Thought For The Day
*
Irony at its best: 290 people get the Swine Flu and everybody wants to wear a mask. Ten million people irrefutably have AIDS and no one wants to wear a condom.
In a study documenting the total number of federal crimes within United States law, researchers have found that there has been a major increase in the definition of such offenses since the founding of the nation in 1776.
“When the country started, there were basically three crimes: piracy, counterfeiting and treason,” said former Attorney General Edwin Meese, “At the time of our [1998] report, there were some 4,000 crimes.”
Meese, who now serves as chairman of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, noted that while two centuries have passed, most federal crimes have been designated as such within the last 30 years.
Meese, along with John Baker and Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX), participated in a Heritage Foundation panel held on June 17 that focused on the growth of federal crime laws and the shifting of the balance of power between state and federal governments.
According to both Baker and Gohmert, the federal government has taken powers away time after time from state governments, thus resulting in too many federal laws dealing with state issues.
As an original member of the American Bar Association’s Task Force on the Federalization of Crime, Baker, like Meese, said he had been involved in federal crime counts and studies before and said the current report was based on information found in previous studies done in the 1980s.
“As of early 1983, the Justice Department put the number at 3,000 crimes and we’ve worked off that figure,” said Baker. [They] did a hand count of 27,000 pages in the US Code. No one since then has [undertaken such a tally].”
After updating the new count of how many federal crimes there currently are, Baker said the research’s findings show an increase from the 1983 study. “The conclusion we come to, as of this date at least, [is that] we have roughly 4,450 crimes,” he added.
According to Baker, one of complications a researcher runs into while counting crimes within new legislation is that statutes created by the federal government may contain multiple crimes within the texts, and oftentimes do. “One statute in particular in the last eight years was enacted right after [September 11] It contains 60 crimes,” Baker observed.
In order to make sure the study’s current count of federal offenses was as close to perfect as possible, Baker said the research team searched all legislative documents for the words “fine” and “imprison” in order to get an accurate picture of how many federal crimes have been enacted since the last count.
Unfortunately, according to Gohmert, many Senators and U.S. Representatives do not search for new federal laws contained within the texts of bills and acts as thoroughly as they should, and in the end pass legislation that winds up taking away power from state governments.
To prove his point, Gohmert, who is the only former judge on the Judiciary Committee and who is currently serving as the ranking member of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, pointed to one instance when he spoke with one of his fellow House members about a proposed bill.
According to Gohmert, there was a penalty within the bill the Congressman was trying to pass and was shocked not only by Gohmert mentioning his concern over it, but also by Gohmert even reading the document at all. He said, “I went to him and I said, ‘Look, I don’t think this is doing what you really want it to do, and he said, ‘You read the bill?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, and as a former judge I’d have a real problem interpreting the bill, and I don’t think this is what you want.’”
However, Gohmert said one of the reasons politicians pass legislation that depletes the power of states is to not be considered “soft on crime.” In order to be seen as proactive and looking out for the security of the American people, members of congress present bills that contain more statutes turning state laws into federal ones. This proactivity, in turn, tends to pay off at the polls and get politicians re-elected.
“The power in Washington is like Tolkien’s ring,” said Gohmert. “Really good, wonderful people get the ring, and it changes them and they can’t put it down, they can’t let it go, they gotta fight and do whatever it takes.”
“The only people who want the federalization of crime are members of Congress, members of the Justice Department and members of the White House staff. Other than that, anyone who knows about criminal laws says ‘this is crazy.” And we attempted to try to marshal the arguments that would demonstrate the people that this is unnecessary and maybe dangerous,” Baker said.
“You’re worried about abuse of power on the left of search and seizure, etc. Well, what’s the basis for search and seizure? Probable cause. Probable cause of what? That a crime was committed? Well, the more crimes you enact, the more basis you create for probable cause,” Baker said.
“Who would have thought that the way the genius of the Constitution set things up that the judiciary would prevent the overzealous expansion of criminal laws? But if you look at the mentality of so many, and particularly the majority, on the Supreme Court right now, they want more power. How do they get more power? If Congress passes more laws giving the Justice Department more power, because then that gives them the impetus to take control over yet another area. So the check and balance is thwarted by everybody being a bit too overzealous,” Gohmert said.
According to Baker, sometimes things viewed as a federal offense are just an illegality. “People have come to the notion that if it’s wrong, it’s got to be criminally punished, and that’s complete nonsense. There are all kinds of things that are illegal but not criminal, and if criminal, do not necessarily have to be federally criminal,” Baker said.
“That’s where our real problem is, we don’t understand the difference between violation of a regulation and a crime,” he added.
Both panelists said they believed the imbalance of the checks and balance system would continue to grow if certain things are not realized about the system.
“The more that the American people come to accept that any federal agency with power is somehow a police power, we are, piece by piece, building the police state that the left worries about. Both left and right ought to be worried about the expansion of federal criminal law if we value our liberty which the Founders understood meant leaving general police powers at the local level,” Baker said.
“You want to know how you can get Congress to quit criminalizing so much? It’s gotta be you,” said Gohmert. “Too many people want to get re-elected and if you make clear that the way to do that is not to criminalize things that shouldn’t be criminalized, they’re going to hear you. It’s an amazing process. When the outcry is loud enough, then the elected officials respond or they don’t get re-elected. You can have that effect by being the grassroots, the seed.”
Emily Ham is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
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---------------- Response by Shelby Y.:
Very interesting. In my second year of law school (you probably were not born yet) I had a tax professor who said on the first day: "When I was a law student, we could carry the Internal Revenue Code in our heads; today we can barely carry it in two arms." Little did he realize that 50 years later we'd need a U -Haul!
I once told a group of students that our Founding Fathers were very smart -- they realized that we shouldn't have too many laws and regulations, so they set up a Constitution and government in which it would be hard to enact laws: They provided that laws require passage by both the Senate and the House, provided for little pay to lawmakers so they would busy themselves with other endeavors, provided they work only part of the year, gave the President the veto power, enabled the filibuster, etc. -- everything to impede the passage of more laws. Still, those bastards in DC finally figured out how to do it -- Thomas Jefferson and his pals never figured on lobbyists and pork-barreling for votes. In his new book, Fleeced, the born-again conservative Dick Morris castigates the present House and Senate as a "do nothing Congress," just as the Democrats in 1956 said Eisenhower was a "do nothing" President. In my onion, those just might be compliments!
---------------------- Response by Marty D.:
Every new law, and there are tens of thousands of them every year across the nation, creates a new class of criminals. It won't be long in this relentless march toward criminalization before most of us will be convicted felons, losing the right to vote and to bear arms in the process. Is that the unspoken intent?
The Battle over Constitutional Theories in the 2008 Elections
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court (1902-1932), declared that, "Theory is the most important part of the dogma of the law, as the architect is the most important man who takes part in the building of a house."
Reconstructionist constitutional theory diametrically opposes Constitutionalist constitutional theory; and we must understand these theories in order to evaluate adequately, not only judicial decisions, but the theories held by candidates in the 2008 elections.
Questions of constitutional theories have permeated, not just American law, but American culture in general. Therefore, all patriots need at least a cursory understanding of the opposing constitutional theories in today's Culture War. Three very broad and fundamental issues divide Constitutionalists from Reconstructionists. We shall summarize the three issues and then offer a view of the advocates of each theory concerning these issues.
1. The Constitution: Constitutionalists respect the Constitution; Reconstructionists reject the Constitution.
2. The Courts: Constitutionalists advocate restraint by the courts; Reconstructionists advocate rule by the courts.
3. The Cornerstone: Constitutionalists recognize the Judeo-Christian cornerstone of American law and culture; Reconstructionists want to reconstruct American law and culture on a Humanistic cornerstone.
The Advocates
• The Constitution:
o Constitutionalist Theory:
Our first great Chief Justice, John Marshall, declared in Marbury v. Madison (1803) that constitutional principles "are deemed fundamental . . . and as the authority [i.e., the American people] from which they proceed is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent." Therefore, the essential qualities of the Constitution are its fundamental nature, supremacy, and permanence. Justice Marshall also uses the phrase "paramount law" to describe the Constitution. According to Constitutionalist Theory, only the "people" are to make significant changes to the Constitution in accordance with the Article V amendment process.
o Reconstructionist Theory:
Modern Reconstructionist theory advocates a very different perspective. The prolific attorney, Laurence Tribe, contends that "[t]he Constitution is an intentionally incomplete, often deliberately indeterminate structure for the participatory evolution of political ideals and governmental practices." To Reconstructionists, the Constitution "reflects a set of conflicting ideals and notions . . . . " The Constitution becomes intrinsically no different from, and not superior to, other law — a polemic contrast to the Constitutionalist position.
