A Constitutional New Year

Message to Politicians:  It's The Constitution, Stupid!

It is crystal clear, from the writings of the founders and from the constitution itself, that the Federal Government is to be a limited government with specifically enumerated powers.  Those powers not mentioned in the constitution are retained by the states and the people.

I tuned into the Rush Limbaugh Show last Thursday as I was running around getting some errands done. Walter E Williams, Economist of the People, was filling in, and as usual, he was on fire!  Here is the gist of his argument:

Article 1, Section 8 lists the specific powers delegated to Congress by the people. Unfortunately, Congress has stretched the General Welfare clause so out of shape, general welfare now means whatever they want it to, to include picking your pocket for the welfare of those who choose not to work, or the electoral welfare of pork laden politicians.

Jefferson predicted this over 200 years ago

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."

He also said this:

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare.... [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless."

It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please."

An indefinite, unlimited government...

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions." -- James Madison, "Letter to Edmund Pendleton,"

"[T]he powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction." -- James Madison, Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention [June 6, 1788]

Federal Government's Powers are Limited and Enumerated

When some lib ignoramus accuses you of cherry picking quotes, drop these bombs on them:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. --9th Amendment to the US Constitution

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. -- 10th Amendment to the US Constitution

Frederic Bastiat also had something to say about our venal, constitutionally ignorant politicians and their dirty intertwinings with businesses and special interests:

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." -- French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

Our arrogant politicians think they know better than the men who wrote our constitution and formed our government.  It's time to wrench their dirty, stinking hands off of the levers of power. They have led us to the brink of financial bankruptcy, but this was preceded by a moral and intellectual bankruptcy.

Register to vote.  Get ten like-minded family, friends and co-workers to do the same.  Then help them get to the voting booth.  The ballot is the last non-violent means we have to restore sanity to our great nation.  I have faith in God that we can do it.   

For a quick guide to getting yourself up to speed on the constitution, see US Constitution Made Easy!


Senator Orrin Hatch has written a straightforward article explaining why the proposed health care legislation is unconstitutional.  Read it Here.

Michael Eden

Knowledge and Flamethrowers

Intellectual Ammo:  Know your US Constitution
The Internet makes it easy.

Ontological Angst:  Press Protests the Protesters

Instead of Reporting, the press picks up the left's arguments and thows them at TEA Partiers:

The press eats this propaganda up and spreads it like manure, where a thousand liberal fantasies bloom. No argumentation, no logic examinations, just channeling the emotion.

Villainous Company has a funny piece on helping President Obama win other awards.

Obama's Science Czar Demonstrates the Dangers of Progressivism

Why is John Holdren a perfect progressive?

Because he believes in grand government schemes cooked up and implemented by cognoscenti rather than letting people make their own decisions. Secondly, he has no regard for the constitution, or he is purposely stupid about its meaning. This is a dangerous combination

Population Bombs and Other Progressive Power Grabs
Zombietime has the definitive summary on his population control views, complete with page scans from the book Holdren wrote with the Ehrlichs of "The Population Bomb" fame. If you want to understand the issue completely, along with rebuttals from the Obama camp, go read that article.

Chris Mooney at Science Progress mounts a defense of Holdren, but the best he can come up with is that Holdren, in his book, was merely presenting an array or resume of population control methods, not actually advocating any of the abhorrent practices. Read his article then go to Zombietime and decide for yourself.

Holdren's Constitutional Ignorance
My criticism of this man is aimed at his obvious constitutional ignorance. Here is what Holdren wrote on page 838 of the 1977 Book, Ecoscience:

Individual rights. Individual rights must be balanced against the power of the government to control human reproduction.

Some people—respected legislators, judges, and lawyers included—have viewed the right to have children as a fundamental and inalienable right. Yet neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce.

Where the society has a “compelling, subordinating interest” in regulating population size, the right of the individual may be curtailed.

How did congress let this constitutionally ignorant man assume an executive branch position? No right to reproduce in the constitution? Well, there's no right to smoke cigarettes, write a book or get an abortion in there, either.

