Why Obamacare is Unconstitutional

Progressives and their Democrat Party handmaidens have it upside down

We The People are sovereign over our own lives; government is the servant, not the master. 


The US Constitution does not give us rights; it protects those unalienable rights given to us by God.  The Federal Government is not the "boss" of the states or the people.  The US Constitution is the instruction manual that the Federal Government must follow, and it was dictated by We The People and the several states.

Ron DeSantis and Adam Laxalt have written an excellent article on why Obamacare is unconstitutional.  It is chock full of quotes from the founders talking about how the federal powers are few and defined, not indefinite.  They succinctly lay out their case using the words of the founders... 

As Madison famously explained inThe Federalist No. 45, the "powers delegated by theproposed Constitution to the federal government are few anddefined." 

As a congressman, Madison warned against constructions ofthe Constitution that rendered the government "no longer a limitedone, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subjectto particular exceptions." 

If inactivity can be characterized ascommercial activity, then virtually anything is ripe for federalsupervision, converting the Constitution into an "unlimitedgovernment," which is precisely what theFounding Fathers tried to prevent.  (American Spectator)

Such ideas embodied in our constitution are anathema to progressives and subversive to their cause.

Sacred Constitution

Another day, another lefty smear...

We on the right do not believe the constitution is "sacred," we do not have a constitution "fetish" and we do not revere the founding fathers as gods sitting upon Mount Olympus. God did not carve the articles with lightning bolts, and George Washington did not carry them down from Mt Vernon, beard turned white from the encounter. We also know our history and understand the great debates and compromises that went into crafting the document.

"Constitutionalism" Blocks the Progressive Agendas of All Parties
We also don't believe that the constitution should not be changed. We merely believe it stands as written and currently amended, and should not be violated. If you want to do something that contravenes it, you must follow the amendment process. Proto-progressives understood this, hence amendments to ban alcohol and institute an income tax. Nowadays, these pseudo-intellectual busybodies are too arrogant to debate with the grubby hoi polloi, so they use raw bureaucratic power to ram through their progressive projects.

The overblown rhetoric and ridicule is meant to diminish the conservative cause and mask the progressive's dangerous disdain for our foundational principles.

Michael Lind is just one of the legion of goosestepping foot soldiers who has written one more stupid article on the subject.  He follows the lefty catechism by first smearing everybody to the right of himself (which is now, tee hee hee, an expanding majority)...

"Now that the Republican Party, founded as a northern party opposed to the extension of slavery, is disproportionately a party of white Southern reactionaries"

He must have been out of the country, or out of his mind high on hopium this last election. It's entertaining and encouraging that the craven, clutching, shriveled band of leftists think over 60% of the country are toothless, racist hicks. That's a sure way to bring people to your side, Michael! Keep it up.

A "Living" Constitution
He then tiredly employs the boilerplate liberal arguments about how we worship the founders and their documents.  Ho hum. Charles Krauthammer gets to the heart of the matter. This is really a fight over what the constitution means:

"Originalism has grown to become the major challenger to the liberal "living Constitution" school, under which high courts are channelers of the spirit of the age, free to create new constitutional principles accordingly."

Progressives hate a strict interpretation of the constitution because it stands in their way, and that is exactly what the document is supposed to do. Democrats and Republicans have been violating the document for over 100 years, with the consent of black-robed mullas. Imagine if it were merely treated as a notional ideal; we would be living in a much less free and less prosperous nation.

The Constitution is predicated on the belief that we are all free people with God-given rights, and no other man, nor government may violate them. The statists have it ass-backwards, thinking our rights come from the government. The ink stained propagandists, like their partners in government, are frustrated to no end that "the experts" cannot twist and knead public policy to herd us like cattle and goosestep us all into a brighter progressive future.

Clarity over Agreement

This concentrated attack on conservatives by the liberal press is instructive. The press is not neutral; it is biased. They are now reduced to strawman arguments and comparing the Republicans choosing to not read the superseded parts of the constitution with the editor that has censored Twain's Huckleberry Finn.

“You’re not supposed to worship your Constitution,” (Democratic Congressman Jerrold) Nadler huffed. “You are supposed to govern your government by it.” (Quoted in Human Events)

Govern the government by the constitution? We'd settle for that! We drop the "worship," and government actually starts governing by the constitution. That's a deal liberty-lovers can live with!

