Archive for the ‘Historical Quotes’ Category

Charisma as a tool to tame the masses?

January 21, 2009

Charisma is a two edged sword to be sure. One thing about President Obama is his charismatic manner of speech. At least as long as there is a teleprompter or notes near at hand.

When I was still a sophomore in college I took a course in “Public Speaking” as I’m sure many of my readers also did. Having been a “Gavel Club” member and participant in High School I couldn’t help but note the differences that were taught in speaking methodology.

I certainly picked up on some of those things yesterday while listening to the new President. It was of course not laid out in debate format. But meant to be inspirational, especially to his followers. I was reminded of other inspirational speakers from the realm of politics, and religion for the most part.

Then today I wake up, and check the news. What sort of beast have we unleashed upon our nation? What sort of people put him there?

Obama voting demographics, where do you fit..?

January 18, 2009

Who elected Obama?

By Mark Alexander

Last week we answered the question “Who is Barack Obama” by posing questions that Obama did not answer during the presidential campaign. This week, we take a look at who voted for him.

Police mugshots of Obama constituents

On 20 January, Barack Hussein Obama will be inaugurated as the next president of our United States, according to our Constitution. However, his largest constituencies tend to view this event as either the coronation of the “royal one” or the ordination of the “holy one.”

Before we further define those constituencies, here, for the record, is a recap of the survey data concerning the presidential election.

Some 136.6 million Americans voted — a 64.1 percent turnout and the highest since 1908. Obama is the first Democrat to win a majority of the popular vote (53 percent) since Jimmy Carter. By sex, BHO’s support was 49 percent male and 56 percent female. By ethnic group, his support comprised 41 percent of Whites, 61 percent of Asians, 75 percent of Latinos and 95 percent of Blacks. By age, BHO’s largest support demographic was 66 percent of voters under the age of 30. By income, 52 percent of voters with more than $200,000 in annual income voted for Obama. By education, his support came from those without a college degree and those with a post-graduate degree.

So, his victory was largely due to support from non-whites, from those under 30, from those with the lowest income and education, and from a small number of voters at the other end of those spectrums, while those of middle age, income and education tended to support John McCain.

By religion, Obama received support from 46 percent of Protestant voters, 56 percent of Catholic voters and 62 percent of voters of other religions. BHO received 76 percent of atheist and agnostic voters.

The Barna Research Group looked at some other interesting characteristics of Obama voters: 57 percent of those who consider themselves “lonely or isolated,” 59 percent of those affected by the economic decline in “a major way,” and 61 percent of those who claim they are “stressed out” supported BHO.

So, considering the stats, the Democrats’ strategy of fomenting dissent and disunity by promoting themes of disparity was vital to Obama’s election. Indeed, the Left’s political playbook has only one chapter defining their modus operandi — “Divide-n-Conquer.” No wonder their national leadership calls itself the DnC.

Obama’s largest constituent groups fall under the general umbrella of “disenfranchised victims,” those who feel they are ethnically or economically handicapped. Other significant constituent groups are those who identify with the disenfranchised; this includes two small but highly ideologically influential groups, the economic and academic elite.

The disenfranchised victim groups and those who identify with them have a number of common characteristics. They have a low civic IQ and virtually no understanding of our Constitutional Republic and its heritage and legacy of liberty. They have fully bought into the “Politics of Disparity” or “class warfare.”

However, it is Obama’s small economic and academic elite constituencies who pose the greatest danger to that heritage of liberty. They neither know nor care any more about liberty than the disenfranchised legions with which they seek to identify. They are the “king makers,” those who have funded and charted Obama’s course to the coronation.

Some have made a lot of “easy money,” which explains why Obama received far more support from Wall Street than McCain. Others are inheritance-welfare liberals, those who value government welfare dependence because they were, themselves, dependent on inheritance throughout their formative years and never developed the character necessary to succeed on their own initiative.

