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.

Concealed carry is serious business

Anti-gun progressives just don't get it, and they won't be happy until the state has disarmed everyone

According to bed-wetter William Saletan, we’re lucky. He tells the story of armed citizen Joe Zamudio, who heard the shots coming from the Safeway that fateful Saturday when a congresswoman, a judge, a nine-year old girl, and other innocent victims were gunned down in cold blood...




 

This is a much more dangerous picture than has generally been reported. Zamudio had released his safety and was poised to fire when he saw what he thought was the killer still holding his weapon. Zamudio had a split second to decide whether to shoot. He was sufficiently convinced of the killer's identity to shove the man into a wall. But Zamudio didn't use his gun. That's how close he came to killing an innocent man. He was, as he acknowledges, "very lucky."

That's what happens when you run with a firearm to a scene of bloody havoc. In the chaos and pressure of the moment, you can shoot the wrong person. Or, by drawing your weapon, you can become the wrong person—a hero mistaken for a second gunman by another would-be hero with a gun. Bang, you're dead. Or worse, bang bang bang bang bang: a firefight among several armed, confused, and innocent people in a crowd. It happens even among trained soldiers. Among civilians, the risk is that much greater.

We're enormously lucky that Zamudio, without formal training, made the right split-second decisions. We can't count on that the next time some nut job starts shooting.

BULLSPIT!

Only a gun-fearing, thumb-sucking big-government sheeple could draw such a conclusion. In fact, a reasonable person draws the exact opposite conclusion from the story. Two armed citizens acting not like the trigger-happy cowboys that populate the cringing imaginations of gun-grabbers, but two men taking measure of the situation and acting on the side of prudence and caution.  The total absence of such fanciful stories Saletin conjures is a glaring refutation of his conclusion.

We do not have concealed carry citizens shooting up crime scenes, killing innocent bystanders and other would-be rescuers. I just hasn’t happened. I can say that with confidence without doing my characteristic research. Had even one such event ever occurred in the last 30 years, the liberal media would still be shouting through bullhorns about it.

Mr. Zamudio’s story, combined with the absence of Saletin’s fearful fantasies, proves that Americans are adults and can be trusted with their rights, including the right to arm themselves.

If gun restrictions are so effective, why do “gun free zones” like New Jersey and California experience more gun violence than free-carry states like Arizona, Montana and Colorado?

http://www.slate.com/id/2280794/

Live and Let Die: The Creepy Side of Progressivism

With progressive screams of “Palin is an accessory to murder!” still fouling the air, a story emerges from Philadelphia of a macabre chamber of horrors sponsored, funded and championed by progressives. 

The gory details of abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s charnel house read like something out of a Wes Craven movie. Sadly, it’s all real, right here in America.

A Twisted Idea of Morality
The morality of a woman’s right to choose trumping human life is twisted and repulsive. It is important to recall that this dubious concept was developed by the likes of racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger. A progressive hero, Sanger’s work was referenced by Nazis as justification for killing not just Jews, but gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, the elderly and generally anyone else who was unwanted by society or deemed undesirable.




Think I’m being harsh? Let’s try out one of the abortion advocates’ favorite thought exercises, The Fireman’s Dilemma:

You’re a fireman rushing into a burning building with only seconds to spare. You spy a three-year old girl on the right, and a petri dish containing 20 fertilized human embryos on the left. You only have time to save one, which do you save? One life or 20?

It’s a ridiculous hypothetical trap set to spring on pro-lifers. Its purpose is to suck us into the depraved world of "moral" judgments where we weigh the value of one human life against another. Questions such as this are employed by philosophers to plumb the depths of a thought or idea, but treating it as if it has relevance in real life is absurd. And when has something like this ever really happened? Even if the hypothetical fireman had time to discern that the dish contained fertilized ova, his natural instinct would be to grab the fearful, crying girl and go. In real life, you do what you can.

The Devil’s Dilemma
Here’s the creepy, progressive eugenics part of this thought experiment: What if the choice were between an old person and a young person? Do you save a severely handicapped man or the beautiful and healthy young woman? Does a Chinese research scientist with a 180 IQ get saved instead of a cute little Mexican boy who is illiterate and struggles in his special ed classes?

See where this leads? Human beings have no right to evaluate the worthiness of other human beings and decide who lives and who dies. It is a slippery slope to hell greased with the blood of “undesirables.”

To the pro-choice crowd I ask, how can you condemn this man? 
How can you call this murder, but killing the baby inside the mother OK? Do your morals really hinge on such a thin legal distinction?

Based on pro-abortion logic, this man should not be tried for murdering the babies because the mothers wanted these children dead and he ran a legal practice that did just that.

This is the legal fiction (as Rick Santorum calls it) we have in this country: If the mother does not want the baby, he is tissue and can be aborted. If he is fortunate enough to be wanted by the mother, the law confers person-hood on him and it is murder to kill him.

