with sharia-compliant financings. Relevant first questions include: How many financings have you completed? Equity or debt? Lead or co-managed? In other words, basic "do you know the job" stuff.
This is common sense and Interviewing 101. Given the nominee Kagan's likely failure to pass the basic qualifications screen, questions of ideology and judicial philosophy are unnecessary and too complicated.
She should be asked: How many judicial proceedings have you overseen? What type of cases - civil, criminal, tort, constitutional, etc....? As a judge? What about private practice experience? How does your prior judicial experience compare to the experience of the current Supreme Court justices at the time of their nominations? Do you think it is appropriate for the President to foist an "on the job training" judge on the court and the country?
The President is trapped in what Chris Stirewalt calls a hypocrisy trap, having claimed competence and qualifications but evidenced neither. We should have no desire to see this sad state repeated in either of the other two branches of government. Surely qualified judges exist. Senators, please do your job and interview the candidate.
Posted at 08:09 AM
June 29, 2010
Kagan will be the Obama of the Supreme Court
Keith Riler
Now more of us understand that running a successful political campaign does not qualify one to be President. Real job qualifications matter when it comes to oil leaks, fiscal stimulus and unemployment, the deficit, Iranian nukes, relationships with our allies, infrastructure modernization and government transparency. If we have learned anything, it is to ask harder questions and not presume "it can't be any worse."
Our unqualified President has now nominated an unqualified judicial nominee. Given his recent very public shortfalls, that he still does not understand the value of experience is startling.
Barack Obama has proposed Elena Kagan, who has no judicial experience, as his Supreme Court nominee. As Paul Campos points out, even if we generously extend the question of qualifications to publishing (forget actually judging), very little is added to the nominee's resume:
In the nearly 20 years since Kagan became a law professor, she's published very little academic scholarship-three law review articles, along with a couple of shorter essays and two brief book reviews. Somehow, Kagan got tenure at Chicago in 1995 on the basis of a single article in The Supreme Court Review-a scholarly journal edited by Chicago's own faculty-and a short essay in the school's law review. She then worked in the Clinton administration for several years before joining Harvard as a visiting professor of law in 1999. While there she published two articles, but since receiving tenure from Harvard in 2001 (and becoming dean of the law school in 2003) she has published nothing.
Nominee Kagan hasn't even voted "present" in a judicial hearing. If confirmed, she will become the Barack Obama of the Supreme Court, winging the job as badly if not worse than the unqualified President wings his job.
However, if our Senators do their jobs this week, this will be a quick interview. The Senate should focus on the candidate's qualifications not ideological predispositions, which focus will produce fact questions that are not easily circumnavigated with non-responsive palaver.
Consider a plumbing company hire. The hiring company is mostly unconcerned about the applicant's view of installing plumbing in an abortion clinic. More relevant first questions include: How many installations have you done? Commercial or residential? As a master plumber or an apprentice?
Likewise, for an investment banker, the question is not whether the candidate has a problem with sharia-compliant financings. Relevant first questions include: How many financings have you completed? Equity or debt? Lead or co-managed? In other words, basic "do you know the job" stuff.
This is common sense and Interviewing 101. Given the nominee Kagan's likely failure to pass the basic qualifications screen, questions of ideology and judicial philosophy are unnecessary and too complicated.
She should be asked: How many judicial proceedings have you overseen? What type of cases - civil, criminal, tort, constitutional, etc....? As a judge? What about private practice experience? How does your prior judicial experience compare to the experience of the current Supreme Court justices at the time of their nominations? Do you think it is appropriate for the President to foist an "on the job training" judge on the court and the country?
The President is trapped in what Chris Stirewalt calls a hypocrisy trap, having claimed competence and qualifications but evidenced neither. We should have no desire to see this sad state repeated in either of the other two branches of government. Surely qualified judges exist. Senators, please do your job and interview the candidate.
Posted at 08:09 AM
A Deeper Look At Individual Rights
From Third Palmetto Republic:
A deeper look into Individual Rights
On June 29, 2010, in Constitution, Secession, by Tom ....
In the last 100 years, perhaps no one person has been more of a defender of the individual and of the concept of liberty than Ayn Rand. Most people have heard of or even read her best-selling work “Atlas Shrugged,” but few realize that she in fact developed an entire philosophy and wrote several non-fiction volumes on basic issues like ethics, metaphysics, and rights. Thanks to the work of people like the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, her ideas and her defense of liberty lives on to this day, and serve as a great resource for anyone who believes in freedom.
There are plenty of political pundits out there who will talk about individual rights, and there are even some who give an honest and accurate portrayal of liberty, such as Ron Paul and fellows from Mises or Cato, but none have done so thorough a job of explaining why each one of us has the absolute right to our own life as Ayn Rand. It’s one thing to just assume that individual rights are “right” (moral), and to base your politics on that principle, but it is quite another thing, and quite an amazing accomplishment, to explain exactly how and exactly why it is right and moral for each one of us to have liberty and freedom.
For those of you who are anti-Rand, let me just say that I do not agree with all of the extrapolations of Objectivism (applications of the philosophy to individual practical issues) but I do agree with the basic premises of the philosophy, and I challenge anyone to prove them wrong. When it comes to fundamental issues such as these, “God says so” isn’t a sufficient answer, and neither is “because I’m right!” In order to be a true defender of liberty, you have to understand exactly why it is right for each person to be free.
To that end, I have included below a snippet of one of Ayn Rand’s essays. I would encourage you to read the entire thing (link at the bottom) but read this selection at the very least:
All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself. The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary coexistence of individuals. All previous systems had held that man’s life belongs to society, that society can dispose of him in any way it pleases, and that any freedom he enjoys is his only by favor, by the permission of society, which may be revoked at any time. The United States held that man’s life is his by right (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.
A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self- sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action-which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)
The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.
Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.
The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.
The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this day. In accordance with the two theories of ethics, the mystical or the social, some men assert that rights are a gift of God—others, that rights are a gift of society. But, in fact, the source of rights is man’s nature.
The Declaration of Independence stated that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Whether one believes that man is the product of a Creator or of nature, the issue of man’s origin does not alter the fact that he is an entity of a specific kind—a rational being—that he cannot function successfully under coercion, and that rights are a necessary condition of his particular mode of survival.
A deeper look into Individual Rights
On June 29, 2010, in Constitution, Secession, by Tom ....
In the last 100 years, perhaps no one person has been more of a defender of the individual and of the concept of liberty than Ayn Rand. Most people have heard of or even read her best-selling work “Atlas Shrugged,” but few realize that she in fact developed an entire philosophy and wrote several non-fiction volumes on basic issues like ethics, metaphysics, and rights. Thanks to the work of people like the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, her ideas and her defense of liberty lives on to this day, and serve as a great resource for anyone who believes in freedom.
There are plenty of political pundits out there who will talk about individual rights, and there are even some who give an honest and accurate portrayal of liberty, such as Ron Paul and fellows from Mises or Cato, but none have done so thorough a job of explaining why each one of us has the absolute right to our own life as Ayn Rand. It’s one thing to just assume that individual rights are “right” (moral), and to base your politics on that principle, but it is quite another thing, and quite an amazing accomplishment, to explain exactly how and exactly why it is right and moral for each one of us to have liberty and freedom.
For those of you who are anti-Rand, let me just say that I do not agree with all of the extrapolations of Objectivism (applications of the philosophy to individual practical issues) but I do agree with the basic premises of the philosophy, and I challenge anyone to prove them wrong. When it comes to fundamental issues such as these, “God says so” isn’t a sufficient answer, and neither is “because I’m right!” In order to be a true defender of liberty, you have to understand exactly why it is right for each person to be free.
To that end, I have included below a snippet of one of Ayn Rand’s essays. I would encourage you to read the entire thing (link at the bottom) but read this selection at the very least:
All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself. The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary coexistence of individuals. All previous systems had held that man’s life belongs to society, that society can dispose of him in any way it pleases, and that any freedom he enjoys is his only by favor, by the permission of society, which may be revoked at any time. The United States held that man’s life is his by right (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.
A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self- sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action-which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)
The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.
Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.
The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.
The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this day. In accordance with the two theories of ethics, the mystical or the social, some men assert that rights are a gift of God—others, that rights are a gift of society. But, in fact, the source of rights is man’s nature.
The Declaration of Independence stated that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Whether one believes that man is the product of a Creator or of nature, the issue of man’s origin does not alter the fact that he is an entity of a specific kind—a rational being—that he cannot function successfully under coercion, and that rights are a necessary condition of his particular mode of survival.
To Save America
From The American Spectator:
To Save America
By Peter Ferrara on 6.30.10 @ 6:08AM
Newt Gingrich begins his new book, To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, rightly describing the grave, mortal threat America faces today due to the left-wing extremism of the Democrats and the vast failures of the Republicans. He writes:
This is a book I never expected to write. After the victory of freedom over Communist tyranny, of religious liberty over secular police states, and of American pride over the malaise and cynicism of the 1970s, I fully expected America to follow an upward curve of consistent improvement.
I did not expect the Left to ignore the lessons of history and move further into ideological extremism. I did not expect them to react to their meager popular support by seeking to impose a corrupt, Chicago-style political machine on the entire country. After leaving Congress in 1999, I certainly did not foresee Republican failure so vast that it allowed left-wing radicals to take over the House, Senate and Presidency.
America as we know it is now facing a mortal threat. This danger to America is greater than anything I dreamed possible after we won the Cold War and the Soviet Union disappeared in December 1991. We stand at a crossroads: either we will save our country or we will lose it.
Indeed, as I noted last week, Gingrich recognizes that America today faces a challenge equally as grave as the Civil War: "whether the United States as we know it will cease to exist." The present danger is as great a threat, he rightly says, as posed by Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. He writes, "I'm talking about losing what defines us as Americans…. America is facing an existential threat." (Emphasis added.) America today is once again fighting President Kennedy's "twilight struggle," which we thought we had won, but this time, suddenly and even more ominously, the struggle is internal.
The Secular-Socialist Machine
That threat is posed today by what Gingrich defines as the "secular-socialist machine." The Obama-Pelosi-Reid political machine is secular because it "does not acknowledge God. It does not consider the implications of one's actions beyond the impact they make within one's own life. It does not recognize any higher moral order beyond that which human beings have rationally developed." Such a "purely secular worldview," he writes, cannot "account for the original American understanding of our rights and freedoms," an endowment from our creator of certain unalienable rights.
For those who start thinking "theocracy" any time God is referenced, grab a Corona. Gingrich explains that America's founders avoided "the fraternal twin oppressions of a militantly secular government or a state-sponsored and imposed religion." What they created was a new American model, "a country with no official national religion where everyone could worship as they pleased. But they were also careful not to shut out religion from public life. The Founders saw religion as vital to the survival of republican government because they believed the maintenance of liberty requires virtue." In other words, America is the exact opposite of Iran. Too many of the easily deluded and manipulated need to be reminded of that every morning when they wake up, until they get it.
Gingrich further explains the connection between religion, religious freedom, and our freedoms more generally:
Chasing religion from the public square inevitably lowers public morality. That's because a belief in God limits our tendencies toward hedonism, exploiting others, and abusing power. If you are subordinate to God then by definition you are subordinate to rules that transcend your own ego and your own personal appetites…. A religious worldview inherently limits the purview of government. Even the concept of sin limits government by suggesting that external constraints of right and wrong should guide us no matter what the state says. In short, our core religious values hinder the secular socialists from realizing a government-dominated, politician-defined world of limited citizenship and unlimited bureaucracy. Thus the culture of secularism has to replace the culture of religion if socialism is to survive.
Gingrich continues, "Describing the Left as socialist will be controversial because the Left hate accurate language about their goals. But any fair assessment of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi economic policies shows they are indisputably socialist." Gingrich clearly and accurately defines socialist policies, writing:
Broadly defined, socialist policies favor increased central planning of the economy by politicians and bureaucrats instead of allowing entrepreneurs, businesses, and customers to make decisions in the free market. Socialists also favor government attempts to collectivize the means of production and to divvy up the national wealth. Socialists favor these methods because they insist on equality of results, rather than the traditional American belief in equality under the law. Therefore, they champion a strong, central government to impose equality of outcomes.
Exactly these policies have been embodied in the stimulus, the health care takeover, cap and trade, the sweeping Obama tax increases next year, the Obama budget that has already increased federal welfare spending by one third in the first two years alone, Obama's green jobs scam, and every other jot and tittle of Obamanomics.
As Gingrich warns, "If the Left stay in power, they will transform America into a radically different nation -- a union-dominated, bureaucratically-controlled, high-tax, low-growth country." Indeed, the Left will deprive America of the traditional, world leading, economic prosperity the American people have enjoyed since early in the 18th century. Gone will be the American Dream that has drawn the enterprising to these shores from the world over for 400 years now.
In fact, that tide of huddled masses yearning to breath free has already been reversed by the utter failure of socialist Obamanomics. Not only illegal aliens have begun to return home, lacking the lure of good paying jobs that originally brought them here. Not only has capital flight from these formerly hopeful shores already begun, already limiting our prosperity. Even born and bred, enterprising Americans have already begun to trickle out in search of the opportunity that has previously been the hallmark of America. That is the change we can't believe in that Obama and his socialists have wrought.
Calculated Deception
Gingrich writes, "Once the Left's values and goals are clear, their secular-socialist agenda will be crushed in free and fair elections." That is why the Left has to lie, and why Obama has demonstrated such a consistent pattern of calculated deception, a long-standing theme of this column. Gingrich explains, "President Obama hides his duplicity behind secrecy, clever language, and legalisms. As an apologist for the secular-socialist Left, Obama knows clarity is his opponent; the less the American people understand about what he's doing the better." Gingrich provides "two examples of Obama's fundamental deception of the American people. While he promised a new dawn of abundant energy, he actually planned to declare war on the coal industry; and while he publicly praised the goodness of the American people, he really thinks we're a bunch of angry, racist, gun-toting, religious extremists."
Of course, in Barack Obama you are dealing with a man who taught Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals on behalf of ACORN. Gingrich writes, "Many of [Alinsky's] 'rules' are guidelines for engaging in immoral, dangerous, political dishonesty," as explained by David Horowitz in his book Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model. Gingrich also notes, "in his early days in Chicago, Barack Obama taught courses on Alinsky's techniques for community organizing groups. So his endorsement of these tactics of fundamental dishonesty is a matter of public record."