• The Courts:
o Constitutionalist Theory:
Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Number 78 eloquently states the Constitutionalist position: "It may truly be said [that the courts] . . . have neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment . . . . This simple view of the matter . . . proves incontestably that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power; that it can never attack with success either of the other two. . . ."
o Reconstructionist Theory:
William Ray Forrester, former Dean of Cornell Law School, expressed a radically different view. Declared Forrester, "[The U.S. Supreme Court as an institution] is even more unique and unprecedented than commonly supposed. Indeed, the institution can no longer be described with any accuracy as a court, in the customary sense. Unlike a court, its primary function is not judicial but legislative. It is a governing body in the sense that it makes the basic policy decisions of the nation, selects among the competing values of our society, and administers and executes the directions it chooses in political, social and ethical matters. It has become the major societal agency for reform."
• The Cornerstone:
o Constitutionalist Theory:
The U. S. Supreme Court in 1892 (Holy Trinity Church v. U.S.) and 1931 (U.S. v. MacIntosh) described America's legal and cultural cornerstone: "These and many other matters which might be noticed, [i.e., a long list of historical documents, quotes, etc. specifically expressing America's Christian underpinning] add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organized utterances that this is a Christian nation."
o Reconstructionist Theory:
Arthur Miller, prominent law professor and TV commentator, pens an extraordinary example of Reconstructionism: "The Justices [of the Supreme Court function] as a de facto Council of Elders [and] may be likened to the oracles of ancient Greece . . . . The Constitution is a theological document. . . . [A]nd the Justices are the High Priests who keep it current with each generation of Americans. . . . The Constitution is always in a state of becoming, always being updated to meet the exigencies faced by successive generations of the American people. Each generation writes its own Constitution.
Questions for Candidates
The polemic differences between these two bodies of constitutional theory generate numerous questions that we need to be asking our candidates for office in these fundamentally important elections of 2008:
• Reconstructionists argue that court opinions and decisions as old as 1803 are "out-dated, useless, etc." Do you agree? Why or why not?
• What is/are the source(s) to which an interpreter should refer in determining the meanings of Constitutional words and phrases?
• Is the judiciary intended to be the "weakest branch of government"? If not, what should be its relationship to the other two branches?
• Are there problems with the Supreme Court's being the agency described by William Forrester and Arthur Miller? If so, what are some of the worst problems?
Alfred Lord Denning, a top-ranking British jurist in the Twentieth Century, declared that "We have already strayed too far from the faith of our fathers. Let us return to it for it is the only thing that can save us." Constitutionalist theory is based on this Judeo-Christian "faith of our fathers." Will we Twenty-First Century American Constitutionalists fight for this faith in the 2008 elections? The answer is up to us.
By Virginia Armstrong, Ph.D., National Chairman
http://www.eagleforum.org/court_watch/alerts/2008/july08/07-25-08.html
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The Difference Between Popularity and Statesmanship
Baghdad, Berlin, Barack
For our money, the best line in Barack Obama's speech yesterday in Berlin came in the form of a quote from Ernst Reuter, the city's mayor during the period of the Soviet blockade and the American airlift, in 1948:
"But in the darkest hour," said Sen. Obama, "the people of Berlin kept the flame of hope burning. The people of Berlin refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city's mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom. 'There is only one possibility,' he said. 'For us to stand together united until this battle is won…. The people of Berlin have spoken. We have done our duty, and we will keep on doing our duty'."
This, from a U.S. Senator whose consistent message to the people of Baghdad, a similarly besieged city, also dependent on America's protection, has been in effect to give up. (emphasis added)
Mr. Obama reiterated this view earlier in the week while traveling in the Middle East, in an interview with ABC's Terry Moran. Mr. Moran asked the Illinois Democrat whether -- "knowing what you know now" -- he would reconsider his opposition to last year's surge of U.S. troops in Iraq. "Well, no," Mr. Obama replied.
What Mr. Obama "knows now" is that the surge he opposed has saved Iraq, much as Harry Truman's airlift saved Berlin and underlined America's intention to defend Europe throughout the Cold War. The surge has also saved American lives in Iraq, with combat-related deaths (so far, there have been seven this month) at an all time low.
Mr. Obama offered his own unwitting testimony to this fact by not donning body armor upon his arrival in Baghdad and during a helicopter tour with Gen. David Petraeus.
"There have been few if any attacks of late on our aircraft, and the situation did not require them to be wearing body armor," explained Gen. Petraeus' spokesman.
Mr. Obama also knows that Gen. Petraeus opposes setting a fixed timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. This military judgment ought to count for something, particularly since Congressional Democrats have long scolded President Bush for failing to pay sufficient heed to the advice of generals such as former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki. Yet Mr. Obama, who has always been careful to cite the views of military commanders to justify his 16 month withdrawal schedule, now says that heeding less congenial military advice would mean an abdication of his responsibilities as a prospective commander in chief.
The Obama campaign now makes much of the fact that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seems to have endorsed the idea of a timetable for withdrawal, with 2010 as the approximate date. This is being played as a great political coup for Mr. Obama -- which, we suppose, it is, if only because the media plays it that way.
But the significant debate is not over whether and when the U.S. will withdraw. It's over whether the U.S. will win. In his Berlin speech, Mr. Obama was at his most forceful when he insisted that "this is the moment when we must defeat terror," adding that "the threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it." This is well-said and true.
But it squares oddly with a political campaign whose central premise is that losing in Iraq -- and whatever calamities may follow -- is a matter of little consequence to U.S. or European interests. It squares oddly, too, with Mr. Obama's broader promise to "stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, the voter in Zimbabwe" and virtually every other global cause.
It is hard not to be moved by the sight during the speech of hundreds of American flags being waved, rather than burned. Then again, the last time a major American political figure delivered an open-air speech in Berlin, 10,000 riot police had to use tear gas and water cannons to repel violent demonstrators. It was June 1987, the speaker was Ronald Reagan, and his message was: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Press accounts characterized the line as "provocative"; the Soviets called it "war-mongering"; 100,000 protesters marched against Reagan in the old German capital of Bonn. Two years later, the Berlin Wall fell.
Reagan's speech is a lesson in the difference between popularity and statesmanship. Watching Mr. Obama yesterday in Berlin, and throughout his foreign tour, was a reminder of how far the presumptive Democratic nominee has to go to reassure people he is capable of the latter -- "people," that is, who will actually get to cast a ballot in November.
Wall Street Journal
July 25, 2008; Page A14
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----------------------
Response by Len Salonsky:
The Europeans have a long history OF BEING WRONG: geopolitically, socially, economically, and immigration-wise. Many Americans, nevertheless, continue to incorrectly believe that European socialism and pacifism are where America should go.
Most of these Americans are collectivists ("From each according to his ability to each according to his need."- Karl Marx)
What are they smoking? Ironically, as Europe is finally moving away from their FAILED socialist programs, foolish American collectivists are insisting that we EMBRACE socialist policies despite their virtually universal failure, and the resultant human misery that they have caused throughout history.
Without American intervention there would have been no speech in Germany by Obama, whose ancestors would have been executed or enslaved by the Third Reich. Such nuances are LOST on those Euro-sycophants who amazingly feel that America can do no right and that the Europeans can do no wrong. IS that why the Europeans BEGGED America to intervene in Bosnia to end the conflict there, with FORCE?
A force that the Europeans are INCAPABLE of delivering? How convenient to depend on America for a bailout (without ever offering America any compensation for the (lives or the) expense of such military "insurance." Europe never paid America back for World War II, but they'll gladly burn the American flag.
For now, if the Europeans are waving American flags for some cause, I'll probably be opposed to it. If they are burning American flags for some cause, I'll assume that cause is just. History will bear me out.
There will come a time when the Muslim demographic burden in many European countries, because of the European welfare state mentality, will threaten to overwhelm those nations who have foolishly allowed Muslim immigrants to become a substantial portion of their population. Many pundits expect that Europe will be renamed "Eurabia" in the foreseeable future. This time an American "rescue" is not in the cards, and Europe will suffer the horrific consequences of its stupidity.
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Free republics are not known to have long life expectancies. At the ripe old age of two hundred and thirty-two, America is definitely showing her age. She is long past her prime, and some are predicting her demise. No, some are PLANNING her demise.
Thomas Jefferson and the other founders of this once-great country believed there was a controlling cabal that was crafting America's servitude. With the assistance of Heaven, they decided to fight those forces. Pastors fought with fiery sermons from the pulpit; newsmen fought with the power of the pen; statesmen fought in the halls of Congress; and merchants fought with the sacrifice of their material gain. Together, they lifted Lady Liberty to her feet and defeated the powers of darkness.