The Constitution is not an exhaustive list of our rights. It is a contract between the people, the individual states, and the federal government that was set up to serve them.

Consider the 10th Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Holdren and his ilk have is bass-ackwards
Our rights come from God, not the government. Holdren, good progressive that he is, has it exactly backwards. In his worldview, Government is all-powerful and the rights of the people are limited.

WRONG!

The Constitution limits the powers of government to what is stated in the document and acknowledges that the rights of individuals can only be circumscribed in specific instances. For a good, short commentary on this amendment, see Findlaw.

Progressives: Wrong on Eugenics, Wrong on Population Predictions, Wrong on Global Warming

That these neo-Malthusians were oh so wrong about the "population bomb," that was supposed to have killed millions by now, should give us pause as we consider the hysterical global warming claims. Predictive science is only as good as the models. And global warming advocates, like the overpopulation screamers before them, are working off of simplistic and highly speculative models with more gaps than data.

Also, ask Europe, Russia and China how population control is working out. A preponderance of old people with no one to care for them, and in Europe's case, people from other parts of the world come in to fill the vacuum, fundamentally changing the continent's culture.

This is why grand progressive schemes should always be viewed with skepticism.

Washington Examiner
Shepherd's Voice
Zombietime.com - Page Scan
LifeNews.com
Daily Dose
Zombietime.com - Holdren
Science Progress - Chris Mooney

Rifqa Bary: The Muslim Girl and the Christian Pastor

The Christian Come Hither

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - The fate of a 17-year-old girl who ran away from her Ohio home because she says she feared punishment for converting from Islam to Christianity could be decided in an Orlando courtroom Friday.

The teenager disappeared last month and police used phone and computer records to track her to the Rev. Blake Lorenz, pastor of Orlando, Fla.-based Global Revolution Church, who she had met through an online Facebook prayer group.

My first thought was, this one's easy.

Send her back to her family and prosecute Reverend Blake Lorenz for luring a minor child.

Yes, I know about the Muslim husband who cut his wife's head off in New York, as well as the Muslim father in Georgia who strangled his daughter to death because of his twisted, 7th century sense of honor. We also have the Texas "honor" killings.

Still in question is whether this young lady, Rifqa Bary, is in that kind of danger. He parents found out awhile back, and they were mad as hell, I'm sure. But she's still alive, which says something in her father's defense.

Too many things don't smell right. 17 year old girls are famous for being drama queens, even more so than Muslims are for decapitations. I saw the YouTube video and all I kept thinking was, she's saying exactly what those church people want to hear. And this whole episode is quite an advertisement and money boost for the pastor who used the internet to lure her to Florida. Striking a blow against Islam is just icing on the cake.

Could this be merely a cultural and generational clash gone viral?

I'd like to know more about what went on back in Ohio. How are her grades? Are boyfriends or some other teen-parent conflict behind this? Any parent can tell you how a simple matter can spin out of control when angry parents and emotional teens are involved. Religious conviction in the mix just makes the situation hotter. Her Christian faith could be sincere and her parents could be really mad, but that doesn't prove her dad will kill her.

Hillary Clinton and Marian Wright Edelman Would be Proud

The family unit is sacrosanct, and unless lawbreaking is going on, no judge or pastor or anyone else has any business poking their nose in. This is a fundamental freedom that conservative Christians usually stand up for.

I guess if you agreed with preemptive war, it's not much of a stretch to support preemptive justice. It's all well and good until Uncle Sam decides to bust up your Jesus Camp and liberate your brain-washed kids from your home and your authority.

To those who are convinced this is a black and white case, ask yourself this question: If this were a 17-year old girl from a fundamentalist Christian family running into the arms of an imam, would you still be sticking up for the girl and the mosque?