Whether fast money or inheritance, neither group has direct contact with the unwashed masses other than those who keep their homes, offices and imported autos clean and in good repair. This utter dependence upon the low end of the “service sector” is perhaps the source of the insecurities that drive them to identify with the masses.

Obama’s academic elite are just as insecure, but they are driven by ideology. They are Leftists, Western apologists for socialist political and economic agendas. Regular readers of this column will recognize them as “Useful Idiots” for their advocacy of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collectivism. Like Obama, they reject constitutional authority and subscribe to the errant notion of a “Living Constitution”.

Among Obama’s Left elite are such Marxist radicals as Frank Marshall Davis and William Ayers and his religious mentor Jeremiah Wright.

There are some characteristics that are common to many BHO supporters among both the disenfranchised and the elite.

Obama’s cult-like following among these constituencies is not the result of deception. In fact, it can be attributed to something much more subtle and, potentially, sinister, with far more ominous implications for the future of liberty.

Most of Obama’s supporters identify with some part of his brokenness, his dysfunctional childhood and his search for salvation in the authority of the state. The implications of this distorted mass identity are grave, and its pathology is well defined.

Another common characteristic is that liberals tend to be very emotive. Ask them about some manifestation of their worldview — for example, why they support candidates such as Obama or Hillary Clinton and they will likely predicate their response with, “Because I feel…”

On the other hand, ask conservatives about what they believe or support, and they invariably predicate their response with, “Because I think…”

So, the once great Democrat Party has now devolved into constituencies who view the inaugural as either a coronation or an ordination.

Of course, all the MSM print and tube outlets are fawning over BHO and calling next Tuesday’s inaugural “historic.” Well, it’s not often that I agree with the paper media and 24-hour news cycle talkingheads, but this is truly a historic inauguration — historic for several reasons.

First, never before has such an ill-prepared president-elect been sworn in as president. Second, never before has a more liberal president-elect been sworn into office. And third, never before has a candidate had so little regard for the constitutional oath he is taking.

Oh, and some suggest this election is historic because half of the president-elect’s genetic heritage is African — and here I thought Bill Clinton was our first “black president.”

It is no small irony that the day before Obama’s inauguration, the nation will pause to honor Martin Luther King. In 1963, King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and gave his most famous oration, the most well known line from which is, “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

But Obama and his party have divided the nation into constituency groups judged by all manner of ethnicity and special interests rather than the individual character King envisioned.

Perhaps the most famous line from any Democrat presidential inaugural was uttered by John F. Kennedy in 1961. He closed his remarks with these words: “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

Barack Obama and his party have turned that clarion call on end, suggesting that their constituents should “ask what your country can do for you.”

On Tuesday, Barack Obama will take an oath “to support and defend the Constitution”, but he has no history of honoring our Constitution, even pledging that his Supreme Court nominees should comport with Leftist ideology and “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted.”

Some have suggested that since the election is over and Obama is the victor, we should accord him the honor due his office. But if he does not honor his constitutional oath, why would anyone extend him the honor of its highest constitutional office?

“We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.” –George Washington

source

It’s the economy stupid!

December 9, 2008

It’s the economy stupid! Remember that being   said not all that long ago in a campaign speech? I sure do, and I also remember another politician being blasted because of what he said about the “fixes” that were being talked about back then.

Well, things have not really changed all that much have they? Nope, not that I can see. So, like a phoenix, the wraith returns.

by  Patrick J. Buchanan

In a deepening recession, what does the reasonable man do?

Seeing friends laid off, he will get rid of all but essential credit cards, dine at home more often, terminate unnecessary trips to the mall, put off buying a new car, give up the idea of borrowing on the vanishing equity in his house. He will begin to save and start paying down debt.

A company that has reached the limits of its credit and is staring at Chapter 11 will batten down the hatches, lay off nonessential workers, cut employee hours, put off expansion plans, cancel year-end bonuses and try to ride out the storm.