2 + 2 = 4
Gingrich, who successfully led the revolution to overturn 60 years of liberal Democrat domination of Congress, explains how to win the now far more urgent fight against the secular socialist machine. He writes, "Despite the enormous challenge of defeating the secular-socialist machine, I am an optimist for one simple reason: we have the truth on our side. Free people insisting on telling the truth have changed history…. The first step is to refuse to be silenced." And to persist in telling the truth.
Gingrich recounts some valuable intellectual history:
Writing shortly after the defeat of Nazism, as the world faced the rapidly expanding threat of Soviet totalitarianism, Albert Camus wrote in his novel, The Plague, "Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death." Camus was describing…the power of conformity that coerces people into denying the truth and saying things that are patently false but politically correct.
Similarly, the fraudulent party slogans the citizen must believe in George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, 1984, are described by the book's protagonist, Winston Smith, as "2 + 2 = 5." Smith writes, "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
The Polish people used the same 2 + 2 = 4 slogan in their fight against Poland's Communist dictatorship after Pope John Paul II's visit there in 1979. They were asserting that the truth would come out no matter what the dictatorship said or did. Ultimately, after a decade of struggle, the dictatorship collapsed and was replaced in free elections.
Gingrich explains the meaning of this slogan in the current struggle against Obama's secular socialist machine. The American people are already emerging from the too easy acceptance of Obama's calculated deception, "but we must accelerate this process; we must even more consistently, even more emphatically tell the truth in the face of enormous pressure to conform to the politically correct lies that now dominate our discourse."
Freedom and Prosperity
The second half of the book is a breathtaking endorsement of sweeping free market economic policies. He calls for an optional 15% flat tax, with each filer free to choose between filing under that with a postcard, or filing a stack of complex forms under the Obama socialist code. He calls for reducing the soon to be highest in the developed world American corporate income taxes to the far more successful 12.5% rate adopted in Ireland over 20 years ago. He calls for abolishing capital gains taxes as in China and 14 out of 30 OECD countries, and death taxes.
He also proposes a 50% cut in payroll taxes for two years, to alleviate unemployment as quickly as possible. After two years, this cut would be translated into
a permanent personal account option for that portion of payroll taxes for younger workers, with the personal accounts substituting for an equivalent portion of future retirement benefits. Given historical capital market returns, workers would get much higher benefits than Social Security promises, let alone what it would actually be able to pay in the future. Workers holding these personal accounts should be federally guaranteed to get at least as much as Social Security promises today. This would provide a continuing gusher of new savings for capital investment, resulting in more jobs and higher wages.
Gingrich then proposes slashing federal spending to fit within the revenues generated by these pro-growth tax policies to achieve a balanced budget within 7 years. That would start by cutting federal spending by the same proportion as the Reagan 1981 budget cuts, which would amount to $180 billion per year today. Then he proposes adopting a budget that cuts federal spending by another $1 trillion over 10 years, as the House did when he was Speaker in 1995, when $1 trillion was still real money. He would terminate TARP and all bailouts, and repeal all unspent, so-called "stimulus" funds.
He would keep the budget balanced over the long run with fundamental, structural entitlement reforms. He would expand the personal accounts until they financed all of the benefits currently financed by the payroll tax, again all at the option of each worker. Note the enormous impact these accounts would have in reducing federal spending over the long term:
These accounts wouldn't just trim the growth of government spending, they would shift huge chunks of it from the public to the private sector, ultimately reducing federal spending by about 10 percent of GDP as the personal accounts replace this spending with market financed benefits. Such spending reductions would involve an unprecedented expansion of personal freedom and personal choice.
Gingrich in his book also endorses expanding the enormously successful 1996 reforms of the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC), which was sent back to the states with fixed, finite federal block grants rather than federal funding to match increased state spending. The result ultimately was to reduce the old AFDC rolls by two-thirds nationwide. These same reforms can and should now be expanded to the remaining 184 federal welfare programs, sending welfare entirely back to the states where it belongs. This would amount to another enormous long-term reduction in federal spending.
Gingrich rightly recognizes as well that restoring another long term economic boom requires "Reagan-style, strong-dollar monetary policies," and unleashing "the private sector to produce low-cost, reliable energy supplies from American sources." He would, of course, "repeal and replace" Obamacare, including all of its spending and all of its taxes.
This is a prescription for another long term, 25-year, economic boom, like Reagan produced. It was Gingrich and the Congressional Republican majorities he led that produced the enormous budget surpluses in the late 1990s, so he is the only political leader today who knows by actual experience how to balance the federal budget.
Gingrich is also the only political leader today with the depth to intellectually outmuscle the secular-socialist machine in framing the debate for 2012, and the standing to stare down their ridiculing Alinskyite tactics. No other possible Republican contender would go nearly as far as Gingrich in reestablishing free market capitalism in America. No other possible contender understands the big picture fight America is in nearly as well as Gingrich displays in this book. No one else has displayed the leadership that Gingrich did in overturning the ruling paradigm in 1994, which is exactly the leadership America needs right now.
Peter Ferrara is director of entitlement and budget policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation, a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute, and general counsel of the American Civil Rights Union. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was a contributor to To Save America.
To Save America
By Peter Ferrara on 6.30.10 @ 6:08AM
Newt Gingrich begins his new book, To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, rightly describing the grave, mortal threat America faces today due to the left-wing extremism of the Democrats and the vast failures of the Republicans. He writes:
This is a book I never expected to write. After the victory of freedom over Communist tyranny, of religious liberty over secular police states, and of American pride over the malaise and cynicism of the 1970s, I fully expected America to follow an upward curve of consistent improvement.
I did not expect the Left to ignore the lessons of history and move further into ideological extremism. I did not expect them to react to their meager popular support by seeking to impose a corrupt, Chicago-style political machine on the entire country. After leaving Congress in 1999, I certainly did not foresee Republican failure so vast that it allowed left-wing radicals to take over the House, Senate and Presidency.
America as we know it is now facing a mortal threat. This danger to America is greater than anything I dreamed possible after we won the Cold War and the Soviet Union disappeared in December 1991. We stand at a crossroads: either we will save our country or we will lose it.
Indeed, as I noted last week, Gingrich recognizes that America today faces a challenge equally as grave as the Civil War: "whether the United States as we know it will cease to exist." The present danger is as great a threat, he rightly says, as posed by Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. He writes, "I'm talking about losing what defines us as Americans…. America is facing an existential threat." (Emphasis added.) America today is once again fighting President Kennedy's "twilight struggle," which we thought we had won, but this time, suddenly and even more ominously, the struggle is internal.
The Secular-Socialist Machine
That threat is posed today by what Gingrich defines as the "secular-socialist machine." The Obama-Pelosi-Reid political machine is secular because it "does not acknowledge God. It does not consider the implications of one's actions beyond the impact they make within one's own life. It does not recognize any higher moral order beyond that which human beings have rationally developed." Such a "purely secular worldview," he writes, cannot "account for the original American understanding of our rights and freedoms," an endowment from our creator of certain unalienable rights.
For those who start thinking "theocracy" any time God is referenced, grab a Corona. Gingrich explains that America's founders avoided "the fraternal twin oppressions of a militantly secular government or a state-sponsored and imposed religion." What they created was a new American model, "a country with no official national religion where everyone could worship as they pleased. But they were also careful not to shut out religion from public life. The Founders saw religion as vital to the survival of republican government because they believed the maintenance of liberty requires virtue." In other words, America is the exact opposite of Iran. Too many of the easily deluded and manipulated need to be reminded of that every morning when they wake up, until they get it.
Gingrich further explains the connection between religion, religious freedom, and our freedoms more generally:
Chasing religion from the public square inevitably lowers public morality. That's because a belief in God limits our tendencies toward hedonism, exploiting others, and abusing power. If you are subordinate to God then by definition you are subordinate to rules that transcend your own ego and your own personal appetites…. A religious worldview inherently limits the purview of government. Even the concept of sin limits government by suggesting that external constraints of right and wrong should guide us no matter what the state says. In short, our core religious values hinder the secular socialists from realizing a government-dominated, politician-defined world of limited citizenship and unlimited bureaucracy. Thus the culture of secularism has to replace the culture of religion if socialism is to survive.
Gingrich continues, "Describing the Left as socialist will be controversial because the Left hate accurate language about their goals. But any fair assessment of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi economic policies shows they are indisputably socialist." Gingrich clearly and accurately defines socialist policies, writing:
Broadly defined, socialist policies favor increased central planning of the economy by politicians and bureaucrats instead of allowing entrepreneurs, businesses, and customers to make decisions in the free market. Socialists also favor government attempts to collectivize the means of production and to divvy up the national wealth. Socialists favor these methods because they insist on equality of results, rather than the traditional American belief in equality under the law. Therefore, they champion a strong, central government to impose equality of outcomes.
Exactly these policies have been embodied in the stimulus, the health care takeover, cap and trade, the sweeping Obama tax increases next year, the Obama budget that has already increased federal welfare spending by one third in the first two years alone, Obama's green jobs scam, and every other jot and tittle of Obamanomics.
As Gingrich warns, "If the Left stay in power, they will transform America into a radically different nation -- a union-dominated, bureaucratically-controlled, high-tax, low-growth country." Indeed, the Left will deprive America of the traditional, world leading, economic prosperity the American people have enjoyed since early in the 18th century. Gone will be the American Dream that has drawn the enterprising to these shores from the world over for 400 years now.
In fact, that tide of huddled masses yearning to breath free has already been reversed by the utter failure of socialist Obamanomics. Not only illegal aliens have begun to return home, lacking the lure of good paying jobs that originally brought them here. Not only has capital flight from these formerly hopeful shores already begun, already limiting our prosperity. Even born and bred, enterprising Americans have already begun to trickle out in search of the opportunity that has previously been the hallmark of America. That is the change we can't believe in that Obama and his socialists have wrought.
Calculated Deception
Gingrich writes, "Once the Left's values and goals are clear, their secular-socialist agenda will be crushed in free and fair elections." That is why the Left has to lie, and why Obama has demonstrated such a consistent pattern of calculated deception, a long-standing theme of this column. Gingrich explains, "President Obama hides his duplicity behind secrecy, clever language, and legalisms. As an apologist for the secular-socialist Left, Obama knows clarity is his opponent; the less the American people understand about what he's doing the better." Gingrich provides "two examples of Obama's fundamental deception of the American people. While he promised a new dawn of abundant energy, he actually planned to declare war on the coal industry; and while he publicly praised the goodness of the American people, he really thinks we're a bunch of angry, racist, gun-toting, religious extremists."
Of course, in Barack Obama you are dealing with a man who taught Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals on behalf of ACORN. Gingrich writes, "Many of [Alinsky's] 'rules' are guidelines for engaging in immoral, dangerous, political dishonesty," as explained by David Horowitz in his book Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model. Gingrich also notes, "in his early days in Chicago, Barack Obama taught courses on Alinsky's techniques for community organizing groups. So his endorsement of these tactics of fundamental dishonesty is a matter of public record."
2 + 2 = 4
Gingrich, who successfully led the revolution to overturn 60 years of liberal Democrat domination of Congress, explains how to win the now far more urgent fight against the secular socialist machine. He writes, "Despite the enormous challenge of defeating the secular-socialist machine, I am an optimist for one simple reason: we have the truth on our side. Free people insisting on telling the truth have changed history…. The first step is to refuse to be silenced." And to persist in telling the truth.
Gingrich recounts some valuable intellectual history:
Writing shortly after the defeat of Nazism, as the world faced the rapidly expanding threat of Soviet totalitarianism, Albert Camus wrote in his novel, The Plague, "Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death." Camus was describing…the power of conformity that coerces people into denying the truth and saying things that are patently false but politically correct.
Similarly, the fraudulent party slogans the citizen must believe in George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, 1984, are described by the book's protagonist, Winston Smith, as "2 + 2 = 5." Smith writes, "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
The Polish people used the same 2 + 2 = 4 slogan in their fight against Poland's Communist dictatorship after Pope John Paul II's visit there in 1979. They were asserting that the truth would come out no matter what the dictatorship said or did. Ultimately, after a decade of struggle, the dictatorship collapsed and was replaced in free elections.
Gingrich explains the meaning of this slogan in the current struggle against Obama's secular socialist machine. The American people are already emerging from the too easy acceptance of Obama's calculated deception, "but we must accelerate this process; we must even more consistently, even more emphatically tell the truth in the face of enormous pressure to conform to the politically correct lies that now dominate our discourse."
Freedom and Prosperity
The second half of the book is a breathtaking endorsement of sweeping free market economic policies. He calls for an optional 15% flat tax, with each filer free to choose between filing under that with a postcard, or filing a stack of complex forms under the Obama socialist code. He calls for reducing the soon to be highest in the developed world American corporate income taxes to the far more successful 12.5% rate adopted in Ireland over 20 years ago. He calls for abolishing capital gains taxes as in China and 14 out of 30 OECD countries, and death taxes.
He also proposes a 50% cut in payroll taxes for two years, to alleviate unemployment as quickly as possible. After two years, this cut would be translated into
a permanent personal account option for that portion of payroll taxes for younger workers, with the personal accounts substituting for an equivalent portion of future retirement benefits. Given historical capital market returns, workers would get much higher benefits than Social Security promises, let alone what it would actually be able to pay in the future. Workers holding these personal accounts should be federally guaranteed to get at least as much as Social Security promises today. This would provide a continuing gusher of new savings for capital investment, resulting in more jobs and higher wages.
Gingrich then proposes slashing federal spending to fit within the revenues generated by these pro-growth tax policies to achieve a balanced budget within 7 years. That would start by cutting federal spending by the same proportion as the Reagan 1981 budget cuts, which would amount to $180 billion per year today. Then he proposes adopting a budget that cuts federal spending by another $1 trillion over 10 years, as the House did when he was Speaker in 1995, when $1 trillion was still real money. He would terminate TARP and all bailouts, and repeal all unspent, so-called "stimulus" funds.
He would keep the budget balanced over the long run with fundamental, structural entitlement reforms. He would expand the personal accounts until they financed all of the benefits currently financed by the payroll tax, again all at the option of each worker. Note the enormous impact these accounts would have in reducing federal spending over the long term:
These accounts wouldn't just trim the growth of government spending, they would shift huge chunks of it from the public to the private sector, ultimately reducing federal spending by about 10 percent of GDP as the personal accounts replace this spending with market financed benefits. Such spending reductions would involve an unprecedented expansion of personal freedom and personal choice.
Gingrich in his book also endorses expanding the enormously successful 1996 reforms of the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC), which was sent back to the states with fixed, finite federal block grants rather than federal funding to match increased state spending. The result ultimately was to reduce the old AFDC rolls by two-thirds nationwide. These same reforms can and should now be expanded to the remaining 184 federal welfare programs, sending welfare entirely back to the states where it belongs. This would amount to another enormous long-term reduction in federal spending.