Once again, you can't use the honor killing excuse. If such arguments were valid, the Branch Davidian episode could be used to outlaw Christians having custody of their children.
It remains to be seen if this girl's life is really in danger. I trust the good judge in Florida will sort that out in due time,

One thing's for certain: Reverend Blake Lorenz must be prosecuted under Florida law for Luring a Minor.

* Update: I posted this over at Free Republic and got over 60 comments. You can read them here. Although debate was empassioned, it never stooped to the level of the kook left sites. Conservatives are good people, especially Freepers.

ABC News
Breitbart
Bailaman
YouTube - Rifqa Bary

America For Sale

The US Treasury will put you and I further in hock to China this week, to the tune of $100,000,000,000

You've heard all the buzz-phrases: Overleveraged... Mortgaging our future... Upside down... Under water. My favorite: They bought too much house.

Well, Americans, we bought too much government. In fact, we've created a government bubble, and it's bursting in cities and states all over this land, nowhere more so than in the World's Largest and Busiest Hog Trough, Washington DC.

States and cities are not in as deep as the Federal Government, but they are in bigger trouble because they can't print their own money or bully others into buying their outsize debt. Also, most state governments are bound by self-imposed laws that frown on deficit spending.

I wish we could hog-tie Washington

I'd love to snatch everything away from those gluttonous, incontinent senators, congressmen and their bureaucratic Mongol horde. We should fire every politician and then require each one to pass a constitutional test in order to get his or her job back.

Wrong answers about the proper role of the Federal Government would be punished by permanent banishment back to reality. Imagine...

"I er, uh, I demaand to run health care!"

Sorry Teddy, get your ass back to Cape Cod!

Folks, they can't even protect our borders or balance a budget, what evidence is there that they can run health care, especially in light of the fiscal nightmare medicare and medicaid have become?

CNBC - Debt

Enemies of the State

Who's the real enemy? Ordinary citizens who insist on adherence to The Constitution as our founders envisioned, or zealous ideologues who abuse the frightening power of the federal government to criminalize the political opposition?

Homeland Security apparatchiks, at the behest of their Grand Poobah Janet Napolitano, have written a sly little document that would make Joseph Goebbels proud. It's presumed focus is right wing extremism (a small but real threat). Fine. The problem is that it conflates this serious issue with ordinary heartland conservatism, subtly painting with the same horrible brush ordinary freedom loving, gun toting, bible thumping conservatives who chafe at big government encroachment.

I still can't decide: Is this is a propaganda broadside ala The Protocols of Zion, meant to rouse fear and hatred against those dangerous right-wingers (They're all nazis, you know)? Or is it just kook bait? If it's the latter, I bit.

Here is what these bed-wetting leftists consider a threat to this country:

- "Hoarding ammo and weapons" in the expectation that sales may be banned (A legal act)
- "Antagonism toward the new presidential administration" (If this were against the law, our jails would be full of rabid reporters and poop throwing leftist monkey protesters)
- "Opposition to illegal immigration" (opposition to an illegal activity is subversive???)
- "Opposition to expanded social programs for minorities" (Of course, we hate minorities. Our opposition has nothing to do with too much government spending)
- "Opposition to gun control" (Support for the constitution is now dangerous)
- "Perception that illegal immigrants are taking American jobs by working for lower wages" (Now where would anyone get that idea???)

Here is the most vile piece of propaganda:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

See how this works? Take a true statement that accurately describes dangerous right wing extremism, then slip in belief in states' rights, anti-immigration and anti-abortion. Congratulations, you've just declared half the population a danger to the nation.

It points an accusing finger at war veterans

Most sickening is her targeting of "disgruntled returning war veterans." Maybe they're disgruntled with politicians waving surrender flags and a press that hates America and revels in her every mistake. She invokes Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran, more than once in the report. To suggest that people who have fought for their country in Iraq and Afghanistan are potential racist insurrectionists is beyond repugnant.

Perhaps 2 million citizens have cycled through the military since 1995, and one of them, McVeigh, was a racist terrorist who committed a horrible act. By Napolitano's logic, all mothers should be closely monitored because during that same time period we had a case of a mother drowning her children in a bathtub, and another who locked her kids in the truck of her car and drove it into a lake.