We are winning, my fellow tea partiers. Indignant howls from the liberal press are our victory trumpets.

Progressives Hate the US Constitution

Progressives hate the tea parties and they hate the constitution.  These are the two principle impediments preventing them from finishing what Woodrow Wilson and FDR started.

"The Constitution was not made to fit us like a straitjacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness."

-- Woodrow Wilson

Liberal Propaganda Deconstructed

The liberal propagandists in the press tried branding us racists, but such blatant attacks don't work anymore, so they have adopted more subtle tactics.  EJ Dionne is the latest to deploy a deft combination I call the non-sequitur straw man.  Follow me as I deconstruct a piece of progressive propaganda.

Unlike God, the founders left us an amendment process

Dionne's neat rhetorical trick asserts that we tea partiers equate the US Constitution with the Holy Bible.  This is a neat trick because yes, we believe the constitution must be followed just as The Bible must be.  His unstated non-sequitur avers that since we equate the constitution with The Bible, we must also equate the founders with God Almighty.  This sets up the straw man argument that we worship the constitution and the founders.  It's a straw man because unlike God, the founders left us an amendment process.

Dionne starts out with an innocuous statement...

I offer the Republicans two cheers for their fealty to their professed ideals. We badly need a full-scale debate over what the Constitution is, means and allows -- and how Americans have argued about these questions since the beginning of the republic. This provision should be the springboard for a discussion all of us should join.

He plants a few little seeds of doubt there, but so far so good.  Next comes the premise for the non-sequitur straw man...

From its inception, the tea party movement has treated the nation's great founding document not as the collection of shrewd political compromises that it is, but as the equivalent of sacred scripture.

Note that this statement contains two elements, the first is plainly stated, the second one tacitly follows:  1) The constitution is a document like The Bible that government must obey; 2) Unstated:  If the constitution is the equivalent of sacred scripture, then the founders are the equivalent of an infallible God. 

Number 2 is the strawman that does not follow from the first statement.  Since EJ cannot argue with statement #1, he invents the non-sequitur strawman, statement #2, and then knocks it down: 

Yet as Gordon Wood, the widely admired historian of the Revolutionary era has noted, we "can recognize the extraordinary character of the Founding Fathers while also knowing that those 18th-century political leaders were not outside history. ... They were as enmeshed in historical circumstances as we are, they had no special divine insight into politics, and their thinking was certainly not free of passion, ignorance, and foolishness."

See how he sets up the straw man so he can knock down those crazy rightwingers who want to tea party like it's 1776?  EJ Dionne is too smart to really believe that we deify the founders, so all I can conclude is that he is engaging in a deliberate propaganda smear.   

Progressives are not out to destroy the tea parties; they have bigger fish to fry:

An examination of the Constitution that views it as something other than the books of Genesis or Leviticus would be good for the country.

Yes, let's knock that dusty bit of outmoded parchment off its pedestal.  Good progressives like EJ Dionne and Ezra Klein are just following in the footsteps of Progressivism's great grand daddy, Woodrow Wilson.  They can’t quite muster the intellectual starch of this racist scholar and failed statesman, but it’s just the right pitch for the MSNBC crowd.  It's neo-progressivism reduced to valley girl vapidity:

"The constitution is, like, so old, and full of, like, so many old words that are, like, spelled funny.  Bogus!  It's like totally irrelevant, totally!"

They want a living, breathing constitution, to which Dr. Walter E. Williams has the perfect riposte:

How many people would like to play me poker and have the rules be "living"? Depending on "evolving standards," maybe my two pair could beat your flush.

Indeed.  Those who crave power and control must have "living rules."  Oh, and they also want to hold the book, because some animals are more equal than others.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/01/03/celebrating_the_new_gop_majority_108404.html

Man-Made Rights are No Rights at All

I took a brief swing through Left Blogistan the other day. I don't get over there too much anymore; just not enough hours in the day.

As usual, the lack of diversity in blog post topics really stood out. The buzz seemed to be about how government requires people working together for the collective or else all will descend into anarchy, selfish individualism, chaos...  As if we're not on the cusp of that now, two years into the Era of Obama. Such banalities pass for good blogging over there.