Gingrich rightly recognizes as well that restoring another long term economic boom requires "Reagan-style, strong-dollar monetary policies," and unleashing "the private sector to produce low-cost, reliable energy supplies from American sources." He would, of course, "repeal and replace" Obamacare, including all of its spending and all of its taxes.
This is a prescription for another long term, 25-year, economic boom, like Reagan produced. It was Gingrich and the Congressional Republican majorities he led that produced the enormous budget surpluses in the late 1990s, so he is the only political leader today who knows by actual experience how to balance the federal budget.
Gingrich is also the only political leader today with the depth to intellectually outmuscle the secular-socialist machine in framing the debate for 2012, and the standing to stare down their ridiculing Alinskyite tactics. No other possible Republican contender would go nearly as far as Gingrich in reestablishing free market capitalism in America. No other possible contender understands the big picture fight America is in nearly as well as Gingrich displays in this book. No one else has displayed the leadership that Gingrich did in overturning the ruling paradigm in 1994, which is exactly the leadership America needs right now.
Peter Ferrara is director of entitlement and budget policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation, a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute, and general counsel of the American Civil Rights Union. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was a contributor to To Save America.
Kagan's Smoking Gun Abortion Document
From The American Thinker:
June 30, 2010
Kagan's 'smoking gun' abortion document
Ralph Alter
Did Kagan re-write medical report on partial-birth? The smoking gun.
In an article for NRO by Shannen Coffin who was a deputy attorney general in the Bush administration responsible for defending the federal partial-birth abortion act in court, Coffin supplies documents alleged to be in Elena Kagan's own handwriting effectively re-writing the original opinion issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Kagan allegedly coerced ACOG to issue a statement directly contradictory to their true findings:
On a document [PDF] captioned "Suggested Options" -- which she apparently faxed to the legislative director at ACOG -- Kagan proposed that ACOG include the following language (in their publicly released memo): "An intact D&X [the medical term for the procedure], however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman."
This statement, which was included in the final report issued by ACOG, was the lynch-pin in the decision by the SCOTUS to overturn Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban.
But this directly contradicts the opinion expressed in the original document submitted to the Clinton administration by ACOG prior to release. Kagan's memo to Clinton adminstration bigwigs indicates her horror at the medical association's originally intended statement:
Todd Stern just discovered that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is thinking about issuing a statement (attached) that includes the following sentence: "[A] select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which [the partial-birth] procedure ... would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman." This, of course, would be disaster -- not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the legislation. It is unclear whether ACOG will issue the statement; even if it does not, there is obviously a chance that the draft will become public.
The Powerline report provides no indication of exactly how ACOG was convinced to publicly contradict its own findings. This must certainly be an avenue to be further investigated. The importance of Kagan's malfeasance in this matter casts her potential appointment to the Supreme Court in a grim light: should a person involved in a gross scientific deception of this scale be considered for any position of responsibility in our government?
Federal Judge Richard Kopf in striking down the Nebraska statute, cited the integrity of the ACOG report and the impact it had on his decision:
Before and during the task force meeting," he concluded, "neither ACOG nor the task force members conversed with other individuals or organizations, including congressmen and doctors who provided congressional testimony, concerning the topics addressed" in the ACOG statement.
Of course, Judge Kopf had no idea that the statement was a complete fabrication designed to subvert the judicial process. There seems little chance the Kagan nomination will survive this revelation of her perfidious and deceptive machinations in support of partial-birth abortion.
Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target www.rightot.blogspot.com
Posted at 08:03 AM
June 30, 2010
Kagan's 'smoking gun' abortion document
Ralph Alter
Did Kagan re-write medical report on partial-birth? The smoking gun.
In an article for NRO by Shannen Coffin who was a deputy attorney general in the Bush administration responsible for defending the federal partial-birth abortion act in court, Coffin supplies documents alleged to be in Elena Kagan's own handwriting effectively re-writing the original opinion issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Kagan allegedly coerced ACOG to issue a statement directly contradictory to their true findings:
On a document [PDF] captioned "Suggested Options" -- which she apparently faxed to the legislative director at ACOG -- Kagan proposed that ACOG include the following language (in their publicly released memo): "An intact D&X [the medical term for the procedure], however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman."
This statement, which was included in the final report issued by ACOG, was the lynch-pin in the decision by the SCOTUS to overturn Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban.
But this directly contradicts the opinion expressed in the original document submitted to the Clinton administration by ACOG prior to release. Kagan's memo to Clinton adminstration bigwigs indicates her horror at the medical association's originally intended statement:
Todd Stern just discovered that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is thinking about issuing a statement (attached) that includes the following sentence: "[A] select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which [the partial-birth] procedure ... would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman." This, of course, would be disaster -- not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the legislation. It is unclear whether ACOG will issue the statement; even if it does not, there is obviously a chance that the draft will become public.
The Powerline report provides no indication of exactly how ACOG was convinced to publicly contradict its own findings. This must certainly be an avenue to be further investigated. The importance of Kagan's malfeasance in this matter casts her potential appointment to the Supreme Court in a grim light: should a person involved in a gross scientific deception of this scale be considered for any position of responsibility in our government?
Federal Judge Richard Kopf in striking down the Nebraska statute, cited the integrity of the ACOG report and the impact it had on his decision:
Before and during the task force meeting," he concluded, "neither ACOG nor the task force members conversed with other individuals or organizations, including congressmen and doctors who provided congressional testimony, concerning the topics addressed" in the ACOG statement.
Of course, Judge Kopf had no idea that the statement was a complete fabrication designed to subvert the judicial process. There seems little chance the Kagan nomination will survive this revelation of her perfidious and deceptive machinations in support of partial-birth abortion.
Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target www.rightot.blogspot.com
Posted at 08:03 AM
Censors In, Liberty Out
From The American Thinker:
June 30, 2010
Censors In, Liberty Out
Eileen F. Toplansky
We are learning that Elena Kagan would be quite comfortable subverting the First Amendment's right to free speech. In May of this year, activist Nat Hentoff, renowned authority on the First Amendment, sounded the alarm when he wrote that "last September, Kagan, then Obama's solicitor general was asked to consider the government's case for limits to corporations' political speech rights (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission). During the oral argument, Chief Justice John Roberts asked Kagan how far the government could censor corporations' political speech. Roberts queried, "If you say you are not going to apply (censorship) to a book (about the candidates), what about a pamphlet?"
Kagan, a former Dean of the Harvard Law School replied, "I think a pamphlet would be different. A pamphlet is pretty classic electioneering." So, in her judgment, the government could penalize such corporate speech.
American patriot Thomas Paine, author of the pamphlet "Common Sense," and the "The Crisis" is turning over in his grave as is Samuel Adams, author of the pamphlet entitled "The Rights of the Colonists." The stench emanating from Obama and his cohorts is getting stronger by the day.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote:
"The [Obama] government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech. It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their view on matters of public concern.
"Its theory, if accepted, would empower the Government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations-as the major ones are. First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, [thus] subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy."
Thus, as Anthony G. Martin has opined, it is clear that the nomination of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court is intended to bolster the Obama's intention to censor anything he chooses. Obama, the dictator would come full circle.
Why aren't the journalists up in arms about this? Don't they see that this is yet another of Obama's serial double-crossing strategy? He smooth talks a group, invites them into his lair, and then tears them apart when they are no longer useful to him. What is blinding reporters who cannot perceive the end result of the ill-named Fairness Doctrine, a tactic of Obama who has publicly stated that he wants to suppress and control conservative talk radio, for starters?
In his book entitled Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel, Anatoli Kuznetsov writes,
"...books are always being burnt. The library at Alexandria went up in flames, the Inquisition had their bonfires...books were burnt under Stalin; there have been bonfires in the squares under Hitler, and there will be more and more of them burnt. There are always more people to burn books than to write them...this is the first sign of trouble-if books are burned, that means things are going wrong. It means that you are surrounded by force, fear and ignorance, that power is in the hands of the barbarians."
Of course, Mr. Obama, the genteel, would never actually stoop to burning books -- yet!
But censorship has always been the prelude to the bonfires.
The fact that a Jewish woman would even consider censorship makes this all the more vile. She, of all people, should recall "a rule worth remembering: Wherever hatred against Jews became inflamed, Jewish books or Jews or both were burned. Such events took place in pagan Rome in the first century of the Common Era, in Christian Spain in the fifteenth century and in Nazi Germany in the twentieth century."
Nine years before the furnaces in Auschwitz and other death camps were lit, Jewish books were consigned to the flames in Germany. The flames that burned the portrait of Albert Einstein became the signal for the first bonfire. Jewish history shows that side by side with their books, especially the Talmud, Jews themselves were burned as well. This occurred in Paris in the thirteenth century, in Rome and in Holland in the sixteenth, in Poland in the eighteenth. As People of the Book, Jews and their books suffered a common fate.
That Ms. Kagan would give a scintilla of aid to bolster the Obama Administration's intention to undo the First Amendment is a terrifying attack on American liberties.
Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.
Posted at 08:51 AM
June 30, 2010
Censors In, Liberty Out
Eileen F. Toplansky
We are learning that Elena Kagan would be quite comfortable subverting the First Amendment's right to free speech. In May of this year, activist Nat Hentoff, renowned authority on the First Amendment, sounded the alarm when he wrote that "last September, Kagan, then Obama's solicitor general was asked to consider the government's case for limits to corporations' political speech rights (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission). During the oral argument, Chief Justice John Roberts asked Kagan how far the government could censor corporations' political speech. Roberts queried, "If you say you are not going to apply (censorship) to a book (about the candidates), what about a pamphlet?"
Kagan, a former Dean of the Harvard Law School replied, "I think a pamphlet would be different. A pamphlet is pretty classic electioneering." So, in her judgment, the government could penalize such corporate speech.
American patriot Thomas Paine, author of the pamphlet "Common Sense," and the "The Crisis" is turning over in his grave as is Samuel Adams, author of the pamphlet entitled "The Rights of the Colonists." The stench emanating from Obama and his cohorts is getting stronger by the day.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote:
"The [Obama] government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech. It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their view on matters of public concern.
"Its theory, if accepted, would empower the Government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations-as the major ones are. First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, [thus] subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy."
Thus, as Anthony G. Martin has opined, it is clear that the nomination of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court is intended to bolster the Obama's intention to censor anything he chooses. Obama, the dictator would come full circle.
Why aren't the journalists up in arms about this? Don't they see that this is yet another of Obama's serial double-crossing strategy? He smooth talks a group, invites them into his lair, and then tears them apart when they are no longer useful to him. What is blinding reporters who cannot perceive the end result of the ill-named Fairness Doctrine, a tactic of Obama who has publicly stated that he wants to suppress and control conservative talk radio, for starters?
In his book entitled Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel, Anatoli Kuznetsov writes,
"...books are always being burnt. The library at Alexandria went up in flames, the Inquisition had their bonfires...books were burnt under Stalin; there have been bonfires in the squares under Hitler, and there will be more and more of them burnt. There are always more people to burn books than to write them...this is the first sign of trouble-if books are burned, that means things are going wrong. It means that you are surrounded by force, fear and ignorance, that power is in the hands of the barbarians."
Of course, Mr. Obama, the genteel, would never actually stoop to burning books -- yet!
But censorship has always been the prelude to the bonfires.
The fact that a Jewish woman would even consider censorship makes this all the more vile. She, of all people, should recall "a rule worth remembering: Wherever hatred against Jews became inflamed, Jewish books or Jews or both were burned. Such events took place in pagan Rome in the first century of the Common Era, in Christian Spain in the fifteenth century and in Nazi Germany in the twentieth century."
Nine years before the furnaces in Auschwitz and other death camps were lit, Jewish books were consigned to the flames in Germany. The flames that burned the portrait of Albert Einstein became the signal for the first bonfire. Jewish history shows that side by side with their books, especially the Talmud, Jews themselves were burned as well. This occurred in Paris in the thirteenth century, in Rome and in Holland in the sixteenth, in Poland in the eighteenth. As People of the Book, Jews and their books suffered a common fate.
That Ms. Kagan would give a scintilla of aid to bolster the Obama Administration's intention to undo the First Amendment is a terrifying attack on American liberties.
Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.
Posted at 08:51 AM
Author/Professor Tom Woods Interviewed About His Book On Nullification By MSM Zombie
From SLMN News:
12:01 PM (11 hours ago)Tom Woods Interviewed by Typical MSM Zombiefrom SLMNews Blog by PalmettoPatriot
This is great! Watch the mainstream media zombie interview Dr Woods on the subject of his new book about nullification.
12:01 PM (11 hours ago)Tom Woods Interviewed by Typical MSM Zombiefrom SLMNews Blog by PalmettoPatriot
This is great! Watch the mainstream media zombie interview Dr Woods on the subject of his new book about nullification.
The Federalist No. 29, Concerning The Militia
From Human Events--Guns & Patriots:
The Federalist No. 29: Concerning the Militia
by The Federalist Papers
06/29/2010
Independent Journal
Wednesday, January 9, 1788
To the People of the State of New York:
THE power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy.
It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into service for the public defense. It would enable them to discharge the duties of the camp and of the field with mutual intelligence and concert an advantage of peculiar moment in the operations of an army; and it would fit them much sooner to acquire the degree of proficiency in military functions which would be essential to their usefulness. This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority. It is, therefore, with the most evident propriety, that the plan of the convention proposes to empower the Union "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by congress."
Of the different grounds which have been taken in opposition to the plan of the convention, there is none that was so little to have been expected, or is so untenable in itself, as the one from which this particular provision has been attacked. If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security. If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of the former, it will be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.
In order to cast an odium upon the power of calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, it has been remarked that there is nowhere any provision in the proposed Constitution for calling out the POSSE COMITATUS, to assist the magistrate in the execution of his duty, whence it has been inferred, that military force was intended to be his only auxiliary. There is a striking incoherence in the objections which have appeared, and sometimes even from the same quarter, not much calculated to inspire a very favorable opinion of the sincerity or fair dealing of their authors. The same persons who tell us in one breath, that the powers of the federal government will be despotic and unlimited, inform us in the next, that it has not authority sufficient even to call out the POSSE COMITATUS. The latter, fortunately, is as much short of the truth as the former exceeds it. It would be as absurd to doubt, that a right to pass all laws necessary and proper to execute its declared powers, would include that of requiring the assistance of the citizens to the officers who may be intrusted with the execution of those laws, as it would be to believe, that a right to enact laws necessary and proper for the imposition and collection of taxes would involve that of varying the rules of descent and of the alienation of landed property, or of abolishing the trial by jury in cases relating to it. It being therefore evident that the supposition of a want of power to require the aid of the POSSE COMITATUS is entirely destitute of color, it will follow, that the conclusion which has been drawn from it, in its application to the authority of the federal government over the militia, is as uncandid as it is illogical. What reason could there be to infer, that force was intended to be the sole instrument of authority, merely because there is a power to make use of it when necessary? What shall we think of the motives which could induce men of sense to reason in this manner? How shall we prevent a conflict between charity and conviction?