It took the global elite a long time to recover, but they have reemerged with a vengeance. They are now on the precipice of accomplishing what their great granddaddies failed to do: bring the "Liberty or Death" colonists under their power and control.
Sadly, we no longer have the will to resist servitude. Our pulpits are too busy preaching a prosperity gospel; newsmen are in bed with the forces they once disdained; statesmen have been replaced with opportunistic, self-serving politicians; and merchants know no god but money. Hence, it is left to a small--and I mean very small--remnant to sound the clarion call for freedom and independence. Unfortunately, few seem to be listening to their cries.
2010 seems to be a banner year for these designers of despotism. That is the target year for the implementation of the North American Community, which will commercially unite the United States with Canada and Mexico. The global elite suffered a minor setback when the U.S. Senate failed to pass the Bush/McCain/Kennedy/Graham amnesty-for-illegal-aliens bill. But if you think that John McCain is going to let that bill lie on the floor of defeat, you don't understand these people. Should McCain become President, he will do everything he can to implement some kind of amnesty law. Barack Obama will do the same. The reason? It is essential to the designers of despotism that our borders be eliminated.
Yes, I am saying it: George W. Bush, John McCain, and Barack Obama are part of the global elite that seeks America's entrance into an international New World Order. In fact, neither Presidential candidate from the two major parties will offer any resistance to this obstinate and oppressive oligarchy.
Perhaps one day the American people will wake up and realize that they are being led as sheep to the slaughter. I'm just not sure that it will be soon enough, however. 2010 is just around the corner.
There seems to be only one obstacle standing in the way of the globalists: America's citizens are the most heavily armed people in the world. That fact must surely stick in the throats of the globalists like a chicken bone.
Thank God that America's founders put the Second Amendment in the Constitution. Without America's deep-rooted commitment to the right of the people to keep and bear arms, we would have been sold into slavery decades ago.
Without the intellectual understanding of the principles of freedom and the moral resolve to maintain those principles, however, guns, by themselves, will only protect us for so long. In the end, our strength and protection come from God, and not too many people these days seem to be interested in His opinion.
Lady Liberty is walking very gingerly these days, and the path she treads is laden with traps and quicksand. The globalists have their handpicked puppets positioned to take up where The Three Amigos (George Bush I, Bill Clinton, and George Bush II) have left off. The pieces of the puzzle are almost all in place. 2010 just might be the year that Lady Liberty lowers her torch, folds her arms, and falls fast asleep.
For what it is worth, however, I pledge no loyalty to this emerging New World Order. Neither will I let Lady Liberty die without a fight. I will say it again: the battle today is not between conservatives and liberals or Republicans and Democrats. It is a battle between Americans and globalists.
And, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am an American!
By Chuck Baldwin
July 18, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
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From a speech given by the head of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank,
Mr. Richard Fisher, to the Commonwealth Club of California:
“...tonight I speak for neither the committee, nor the chairman, nor any of the other good people that serve the Federal Reserve System. I speak solely in my own capacity. I want to speak to you tonight about an economic problem that we must soon confront or else risk losing our primacy as the world’s most powerful and dynamic economy.
“...If you wanted to cover the unfunded liability of all three [Medicaid] programs today, you would be stuck with an $85.6 trillion bill. That is more than six times as large as the bill for Social Security. It is more than six times the annual output of the entire U.S. economy.
“Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon. Traditional Medicare composes about 69 percent, the new drug benefit roughly 17 percent and Social Security the remaining 14 percent.
“I want to remind you that I am only talking about the unfunded portions of Social Security and Medicare. It is what the current payment scheme of Social Security payroll taxes, Medicare payroll taxes, membership fees for Medicare B, copays, deductibles and all other revenue currently channeled to our entitlement system will not cover under current rules.
“Let’s say you and I and Bruce Ericson and every U.S. citizen who is alive today decided to fully address this unfunded liability through lump-sum payments from our own pocketbooks, so that all of us and all future generations could be secure in the knowledge that we and they would receive promised benefits in perpetuity. How much would we have to pay if we split the tab? Again, the math is painful. With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four—over 25 times the average household’s income.”
“No combination of tax hikes and spending cuts, though, will change the total burden borne by current and future generations. For the existing unfunded liabilities to be covered in the end, someone must pay $99.2 trillion more or receive $99.2 trillion less than they have been currently promised. This is a cold, hard fact. The decision we must make is whether to shoulder a substantial portion of that burden today or compel future generations to bear its full weight.
“...Throughout history, many nations, when confronted by sizable debts they were unable or unwilling to repay, have seized upon an apparently painless solution to this dilemma: monetization. Just have the monetary authority run cash off the printing presses until the debt is repaid, the story goes, then promise to be responsible from that point on and hope your sins will be forgiven by God and Milton Friedman and everyone else.
“We know from centuries of evidence in countless economies, from ancient Rome to today’s Zimbabwe, that running the printing press to pay off today’s bills leads to much worse problems later on. The inflation that results from the flood of money into the economy turns out to be far worse than the fiscal pain those countries hoped to avoid.
“Earlier I mentioned the Fed’s dual mandate to manage growth and inflation. In the long run, growth cannot be sustained if markets are undermined by inflation. Stable prices go hand in hand with achieving sustainable economic growth. I have said many, many times that inflation is a sinister beast that, if uncaged, devours savings, erodes consumers’ purchasing power, decimates returns on capital, undermines the reliability of financial accounting, distracts the attention of corporate management, undercuts employment growth and real wages, and debases the currency.
“Purging rampant inflation and a debased currency requires administering a harsh medicine. We have been there, and we know the cure that was wrought by the FOMC under Paul Volcker. Even the perception that the Fed is pursuing a cheap-money strategy to accommodate fiscal burdens, should it take root, is a paramount risk to the long-term welfare of the U.S. economy. The Federal Reserve will never let this happen. It is not an option. Ever. Period.”
*** Mr. Fisher means well. He goes on to tell his audience that they, as voters, must deal with this situation. Since the obligations cannot be met, they must be reduced. Fair enough. But what candidate is going to tell the voters that they must give up their free healthcare? And what voter is going to vote for such a thing?
Mr. Fisher is right about the problem; he is wrong about the solution. The problem will not be fixed by the feds...nor by the voters. Popular democracy – ridden with its lobbyists, insiders and hustlers – will not allow it. Instead, the government will go broke.
July 18, 2008.
Hat tip: Len Salonsky
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Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: That's Not Funny!
If you think that Muslims burning the Danish Mohammed Cartoons don't have a sense of humor, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Just wait til the Political Correct Commissars catch you laughing at Barack Obama. It's like the old rabid feminists: That's Not Funny!
Mr. Obama is very easily offended, like Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha, who is constantly looking for the smallest slights to his egg-shell fragile ego.
Obama told Maureen Dowd early in the primaries that he is hypersensitive to any remarks about his ears. Obama is offended if you criticize his tough-as-nails lawyer wife -- although Michelle O' is eager to criticize everybody else, including the United States of America. The Obama campaign felt offended when people laughed at the phony US Presidential Seal they tried for one day and then quickly dropped. Flip-flopping? Suh, I resent that remark!
The Obama campaign just loves those Nuremberg-style rock rallies. They're in control. They love thousands of worshipful Obama groupies. They're in control. But they just hate one-on-one Townhall debates because they're not in control. That's why Obama is now going to Europe, where his rockstar brand still has the suckers screaming for joy. There are no tough questions for Obama in Europe. He'll just soak up all that adulation, like Elvis. He loves that worship, he needs it, he thrives on it. Which makes me wonder about Barack Obama, to tell the truth.
Prophets and messiahs are not to be laughed at. They are deadly serious. Laughter brings a sense of sanity and perspective to their pompous pretensions. That is why radical Muslims murder people who laugh at the Prophet Mohammed. Start laughing at this 7th century desert bandit and the whole thing starts to look like a joke. We can't have that. Kill them.
Today in Canada, if you poke fun at Muslim terrorists, like Mark Steyn constantly does, they will bring you up on Kangaroo Court charges. That'll take that smirk off your face. That novel custom is coming to a theater near you soon, as radical Muslims gain more and more influence in the United States. In Europe it's spreading like some plague of knee-jerk seriousness. You can trash Jesus all right, but you diss da Prophet, baby, and your neck ain't safe.