This is the natural behavior of people responsible for others in an economic storm of the magnitude of the category 4 hurricane heading our way. Yet, to see and hear our government, folks are doing exactly the wrong thing.

For the U.S. government is set to borrow on a colossal scale, unprecedented save in World War II, and to take America trillions of dollars deeper in debt to pick up the slack in the economy caused by the rational decisions of individuals and corporations.

The Fed, whose easy money policy created the housing bubble that has exploded in our faces, is back printing money and shoveling cash into the banks. And, though the Bush deficits are said to have been responsible for our troubles, a new Congress and president have advanced a deficits-be-damned, full-spending-ahead policy.

On top of Bush’s $455 billion deficit and hundreds of billions in bailouts for AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie, Freddie and CitiGroup, Obama is talking up a new stimulus package of $500 billion to $1 trillion.

Our governors and mayors — who, facing deficits, had been cutting back — have now reversed field and are demanding to follow the federal formula.

When Obama arrived at the National Governors Association Conference in Philadelphia, they pounced. Led by Pennsylvania’s Ed Rendell, they handed Barack a bill: $138 billion. The governors want U.S. taxpayers to relieve them of what U.S. families face: the need to cut spending, pay down debt, make sacrifices, take pain and live within their means.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the mayors have now followed the governors’ lead, declaring they have 4,100 projects “ready to go,” which they want U.S. taxpayers to fund.

What are these projects?

Under the ever-popular rubric “infrastructure,” they include roads, bridges, schools and public buildings. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he has $28 billion worth “ready to go,” which he would like folks in the other 49 states to fund.

Now, historically, bridges, highways, roads and public buildings have been regarded as pork. In the campaign, they were “earmarks” — payoffs for powerful constituents, a form of political corruption that reformers like Barack and John McCain were going to end.

Now, it seems, earmarks are our salvation.

Why are governments at every level doing this?

Because government believes that the restoration of economic health requires us to act against our natural instincts in a recession, and start buying and financing new homes and cars, and get back to the malls, lest this Christmas season become a bummer for retailers.

After all, 70 percent of our gross domestic product is now based on consumption, though Americans in recent years have had a savings rate of zero.

The disconnect between the instincts of average citizens and the policies of government could not be greater. Governments want us to act prodigally, while natural instincts and inclinations are telling us to act conservatively.

Conservatism and capitalism are giving conflicting signals.

Average Americans are behaving as though in rehab, trying to kick a bad habit of spending more than they earn and borrowing more than they can pay back, while the U.S. government is suggesting that what we really need is to return to the auto showrooms and malls, and start spending again, only in radically increased dosages.

Beyond the present recession, questions arise as to whether the U.S. model is sustainable. If government spending were the remedy to recession, why, after Bush’s deficits, are we in recession? And if the easy money of Ben Bernanke’s Fed is the cure for what ails us, how did we get sick when Alan Greenspan’s Fed was conducting a never-ending policy of easy money?

How does it stimulate the private economy to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into consumer checking and credit-card accounts, when more and more of what we consume — from computers to cars to clothes — isn’t even produced in America anymore?

What do conservatives, few of whom have opposed the Obama plans and fewer of whom have called for repeal of Bush’s big-spending social programs, believe is the alternative approach to ending the recession and creating a sustainable economy?

For the economy we have seems to be condemned to an ever-deepening and widening cycle of crises, each brought on by the cure for the previous crisis, which is always the same: more government.

SOURCE

Just when you thought there was no hope!