By a curious refinement upon the spirit of republican jealousy, we are even taught to apprehend danger from the militia itself, in the hands of the federal government. It is observed that select corps may be formed, composed of the young and ardent, who may be rendered subservient to the views of arbitrary power. What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government, is impossible to be foreseen. But so far from viewing the matter in the same light with those who object to select corps as dangerous, were the Constitution ratified, and were I to deliver my sentiments to a member of the federal legislature from this State on the subject of a militia establishment, I should hold to him, in substance, the following discourse:
"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
"But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."
Thus differently from the adversaries of the proposed Constitution should I reason on the same subject, deducing arguments of safety from the very sources which they represent as fraught with danger and perdition. But how the national legislature may reason on the point, is a thing which neither they nor I can foresee.
There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests? What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the sole and exclusive appointment of the officers? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment of the States ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia.
In reading many of the publications against the Constitution, a man is apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or romance, which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to the mind nothing but frightful and distorted shapes --
"Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire"; discoloring and disfiguring whatever it represents, and transforming everything it touches into a monster.
A sample of this is to be observed in the exaggerated and improbable suggestions which have taken place respecting the power of calling for the services of the militia. That of New Hampshire is to be marched to Georgia, of Georgia to New Hampshire, of New York to Kentucky, and of Kentucky to Lake Champlain. Nay, the debts due to the French and Dutch are to be paid in militiamen instead of louis d'ors and ducats. At one moment there is to be a large army to lay prostrate the liberties of the people; at another moment the militia of Virginia are to be dragged from their homes five or six hundred miles, to tame the republican contumacy of Massachusetts; and that of Massachusetts is to be transported an equal distance to subdue the refractory haughtiness of the aristocratic Virginians. Do the persons who rave at this rate imagine that their art or their eloquence can impose any conceits or absurdities upon the people of America for infallible truths?
If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people? Is this the way in which usurpers stride to dominion over a numerous and enlightened nation? Do they begin by exciting the detestation of the very instruments of their intended usurpations? Do they usually commence their career by wanton and disgustful acts of power, calculated to answer no end, but to draw upon themselves universal hatred and execration? Are suppositions of this sort the sober admonitions of discerning patriots to a discerning people? Or are they the inflammatory ravings of incendiaries or distempered enthusiasts? If we were even to suppose the national rulers actuated by the most ungovernable ambition, it is impossible to believe that they would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs.
In times of insurrection, or invasion, it would be natural and proper that the militia of a neighboring State should be marched into another, to resist a common enemy, or to guard the republic against the violence of faction or sedition. This was frequently the case, in respect to the first object, in the course of the late war; and this mutual succor is, indeed, a principal end of our political association. If the power of affording it be placed under the direction of the Union, there will be no danger of a supine and listless inattention to the dangers of a neighbor, till its near approach had superadded the incitements of self-preservation to the too feeble impulses of duty and sympathy.
PUBLIUS
The Federalist No. 29: Concerning the Militia
by The Federalist Papers
06/29/2010
Independent Journal
Wednesday, January 9, 1788
To the People of the State of New York:
THE power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy.
It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into service for the public defense. It would enable them to discharge the duties of the camp and of the field with mutual intelligence and concert an advantage of peculiar moment in the operations of an army; and it would fit them much sooner to acquire the degree of proficiency in military functions which would be essential to their usefulness. This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority. It is, therefore, with the most evident propriety, that the plan of the convention proposes to empower the Union "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by congress."
Of the different grounds which have been taken in opposition to the plan of the convention, there is none that was so little to have been expected, or is so untenable in itself, as the one from which this particular provision has been attacked. If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security. If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of the former, it will be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.
In order to cast an odium upon the power of calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, it has been remarked that there is nowhere any provision in the proposed Constitution for calling out the POSSE COMITATUS, to assist the magistrate in the execution of his duty, whence it has been inferred, that military force was intended to be his only auxiliary. There is a striking incoherence in the objections which have appeared, and sometimes even from the same quarter, not much calculated to inspire a very favorable opinion of the sincerity or fair dealing of their authors. The same persons who tell us in one breath, that the powers of the federal government will be despotic and unlimited, inform us in the next, that it has not authority sufficient even to call out the POSSE COMITATUS. The latter, fortunately, is as much short of the truth as the former exceeds it. It would be as absurd to doubt, that a right to pass all laws necessary and proper to execute its declared powers, would include that of requiring the assistance of the citizens to the officers who may be intrusted with the execution of those laws, as it would be to believe, that a right to enact laws necessary and proper for the imposition and collection of taxes would involve that of varying the rules of descent and of the alienation of landed property, or of abolishing the trial by jury in cases relating to it. It being therefore evident that the supposition of a want of power to require the aid of the POSSE COMITATUS is entirely destitute of color, it will follow, that the conclusion which has been drawn from it, in its application to the authority of the federal government over the militia, is as uncandid as it is illogical. What reason could there be to infer, that force was intended to be the sole instrument of authority, merely because there is a power to make use of it when necessary? What shall we think of the motives which could induce men of sense to reason in this manner? How shall we prevent a conflict between charity and conviction?
By a curious refinement upon the spirit of republican jealousy, we are even taught to apprehend danger from the militia itself, in the hands of the federal government. It is observed that select corps may be formed, composed of the young and ardent, who may be rendered subservient to the views of arbitrary power. What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government, is impossible to be foreseen. But so far from viewing the matter in the same light with those who object to select corps as dangerous, were the Constitution ratified, and were I to deliver my sentiments to a member of the federal legislature from this State on the subject of a militia establishment, I should hold to him, in substance, the following discourse:
"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
"But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."
Thus differently from the adversaries of the proposed Constitution should I reason on the same subject, deducing arguments of safety from the very sources which they represent as fraught with danger and perdition. But how the national legislature may reason on the point, is a thing which neither they nor I can foresee.
There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests? What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the sole and exclusive appointment of the officers? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment of the States ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia.
In reading many of the publications against the Constitution, a man is apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or romance, which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to the mind nothing but frightful and distorted shapes --
"Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire"; discoloring and disfiguring whatever it represents, and transforming everything it touches into a monster.
A sample of this is to be observed in the exaggerated and improbable suggestions which have taken place respecting the power of calling for the services of the militia. That of New Hampshire is to be marched to Georgia, of Georgia to New Hampshire, of New York to Kentucky, and of Kentucky to Lake Champlain. Nay, the debts due to the French and Dutch are to be paid in militiamen instead of louis d'ors and ducats. At one moment there is to be a large army to lay prostrate the liberties of the people; at another moment the militia of Virginia are to be dragged from their homes five or six hundred miles, to tame the republican contumacy of Massachusetts; and that of Massachusetts is to be transported an equal distance to subdue the refractory haughtiness of the aristocratic Virginians. Do the persons who rave at this rate imagine that their art or their eloquence can impose any conceits or absurdities upon the people of America for infallible truths?
If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people? Is this the way in which usurpers stride to dominion over a numerous and enlightened nation? Do they begin by exciting the detestation of the very instruments of their intended usurpations? Do they usually commence their career by wanton and disgustful acts of power, calculated to answer no end, but to draw upon themselves universal hatred and execration? Are suppositions of this sort the sober admonitions of discerning patriots to a discerning people? Or are they the inflammatory ravings of incendiaries or distempered enthusiasts? If we were even to suppose the national rulers actuated by the most ungovernable ambition, it is impossible to believe that they would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs.
In times of insurrection, or invasion, it would be natural and proper that the militia of a neighboring State should be marched into another, to resist a common enemy, or to guard the republic against the violence of faction or sedition. This was frequently the case, in respect to the first object, in the course of the late war; and this mutual succor is, indeed, a principal end of our political association. If the power of affording it be placed under the direction of the Union, there will be no danger of a supine and listless inattention to the dangers of a neighbor, till its near approach had superadded the incitements of self-preservation to the too feeble impulses of duty and sympathy.
PUBLIUS
Lies, Deceit, And A Double Standard
From Human Events--Guns & Patriots:
Lies, Deceit and a Double Standard
by Major Gen. Jerry Curry
06/29/2010
I don’t pretend to be an expert on Islam or the Qur’an, the Muslim Bible. But for some reason during my high school years I became fascinated with the career and writings of T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia.) I found myself intrigued and captivated by the stories and histories of the Middle East. Over time through further historical reading and observation, I formed a few opinions and came to several conclusions about the actions and traditions of Muslims and Islamic nations.
One of the principles I became familiar with is that in Islam it seems honorable to lie, if by doing so you advance Islam’s goals. Perhaps that is why it is perfectly acceptable and even praiseworthy for a Muslim leader to say something in English to a non-Muslim audience and the western news media, and then the very next day say the exact opposite thing while talking in Arabic to a Muslim audience and news media. A good example of this principle in action was Yasser Arafat. He could lie openly with complete sincerity while deliberately entering into false negotiations with Israel, the United States and the United Nations -- probably because to him it wasn’t really lying.
I found that lying, deceiving and living a double standard are the norm for them not because they are bad people, but because their religion approves of it as long as it advances Islam’s goals. As I see it, Islam’s fundamental goals are to convert the entire secular and religious worlds to a belief in Islam, and for those converted nations to agree to be governed by Islam’s Shari’a Law.
So this is about more than lies, deceit, and a double standard. It is also about a Muslim’s holy duty to convert non-Muslims to Islam and to try to turn non-Islamic governments into Islamic Shari’a Law governments. If in the process a bloody, violent war is precipitated, so much the better since the only way a male Muslim can be guaranteed access to the heavenly Paradise is to die fighting for Islam in a holy war. On the other hand, the only way a woman can be guaranteed an after-life in that Paradise is if, upon her death, her husband is pleased with her. In short, women are very much subservient to men.
According to Islam, following laws other than Islamic law is sin. Why? Because the earth is Allah’s and it is a sin for mankind not to live under and to be following Allah’s Shari’a law while on his earth. Thus, it is the duty of all Muslims is to convert all non-Muslims to Islam and to replace all secular governments with an Islamic government -- a “One World Government.” This means that to be faithful to Islam, all Muslims living in the U.S. should insist that the American people and the American government adopt Islam as the state religion and Shari’a as its national law.
To help accomplish this Saudi Arabia is building mosques all over the world, but at the same time Islam’s double standard mandates that no non-Muslim church building can be built in Saudi Arabia or in any other Islamic country. Muslims are free to criticize other religions but it is a punishable sin for anyone to criticize the Muslim religion. In short, there is and can be no freedom of the press in an Islamic country.
Because America was founded upon the Christian principles of honesty and truthfulness we take freedom of the press as a given. It is difficult for us to understand Islamic concepts and practices that are the opposite of those we hold dear, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We often forget that Muslim nations are sometimes playing chess while The United States and other western nations are playing checkers.
The notion that it is religiously acceptable to lie, deceive and have a double standard -- one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims – is an insidious and dangerous tenant of Islam If that is the Islamic mindset and modus operandi, we must always be aware that any dialogue with Muslims may not be honest and that their intentions might be less than honorable.
We are a nation of people who value transparency and honesty. We must always be awake to the very real possibility that these characteristics which make America great – our generosity, our compassion, our sometimes gullible and naïve willingness to accept, embrace and welcome all religions and nationalities may, in the end, prove to be America’s downfall.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major Gen. Jerry R. Curry (US Army Ret.) Ph.D. is a decorated combat veteran, Army Aviator, Paratrooper and Ranger who has served his country both in the military and as a Presidential appointee in three administrations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lies, Deceit and a Double Standard
by Major Gen. Jerry Curry
06/29/2010
I don’t pretend to be an expert on Islam or the Qur’an, the Muslim Bible. But for some reason during my high school years I became fascinated with the career and writings of T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia.) I found myself intrigued and captivated by the stories and histories of the Middle East. Over time through further historical reading and observation, I formed a few opinions and came to several conclusions about the actions and traditions of Muslims and Islamic nations.
One of the principles I became familiar with is that in Islam it seems honorable to lie, if by doing so you advance Islam’s goals. Perhaps that is why it is perfectly acceptable and even praiseworthy for a Muslim leader to say something in English to a non-Muslim audience and the western news media, and then the very next day say the exact opposite thing while talking in Arabic to a Muslim audience and news media. A good example of this principle in action was Yasser Arafat. He could lie openly with complete sincerity while deliberately entering into false negotiations with Israel, the United States and the United Nations -- probably because to him it wasn’t really lying.
I found that lying, deceiving and living a double standard are the norm for them not because they are bad people, but because their religion approves of it as long as it advances Islam’s goals. As I see it, Islam’s fundamental goals are to convert the entire secular and religious worlds to a belief in Islam, and for those converted nations to agree to be governed by Islam’s Shari’a Law.
So this is about more than lies, deceit, and a double standard. It is also about a Muslim’s holy duty to convert non-Muslims to Islam and to try to turn non-Islamic governments into Islamic Shari’a Law governments. If in the process a bloody, violent war is precipitated, so much the better since the only way a male Muslim can be guaranteed access to the heavenly Paradise is to die fighting for Islam in a holy war. On the other hand, the only way a woman can be guaranteed an after-life in that Paradise is if, upon her death, her husband is pleased with her. In short, women are very much subservient to men.
According to Islam, following laws other than Islamic law is sin. Why? Because the earth is Allah’s and it is a sin for mankind not to live under and to be following Allah’s Shari’a law while on his earth. Thus, it is the duty of all Muslims is to convert all non-Muslims to Islam and to replace all secular governments with an Islamic government -- a “One World Government.” This means that to be faithful to Islam, all Muslims living in the U.S. should insist that the American people and the American government adopt Islam as the state religion and Shari’a as its national law.
To help accomplish this Saudi Arabia is building mosques all over the world, but at the same time Islam’s double standard mandates that no non-Muslim church building can be built in Saudi Arabia or in any other Islamic country. Muslims are free to criticize other religions but it is a punishable sin for anyone to criticize the Muslim religion. In short, there is and can be no freedom of the press in an Islamic country.