It's no wonder Governor Rick Perry has announced his support for Texas House Concurrent Resolution 50:

“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”

Governor Perry's concerns are real and Janet Napolitano's paranoid political manifesto shows why: It is grotesque overreach when a petty bureaucrat can use the power of the Federal government to demagogue political enemies.

Worldnet Daily has a link to the report here. I encourage you to download the ten page report and read it. It should be printed out on toilet paper and distributed to all freedom loving citizens.

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/12227/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/14/federal-agency-warns-of-radicals-on-right/print/
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21243.html
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=94803

All Legislative Powers Herein Granted

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

The Constitution is a rather interesting and fairly easy read, and also fairly short:

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am17S1

Section 8… how appropriate, defines the powers of congress.

To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises to pay the debts and provide for defense and general welfare of the United States.

I guess it’s that “general welfare” statement that is getting us into so much trouble, since the rest of the powers are clearly delineated. To borrow money, regulate commerce, naturalization, bankruptcies. To coin money, set weights and measures, punish counterfeiting, establish post offices and post roads, grant patents and copyrights, and punish piracy and high seas felonies. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, to raise and support an army, navy, and to govern the same. To call forth the militia, and to establish, arm, and train said militia. Govern the capitol. To make laws necessary for executing all the powers above.

The president meanwhile is the commander in chief of the armed forces, may enter into treaties with the advice and consent of the senate, and appoint ambassadors, public ministers and consuls. He may appoint Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other public officers not defined in the constitution but established by legislation.

It would seem to reason that positions established by legislation must fall under the powers assigned to congress, as the powers not delegated…and so forth. Readily apparent is the constitutional justification for the departments of Treasury, State, Commerce, and Defense. Also apparent is the justification for the Post Master General, although this position has been eliminated as a cabinet level position.

The section restricting states powers is rather small; basically states are prohibited from engaging in independent diplomacy, warfare, or the taxation of imports and exports, or in other words from interfering in the powers reserved for the federal government. The section on states basically requires that states cooperate with one another and treat each other fairly.

One is left wondering, how from this clear, concise, and graceful start we have created the monstrosity that is today, the federal government. One must wonder where the justifications for the following departments lie: Interior, Agriculture, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Environmental Protection, and Health and Human Services. Veterans Affairs can be somewhat traced back to Amendment 14 #4 regarding the validity of debts incurred for the payment of pensions and bounties for service. Homeland Security quite logically, would seem to fall under the jurisdiction of Defense.

One must remember that powers not delegated to congress or prohibited to the states, belong to the states. There is no delegation to congress, outside of the creation of post roads, anything in the realm of transportation… the same can be said of labor, education, health and human services, and so on, and so forth.

I urge my state and its elected representatives to firmly and resolutely avow its sovereignty in all powers not delegated to the federal government. To reject the bribery of federal monies used to entice states to comply with the federal government’s wishes as opposed to the wishes, desires, and will of its people. Support Michigan’s House Concurrent Resolution #4 and the states of Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas in affirming “sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and to urge the federal government to halt its practice of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution of the United States.”

I want to see Colorado added to that list, for as the federal government spirals completely and utterly out of control, it is only the sovereign states and people that can restrain it.

If you are from Colorado, or wish to see your state express its sovereignty, please comment and also express your wishes to your elected representatives.

~Finntann~

http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/
http://www.lp.org/

Constitutional Vandalism

Congress tramples the constitution by giving the District of Columbia a congressional seat. George Will aptly calls such actions constitutional vandalism

Will writes in his WaPo column:

The D.C. House Voting Rights Act will give the District a full voting member in the House of Representatives. The problem is, or should be, that although the Constitution has provisions that allow various interpretations, the following is not one of those provisions:

The House shall be composed of members chosen "by the people of the several states."