Some alpha liberal like Rachel Madow or some guy at HuffPo normal people have never heard of probably wrote a big blather piece on "social contracts" or some such, and everybody else had to comply with the daily marching orders. Lefties are such lemmings.

A liberal blogger said a very ignorant thing:

There is no such thing as "God given rights" because if we returned to the original state of nature, or that which was "God given" we would find ourselves bound only by our own personal power, our conscience, and or by forces superior to our own.

The rights that we enjoy today are man made rights; and as such are not "natural rights" nor are they permanently fixed.

The first sentence is incoherent, and the second absurd. They cannot be defended. The first sentence is either nonsensical or it contradicts the author's thesis. It is so poorly written that a sane person cannot tell what was intended.

The second sentence is absurd. We get our rights from man? OK. So if "man" decides to enslave all bloggers then it's OK? If man grants rights, he can take them away. This explains liberals' infatuation with strongmen like Mussolini, as well as uber-liberal Tom Friedman's current love affair with the Red Chinese politburo.  It also explains how 20th century statism was able to kill over 100 million people.

The writer didn’t even cite a philosophical work to defend his unsubstantiated claim. I know why. No credible thinker could defend this. Even if there were someone loony enough to try to defend such a preposterous supposition, it would be written in incomprehensible Cornell West psychobabble.

American liberalism is a hopeless, self-contradictory tangle, an intellectual cul-de-sac.  In contrast, our Natural Rights, as enunciated by our founding fathers, are axiomatic:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (Declaration of Independence)

Yes, we have a social contract called the US Constitution, but our rights do not emanate from that document.  They are natural rights that preexist and supersede man-made institutions. 

Natural Law -- Our Foundation

Natural Law is a philosophy, a theory.  As such, it is open to debate and question, as is Christianity and global warming.  Natural Law is the philosophical foundation of our constitutional republic, and today it stands in stark contrast to the central economic planning and social tinkering of progressives.

Jonathan  Dolhenty explains:

What do we mean by "natural law"? In its simplest definition, natural law is that "unwritten law" that is more or less the same for everyone everywhere. 

To be more exact, natural law is the concept of a body of moral principles that is common to all humankind and, as generally posited, is recognizable by human reason alone. Natural law is therefore distinguished from -- and provides a standard for -- positive law, the formal legal enactments of a particular society.

To sum it up, then, we can say that the natural law:

• is not made by human beings;
• is based on the structure of reality itself;
• is the same for all human beings and at all times;
• is an unchanging rule or pattern which is there for human beings to discover;
• is the naturally knowable moral law
• is a means by which human beings can rationally guide themselves to their good.  

(Source:  Radical Academy)

The Rights of the Colonists, written in 1772, shows how natural rights were understood at our nation's founding.  It is a short document that describes man's natural rights and his entering into voluntary civil society with others for the mutual protection of those rights.  It logically follows that such a society's positive  laws ...

   "should conform as far as possible, to the Law of natural reason and equity." 


Simply put, a society needs man-made laws to protect the natural laws of those who voluntarily participate.

"The natural liberty of Men by entering into society is abridg’d or restrained so far only as is necessary for the Great end of Society the best good of the whole"

It's a balancing act, and progressives have turned us upside-down.  To get a better understanding, take five minutes to read the document at Vindicating the Founding Fathers.

Further Reading:
Locke's Second Treatise Of Civil Government

The Principles of Natural and Politic Law

Janet Napoleonitano's Waterloo

Like all tyrants in history, she has overreached... no pun intended.

While I believe in thanking God for my friends, I also remember to thank Him for my enemies as well.

For the past ten years I've been working in the shadows, helping my fellow Americans to wake up to approaching tyranny - sometimes successfully, sometimes not. So here comes along this petty Napoleon wannabe, a jumbo shrimp, waking up millions to the truth behind overbearing government. This is far more than I could even accomplish with a Soros-like budget. While tempted with envy, I will instead say "Thank you, Janet!"

Minimum-wage TSA thugs are arousing the ire of a majority of Americans by feeling around inside our pantaloons, all in the name of safety and security.

When confronted by stories of border-line molestation by TSA, what does she do? Order down-the-pants explorations by blue gloves. When the uproar by the public doubled behind Mr. "Don't touch my Junk", she then telegraphed to us that to refuse this indignity would put us under a civil $11,000 fine. Overreaching, digging in, and arrogant. If I had a choice between stupidity or arrogance in an enemy, I would chose stupidity. In this case, we have both!