Don't you impugn my patriotism! Suh, you have offended mah wife! Them's fightin' words! Those are classic political lines satirized by the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn and his Barnyard Dawg, a Southern rooster meant to get people laughing at all those stuffy Kentucky Colonels and their Dixiecrat lookalikes. It's all part of a long and great tradition of political laughter in America.
Black people used that tradition to laugh at their tormentors, long before Political Correctness took over. Today, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will get you fired from your job if you giggle at the wrong thing.
The American cartoon film is one of our great contributions to the cause of human laughter.
All the great cartoons laugh at the powerful on behalf of the weak: Tweety Bird laughs at Sylvester the Cat. Bugs Bunny laughs at Elmer Fudd. Alfred E. Newman laughs at ...
Ooops! I apologize. Didn't mean it. I'm sorry. I'll never do it again. I'll go to my sensitivity training now, shall I?
Snicker.
By James Lewis
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Defenders of Barack Obama, and sometimes Obama himself, seem frustrated that some American Jews refuse to assume their traditional role of support for the Democratic presidential nominee. The Obama defenders are irked that not all Jews accept at face value Obama's expressions of devotion to Israel and commitment to her security. Why can't these contrarians just take Obama at his word (he is a Zionist, he really is, they insist)? The answer is "1973."
But the explanation starts in 2008. Many Jewish Obama doubters are convinced that Israel faces a true existential threat unlike any in 35 years. From nation states like Iran, which threaten to destroy Israel, to Hizbullah and Hamas terrorists, Israel may in the next decade be pushed to the brink of its existence. Israel's failure to defeat Hizbullah in 2006 demonstrated the limits of Israel's historic military advantage. With the spread of nuclear weapons and other deadly technologies a second Holocaust - that is, the annihilation of a substantial portion of world Jewry - is not out of the realm of imagination.
These Obama skeptics recall a similar time, 1973, when Israel also faced extermination. Prime minister Golda Meir had miscalculated Anwar Sadat's willingness to go to war and decided against a first strike against Egypt. The Arab nations attacked in October 1973, and within days Israel was facing defeat.
The Israelis went to president Richard Nixon with a request for a massive infusion of arms. The Defense and State Departments squabbled. Our European allies, who feared an oil embargo (and would refuse us bases to refuel our planes), inveighed against it, and the Soviets blustered. Many on Nixon's staff wanted to deny the request, or offer only token assistance. Don't antagonize the Arab states, they counseled.
Nixon persisted and, according to some accounts, doubled the amount of aid Israel had requested. Riding herd on the bureaucrats, Nixon repeatedly intervened to push the transports along. Informed about a dispute regarding the type of air transportation, Nixon at one point exclaimed in frustration: "Tell them to send everything that can fly." Over the course of a month US airplanes conducted 815 sorties with over 27,900 tons of materiel.
Israel was saved due to this massive infusion of military aid. Meir referred to Nixon with enormous affection for the rest of her life. Nixon, despised by many in the US, was hailed as a hero in Israel. And Nixon (who had garnered a minority of the Jewish vote in 1972) received little or no political benefit at home for his trouble, leaving office the following year.
So what does this have to do with Obama? The Obama skeptics do not for a moment believe that Obama, in the face of domestic and international pressure similar to what Nixon faced, would rise to the occasion at a critical moment in Israel's history and "tell them to send everything that can fly."
In every significant interaction in Obama's adult life with those who distain and vilify Israel - from Rashid Khalidi to Reverend Jeremiah Wright to Louis Farrakhan - Obama has demonstrated passive resignation and indifference.
He did not stand up to his friend Khalidi, the Palestinian activist, professor and former Palestinian spokesman whom Obama honored at a farewell dinner, and object to Palestinian invectives that Israel was an apartheid state. He did not recoil, until Wright insulted him at the National Press Club, from Wright when he learned that Wright considered Israel a "dirty word" and postulated that Israel had invented an "ethnic bomb."
He did not heed (or was oblivious to) public pleas from Jewish organizations to avoid the Million Man March that Farrakhan organized; nor did he years later leave his church when it honored Farrakhan. It took a hateful rant from another wide-eyed preacher against Hillary Clinton, just when Obama needed to cool intra-party animosities, to do that.
And if any further proof were needed, Obama's actions with regard to the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, the measure to classify the Iranian National Guard as a terrorist organization, should settle the question of Obama's intestinal fortitude when it comes to Israel. An issue presented itself: a choice between, on the one hand, taking a stance against Israel's most vile enemy, Iran, and, on the other, appeasing the far Left of his own party.
Obama chose to satisfy the MoveOn.org crowd and opposed the amendment. The amendment would have been "saber rattling" and unduly provocative, Obama argued at the time. Senators Dick Durbin, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton and three quarters of the U.S. Senate voted for the amendment.
Once his nomination was secured, Obama told those assembled at the AIPAC convention that he supported classification of the Iranian National Guard as a terrorist organization, a move he well understood was important to Israel's security and to AIPAC's members. Yet under just a smidgen of political pressure during the primary race, he had not been able to muster the will to support a modest measure which inured to Israel's benefit.
Is there anything in all this to suggest that in a potential crisis, when much of the world would be pressuring him to let Israel die, Obama would push all the naysayers aside and demand to "send them everything that can fly"? There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that he would be beyond persuasion when it came down to Israel's survival. In fact, all the available evidence indicates that the opposite is true.
That does not mean Obama will not carry the majority of the Jewish vote. Jews are overwhelmingly Democratic, and it is certainly the case that for many American Jews the secular liberal agenda takes precedence over everything else in presidential politics.
For these voters, then, "1973" is not uppermost in their minds. Their devotion to liberalism is controlling, and for their own peace of mind they are willing to accept Obama's generic expressions of warm feelings toward Israel.
Indeed the temptation to believe in Obama's bland promises of support for Israel is a tempting one for liberal Jews. If they can convince themselves that he will be "fine on Israel," no conflict arises between their liberal impulses and their concern for Israel. The urge to believe is a powerful thing, especially when the alternative is an intellectual or moral quandary.
It is also the case that some American Jews simply do not believe Israel is in peril, or that "1973" is remotely relevant. They imagine Iran is merely spouting nonsense, that Hizbullah and Hamas lack the organization or competence to threaten Israel's survival, and that Israel will muddle along indefinitely.
But some Jews are incapable of deluding themselves that Obama would be the most resolute candidate in defending Israel. In quiet moments of contemplation and in noisy debates with family members and friends, they worry about the tenuous nature of Israel's existence and the dangers which lurk from within and outside Israel's borders. These Jews cannot imagine a world without Israel and could not countenance election of a president who, in Israel's moment of peril, could well falter.
And that is why these obstinate Obama skeptics, some even after a lifetime of Democratic voting, will not pull the lever for him. For them some things rank higher than even the top items on the liberal political agenda. The risk is, in their minds, too great that when Israel needs help the most, Obama will buckle and Israel will be crushed.
Many, albeit not all and likely not even most, American Jews will therefore decline to vote for Obama. They know that if the majority of their co-religionists had their way and George McGovern, rather than Richard Nixon, had been in the White House in 1973, Israel might not have survived.
A few barbs from their fellow congregants, amazed they would not vote for a Democrat for president, are a small burden to bear as they cast their vote for the candidate who - they are certain - when the chips are down, will send everything that can fly.
July 1, 2008
Jennifer Rubin
THE JERUSALEM POST
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Anyone familiar with the threat posed by the advancing American Fifth Column understands all too clearly that our Constitution is under attack. Whether it is the insistence that the Constitution is a living document meant to conform to the will of the times or the institution of political correctness - a shadow set of laws effectively usurping the laws of our Constitutional Republic - the American Fifth Column is slowly, incrementally, systematically, chipping away at the wisdom as set forth by our Founders and Framers. With news that a non-governmentally charged commission is introducing a measure that would impose "group think" on the Commander-in-Chief, it is evidenced that the American Fifth Column is on the march.
Recently, a story surfaced regarding the War Powers Resolution of 1973. The resolution states:
"... the President of The United States of America can send troops into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or if the United States of America is already under attack or serious threat. The War Powers Act requires that the president notify Congress within 48 hours of committing troops to military action and forbids troops from remaining for more than 60 days without an authorization of force or a declaration of war."
This is already a stretch on the authority placed in the Executive Branch by our Framers. Article II, Section 2 of the United State Constitution states:
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;..."
The check and balance to this authority rests exclusively in Article I, Section 8 whereby Congress is charged with the authority:
"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
"To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
"To provide and maintain a Navy;
"To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
"To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;..."
As is made clear - beyond any reasonable argument - the Executive Branch is charged with commanding the Armed Forces and the Legislative Branch is charged with the funding of the Armed Forces.