Pro-abortion advocates cannot call for Gosnell being charged with murder without contradicting their own stance.

Safe, Legal and Rare
The Margaret Sanger Eugenics wing of the Democratic party likes to repeat over and over how abortion should be “safe, legal and rare,” warning us of the dangers of illegal, back alley abortions that harm and kill women if we outlawed the practice. Well, abortion is legal. So tell us how this house of horrors happened?

http://www.slate.com/id/2281812/

Margaret Sanger, Sterilization and the Swastika

Black Genocide – How Planned Parenthood duped America

A Dark Past – Jonah Goldberg

Philly.com – Gruesome Details

Good Reads for a Saturday

I'm working overtime when I should be up in the mountains skiing or out on the plains hunting. Can't complain, beats the heck out of being unemployed...

Here are some good reads for a Saturday:

Victor Davis Hanson really slams sheriff Dupnik, asking why he blames everyone but himself, since evidence now shows his office had various run-ins with the killer but apparently had a standing catch and release policy.

More disturbing still, if Dupnik were right that a pre-existing conservative climate of hate-engendered politics was not only pervasive in Tucson, but also might prompt an unstable person to kill, why had he not dispatched at least one of his 500 officers to patrol the open-air public event sponsored by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords?

Hard to argue with that logic. Here’s more…

Dupnik is a good example of an increasingly common bad habit of local politicians to resort to cosmic sermonizing when more mundane challenges go unaddressed.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was a past master of lecturing about the cosmic while sometimes ignoring the more concrete. Governing the boroughs of an often-chaotic New York City is nearly impossible. Pontificating on the evils of smoking, fatty foods and supposed anti-Muslim bigotry was not only far easier but had established the mayor as a national figure of sensitivity and caring, praised for his progressive declarations by supporters of everything from global warming to abortion.

But Bloomberg's carefully constructed philosopher's image was finally shattered by the December 2010 blizzard and his own asleep-at-the-wheel reaction. An incompetent municipal response to record snowfalls barricaded millions in their borough houses and apartments, amid lurid rumors of deliberate union-sponsored slowdowns by Bloomberg's city crews. (VDH - Global Sermonizing)

Hanson moves on to California in much the same vein. Elected officials should stop “cosmic sermonizing,” shut up and do what the taxpayers are paying them to do.

John Hood has written piece in National Affairs entitled, The States in Crisis, in which he presents the cold hard facts, complete with charts. It is the best presentation I’ve seen so far that explains what’s going on with state budgets.

He starts off with the scary tidbit that state government employed various budget tricks back in the good times, and the recession has now hastened the calamitous reckoning that inevitably follows such chicanery.

Could bankruptcy be in some states' futures?  Sounds scary, but not nearly as scary as them picking our pockets and carrying on as if nothing needs to change. 

It Was a Very Good Week

"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." -- Frederic Bastiat

The Wisdom of George Will...

It takes a worried man to sing a worried song, and in a recent speech that seemed like Larry Summers's swan song, the president's now-departed economic adviser warned that America is "at risk of a profound demoralization with respect to government."

The idea that America's problem of governance is one of inadequate resources misses this lesson of the last half-century: No amount of resources can prevent government from performing poorly when it tries to perform too many tasks, or particular tasks for which it is inherently unsuited.

Actually, government is not sufficiently demoralized. (George Will)

Representative Giffords' recovery proceeds at a miraculous pace, and the big lefty smear has failed. The House voted to repeal health care, and I'm still employed.  It's been a good week.

Have a great weekend!

Consequences

We are suffering the consequences of decisions made at the federal, state and local government level

These decisions were made by people we elected, so the pain we are going through is self-inflicted.  The first step on the road to recovery is to own up to our mistakes.  Victor Davis Hanson has a good article on the agitated state of those who are mired in a misery of their own making but still refuse to own up.

The problem as I see it is that government has protected us from the consequences of our actions.  Put more specifically, those areas of public and private life that are shielded from the results of irresponsible behavior become chaotic, dysfunctional, bankrupt.

Imagine if you were shielded from the consequences of your actions in your own personal life... 

You could cuss out the boss and beat up that annoying coworker in the parking lot and drive home satisfied in a car you decided to stop making payments on.  Drink till you fall down, buy a continuous stream of electronic goodies, to hell with the household budget.  No hangovers, kick the bills down the road... What a life! 

The real world doesn't work that way, and we know it.  Yet we allowed silver-tongued government orators to sprinkle magic pixie dust on everything and suspend disbelief.  

"Predatory Lending" and Other Government-Sponsored Ideas

Have you heard that public service radio spot about avoiding predatory lenders?  It encourages the blissfully ignorant to ask questions before they sign those mortgage documents.

Am I the only one who finds the idea of "predatory lenders" absurd?  Think about it.  If you suddenly found yourself flush with $10 million after hitting the lotto and decided you wanted to make more money, would you do so by "predatory lending?"  Would you accost poor people on the street, "Here, take this cash you can't pay back!"  Of course you wouldn't.  That would be a quick road to losing your newfound fortune.