The wise revolutionary realizes that positive political change is like baking a cake. First, critical ingredients and philosophies must be added to the batter... then mixed throughout the body politic. Then comes the addition of heat. Don't worry, the tyrant will supply the heat. In the fullness of time the cake will be ready.

Right now the critical ingredients of rediscovering the Constitution and distrust of elitist bureaucrats are working their way throughout America. Janet and Congress just turned on the gas stove. Now comes the patient part as people turn from being soft and soupy in conviction to being fully formed with a backbone. A time to try men's souls is at hand, again.

And speaking of heat and anger, imagine this is one of your family members going though the new-fanged and Chertoff-lobbied X-Ray machine:

Yes, these machines do store the images, despite TSA's vocal denials and lies.

I just recently watched a video clip of a young boy being stripped and felt up by a TSA thug, while what I assume was his father watching. What kind of father puts up with this kind of public molestation?

Freedom has a cost. It has been said that tyranny is only felt by those who resist it. You have a choice: resist or submit. You will have to decide between one or the other, and by virtue of not deciding, you will have already decided to submit to evil authority.

Don't interrupt your enemy while they are making a mistake. What stops me at this time from taking action is knowledge what TSA is doing is converting millions of clueless Americans into Constitutional conservatives, one blue glove at a time. The time is not quite right to put these thugs in their place - but that will not always be so.

There will come a time in the future when you will have to chose between deep conviction or cowardice. The choice may cost you everything except your dignity. Now is a most excellent time to count the cost, not when the decision point is thrust upon you.

So, why is Napolitano pressing ahead with even more violations of the 4th Amendment? Here's some possibilities:

Follow the Money. When Napolitano was governor of Arizona, there was a plague of radar photo vans and cameras installed throughout the State. These raked in millions into an overspent budget. Now we have discovered the Michael Chertoff Group to have peddled these X-Ray scanners to TSA. I'm waiting to see the donation money connection to the DNC, or perhaps to Napolitano herself. Stay tuned.

Elitism. As Silverfiddle likes to say, elitists just want all us little people to shut up and do as we are told - life would be so much better! Instead of empowering airline passengers or private companies, always the answer with elitists is more and more intrusive government! If only you got all the eggheads together in a room and decided for the rest of us... versus a Ronald Reagan-like trust of the American people and our collective common sense.

Nature of Power. Similar to elitism, tyrants and tyranny are quite predictable. Do you think the Internet censorship bill being passed has anything to do with copyright protection? First they go after those who mock and ridicule them. Then those who actively resist them. Note to self: throw rocks at the tyrant from a concealed position while wearing a mask. It will only make the tyrant more angry, which is the intermediate goal. Remember what Saul Alinsky said: ridicule is a powerful weapon, and one not easily defended against.

In the end analysis, this battle was over before it started. There's no way that Napolitano's TSA can have any lifespan beyond a decade after what they have already done. There's just too many aroused Americans and too few elite. The unintended consequence (the title of a good book by the way) to all these underwear excursions is a public turned to the Constitution and perhaps, even, a privatized Israeli-style airport security. It's Janet's Waterloo and she doesn't even know it yet.

- Hugh Farnham

* - Napoleonitano photo chop courtesy of Chicago Ray

Wire Brush

Like an old piece of ironwork that is covered with layer upon layer of paint and corrosion, our federal government needs to be wire brushed down to constitutional bare metal

Grandpa Silverfiddle started life as a tenant farmer and ended up a gardener and handyman after retiring as a machinist.  He loved gardening and fixing things up.  He went to work for an elderly lady who owned what looked almost like a walled estate.  I walked by it every day on the way to school.  I'm sure the placed was a jewel when it was built back at the turn of the century, but time had taken its toll, and grandpa was fixing it up little by little.

He put me to work one day on an ugly section of thick wire fence that ran between two sections of stone wall.  It looked all fat and lumpy and I would pass by it on the way to school wondering what it's purpose was.  Well, after scraping away a bajillion layers of paint and rust, I found that it was a gate.  The hinges, once freed and oiled, worked great, and that big globby looking thing at the top was actually a fairly intricate piece of ironwork complete with scrolls, curlicues and delicate fluting.  It looked pretty good when I got done with it, a fancy piece of the past.