Check. Balance.
Should the will of the people be that an armed conflict is unjust, the representatives of the people have the wherewithal to defund the Armed Forces, thus denying them not only compensation but the ability to procure weapons, tactical and sustainable goods and ammunition. This ability to defund presents both an intentional and moral pressure on the Commander-in-Chief. No able leader would deprive his soldiers of arms, ammunition or the security in knowing provisions are in place for their families.
Of course, the above passages from the US Constitution were enacted during a time of honor; during a time when it was unheard of and, in fact, disgraceful for one to abdicate either their personal or civic responsibility. These articles and sections were created and enacted in a time when good government was placed before the narcissism of the politically opportune.
We do not live in a time when politicians can be expected to give a damn about honor. We live in an age when taking responsibility for ones actions is seldom a reality and usually the exception to the rule. We live in an age of "group think" and "truth by consensus." If those responsible for enacting and executing the laws of our land deem a situation too politically damaging you can bet the farm they will establish a commission or a blue ribbon panel to "group think" the issue. By creating the "group think consensus" politicians avoid having to take a stand that may be unpopular, abdicating their responsibility to their constituency to a faceless, nameless "commission."
(As an aside, the ideas of "group think" and "truth by consensus," although Orwellian in their tone, are in fact Marxist/Leninist leaning notions based in moral relativism.)
While many commissions and blue ribbon panels are seated by our elected officials, others are formed by private institutions, institutions of higher learning and philanthropic institutions. Where the recent story of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 is concerned, we are faced with a commission from all three.
It would appear that the Miller Center for Public Affairs, emanating from the University of Virginia, has assembled one National War Powers Commission. The commission is co-chaired by former Secretaries of State James A. Baker, III and Warren Christopher. Those seated on the commission include: Sen. Slade Gorton, US Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, Carla A. Hills, John O. Marsh, Jr., Edwin Meese, III, Abner J. Mikva, J. Paul Reason, Brent Scowcroft, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Strobe Talbott.
This commission, touted as non-partisan, has issued a report suggesting that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 be replaced with the War Powers Consultation Act.
The War Powers Consultation Act:
▪ Provides that the president shall consult with Congress before deploying US troops into "significant armed conflict" - i.e., combat operations lasting, or expected to last, more than a week.
▪ Defines the types of hostilities that would or would not be considered "significant armed conflicts."
▪ Creates a new Joint Congressional Consultation Committee, which includes leaders of both Houses as well as the chair and ranking members of key committees.
▪ Establishes a permanent bipartisan staff with access to the national security and intelligence information necessary to conduct its work.
▪ Calls on Congress, to vote up or down on significant armed conflicts within 30 days.
When one understands the authorities granted to the Executive and Legislative Branches of the United States Government, it is painfully obvious that not only does the War Powers Consultation Act continue the unconstitutional usurpation of the Commander-in-Chief's authority to command our Armed Forces; it proposes a further encroachment on the separation of powers.
"Provides that the president shall consult with Congress before deploying US troops into "significant armed conflict," provides a literal seat at the table where Executive Branch military decision making is concerned.
"Defines the types of hostilities that would or would not be considered ‘significant armed conflicts,'" effectively limits the Commander-in-Chief in the ability to act should our nation find itself, "already under attack or serious threat," both definitions being subjected to Legislative Branch interpretation.
"Creates a new Joint Congressional Consultation Committee, which includes leaders of both Houses as well as the chair and ranking members of key committees," attempts to transition the onus of declarative responsibility regarding military action from the singular voice of the Commander-in-Chief to "group think consensus" of a committee plus one.
And, "establishes a permanent bipartisan staff with access to the national security and intelligence information necessary to conduct its work," not only encroaches on the privilege granted to the Commander-in-Chief and his staff in times of conflict, it opens any and all military operations up to politization; even more so than it is already.
In fact, the only provision in this absurdly unconstitutional proposal, that exists within the boundaries of the Constitution is the right for "Congress to vote up or down on significant armed conflicts within 30 days."
That James Baker, Warren Christopher and the rest of the National War Powers Commission believe they know better how to vest constitutional powers than the Framers of our Constitution is a testimony to the definition of arrogance. That they would consider usurping the authority of the United States Constitution by allowing the partisan Congress to encroach upon the awesome and singular responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief places them squarely at the service of the American Fifth Column.
The President of the United States is the Commander-in-Chief. He alone commands the US Armed Forces. The Congress funds the Armed Forces. Should Congress ever feel that the US Armed Forces are engaged in a dishonorable action they have the wherewithal to defund it mission and thus bring it to an end. All they have to do is actually have the courage to do so. Today, there is no courage on Capitol Hill...only consensus.
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Democrats and Muslims, Not Much Difference - which may explain the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama
History reveals an important but unfortunate truth. During every war waged by a democratic society, members of the media and political opponents of the existing government have been quick to portray on-going military actions to deconstruct the nation’s sworn enemies as either (1), tactical mistakes causing unnecessary collateral damage, or (2), another example of brutal atrocities against peace-loving peoples and the rest of humanity – or both. Judging from the current Congressional and Main Stream Media antics, the 21st Century is off to an inauspicious start.
Let us also not forget those politicians in the United States, Great Britain and Canada, past and present, who, with the United Nations, have never missed an opportunity to appease a potent enemy, whether the now defunct Soviet Union, or the latest incarnation of Islam (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah, Syria, and Hamas), or North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and soon Mexico.
It is remarkable how quickly politicians and media wannabes publicly criticize their own government, more often than not shifting blame to the current administration for Congress’ flawed decision making. Because of the media’s ignorance or ideology (redundant), Congress gets a “free pass.” Those who criticize the loudest are often the very people who are most unwilling to abide by the decision of the majority in a democracy, or live by existing laws. You can undoubtedly name several politicians who refuse to support the duly elected leadership, or at least acquiesce for a short period of time until the next election. Instead of carping and obstructing, they should be working industriously on various issues for the benefit of United States citizens. Instead these same politicians become obsessed with accumulating personal wealth while displaying self-righteous indignation about corruption in front of a camera at every opportunity – case in point, Senator John McCain.
What would it take for Congress to rededicate their productive efforts toward working for the best interests of the nation rather than self interest? Many have suggested that only a citizen insurrection (figuratively or literally) will restore excellence, initiative and integrity to Congress. The first reform step needed would be to deny elected public servants the opportunity to profit and accumulate personal wealth from campaign contributions at the expense of taxpayers while in office. Only then will we restore the representative republic that was once the United States of America. Only then will people undertake public service not solely motivated by becoming obscenely wealthy.
Until that day in another lifetime, unprincipled political opportunists unwilling to wait for the next opportunity to vote, will continue to undermine the will of the people and subvert their own fragile democracy in the pursuit of self interest. Without any semblance of shame, many Congressmen openly engage in undermining the domestic and foreign policies of those who occupy the highest political offices. This is no less a warfare tactic than that used by proponents of Islam. A close study of both would reveal how similar they are.
Unfortunately, lumpen are most frequently the victims of propaganda and slick political deceit. Lumpen uniformly fail to recognize that the majority of politicians really don’t care about winning any war – a mindset so callous that it winds up costing the lives of young men and women. Nor do liberals care about right or wrong or what is at stake. Theirs is an ideology. The word “team” should be an antonym of the word “liberal.” There is no “I” in the word “team.” Liberals, by their intellectual wiring, want desperately to be in charge, whether in a corporation, a small company, the homeowners association, the city government, the state government or Congress. Ballots are full of liberal candidates seeking control over the lives of others – the name of the political party is irrelevant. As an aside, conservatives typically don’t seek public office.
Liberals are uniformly confident in their belief that we would all be better off if we lived our lives and raised our children according to their standards. They are only too glad to impose rules on the rest of us – standards of egalitarian equality achieved by redistributing all income, education, medicine, transportation, and housing among the bottom 50% of wage earners who pay no taxes, plus lavish corporate benefactors with earmarks in return for campaign contributions. As for liberals, it is their pathological desire to be among the elite in a class-structured society. It is all about power, stupid – their power and our servitude! In fact, if I were to ask what best describes a conservative who works like a liberal; you would have to respond, “A lazy bastard.”