Because America was founded upon the Christian principles of honesty and truthfulness we take freedom of the press as a given. It is difficult for us to understand Islamic concepts and practices that are the opposite of those we hold dear, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We often forget that Muslim nations are sometimes playing chess while The United States and other western nations are playing checkers.
The notion that it is religiously acceptable to lie, deceive and have a double standard -- one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims – is an insidious and dangerous tenant of Islam If that is the Islamic mindset and modus operandi, we must always be aware that any dialogue with Muslims may not be honest and that their intentions might be less than honorable.
We are a nation of people who value transparency and honesty. We must always be awake to the very real possibility that these characteristics which make America great – our generosity, our compassion, our sometimes gullible and naïve willingness to accept, embrace and welcome all religions and nationalities may, in the end, prove to be America’s downfall.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major Gen. Jerry R. Curry (US Army Ret.) Ph.D. is a decorated combat veteran, Army Aviator, Paratrooper and Ranger who has served his country both in the military and as a Presidential appointee in three administrations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Nation Of Laws And Guns
From Human Events--Guns & Patriots:
A Nation of Laws and Guns
by Jim Pontillo
06/29/2010
The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people…These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone…Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power…the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition… - Excerpts from Federalist No. 46 (Madison)
Way back in 2004 Martha Stewart received five months prison time for insider trading—no, wait a minute—there was no charge of insider trading ever levied. Martha Stewart received five months prison time for inaccurate comments made to a federal investigator under duress; she was prosecuted and found guilty of “Obstruction of Justice”.
In 2007, Scooter Libby was found guilty of leaking the name of “covert” CIA agent, Valerie Plame—no, wait a minute—that was Richard Armitage in the State Department who was never charged with anything. Scooter Libby was found guilty of “Obstruction of Justice” for incorrectly recalling conversations with Tim Russert.
Prison terms were charged in both instances, and in both instances, under dubious circumstances. Martha Stewart was essentially found guilty of lying to a federal prosecutor, who had lied to her during the same conversation, and Scooter Libby was found guilty, not for revealing the identity of Valerie Plame, ostensibly the crime under investigation, but for having a bad memory.
I remember being disgusted by both of these cases perceiving the government's motivation had much less to do with justice than it had to do with government maintaining its omnipotent power.
Debating these appalling cases, I have been assailed by only one theme in defense of the government position:
We are a Nation of Laws.
Were we a Nation of Laws when President Clinton was impeached, but not convicted, after declaring he did not have sex with that women, only to find presidential DNA splattered all over a certain blue dress?
I don’t recall the media fawning over Ken Starr’s terrific work protecting our “Nation of Laws”, quite the contrary.
I’m all for a Nation of Laws when the laws are applied without prejudice or agenda, but to watch America’s jurists indiscriminately apply law, or worse, to watch them discriminately apply the law, you realize how little power and freedom we have as mere “gallant citizens”.
Our founding generation knew all too well, laws instituted among men would not serve the public good if authority for those laws did not emanate from the people. The right to bear arms which has been disparaged and condemned by leftists, and has caused European’s without this right to insult Americans as gun nuts in a gun culture are oblivious, or envious, that this uniquely American right is the one counterweight which Americans posses to insure their freedom from tyranny.
With horrendous rulings directed at individuals specifically for their ideology, it makes you wonder whether the right to bear arms is enough to protect us. A little lunacy among the accused, toting guns, directing their rage toward corrupt jurists might help.
At a time when we were a homogenous people, with mutually concurring values, the right to bear arms kept a cohesive society. Today, with multi-culturalism run amok, there is little cohesion and guilt or innocence is often nothing more than a function of venue. If Scooter Libby was tried in Orange County California instead of Washington D. C. he would have received a Not Guilty verdict, and it would not have taken ten days. We would have been done in two hours.
I wonder, how dedicated are the American people to the idea that we are a Nation of Laws when our President and our Congress push through law that is clearly against a majority will of the people, and arguably against the spirit of our Constitution?
Obama's Health Care bill forces people to buy a product from a private company whether they want the product or not.
Cap and Trade is a scam that gives government preferred entities (General Electric for example) a monopoly to trade "Carbon Credits" enriching those in power on the backs of middle class Americans.
Reinterpreting the concept of "Eminent Domain" now allows politicians to take private property from one individual and give it to another, and not just for "public" use.
All of it done under a Nation of Laws.
I can’t imagine how much more insult the American people are willing to endure under the “enterprises of ambition” by our politicians, but I do know, gun ownership and an understanding of our American Founders’ vision will have positive and deliberate effect on the psyche of our populace and can subdue the overzealous and prejudicial effect of this ambition.
When law is abused to achieve political ends where do the gallant citizens turn? Quite possibly to their guns. Careful examination of Madison’s Federalist No. 46 reminds us of the founding generation’s recognition that ambition within the bureaucracy is dangerous and can only be countered by a population who is armed and willing and able to resist tyranny.
In a nation with guns the gallant citizens have a fighting chance. James Madison knew it, Benjamin Franklin knew it, and George Washington knew it.
Whenever we hear our elected representatives and our nation’s jurists invoke the lofty, "Nation of Laws", we should shudder. Nazi Germany was a Nation of Laws, Stalin’s Soviet Republic was a Nation of Laws, and China under Mao Zedong, was a Nation of Laws.
How well were the gallant citizens served by the “debased subjects of arbitrary power” in these nations bound by laws?
Great, the State paid all citizens’ funeral expenses right after their trip to the gas chambers.
FMK Firearms can be viewed at www.fmkfirearms.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Pontillo owns and manages a small plastic manufacturing plant in Southern California. He is the producer of the FMK Handgun which is engraved with America's Bill of Rights. FMK Firearms can be viewed at www.fmkfirearms.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Nation of Laws and Guns
by Jim Pontillo
06/29/2010
The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people…These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone…Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power…the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition… - Excerpts from Federalist No. 46 (Madison)
Way back in 2004 Martha Stewart received five months prison time for insider trading—no, wait a minute—there was no charge of insider trading ever levied. Martha Stewart received five months prison time for inaccurate comments made to a federal investigator under duress; she was prosecuted and found guilty of “Obstruction of Justice”.
In 2007, Scooter Libby was found guilty of leaking the name of “covert” CIA agent, Valerie Plame—no, wait a minute—that was Richard Armitage in the State Department who was never charged with anything. Scooter Libby was found guilty of “Obstruction of Justice” for incorrectly recalling conversations with Tim Russert.
Prison terms were charged in both instances, and in both instances, under dubious circumstances. Martha Stewart was essentially found guilty of lying to a federal prosecutor, who had lied to her during the same conversation, and Scooter Libby was found guilty, not for revealing the identity of Valerie Plame, ostensibly the crime under investigation, but for having a bad memory.
I remember being disgusted by both of these cases perceiving the government's motivation had much less to do with justice than it had to do with government maintaining its omnipotent power.
Debating these appalling cases, I have been assailed by only one theme in defense of the government position:
We are a Nation of Laws.
Were we a Nation of Laws when President Clinton was impeached, but not convicted, after declaring he did not have sex with that women, only to find presidential DNA splattered all over a certain blue dress?
I don’t recall the media fawning over Ken Starr’s terrific work protecting our “Nation of Laws”, quite the contrary.
I’m all for a Nation of Laws when the laws are applied without prejudice or agenda, but to watch America’s jurists indiscriminately apply law, or worse, to watch them discriminately apply the law, you realize how little power and freedom we have as mere “gallant citizens”.
Our founding generation knew all too well, laws instituted among men would not serve the public good if authority for those laws did not emanate from the people. The right to bear arms which has been disparaged and condemned by leftists, and has caused European’s without this right to insult Americans as gun nuts in a gun culture are oblivious, or envious, that this uniquely American right is the one counterweight which Americans posses to insure their freedom from tyranny.
With horrendous rulings directed at individuals specifically for their ideology, it makes you wonder whether the right to bear arms is enough to protect us. A little lunacy among the accused, toting guns, directing their rage toward corrupt jurists might help.
At a time when we were a homogenous people, with mutually concurring values, the right to bear arms kept a cohesive society. Today, with multi-culturalism run amok, there is little cohesion and guilt or innocence is often nothing more than a function of venue. If Scooter Libby was tried in Orange County California instead of Washington D. C. he would have received a Not Guilty verdict, and it would not have taken ten days. We would have been done in two hours.
I wonder, how dedicated are the American people to the idea that we are a Nation of Laws when our President and our Congress push through law that is clearly against a majority will of the people, and arguably against the spirit of our Constitution?
Obama's Health Care bill forces people to buy a product from a private company whether they want the product or not.
Cap and Trade is a scam that gives government preferred entities (General Electric for example) a monopoly to trade "Carbon Credits" enriching those in power on the backs of middle class Americans.
Reinterpreting the concept of "Eminent Domain" now allows politicians to take private property from one individual and give it to another, and not just for "public" use.
All of it done under a Nation of Laws.
I can’t imagine how much more insult the American people are willing to endure under the “enterprises of ambition” by our politicians, but I do know, gun ownership and an understanding of our American Founders’ vision will have positive and deliberate effect on the psyche of our populace and can subdue the overzealous and prejudicial effect of this ambition.
When law is abused to achieve political ends where do the gallant citizens turn? Quite possibly to their guns. Careful examination of Madison’s Federalist No. 46 reminds us of the founding generation’s recognition that ambition within the bureaucracy is dangerous and can only be countered by a population who is armed and willing and able to resist tyranny.
In a nation with guns the gallant citizens have a fighting chance. James Madison knew it, Benjamin Franklin knew it, and George Washington knew it.
Whenever we hear our elected representatives and our nation’s jurists invoke the lofty, "Nation of Laws", we should shudder. Nazi Germany was a Nation of Laws, Stalin’s Soviet Republic was a Nation of Laws, and China under Mao Zedong, was a Nation of Laws.
How well were the gallant citizens served by the “debased subjects of arbitrary power” in these nations bound by laws?
Great, the State paid all citizens’ funeral expenses right after their trip to the gas chambers.
FMK Firearms can be viewed at www.fmkfirearms.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Pontillo owns and manages a small plastic manufacturing plant in Southern California. He is the producer of the FMK Handgun which is engraved with America's Bill of Rights. FMK Firearms can be viewed at www.fmkfirearms.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Missouri Proposition C Is The Concord Bridge Of The Repeal Of Obamacare
From Red State:
Posted by 24thstate (Profile)
Monday, June 28th at 2:45PM EDT
20 Comments
On August 3, 2010, the Missouri electorate will vote on Proposition C, the Missouri Health Care Freedom Act (MHCFA). Have no doubt - this is the first shot fired against the power grab known as Obamacare. If successful, if we beat back this overreach of federal power in Missouri, other states will move forward. Should we fail - especially with low voter turnout, the media,the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats will gain a second wind. I can think of few things more disastrous leading into November than giving the Democrats hope.
Josie Wales, a lawyer from Missouri writing at Big Government, calls August 3 “the most important day in America“.” Missouri will be the first state to allow the public at large to voice its opinion on Obamacare. Most of us know that the majority of Americans view Obamacare with disgust; disgust at the process by which it was passed and disgust by the burden it will impose. We’ve been forced to speak through rallies and a diminished Republican party, until now. Now there is an opportunity for the average voter to act upon that disgust.
Why should you care? What does a Missouri proposition have to do with the other 49 states? MHCFA represents the first battle in the war against the bureaucratic, tax-happy nightmare that has saddled Americans over the last century. Just as the Supreme Court gun cases are changing the debate on the Second Amendment back to gun ownershig being a fundamental right, states signalling their refusal to go along with individual and employer mandates will alter the debate on the proper role of the federal government. At issue is a single idea - can the government compel you to purchase a product they design simply because you’re a US citizen?
MHCFA is a call to arms for all freedom loving Americans, but even in our state there is complacency. Polling looks good, so the Republican establishment is taking it easy. They’re crossing their fingers and hoping no last minute barrage of ads derails the proposition, as has been done every time the Left wants something. From direct mail to phone banks to television ads by outside groups, the Left will carpetbomb Missouri in the week before the vote, and conservatives will have no time to react.
So we need your help. Not with money. Not with volunteers. Though both would be nice, what we really need is the collective voice of conservative America.
Support MHCFA.
Supporting MHCFA is as simple as linking to the effort on the internets, posting an article about the effort on your blog, leaving a comment about the effort on a website, and mentioning the effort in any other social medium: Twitter, Facebook, church, work, bars, sporting events, airplanes, bank lines, family dinners….
We need national recognition. Recognition of the effort in Missouri will lend to its success. If we succeed by large margins in Missouri, you can be sure that success will follow in other states across this great nation.
Don’t get me wrong. We’re not sitting idle. Tea Party groups, conservative candidates, and conservative bloggers are out writing and knocking on doors and calling our connections to generate press. But we need the folks at Red State to help.
Please support the MHCFA in whatever method you choose, and visit the website:
http://www.mohealthfreedom.org/
If you’re writing about healthcare, link to something on Missouri. If you’re reading about Healthcare in Missouri, link to that story, and leave a comment. If you’re writing about The Healthcare Freedom Act, please send a note to Benjamin at rivercitytea@gmail.com and he will link back. If you’re writing about a healthcare lawsuit in your own state, send him a note and we’ll tie it back into the larger fight.
We need noise on the issue more than anything else. Anyone care to raise their voice
Posted by 24thstate (Profile)
Monday, June 28th at 2:45PM EDT
20 Comments
On August 3, 2010, the Missouri electorate will vote on Proposition C, the Missouri Health Care Freedom Act (MHCFA). Have no doubt - this is the first shot fired against the power grab known as Obamacare. If successful, if we beat back this overreach of federal power in Missouri, other states will move forward. Should we fail - especially with low voter turnout, the media,the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats will gain a second wind. I can think of few things more disastrous leading into November than giving the Democrats hope.
Josie Wales, a lawyer from Missouri writing at Big Government, calls August 3 “the most important day in America“.” Missouri will be the first state to allow the public at large to voice its opinion on Obamacare. Most of us know that the majority of Americans view Obamacare with disgust; disgust at the process by which it was passed and disgust by the burden it will impose. We’ve been forced to speak through rallies and a diminished Republican party, until now. Now there is an opportunity for the average voter to act upon that disgust.