The US Constitution is smothered in bureaucracy 
Our beautiful constitution is so accreted with layers of legislation and judicial corrosion it is no longer recognizable.  Our problems stem from the federal government trying to be all things to all people. It has burst its constitutional bounds.

The statists of both parties sold us on 20th century one-size-fits-all bromides that have clearly failed.

We are a diverse nation, and that calls for robust local and state governments, with the federal government retreating to within the bounds of it's constitutional duties: Defense, borders, national infrastructure.

Leave health care, schools and public assistance to the states and local communities.

Below are a whole bunch of links to smart people who say it way better than I ever could.

Enjoy!
 
USA Today - Government's Role

Philip K. Howard - Drowning in Law

Peggy Noonan - Why we Resent the Elites

Walter Russell Mead - Tough Choices for Dems

William D. Cohan - Make Wall Street Risk it All

Philip K Howard - Clean Out Government

Big Government - 10 Suggestions

Uncle, Can you Spare a Dime?

AmericanFirstPrinciples.org

The number of individuals employed under the Constitution of the United States will be much smaller than the number employed under the particular States. There will consequently be less of personal influence on the side of the former than of the latter. -- James Madison, Federalist 45

Another quaint idea stood on its head by 100 years of progressivism...

Senators John McCain and Tom Coburn, doing the job liberal senators just won’t do, have produced a catalog of “stimulus” waste.  Liberals and their press apologists are responding with howls of indignation.

Regardless of the value of exotic ant study, or the merits of giving monkeys cocaine, questions remain:

Why is the federal government providing money for private enterprise projects?

Why do the states have to go begging to the federal government to replace municipal sidewalks?

What if the federal government confined itself to its constitutionally mandated responsibilities instead of trying to “run the country,” running us all broke in the process?

Liberal use of that phrase, “run the country” belies the progressive poison that has leached into our national bloodstream. To progressive anti-constitutionalists, we are subjects to be rewarded by paternalistic philosopher kings raining pennies from Washington.

This perversion encourages state subordination to the federal government and fosters dependency, and that’s just the way progressives imagine it should be.

Fight the Power!
Imagine a world where the states kept more of the tax money of their constituents and took care of their own issues, instead of Coloradans paying for a project in Washington.

At times like this it is helpful to read the founders, while pondering boiling frogs...

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce...”

The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. -- James Madison, Federalist 45

There is much wisdom in how the founders set things up. Local and state governments are better positioned to tailor their efforts to the needs of the people. At just under 5 million Americans, we were not a one-size-fits-all nation when the US Constitution was ratified, and we sure as hell ain’t a one-size-fits-all nation now.

“I see,… and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power…  -- Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1825. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, ME 16:146

Imagine what Jefferson would say today...

Gay Rights, States Rights

The Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is in trouble. A federal judge ruled last week that Massachusetts law trump federal law in this case

“This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status,” Judge Tauro wrote in the case brought by Ms. Coakley. “The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state.” (NY Times)

I agree. The US Constitution is silent concerning marriage. It has always been a state issue. Besides being a victory for gay rights, it is also a victory for states rights.

Religious conservatives are not happy
Chris Gacek, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a leading conservative group, said he was disappointed by the decision.

“The idea that a court can say that this definition of marriage that’s been around forever is irrational is mind-boggling,” Mr. Gacek said. “It’s a bad decision.”

I agree with Gacek, but he is on very thin constitutional ice. 

In a related article, The Times goes a gathering opinions from Tea Party Americans. They come away disappointed. Everyone they talked to said hooray for states rights while expressing no support for gay marriage. Nuance from neanderthals... Who’d a thunk it?

Here are the issues going forward:
Now that the right of a state to set it’s own marriage laws has been reaffirmed, will a good conservative state like Utah be allowed to ban gay marriage? No way. A very good case can be made that this is a civil rights issue.

Even if a state were to fend off such lawsuits, Article 4 Section 1 of the US Constitution would force one state to accept another state’s marriage license.

Could the government eventually compel a church to perform gay marriages? Could a church be prosecuted via US Code or face a discrimination lawsuit for refusing?