But the District is not a state. It is (as the Constitution says in Article I, Section 8) "the seat of the government of the United States." That is why, in 1978, the District's advocates sent to the states a constitutional amendment requiring that "for purposes of representation" the district would be "treated as though it were a state." Only 16 states ratified it, 22 short of the required number.

So the District's advocates decided that an amendment is unnecessary -- a statute will suffice because the Constitution empowers Congress "to exercise exclusive legislation" over the District. They argue that this power can be used to, in effect, amend the Constitution by nullifying Article I, Section 2's requirement that House members come from "the several states."

This argument, that Congress's legislative power trumps the Constitution, means that Congress could establish religion, abridge freedom of speech and of the press, and abolish the right of peaceful assembly in the District.

And, of course, Congress next could give the District two senators. Which probably is the main objective of the Democrats who are most of the supporters of this end run around the Constitution.

Steve Chapman puts an interesting twist on the subject in his Reason Magazine article:

The rationale is that the Constitution, which provides for the capital, gives Congress the power "to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District." Therefore, it may do just about anything it pleases, including give the District a vote in the House.

But the argument proves too much. The same provision gives the national legislature "like authority over all places purchased ... for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards and other needful buildings."

If Congress can give the District a voting representative, it may give voting representatives to Fort Hood, the White Sands Missile Range and the Rock Island Arsenal. Which, obviously, it may not.

Both Will and Chapman further explain that DC's predicament was not an oversight: The founders meant to leave the district with no senators or congressmen. If someone doesn't like that, then they need to pass a constitutional amendment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020402841.html
http://www.reason.com/news/show/131884.html

Up In Smoke

The Obama Administration has indicated it will return marijuana jurisdiction back to the states, according to the San Fran Cornicle.

I'm not a pot smoker, but I applaud this decision. I heard Michael Phelps was ecstatic. The federal government has usurped the states' authority in so many ways. I'm looking forward to the Federal Government getting out of these issues as well:

* Religion
* Education
* Labor
* Housing
* Welfare
* Medical Care

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/02/27/MN2016651R.DTL

Live Free Or Die

State legislators are accusing the Federal Government of flagrantly usurping its authority and bursting it's constitutional bounds.

This allegation is based upon the 9th and 10th Amendments to the US Constitution. It helps to recall a few facts:

1) The constitution does not come from the Federal Government. It comes from the people of the several states.

2) The Constitution is a set of instructions from the people to the Federal Government. It was established by the thirteen original states as a delegation of certain specific powers to the federal government so that the rights of the people might be protected.

3) Our inalienable rights come from God, not the government or the Constitution. The Government and the Constitution don't bestow rights, they safeguard them.

Peoples' Rights and States' Rights: Two Amendments

9th Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

10th Amendment:

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

New Hampshire, Live Free or Die State
New Hampshire ratified the Constitution on 21 June 1788 by a vote of 57 to 47. With this vote, it became the ninth state to approve the document and thus made it effective for the ratifying states. New Hampshire's legislature is now considering HCR 6 , a resolution affirming states' rights based on Jeffersonian principles. It's out of committee now, with the majority Democrats recommending it be voted down, although it is just a resolution that implements no law.

According to Milford News, Deputy House Speaker Linda Foster, D-Mont Vernon, opposes the resolution because the need for it is vague. She said nobody who supports the resolution has articulated clear examples of federal tyranny.

"I wish they would explain to me what they are angry about," she said.

I guess she hasn't been herded through airport security lately. How about politicians blowing taxpayer money like there's no tomorrow, and then borrowing more from Communist China when the coffers are empty?

How about the federal government poking its snout in every last nook and cranny of human existence, far and beyond those activities contemplated by the constitution? For a layman's explanation of the resolution, go to NolanChart.com.

The media is studiously ignorant of this story. This could turn into a national phenomenon if reporters would stop acting like the Democratic Party Praetorian Guard. Local newspapers, blogs and other new media outlets are the exclusive source of information, which unfortunately makes this look like a kook story. I could maybe understand if this were limited to New Hampshire, but it's not. Arizona's HR 2024 is a similar measure.