April 11, 2008

My home state of California well deserves it’s reputation as a bastion of authoritarianism and big government nanny regulations, as well as that of destroyer of liberty and economic roadblock to the success of the rest of the nation. “So goes California, so goes the nation” is a now old saying that has all too often proved true. Perhaps though, sometimes, this is a good thing, read on:

The California Supreme Court ruled this week on San Francisco’s voter-approved ban of handguns. The ban never took effect because the National Rifle Association (NRA) sued the city the day after it passed. The Court upheld rulings by lower courts that the ban violated California’s state law regarding the regulation of firearms, though it did not address the Second Amendment as does the DC case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. “Law-abiding citizens are part of the solution, not part of the problem of violent crime,” said Chuck Michel, lawyer for the plaintiffs in the NRA suit. “The authority of local cities to over-regulate firearms is very limited.” By the Second Amendment, we might add.

source: Patriot Post

John McCain: Conservative or Gun-Grabber?

April 6, 2008

For quite some time I have been telling people that not only is John McCain a gun grabber, but one of the worst of the bunch. Here is a compilation of McCain actions that are clear threats to freedom, and libertyAlerts Mentioning John McCain

John McCain’s Liberal Record

John McCain Is A Liberal Gun Grabber
John McCain Funded By Soros Since 2001
John McCain’s Top 10 Class-Warfare Arguments Against Tax Cuts
The Geraldo Rivera Republican
Democrats Say McCain Nearly Abandoned GOP
America’s Foolish European Wannabes
Refutation Of “A Day At The Beach” Charge
Andy Card — I Have Seen McCain’s Anger
McCain’s Character — A Disaster Waiting To Happen
Sen. McCain: I Don’t Have A Temper
John McCain: Liberal In Disguise
Friendly Fire: McCain Has Some Explaining To Do
McCain’s Constitution
Softening The Skeptics
McCain’s War On Political Speech
Lobbying Reforms Unconstitutional
McCain: Major League Hypocrite
McCain’s Gun Control Ad

John McCain’s Voting Record On Gun-Related Issues

109th Congress: Lock Up Your Safety
108th Congress: McCain Puts Gun Shows In Peril
107th Congress: Incumbent Protection Muzzles Gun Owners
106th Congress: Anti-gun Amendments AboundMore Direct Links Here

April 2006

 

 

 

Limiting Speech Of 527 Organizations

 

 

 

March 2006

 

 

 

Shutting Down Websites Prior To Elections

 

 

 

March 2006

 

 

 

Will Congress Ditch John McCain’s Internet Regulations?

 

 

 

February 2006

 

 

 

McCain Still Trying To Gag Gun Owner Criticism Of His Anti-gun Record

 

 

 

February 2006

 

 

 

McCain Moves To Punish Grassroots Groups For Congress’ Controversy

 

 

 

May 2002

 

 

 

McCain Looks To Cripple Gun Shows

 

 

 

Mar 2002

 

 

 

Incumbent Protection Could Come Up At Any Time

 

 

 

May 2001

 

 

 

Senators McCain & Lieberman Introduce Anti-gun Monstrosity

 

 

 

May 2001

 

 

 

Senate Could Soon Ban Private Sales

 

 

 

April 2001

 

 

 

Senate Passes Incumbent Protection

 

 

 

March 2001

 

 

 

Senate OK’s Free Speech Restrictions

 

 

 

March 2001

 

 

 

McCain-Feingold Up In The Senate This Week

 

 

 

March 2001

 

 

 

Incumbent Protection Threatens GOA’s Existence

 

 

 

February 2001

 

 

 

McCain Wants More Gun Control

 

 

 

February 2000

 

 

 

Presidential Campaign Advisory

 

 

 

 

Why do we, as Americans always end up with having to choose the lessor of evils?

edited to repair broken links.

 

International Law, and Order

April 1, 2008

Guess what folks? There is a Constitution after all!

International Law, and Order
March 26, 2008; Page A14

Everyone waxing outraged about the big Medellín decision yesterday is focusing on the death penalty, but the Supreme Court did something else entirely: It insulated American law from the international variety. And this modest and limited ruling should help restore those two qualities to U.S. courts, which is no doubt one of the reasons the Roberts Court’s political opponents are so livid.