A Semantic Criticism 
Many believe the term “marriage” should be reserved for traditional man-woman relationships, since that is the historical meaning of the word. I would like to see the states get out of “marriage” altogether and instead focus on administering civil partnerships and sorting out the rights therein.  Leave marriage to churches and synagogues.

Elton John agrees:

“What is wrong with Proposition 8 is that they went for marriage. Marriage is going to put a lot of people off, the word marriage… I don’t want to be married. I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership… You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.” -- Elton John  (Big Hollywood)

Progressivism: A Vapid and Hollow Charade

GOP senators should filibuster the Kagan nomination.  I know, they’d lose.  But they would hopefully awaken somnolent American citizens to the loss of their natural rights.


In a rare blip of actual substance, Kagan revealed she would not move to overturn a law mandating every citizen eat a congressionally-prescribed amount of vegetable every day.  If Congress can tell us what to eat under threat of prosecution, what can they not do?  (See George Will’s questions for Elena Kagan here and here)


Prosecute Kagan for Lying to Congress
Kagan also professed ignorance of the term “Judicial Progressivism.”  This and her her studied agnosticism on natural rights (upon which our nation was founded), are enough to indict her for lying to Congress.

She was dean of Harvard Law School and she knows nothing of these issues?  Either Harvard got ripped off big time, or she’s a liar.


If a Man Can Grant it to You, A Man can Take it Away
Jacob Sullum, in his excellent Reason article explains the importance of natural rights:

Constitutional interpretation aside, Kagan's reluctance to endorse the concept of pre-existing rights was troubling because without it we cannot draw moral distinctions between legal regimes.

How can we condemn a dictator for legally authorized oppression, or say that our own Constitution is better now that it bans slavery than it was when it tacitly approved the practice?

The traditional American answer is that people have certain rights by virtue of being human, regardless of what the law says.

I include the two George Will articles because they are good thought pieces that help us ordinary folks think through constitutional concepts with concrete, real-world questions.

* - Kagan years ago called Supreme Court nomination hearings, "Vapid and hollow charades."

The Decline and Fall of Nothing

It's always been fun sport for Schadenfreudistas to predict America's decline.  Tim Cavanaugh at Reason has a wry take on it all: 

"The problem isn’t that things are collapsing. It’s that not enough things are collapsing. General Motors, AIG, and the government of California have committed enough errors to merit immediate extinction, but there they still are."

We've destroyed our constitution and replaced it with a progressive bulwark against Schumpeter's creative destruction.  America's centerpiece is now a Bill of Rights for the venal and the stupid, constantly updated by an elected criminal class.

Like the energizer bunny, America's failures keep going and going, while the successful pick up the tab.  

We have the government we deserve.

It's the Statism, Stupid!

The whole barracks was in the state of filth and chaos to which the militia reduced every building they occupied and which seems to be one of the by-products of revolution.  (George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia)

Everybody to the right of national embarrassment Jimmy Carter has been smeared and declared out of bounds by propagandists in the media and the craven clot of liberals who eagerly await their daily marching orders.

The left must trash everything in order to advance their twisted progressive agenda

All conservative thinking is a thought crime.

All conservative and libertarian speech emanating from the tea parties is hate speech.

Recent gun rallies produced no violence, but the fevered left insists against all evidence that we are irresponsible and murderous.

Liberal Agitprop:  Have you heard the one about the powerful woman, the homosexual and the black man?


Pelosi and a diverse gang of liberal democrats marched through a tea party crowd in DC, trying their damnedest to provoke a hateful outburst.  A powerful woman, a gay chairman and a black man, oh my!  All they were missing was a Muslim Mufti and and a she-male in a leather thong.

"The banjo playing morons can't resist this bait!" they imagined.

Despite the plethora of cameras trained on this left-wing agitprop, no evidence of hate or racism was produced.  A skittles bowl of patriotic Americans show up at tea parties, but we're still called racist.  The conservative bastion known as the US Military continues to be the nation's preeminent showpiece of racial, gender and cultural egalitarianism, but it is scorned by much of the left.

Meanwhile, angry diaper rash ranters like Randi Rhodes, Keith Olbermann, and Ed Schultz are held up as heroes by the left... 

This is not left versus right.  It is Liberty versus Tyranny
Their aim is to protect and defend a collapsing statist model.  It has steamrollered our liberties for over 100 years and now has us on the brink of bankruptcy.  The collapse is not just financial.  The State suffers an  intellectual and moral rot as well.