Interestingly, Opednews.com, a very liberal site, has an article supporting these State's Rights efforts:

United States Federal Government laws are often in violation of the Tenth Amendment, which is perturbing...

A growing number of states are declaring their sovereignty afforded under the US Constitution’s Tenth Amendment, however the conventional news media are not telling you about what is happening. The State of Washington on Wednesday - 11 February 2009 and most recently, New Hampshire [2009], Montana [2009], Hawaii [2009], Michigan [2009], Missouri [2009], Arizona [2008], Oklahoma [2008], Georgia [1996], and California [1994] all of which have introduced bills and resolutions declaring and reaffirming their sovereignty. Some other states have done this in the past but then let the issue go. Additionally, the states of Colorado, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Alaska, Kansas, Alabama, Nevada, Maine, and Illinois are considering similar measures. More well may follow, such as Wyoming and Mississippi.

This is not about treason or revolution. God save us from anything like that. It's not about right or left. It's about legally restoring this nation, These United States, back upon a solid constitutional foundation. It's about reining in the berserk, incontinent, out of control beast known as the Federal Government.

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2009/HCR0006.html
http://www.nolanchart.com/article5958.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Firestorm-Brewing-Between-by-Lance-L-Landon-090217-130.html
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/1r/bills/hcr2024p.htm

American Revolution 2009

When in the Course of Human Events...

Economic Nullification is an intriguing concept explained by Locke Smith (gotta be a nom de plume). Washington's recent Bridge Loan to Nowhere is what pushed him over the edge:

The bailout of General Motors and Chrysler – appalling in its own right – is a sure sign that whatever feeble constitutional and political constraints that had kept the government in check are gradually disappearing. We know our rights as citizens are being trampled when the government can take resources from the productive sector of our economy and provide them to unproductive, money losing companies, organizations and individuals.

This got me thinking... There's gotta be some way short of armed rebellion or tax resistance to stop this out of control monster our experiment in democracy has turned into. Both parties have hijacked government and turned it into a trillion dollar Pez dispenser.

Then I read an article in Reason Magazine written by Brian Doherty containing depressing boilerplate about the decline and fall of the GOP. Near the end he noted the recent death of conservative intellectual Father Richard John Neuhaus:

My favorite Neuhaus moment involved a now mostly forgotten intra-right wing controversy that is worth remembering: In 1996 he ran a symposium in his magazine First Things which seriously raised the question (in the context, mostly, of judicial decisions about abortion) of whether the U.S. government had so exceeded both its legitimate mandate and any meaningful democratic controls that conscientious citizens should no longer owe it their allegiance.

Not so much in memory of Neuhaus, but in respect for its own soul, the GOP needs to ask itself whether a government that so exceeds its constitutional mandates is one the American people have any reason to respect—and to realize the extent to which it is complicit in the out-of-control, improvident, destructive beast the U.S. government is.

Those are strong words, but appropriate I think. So my question is, what can we do about it? Taking up arms is unwarranted and ineffective. Tax revolt will just land people in jail. So what's left short of these options?

Progressives instinctively understand: Destroy the system from within. You don't bring it all down with bombs, cannons and conflagration; you do it by millions of persistent little nibbles and snarks from furtive, scurrying pseudo-intellectual rats and amoral cockroaches. It's a shameful, inglorious revolution, with all that darting, crouching, and sneaking, but it is effective. Just look at Europe or American academia.

No. Slithering subversion won't do for Conservatives. We want a grand but legal revolution. Ronald Reagan represented the first wave, it is unclear who will lead the next, but I have a few inchoate ideas about how light the fuse. I hope this inspires others to come up with their own:

Idea #1. Ransack the Republican National Committee headquarters and publicly hang the country club leadership or behead them and mount their brainless heads on pike poles at the building entrance. If that's too harsh, we could simply chase them out with torches and pitchforks. But seriously, a major ideological insurrection needs to happen, a revolution of ideas, resulting in a takeover by youngsters under 30, constitutionalists without bow ties and libertarians who don't talk like robots from outer space.