Though the case became a global cause célèbre, its sordid origins trace to 1993, when José Medellín, a Mexican national, murdered two Houston teenagers. He was sentenced to death by a Texas jury, but his lawyers argued on appeal that he hadn’t had access to Mexico’s consulate before he confessed to his crimes.

This was a violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention, which holds that diplomats are supposed to be notified when their nationals are arrested. In response, the U.S. government took steps to ensure states better comply in the future, both to fulfill its treaty obligations and serve the reciprocal interests of U.S. citizens detained abroad.

But Mexican authorities made the case a referendum on capital punishment and international legal norms, ultimately suing the U.S. in the International Court of Justice at The Hague. The ICJ ruled in Mexico’s favor, ordering states to give Medellín and some 51 other nationals new hearings. The question before the Supreme Court was whether such international dictates must be enforced by sovereign state courts. An affirmative answer might have gone a long way toward validating the expansive claims of liberal legal theorists that U.S. courts take instruction from the U.N., among other moral oases.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the 6-3 majority, ruled that the ICJ finding was not binding because the Vienna Convention is an understanding between governments, a diplomatic compact. It was never intended to automatically create new individual rights enforceable domestically by international bodies. Texas’s violation was of diplomatic protocols, and calls for a diplomatic remedy.

Treaty obligations, in other words, do not necessarily take on the force of law domestically. Rather, Congress must enact legislation for whatever provisions — such as consular notification — that it wants to make the formal law of the land. This distinction matters because it establishes a fire wall between international and domestic law. It also protects the core American Constitutional principles of federalism and the separation of powers. As Justice Roberts points out, the courts must leave to the political branches “the primary role in deciding when and how international agreements will be enforced.”

Medellín v. Texas also swatted away a claim of Presidential power. While the Bush Administration did not agree with Mexico’s choice of venue, or the intrusion on U.S. sovereignty, it attempted to allay the diplomatic ruckus by directing states to comply with the ICJ ruling in a 2005 executive order. The Court ruled that the President’s power, too, was limited by the Constitution. The authority to make treaty commitments did not extend to unilaterally asserting new state responsibilities or legal duties. Again, the executive could only make new laws in conjunction with the legislature.

Devotees of using foreign law to overrule American politicians will squawk. But the Medellín majority has delivered a victory for legal modesty and the U.S. Constitution

SOURCE: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120649157469864165.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

God Bless those Black Crows!

More Obamination..?

March 20, 2008

“The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.” —James Madison

“We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” —C.S. Lewis

“Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one less scoundrel in the world.” —Thomas Carlyle

“The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.” —Benjamin Disraeli

“Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves, howe’er contented, never know.” —William Cowper

“I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.” —William F. Buckley

“[Barack] Obama says Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright is no longer among his campaign’s ‘spiritual advisers.’ Obama should not be asked which of Rev. Wright’s outrageous statements he disagrees with, but rather which ones he does agree with. That Obama remains a member in good standing of Trinity United Church of Christ indicates that he prefers the company of many people who have demonstrated that they believe what their pastor has said.” —Cal Thomas Break“We don’t need a President of the United States who got to the White House by talking one way, voting a very different way in the Senate, and who for 20 years followed a man whose words and deeds contradict [Barack] Obama’s carefully crafted election year image.” —Thomas Sowell

“All you really need to know about Barack Hussein Obama is this: Louis Farrakhan really, really, really wants him to be president.” —Don Feder

“Barack Obama is, of course, a very talented politician with a first-rate political organization at his back. But it does not detract from his merit to say that his race is also a large part of his prominence. And it is undeniable that something extremely powerful in the body politic, a force quite apart from the man himself, has pulled Obama forward. This force is about race and nothing else.” —Shelby Steele

“It’s equally obvious… that if Hillary was male—and not married to Bill Clinton—she wouldn’t be in her position. Hillary came to national prominence not through her own efforts but through the success of her husband. Virtually all her ‘experience’ prior to being elected Senator is in fact Bill Clinton’s experience. She wouldn’t even have been elected to the Senate without Bill.” —Dinesh D’Souza