Democracy is so inconvenient to liberals who are sure, in spite of history and lack of fact-based education, that they are correct on all social issues. Just look at the courts and make a note who among our citizens advocates judicial activism. Try to appreciate how many decisions have been taken away from the American people – democracy denied – regarding religion, abortion, school choice, enforcement of immigration, voting rights, marriage, welfare, freedom of speech, private property, gun ownership, pledge of allegiance, competition for jobs or a college education, equal standards of performance by everyone in the same job regardless of race or gender, etc. None of these issues are within the jurisdiction of the courts and most of these issues are not the prerogative of the federal government. Even organizations such as the Education Department and FEMA are outside the scope of federal authority under the U.S. Constitution – as is Foreign Aid and corporate welfare. Now it has come to pass that the media, politicians and federal courts are dictating military strategy, tactics and morality to the Executive Branch – again interfering in matters outside their constitutional scope of authority.
We have watched numb in horror as the media glories in the deaths of American soldiers, displaying the numbers and changing the totals the way a gas station displays changes in prices. The media does it because they know it horrifies every real American. Congressmen engage in the same behavior, trumpeting the numbers from behind a microphone, ignoring the fact that it was Congress (not the President) who sent (authorized and funded) the U.S. Armed Forces intervention first in Viet Nam and now in the Middle East. This duplicity is an intentional liberal tactic of disunion and reveals how little value politicians place on the lives of American servicemen and women – which it turns out, is about the same as the value Hezbollah (Islam) places on the lives of civilians.
All of this carnage is intentionally “in your face.” It is cynically intended to create an alternate reality, to portray to you who should have been in charge of this over-sized homeowner’s association from the outset. It is also meant to show us that we were wrong to elect who we did. While supremely confident that everything would have been much different and much better if it wasn’t for your and my ignorant mistakes voting for the wrong people, liberals in general and the Democratic Party in particular, work diligently to undermine the current administration and democracy itself. If only there was a more eloquent word than “despicable” to convey the disdain all American’s should feel toward such people – the same people who refuse to secure our nation’s borders or protect American jobs.
Add to this inauspicious group of subversives a large number of uneducated and unelected members of the main-stream-media who live in a rabbit hole of reality, each born with various and sundry body parts but few with a brain or a spine. I am speaking specifically of the visual and print news media, and the sports and entertainment industries, whose representatives speak and behave as if they would like nothing more that to engineer an outcome in which America loses this conflict with Islam. Hollywood seems incapable of understanding that if our nation loses, we all lose, and those that have the most will lose the most. And Israel will lose it all – first. Never mind their disproportionate intellectual contributions to humanity. Unless we play to lose this event in history called “The Islamic Wars” by the rules of engagement of the Democratic Party, these wing nuts will defiantly disrupt yours and my fight for liberty, and deny our very survival. If you won’t agree to do it their way, to lose, they will see to it that you cannot win – not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in our economy, schools, and courts.
Do memories of Senators Kennedy, Kerry, Durbin, Pelosi, Rangel, Reid and Murtha come to mind – and on any given day, even John McCain? What about the Dixie Chicks, Rosie O’Donnell, Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, Barbara Streisand, Danny Glover and George Soros?
In all fairness, there are a number of legitimate questions regarding policies and actions of the CIA, Defense and State Department leading up to the Islamic Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is also current disturbing evidence of their appalling political unwillingness to decisively win at any cost, and in doing so preserve the lives of young American soldiers.
Whether emanating from Congress or the Administration, hardly a day goes by that we don’t think something was a lame-brain decision. However, to disagree with the Islamic Wars or some aspect of United States foreign policy is one thing, but such disagreement should not make any American want to become a New York Times subversive or leak classified information out of the State Department or CIA. Most citizens (those that care) recognize that intentionally revealing vital intelligence, or limiting intelligence collection, will result in the deaths of even more American soldiers and civilians.
Those unfortunate human beings who proudly undermine the elected administration mistakenly claim to be Americans. They see themselves as defenders of democracy, when in fact their actions repudiate their own American birthright and disavow democracy. One thing is certain; these people represent the finest socialist traditions and constitute the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Some have the distinction of being a growing cancer in the Republican Party. Let history record that Congressmen don’t care a hoot about our sons or daughters. In fact, their unwillingness to abide by any democratic process and the will of the people for four short years arguably demonstrates they should not be entitled to call themselves Americans.
We seriously doubt that the concept of being an “American” is understood by the majority of the Democratic Party. We doubt that there is anything in life greater than “self” to a liberal – and we repeatedly hear that nothing associated with American culture or nationalism is worth defending. To their eternal shame, Democrats fail to see any difference between Islam and Christianity. Therein is the divide. We fail to see much difference today between Democrats and radical Muslims, either in ideology or tactics. Maybe there is none and the rest of us should respond accordingly.
Red State Patriot
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This is a video is of 1215 servicemen and women re-enlisting in a July 4th, 2008 ceremony presided over by General Petraeus in a former Saddam Hussein palace. This is twice the number of re-enlistments from a similar ceremony last year.
In the spring of 1864, tens of thousands of Union volunteers, who had signed up for three years service in 1861 were up for discharge.
They had served with honor and distinction, they had every honorable reason to take their discharges and go home, but if they did so, the cause of the Union would be in jeopardy. They knew with utter certainty what awaited them if they signed up again ... and what might be lost if they did not. Over 30,000 of them reenlisted ... that action, as much as any other, saved the Union.
The young men and women in this video show the spirit of the volunteer soldiers of our nation.
It would be hard not to believe that hovering near them are the spirits of many who have given the last full measure of devotion to their country and freedom, and now whisper, "Thank you soldier, God bless you, and well done."
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Not long ago, I was having a gathering of about eight people at my house. The last guy to show up walked right into my kitchen and then protested because he couldn't find any bottled water in the refrigerator. Next, he complained that we ate all the snacks before he showed up thirty-five minutes late. When he finally came into the living room to sit down, he asked what we were talking about. I told him we were talking about economics, which involves not just demand but supply. I joked that he wouldn't have to demand any bottled water and snacks if he'd remembered to supply some, too. That drew a laugh from one of our mutual friends.
This trait of being more in love with consumption than production is one shared by most of my socialist colleagues in academia. They base their lives on the idea of taking "from each according to his ability" and giving "to each according to his need." The problem is that they do a better job of articulating their needs than promoting their abilities. This is, of course, because socialists are generally short on abilities. They seek socialism because they think being guaranteed an average outcome is safer than trying to beat the average in a system based on merit, which is otherwise known as ability.
Anyone watching the 2008 presidential race has doubtless seen a similar dynamic among supporters of Barack H. Obama. Most of his supporters have been talking about rights without any mention of the notion of responsibilities. Like supply and demand, and need and ability, the terms rights and responsibilities are best understood in relation to one another. For example, I have a 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms that the government cannot simply take away from me on a whim. But I also have a responsibility for everything that occurs between the time I discharge a bullet and the time the bullet comes to its final stopping point. But consider the following list of "rights" that supporters of Obama have recently told me that we all have: Everyone has the right to a college education. I can't imagine what it will be like as a college professor once Obama implements this one. I've been teaching to the occasional unqualified black and the occasional unqualified athlete for years. But now that everyone, including, presumably, the mentally retarded, has a right to a college degree, I might just retire and become a firearms instructor. Hopefully, Obama will not grant a Right to Firearms Education to both idiots and the insane.
(Author's Note: This one came from Obama himself). Everyone has a right to breathe clean air. This is a really bad idea for the Obama campaign. If everyone starts to enforce his right to breathe clean air in the presence of swarthy young Muslims, Obama might lose an important part of his electoral base. Everyone has a right to free health care. I recently learned this from an incoming Drexel law student appearing on The O'Reilly Factor. Bill did a great job by asking her whether this right is in the constitution or whether it just comes from the fact that she is a really nice person. She was forced to admit that it was not in the constitution. She should do really well in law school because she's a really nice person.
Everyone has a right to demand that the rich pay taxes in proportion to their ability to pay taxes. I recently learned this from an incoming Yale law student on the same segment of The Factor. Everyone agrees that the rich should pay more taxes than the poor. What is controversial is the notion that they should also pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. But that was not the issue in this segment. The issue was whether the existing gap in the proportion of taxes paid by the poor and the rich should be widened and, if so, by how much. When someone says we have a right to tax the rich "in proportion to their ability to pay" they mean "tax them until they can no longer pay" or "tax them until they are bankrupt." Many people who hold this view were not actually alive during the Carter Administration. But they have taken history classes from people who assure us that he was really not such a bad president.
Every gay man has a right to feel comfortable. I heard this one from a first-year law student at Yale. He actually informed me thrice that his right to be comfortable as a gay man trumps the First Amendment. I guess they don't teach constitutional law until the second year of the Yale law program. But the question is: How did this sissy get into Yale Law School?