Idea #2. Recruit a phalanx of small-government constitutional lawyers to launch a blunderbuss of lawsuits and injunctions against the federal government, tying it in knots trying to defend the unconstitutionality of its wildly out of control actions.

This would ultimately fail, but the modern day Boston Massacre could spark a debate in this country and actually get people reading the constitution and writings of the founding fathers. Reporters may actually wake up and start asking real questions and talking about substantive issues...

The GOP (indeed, all Americans) needs to ask itself whether a government that so exceeds its constitutional mandates is one the American people have any reason to respect—and to realize the extent to which it is complicit in the out-of-control, improvident, destructive beast the U.S. government is.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/01/power_to_the_people_economic_n.html

http://reason.com/news/show/130999.html

Government's Golden Rule

It's a sad state to which our society has fallen. And saddest of all is that our government has led this descent into craven pandering. Like starving third-world refugees fighting over bottled water and bags of rice, we witness bankers, union workers, auto executives, business owners, homeowners, community activists, governors, and mayors shove and trample one another in slavering pursuit of government largess. So much for the pioneer spirit of the New World.

And in true entitled recipient fashion, the beggars curse the benefactors all the while...

I realized we had abandoned the realm of sanity when something the Reverend Al Sharpton said on TV yesterday actually made sense to me. He lambasted Bank of America for for laying off thousands of workers after accepting government money. I just wasn't right, he maintained. They took government money so they should be saving jobs, not destroying them.

More vitriol is aimed at GE for taking a government handout and using it to buy Chinese airplanes. Savagely elbowing their way to the front of the line, Angry UAW members (has anyone ever heard of a happy UAW worker?) demand to know why congress shovels trillions to Dirty Hank's Wall Street bandit buddies but denies Detroit a mere $15 Billion?

I stand with Reverand Al and the UAW: Our government has acted in an unfair and immoral fashion. It's all legal mind you, if you ignore the original intent of the constitution, but it stinks of immorality to us commoners. It violates that vague, secular American sense of fairness.

This is what happens when a government becomes disconnected from its founding principles. What are the rules of this damned bailout? It's just one rule: The Golden Rule: They who have the gold make the rules. Our constitution should be our moral code for governance, but it's being used as a doormat right now. Reverend Sharpton, union workers, and underwater homeowners can all rightly cry "foul."

If you're going to pick winners and losers you better have a clear set of rules that all the players understand or you are wide open to charges of fraud and favoritism. Better yet, why doesn't our government tend to getting its own fiscal house in order and leave picking winners and losers to the consumer?

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.
-- James Madison (one of the guys who wrote the constitution)

Congressional Constitutional Ignorance

How do you get around the constitution? Oily, expansive politicians merely ignore the original intent.

That's how our government justifies spending trillions on dubious schemes. James Madison predicted it:

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare,” James Madison wrote, “the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.”

And now $650 million of your tax dollars have built a monument in our nation's capitol dedicated to distorting the constitution's original meaning. Congress’ new Visitor Center decrees the Constitution isn’t a list of powers delegated to government by the people, but rather of “aspirations” Congress is expected to define and realize. The exhibit specifies six:

1. Unity (as in “a more perfect Union” in the Preamble, which grants Congress no power).
2. Freedom (based on the First Amendment, which begins with the words “Congress shall make no law …”).
3. Common Defense (from Article I, Section 8).
4. Knowledge (authority to promote public education, support arts and sciences, fund extensive research).
5. Exploration (to justify funding “curiosity and boldness” — like 4, this comes from a convoluted reading of the clause granting Congress the power to issue patents).
6. General Welfare (found in Article I, Section 8’s restriction of the taxing power, but taken here to mean “improving transportation, promoting agriculture and industry, protecting health and the environment, and seeking ways to solve social and economic problems”).