Why should you care? What does a Missouri proposition have to do with the other 49 states? MHCFA represents the first battle in the war against the bureaucratic, tax-happy nightmare that has saddled Americans over the last century. Just as the Supreme Court gun cases are changing the debate on the Second Amendment back to gun ownershig being a fundamental right, states signalling their refusal to go along with individual and employer mandates will alter the debate on the proper role of the federal government. At issue is a single idea - can the government compel you to purchase a product they design simply because you’re a US citizen?
MHCFA is a call to arms for all freedom loving Americans, but even in our state there is complacency. Polling looks good, so the Republican establishment is taking it easy. They’re crossing their fingers and hoping no last minute barrage of ads derails the proposition, as has been done every time the Left wants something. From direct mail to phone banks to television ads by outside groups, the Left will carpetbomb Missouri in the week before the vote, and conservatives will have no time to react.
So we need your help. Not with money. Not with volunteers. Though both would be nice, what we really need is the collective voice of conservative America.
Support MHCFA.
Supporting MHCFA is as simple as linking to the effort on the internets, posting an article about the effort on your blog, leaving a comment about the effort on a website, and mentioning the effort in any other social medium: Twitter, Facebook, church, work, bars, sporting events, airplanes, bank lines, family dinners….
We need national recognition. Recognition of the effort in Missouri will lend to its success. If we succeed by large margins in Missouri, you can be sure that success will follow in other states across this great nation.
Don’t get me wrong. We’re not sitting idle. Tea Party groups, conservative candidates, and conservative bloggers are out writing and knocking on doors and calling our connections to generate press. But we need the folks at Red State to help.
Please support the MHCFA in whatever method you choose, and visit the website:
http://www.mohealthfreedom.org/
If you’re writing about healthcare, link to something on Missouri. If you’re reading about Healthcare in Missouri, link to that story, and leave a comment. If you’re writing about The Healthcare Freedom Act, please send a note to Benjamin at rivercitytea@gmail.com and he will link back. If you’re writing about a healthcare lawsuit in your own state, send him a note and we’ll tie it back into the larger fight.
We need noise on the issue more than anything else. Anyone care to raise their voice
Obama Regime Preparing National Online ID Plan
From Information Week and Floyd Reports (Impeach Obama Campaign):
White House Preparing National Online ID Plan
The proposed system for authenticating people, organizations and infrastructure on the web at the transactional level will require an identity ecosystem.
By Mathew J. Schwartz
InformationWeek
June 25, 2010 08:00 AM
The Obama administration is set to propose a new system for authenticating people, organizations and infrastructure on the Web. The online authentication and identity management system would be targeted at the transactional level -- for example, when someone logs into their banking website or completes an online e-commerce purchase.
Making such a system effective, however, will require creating an "identity ecosystem," backed by extensive public/private cooperation, said White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt, delivering the opening keynote speech at the Symantec Government Symposium 2010 in Washington on Tuesday.
More Government InsightsWhitepapersLeaders in the Cloud: Identifying the Business Value of Cloud Computing for Customers and Vendors Enterprise 2.0: Accelerating Business Performance Videos
Techweb gets an inside look at how Google works. It is an engineering driven org, it is "young" with graduates of some of country's top schools. Its engineers are generalists without pre-conceived notions about how things are supposed to work."This strategy cannot exist in isolation," he said. "It's going to take all of us working together." Furthermore, "we should not have to dramatically change the way we do business -- this should be a natural path forward," he said.
That path forward will hinge on a new draft of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, due to be released Friday for the first time to the public, for a three-week comment period. Formerly known as the National Strategy for Secure Online Transactions, the report offers specific strategy and implementation recommendations, and may also recommend more sweeping policy and privacy changes.
The report builds on the Obama-commissioned Cyberspace Policy Review, which analyzed the government's information and communications infrastructure defensive capabilities. One of the report's recommendations was to "build a cybersecurity-based identity management vision and strategy that addresses privacy and civil liberties interests, leveraging privacy-enhancing technologies for the nation."
Simply issuing a Web-friendly biometric identification card to everyone in the country, of course, wouldn't necessarily make anyone or anything more secure, including online transactions. As the report also notes, to be effective, security tools and technology must be complemented by education. "There is always a necessity to do awareness and education of the end user," said Schmidt. "But you're not trying to teach the end user how to be a security expert."
InformationWeek has published an in-depth report on energy-efficient government data centers. Download the report here (registration required).
White House Preparing National Online ID Plan
The proposed system for authenticating people, organizations and infrastructure on the web at the transactional level will require an identity ecosystem.
By Mathew J. Schwartz
InformationWeek
June 25, 2010 08:00 AM
The Obama administration is set to propose a new system for authenticating people, organizations and infrastructure on the Web. The online authentication and identity management system would be targeted at the transactional level -- for example, when someone logs into their banking website or completes an online e-commerce purchase.
Making such a system effective, however, will require creating an "identity ecosystem," backed by extensive public/private cooperation, said White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt, delivering the opening keynote speech at the Symantec Government Symposium 2010 in Washington on Tuesday.
More Government InsightsWhitepapersLeaders in the Cloud: Identifying the Business Value of Cloud Computing for Customers and Vendors Enterprise 2.0: Accelerating Business Performance Videos
Techweb gets an inside look at how Google works. It is an engineering driven org, it is "young" with graduates of some of country's top schools. Its engineers are generalists without pre-conceived notions about how things are supposed to work."This strategy cannot exist in isolation," he said. "It's going to take all of us working together." Furthermore, "we should not have to dramatically change the way we do business -- this should be a natural path forward," he said.
That path forward will hinge on a new draft of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, due to be released Friday for the first time to the public, for a three-week comment period. Formerly known as the National Strategy for Secure Online Transactions, the report offers specific strategy and implementation recommendations, and may also recommend more sweeping policy and privacy changes.
The report builds on the Obama-commissioned Cyberspace Policy Review, which analyzed the government's information and communications infrastructure defensive capabilities. One of the report's recommendations was to "build a cybersecurity-based identity management vision and strategy that addresses privacy and civil liberties interests, leveraging privacy-enhancing technologies for the nation."
Simply issuing a Web-friendly biometric identification card to everyone in the country, of course, wouldn't necessarily make anyone or anything more secure, including online transactions. As the report also notes, to be effective, security tools and technology must be complemented by education. "There is always a necessity to do awareness and education of the end user," said Schmidt. "But you're not trying to teach the end user how to be a security expert."
InformationWeek has published an in-depth report on energy-efficient government data centers. Download the report here (registration required).
Thomas Jefferson: A True American Radical
From Boogai:
Thomas Jefferson: A True American RadicalJune 28, 2010
Constitution By John W. Whitehead
“Jefferson had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that today and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny.”–Abraham Lincoln
In an age when politicians slide seamlessly between serving in public office and hosting cable talk shows, Thomas Jefferson might seem patently old-fashioned. Then again, given the apathy and general timidity of the American populace today, perhaps it is we who have fallen out of touch with our radical roots. Certainly, in our American family tree, there is no one more radical than Jefferson.
Born on April 13, 1743, some 267 years ago, Jefferson was a Renaissance man–a philosopher, architect, statesman and founder of the University of Virginia–whose passion for individual freedom was rivaled only by his love of country. His legacy is one that, as Abraham Lincoln recognized, will live as long as free people walk the earth.
Just imagine what the world would be like had Jefferson never lived. Not only would American history have lost one of its greatest political philosophers, both nationally and internationally, but it would also lose one of its greatest champions of individual freedom.
The author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson took bold strides in reversing the history of governmental corruption and unbridled control over the people by asserting firmly and clearly that the fundamental role of the government is to serve and protect the people and their rights. Such concepts are still revolutionary today.
The Declaration of Independence, a document upon which numerous governments and institutions throughout the world, including the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are based, was approved by Congress on July 4, 1776. The words Jefferson penned are as radical as they come. In the brief preamble alone, Jefferson introduces the idea that God, not the government, is the source of rights, that all people are created equal and possess inalienable rights, while establishing the authority of the citizenry to use whatever means necessary, including force, to throw off a despotic government, or a government that no longer serves the needs of the people. As Jefferson stated, the government receives its power from the “consent of the governed” and the people have the right to “alter or abolish” a government that becomes destructive, instituting a new government and laying out new principles that better protect the “Safety and Happiness” of the people.
One revolution was not enough for Jefferson, however. In a later letter to James Madison, Jefferson stated, “A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as in the physical…it is a medicine necessary for the sound health of the government.” In fact, Jefferson was so convinced of the value of frequent, publicly-driven rebellions that he advocated for a new rebellion approximately every twenty years. In a 1787 letter to William Smith, John Adams’ secretary and son-in-law, Jefferson wrote: “[G]od forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion . . . the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
To suggest that American citizens turn to violence and bloodshed to ensure their liberty was, and still is, a radical idea. Although Jefferson was not an advocate of unnecessary violence, he was so firmly entrenched in his beliefs in the pursuit of liberty and its guarantee that he encouraged whatever means necessary to be used to secure it. As Jefferson wrote, “what country can preserve its liberties, if the rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take to arms.”
In fact, Jefferson advocated the right of all citizens to carry arms in order to protect themselves against the tyranny of the government and the infringement of their liberties by fellow citizens. Writing to his nephew, Peter Carr, in 1785, Jefferson stated, “As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind…Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.”
The Bill of Rights itself is, in part, a radical Jeffersonian victory. James Madison, who drafted the Bill of Rights, initially felt that the inclusion of a bill of rights in the originally ratified Constitution was unnecessary to its success, but Jefferson noted that its absence was an enormous oversight on the part of the Framers. He told Madison “a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, & what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences.” As such, Jefferson advocated for the inclusion of a document so revolutionary at the time that it was not even considered in the drafting of the original Constitution. Yet Americans now look to the Bill of Rights as the epitome of American liberty.
Jefferson also insisted on another radical idea at the time–the separation of church and state as a prominent feature of American government. In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, Jefferson asserted his beliefs that “religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, [and] that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions…I contemplate with sovereign reverence that…[American] legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”
However, this “wall of separation” phrase has been grossly misunderstood as Jefferson advocating for the removal of religion from the nation or from the government. In truth, Jefferson not only believed in and promoted religion, he also authored his own version of the Bible (which emphasized the moral teachings of Jesus) in an attempt to create a more easily understood moral and biblical guide. Thus, his coining of the phrase “separation of church and state” was not at all a swipe at religion or religious followers, but rather yet another mechanism to check the power of the government over the rights of the people.
Last but not least, Jefferson knew all too well that only the people, and not their government leaders or the privileged classes, could and should be relied upon as the “safe depositories” of freedom. “No government,” he wrote to John Adams when he was 76, “can continue good, but under the control of the people.”
Virtually until the day he died, Thomas Jefferson kept up the cause of liberty. “The mass of mankind has not been born,” Jefferson opined in the last words he wrote, “with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately.” One week later, Jefferson died.
Fittingly enough, Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, half a century after he had changed the world and the cause of freedom forever. According to the memoirs of John Quincy Adams, his father John Adams–who, along with Jefferson, greatly influenced the shape of the nation–fell ill in his house in Quincy, Massachusetts, on July 2. Two days later, on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Adams died. His last words were “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Unbeknownst to him, Jefferson had already drawn his last breath several hours earlier. Jefferson was 84.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org Information about the Institute is available at http://www.rutherford.org/
Thomas Jefferson: A True American RadicalJune 28, 2010
Constitution By John W. Whitehead
“Jefferson had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that today and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny.”–Abraham Lincoln
In an age when politicians slide seamlessly between serving in public office and hosting cable talk shows, Thomas Jefferson might seem patently old-fashioned. Then again, given the apathy and general timidity of the American populace today, perhaps it is we who have fallen out of touch with our radical roots. Certainly, in our American family tree, there is no one more radical than Jefferson.
Born on April 13, 1743, some 267 years ago, Jefferson was a Renaissance man–a philosopher, architect, statesman and founder of the University of Virginia–whose passion for individual freedom was rivaled only by his love of country. His legacy is one that, as Abraham Lincoln recognized, will live as long as free people walk the earth.
Just imagine what the world would be like had Jefferson never lived. Not only would American history have lost one of its greatest political philosophers, both nationally and internationally, but it would also lose one of its greatest champions of individual freedom.
The author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson took bold strides in reversing the history of governmental corruption and unbridled control over the people by asserting firmly and clearly that the fundamental role of the government is to serve and protect the people and their rights. Such concepts are still revolutionary today.
The Declaration of Independence, a document upon which numerous governments and institutions throughout the world, including the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are based, was approved by Congress on July 4, 1776. The words Jefferson penned are as radical as they come. In the brief preamble alone, Jefferson introduces the idea that God, not the government, is the source of rights, that all people are created equal and possess inalienable rights, while establishing the authority of the citizenry to use whatever means necessary, including force, to throw off a despotic government, or a government that no longer serves the needs of the people. As Jefferson stated, the government receives its power from the “consent of the governed” and the people have the right to “alter or abolish” a government that becomes destructive, instituting a new government and laying out new principles that better protect the “Safety and Happiness” of the people.
One revolution was not enough for Jefferson, however. In a later letter to James Madison, Jefferson stated, “A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as in the physical…it is a medicine necessary for the sound health of the government.” In fact, Jefferson was so convinced of the value of frequent, publicly-driven rebellions that he advocated for a new rebellion approximately every twenty years. In a 1787 letter to William Smith, John Adams’ secretary and son-in-law, Jefferson wrote: “[G]od forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion . . . the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
To suggest that American citizens turn to violence and bloodshed to ensure their liberty was, and still is, a radical idea. Although Jefferson was not an advocate of unnecessary violence, he was so firmly entrenched in his beliefs in the pursuit of liberty and its guarantee that he encouraged whatever means necessary to be used to secure it. As Jefferson wrote, “what country can preserve its liberties, if the rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take to arms.”
In fact, Jefferson advocated the right of all citizens to carry arms in order to protect themselves against the tyranny of the government and the infringement of their liberties by fellow citizens. Writing to his nephew, Peter Carr, in 1785, Jefferson stated, “As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind…Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.”
The Bill of Rights itself is, in part, a radical Jeffersonian victory. James Madison, who drafted the Bill of Rights, initially felt that the inclusion of a bill of rights in the originally ratified Constitution was unnecessary to its success, but Jefferson noted that its absence was an enormous oversight on the part of the Framers. He told Madison “a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, & what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences.” As such, Jefferson advocated for the inclusion of a document so revolutionary at the time that it was not even considered in the drafting of the original Constitution. Yet Americans now look to the Bill of Rights as the epitome of American liberty.