“[T]here’s a general right to bear arms quite without reference to the militia either way.” —Justice Anthony Kennedy during Tuesday’s hearings on the Second Amendment

“Barack Obama’s story that he never once heard his preacher trash whites and America in hundreds of sermons sounds like Bill Clinton claiming he never inhaled while smoking dope. The mushrooming church scandal has taken the shine off the golden boy of politics, a two-decade regular at ‘unashamedly black’ Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. With his phony defense, the Democrat front-runner has exposed himself as both a typical Beltway spinmeister and a hypocrite. From the start of his presidential campaign, Obama has positioned himself as a straight shooter and a uniter—the very antidote to the sinister Clintonian politics of the past… ‘You know what I’m saying is true,’ he reassured voters. Yet his denial over Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s vitriol does not ring true. He’s suddenly shocked—shocked!—that his black nationalist church would spew anti-American venom. ‘I did not hear such incendiary language myself, personally,’ he insisted, ‘either in conversations with him or when I was in the pew.’ Back in February 2007, however, Obama knew Wright might be a political liability. His chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, was so worried about his provocative statements that he urged Obama to withdraw a request that Wright deliver an invocation at his presidential campaign kickoff. Reluctantly, Obama ‘uninvited’ his long-time friend and mentor, according to Wright’s own account at the time, telling him ‘it’s best for you not to be out there in public.’… Here’s another whopper Obama tells concerning Wright: ‘He hasn’t been my political adviser, he’s been my pastor.’ Yet it turns out Wright quietly had a formal role in Obama’s campaign, and was only pushed out last week as a member of his spiritual advisory committee when the tapes hit the airwaves. Spinning harder, Obama claimed Wright’s remarks are not ‘reflective of the church.’ Yet the videos clearly show fellow members whooping and thumping in their applause of Wright’s hateful rants. These weren’t just a smattering of amens and hallelujahs. They were standing ovations. Point is, these are the folks with whom the Obamas worship and socialize. Yet we’re expected to believe Obama never heard the same incendiary remarks from them, either? His plea of ignorance doesn’t wash.” —Investor’s Business Daily

The above from the Patriot Post:

Remember folks, you heard it all here first. Dating back well over a year ago, only now, it is big news. When I tell someone posting here to do their own research it is because the information is readily available, and people learn better when they actually work at learning. Barak Obama, bad for America, bad for the world.

“To secure these rights…”

December 17, 2007

Often, there are those that think that they are wiser than the Founders of this nation. They tend to be well educated, and think of themselves as the elite of society. They believe in freedom of expression. Just so long as it is in line with their thinking. Mark Alexander writes yet another fine piece about this in the Patriot Post. Well done Mark. It is reprinted here in the hope that it, and Mark, get even more exposure.

“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” —Alexander Hamilton

PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE

“To secure these rights…”

By Mark Alexander

Saturday, 15 December, is the 216th anniversary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights, the first Ten Amendments to our Constitution, as ratified in 1791.

The Bill of Rights was inspired by three remarkable documents: John Locke’s 1689 thesis, Two Treatises of Government, regarding the protection of “property” (in the Latin context, proprius, or one’s own “life, liberty and estate”); in part from the Virginia Declaration of Rights authored by George Mason in 1776 as part of that state’s Constitution; and, of course, in part from our Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson.

James Madison proposed the Bill of Rights as amendments to our Constitution in 1789, but many of our Founders objected to listing the Bill of Rights at all, much less as “amendments.” Their rationale was that such rights might then be construed as malleable rather than unalienable, as amendable rather than “endowed by our Creator” as noted in the Constitution’s supreme guidance, the Declaration of Independence.