End Government Backing of All Mortgages

Now, what if the federal government agreed to step in and assume responsibility for the loans you write, relieving you of all responsibility when the borrower defaults?  Then you'd probably hand the loans out like candy and get fat on the up front fees and interest you collect before the crash.  That is how the mortgage crisis happened.  The federal government, through Fannie and Freddie, shielded the lenders from the consequences of their shoddy lending practices.  The federal government now holds around 90% of all mortgages:  The good, the bad and the ugly, which means we're all on the hook for the irresponsibility of the government and our fellow citizens.

End Government Insurance of Wall Street

The Wall Street crash and subsequent raid on the US Treasury by Dirty Hank Paulson's band of pirates is a similar tale.  The DC-NY Axis of Evil plays a game of "heads Wall Street wins, tails taxpayers lose," encouraging wild speculation binges.  We shield big banking from the consequences of its actions and then wonder why the bankster bandits rip us off to pay their gambling debts.  If they had to worry about losing the house, or Guido busting their kneecaps, they would act responsibly.

Stop Rewarding Bad Behavior with Government Cash

Individual citizens who have no shame can cash in as well.  Swill sucrose-laden drinks, eat like a hog until you're too fat to fit through your front door, and you can collect disability, making a mockery of the system and tarring with the same shameful brush those who legitimately receive benefits.  Take drugs and drop out of school and you are eligible for government housing, food stamps and other taxpayer-funded assistance.  Crank out kids you can't afford and Uncle Sam will step in, shake down the taxpayers and reward you for your copious breeding habits.  Serial impregnators love that one.  They can knock her up and leave, knowing we suckers will pick up the tab.

It's time we faced up to the consequences of our actions, on a governmental as well as a personal level.

FCC: Fascists Controlling Communication

Inside Every Progressive is a Tyrant Struggling to be Free... And Oppress Others

When liberals like Al Crapton (he calls Limbaugh "Lumbar," so I call Sharpton, "Crapton") shout about conservatives having no right to talk on public airwaves, it means liberal talk radio is getting its ass kicked by conservatives.

When irrelevant nobodies like the Reverend or any MSNBC ranter talks like this, no one even takes notice anymore. Their audience can fit in a port-o-potty.

But when a government official proposes such dangerous and un-American absurdities, it's time to sit up and take notice.

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps is proposing all radio and TV stations that broadcast over public airwaves submit to a "public values test."

Copps had suggested that the test would make a broadcaster's license renewal contingent upon proof that they meet a prospective set of federal criteria. (Hillicon Valley – FCC Push)

Local boards packed with angry, agenda-driven liberals would sit in judgment on radio and tv stations, using government-approved criteria such as "Diversity Compliance."  Gotta have the government recommended daily amount of one legged lesbian church bishops, gay soldiers, peace-loving Muslims and of course the stupidest species in America:  The White Male Father and Husband!

Progressives cannot win in the free marketplace of ideas so they propose to use the coercive power of the state to shut it all down.

Media outlets would be required to submit to the Ministry of Truth disclosure reports and programming plans proving their worthiness and "meaningful commitment to public affairs and news programming."  Progressive toadies and bullhorn-wielding activists at the local level will be the foot soldiers in this Obama-approved Hush Rush campaign.  

And make no mistake, Copps and his fellow statists want to expand their purview to all communications outlets, including cable and internet.  Here is Der Kommissar in his own words:

"What we've had in recent years is an aberration where we have had no oversight of the media.

It's a pretty serious situation that we're in. I think American media has a bad case of substance abuse right now. We are not producing the body of news and information that democracy needs to conduct its civic dialogue [...] we have to reverse that trend." (Copps quoted at NewsBusters)

Is this guy crazy? We've got news coming out our ears. Yes, much of it is sports and celebrity-driven frivolity, but serious news and analysis is as close as your computer keyboard or local library periodicals section.

All Palin, All the Time
Maybe he has in mind a press that flocked to Alaska for synchronized Sara Palin dumpster dives?  This same press corps spent more time investigating an Ohio plumber than they did the Democratic nominee for president. Is this the news media dereliction the FCC Kommissar seeks to stamp out?  I doubt it.

The IBD editors ask the most important question:

Who is Copps to make such demands? And why does a man who thinks like a tyrant hold such a high-ranking position in the U.S. government?

It's reasonable to ask, as Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas did in a letter to Copps this week, if the commissioner means to give the federal governmentthe power to determine what content is available for Americans to consume. (IBD)

Indeed.  The federal government and its batwinged gargoyles like Copps are not neutral.  They are biased and are therefore unfit to be the arbiters of what free men and women can or cannot read, see and hear.  We're smart enough to figure it out on our own without a paternalistic statist holding our hand.  MSNBC's ratings are in the toilet; America knows crap when they see it.