Jefferson also insisted on another radical idea at the time–the separation of church and state as a prominent feature of American government. In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, Jefferson asserted his beliefs that “religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, [and] that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions…I contemplate with sovereign reverence that…[American] legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”
However, this “wall of separation” phrase has been grossly misunderstood as Jefferson advocating for the removal of religion from the nation or from the government. In truth, Jefferson not only believed in and promoted religion, he also authored his own version of the Bible (which emphasized the moral teachings of Jesus) in an attempt to create a more easily understood moral and biblical guide. Thus, his coining of the phrase “separation of church and state” was not at all a swipe at religion or religious followers, but rather yet another mechanism to check the power of the government over the rights of the people.
Last but not least, Jefferson knew all too well that only the people, and not their government leaders or the privileged classes, could and should be relied upon as the “safe depositories” of freedom. “No government,” he wrote to John Adams when he was 76, “can continue good, but under the control of the people.”
Virtually until the day he died, Thomas Jefferson kept up the cause of liberty. “The mass of mankind has not been born,” Jefferson opined in the last words he wrote, “with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately.” One week later, Jefferson died.
Fittingly enough, Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, half a century after he had changed the world and the cause of freedom forever. According to the memoirs of John Quincy Adams, his father John Adams–who, along with Jefferson, greatly influenced the shape of the nation–fell ill in his house in Quincy, Massachusetts, on July 2. Two days later, on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Adams died. His last words were “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Unbeknownst to him, Jefferson had already drawn his last breath several hours earlier. Jefferson was 84.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org Information about the Institute is available at http://www.rutherford.org/
Teaching Totalitarianism In The Public Schools
From Boogai:
Teaching Totalitarianism in the Public SchoolsJune 28, 2010
Constitution
Education By John W. Whitehead
“Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.”—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart
Why are Americans so willing to hand over their rights at the first sign of unrest or disturbance? The reason is simple yet troubling: Americans have come to view freedom as expedient and expendable because that’s what they’ve been taught.
Over the past several decades, America’s public schools have increasingly adopted the mindset that students have no rights, and school officials have not been reticent about communicating this message to young people. Indeed, this totalitarian outlook has been reinforced by an educational curriculum so focused on preparing students to enter the machinery of the corporate state that there is little time left over for the things they really need to learn such as what their rights are, how to exercise them, and the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. As a result, the majority of students today have little knowledge of the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution and, specifically, in the Bill of Rights.
For example, a national survey of high school students reveals that only 2% can identify the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; 35% know that “we the people” are the first three words of the U.S. Constitution; 1.8% know that James Madison is considered the father of the U.S. Constitution; and 25% know that the Fifth Amendment protects against double jeopardy and self incrimination, among other legal rights.
Public educators do not fare much better in understanding and implementing the Constitution in the classroom. A study conducted by the University of Connecticut found that while public educators seem to support First Amendment rights in principle, they are reluctant to apply such rights in the schools. Consequently, the few students who do know and exercise their rights are forced to deal with school officials who, more often than not, refuse to respect those rights.
Two recent incidents illustrate how bad things have gotten in the schools:
School officials at Albemarle High School in Charlottesville, Va.—ironically enough, the much-vaunted home of Thomas Jefferson—ordered the destruction of an eight-page edition of their student newspaper which had already been printed and was awaiting distribution. Why? Because school officials feared that an editorial questioning whether student-athletes need gym class might upset PE teachers. The newspaper, dubiously named The Revolution, was subsequently reprinted minus the editorial.
In Norfolk, Va., two teachers at Norview High School were placed on administrative leave for distributing “unauthorized” materials to their 12th grade government students. The materials, a one-page handout and a video, advised the students about how to deal with police if stopped. Specifically, the materials explain how legal rights apply to police searches of vehicles, homes or individuals and how people can cite those rights during encounters with police.
These two situations barely scratch the surface regarding the hostile nature of today’s public school environment, at least in terms of individuality and freedom. For the nearly 50 million students who are attending elementary and secondary public schools, their time in school will be marked by overreaching zero tolerance policies, heightened security and surveillance and a greater emphasis on conformity and behavior-controlling drugs—all either aimed at or resulting in the destruction of privacy and freedom. In fact, as director Cevin Soling documents in his insightful, award-winning documentary The War on Kids (2009), available at www.thewaronkids.com, the moment young people walk into school, they find themselves under constant surveillance: they are photographed, fingerprinted, scanned, x-rayed, sniffed and snooped on. Between metal detectors at the entrances, drug-sniffing dogs in the hallways and surveillance cameras in the classrooms and elsewhere, America’s schools have come to resemble prison-like complexes. Add to this the fact that young people today are immersed in a drug culture—one manufactured by the pharmaceutical industry—almost from the moment they are born, and you have the makings of a perfect citizenry for the Orwellian society in which we now live: one that can be easily cowed, controlled, and directed.
In this way, with the government’s power rapidly increasing while that of the individual is subject to all manner of restrictions, the public schools are a perfect microcosm of what is happening across the nation. And while the notion of free speech remains enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution, censorship—once considered taboo in our freedom-loving culture—is no longer a dirty word. Instead, it is what responsible adults must now do in order to ensure that no one is offended or made to feel inferior.
Yet not too long ago, no one would have thought twice about teachers actually teaching the Bill of Rights or students exercising their free speech rights in a written editorial. Today, such acts are looked upon as radical—even revolutionary. Unfortunately, by teaching such a sinister conformity, school officials are raising up a generation of compliant, unquestioning citizens who will march in lockstep with whatever their government dictates.
If we allow the First Amendment to be unmade by the forces of political correctness or whatever it is that is causing the public schools to be so hostile to freedom, we might as well say goodbye to the Constitution as a whole, for it will count for less than nothing. Civil libertarians have long held that the First Amendment right to free speech applies to everyone, whatever their beliefs. This includes what many people consider offensive or deplorable speech. Unless we want free speech to end up in a totalitarian graveyard, no one, no matter their viewpoint or ideology, should be censored in any state institution—even if some students, teachers and the school bureaucracy might become upset at free speech utterances. When we deny free speech, we cease to be a free society.
What can be done? To start with, we need to make sure that our young people are learning what freedom is really all about. And if that is not happening in the schools, then we need to teach them about freedom at home. More importantly, we need to show our young people in word and deed, i.e. by example, what it means to truly exercise and defend one’s freedoms.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org Information about the Institute is available at http://www.rutherford.org/
Teaching Totalitarianism in the Public SchoolsJune 28, 2010
Constitution
Education By John W. Whitehead
“Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.”—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart
Why are Americans so willing to hand over their rights at the first sign of unrest or disturbance? The reason is simple yet troubling: Americans have come to view freedom as expedient and expendable because that’s what they’ve been taught.
Over the past several decades, America’s public schools have increasingly adopted the mindset that students have no rights, and school officials have not been reticent about communicating this message to young people. Indeed, this totalitarian outlook has been reinforced by an educational curriculum so focused on preparing students to enter the machinery of the corporate state that there is little time left over for the things they really need to learn such as what their rights are, how to exercise them, and the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. As a result, the majority of students today have little knowledge of the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution and, specifically, in the Bill of Rights.
For example, a national survey of high school students reveals that only 2% can identify the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; 35% know that “we the people” are the first three words of the U.S. Constitution; 1.8% know that James Madison is considered the father of the U.S. Constitution; and 25% know that the Fifth Amendment protects against double jeopardy and self incrimination, among other legal rights.
Public educators do not fare much better in understanding and implementing the Constitution in the classroom. A study conducted by the University of Connecticut found that while public educators seem to support First Amendment rights in principle, they are reluctant to apply such rights in the schools. Consequently, the few students who do know and exercise their rights are forced to deal with school officials who, more often than not, refuse to respect those rights.
Two recent incidents illustrate how bad things have gotten in the schools:
School officials at Albemarle High School in Charlottesville, Va.—ironically enough, the much-vaunted home of Thomas Jefferson—ordered the destruction of an eight-page edition of their student newspaper which had already been printed and was awaiting distribution. Why? Because school officials feared that an editorial questioning whether student-athletes need gym class might upset PE teachers. The newspaper, dubiously named The Revolution, was subsequently reprinted minus the editorial.
In Norfolk, Va., two teachers at Norview High School were placed on administrative leave for distributing “unauthorized” materials to their 12th grade government students. The materials, a one-page handout and a video, advised the students about how to deal with police if stopped. Specifically, the materials explain how legal rights apply to police searches of vehicles, homes or individuals and how people can cite those rights during encounters with police.
These two situations barely scratch the surface regarding the hostile nature of today’s public school environment, at least in terms of individuality and freedom. For the nearly 50 million students who are attending elementary and secondary public schools, their time in school will be marked by overreaching zero tolerance policies, heightened security and surveillance and a greater emphasis on conformity and behavior-controlling drugs—all either aimed at or resulting in the destruction of privacy and freedom. In fact, as director Cevin Soling documents in his insightful, award-winning documentary The War on Kids (2009), available at www.thewaronkids.com, the moment young people walk into school, they find themselves under constant surveillance: they are photographed, fingerprinted, scanned, x-rayed, sniffed and snooped on. Between metal detectors at the entrances, drug-sniffing dogs in the hallways and surveillance cameras in the classrooms and elsewhere, America’s schools have come to resemble prison-like complexes. Add to this the fact that young people today are immersed in a drug culture—one manufactured by the pharmaceutical industry—almost from the moment they are born, and you have the makings of a perfect citizenry for the Orwellian society in which we now live: one that can be easily cowed, controlled, and directed.
In this way, with the government’s power rapidly increasing while that of the individual is subject to all manner of restrictions, the public schools are a perfect microcosm of what is happening across the nation. And while the notion of free speech remains enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution, censorship—once considered taboo in our freedom-loving culture—is no longer a dirty word. Instead, it is what responsible adults must now do in order to ensure that no one is offended or made to feel inferior.
Yet not too long ago, no one would have thought twice about teachers actually teaching the Bill of Rights or students exercising their free speech rights in a written editorial. Today, such acts are looked upon as radical—even revolutionary. Unfortunately, by teaching such a sinister conformity, school officials are raising up a generation of compliant, unquestioning citizens who will march in lockstep with whatever their government dictates.
If we allow the First Amendment to be unmade by the forces of political correctness or whatever it is that is causing the public schools to be so hostile to freedom, we might as well say goodbye to the Constitution as a whole, for it will count for less than nothing. Civil libertarians have long held that the First Amendment right to free speech applies to everyone, whatever their beliefs. This includes what many people consider offensive or deplorable speech. Unless we want free speech to end up in a totalitarian graveyard, no one, no matter their viewpoint or ideology, should be censored in any state institution—even if some students, teachers and the school bureaucracy might become upset at free speech utterances. When we deny free speech, we cease to be a free society.
What can be done? To start with, we need to make sure that our young people are learning what freedom is really all about. And if that is not happening in the schools, then we need to teach them about freedom at home. More importantly, we need to show our young people in word and deed, i.e. by example, what it means to truly exercise and defend one’s freedoms.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org Information about the Institute is available at http://www.rutherford.org/
Does The U.S. Constitution Allow A Health Care Mandate?
From Boogai:
Does the U.S. Constitution allow a health care mandate?June 28, 2010
Constitution by Rob Natelson
On January 20, the Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed arguing that national health care mandates were constitutional. The article claimed this was true both under modern Supreme Court interpretations and under the Constitution’s original meaning.
I do not share the writer’s confidence that national health care mandates are constitutional even under the modern Supreme Court’s altered version of the Constitution — but I recognize that legal scholars differ on this question. However, the claim that the Founding Fathers would have thought the Constitution allows Congress to impose health care mandates is little short of absurd.
What really floored me was seeing that this claim was advanced by Akhil Reed Amar, a constitutional scholar I very much admire. Apparently, Professor Amar has been seriously misreading the historical record.
I know that record well: Researching and writing about it has taken much of my professional time for many years. Here are some of Professor Amar’s points, and my rejoinders:
Amar: “It’s true that the Constitution grants Congress authority to legislate only in the areas enumerated in the document itself. Other matters are left to the states under the 10th Amendment. But if enumerated power does exist, the 10th Amendment objection disappears.”
Natelson: The Tenth Amendment (and even more so the Ninth) was adopted to signal that no enumerated power should be stretched too much. Otherwise, federalism would be subverted. An important legal rule in the Founding Era (as today) is that documents should be construed to avoid a situation in which much of the language becomes useless surplusage. Stretching any enumerated power too far would render useless both the other enumerated powers and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Amar: “Under the interstate commerce clause of Article I, activities whose effects are confined within a given state are to be regulated by that state government, or simply left unregulated. But the federal government is specifically empowered to address matters that have significant spillover effects across state lines or international borders.”
Natelson: The interstate commerce clause gave Congress power to regulate interstate commerce — not any “matters that have significant spillover effects across state lines.” The Constitutional Convention rejected the wording of the Virginia Plan, which arguably would have let the federal government regulate any activity with interstate spillover. Instead, the delegates limited Congress to enumerated powers, such as the power over interstate commerce. The Bill of Rights constricted those powers further.
In other words, the Founders made the deliberate decision to leave many activities with spillover effects to the states. They also included a qualified state power to deal with spillover effects by interstate compact. The Founders knew that through “sophistry” (their word) one can always claim a spillover effect, so giving the federal government power over anything with significant spillover effects would result in no real constraints on the federal government at all.
Amar: “[T]he founders authorized Congress to act even in situations that did not involve explicit markets, so long as the activities truly crossed state lines or national borders.”
Natelson: Under the Commerce Clause, Congress received the power to regulate “Commerce.” Several scholars, including I, have published research showing what the Constitution meant by this word. Based on over two thousand uses of “commerce” in Founding-Era records, we know that the word meant mercantile trade and certain closely-related activities, such as marine insurance and navigation, traditionally governed by the rules pertaining to merchants. “Commerce” did not include other economic or non-economic activities.
Amar: “In line with this broad understanding, George Washington signed a law preventing Americans from committing even non-economic crimes on Indian lands because such activities did indeed involve ‘commerce . . . with the Indian tribes.’”
Natelson: The bill referred was the Indian Intercourse Act, and it was not passed until 1790 — after all the original thirteen states had ratified the Constitution. What Congress did after all the state ratifying conventions had adjourned is not very good evidence of what those conventions understood earlier — especially since political alliances already had shifted.
More importantly, though, Professor Amar has his history wrong: The Indian Intercourse Act was not passed under the Commerce Power. It was adopted to carry out three treaties with Indian tribes — the “Hopewell” treaties of 1785 and 1786. In the Founding Era (as today), it was understood that Congress could act outside its other enumerated powers to effectuate a treaty. (That’s one reason the Bill of Rights was adopted.) Last I looked, no one claimed that Obamacare was required by a treaty.