For a remedy to this nonsense, read Professor Keith Whittington's essay, How to Read the Constitution. Here is an excerpt:

What is the constitutional text? It is an act of communication, of instruction, from the supreme lawmaker within the American constitutional system to government officials. It conveys their intentions as to what power government officials would have, how that power would be organized, to what legitimate purposes that power could be used, and what limitations there would be on that power.

Who is the supreme lawmaker? We The People. And don't let your elected officials forget it.

http://blog.heritage.org/2008/11/27/for-visitors-a-capitol-scandal/

http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/fp5.cfm

Obama -vs- The Constitution

Dostoevsky said,

"Without God all things are permissible."

Jean Paul Sartre declared that statement to be the starting point of Existentialist Philosophy. Those who love American democracy should ponder this starting point of political philosophy:

Without The Constitution all things are permissible.

Conservatives have unearthed and exposed a 2001 radio interview where Obama once again speaks favorably of redistribution of wealth. That dog won't hunt, even with lipstick. Voters are mad at Bush and determined to teach us all a lesson. Sad but true.

What I think is of greater concern is Mr. Obama's cavalier disregard for our constitution and the founders' original intent of those sacred words. Obama laments the fact that the Supreme Court

"didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed on it by the Founding Fathers."

He still concluded, however, that he could indeed come up with a theoretical justification for redistribution of wealth through court mandate. This is scary.

The Constitution is literally all that stands between We The People and tyranny. Twist this document like a pretzel, reshape it like play-doh, and anything is possible: Taking guns away in the name of public safety, shutting up those who criticize government officials, eradication of property rights to benefit the poor...

Think I'm exaggerating? The erosion has already begun: Roe v. Wade established a constitutional right where previously there was none. Even honest pro-choice liberals will concede the case was poorly decided. The campaign finance law fathered by Senator McCain, the Kelo case that ruled government could seize private property for commercial purposes... All cracks in the foundation just waiting for a messiah with a jackhammer.

Bill Whittle at NRO has written an excellent piece on this. Here are some quotes he took from the interview:

And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way.

So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.

This is a constitutional lawyer who has no respect for the document and the ideas it embodies. This is a man who sees constitutional law as an intellectual rubiks cube: twist it the right way and you can make it say whatever you want it to say, original intent of the Founding Fathers be damned.

Without God all things are permissible

Without The Constitution all things are permissible.

The Road to Hell...

I was reading the Christian Science Monitor’s reportage on the Bush Administration’s legal follies, and it reminded me of a New Testament parable (Luke 28-31) about counting the cost before beginning an enterprise:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, `This man began to build, and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That’s what papa Silverfiddle taught me. President George Bush is a good man with good intentions, but good intentions are not enough when you are the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. You also must have a brilliant staff that understands the constitution and knows how to think things through and plot long-range strategy. You need advisers who can count the cost.

The latest Supreme Court decision granting habeas corpus rights to the scraggly bearded rabble we have locked up at Guantanamo leaves us less safe. It is also a logical response to a seat-of-the-pants legal hodgepodge cobbled together by amateurs that are not even qualified to sell ice cream in front of the White House, let alone advise the president.

This decision is a direct consequence of the Bush administration not knowing what the hell it is doing. They have been making stuff up as they go along. There was no legal strategy, no coherent long-term plan to fit the president’s vision. And that’s a shame, because it was a righteous vision. Some serious thought up front followed by solid legislation could have avoided all this. The tragic lesson here is that vision without strategy is just a dream; and this one has turned into a nightmare.

Sometimes, doing something badly is worse than doing nothing at all. Botching something this thoroughly discredits an entire ideal, which is a shame. This administration’s incoherent bumbling and utter failure to articulate anything higher than “Freedom good, Terror bad,” has contributed to its troubles while dooming the noble project of spreading freedom, fighting tyranny, and killing jihadis.

President Bush has kept us safe, and for that he should enjoy our eternal gratitude. But, you’ll have to excuse those who, standing at the airport in their bare feet, being herded like cattle, contemplate their constitutional freedoms and wistfully count the cost.