Alexander Hamilton argued this point in The Federalist Papers, the most comprehensive explication of our Constitution: “I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous… For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?” (Federalist No. 84)

George Mason was one of 55 who authored the U.S. Constitution, but one of 16 who refused to sign it because it did not adequately address limitations on what the central government had “no power to do.” He worked with Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams against the Constitution’s ratification for that reason.

As a result of Mason’s insistence, ten limitations were put on the Federal Government by the first session of Congress, for the reasons outlined by the Bill of Rights Preamble: “The Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution…”

Read in context, the Bill of Rights is both an affirmation of innate individual rights (as noted by Thomas Jefferson: “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time…”), and a clear delineation on constraints upon the central government.

However, as Jefferson warned repeatedly, the greatest threat to such limitations on the central government was an unbridled judiciary: “Over the Judiciary department, the Constitution [has] deprived [the people] of their control… The original error [was in] establishing a judiciary independent of the nation, and which, from the citadel of the law, can turn its guns on those they were meant to defend, and control and fashion their proceedings to its own will… It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power [the judiciary] is independent of the nation… The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.”

In Federalist No. 81 Alexander Hamilton wrote, “[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the courts of every State.”

That admonition notwithstanding, the federal judiciary has become “a despotic branch.”

Indeed, since the middle of the last century, judicial despots have grossly devitalized the Bill of Rights, asserting errantly that our Founders created a “Living Constitution” amendable by judicial diktat.

For example, the Leftjudiciary has “interpreted” the First Amendment as placing all manner of constraint upon the exercise of religion by way of the so-called “establishment clause” and based on the phony “Wall of Separation” argument. At the same time, the courts have asserted that all manner of expression constitutes “speech.”

The judiciary and legislatures have undermined the strength of the Second Amendment, a right of which James Madison’s appointee, Justice Joseph Story, referred to as “…the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers…”

Equally derelict is the manner in which the Tenth Amendment has been eroded by judicial interpretation.

In Federalist No. 45, Madison outlines the clear limits on central government power established in the Constitution: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

Alexander Hamilton added in Federalist No. 81 “…the plan of the [Constitutional] convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States.”

There was a very bloody War Between the States fought over offense to the Constitution’s assurance of States’ Rights.

All is not lost, however.

Sunday, 16 December, is the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party (1773). The “radicals” from Marlborough, Massachusetts, who threw 342 chests of tea from a British East India Company ship into the Boston Harbor in protest of tyrannical rule, did so noting, “Death is more eligible than slavery. A free-born people are not required by the religion of Christ to submit to tyranny, but may make use of such power as God has given them to recover and support their… liberties.”

Three years later, this rebellion had grown to such extent that our Founders were willing to give up their fortunes and lives, attaching their signatures to a document that declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Judicial and political despots, take note

The Triumph of Liberty

December 8, 2007

Ultimately the triumph of liberty depends on the dissemination of ideas on liberty. Such ideas cause people to reevaluate long-held notions as to the role of government in a free society. Ideas on liberty have the potential of transforming a society by awakening and arousing people to the genuine nature of freedom and its importance and benefits. “

citation:

Jacob G. Hornberger

In my not so damned humble opinion, President Bush could appoint a far worse person to the Supreme Court, than this man.

56 Men Of Conviction « ELLIOT LAKE NEWS & VIEWS

October 16, 2007

56 Men Of Conviction « ELLIOT LAKE NEWS & VIEWS

I came across this well researched and finely written piece this morning. It tells the stories of the lessor known signers of the Declaration of Independence.

 I fully expect to get hammered by the Hate America First Brigade, as I also expect the blog that I found this in to be. Having said that; Those men suffered for the freedoms that we enjoy today, many did in fact die for them. These were not, just a bunch of “Old dead white men” as they are so often characterized. They had hopes, and dreams. As well as honor, and no small amount of raw courage.

When, I ask, have the NeoComms ( My term for Neo Communist) done anything that even comes close to what the men written about did?