Watchdogs or Horndogs? Where's the real greed? A race to the bottom...

Progressives say more government is the remedy.  Oh really?  You mean like the SEC watchdogs who were really porn-surfing horndogs?  How about the government unions angrily demanding more money when 10% of the country is unemployed?  A teacher's union that has driven our kids' academic performance to third-world toilet status?  That kind of government? 
 
Danger!  People are waking up and talking about the constitution!

Have you noticed something?  We talk about the constitution, the founders, first principles.

The statists and their patsies on the left talk about racism, hate, and what morons we are.

See the difference?  We want a debate.  They smear us to avoid the debate because they cannot win.  They don't have the intellectual firepower.  They have deconstructionism, angry grievances, Plouffian propaganda, and Sunstein's buggerish nudgery. 

We have The Founding Fathers, natural law, free market capitalism and the US Constitution on our side.  It's no contest.  No wonder they smear and scream.  They cannot win the debate, so they try to shut it down.  Like all bullies who hijack the state to impose their will on the masses, at their core they are cowards.

They have reduced themselves and everything they've touched to a state of filth and chaos.  It's a natural by-product of the progressive revolution.

NUFF SAID?

"I'm now putting together legislation [so that] any individual American citizen who is found to be involved in a foreign terrorist organization, as defined by the Department of State, would be deprived of their citizenship rights," Lieberman said. (ID-Conn)

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) agreed with Lieberman: "Americans should lose their citizenship rights "if they're designated an enemy combatant"

"If someone acts like a terrorist and cooperates with people intent on war against the United States, they should be treated as terrorists and not as a common criminal. And no, they should not be read their Miranda rights," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

"If this individual has information that could help us prevent future attacks and loss of life, nothing should stand in the way of that, including Miranda rights," -Marco Rubio (R)

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/05/joe-lieberman-introduces-bill.html

McCarthyism Alive and Well in Congress.. are you now or have you ever been affiliated with a terrorist organization?

The idea of granting unelected members of the State Department the power to strip an American of their citizenship would be absurdly funny if they weren't serious.

~Finntann~

Of Course Government is Broken

The image of the benevolent politician working tirelessly for the public good still makes some of us feel all warm inside, like when we think of Santa Clause or our childhood days.

But like those warm conjurings, it is at best a distant memory or at worse a complete fantasy that never was.  Mr. Smith has left the building.

D. W. MacKenzie has brilliantly summed up my thoughts on politics and government

American politics is not broken: it is working in the dysfunctional way that it should be working, given its unwieldy size and scope.

What may be breaking are naïve idealistic beliefs that politicians can use a large and intrusive government to serve "the people." And the demise of such beliefs would be a good thing.

The Solution?  A Strictly Limited Constitutional Government

We certainly should not give bureaucrats power over healthcare — or any other commercial industry for that matter.

There is, however, a third option. Strictly limited constitutional government is relatively immune to both special interests and ideologues. Constitutional government limited to providing internal and external security can be evaluated by objective criteria.[4]

A return to limited government would, of course, mean much greater reliance on private enterprise and unhampered markets. The record of private institutions is, when carefully examined, strong.[5]  Source:  (Mises-MacKenzie)

Teach Your Children

I took the older kids skiing yesterday.  Driving through South Park listening to Neil Young, Bob Dylan and MCR, we had a good talk.  (Yes, there really is a South Park, but it's not a town; it's a big wide open space between the front range and the Collegiate Peaks.

We talked about our faith...

"Yes, I do have doubts sometime.  You should never be afraid to question."

"No, I don't agree with everything our church teaches 100%, but I believe the big things, and I understand why they teach some small things I may not like to hear."

Our Rights Come from God
We talked about our natural rights and how they are enshrined in the constitution.  My kids understand that their rights come from God, not men.  The founders said that, not me.

No trashing of President Obama or dumping on those who voted for him, just a conversation about first principles and how do-gooders have warped our government all out of shape so that the founders would not recognize it.  

A Revolution of the Mind
People are now talking about another civil war.  The Democrats have indeed started one with their unilateral, highly partisan shot at our basic individual rights.  But this is a war of ideas.  They have slogans and emotions, we have Locke, Jefferson and Madison.  And the ballot box.  And kids asking questions.