After spending only a little time listening to followers of the Dali Bama I have concluded that, in Obama's America, everyone gets to declare at least one new fundamental right regardless of whether it is written into the constitution. And so, naturally, I am going to declare first that I have a right to unlimited rights. (This is sort of like making one's only wish a request for unlimited wishes). My second declaration of a new right is a little more complicated. First, I believe that I have a right to demand that you show me a copy of the U.S. Constitution every time you demand a new right. And if you cannot identify the constitutional basis of your proposed right, you forfeit that right as well as your right to vote in 2008. And, of course, I get to cast the vote you forfeited. So, those of you prone to simply announce fundamental rights without any constitutional basis should beware that this could soon deprive you of the right to vote. Until now, it's only deprived of you the right to sound intelligent.
Mike S. Adams
July 07, 2008
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MikeSAdams/2008/07/07/my_right_to_unlimited_rights
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Fireworks explode over the Manhattan skyline on Friday, July 4, 2008.
Independence vs Freedom on the Fourth of July
The shells shoot up. The sky fills with color. Color so vivid and bright that for a moment it blots everything out. Green. Red. Blue. Gold. Then it fades and closer by smaller fireworks are shot up with a whoosh and a bang followed by cheering. Small fireworks fired in backyards and rooftops. Illegal now in New York. "That's terrible," come the mutters. "That's not allowed." "Good, people could blow their hands off." "It's too dangerous."
And that was Independence Day. Beneath the spectacle and the dazzle, independence had become detached from freedom and the celebration of the 4th of July was something best left to trained professionals and corporate sponsorship, not to individual Americans. Yet somewhere in the distance rebels were firing off their individual fireworks, illegal, hunted by the police, but still celebrating the truth of the 4th of July, Independence Day.
July 4th itself was controversial and the subject of an ideological battle between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Adams favored the 2nd, which was the anniversary of the resolution of national independence. Jefferson favored the 4th which was the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The battle had an obvious egotistical element with each men putting forth his chief accomplishment, but it also had an ideological one, for the Declaration spelled out not just national independence, but that it was premised on the rights of the individual.
Unlike the independence movements of many other nations, American independence had always been premised on the rights of the individual. It was because of the unaddressed violations of the rights of British citizens in America, that the growing resistance, revolution and eventual self-rule took place. The fundamental reason for the existence of the United States of America was that colonial rule had violated the contract between citizen and state, therefore requiring a new form of local independent government to take its place.
American independence has therefore always been premised on the individual freedoms of its citizens. It is unsurprising therefore that as America loses its independence in an entangled maze of foreign treaties and UN agreements, Americans lose their freedom. And vice versa. American independence and the rights of Americans are bound together. When one goes, so does the other.
A governing body that bans fireworks, as is the case in a growing number of states and cities, is one that has already banned firearms on the understanding that dangerous things should not be in the hands of individuals. Britain, the mother country long parted, is still pursuing that approach to the bitter end as it conducts a campaign for "Knife Control" against a rash of stabbings, turning satire into reality. Because of course you cannot take dangerous things out of the hands of people. You can only take them out of the hands of law abiding people.
The wide range of Chinese and Japanese martial arts weapons that Western teenagers know and admire from countless martial arts epics, such as the Nunchaku, were created by people who had been barred from owning swords by authorities that practiced their own form of "Knife Control". In turn the populace and monks created lethal weapons made from sticks of wood and built entire martial arts around them. The lesson of course is that it is not weapons that are dangerous, but people who are dangerous. And people are very dangerous indeed.
The government of adults is a social contract between adults, dangerous men and women who choose to live by certain rules with one another. The government of children is a nanny state that panders to them and takes away their dangerous toys while preaching to them endlessly how to live their lives. Put on more warning labels, exercise more, eat less, don't play with guns or fireworks or lawn darts. You'll put your eye out.
We live today under a children's government. A government to whom Freedom is a word and Independence is something to be given up to an even larger global government. A government that treats its citizens as children to be talked down to when their cooperation is needed, but not partners in what needs to be done.
There are a packed mass of civil rights organizations opening up shop on every corner, but those organizations have nothing to do with individual rights which underlie the state of freedom. They represent group rights, with the mission of ironing out the inequities in the current system with special benefits and even more government oversight. If the government is the nanny state, the civil rights organizations are the toddlers demanding more cookies than the other boys and girls because the nanny likes them less.
The fireworks that shoot up over the river are a gorgeous and dazzling sight. They represent the greatness we can achieve when we work together. But the small fireworks represent the energy and force of individual initiative. Both are needed and both are vital to the health of a working democracy. Within the great blaze in the sky reminding us that we all stand beneath one greater light, there is nothing more than anarchy. But without the smaller fireworks displays, the individual is robbed of individual initiative and joy.
An independence day that forbids the independent spirit of Americans is not fundamentally different than the fireworks displays of any other nation, free or not. The joining together of a people means nothing if they are treated as nothing more than cogs in a great machine without free will. Such a system crushes the initiative of the individual for a collective good that is defined as his own good by the forces of authority. Such a system cannot long remain free, for freedom derives from the individual. As individuals in a government of adults we choose within a social contract to restrain ourselves from certain actions. But in a government of children, there is only the mass, a dangerous mass that must be restrained from wrong thinking and wrongdoing.
The greatest weakness of the War on Terror is that it is being conducted while disdaining the contributions of individual Americans in fighting terrorism by condescending authorities that preach to us that the path to victory is through a shopping spree at Best Buy, rather than by combating Islamism at home. The real revolution will come when the government is again prepared to treat Americans as partners rather than dependents and to unleash the power of Americans in the face of all threats, political, military and economic. For the light that millions of Americans can create easily outshines even the bright glare of any corporate spectacular.
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Our duty, and our daily task as American citizens, is to shape the larger affairs of state by making our influence felt as widely as possible in the halls of our state legislature and Congress.
If you were to get on a bus with many other passengers, one has to hope you care where you’re going? Would you prefer at least a general consensus of the destination? Is any bus, going anywhere, acceptable to you? Would it better for you to be heard and influence the destination than be “taken for a ride?” The destination of America is no less important.
Presidents come and go, but Congress and the Supreme Court endures.
To understand how the United States became who and what we are as a nation, realize that every government decision, both in this and past generations, has led us to this point in history. We are, as a nation, the cumulative result of decades of judicial decisions and Congressional legislation. Legislation is without exception agenda driven, politically motivated, sometimes self-serving and often ill-conceived. Yesterday's and today’s Congressional legislation eventually becomes cumulative, which when combined with judicial fiats of the Supreme Court, creates the American culture you can expect for the next decade.
The polarization of our culture is the proximate result of too many binding national decisions occurring outside a legitimate democratic process, i.e., imposed on Americans without their vote.
One has only to look closely at each “first family” to accurately assess the culture of the prevailing times during that presidency. Bill and Hillary Clinton, for example, were a frightening reflection of our national self and our decaying society, committing seeming endless felony crimes without accountability, defended by liberals who seemed themselves without faith or value systems, selling everything that wasn’t nailed down including national defense technology, running the White House Motel and looting the place upon their departure. The nation hadn’t seen an act like the Clintons since the Atlantic City Diving Horse. The same mentality pervades both political parties in today's Congress.
As you would expect, every liberal expressed pride in the Clintons and every conservative felt revulsion. In large part, American’s today have never been more polarized on the direction and destination of their bus.
We cannot always expect to agree on solutions to our problems. Some solutions are focused on more liberty (less government), and others on socialist remedies (more government). In the end we shall have to adjust our differences in a minimal spirit of goodwill and subordinate our lesser interests to the general welfare of the majority.
The important thing to do as citizens is to look at our national problems with an open mind in a spirit of fairness. Be willing and eager to listen to all sides, determined to find the truth. To do this, to the extent possible, read and listen endlessly, assemble what is learned into useful information and then make decisions. It is never possible to have all the facts or enough information to make perfect decisions, but more provides a greater opportunity to make the correct decision. "More" often begins with education and never ends in real American citizenship.
Because somebody says something, or it is published in the print media, doesn’t make it either true or a fact. That’s where individual research and “mining for facts” becomes important. It is fair to say that the facts will lead to the truth, which in turn will lead to an answer, or at least a preferred direction. The truth of a matter (as it is without makeup) is what is important. Truth is the converse of spin and obfuscation. Which you choose to believe, truth or spin, or which is truth or spin, is ideological.
Your best course is to be the slave of no man or a blind follower of any man's crusade, liberal or conservative. The better choice would be to "serve" the American people with honor and integrity rather than permitting the self-interest of those attempting to rule. In other words, we should be working for the welfare of all American citizens rather than political self-interest of only a few. Accept and follow the sovereignty of your own mind.