Amar: “The healthcare bill clearly addresses activities that cross state lines. These activities are often economic in nature. . . .”
Natelson: Yes, but as pointed out above, the Founders’ Constitution did not give Congress power to regulate everything “economic in nature,” even if it had interstate effects.
This was a subject of detailed discussion during the ratification debates. To answer claims that the federal government would be too powerful, the Constitution’s advocates provided voters with lists of specific activities that would remain under exclusive state control. Among these were business regulation (other than foreign, interstate, and Indian commerce) and social services. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments were adopted largely to cement this understanding.
Amar: “The founders’ Constitution also gave Congress sweeping power to impose all sorts of taxes . . . [A]fter independence, the founders created a representative Congress with explicit authority to tax Americans up, down and sideways.”
Natelson: The Founders wanted Congress to have broad taxing power because massive amounts of revenue would be necessary in time of war. In peace, they expected excises and imposts to be sufficient. This was because the Constitution would allow Congress to spend tax revenue only for enumerated purposes. After the ratification, big-government advocate Alexander Hamilton invented the idea that Congress could spend anything it wanted for the “general Welfare,” but other Founders did not accept this idiosyncratic theory.
Amar: “During the Progressive era, Americans amended the Constitution to underscore the broad power of Congress to tax, and indeed to tax for redistributive purposes. This is the plain meaning and original intent of the 16th Amendment.”
Natelson: Legally, all the 16th Amendment did was drop the requirement that if Congress chose to enact an income tax, the tax be apportioned among the states. The 16th Amendment did not grant any further power to Congress. It increased potential federal revenue, but only to do the sorts of things Congress always had done.
Amar: “The reason for this sweeping power to tax was clearly set out in Article I: Taxes would “pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare.”
Natelson: As other scholars and I have copiously documented, the “common Defence and general Welfare” language was a limit on the taxing power, not a grant. It required that when Congress taxed to fund an enumerated power, it apply the revenue to serve the welfare of the entire nation, not the welfare of a particular region or special interest.
Amar: “One special founding-era concern was national security. Taxes would be needed to fund national defense. Today, national health does indeed affect America’s ultimate national strength and national defense posture.”
Natelson: This is the classic argument that “proves too much.” As James Madison pointed out, a constitutional argument is “triable by its consequences.” Here, the consequences would be essentially unlimited congressional power, since almost any significant activity can be linked to national security. Because it is incontrovertible that unlimited congressional power is not what the Founders’ Constitution granted, the argument fails.
The argument is also a scary one, because historically “national security” often has been used to excuse the suspension of individual rights.
Amar: “This broad view of national defense is precisely the one endorsed by President Washington in 1791 when he signed a bill creating a national bank. . . .[S]upporters of the bank understood that it would exist in the service of national defense, helping to pay soldiers . . . to manage wartime finances. In 1819, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the bank as plausibly connected to national security.”
Natelson: Beside the fact that this argument also “proves too much” and relies on evidence that arguably is too late, it also is historically misleading. The 1791 bank debate was about Congress’ power to enact laws “necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” its other powers. The Constitution’s advocates were clear that this Necessary and Proper Clause granted no additional power, but clarified that the Constitution incorporated the common law doctrine of “incidental authority” — a position consistent with how documents were written at the time.
Under Founding-Era law, an “incidental” power was an implied power that was (a) less important than an express power, and (b) customarily or reasonably necessarily (not “plausibly”) used as a way to carry out the principal power. The bank debate was about whether a national bank fit these agreed standards.
No one thought the Necessary and Proper Clause gave Congress authority to control a sixth of the American economy in peacetime. “Obamacare” is, in fact, precisely the kind of measure that the Supreme Court said (in the very case Amar cites) it would strike down.
Amar: “After the Civil War, Americans amended the Constitution to give Congress another explicit authority relevant in the healthcare debate: Section 5 of the 14th Amendment charges Congress with protecting basic human rights. Healthcare is such a right — or at least Congress is constitutionally allowed to decide it is.”
Natelson: No, it is not. See the Supreme Court’s decision in City of Boerne v. Flores (1997).
Amar: “True, the plan imposes mandates on individuals. So do jury service laws, draft registration laws and automobile insurance laws.”
Natelson: Here we get into modern constitutional interpretation. The key question – now much disputed – is whether Congress has authority under Supreme Court misinterpretations of the Commerce Power to mandate that citizens (subjects?) purchase health insurance.
The mandates Professor Amar cites are simply besides the point. Jury service is authorized by the original understanding of several provisions in the Constitution. The military draft is similarly authorized by the Constitution’s grant to Congress of power to “raise and support Armies” (including then-customary incidental powers). Automobile insurance laws are imposed by the states, not the federal government – and unlike the federal government, the states are not limited to enumerated powers.
In addition, there are important privacy (“Substantive Due Process”) concerns implicated by health care mandates that are not implicated by automobile insurance laws.
Amar: “Maybe Obamacare is good policy; maybe not. But it is clearly constitutional.”
Natelson: As any competent constitutional scholar will tell you: “Beware the word ‘clearly!’” When a judge or a lawyer claims that a disputed law is “clearly” within a constitutional power, it often means he suspects it’s probably not — but for some reason he’s arguing that it is.
Professor Natelson teaches Constitutional Law, Legal History, Advanced Constitutional Law, Remedies, and a seminar on the First Amendment at the University of Montana School of Law. He is a recognized national expert on the framing and adoption of the United States Constitution. His opinions are his own, and should not be attributed to any other person or institution.
Does the U.S. Constitution allow a health care mandate?June 28, 2010
Constitution by Rob Natelson
On January 20, the Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed arguing that national health care mandates were constitutional. The article claimed this was true both under modern Supreme Court interpretations and under the Constitution’s original meaning.
I do not share the writer’s confidence that national health care mandates are constitutional even under the modern Supreme Court’s altered version of the Constitution — but I recognize that legal scholars differ on this question. However, the claim that the Founding Fathers would have thought the Constitution allows Congress to impose health care mandates is little short of absurd.
What really floored me was seeing that this claim was advanced by Akhil Reed Amar, a constitutional scholar I very much admire. Apparently, Professor Amar has been seriously misreading the historical record.
I know that record well: Researching and writing about it has taken much of my professional time for many years. Here are some of Professor Amar’s points, and my rejoinders:
Amar: “It’s true that the Constitution grants Congress authority to legislate only in the areas enumerated in the document itself. Other matters are left to the states under the 10th Amendment. But if enumerated power does exist, the 10th Amendment objection disappears.”
Natelson: The Tenth Amendment (and even more so the Ninth) was adopted to signal that no enumerated power should be stretched too much. Otherwise, federalism would be subverted. An important legal rule in the Founding Era (as today) is that documents should be construed to avoid a situation in which much of the language becomes useless surplusage. Stretching any enumerated power too far would render useless both the other enumerated powers and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Amar: “Under the interstate commerce clause of Article I, activities whose effects are confined within a given state are to be regulated by that state government, or simply left unregulated. But the federal government is specifically empowered to address matters that have significant spillover effects across state lines or international borders.”
Natelson: The interstate commerce clause gave Congress power to regulate interstate commerce — not any “matters that have significant spillover effects across state lines.” The Constitutional Convention rejected the wording of the Virginia Plan, which arguably would have let the federal government regulate any activity with interstate spillover. Instead, the delegates limited Congress to enumerated powers, such as the power over interstate commerce. The Bill of Rights constricted those powers further.
In other words, the Founders made the deliberate decision to leave many activities with spillover effects to the states. They also included a qualified state power to deal with spillover effects by interstate compact. The Founders knew that through “sophistry” (their word) one can always claim a spillover effect, so giving the federal government power over anything with significant spillover effects would result in no real constraints on the federal government at all.
Amar: “[T]he founders authorized Congress to act even in situations that did not involve explicit markets, so long as the activities truly crossed state lines or national borders.”
Natelson: Under the Commerce Clause, Congress received the power to regulate “Commerce.” Several scholars, including I, have published research showing what the Constitution meant by this word. Based on over two thousand uses of “commerce” in Founding-Era records, we know that the word meant mercantile trade and certain closely-related activities, such as marine insurance and navigation, traditionally governed by the rules pertaining to merchants. “Commerce” did not include other economic or non-economic activities.
Amar: “In line with this broad understanding, George Washington signed a law preventing Americans from committing even non-economic crimes on Indian lands because such activities did indeed involve ‘commerce . . . with the Indian tribes.’”
Natelson: The bill referred was the Indian Intercourse Act, and it was not passed until 1790 — after all the original thirteen states had ratified the Constitution. What Congress did after all the state ratifying conventions had adjourned is not very good evidence of what those conventions understood earlier — especially since political alliances already had shifted.
More importantly, though, Professor Amar has his history wrong: The Indian Intercourse Act was not passed under the Commerce Power. It was adopted to carry out three treaties with Indian tribes — the “Hopewell” treaties of 1785 and 1786. In the Founding Era (as today), it was understood that Congress could act outside its other enumerated powers to effectuate a treaty. (That’s one reason the Bill of Rights was adopted.) Last I looked, no one claimed that Obamacare was required by a treaty.
Amar: “The healthcare bill clearly addresses activities that cross state lines. These activities are often economic in nature. . . .”
Natelson: Yes, but as pointed out above, the Founders’ Constitution did not give Congress power to regulate everything “economic in nature,” even if it had interstate effects.
This was a subject of detailed discussion during the ratification debates. To answer claims that the federal government would be too powerful, the Constitution’s advocates provided voters with lists of specific activities that would remain under exclusive state control. Among these were business regulation (other than foreign, interstate, and Indian commerce) and social services. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments were adopted largely to cement this understanding.
Amar: “The founders’ Constitution also gave Congress sweeping power to impose all sorts of taxes . . . [A]fter independence, the founders created a representative Congress with explicit authority to tax Americans up, down and sideways.”
Natelson: The Founders wanted Congress to have broad taxing power because massive amounts of revenue would be necessary in time of war. In peace, they expected excises and imposts to be sufficient. This was because the Constitution would allow Congress to spend tax revenue only for enumerated purposes. After the ratification, big-government advocate Alexander Hamilton invented the idea that Congress could spend anything it wanted for the “general Welfare,” but other Founders did not accept this idiosyncratic theory.
Amar: “During the Progressive era, Americans amended the Constitution to underscore the broad power of Congress to tax, and indeed to tax for redistributive purposes. This is the plain meaning and original intent of the 16th Amendment.”
Natelson: Legally, all the 16th Amendment did was drop the requirement that if Congress chose to enact an income tax, the tax be apportioned among the states. The 16th Amendment did not grant any further power to Congress. It increased potential federal revenue, but only to do the sorts of things Congress always had done.
Amar: “The reason for this sweeping power to tax was clearly set out in Article I: Taxes would “pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare.”
Natelson: As other scholars and I have copiously documented, the “common Defence and general Welfare” language was a limit on the taxing power, not a grant. It required that when Congress taxed to fund an enumerated power, it apply the revenue to serve the welfare of the entire nation, not the welfare of a particular region or special interest.
Amar: “One special founding-era concern was national security. Taxes would be needed to fund national defense. Today, national health does indeed affect America’s ultimate national strength and national defense posture.”
Natelson: This is the classic argument that “proves too much.” As James Madison pointed out, a constitutional argument is “triable by its consequences.” Here, the consequences would be essentially unlimited congressional power, since almost any significant activity can be linked to national security. Because it is incontrovertible that unlimited congressional power is not what the Founders’ Constitution granted, the argument fails.
The argument is also a scary one, because historically “national security” often has been used to excuse the suspension of individual rights.
Amar: “This broad view of national defense is precisely the one endorsed by President Washington in 1791 when he signed a bill creating a national bank. . . .[S]upporters of the bank understood that it would exist in the service of national defense, helping to pay soldiers . . . to manage wartime finances. In 1819, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the bank as plausibly connected to national security.”
Natelson: Beside the fact that this argument also “proves too much” and relies on evidence that arguably is too late, it also is historically misleading. The 1791 bank debate was about Congress’ power to enact laws “necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” its other powers. The Constitution’s advocates were clear that this Necessary and Proper Clause granted no additional power, but clarified that the Constitution incorporated the common law doctrine of “incidental authority” — a position consistent with how documents were written at the time.
Under Founding-Era law, an “incidental” power was an implied power that was (a) less important than an express power, and (b) customarily or reasonably necessarily (not “plausibly”) used as a way to carry out the principal power. The bank debate was about whether a national bank fit these agreed standards.
No one thought the Necessary and Proper Clause gave Congress authority to control a sixth of the American economy in peacetime. “Obamacare” is, in fact, precisely the kind of measure that the Supreme Court said (in the very case Amar cites) it would strike down.
Amar: “After the Civil War, Americans amended the Constitution to give Congress another explicit authority relevant in the healthcare debate: Section 5 of the 14th Amendment charges Congress with protecting basic human rights. Healthcare is such a right — or at least Congress is constitutionally allowed to decide it is.”
Natelson: No, it is not. See the Supreme Court’s decision in City of Boerne v. Flores (1997).
Amar: “True, the plan imposes mandates on individuals. So do jury service laws, draft registration laws and automobile insurance laws.”
Natelson: Here we get into modern constitutional interpretation. The key question – now much disputed – is whether Congress has authority under Supreme Court misinterpretations of the Commerce Power to mandate that citizens (subjects?) purchase health insurance.
The mandates Professor Amar cites are simply besides the point. Jury service is authorized by the original understanding of several provisions in the Constitution. The military draft is similarly authorized by the Constitution’s grant to Congress of power to “raise and support Armies” (including then-customary incidental powers). Automobile insurance laws are imposed by the states, not the federal government – and unlike the federal government, the states are not limited to enumerated powers.
In addition, there are important privacy (“Substantive Due Process”) concerns implicated by health care mandates that are not implicated by automobile insurance laws.
Amar: “Maybe Obamacare is good policy; maybe not. But it is clearly constitutional.”
Natelson: As any competent constitutional scholar will tell you: “Beware the word ‘clearly!’” When a judge or a lawyer claims that a disputed law is “clearly” within a constitutional power, it often means he suspects it’s probably not — but for some reason he’s arguing that it is.
Professor Natelson teaches Constitutional Law, Legal History, Advanced Constitutional Law, Remedies, and a seminar on the First Amendment at the University of Montana School of Law. He is a recognized national expert on the framing and adoption of the United States Constitution. His opinions are his own, and should not be attributed to any other person or institution.
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