My kids will do fine as long as they continue to hold these American values sacred, maintain a healthy skepticism and insist on thinking for themselves.

An Intellectual Poverty
Meanwhile, those who look to a mere mortal for "hope" will continue to suffer an intellectual poverty, a miserable absence of imagination.  Waiting for a hero, a man, to give you free stuff is a sure recipe for more poverty and misery.  Is there any greater example of hopelessness?

When we got home, I slipped my arm around the beautiful Mrs. Silverfiddle's slender waist and grilled us up some pork chops.  She loves God more than me, and that's OK.  I downed a shot of Jack and picked up my fiddle and played.  This is America.  Kids still question everything and buffalo still roam.

Tomorrow is another day.

Progressives Unbalanced

Progressive Constitutional Abuse
The enumerated powers of Congress are detailed in Article 1, section 8. Governmental abuse of two clauses in particular cause much mischief:  The Commerce Clause and the General Welfare Clause. 

Progressives have been on a Long March over the past 100 years to stretch these two clauses so out of shape that anything whatsoever they dream up may be justified by one or the other.  These two abused clauses are now so capacious that they can hold the weighty and dubious notion that the federal government can compel you to buy health care.  Why not make us all buy a new car or fall out of calisthenics every morning? 
 
Restoring Balance Will Not Be Easy
GOP Senatorial hopeful Ken Buck recently lamented the encroachment of the Federal government upon the rights of the states and the people.  He easily ticked off various examples, but he added that it would not be easy to restore balance after so many years of abuse. 

We Can't Just Yank it Back
If conservatives were to regain control, we cannot simply yank the steering wheel back to the right.  Liberals just tried yanking things their way, with disastrous results.

You've got to logically and intellectually make your case to the American people.  We resisted being herded to the left.  But a high-handed stampede to the right will also end in failure, with many rightist rustlers sliding over a cliff while voters scramble for the safety of the middle ground.

It's an intellectual battle
Liberals have failed to explain their programs, specifically health care.  They hysterically accuse conservatives of blaring disinformation from the right wing noise machine and scream about Republicans being in cahoots with "big pharma" and "big"insurance."  Nevermind that Obama has cut deals with both groups. 

Liberal columnists throw up their hands, "The average voter is just too stupid to realize a good thing when he sees it!"

That is the problem.  Instead of logically and intellectually explaining what's in the 2,000 pages, they get impatient and call names.  Once you do that, you're done.

If you're trying to sell me something, the burden is on you to convince me to part with my money.  If I'm too stupid to realize just how good a deal this is, then you need to talk slower and explain it better. 

If I can't understand the benefit, I'm not parting with my money.  That's a basic conservative principle that even liberals practice in their own private lives.

The Religious Right

There's a tension between cultural conservatives and their more secular libertarian cousins  

I think the NY Times and other liberal founts of inanity make too much of tea party splits, and differences between social conservatives and their more libertarian cousins.  They want us at each others' throats.  

God is Great

I don't want my elected officials to stand up and shout "God is great!"  I want them to stand up for the constitution and shout "The First Amendment is great!"

My Dogma is better than Your Dogma

We have been bullied by activist judges and liberal loudmouth lawyers into shutting up in the public marketplace of ideas.  They put issues like immigration, God and gay marriage beyond the pale of acceptable discourse.  If you are not on their side, you are a bigot, or worse, you may run afoul of hate speech codes.

This is wrong.  A high school valedictorian has the right to invoke Jesus in her speech, and others have a right to not listen.  This does not constitute the state coercing anyone into believing anything.  Christian moralists have a right to publicly oppose homosexual marriage, just as others have the right to rail against what they perceive as religious bigotry.

Keep Your Politicians out of My Family Values

I'm all for "Family Values."  My family and I live them on a daily basis; I don't need politicians blabbering on about them.  I merely want my elected officials to defend the constitution.

If you love God and love your country, a vigorous defense of The Constitution is the best you can hope for from your government.  Indeed if you believe in the constitution, you would want it no other way.

The Constitution does not mandate a religious morality.  It does restate our God given right to speak, worship and otherwise express ourselves in the public square.  If our Judeo-Christian morality is a good thing (and I believe it is) it can withstand public scrutiny and criticism in the free market place of ideas.