What is in the best interest of the majority of American citizens is most often in the best interest of America! For example, is less crime, better education and immigration control in the best interest of each American citizen? Then those issues should be a national priority and the consuming focus of Congress.
Many Americans derive their social attitudes and political perspective from one newspaper or one radio or television source. The media is well aware of the literacy limitations of many Americans, products of failed government education, who neither speak English nor read. Contemporary media admits their presentations are intentionally biased and that they are pursuing a political agenda. The media goal has become one of targeting and misinforming Americans in the pursuit of socialist ideology, i.e., more government rather than less, with media ensconced as the brain cell of the Democratic Party.
Many citizens, in what could be called "the lost generation," are legitimate victims of the public school system, and/or sadly ignorant by choice. These tragic individuals, of all heritages, have little choice but to make decisions based solely on their own prejudices and emotions, most of which are derived from the media, which has degenerated in recent years to the level of propaganda. Statesmen have become rare. As a result of the main stream media, the Ship of State is torn and threatened by conflicting gales of uninformed public prejudice.
One way we can turn it around is with the truth and a vote.
It is not easy to know the truth, especially if a person denies clear channel access to their intellect and common sense. There is always the possibility that even the most conscientious citizen will make mistakes in judgment. Truth, supported by facts and history, remains an important principle if democracy in America is to survive and adapt itself to the new and changing threats of our time, not the least of which is Islamofascism.
You should be aware that there are many among us to whom truth is irrelevant. They call themselves liberals or centrists. Expect nothing less and be surprised at nothing. Endless falsehoods are necessary to cause you to vote against your own self interest, and in effect to steal your vote.
To a liberal, the end justifies the means; the result justifies the tactics; their power justifies the lies. To a conservative, the truth simply is! Always has and always will be.
Red State Patriot
9-17-2005
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Are American Jews the equivalent of chickens voting for Shabbat?
If you can spot Senator Barack Obama, you are probably not an American Jew.
They (American Jews) have persuaded themselves that Barack Obama is a friend of the Jewish people, because Obama put his hand on his heart and swore undying friendship to the state of Israel.
The fact that for 20 years he belonged to a 'black power' church whose pastor - and his own personal spiritual mentor - was an acolyte of the Jew-hating demagogue Louis Farrakhan, and who also supported Hamas as a resistance movement, is a detail that need not trouble the Jews of Los Angeles, Boca Raton or the Upper West Side.
The fact that Obama has said 'Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people' needn't detain them.
The fact that he says he would talk to the genocidal fanatics of Iran without preconditions (along with the dictators of North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela) needn't bother them at all.
Because for them, there's only one thing that matters about Obama. He's not a Republican!
For the overwhelmingly Democrat-supporting American Jews, voting for a Republican is as unthinkable as eating a ham sandwich on Yom Kippur. Indeed, a number of them would rather eat a ham sandwich on Yom Kippur, because their conviction that religion is bunk and has nothing to do with being Jewish comes second only to their conviction that Republicans are the acme of evil.
That is because they think that to be Jewish is to be liberal in outlook. Therefore to be a Jew is to be a Democrat. End of story. Unlike their British counterparts, American Jews haven't become more conservative as their prosperity has increased over the generations. (This is not true of the growing minority of mainly younger American Jews, who are markedly more Orthodox and thus, since they are rather more in tune with authentic Jewish ethics such as truth, justice and the difference between right and wrong, are indeed voting Republican; but let that pass.)
Being Jewish, think liberal American Jews, means showing that you are not prejudiced against minorities. That means adopting the core presumption of 'victim culture' that minorities are never at fault. That means in turn that if an ethnic or religious minority is prejudiced against you, you can't criticize it because to do so means you are prejudiced.
True, the fact that Obama belongs to a kooky church makes them uneasy. The fact that he associates with various mafia types and nut-jobs makes them twitch a bit. The fact that he would go cap in hand to Iran and Syria makes at least some of them suck their teeth.
But they know that he must be their friend because he is a Democrat and he is black. They know that he cannot be their enemy because they know that President Bush is their enemy.
The fact that Bush is arguably the greatest friend the Jewish people has ever had in the White House cannot possibly be true because Bush is a Republican and therefore can do no right.
Conversely, Obama can do no wrong. So American Jews ignore the fact that all Obama's foreign-policy advisers are veteran Israel-haters. They ignore his long-standing friendship with Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi.
Khalidi has written that Israel has carried out the 'ethnic cleansing' of Palestinians; that Israel should be replaced by a bi-national, cantonal system for Jews and Arabs; and that suicide bombings are a response to 'Israeli aggression'. Obama has said he merely had 'conversations' with Khalidi. But reports say the Khalidi and Obama families are long-standing friends. In 2000, Khalidi raised funds for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. And according to the Los Angeles Times, Obama said his talks with the Khalidis served as 'consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table', but around 'this entire world'.
No matter. All of this is simply erased from the gaze of America's Jews in their own collective blind spot. As a result, as pro-Palestinian blogger Ali Abunimah let slip at The Electronic Intifada, Obama is playing them for suckers. Abunimah wrote that during his campaign for the US Senate, Obama told him: ''Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more upfront.'
He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, 'Keep up the good work!''
So if, as is expected, Obama wins the Democratic presidential nomination, American Jews will vote for him and maintain their purity of soul.
Cluck cluck!
By Melanie Phillips
5/30/200830
Hat tip: Len Salonsky
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At the heart of the degeneration of the First World has been the overt exploitation of the generation gap by the left's counterculture across the world. It is an unmistakable factor not only in elections but more so in social, political and cultural trends. At the heart of this exploitation has been the elevation of the "wisdom of youth" on the one hand and the portrayal of adults as bigoted, old fashioned and ignorant.
There is of course all the reason in the world for people who want to exploit a society to pander to the most immature, gullible and naive group within that society, who are most likely to think with their emotions and have little life experience to work with. The "wisdom of youth" is three parts idealism, four parts rebellion, two parts outraged cynicism and one part fresh perspective. It shouldn't be dismissed, but neither should it be unrealistically elevated.
The French revolution was preceded by a worship of the naturalism of Rousseau. Like all the egotistical elder philosophers who light the match while rarely suffering its consequences, the ideas of Rousseau contained the seeds of the youthful chaos of the last several centuries. To Rousseau civilization was theft, culture was degeneracy, order was oppression, technology an evil, the common good supreme to the individual rights, property a crime, sex is detached from commitment, the middle class is beneath contempt and only the savage is virtuous.
There is little of any principle that political radicals and philosophers have preached of the "wisdom of youth" that Rousseau had not already set down. The Age of Terror, just like the Age of Aquarius, was in truth the Age of Rousseau-- who was to these as Marx was to Communism.
Rousseau's vision is the social vision of the egotist, a seemingly ideal world in which convention has been disposed of and one's natural instincts in harmony with the common good reign, and it is naturally embraced by youth in age after age. It is the vision of the pied piper, replayed through art, music, literature, theater and all the varied entertainments of youth.
The elder egotists who plot to make revolution know quite well that it is made by the young and so they play pied piper, teaching the ideas of naturalism, and playing the tune that leads the next generation out of the city and the village and into the forest. And when the liquor and drugs are flowing, the steel guitars are pounding, protest signs are raised high, terrorist groups are building bombs in Manhattan basements and flowers are braided into hair before being tossed in the mud-- the counterculture's pied pipers state their terms to the parents. Social transformation.
The pied piper forced the parents to pay for the return of their children. The counterculture forces a nation to pay for integrating its children back into the fold as adults by adopting the values of the counterculture. Thus the divide is seemingly met, the piper is paid and adults find themselves in a world whose values and ideas no longer make sense.
"Give me the child and I will give you the man," the counterculture says, echoing the Jesuits. And when we look at the modern Democratic party, we can see the man-- the men and women they have become. And looking at the Obama rallies, we can see what is yet to come.
The counterculture cultivates the natural dissatisfaction of youth, breeding it and grafting it into an outright hostility and even hate for their own country. This time the pied piper's price to be paid is Obama for President. It's turning over the country to those who hate it and adopting their values. And just as in the 70's, the 1970's or the 1790's it's much too high a price to pay.
We have already accepted the ideal of the noble savage, detached sex from commitment, treated civilization as a plague, heaped contempt on the middle class, attacked property rights, elevated the common good over individual rights. Rousseau's Pied Piper has played the tune from which modern Western society derives its value systems, listening eagerly for the voice of youth to tell us how to be more "natural" and "open" to the authentic call of the inexperienced and unbiased life. Now the question is whether we will wake in time and reject the piper and the tune or become lemmings, allowing the counterculture to lead us off a political cliff and into the abyss.
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